Scanlan is making me doubt hi insincerity right now, what the fuck.

technoturian replied to your post: Thoughts on Scanlan & VM

I think the main reason people are angry at him is not because they think he had no reasons for his behavior, but that *regardless* of the reasons for his behavior, his behavior was hurtful, and he doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with that. Furthermore, he claims to have changed yet began the encounter with them being just as manipulative and deceitful as always. I haven’t seen most people mad at Scanlan misunderstand WHY he left, just criticize HOW he left.

If people truly understand the why, then the ‘how’ is logical.

How he left is by becoming angry, which is logical if you understand what VM have unknowingly been doing all this time. Of course he set them up for misunderstanding him since he deflected any casual questions, but did anyone actually really try?

Let’s focus on the how. How he left is that he basically just verbally berated them for;

1) Showing his dead body to his daughter, which is the one thing he didn’t want her to see.

2) Putting him in a night gown and smearing him in pudding, thus making his death a joke. An affirmation that they never truly understood him.

3) Not caring about him. They only care about this false joker image he pretends to be.

4) Not knowing the real him, and not taking the effort to get to know the real him.

He used very harsh words, but none of the things he said was truly 100% bullshit. Some of the arguments/techniques he used were very unfair, but he even dialled it down quite a lot in the end, by saying that most of their counter-arguments are also valid and saying it’s actually ‘all right’ and that he’s ‘just hungover from having died’. VM are basically encouraging him to spend time with his daughter at the end of that conversation, and when he turns around and does just that, they feel betrayed and abandoned.

Regarding having changed: Scanlan says he feels he has a better purpose being who he is now. He HAS changed. Perhaps to the person he actually is, instead of someone who always tried to make everyone happy, following them around and doing whatever the group decides.
It’s just that that is not who VM want him to be.

A list of things he said that were truly, 100% bullshit:

We went into the 9 hells for Pike. Wrong. You went to the elemental plane of fire for a vestige. Getting the plane wrong, okay, fine. The City of Brass was pretty hellish when you haven’t seen the actual place.
We fought Goliaths for Grog. No, you fought them for the vestige, and that just happened to tie into Grog’s backstory. The plan wasn’t even to fight the goliaths, but you intervened because Grog alone wasn’t strong enough.
We fought vampires so Percy could feel good about himself. Wrong. You fought vampires to clear your name after fucking up your diplomatic standing in Emon. To free Uriel from their influence. And then stuck to it because the group decided it was the right thing to do.
We went into the Feywild so the twins could fix their daddy issues. Wrong. You went into the Feywild to get a vestige. You wouldn’t even have gone to Syngorn without Garmelie. The encounter with Syldor happened to get the guards off your back.

Also I’m especially pissed off about this one, because it is just the most mean spirited thing he has said during that encounter. The ethics of accusing someone looking up to you as a substitute dad of daddy issues notwithstanding, Vex is by far the most vulnerable to this kind of gaslighting, because she doesn’t believe herself worthy of having her emotions taking seriously to begin with.

You never did anything for me.

Wrong. You brought up the scene with breaking Kaylie out of jail before as not mattering, so all I’m going to say is that Percy sure wasn’t nice about it, and there was a petty revenge factor to it, but Scanlan took him along so he can throw his title around. Of course that’s going to involve classism and lots of it. But until Scanlan started hitting him, it was actually working.

Any time Scanlan wanted to do something, especially in regards to Kaylie, the group was completely ride or die for it. Of course we’re taking this 3 day detour so you can fight her. Of course I’ll run through the sewers with you. They were similarly ride or die for the fake drug deal he made, the twins especially, Vex in particular.

So yes, they helped him whenever he asked for it. It’s not like they did much more than that for anyone else. Hell, they did offer to help him find Kaylie or something like that a lot even without him asking.

The real point here is that Scanlan was just handed his vestige with no quest attached to it. And that the episodes with Kaylie he did get were all the character arc Matt had prepared for him. Which is unfortunate (though still kind of more than Pike and Vex got at that point. Still kind of is.) but just how the game goes.

