#the way Caleb is the one who got through to molly over and over in

[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—

[brenhotapplepies]

The abuse she suffered for YEARS at the hands and voice of that evil man, being thoroughly and systematically treated like a second choice after Bren, on TOP of everything else? She’s allowed some difficulty in overcoming that.

Beau (stealthily) witnessed her breaking down and sobbing in an alley after speaking with Caleb, after she helped him. She has feelings and is human.

I know some folks think they set the Nein up at the sanatorium, and I don’t think that’s the case due to several narrative and gameplay factors. The crying above is one, and the sheer lack of stealthiness the Nein had at the place is another. They alerted Trent themselves by being oh so Nein. Not Astrid. She gave them maps and specifically warned them that it was pretty much all she could do and it was up to them to get amulets. Caleb had a breakdown and started killing LOUDLY. Everyone else was loud, it was a beautiful Mighty Nein mess.

She let the Nein go in Yussa’s tower when she could have easily gotten the spell off to capture them, giving them time.

The seeds of her shift are subtle, but present. She is damaged in ways Essek just isn’t. Essek has control over his situation and she thoroughly does not, until the very end.

Again, they are subtle. She can’t be overt, not with Trent watching her every single move. He watches her through birds for gods sake. I can’t fathom the level of sheer will to keep going under such intense scrutiny. So she, as she said herself, must help in less visible ways. She can’t be overt. Trent’s taught them better than that.

The fight itself. She openly reveals her location in the fight. This is something she knows how to not do. They are assassins, trained to be unseen. It was a warning.

When Jester tries to Dominate her into helping them, it’s revealed she’s already against Trent. Astrid was always going to help Bren. Wulf, however, wasn’t sure until the end, because he’s into self preservation.

The reaction after they subdue Trent is a big insight into their character, where Caleb and Wulf go to them as they are breaking down. They are a mess. An angry, mixed up little ball of murderous rage at a man who took everything from her and gave nothing truly meaningful in return except more lies and the myth of power. But they STILL listen to Caleb and don’t kill Trent. That’s change right there.

On top of all of this, Essek was narratively more accessible. He was important to the active storylines in ways Astrid couldn’t have been, so we got to see more of him. He wasn’t used to friends, so he was adorably awkward about it.

Astrid had friends, family, and was coerced and manipulated into giving it up for some higher cause. She’s has had poison fed directly into her mind and body for a decade and a half via Trent. If she hadn’t remained distant, still playing her part, then they may not have been able to get the amulets, stay unseen, know about the Lavish Chateau, etc.

I’ve been here long enough and seen plenty of straight up misogyny in the fandom to feel comfortable calling it out. The amount of fujoshi within the pure Shadowgast shipping community is, well, large. Many very strictly ship Caleb and Essek, and thus any perceived threat to that is abhorrent.

Folks will actively ignore the actual themes and characterizations that are so wondrous, that the cast works so hard to perfect, just to make sure their ship is not touched.

Astrid and Jester both suffer from this issue, in fact, any female character does. I don’t see the same issues with, say, Widomauk shippers. Many folks are fine to ship him with both, despite the lack of any true momentum with the first purple man to grace Caleb’s presence. While Molly is gender fluid, he presents mostly male, and that matters in this context. That also was not confirmed until more recently. I say this as a masc presenting nonbinary myself who is deeply sad of what we missed with Molly.

I just really love both Essek and Astrid as characters, because they’re brilliantly flawed and compelling. I love analyzing the Nein and enjoying the story the cast has decided to tell, both the surface and the deeper facets. It’s rarely just the face value of things.

Seen some stuff about Astrid being problematic in the same breath as praising Essek. I know media literacy is tough, but let’s examine.

How is Astrid problematic and Essek isn’t? They both are manipulative when it’s called for. Both are capable of lying, killing, and other untold horrors. Both are incredibly powerful.

One has had a lonely by choice and privileged life as the weird but useful son of the head of a Den.

One has had their identity stripped from them in a way that combines the worst of cults and the military. Tortured, experimented on, changed in ways we don’t even know the extent of.

One has had the pressure of his Den, his mother, his father, his brother, his whole community pressing on him his whole life. He stepped up into the air and took the weight as if it was effortless. He focused his life on study because it was the only thing that gave him worth in this society and it was genuinely what he enjoyed, whatever enjoyment was for him then. He had access to materials, books, almost anything.

One has had the pressure of her community, her background, in her face as she tried to beat the odds. The expectations for her were nothing, but she said fuck that. She studied with nothing, clawed her way into the venerated halls of higher magic learning. She does everything for the Empire, for Trent. She wants success for herself, because that is what gets her approval, keeps her safe.

One is in a position of power in his society. He has the ability to pull strings. He doesn’t think about how his actions impact his community or really anything besides himself. Sure maybe he wants to find something to impair the religion in the region, but it feels like even that starts out as a quest to prove himself right. His life is largely his own, despite the derision of some.

One is continuously tortured, tested, forced to PROVE herself. Cut her hair, stomp out any resistance to her mentor through any means necessary. Find some solace in their two peers. Made to kill their family to prove themselves based on a lie. She is conditioned to fight because who else will protect her country in the dirty, dark ways she has to? She is trying to salvage her sacrifices into a purpose. Bren is one of those sacrifices.

One kills indiscriminately if they get in his way. The man the Nein dropped off at the peace talks? I still remember how sad it was as he tried to piece together his broken mind, a mind Essek broke to save himself.

One kills for their country. Follows orders, kills when they find it necessary to protect those who cannot protect themselves. This is what she believes.

One GAVE AWAY a powerful religious artifact to HIS PEOPLE’S ENEMY. The intent was purely selfish curiosity.

One helped protect and study that artifact to PROTECT her country. The intent is curiosity to assist in her job, protect her country.

One finds the strength to allow himself to be loved and have friends after years of solitude. Because he just never was so fully loved. He finds the strength to let the ultimate time travel power and the knowledge that he was right go. To become comfortable with time he has left.

One finds the strength to listen to one of the only real, genuine relationships she’s ever had. Her first love. A reminder of her younger, hopeful self. She changes. She realizes the lies she’s allowed herself to believe. She finds the strength to not kill her torturer just to kill him. She finds the strength to testify. To promise that no other kids will suffer. Justice. To become comfortable with the time she has left.

One is a he.

One is a she/they.

I wonder what the issue is.

These characters are two sides of the same coin. They are both INCREDIBLY WELL THOUGHT OUT characters. They are more than just paramours of Caleb Widogast.

[utilitycaster]

Why do you think Imogen/Laudna is not comparable to Caleb/Veth? At the start of C3, I thought they were similar and thought it was a strange how much Imogen/Laudna was being held up as the pinnacle of relationships in comparison to the hate/minimization that Caleb/Veth got. But I rewatched C2E27 and remembered how honestly they talked through their disagreement, which was way different from Imogen/Laudna's C3E27 reconciliation after the gnarlrock drama. What are your thoughts about it?

(got another anon on this as well as I was writing this up, so other anon, this is also for you!)

That's exactly the same moment I was thinking of! Veth and Caleb are able to disagree with each other in a way Imogen and Laudna aren't. Honestly, even from earlier, they're able to ask things of each other - Caleb outright asks Nott if she'll run away with him, alone, away from the group, if his reveal to Beau goes badly. Nott, even when half the party is missing, in the wake of Molly's death, when all she has is Beau (who she's known for a month and a half) and two allies she's known for a couple of days at most, is able to say "Wrong." to Caleb about something as important, but also as unnecessary as admitting that he cares about the other party members as friends, not just useful alliances. And that's the other thing - Nott is actively encouraging Caleb to make other connections and embracing her own new friendships, and she's willing to risk Caleb being mad with her - which for her, means risking her chance to get back her own body and life - to do it. And this is after less than a year of knowing him.

Laudna can't even say "will you promise not to side with the person who murdered me," let alone point out that Otohan also murdered Fearne, Orym, Eshteross, and Orym's husband and father-in law or that Ludinus casually destroyed Kadija's mind. She can't say this to someone she's lived and traveled with for two years, when the other five party members would all agree with her and stand by her. There's no trust. You know the phrase "if you love someone, let them go?" Laudna's too terrified to let go, and Veth isn't.

(I should note - I like Caleb and Veth's dynamic a lot but I never shipped them; but I also will defend them against anyone who denies that there were feelings, or who tries to pretend that Veth's statement that Caleb was like a son to her overrides her later statements about having a crush, or, you know, the fact that they aren't actually related so who the fuck cares. I mean, Vex and Keyleth canonically tell each other they consider each other sisters and that never stopped anyone. So this does come from a place of not shipping either of these pairs.)

So this is why "Imogen and Laudna were never given choices" statement is so hollow and meaningless. Because they're rendering themselves powerless and stripping themselves of all choices. They can't draw boundaries. (For what it's worth, Campaign 1's codependent pair, the twins, are able to draw boundaries without issue; Vax tells Vex to lay off Keyleth quite explicitly despite having only recently agonized over being separated from her for a few days). They can't choose themselves. They can't challenge each other or encourage each other's growth or ask something so important and yet so small as being honest with one's self. They're just so stuck in this holding pattern, even after they've grown in power and seen the possibility of losing each other, whereas Caleb and Veth's relationship constantly changes as they support and challenge each other and ask things of each other. You know what Veth does in episode 48 of that campaign? She screams at Caleb in anger because people connected to him hurt her family, even though Caleb has long since left those people and was a victim himself. Laudna can't even stand up for herself to Imogen (and we know Laudna can stand up for herself; that's what she's doing in the scene with Ashton) against her own murderer, even as Imogen outright entertains the possibility of allying with the Vanguard.

Caleb and Veth trust each other and themselves to still love and care for each other if they disagree. Laudna and Imogen do not.

[stardustedknuckles]

It's very funny to rewatch and see that the only person who gets knocked out more than Beau is Molly and by funny I mean that it is truly astonishing how down to chance it was that he died instead of her. When it comes to foreshadowing and story themes, the character looking desperately for something worth dying for and the character who isn't sure he can die - two characters with a loose grasp on the very concept of living, in two separate directions - are the absolute wildest options to be on the end of Lorenzo's glaive. It would've been Beau if he hadn't leaped to help her. It was a decision he made. He thought it through and chose to make himself another target and it killed him.

