#zerxus cr

[psychicdamaged]

as someone who has spent an obscene amount of time thinking about evandrin and zerxus' relationship (before one of them died). something that has stuck with me is luis saying that zerxus has always put avalir before elias. it's such a sad, poignant thing, but i think when evandrin was alive, that wasn't true. i think choosing avalir was very deliberate, and that choice made because duty was less painful than facing an empty home, his child missing his other parent, the ghosts of evandrin that lingered in their old life together. being first knight, choosing that lonely tower, was the preferred option over confronting his loss. after all, he literally had patia erase the memory of the resurrection attempt. he chose, over and over, not to face his grief, and part of that meant putting duty above all else and burying all the difficult things like emotions and raising his bereaved son. between his desire to escape and the pressure on zerxus to take up evandrin's mantle, of course he became the next first knight.

i also think that zerxus was the reason evandrin was able to get the first knight position. without zerxus, evandrin would've juggled raising a son from infancy and ascending to first knight on his own. obviously, he loved zerxus as a romantic partner, but also, having another parent to elias meant he could focus more time and energy into his own ambition. that, perhaps, if zerxus' #1 priority was elias, then it would be okay if evandrin's #1 priority was avalir.

maybe it was even supposed to be a temporary arrangement. maybe evandrin thought that once he'd achieved his goals, he'd be able to put his family first again. but that's not how avalir works.

i think evandrin loved his son. but i don't think for a moment he was at all immune to the hubris and mighty ambition that held claim over the rest of the ring of brass either

[seanflnnerty]

Downfall: Part Two

[kitkatqueen1]

Is anyone else reminded of how Asmodeus appeared to Zerxus first.

Wounded, covered and blood and weak needing help, needing protection. And now Braius met the Hells, locked away bleeding from the neck...when he could have healed himself. The flirting is also while very Sam, very similar to how Asmodeus was flirting with Zerxus. And let's not forget how Yu/Dusk was able to unsettle the Bell's Hells

[beedreamscape]

I know I've mentioned Bolo being cake in Portuguese (and the mispronounced Bola being Ball) but Idk if people know Porco, from Patia's surname, means Pig in Portuguese (and other romantic languages that use it as an alternative word for it) and I wish Marisha had talked more about it, if it was intentional or not.

[asmodeus-cock]

This is about Vespin and Zerxus

[stickandthorn]

My dealer: got some straight gas 🔥😛 this strain is called “The Fall of Avalir” 😳 you’ll be zonked out of your gourd 💯

Me: yeah whatever. I don’t feel shit.

5 minutes later: dude I swear I just saw Vespin Chloras in the mirror

My buddy Zerxus pacing: asmodeus is definitely not lying to us

[smackaroni-samsonsite]

man asmodeus collects long haired paladins like they're going out of style doesn't he

[pi-seas]

The first requirement of being a Betrayer God champion is serving cunt

[quinn-of-aebradore]

Terrible painful thought that I’m now obsessed with;

Vax is a full blown Champion of the Divine and something bad just happened to him. What if the other current Champions could… feel that?

Pike, Scanlan, and Vex feeling something tear in their chests, an indescribable heartache coursing through the bond they have with their deities.

Yasha, waiting anxiously at home for Beau to return, feeling Vax’s scream through her connection to the Stormlord and is suddenly angry in a way she can’t quite place.

Caduceus and Fjord being met by cold winds from Melora and a bone-deep sense of dread.

Opal and Zerxus, deep within the thralls of their gods, having moments of clarity as they feel Lolth and Asmodeus fear for the first time.

(Cad and Fjord aren’t canonically Champions of the Wildmother, I know, but I love the idea of them being such so I don’t care)

[rabbit-exe]

purvan suul essentially raised the raven queen when she took mortal form, and consequently I am imagining zerxus being given the task of raising asmodeus' mortal form, because AUGH!!

[backonrepeat]

Asmodeus is one of my favourite Big Bads to use as a DM, so I can't tell you how incredibly happy I am that Brennan seems to have adopted him as his particular Critical Role blorbo, and plays him with such gusto.

His Asmodeus in Calamity was absolute perfection, and the confrontation with Zerxus remains one of my favourite CR scenes ever.

Now with Downfall, BLM keeps on building Asmodeus and showing more sides of him and I'm eating it all up:

- We have confirmation that, exactly as Zerxus claimed, he was not always as he is now. He actually saved the Gods during the escape!

- Him and Serenrae had... something going on, and are now giving mad divorced energy

- His avatar is the oldest, so either he was the first to volunteer to go squash aeorians, or he had some other nefarious plot going on

- He is posing as a priest of PELOR, because his pettiness is eternal

- "Hello, family!" This bitch is LIVING for the drama

- Not created by Brennan, but... Love the fact that Asmodeus seems to collect beefy paladins like they are pokemon

[thespoonisvictory]

pov you've been shackled by a devil to do his bidding for centuries but you won't let that bit of goodness go and doesn't that kind of prove your whole worldview right anyway. that there is no suffering nor circumstance that can tear everything worth saving away. and all you can do is hope that someone will do what you would have done, that someone is coming to help like you did. and the thing that keeps you going, that keeps that bit of humanity there. is that you truly, truly believe they will. every day zerxus ilerez wakes up to an office job in hell.

[ludinusdaleth]

absolutely out of my mind obsessed. OBSESSED. with liliana always saying "he" and, even if we know it's ludinus, never saying his name and obfuscating him with predathos, these two pillars of limitless power & incredible cruelty that chain her, stronger than her, in her own words. how he needs her. how he admires & values & even in some way adores her, and maybe more. how she's pulled ludinus back from the very edge. her trying to change him, and zerxus 1000 years ago trying to change asmodeus and jester trying to change artagan and caleb trying to change essek and the m9 trying to change lucien and opal trying to change lolth, and imogen, trying to change her own mother. this cycle of desperate belief in redemption that can succeed or fail, the coin that hasnt landed on a side yet. how that's freedom for some. how that's a whip, a martinet on the back of the reformer for others. the belief in set fate vs the vanguard belief in changing destiny. generation upon generation of hope & abuse that can so easily become one or the other or both at once for eon upon eon. how the gods who created these mortals who seek any glint of kindness desperately wish, in this moment, for redemption themselves. "to reach a hand down to somebody, they need to be beneath you". but the gods are in the sky. and their saviors are on a lonely planet & lonelier moon, locked together by a cycle of violence & desperation started by them so long ago.

[demartinidesigns]

And though Calamity is here, because of you it will not be here forever.

Guess who has two thumbs and made herself tear up re-watching the outro to transcribe some quotes?

Please let Calamity become an OVA or movie. I need my friends who don't watch actual plays to experience this story.

Bonus quote because it got me in a chokehold when I was listening for the first quote:

But at the end of it all: hope will return. As many times as it needs to.

[asmodeus-cock]

Taking a hint motherfucker

[ariadne-mouse]

Zerxus probably thought he had "substantive conversations" and understood Asmodeus too, you know, before the betrayal and whole eternal torment thing. Not that Predathos is necessarily cunning in the same way but like. Even if Predathos only wants to hunt gods, if it "doesn't care" about everyone else, it certainly won't care about collateral damage.