Speaking of which, in-universe, Scanlan either brushed them off or lied whenever anyone tried to see through him. Which Vax, Vex, and even Keyleth did on several occasions. He then rolled 30+ on deception, and what they did in not imploring further was either follow game rules (trying to roll again or not believing him would be meta-gaming, something these characters especially get accused of a lot anyhow) or accept his boundaries. He essentially got mad at them for doing what he wanted them to do.

Now, I get that it feels to him like they never even tried. But what Scanlan did was blaming them for never disrespecting his boundaries, never seeing through him when he tried everything he could to keep that from happening. So sure, there’s some truth to the claim that they don’t care about the “real” him. They never, ever got to see the real Scanlan, and still probably haven’t. He never let them, they never had the chance. Blaming them for that and twisting facts around to attack them personally is unfair, it is gaslighting, it is an abuser technique.

(Which is not even going into the age differences here, personal pet peeve of mine, because holy fuck does that get uncomfortable.)

I’m, btw, perfectly with you on the points about the prank. I get where Percy and Pike were coming from, but even with someone who would have been okay with something like that (if such a person exists at all), it still would have been in horrible taste. They were two very drunk and very upset people, but that too is an explanation, not an excuse.

I’m less with you on the point about not showing Kaylie his dead body. First of all, the group did not know about his hang ups with that at all, unless it was in the letter, and then it was on Pike who wasn’t present. And then I am of the persuasion that it is less damaging to someone to get to participate in the resurrection of their father than it is to be informed that oh, btw, he died. They even gave Kaylie the choice of going to see him. Hell, even when she didn’t believe in resurrection magic, she did want to see his body to get closure.

Sure, it’s against wishes Scanlan never really expressed as far as we know. But in a real-life analogy, they essentially asked her to maybe donate blood or a kidney to save him and she agreed to do it. And I’m with VM in that when someone dies and you can keep that from happening, you do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.

Also, they didn’t feel betrayed by him wanting to spend time with his daughter. Or at least, that’s nothing they accused him of, and wouldn’t. Feeling that way can’t be helped, but they would have let him go, without a fuss, if he’d said he needed a break or to retire and to spend time with his daughter. They all would have encouraged that. Instead, he made this as vicious as possible by twisting facts around to hurt them for things they have little to no accountability for (besides the prank, done by two people who definitely didn’t get the worst from him).

And he didn’t say I’m leaving to be with my daughter, he said I’m leaving because you don’t care about me enough or in the way I want you to. Which is an entirely different can of of worms.

(Sidenote: Scanlan wasn’t even going to go away with Kaylie, Sam later said. Percy and Vex talked him into that.)

And VM literally still have no idea who he is. There are valid reasons not to buy this new persona of his that has popped up, from saying what he clearly believes they want to hear to deceiving to mind-erasing, he’s not exactly made for a very changed or trust-worthy picture. Oh well. Here’s hoping that once everyone has calmed down, they can all have a reasonable discussion and sort out all of the bullshit on all sides. It’s just going to take a while.

So about Vex.

critrolesketch:

Ok, on my second watch through, I realized very quickly that I was projecting my own hurt through Vex, not really paying attention to how Laura was playing her and writing it off as something that she just wanted to bury.

But…Vex didn’t act that way. She was, honest to god, actually happy to see Scanlan. And immediately after he said he was going to cast modify memory and she stopped him, she insisted on helping him recover his disguise. She didn’t want to thwart his image and ruse, just make sure he didn’t make her forget. And then she was just as elated as Vax. She welcomed him back like he never left (that’s untrue but she fell into some old habits) and was ready to accept him.

Now, to me that isn’t a healthy way of going about things. He still hurt Vex…and just…

Ok so the moment Scanlan was apologizing to the whole group about what he said, Vex immediately said “We deserved it.”

Percy, bless him, responded to her saying “No we didn’t.”