The thing is, as special as Beau and Caleb's relationship is for the way they get each other, Molly got Beau first. For all of his bullshit, he and Beau were already in some kind of sync. He was the one Beau called over for backup or went to help time and again. When one made an insult, the other gave it a fucking grade and praise depending on how accurate or petty it was. There's precedent for Molly choosing to join her on the last day of his life, because they had each other's numbers almost from day one. Molly's death is a shadow over every watch of the first part of the campaign, but that shadow was hovering over Beau's shoulders every bit as much. Perma death would have been just as foretold had it been her, but Beau's was to be a story of what it means to survive - and eventually thrive - by the support of others whether you feel worthy of that support or not. That wasn't a lesson Molly needed. He knew already. But it was one he reinforced on his way out and frankly? He's the exact right flavor of paternalistic bastard to be perfectly okay with that (and a bit smug to beat her to the punch, all told) .

[awesomefroggy]

Mighty Nein's Favorite Board Games

Fjord- Scythe

It's the crunch, the strategy, the 2+ hour play time. This man is nose to the board, into it. Most of the Nein grumble about it, but Beau and Essek will play it with him and get far far too into it.

Beau- Red Dragon Inn

This appeals to the Beaurebar in her. On the surface, she's got the silly drinking gambling party game. Deeper, she knows how to meta and has a hero that she's very very good with. She excels at stacking everyone else's decks against them. Making it an actual drinking game is a favorite, and she supplies really awful shots when called for.

Caleb- Root

Not only are you the resistance to the Cat overlords, there's resources! Strategies! Conniving! And adorablely vicious forest creatures! Caleb gets very attached to his factions. He likes playing with the Riverfolk expansion as the otters.

Veth- King of Tokyo

Yahtzee but with Kaiju. Veth will rule over Tokyo with an iron fist. There is now a rule that dice rolls that land on the floor don't count. Yeza is always apprehensive when she and Luc want to play, but he tries to be a good sport about it.

Jester- Unstable Unicorns

Fast paced, full of cute unicorns and puns, and there's an NSFW expansion. Jester is here to slam down some cute unicorns, shut down your combos, and cackle maniacally over pumpkin spice Basics.

Yasha- Cascadia

Puzzling together habitats for wildlife. It's lowkey, and Yasha likes to try and make the most realistic ecosystems she can. She'll play it alone for hours, but sometimes she can drag Beau or Caduceus in to playing with her.

Caduceus- Everdell

A sweet game of woodland creatures, resources, and collecting through the seasons. It's a pleasant game to him, and he sometimes he plays single player as a way to connect with the Wildmother. He has all of the expansions and the Kickstarter exclusives.

Molly- Mysterium

A ghost uses dreams in the form of surreal art to point mediums to solve their murder. It's the absolute cold reading bullshit Molly loves. If he's one of the mediums, it's just interpreting tarot cards. He loves helping everyone else interpret their cards and make up bullshit stories about how and why and where and who. If he's the ghost, he equally tries to help people and fuck with them.

Kingsley- Pirates

Stack up crews, steal other people's crews, blow up bases and collect pirate ships, loot, and glory. Kingsley is delightfully vicious at this game, and much like the man who taught me how to play it he wears his big pirate hat and coat whenever they play.

Essek- Sagrada

Sudoku, now with pretty dice and modifiers. The stained glass motifs remind him of Rosohna in the best way, and he finds it soothing to put it all together. Everyone is shocked the first time he swears in Common over someone taking a die that he needs.

Other related headcanons:

Beau, Fjord, Caleb, and Essek get together and play some of the crunchiest Warhammer you've ever seen. Jester paints Fjord's armies and Yasha paints Beau's, Caleb and Essek have dedicated weekly paint nights.

Essek hate drafts during Sushi Go.

There was an attempt to play The Mind once. It was never played again.

Caleb and Essek have fierce Scrabble games. Everyone made fun of them until Beau asked to witness one, and realized they play with four different languages at once and do not hold back about it.

Yasha has the Stardew Valley board game and plays it as often as she can.

Essek and Fjord play chess together. It freaks people out sometimes because they will sit in silence for a very long time until one of them swears violently.

Throw Throw Burrito is only allowed every once in a while, and they "burrito proof" the house first every time after they broke a vase at Beau and Yasha's.

[wardensantoineandevka]

It's always interesting to me how often Molly's "I left every town better than I found it" is invoked out in the fandom without reference to the context of its original conversation...

Molly: I always try to be helpful when I turn cards for people. Beau: You ever think you could actually be doing damage, though? Setting people on false paths? Molly: People are looking for a path, they're looking for a path. And I'll tell you—and this is true—I did my best every town I went to and every town I left, no matter how they treated me, and a lot of them treated me with deep disrespect. Beau: Some people are vulnerable and looking for answers. Molly: I left every town better than I found it. —2.14: Fleeting Memories

...especially since that conversation feels so reminiscent of what Lucien is saying now...

Lucien: And when the greatest imaginations become one and only know suffering over a thousand years. Well, that builds into an extraordinary being without focus. Unstoppable force driven by instinct. It's dangerous, all right. But those with imagination, the things I can imagine for them. Caduceus: Is that what you think you're bringing to it? Focus? —2.122: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Lucien: But they're close now, too, the wee babes, lost without their king. Endless hunger, limitless potential, without focus, divided among thousands of mewling fragmented minds. The Nonagon saw this in them. And I'll be reborn greater. I am their savior, as they were mine. I will save them from their pain, from their wasteful existence. —2.134: The Streets of the Forgotten

Lucien: The instinct of their dreams driving them, in a place where they could will their dreams to be—were their will not so fragmented. They needed help. It was hard to push through the hunger, for now the city was alive and things that live need to eat. I was lucky to be a mind free, one to speak to it. There's so much that they could do, but they just lack the guidance. It's a waste of potential. But I think I can show them. —2.136

Caleb: You plan to go and stay there? Or, bring something back and make this world better than how you found it? Lucien: Yes. —2.136

Molly sincerely had benevolent intentions, and he clearly wanted to do good and help. But, he was also incredibly paternalistic: he was convinced he knew what was best for people, better than they themselves knew. He was not above manipulating them to forcibly lead them to that path—see, for one example: Charm Person on Veth in 2.11: Zemnian Nights and on Fjord in 2.23: Have Bird, Will Travel. His statement that he left every town better than he found it is deeply undercut by a great many things (most of which is not the focus of this post), but most especially undercut by how much he constantly ignored people's agency and refused to consider what people themselves voiced what they felt was best for themselves. How much did Molly's smug superiority and manipulative benevolence actually help people? He never got the chance to step back and consider how much his paternalism and arrogant superiority (among other flaws) may be actually hurting those he is convinced he's helping.

Lucien, in his sweeping speeches these past couple episodes, paints himself in the exact same way. He even echoes a version of Molly's "no matter how they treated me, and a lot of them treated me with deep disrespect" with the Nein: "We defended ourselves when assailed, and even then, I invited you to come see what we've been working on, letting bygones be where they are" (2.136). Just like Molly, he is deeply convinced he knows better: than the Nein, than the Somnovem, than everyone. That he knows how to save all these wretched, wayward souls who are looking for a path and what that path best is for them all, regardless of what anyone has said, regardless what anyone wants.

I will save them, said Lucien—but we know his salvation will only result in unrestrained destruction upon Exandria.

I left every town better, said Molly—but the question posed to him was: how do you know what better is for these people without asking, without listening? Are you sure you're not causing damage and harm? Molly never answers that.

And, really, I wonder if Lucien has given an indirect answer.

[jaskwritesthings]

Widomauk prompt! Caleb accidentally burns Molly and starts denying himself things because of it food, Healing, etc Molly does something about that.

tags: skipping meals, angst, *slaps the wizard* this firebug can fit so much guilt in him, mentions of injury

(ao3)

Caleb let out a quiet ‘ooof’ as Mollymauk pushed him gently against the tower wall and crowded into his space. A situation which would have been far more arousing if not for Molly’s very displeased look and the agitated way his tail flicked back and forth behind him. 

“I will send a message to Veth,” Molly stated in greeting. 

“About?” Caled asked, a touch confused. 

“You.”

Caleb frowned, “I don’t -”

“It was an accident,” Molly stressed and Caleb tensed sharply as he realised where the conversation was heading. He started looking for an escape route and Molly’s tail snapped around his ankle tightly to prevent that, squeezing in warning. 

“Mister Molly-”

“I’m no fool, I only play one on occasion Mister Caleb,” Molly’s tone was stern as he leant further into Caleb’s personal space but there was something sharp in his words exposing the hurt he’d tried to bury underneath. 

“I did not-”

“‘I’ve already eaten’, ‘I got up early’ or ‘I came to bed a bit later on’ etc etc, excuses and pretty flimsy ones too,” Molly waved his hand around mockingly as he covered all the basic excuses Caleb had used over the past couple of days, Caleb winced as realised just how weak they’d been, “Far more insulting to my intellect than you accidently catching me in a Fireball.”

“Mollymauk,” Caleb tried as he shrunk into himself but Molly was having none of it. 

“Nein my little magic man, no more excuses. This is your final warning, join me for dinner, eat and then come to bed and stay there until dawn or I will message Veth,” Molly vowed seriously. And though it was a very serious situation there was some amusement in being threatened with a halfling who had a propensity for button collecting and explosives. No one could deny the fierceness of Veth Brenatto, there were many who feared her across Exandria. But it still tickled Caleb a little that Molly was resorting to tattling to the mother of their merry band. 

Caleb couldn't stop the slight uptick of his lips, “Quite the threat circus man.”

“The best part of it? I will go through Jester to do it,” Molly smirked, all fang and glittering ruby red eyes. 

“Cruel,” Caleb pouted, already imagining the fallout of Jester contacting all of the Nein in her concern. They’d be on tower doorstep before sundown, dropping everything to rally behind their wounded brother and Caleb wouldn’t know a moment’s peace for weeks. He was almost tempted to let Molly go through with it, he’d missed having the Nein in easy reach. But he didn’t want the reunion to be out of concern and fear for him and his well being, it rather defeated the purpose of gathering his family together again, even for a short time. 

“You deserve it,” Molly teased with a wink but it curdled Caleb’s jovial mood, reminding him sharply of Molly crumpled on the ground, flames licking along his arm. It had only been for a moment, the shock of pain sending the Blood Hunter to his knees before he quickly stumbled back to his feet to dispatch the remaining creatures. But it was still a moment where Caleb’s carelessness had caused Molly pain. Too cocky, too sure of himself, he’d completely missed Molly getting closer to their targets. 

