notthegrouch:

out-there-on-the-maroon:

source: https://twitter.com/mattcolville/status/960743011524096000

I try so hard to be polite. I wonder if it’s worth it if I’m just gonna get dismissed as “radical” regardless. 

Sorry, but I definitely didn’t read this as “I hate my peasant mother”, but more as “I’m traumatized as fuck, desperately trying to fit in my dads upperclass lifestyle, but it’s actually a facade”.

We KNOW Vexs history, don’t ignore that history in your interpretation. Vex was the one who wanted to seem like she came from money when she visited her father. Vex is the one who had a hoarding problem after coming from poverty. She never hated her mother, but she always FEARED being poor. She FEARED peoples opinion of her.

And in the comics we don’t yet get to see the happy Vex who is supported by loads and loads of friends. We get a Vex who has a near case of Stockholms syndrom, after forceful adoption by her father.

So yeah, it’s pretty ‘radical’ to imply that your interpretation is the only possible interpretation. Having the creator (who often communicates with Matt Mercer and the players) ask you how you came to such an interpretation, so that he can clear things up in the next issue, is not rude or dismissive. It’s a bewildered creator asking for more feedback on a twitter that gives little room for lengthy detailed explanations.

The comic takes place a decade after the twins voluntarily ran away from Syngorn. They fled from there as soon as they could, apparently just after graduating from assassin school for assassins. They fled from Syngorn because it sucked and they hated it there, Vex included.

Stockholm’s is very much refuted as a real condition, and even when taken at face value, Vex meets literally none of the criteria needed to qualify for it. She doesn’t on the show, she doesn’t in the short story Laura wrote for her that takes place also almost a decade before the comics, and she doesn’t even really show any signs of that in the comic.

What the comic does show is Vex making crude and dismissive remarks about her mother, in front of Vax, who is very much offended by them. Not just in the panels shown, where she actively denies being related to her, but also before, when at the sight of a drowned baby, Vex quips that at least the baby’s mom tried to keep it. Which Vax also takes offense with.

Vex wanted to look like she came from money when visiting Syngorn because she hated being judged there due to her social and racial status, yes. A social and racial status that also made her very much aware, every day, that she was most definitely not nobility, because I guess assassin school for assassins is classist that way. Acting like she is, in front of Vax, the literal only person to know for sure she’s bullshitting, is just stupid. It’s not how the twins interacted, ever, be it on-screen or from what we got from the pre-stream adventures or Liam and Laura recounting their backstory or Laura’s short story from Vex’s POV.

Also, remember how after they went to Syngorn, Vax was really confused by how much being raised to nobility meant to her? As in, he literally didn’t even know she cared about that? Which Liam confirmed later on a talks episode? How does that add up with Vex putting up this front, ever? I’ll be the first to admit that Vax isn’t the best with context clues, but he’s not that dumb. If anything, you’d think it would stick with him due to how much he cares about his mother and was offended by Vex talking this way.

Vex is stand-offish, yes, she hoards money because she’s afraid of poverty and suffering, yes. She’s never cruel. Especially not about her mother in front of Vax. In fact, what she consistently does, from the short story Laura wrote to the final episode of the show, is put up a front for Vax that she is okay, no matter what, so he doesn’t have to worry about her. Yes, they bicker and argue, but Vex is competitive, not downright mean and cruel and dismissive.

These things on their own already paint a really unflattering picture, but somehow, every other character manages to be a two-dimensional version of who they will eventually be in canon. Like, you can see the character already, but not with Vex. She seems to exist solely to be a mean sister for Vax to bounce off of, who for some reason is way nicer than during the first 25 or so episodes of the show. Even though him turning nicer and taking up Keyleth’s moral compass was a major point of development in and of itself. But no, he’s in the comics as a perfectly nice soft boy bravely putting up with his really mean sister.

That is the problem here. There’s no regard for the canon information we have about Vex, serious continuity issues, and no sign of Co/vil/e actually wanting to address these. When someone else raised these concerns on reddit after the last issue, his response was basically to dismiss the concerns. Matt Mercer at least tried to be reassuring and apologetic, and he tries to do better whenever an issue is raised, and takes on a way kinder tone that actually invites discussion, rather than dismiss his audience as radical, even when things get ridiculous.