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Happy ten year anniversary critical role!! I can’t fit all my art here, but I wanted to put as much as I could. Without critical role I don’t think I’d have half the motivation to pick up the pen and create. It’s crazy to me that almost six years ago now i accidentally stumbled into critical role through an art channel I followed. Six years ago i had no idea just how much my life would be affected by this silly little show. I found dnd, a game that so much of my life revolves around. Some of my best friends I met either playing or bonding over dnd with. I rekindled my desire to create and had so much material from which to draw inspiration. It saw me through high school, and now most of college as well as my first job in the engineering field. In a way it really feels like the show saw me grow up and I have so much love and thanks to give to the creators and the stories they told. All this to say I have nothing but love for the past ten years and here’s to many more. Thank you critical role, and I’m so excited for what’s to come.

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So today I watched this interview with the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast and they demonstrate the phenomenon "space ship acting"

and they all go

and it just cracks me up, ESPECIALLY Sir Patrick Stewart

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“It's not a code,” said Lindir. He clutched the stones tight in his hands. “They’re mine, not the orcs. I hid them inside my robes so that no one would take them away. They’re my - my family.”

“Family?” repeated Lord Maedhros.

Lindir laid the stones out, taking comfort in the pattern. “Like this,” he said. “It always has to be like this. No - no you’re not looking at it the right way.” He tugged at Lord Maedhros’ metal hand so that they stood shoulder to shoulder. “See? Now they’re in the right order.”

“What does it mean?”

Could he explain? It became so muddled in his head that putting it to words felt impossible. Lindir would try. Maybe, if he did a good enough job, they would let him keep his stones and not hurt him. He was so tired of being hurt.

“This one goes first,” he said, pointing to the red pebble, “because it's the biggest. The oldest. Then - ” he moved past the gap to point at the next one “ - this one, which is white like the - like the moon. Then this one with its dark spot in the centre and then this one with the little iron flakes that make it shine and these two, which are stuck together. The littlest that are two-in-one must always go last. That’s important. They can’t be put in any other order.”

“And here?” There was an odd note in Lord Maedhros’ voice. A slight waver of pain beneath the gentle calm. “You’ve left a space between the first two stones. What goes between them?”

“There has to be a space.” Lindir twisted his hands. The light inside his head hurt, something crooked pressing down down down against it, threatening to break him all over again. “There has to be. Always. I - I don’t know - I lost - something else goes there. I lost it. It flew away. But I have to leave a space.” He started to shake. “Please don’t take them. They’re my family. I have to protect them. Please, please, don’t take them away.”

“I won’t,” said Lord Maedhros. The odd note had grown stronger. Lindir glanced up to see that the towering Fëanorian leader had turned his face away, the bright light making it look like something wet glittered on his face. “I promise you, Laurë. No one will ever separate you from your family again.”

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More TNG klingon Karlach

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critical role campaign 2 is really that bitch. best cr PCs of all time. best NPCs of all time. the golden age of Sam's ads. MOTHER I BRING NEWS FROM THE WOMB. storytelling and pure luck coming together for such cohesive, meaningful narrative. the themes of identity, second chances and growth. FLUFFERNUTTER. making my way. WIZARDS. SO MANY WIZARDS. the Luxon. Ruby of the Sea, the best lay ever. accidental piracy. a theatre full of people yelling BALLEATER. three kobolds in a trench coat. successfully getting precious state secrets with 12 persuasion. AEOR MY BELOVED. the pusheen ad. taliesin resurrecting himself. AND THEN IN THE END, THERE WERE NEIN OF THEM.

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WE FINALLY KNOW

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CHANGE! IS! COMING! AND I! AM! CHANGE!

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After the last two chapter of The Harrowing I remembered an older drawing I've never posted for its state of being half-finished, but i think we deserve something nice after *that*. 😭

So here's some Maedhros and Annatar hug.

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Can't wait for Exandria Unlimited: Divergence? Check out its intro, as posted to the Critical Role socials!

Visual Effects by Christian Brown, 3D modeling by Axolote Gaming, and musical theme by Colm R. McGuinness.

Divergence is a four-part miniseries and premieres tonight, February 13, in all the usual places.

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Whenever I take a long car ride I end up exhausted afterwards, and I’m always like “why am I so tired? I was just sitting around doing nothing all day.”

But the answer, it turns out, is I was doing something. Riding in a car jars your body in many directions and requires constant microadjustments of your muscles just to stay in place and hold your normal posture. Because you’re inside the car, inside the situation, it’s easy not to notice all the extra work you’re doing just to maintain the status quo.

There’s all sorts of type of work that we think of as “free” that require spending energy: concentrating, making decisions, managing anxiety, maintaining hypervigilance in an unfriendly environment, dealing with stereotype threat, processing a lot of sensory input, repairing skin cells damaged sun exposure, trying to stay warm in a cold room.

The next time you think you’re tired from “nothing”, consider instead that you’re probably in situation where you’re doing a lot of unnoticed extra work just to stay in place.

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Do you ever just think about Fingon? I do. I think about him a lot.

A hero prince, and a king who should have left the heroics to those who could afford to die. Common theme with Noldor kings, actually.

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What's stronger than death?

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On Reddit someone suggested that theoretically, Tiamat could be reincarnated into 5 kobolds (I. A trenchcoat) and I kinda need this in my life now.

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also it helps me walk or whatever

[ID: a digitally drawn two-panel comic. / Image 1: Text reads: “How I expected using a cane would feel:” Panel depicts a miserable person in tattered clothes, hunched over a cane and shaking as she walks. / Image 2: Text reads: “How it actually feels:” Panel depicts the same person, now standing tall and wearing flowing wizard robes and a long white beard. Her cane is at her side, glowing with magic, and she looks confident and powerful. /End ID]

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women want her, gods fear her

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This is how blood of arlathan went right?

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moral questions in the Silmarillion

is it wrong to murder people for shiny objects

what if you REALLY want the shiny objects

what if they were your dad's and a bad guy already murdered your granddad for them

like that's basically justified right?

what if you made a very serious promise that you were going to murder people for the shiny objects and you hadn't really thought through the implications at the time

admittedly you then started murdering people more or less immediately so the implications became obvious quite quickly

in fact you murdered some people and stole their stuff in literally exactly the same way that the bad guy murdered and stole from your family

but maybe you're just quite stupid and don't know about narrative parallels?

what if you felt genuinely bad about the murders

not bad enough to stop but you know, there was some emotional torment going on there

what if you were going to be condemned to eternal darkness for not doing the murders

...because of that very serious promise, which you made on purpose, no one forced you, the promise was your own idea

what if you kidnapped some small children and were nice to them

not even kidnapped, you adopted them, they were orphans

admittedly they were orphans because you murdered their whole family

but being nice to children is a redeeming quality right?