Caduceus had quickly healed the slight burn, expending only a low level spell to do it and Molly had been unfazed by it all but the charred skin and the sight of Mollymauk still on the ground even for a moment brought all the guilt of Caleb’s past back to the surface. It had taken everything to ignore the burn of bile choking his throat as he fussed over Molly for the night and when his partner had finally succumbed to sleep, purring and loose limbed after Caleb had thoroughly apologised and worshipped every inch of his skin, Caleb found his own sleep elusive. For the first time in a long time, he’d visited the eighth floor of his tower. 

“I do,” Caleb agreed sadly. 

The humour in Molly’s eyes disappeared in an instant, replaced by growing frustration, “Fuck, Caleb! It was an accident! I’m fine! Mister Clay patched me up just fine. But this! This is painful love, so please stop!”

“I’m sorry Molly,” Caleb mumbled and Molly sighed before headbutting him gently, not pulling away afterwards. 

“I know love,” Molly replied quietly, rubbing his hands up and down Caleb’s arms comfortingly, “you were forgiven the second it happened.” 

Caleb exhaled a long shaky breath as he tried to accept the forgiveness. He focused on Molly’s gentle movements as he petted the wizard slowly, trying to let the warmth of it sink into his bones and chase away the icy feeling that had ensnared them since Molly stumbled. 

“What is for dinner?” Caleb asked after long minutes of silence, wrestling with the guilt he still felt. 

“Broth, easier on a stomach that’s been empty for a few days,” Molly scolded half-heartedly. 

“I’m sorry,” Caleb reiterated, feeling like the words would never be enough. 

Molly clicked his tongue sharply, knocking his nose against Caleb’s softly to lessen the sting of his own frustrations, “Eat, rest and stop haunting the tower like a wailing ghost then.”

Caleb chuckled lightly, “Ja, alright.”

[angelsndragons]

*sing* it's been ~a while~

and i have been watching vm vs the nein a lot so let's talk about it. as always with me, this is a very long word vomit.

i said over on my mechanics post that the vm playbook requires urgency while the nein's playbook requires setup. here's what i mean. if the nein can make it to round 3-4 intact, that is if all of them are up, they are going to win. period. the nein simply have too many ways to steal turns from their enemies or to maximize their own effectiveness for things to go any other way.

if you want to see this in action even with a reduced roster, go watch the fire elemental fight in episode 129 and count the rounds. between caduceus' mass cure wounds and spirit guardians, caleb's slow, veth's sneak attacks, and jester's guiding bolts, the nein were able to scrape out a win thanks more to their bag of tricks than the damage output. veth only got sneak attack because of guiding bolt's secondary effects, slow kept veth safe from an opportunity attack and jester from a multi-attack, mass cure wounds gave caleb that round to cast slow, and the spirit guardians passively whittled down the enemies into KO range. the accumulated secondary effects were too much for the enemies to withstand and they fell hard. notice how everything built on one another here. that's what cockroach parties learn to do well. it was sloppier than a normal nein fight but they did it with a reduced roster AND with nearly all of their high level spell slots spent before the fight. yeah, they're fucking scary.

vm, however, is a whole different kind of scary. this team can put you down before you even know what's happening. it's harder to target the group's biggest damage dealers because you have a hulking barbarian and often an elemental up front locking down combatants. the dagger rogue can teleport and fly. oh, and give himself an extra action each round. the ranger and the gunslinger can stand back and just go to town. the freaking bear can maul you. the bard can make your life a living joke in your final moments. the cleric is a wildcard because the group is built to fight without her; if she's around, good luck because that's another round of attacks you have to take and an extra round vm can take. their DCs are ridiculous, as are their overall ACs.

but the thing to know about vm is that they have to put you down fast. they don't have the hit points for longer fights and they definitely don't have the utility for longer fights. their druid is offensively oriented, their cleric is often absent, and their bard is mostly support. he's often the only one running that bag of tricks. he can and will fuck up an opposing team given the chance and bolster his own, the problem is that he has almost no backup here. it's a giant hole that is begging to be exploited. it's an even bigger hole when that bard can only cast one spell per round.

so, going into the battle royale, the vm side had to down one member of the nein as fast as possible preferably in two rounds or fewer. it almost doesn't matter who, because if you down beau or fjord, that forces jester or fjord to spend their action or spell getting the downed member back up. if jester goes down, fjord has to do something about it. well, i say it almost doesn't matter but beau's deflect missiles makes her the worst target of the trio and yes, i'm including fjord's half-orc bounce back in that calculation. that gives you one round where the person healing isn't fucking up your team. vm's secondary objective was to monitor and control beau. her movement is nothing to compared to a hasted vax but her stunning strike is the most lethal weapon the nein brought into this fight. vm overall is not a melee group to begin with and their con saves are all garbage. vm has to find a way to keep her off their tails if they want a chance. we also know that vm's plan was to try to take out jester first so throw that objective into the mix as well.

all the nein have to do is survive the first couple rounds, monitor scanlan and pike, and get into position. that's basically it. the nein can absolutely withstand vax and percy's damage output for the first two rounds. pike and scanlan's damage output can be scary but pike in particular has to decide whether she wants to hold high level slots for healing. and she would need those higher level slots to get close to percy and vax's damage output. the nein know from experience that the support caster is where the real trouble will begin.

but before we kick things off, remember that matt specifically designed this battlefield to take turns away from the teams. the chests are an action to search and are located far out of the way in the field. the gem requires an action to activate, which basically means sacrificing your action for someone else's, and shifts between six designated points on the field. matt, who has a deep understanding of how both teams operate, decided to play on the nein's insecurities that they were at a severe item disadvantage and see if he could get them to bite. high risk, high reward. granted, this is me speculating but it does look like matt saw the fight very differently from the players and readjusted the field accordingly.

so we kick off and immediately scanlan proves why he is the top priority on the nein's list. he gets the gem, gets fjord prone on the ground, and comes within a hair's breadth of turning the fight into a five on two potential slaughter. travis brilliantly responds to these circumstances in the best of ways. see, fjord isn't the nein's utility magician for this fight; fjord's the bait. travis makes a very big spectacle of himself and fjord's predicament. and vm buys it hook, line, and sinker. ashley tries to continue with the original plan of gunning for jester only to discover that jester is who knows where.

vax, percy and scanlan? immediately take their shots at fjord. but fjord's on the ground which puts percy's awful misfire mechanic into reasonable play. so fjord gets lucky and doesn't take anywhere near the amount of damage he could have from percy. scanlan, after percy is removed from the field, decides he's better off trying to finish fjord but only hits a 3rd level thunder wave instead of a higher level one, which sam was probably saving for some counterspells or such. i don't think a higher level would have made that much of a difference but it is important to note.

more importantly, vax gets greedy. he got two good hits on fjord with his two actions, he could have left and hidden for the next turn. yes, vm has to down fjord as fast as possible. however that haste is going to be more effective over the long term if vax can keep it. but fjord's easy prey and he thinks vm can down him before jester can get over there to do anything about it. so he goes for the bonus action attack. pike eventually joins this mad dash scramble and like scanlan, she absolutely needed to throw something huge at fjord to get past his half-orc racial trait to have a prayer at downing him. but she did not because ashley seems to have been saving all her high levels for healing so fjord survives the round in honestly a very good position. vax can't target him from range with the cloud up, scanlan now has bigger problems than fjord with molly right up on him, and pike ran, taking damage and healing fjord in the process.

meanwhile, the nein's ladies are free to run and play the field as they see fit. jester has a big opening round flame strike. beau decides she can hold off on her round 2 blitz run to vm in favor of bringing molly onto the field. remember kids, never let a monk with 55ft of movement have the run of the place, it's bad for business. jester then makes a great play with her dispel magic at vax's haste. hashtag thanks, fjord. remember, kids, cockroach parties excel at taking turns and actions away from their opponents. in round 2 alone, the nein successfully remove percy from the field and remove vax's extra attack. that's both big damage dealers hobbled in one round. they also gave themselves an extra turn, adding molly onto the field. and oh boy, molly.

here we see the utility martial fighter molly could have been. sam's confused by the low damage that molly's doing his first round but the damage isn't really the point of the attacks. that brand of tethering is far more important, as are taliesin keeping an eye on which reactions will support the nein and molly's second attack wasting scanlan's reaction. counterspell is off the table for the back half of round 2-beginning of round 3, which is important if fjord wants to get the heck out of dodge.

in case it wasn't obvious earlier in the match that the nein are absolutely gunning for scanlan, round 3 begins with beau's blitz against scanlan. fjord's luck against the dominate person balances out with scanlan's save against the stun and beau missing one attack. here, vm starts to get distracted. they chose their focus fire target, fjord, but now do not, arguably cannot, follow through on it. we'll never know what could have happened had vm said to hell with beau and molly in our faces, we have to finish fjord.

vax tries to retaliate against beau but here's where the cockroach starts to come into play. molly blood curses vax, which saves beau a full sneak attack+ worth of damage. it also utterly wastes vax's turn. fjord manages to escape (and damage pike while he's at it) and regroup where it's safe. scanlan tries to dimension door but fails due to the brand. literally any other move scanlan could try on the pair of them had a better chance of success. instead, another vm turn is lost. taliesin recognizes the importance of getting beau advantage and supports her at the cost of two of his attacks missing, but not before scanlan is forced to cutting words one of them. another potential counterspell and cutting words lost. neither jester or pike contribute significantly to this round; the nein have done so much damage to pike in three rounds that she is forced to heal herself while jester chooses to dimension door herself to the gem and only a low damage roll lets it evade her.

beau takes molly's setup and gets the critical scanlan stun. he loses his full round. fjord takes the opportunity molly provided him to polymorph into a t-rex, bringing him fully back into the fight. vm is really going to have a time and a half trying to finish him now unless they can put up a big single damage attack. jester builds on beau's setup by casting flame strike, whose dex save scanlan automatically fails. he goes down. if you're the nein, this is exactly where you want pike focused, on her team and not on yours. she has access to most of the same spells that jester has and the more you pressure her to focus on her team, the better. it's not wasting her turn, precisely, but it is controlling what she can reasonably do with it.

now we come to percy versus beau. i don't want to diminish the insane good luck beau had to take only 26 points of damage from six shots because what matters here is that percy absolutely could not down beau. period. her hit points were too high and after she took almost nothing from the first two shots, it should have been clear that she was going to get her turn and she would absolutely attempt to stun and down pike and scanlan. i'm not going to monday morning quarterback this fight but i will point out that the more rolls travis has to make to maintain concentration, the greater the chance he fails and you get to hit fjord's actual hit point pool and trade fjord for scanlan. and if you can get him before he can get back into the fray, even better.

beau stuns the gnomes and drops scanlan again. her inner cockroach rears its head once more as she negates more than half the damage on vax's critical hit sneak attack. fjord-rex downs scanlan and grapples pike. the stun on pike here really helps negate that high AC of hers. after scanlan's death, it's a long slow death spiral. vax abandons the fight in the next critical round in favor of keeping the gem instead of targeting fjord. percy attacks beau once more instead of fjord due to fjord dangling pike over lava. he starts to focus on fjord only to get distracted by jester. pike goes down but vax gets caught by beau before he can get her back up. and so it goes with vm losing turn after turn after turn until finally the nein poof percy out of existence and bring molly back. a fitting end for the team who started their final boss fight with eight and came out nine.

bottom line here, the vm team played like they had way more time than they actually did. they had to commit to a target and see it dead as fast as possible. they had to control the battlefield quickly and keep it. they didn't so they couldn't. aside from building on damage dealt, they couldn't create advantages or opportunities for each other nearly as effectively as nein did. all of these factors meant that the nein did what they always do: grind their enemies under heel.

[dent-de-leon]

Thinking about Molly's impulsive and protective nature, how he'll throw his own life on the line without a second thought, spilling his own blood to safeguard his loved ones. He's daring, takes desperate risks, pushes himself to the limit.

And we've already seen how detrimental a personality like that is when wielding the double-edged sword of hemocraft, how the two are such a deadly combination. Given that Matt says King eventually regains his memories through nightmares and dreams, remembers sacrificing himself at the very end and only thinking, "It was worth it. It was worth it"...I don't see him ever changing.

He risked everything in that fight with Lorenzo, believing it was worth it so long as the others could escape. He literally tears himself apart in the battle with Lucien, chooses to sacrifice himself all over again. That's just the kind of person he is.

Taliesin has said before that Molly's blood magic "was about sacrifice. It’s the giving of himself to give to others. Giving of himself to be a protector...His power looks one way--it looks damaging and looks broken and unhealthy--but, in the end, it’s all about a desire to be a good friend and a good family member."

Now he's 10 levels lower than the rest of the Nein, he feels so young and new and inexperienced again, just starting to explore this second life. And even though he now has by far the lowest HP, the least amount of familiarity with combat--I don't think he'll be any less protective or reckless.

I want the Nein to sit him down and talk to him the fist time he pushes himself to the brink of consciousness with a near fatal blood maledict. I want someone to tell King/Molly that his own life is worth it too, that he deserves to live this new life to the fullest.

I think about the letter Calianna wrote to Mollymauk that he never got to read. How she wrote about his hemocraft that, "That must hurt so much, and you have friends who have magic, so you don't need to hurt yourself."

In the battle with Lucien, Jester calls out, "Molly, I've never forgiven myself for not being there--when you died. I wish I could have saved you. I wish I could've done something." Beau steps up during Molly's ritual and says, "We couldn't save you the first time. We weren't strong enough, and that's not true any longer."

Yasha crying and confessing, "I don't really know what to say or how you're supposed to do this, but all I want is for you to be here right now. And be whole." Caleb stumbling over to Molly's body and pleading, "Why did we come this far, if not for this?...why did we go so far, and fight so hard?"

I want King to let others take care of him too, to realize that the rest of the Nein want to protect him just as badly, that no battle will ever feel like a victory if it comes at the cost of losing him again.

[saphirered]

Saph I hope you feel better! I really liked the VM Snow White you just posted, but could you also please do the same prompt but with M9 boys including Molly? If you’re not feeling up to it that’s fine too!

Thank you! The meds are beginning to do their job luckily. I'm glad you liked the last one. I blinked, my hand slipped and now it's here. Prepare for some angst. Hope you enjoy! 😘

(Caleb)

Caleb had always known his past would come to haunt him. He was prepared for it. Prepared to take the hit, take responsibility for everything and he’d face his past be that with or without the people he loves. Part of him, once he got used to having these fools around, having you around, wanted it to be on his own, to protect them and protect you. To not have any more lives lost in the grand scheme. The people he loves becoming collateral would be unacceptable. But you had become collateral in the grand scheme of things.

When it became clear to his enemies he was a bit more attached to you than the others, they took this weakness and exploited it. They pushed his buttons before, using you as a tool, verbal bait even, but he never fell for it. His reluctancy to act on his feelings, to keep them to himself instead, were the very thing he hoped would keep those loose ends from latching onto you. His love is a curse, the objects of his desire always to be torn away from him no matter how hard he tries to prevent it. He’s lost you to that same curse. Not lost. Almost lost.

You’ve been cursed, your conscious mind separated from your unconscious body. Simple healing spells wouldn’t do the trick here. This curse holds no roots in the divine. He’s spent days researching and that much he could confirm. This curse would take an arcane approach. Something he prides himself in to be his specialty. Lucky you. Lucky him. He had the others bring all books, ancient scrolls and other sources of knowledge brought to him, along with a wide variety of components once he’d made a significant dent in the research matter, assuring him this would have the greatest chances of success.

It’s not the soft canopy bed with the plush pillows from the fairytales you’re placed on. Instead you lay on a wooden table, inscribed with all sorts of arcane sigils. Nor do you look like some angelic peaceful being. Your brow is furrowed in discomfort, your hands balled into fists at your sides. Caleb moves a brush against areas of exposed skin, painting symbols to match with precision and care, afraid to even make a single mistake, triple checking every mark. He speaks the incantations while incorporating the components varying from precious gems crushed and whole, herbs and incense. And then he waits. He doesn’t expect the effects to be immediate, often with these magics it is not and he knows that but that doesn’t get rid of the impatience and fear.

“How I long to hear your voice again. I know this will work but that doesn’t ease away the sliver of doubt. What if… What if… That’s what I keep asking myself. I know it’s stupid.” Caleb wipes an hand over his brow as he pulls up a chair and sits at your side, elbows leaning on the table careful to avoid any sigils just in case.

“It also faced me with the harsh reality that I held off telling you how I feel. It looks so stupid now in hindsight because what good did it do anyone. In the end you still ended up paying for my mistakes. I was stupid to push you away, try to convince you your own feelings were unreciprocated. I know I didn’t have you fooled in the slightest but to know I could have loved you, it makes me feel like I am to blame for wasting that opportunity and possibly shortening our time together. The thought of losing you before having given you my love will forever be my greatest regret.”

Caleb watches the muscle of your hand unclench and relax. He hears a deep intake of breath and staring at your face he’s met with your smile, one filled with love as he helps you sit up. All is good once more.

(Fjord)

Fjord’s drenched to the bone, out of breath, anger running through him like he’s never experienced. Still he’s unsure if his anger is directed at the one responsible for your eternal slumber or at himself for making a ballsy move that didn’t pay off in the slightest and in fact backfired in a worse way he could have ever imagined. He played a game of chicken with Uk’otoa and lost. He’d have been fine by letting someone else pay the price for him. Why should he care about some stranger becoming victim to the leviathan? The one who paid the price, became the victim to his actions didn’t end up being a stranger. It had to be you of all people hadn’t it?

Uk’otoa must have been watching his dreams, even his waking actions if that were possible and have seen his infatuation with you. When the leviathan threatened Fjord in another briny dream of his mentioning your name he had called bullshit. The snake had never been able to reach out to anyone it didn’t already have some kind of grasp on. Little did he know Uk’otoa had just that. Just enough of a sliver through him, and the Cloven Crystal to get to you.

So there Fjord sits at your bedside. You’re just as drenched as he is, hair dripping, skin glowing in the candle light of the room reflected off the water particles. Your lips are tinted blue, a redness around your eyes, your skin is cold. The sleep you’re in is a state of perpetual drowning and Fjord knows what it feels like, to drown. He can only hope you’re spared that pain. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to forgive himself if you are tortured like so because of his actions. Clasping your hand between both of his he runs his fingers over your knuckles. He bows his head. It still feels so wrong to not have you respond to his touch. So wrong.

“I want you to know that I am to blame for your fate. I’m about to do a very stupid thing to make it right. I know you’d tell me not to but I can’t sit by and watch you suffer like this. I’ve tried everything. I’ve begged and bargained. I’ve shouted at the skies but I got no reply. Everything comes up empty and I see no other choice than to do this. It might sound stupid but I came to ask for your forgiveness.” Fjord pauses. Usually he would have gotten a reply. He would sell his soul for just having you tell him everything will be alright. It’s a good thing he’s about to sell it for so much more than that. It’s worth it. It’s worth having you alive and well.

“I won’t ask for forgiveness for what I’m about to do because I will never regret it. I ask only you may one day forgive me for what I might become. I need you to know I love you and did, will do all of this out of love. That’s why I hope you’ll never see me again after I give myself to Uk’otoa. I can’t bare to watch that affection in your eyes being replaced by hatred, but most of all disappointment. I hoped to be worthy of your love and I will always regret never having truly experienced it.” Fjord’s voice cracks slightly. He studies your face, as if to ingrain every detail into his memory, as if he thinks he might never see it again.

“I’m afraid. I’m so deadly afraid.” Fjord whimpers pressing a kiss to the back of your hand before he lets go. He checks his supplies, taking out the Cloven Crystal, glaring at the orb intensely cursing the thing to oblivion. Coughs pull him out of his staring match with the crystal. Your body moves, leaning over the edge of the bed vomiting up brine. Fjord drops the orb and his belongings running over to you and helping you gather your bearings until you’re no longer chocking on sea water.

“You better not do what I think you’re planning with that orb or so help me Storm Lord, I will drown you myself.” Fjord can’t do anything but laugh despite the very real threat on his life as you pull him into your embrace.

(Caduceus)

Caduceus isn’t bothered by death. Death is part of life as much as living is. It’s inevitable. Every soul will move on, leaving its vessel for the earth, the fire or the wild things to bring forth something new. What does very much bother him are perversions of death, those who try to cheat death, upset the natural balance, maim and manipulate that what is and should be. He hates it with a passion and seeks to rectify it, return the world to that balance when faced with it. That’s where you come in. You much like him have a respect and understanding of life and death similar to his own. Very few people understand that. Very few people do not fear the end when they see it coming. You’re one of those very few people.

You understand Caduceus on a different level, in his sentiment and mannerisms while others may think him strange. Not that he cares if people do, you’ve been his filter in the big shiny new world past the borders of his grove. You’ve been his safety net, his grounding force, his safe haven when the world seems against him and he thinks his senses might be wrong. The Wild Mother must have gently blown her winds to bring you together.

That’s why it seems so wrong you’re affected by this darkness having taken hold over your body, leaving you in a state of not entirely alive nor dead. Resurrection has been futile as much as draining your life and allowing you to move to the care of the Wild Mother herself. You’re trapped and that’s why Caduceus fears what would happen should you die. He’s seen what this perversion of life and death has done to his home, the forests surrounding it and the creatures living in it. He’ll do everything in his power to prevent that from happening to you.

Caduceus has put your body through the typical burial rites and rituals, preserving what he can by using wards and the divine blessings granted to him by his goddess, sending her prayers of your recovery but you appear to be even beyond her reach now. He moves a damp cloth across your arms and face, brushing aside your hair, humming to himself until he’s done, moving on to clean the room around you, getting rid of the dust, placing things back where they belong and replacing the decayed flowers with fresh ones. Caduceus gathers his tea, preparing a cup for himself as he watches you.

“Can you show me how they’re doing?” The wind grows cold. He knew that would be the answer but still he could hope maybe that answer could change.

“Are they in pain?” The wind grows warm but then cold again. You were, but not anymore. It seems that the new wards he’s put up are doing their job. That’s good.

“Is there a cure?” The gentle breeze disappears. She doesn’t know then. This goes even beyond the goddess herself but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Caduceus will keep hope, though it is dwindling fast, for your sake he’ll have hope. He’s always spoken to the dead before and while you’re not really dead, there’s a strange comfort to something that feels so final.

“Hey. I’d ask you how you’re doing but that’s not gonna work now, is it? Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine. I know you are. You’ve managed to keep me alive with the others for much longer than I’ve been taking care of you like this. I think we’re going to be fine. I know you’re here but I still miss you. Calliope makes for terrible company watching things unfurl between the others. She’s too much of a hopeless romantic. You forgot to tell me the recipe to that special brew of yours. I’ve been trying to recreate it but I haven’t been able to. I think what I’m trying to say is, I could really do with having my best friend back. That’d be nice.”

Caduceus sips his tea, face devoid of his usual dopy smile. A sudden breeze hits through the window, blowing it open. A few lighter weight and loose items go flying but the thud of a heavier one is clear to hear. Caduceus closes the window and feels something solid hit his boot. It’s a crystal from the ones surrounding the grove. He picks it up, feeling the warmth run through it. The breeze directs towards you and he feels himself walking over to your body. The crystal calls to you and when it touches you your body runs with energy, pulsing, like you’ve been forcibly pulled back to this world. You look around eyes wide breathing heavy.

“Hey.” Caduceus smiles. “I made tea.”

(Mollymauk)

Maybe pretending you and him were some high born assholes was a questionable decision. Taking on an invite directed at the said people you were impersonating even more so, and stealing, sorry, borrowing without asking, some things from their summer cottage to swim in luxuries, an out right terrible idea when these people happen to be very well connected.

So when these fancy folk came back to the cottage earlier than expected, the two of you had grabbed what you could before making your grand escape, chased by their private guards until you lost them. A safe distance away you set up camp. Time to inspect your findings before returning to the carnival. Your eye for valuables had always been much more keen than Molly’s and your appraisals usually spot on. It was only natural he would let you do your thing but he’d still help you.

Particularly proud of getting some ornate jewellery box Molly had pried it open and revealed the jackpot. But of course you couldn’t just sell recognisable jewellery as is and you couldn’t keep such a thing on you very long. So of course you went to work, prying the stones from their settings. A particular necklace was giving you trouble, not even your tools being able to pry it out, you even broke one so you left that one for last.

The two of you had argued, eventually setting on just smashing the stone with the pommel of Molly’s scimitar, the broken gem still providing plenty of pay and not being as recognisable in peaces. So you held the necklace across a stone while he smashed it. When it did a spark hit, next thing he knew you were on the ground, your hands burned where you held the precious metal. At first he thought you were simply knocked out but when you didn't wake up he grew worried. Splashing water in your face, shaking you, lifting your legs, nothing got you to wake up so instead he carried you and the jewellery back to the carnival. Two days and still you didn’t wake up. It became clear this bloody gem was cursed when dark veins started crawling up your skin as the days passed.

Since this was technically on him, Molly took care of you. He makes quite a doting nurse when he wants to be but never without an inappropriate comment or two. It was quite strange to not hear you laugh at or scold him for these comments. Nevertheless he’d fluff up the pillow beneath your head, provide you an extra blanket when the night was cold, tell you stories, or simply the events of the day, the people who came to the carnival, some things he lifted from people’s pockets and so on. Molly has to say he’s ashamed to admit he’d got frustrated with your unresponsiveness or rather the fact you still hadn’t woken up and there was nothing the others could do for you. A healer would still be a week or so out.

“You know, while I’ve really begun getting used to these little one-sided conversations and your lack of judgement at some of my more terrible decisions I really prefer sharing them with you in the moment. I’ve gotten caught by the guards twice now and without you, Gustav is getting a bit sick of bailing me out. I miss our little flirtations. I miss your sometimes wrong opinions, though you’d say they’re proven facts. I miss your company. I think our time apart has given me time to reflect how much you truly mean to me and how much I need you in my life.” Molly leans on his elbow as he studies your face unmoving. You look so peaceful and asleep but he’d much rather get lost in your eyes when you’re awake.

“I laughed at you when you told me the most valuable thing in the world anyone could ever give another is their heart but I think I know what that means now. I’ll offer you mine if you will have it. So please, come back and make sure my head doesn’t get up too high into the clouds or I might just float away.” Molly leans back looking at the ceiling of the tent with a sigh. He’s pulled out of his mind by a snicker.

“A dramatic confession of love to the unconscious target of your affections? And you call me cliche.” Molly looks at your face, eyes still closed but smug grin clear on your face. He pokes your side making you jump.

“You are insufferable.”

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E123 (Feb. 2, 2021)

After last week’s thoroughly relaxing and brief episode, tonight’s guests are Sam Riegel and Liam O’Brien!

Brian, to Sam: “You look like Tim Curry moved to Nantucket to become a sommelier.”

How did Caleb and Veth approach the ally-ship with the Tombtakers? Sam: “I mean, we got some information, and I think we got a little closer to Lucien and knowing whether he has any of Mollymauk inside of him, which is I think the most important knowledge that we’re seeking right now. Is there someone to be saved inside there? We got glimpses, and we got a little hint that Mollymauk is maybe still in there? Maybe? And we got a little more insight into their plans, so that was useful.” Liam: “We know why we were having that fucking dream.” Sam: “But other than that, it was just a road trip with assholes.” Liam: “All our plans have been ripped in a new direction, and it’s just been improvisation.” Sam notes that it feels like we’re always about to rip into Caleb’s backstory, but haven’t yet followed that thread all the way through. Liam: “It’s partially frustrating, to be sure, but also I like the idea that-- his whole shit has been selfish, it’s been dealing with the trauma that he’s been through and not the greater world, and that’s been shifting somewhat.”

Does Caleb think the book was worth it, and is he still interested in reading more? Sam: “How do you ask Caleb not to read a book?” Liam: “Caleb has spent enough time with the Nein to know you shouldn’t put a hand on a hot stove. After what happened with the book, he knows it’s a terrible idea. But maybe. But it’s a really bad idea. But reserve judgment, but it’s a really terrible idea. I think that Caleb is very aware that mages and people like him very easily fall prey to their curiosity and it can lead to bad places. But there is still that amount of scientific endeavor where you think there is value in knowing and learning, and maybe we can ride that line. He was True Neutral at the start of the campaign, and maybe he’s Chaotic Good now, but part of him is hubris, even if it’s a little bit, still.”

What about Otis has drawn Veth’s focus? Sam: “I mean, he’s a little shit. She was curious about Otis because he’s a small like she is, and in talking to him, he seemed to be real creepy, but he was just creepy and distant and didn’t value his past or family or anything like that. She sees someone who’s like her, but so not like her, and maybe that scares her a little bit more.”

How does Caleb feel about Beau being on this ride with him? Liam: “The dream is another example of how Caleb had very narrow vision of the things he wanted to do. It used to seem so massive to him, but now... To have Beauregard involved feels right. If anyone in the group is going to stop him from grabbing something he shouldn’t, it is probably Beauregard. She’ll punch him in the fucking face to stop him, which I think he needs, to a certain extent. They’re two different kinds of nerds, and I kind of like that, that this group of nine philosophers, they’ve reached out and somehow grabbed the two nerds in the party.”

How do Caleb and Veth see the Somnovum? Sam: “I mean, they seem real bad. Anything that’s a quorum of powerful entities heading towards your planet to unleash an energy of any kind, typically bad? I assume they’re bad, or at least the Tombtakers wish them to do ill.” Liam: “I think they want the kind of peace that comes from snapping your fingers and turning people to dust. Caleb sees them as a cautionary tale; they’re the worst-case scenario for arcane inquisitiveness.” He sees Allura Vysoren as the antidote to that.

Why the staunch refusal to use Halfling Luck? Sam: “I don’t like Luck! I just don’t like Luck. I think it’s cheap, I think it’s a cheat, I think it’s stupid. It just feels like a do-over.” Liam: “I am your antithesis! If I ever voice a halfling, I am going to hammer that feature!” Sam: “What I love about D&D is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. If you roll bad, okay, that’s it. If you roll well, it makes the success more enjoyable to know that it’s a pure success and don’t one where you’re like well actually... it’s so stupid. If someone was about to die, I would probably use the fuckin’ Luck feature. Well. It depends who. If it was Travis, yeah, no, he’s fucked, sorry.”

Liam drops that he’s picked Sam’s character class and race again for a hypothetical campaign three. Sam: “It’s not what I was thinking for future characters, but I’m excited to explore.”

Cosplay of the Week: an amazing Mollymauk by KatofValkyrie!

What was it like to bring the Tombtakers into the tower? Liam: “It is complicated, because he does not like him. Lucien’s just a fucking dick. But Caleb also knows that Molly’s in there somewhere. That tower’s only for the M9, and Lucien’s not in the M9. Their situation with these people is shitty, it’s terrible. Caleb doesn’t feel like they have the upper hand. He doesn’t like that they’re even going on this journey per se, because life is bigger than his bullshit. He feels like they’ve been losing over and over again, so it was a gamble to try to get on equal footing.

What spurred Veth into making sure she and Yasha have some one-on-one time? Sam: “Yasha hasn’t been getting a lot of moments to shine. Now that she’s back, I just got the impression that Yasha feels out of place sometimes, or timid, or unsure of herself. When Veth was Nott, Nott certainly had her share of those moments. I think she sees a kindred spirit and wants to make sure that she’s been giving all the opportunity she can to flourish and thrive. Dani, you’re just laughing at my mustache, aren’t you?” Dani: “Yes, that’s the only thing I’m laughing at through this whole bullshit.” Sam denies all knowledge of trolling, but eventually admits, on the topic of Yasha and Beau getting together: “They’ve made me wait this long... I’m going to make them wait a little bit longer!”

What was it like to show his friends the upper floors? Liam: “I kinda expected somebody to sneak up there before that. That being part of the tower is not even a conscious choice of his, it just is. The reason Caduceus has creeped Caleb out for a long time is because he talks about how-- Caduceus is a really kind person and wants Caleb to let go of the past. And in a really simplistic way, turn that frown upside-down. And that’s just not who Caleb is, and it’s not who everybody is. There is something to be said for trying to stay open and positivity, but thinking you can shut out the past, especially a traumatic one, is just not true. When things happen to us, we carry them. But to candy-coat it and say, ah, I’m free, or everything is good, or I’ve turned the corner... life is way messier than that. It’s not flipping a switch, it’s not bad-to-good, it is such a work in progress. Even when you make strides and start to get to a better place, you can backslide a lot. So the tower is who he is, and the tower is 7/9ths love for his friends, and 1/9th hope, but there’s still a percentage of him that carries everything from the past, and knows that he should, and knows that he should not go back to where he was. And the way to do that is not to say everything is rainbows, but to remember it. The tower is just like an extension of who he is. He’s never going to forget the past, and he’s never going to be like, I’m good, or I’ve turned a corner. He should remember the past, and he should do better, always.”

Does Veth still believe it’s possible to get Molly back? Sam: “Well, she was a person trapped in another body for many years, so has some experience there, and definitely believes that the spirit and soul of Molly is in there and just needs to be unlocked somehow.”

Fan Art of the Week: an amazing group shot by HarpySN!

How are Caleb and Veth dealing with their guilt and fear about being in the middle of this? Sam: “It definitely was a deep conversation that might have repercussions going forward. The problem with all of what we’re doing now is that we don’t have time to deal with our petty problems anymore. It’s all high tension all the time!” Liam: “It’s true; they’re not in control of their situation at all anymore.” Sam: “It’s good to have these check-ins, but it’s not like we can do anything about them. We’re reactive right now.” Liam: “He’s not happy with where they are, but they wouldn’t even be this far if the goblin hadn’t pulled him out of the mud. So part of it is, you saved me from where I was and got me on my feet again, and now it’s disconcerting to see it all just get knocked sideways by something he never could’ve predicted. I think Caleb felt nostalgic for when things were simpler, in a way, for them, when we’re both troubled drifters.”

What was it like to see Gelidon’s return? Liam: “I am the least superstitious person at the table. Ashley’s dice suck.” Sam: “It was fun fighting a dragon!” Liam: “Two massive battles in one episode, neither of which came away with a victory. I guess surviving is a victory.” Sam: “I’d forgotten about the dragon, honestly.” Liam: “I loved it. I was so upset at the idea that we were going to stealth and not get into it.”Sam: “Mercer doesn’t keep a live dragon around and not do something with it. That dragon’s coming back.”

How do Caleb and Veth feel about going to see Essek? Sam: “He can be very helpful, I believe, but as Sam Riegel, a player of D&D, I’m super suspicious. What the fuck is Essek doing up there, so close, now? I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. And I can throw him pretty far because he floats.” Liam: “I 100% agree with you. I do not understand what Essek could bring to what we are going through. I know the audience loves him, I love him too. He’s a really cool character. But he’s fucking toxic. He out of curiosity caused a war between two nations. And Caleb has been changed for the good by the M9 from months of travel with them. Essek has had none of that. Caleb has changed for the good, but not because of people like Essek. Essek is where Caleb came from. We kept the lid on the pot during the whole treaty at sea and it almost all went fucking sideways, and only because we pressed him into a corner. I hope that guy finds some sort of balance and peace for himself, but I do not see how his input here would be helpful. There’s other heavy hitters that I would try to pull in.”

Liam notes that the Cloven Crystal is in the Bag of Holding. Sam: “Do I have Fluffernutter, or is Fluffernutter gone?” Liam: “Nope. 300 pounds of fireworks? Gone. A dead mage, a threshold crest, and fireworks.” Dani: “Your basic essentials.”

[randoimago]

hi :) can I request imagines/hcs foe critical role with vax, caleb, jester, and molly for an s/o with a lot of scars they got over the years that they're self conscious of and being comforted? thanks!

S/O Has Lots of Scars, They Comfort S/O

FANDOM: Critical Role

Character(s): Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre, Mollymauk Tealeaf, Vax’ildan

Type of Request: Headcanons

Word Count: 640

Note(s): Going to combine these two requests a bit since they’re pretty similar!!

Vax

Being self conscious about yourself is something that he’s definitely used to. He’ll gladly listen and talk to you about both of your scars and the bullshit you’ve gone through to get them.

He’ll gladly help give you a cloak or something to help cover up if you’re feeling real self conscious that day. He has plenty of cloaks and it also lets you wear something of his to give him a bit of comfort.

Vax is quick to get you away from prying eyes should the need arise.

Just there to whisper words of affirmation to you. Even if you don’t believe it at times, he knows that you’re amazing.

Probably more of a believer that scars lead to growth despite how difficult they might be to accept. So Vax will be with you every step of the way to help you hopefully one day accept the scars and keep growing.

Caleb

He noticed the clothing you wear and how it’s all super long and covers up everything. He didn’t say anything about it at first because it’s none of his business, but once they all traveled to really hot regions and you still wore that clothes, he had to make a comment.

He doesn’t want you to pass out from heat exhaustion or anything so he asked if there was a way for you to remove some of the layers.

Caleb would listen as you explain it’s to hide his scars and he would completely understand. He’ll roll up his own sleeves and show you his marks and the intricate lines going up his arms. 

Hiding scars is something he is used to and so he won’t pressure you to remove the layers or anything. Should you want to show them off then that’s up to you. 

Just know that he is there with you should you ever want to talk or discuss the scars and stories behind them. You aren’t alone and he’s there with you.

Jester

Jester definitely has a few scars on her own body. Some can be seen but most are covered up since lots of hits end up on her chest rather than face.

So she’s very interested in the reason why you have so much baggy clothing. It’s not her place to judge other’s fashion styles but she does think you’d look cute in different outfits.

When she hears it’s because of scars you have then Jester will understand. She’ll state that she’s learned lots of makeup tips from her momma in case you’d like to do that to cover up some of them!

Jester won’t force you to do anything but will be very pleased if you did wear more fitting clothes because you do look really cute, scars and all!

Does her best to give extra healing to any that she can. While even her magic can’t make every scar disappear, she’ll still do her best so you can be happy with yourself!

Molly

Molly knows all about hiding marks on his body. So hearing that you do the same for your scars he’ll just give you a respectful nod.

If they’re something you’re hiding then he knows not to pry because they could be very bad memories of things you don’t want to talk about.

So he won’t ask about your scars but should you trust him enough to show him, then he’ll gladly run a finger over each one to show that he’s not afraid of them.

Your scars might be on your body, but they don’t define you. You define who you are. Molly will be sure to remind you of that. 

If you’re ever having a bad day then he’ll take your hand and press a kiss to the back of it. Just give you a small comfort that he’ll be sure to repeat as the day goes on.

[ink-beneath-her-fingernails]

these walls have eyes and ears (they kind of look like yours)

read it on ao3   |   primary masterlist   |   Critical Role masterlist

Fandom: Critical Role (Mighty Nein)

TWs: haunting, referenced past canonical major character death. please let me know if there are any other warnings that should be added.

1 of Inks’ 2023 WIP Bingo [card here]; 18 of Mighty Nein Drabble Spree

Wordcount: 1,241

Originally Published: January 22, 2023

Summary: "We're calling it the M.T. Home now!"

Essek freezes.

"The... Empty Home?"

(Or: The Xhorhouse isn't the Xhorhouse, and what none of the Mighty Nein seem to realize is that they're not exactly the only ones living there.)

Notes: I kept agonizing over this for ages before i remembered that half the reason I started this series in the first place was to learn to not be a perfectionist with my writing. this didn't turn out really how i wanted it to but i like it anyway so,,,

cad isn't given an exact age, apparently he was stated to be 80-100 and then 85-120 so i just met in the middle and said he's definitely a lot older than the rest of the gang and essek's age or younger. might revisit the original concept of this to try to do it a little better some day, but probably not tbh. basically this was supposed to be either "the xhorhouse gains some level of sentience and a personality resembling molly's at least a little bit bc of all the latent magic + blood spilled + magical artifacts laying around & their effects mixing unpredictably from being in close proximity for extended lengths of time + THE TREE + the power of the m9's sheer love and belief they don't even realize they're pouring into it" or "molly's spirit somehow attaches itself to the xhorhouse"

Transfer Notes: won’t be posting for six sentence sunday bc I finally got this up!

Here is the thing about people: they have a spark.

Every person, of every kind (and, it can be argued, and indeed proven, perhaps every animal, and plant, and rock, and inanimate object and non-person as well—but that is for another day), regardless of heritage, upbringing, or apparent learned or innate magical ability, has within them potential. Of what exactly, the answer varies.

But the thing about potential is that it's powerful.

And the thing about people—especially people who don't know that they are in control of powerful things—is that they often are prone to a few different things: sentiment, stupidity, and belief, among others.

More often than not, these tendencies happen to go together.

And when a lot of people, of a lot of different potentials, with a lot of power and sentiment and not a small bit of stupidity between them come together, and believe, just for a moment, even quietly, in one single idea—

Well.

A lot of things can happen.

  "The M.T. Home."

"M.T.? What's—?"

"M.T., for Mollymauk Tealeaf."

"...Oh."

"Meet in the middle, maybe? M.T. Home, with the Xhorhouse Spa?"

"I think I like that."

This is just the one step of many in this long, strange journey, but it's an important one—not that any of them will be aware of that for a long while.

  "We're calling it the M.T. Home now!"

Essek freezes.

"The... Empty Home?"

The tiefling just smiles brightly at him.

"Yep! Caleb came up with it!"

"And we have a hot tub, now," the monk pitches in.

"Right! The Xhorhouse Spa," the tiefling—Jester, was it? He should really make an effort to remember their names, unfortunately—announces, waving her hands through the air like she's envisioning it painted on a sign or a wall somewhere.

Dear gods, he hopes they don't decide to make a sign.

Well. The Empty Home, then. (He is not going to acknowledge the other half of the title given if it means giving merit to that atrocious pun.)

He glances at each of the group before him, all looking either a little sheepish, incredibly proud of themselves, or fondly amused at their fellows' antics.

None of them seem to think that the name they've just given him is in any way unsettling, or might have any political implications.

Essek breathes deeply through his nose, and takes a moment to remind himself that Heroes of the Dynasty though they may be, loose ends, returners of gods, potential threat to everything he's been doing and all, the oldest among them by decades is—at most—Essek's age. And that one's not exactly the sharpest of the bunch, either, when it comes to these things.

Alright, Essek decides. The Mighty Nein now live in the Empty Home, then, and there's no reason that needs to get back to anyone else with political weight. Maybe he can save these fools from themselves for a little while longer. (They may yet have use.)

Essek forces a polite smile, shuffles them on to other topics of more import, and tries not to think about all the other empty homes he's known.

  It's almost kind of funny, Essek thinks, because for all that they call it the Empty Home, every time he enters, it feels more and more full of life in a way he's never quite experienced before.

There are wind chimes behind the front door, murals on the walls, stray weapons and baubles littered on shelves and floors, incense coming from some room or another, the smell of something divine cooking coming from another, new wall-hangings or tshotskes or pieces of furniture everywhere he looks, often one or more animals dashing about and making themselves at home in various nooks and crannies, fires burning in every hearth, yelling and singing and laughter in so many languages from every corner, the faint taste and blur of colors left from lingering magic, one more shelf in the library full to the brim with new books and one more overstuffed throw-pillow on the floor, the tree—no, he couldn't possibly forget the tree.

So full of life—he almost doesn't think to question it when there's just a little more.

Almost. But Essek didn't get this far this young by writing off important details.

Details like how whatever book Caleb's looking for always seems to be pressed just a little further out than all the others, easy for him to find and grab quickly, always when he's so wrapped up in talking theory with Essek that he doesn't even notice it.

Details like how unlocked doors always seem to open just before anyone puts their hand on the knob, how a loose tile flicks up beneath feet anytime someone tries to eavesdrop on anything, sending them sprawling, like the way a floorboard will somehow manage to get itself playfully caught in Fjord's cloak to allow Jester or Nott or Beau a head-start in running after pulling some sort of prank on him, or how none of the blood that's inevitably spilt ever stains the tile or the wood or the wall before someone thinks to clean it.

Details like how when the group gathers for a meal as he leaves, Essek can just catch that none of them really have to pull out their chairs, or indeed, push them in again, and none of them think much of it; or how if you watch very closely, the dimensions of the whole building will shift ever-so-slightly, rounding corners and opening up entrances a bit more, doming ceilings, anytime one of them sings or plays an instrument, until it can be heard through the whole house.

Details like how the house is being helpful. Details like the house caring for its occupants, or, dare he say, even doting on them. Details like how, for how incredible they are at so many things, the Mighty Nein are still the dumbest people he knows in that none of them seem to realize that any of it is happening.

One week of rare consistent good weather for Rosohna, Caduceus, Jester, Nott, and Yasha (with occasional assistance from Fjord) systematically take out every single window and replace them all with new, hand-made stained glass windows. Some of them make pictures or patterns, and some do not, but all of them are obviously from random shards of glass they'd collected from who-knows-where, cleaned, and re-purposed, not made for this use.

When they're done, they let all the windows open to test them, show them off, let in the fresh air, and enjoy the nice day. When they do, Essek takes notice of how they each nudge just a bit more this way or a little more that way as soon as they aren't looking, until they're all in just the right positions to catch the light being given off by that gods-forsaken tree.

It almost seems—and he hates to make the comparison, but Essek can't help but think that—it almost looks like it's preening.

An Empty Home indeed, it had been empty for so long, before these terribly good assholes moved in—he can't even remember the last thing his Den must've used it for before this.

How very long it was empty.

How very long it had, to wait for something else to move in.

Essek wonders if it was always like this... or if something finally did.

[glitter-garbage]

12. — thread

Shadowgast, ~1600 words, gen, red thread of destiny, soulmate au (spoilers for the eiselcross arc)

Sent by @quinn-of-aebradore 💜 ...ps: this is not edited at all (one word writing prompts: send me one and a pairing if you like. I might fill them some day!) ---

When Bren learned he had magic, he also learned that he could see things that not everyone did. It wasn’t natural, he had to focus, and later on, he even found out there was an actual spell for it. Still, on more than one occasion growing up, Bren would see the delicate red threads that connected people around him.

“Those mean whoever is connected to you is your soulmate,” his mother explained, “Can you see mine?”

And, sure enough, his mother had a little thread connecting her ankle to Leofric’s. He longed for his own thread to appear, though his mother explained that not everyone had one.

Bren didn’t have to worry, though. He was only fifteen when not one, but two threads connected his ankle to his best friends of all people. By that time, he had already been whisked away to the Academy along with them and the experiences they shared, the successes, the pain, the power, all of that just cemented their connection in his mind.

Until he broke, that is.

After the fire came the Sanatorium, and for eleven years Bren, now Caleb, did not think about that again. Only when he got out did he notice that his ankle was free. Nothing connected him to anyone anymore. It was okay, he was a garbage person. He didn’t deserve love like that anyway.

---

Nott had a red thread. It vanished out to the horizon, and Caleb never saw the thread move in a way that indicated that her soulmate was closer. He wondered if she knew, for a while. Then, he learned the truth. Veth’s soulmate, her husband, kidnapped, imprisoned. He was happy she had met him though, and confident they'd free him. She deserved happiness, he would help her in any way he could.

Two couples in his little group had threads connecting them to each other from the start. Fate worked in mysterious ways, Caleb thought. Beau and Yasha did not seem that close, though Beau’s attraction was obvious, and cringe-worthy at times, but Caleb was sure things would go well for them in the future. Jester and Fjord’s thread almost made his heart break- he had allowed himself to get way too attached to the two, but neither of them were for him, obviously. Destiny had other plans.

Molly did not have any threads, like him. After learning about his past, Caleb wondered if he had gone through something similar to Caleb, the snapping of a thread after a traumatic event. He allowed himself to grow closer to the tiefling tentatively, allowed feelings to bloom slowly. Molly was warm to him, and he thought perhaps it was another form of destiny that would tie them together.

That had been a mistake.

The last one to join their family was Caduceus. He had no thread too, and Caleb had no curiosity about it anymore. His interest in destiny had all but faded.

He loved his friends. He had friends. That was enough, for someone like him.

---

“The Luxon is the basis of how we've been able to free ourselves from the binds of the lineage the Betrayer Gods left for us and to carve our own fates, choose our own paths and sidestep these destinies placed upon us nonchalantly by gods that use us as playthings.”

The Shadowhand was interesting. Dangerous, powerful, enticing. Caleb considered what he said about freedom from destiny, the ability to find your own way. He had certainly strayed from his path, but perhaps that was not the worst thing.

Essek Thelyss, too, had no thread attached to him.

Perhaps because Caleb was no longer obsessing over what destiny had in store for him, perhaps because he was beginning to accept that his own imperfect path was better than the one that had been set for him, Caleb felt empathy towards the drow even after he had betrayed them.

They were so much alike, and Caleb kept his heart more closely guarded now. He did not feel his heart breaking when they learned of Essek's schemes, and that too helped. In any case, he did not see Essek again for a long time. Did not think much about him. There was too much on his plate for that.

---

Astrid smiled at him from across a dinner table and his stomach dropped. Caleb felt the wheels of time turning, felt again like Bren, determined and ambitious and blind to the truth. Eadwulf looked at him with a raised chin, a smirk on his face. He too remained handsome, impossibly so.

When they walked out of Ikithon’s tower, Caleb could make out the thin red thread that still connected their ankles. He thought he was stronger, that perhaps he was ready for this.

“Race you to the top,” said Astrid with a childish smile, before turning back to the tower.

It hurt. He could feel the emptiness of what could have been, what would never be again in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

---

Imagine his surprise when arriving at the Vurmas outpost in Eiselcross, the powerful figure of the Shadowhand could not meet his eyes. Imagine his surprise, when he saw his eyes lighting up when they chose him instead of his old teacher to go down into the ruins. Imagine his surprise when he saw Essek battling, using gravity itself as a weapon, and felt only fondness and admiration for the man. When he showed off his tower and saw the same in the drow’s eyes. And attraction, of course. That went without saying.

It all came to a head when, together, they worked to cast a spell that would shorten time itself and give the Nein their much-needed rest.

Thought it might have felt like seconds to their friends, Caleb watched for long moments, holding magic in his palms to assist, as Essek opened a gash through the fabric of space and time. Real fabric, made of threads of all colors that together seemed to make up what he saw as the world around him. Time seemed to stop around them as Essek carefully worked around the fibers.

“This… Have you been able to see this the whole time?” he asked.

Essek’s jaw was clenched and there was sweat running down his forehead, but he nodded, “Not really. It takes a lot of effort to see this. A lot of energy.”

Caleb hesitated but gave in once Essek’s questioning gaze found his for a moment, “I have always seen the red threads. I- I had my own, for a while.”

“Annoying little things,” muttered the drow, focusing again at the slow-going task of weaving time with his bare hands, “There was a time when I hated them more than anything.”

“You used to have yours, too?”

“Hm? No,” said the drow distractedly, “I hated them because I had none, and I thought I should. The Dynasty looks like a tangled web if you watch for them since so many entanglements are made complicated by consecution. But I never had one, and even though I looked for… someone that could perhaps make it appear, it never did.”

He moved his wrist to the side, and the universe seemed to shift with it. Caleb felt a little dizzy.

“But I had never heard of someone who lost theirs. I thought they were supposed to be, ah, perfect,” Essek smirked, “Unless you did what we are doing right now to yours. That is, changing it fundamentally. Somehow, I do not think that is what happened.”

“Nein,” Caleb chuckled wryly and then held himself straighter, keeping the spell steady as Essek continued his labor. “I… strayed from the path, I think. I did something that was not meant to be.”

Essek looked at him like he was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen, even though the elf himself had the building blocks of reality in his hands at the moment. Caleb flushed.

“I think Caduceus would say that you did exactly what you had to do.”

“Maybe so. But isn’t it hard to know that others will have this… this gift, this sure thing while we will not?”

Essek looped a bright white strand against a colorful, prismatic one while he hummed, thinking.

“I felt the same way for decades. But whatever we will have or not, in that sense, will be of our own making. And isn’t that a gift on its own?”

---

The moonlight shone down on the beach, turning the sea a glittering mass of waves. Other than the full moon, magical globes and luminescent beetles illuminated the space around them. Their friends gathered around smiling tearfully in perfect dissonance. Caleb himself felt his heart beating so fast he thought it might leave his ribcage and seek quietude somewhere far away from his anxiety-ridden body. He stood beside Caduceus, who hummed a sweet song under his breath as they waited.

Finally, the glittering door at the end of the path opened, and Essek slipped out, bare feet delicately touching the sand. Jester came from behind him, and once their arms were locked, they walked on slowly, passing their friends and family on the way to Caleb and Caduceus.

He looked stunning in delicate iridescent robes, and Caleb tried to swallow down his anxiety. Violet eyes framed by silver lines, mouth poised in a gentle smile, cheeks flushed, Essek walked slowly until he was face to face with his intended.

Essek reached for his hand, and they stood silently, gazes locked while Caduceus conducted the ceremony. When it was time, Caleb drew a small spool of red thread from his pocket. Gently, he took Essek’s hand in his and tied a knot around his little finger. He offered the spool, and Essek repeated the gesture, biting his lips nervously. Caduceus cut the remaining thread, leaving their hands connected.

“You are now joined together, not by destiny, but by your own choice. I think that’s very nice,” Caduceus smiled placidly until Veth cleared her throat, “Oh yeah. You guys can kiss now.”

Caleb smiled at the phrasing. He lifted his hand, pulling Essek’s forward until the drow was close enough for him to count his freckles. Their hands tingled as he came impossibly closer. Essek’s mouth was warm against his.

For the first time in Caleb's life, he felt destiny favored him.

---

[defilerwyrm]

Ok but what's your favourite parts about shadowgast, why does it scratch all the right places? 👀

It’sabouttheyearning.jpg

There’s so much to love. Clearly I have a TYPE, as my experience with choosing favorites went about like

Friend who got me to watch CR: So who’s your favorite so far?

Me: Shit how do I choose? They’re all great. Toss-up between Molly, Caleb, and Beau I think?

Caleb: *reveals his Tragic Backstory*

Me: never mind, that one, it’s that one

So I guess it was inevitable. Honestly? The BEST thing about it? Is that the talent behind Caleb ACTUALLY, PERSONALLY CONFIRMED THE ATTRACTION IS REAL. Multiple times. Not just in “nod nod wink wink say no more” encouragement to the fandom out of appreciation for his character’s popularity, but STRAIGHT UP SAID THIS MAN IS BISEXUAL AND ATTRACTED TO ESSEK IN MULTIPLE WAYS

Which means that if Liam ever nuts up there is a very real chance of it becoming canon. Like, not tinhatting, but an actual, real chance, and even if they never hook up, it is fucking canon that Caleb is into Essek. As badly as I’ve been burned by SPN and the MCU, and even to an extent Hannibal—gods know I love Bryan Fuller & co but as a frustrated queer man I’m allowed to be a little grumbly over (paraphrased) “they’re in love, it’s a love story, but not ~PHYSICALLY~”—my interest in Shadowgast was tentative at best until I reached that particular Talks Machina. And now they’re both escalating, manhandling each other, favoring each other, showing off for each other, like...this shit is real, and I’m reeling from it. This isn’t something queer people normally get to HAVE in media, especially queer men. But CR? CR puts blatant Shadowgast fanart on their official website and displays it in their fucking streams. I would say I have no words, but... *gestures at this post* ...clearly I fucking do, lol.

Normally we’re relegated to smirking subtext or established background couples that hold hands in the suburbs. There are countless stories in media of men who are, in subtext, very clearly bonded romantically, but textually “””really good friends””” or “””like brothers”””. Despite all our progress since the Hays Code, men in media by and large don’t get to have their attraction to each other treated as an explicit thing with real potential to be explored as a romance. They just don’t. It’s still too taboo. So for Liam to just casually say “Yes, the attraction is real” (again, paraphrased but only in terms of word order) is fucking monumental. So it gives me hope, something I’ve been short on for most of my life and that has not served me well in the past.

It has certainly helped to watch the rest of the cast’s /fucking faces/ during their Moments and know they ship it as hard as anyone.

But that’s all extradiegetic. Diegetically, I’m a sucker for narrative parallels, and Caleb has made the parallels of their trajectories explicit. I sat up and went 👀 the first time Caleb went out of his way to touch Essek, and they’ve been in orbit with each other ever since. So there’s an element of that “shared life experience” thing I love so much in Stucky: they understand each other in a way that no one else understands either of them; they mirror each other’s ambitions and transgressions, each other’s strengths and flaws. They have so much to offer each other even aside from their similarities as grown “gifted children” with tragic crimes in their pasts: an exchange of experience in culture and class; their forward-thinking imaginations; their loyalty, previously sworn to no one; their resources, both the disparate and dirty and desperate from Caleb, and the refined and academic and political from Essek; their power, in terms of magic and intellect and sheer will (power exchange joke goes here).

They are the sun and the moon and I ache for an eclipse.

All this, and the fact that they should by rights hate each other, but both are apostates in their own way; both long for change and are willing to break reality to achieve it. They could bring out the best in each other or the very worst. They are a volatile mix and I want to see what new molecule will come of their atoms bonding, as well as the explosive chemical reaction when it forms. They are a perfect match that should have been perfect nemeses, had things played out just a little different for them both. What’s more beautiful than that? What’s more powerful than that? To see these two men who are nuclear reactors, who are stars, spiral together through the dark, on track to crash together and leave nebulae in their wake. There is so much potential energy generated when they sway close and every week we come closer to it becoming kinetic.

I should temper my expectations. I’m not a prognosticator, as my history has clearly fucking shown time and again; I can’t know that it’s a WHEN and not an IF. But the odds, man. They’re the best goddamn odds I’ve ever had.

Now here at the end of this I should disclaim that I have drunk half a bottle of $4 strawberry wine so please excuse me drunkenly waxing poetic like the pretentious piece of shit I am. Thank you and good night

[fortunesfavours]

funky fresh modern with magic times 👀👀👀

ah fgjhffh yes of course! So this one was actually born out of me playing the sims, one project I was working on a bit back were these little mini apartments for each of the m9, then I was like well. what if we did that again but better. and now I've got this whole modern au that I'm slowly working away on!

base idea is caleb is in magic grad school in a modern version of zadash after leaving rexxentrum where a roughly similar version of his backstory played out at the soltryce academy, except his parents were already dead due to an accident in his youth he blames himself for, where he moves into an apartment and meets the rest of the nein. cad comes in partway through and moves into the spare bedroom in his apartment when veth moves out to live with her family. yasha and molly are roommates, beau n jester are roommates, they all meet through Circumstances, etc.

essek comes in when caleb gets into a special program for dunamantic studies that's in its first year of existence at the school he's attending. essek is a transfer student from rosohna who's working his way through a second phD. Shenanigans ensue. essek secretly likes pottery and knitting but he's trying his very best to present a formal front as this representative from the dynasty. that doesn't last. here's a bit of what i do have written!

“I promised you arcana, not pottery. This way.” Essek turns on his heel, leading Caleb around the lovely, modern kitchen, one drawer left slightly open and not closed properly, showing off what was once a well-organised utensil drawer overcome with clutter from someone with things they’d rather do than organise a chopstick collection. The pair briefly enter Essek’s bedroom – equally well-designed, but still out of sorts the way the rest of the apartment is – before Essek pushes through the final door into what might have once been a large walk-in closet but is now filled to the brim with the workings of an arcanist.

The room is small, the back wall entirely filled with storage – drawer cabinets on the bottom, then rows of deep shelves. Alongside the L-shaped desk shoved into a corner, the room is entirely filled with more colourful clutter. Books upon books that don’t line up nicely, compliment each other’s covers, now filling a spectrum of topics, a lovely record player and a modest collection of vinyl records to accompany it, an old printer that looks to be on its last legs, open notebooks and textbooks and sticky notes and pens everywhere, pottery that’s more clearly made by a beginner but still displayed in this private place. A backpack is slung over the corner of an open drawer, displaying its insides filled with measuring tapes and rulers and boxes of spell chalk and pens with scribing ink – practical components of spell casting. Rolls of paper are shoved into corners and lean against a keyboard piano, peeling open to hint at circles of arcane runes and diagrams of things he can’t quite make out. Two floating lights modeled like Catha and Ruidus sit on the desk, slowly rotating and bobbing up and down.

Caleb’s eye catches on the left half of the shelves, studying their contents of one thing: binders. Each is the same brand, the same colour, cover bound in the same fabric, a neutral, textured grey, each labelled precisely. One lays open on the desk, half-filled with notes.

Essek notices, chuckles softly. “My life’s work. Every note, every discovery, every spell in development, every experiment. Everything.”

Caleb pauses, taking in the enormity of that statement, but before he can come up with a response, Essek is pointing something else out.

“And those, there – those were my work as a child.”

He hadn’t grouped them in with the larger, grey binders, but indeed there is a smaller collection of more colourful binders, these ones more worn and stained with bits of brighter paper peeking out the tops.

“Essek-” Caleb turns to him, shaking his head slightly, “Essek, this is incredible.”

And then, then Caleb realises what a rare thing this is. This office is a glimpse into the mind of the man next to him, and gods know when the last time he offered a glimpse like this to anyone was. He pictures Essek, the hours upon hours he must spend in this room, filling up grey binders with genius in annotations and notes only he can understand, accumulating waiting room pens in handmade jars, studying for tests in notebooks that end up neatly lined and labelled on shelves, building the little model of the solar system displayed atop a cabinet, fighting with the printer or listening to the records in the collection filling half of one of the bottom shelves. Essek, alone in this apartment of neat, modern furniture beginning to bubble over with well-tended plants and sticky notes, stray magazines and open books, slipping into a chaos it was never intended to hold. Essek, the most measured, controlled man he’s met for a long time, trapped in a prison of his own making. And now he’s gone and invited Caleb in, and somehow it only furthers Essek’s growing occupancy in his mind and heart.