And…Vex…sweetie…what are you thinking? What makes you think that you deserved all that hate? It was all uncalled for. You know that its mostly untrue, what he said. Especially the stuff he said about you! “We went to the Feywild just so she could fix her daddy issues!”

So, um, yeah. I worry about her. She hasn’t even tried to bring any of that up. Instead she is acting as Scanlan’s support through all this. She isn’t holding his hand, but she is the cushion he could fall back on if he needed it.

That makes me mad, it makes me sad, and I’m just really confused and want to hug Vex because my girl shouldn’t be thinking along the lines she is currently treading and needs a proper apology from Scanlan. She needs to acknowledge that what he said was hurtful, and that it’s ok to be upset. He said terrible things and you have a right to be hurt by it. Scream! Shout! Let it all out!

Maybe I’m projecting again and Vex has just…gotten over it? As if it really didn’t bother her when Scanlan attacked her directly? But then why would she say she deserved it? I’m at a loss and need some time to work this out. You guys have any thoughts?

Vex has always had self-worth issues. You can of course make this about “forgiveness” and letting things go, but quite frankly, achieving the state of zen where you just ignore your own feelings and forgive and move on is not healthy.

And Vex has always had the tendency to ignore her own feelings or issues in favor of everyone else being happy. Remember how she died, and then spent the following episodes making sure Percy didn’t beat himself up over it because she’s fine now? And how she started doing the research for Vax and try to convince him the Raven Queen isn’t that bad and the aesthetics are so cool? It was always about other people, never about her own possible struggles with being dead.

Vex thinking her feelings aren’t worth the time of day has been consistent. Vax had to basically force her to open up about anything, when he was in the headspace to deal with anything but his own problems. See also, Vex only telling the story of how she got Trinket in episode 65 after being forced to by Vax, even though if you read the story, that was like, one of the most formative events in her life.

She also never talked to Vax about how Saundor affected her. She only ever mentioned that to Percy, but not because she needed to talk about it, but because she wanted him to feel better about himself, make him forgive himself.

…Speaking of which, the whole Percy situation was a prime example of that as well. She’d been fully aware of her feelings since at the very latest episode 63, but figured he didn’t reciprocate and even after that talk in 72 was perfectly ready and willing to take her feelings to the grave without ever mentioning them, because oh boy t might inconvenience him if he doesn’t reciprocate, and wouldn’t that just be awkward and fuck over group dynamics and stuff. Bless Percy for seeing right through that. More or less.

And while we’re at it. On a meta-level, sort of, the talk they had in 87 about the whole did you ear the confession or not thing almost didn’t happen because Laura didn’t believe it worth the game time. And Vex had been stewing on that for a while at that point, too.

So I think that’s what this is. Vex believes that she deserves the shit life throws at her, that she is entirely unworthy of getting the care and attention she needs and deserves, and is also willing to swallow it all down if it means her substitute dad won’t leave her again and they all can be happy like before.

..Hell, look no further than her pointedly not revealing something she definitely wanted to talk about to Vax because he didn’t take the hint, so she figured it was unimportant at the moment. In the same episode.

(Though that might just be me projecting, too. I identify with Vex to a scary degree.)

shadowreader2013

replied to your post“Alright,
guess I’m not gonna fanfic this any time soon, so here we go….”

This…is literally never said. I mean, I’m sure
anybody would feel more obligated to stay if they were in a
relationship. But I don’t think Scanlan was going for that and was
literally focusing on how everybody has somebody. I actually had a
similar thought pattern in regards to relationships in VM b4 Scanlan
left

Yeah, of course that’s not what he said literally. He couldn’t, for one thing, because Ashley wasn’t there to talk to directly.

What
he did say, literally, is that Grog has Pike, Vax has Keyleth, Percy
has Vex, Scanlan has no one. And he focused on the romantic
relationship, over the fact that say, Vex and Vax are twins, even though
that’s a way more substantial way of having someone in your life. His
statement was everybody has somebody, but I don’t, and that was part of
the reason he left. Even though if he’d meant that in a familial or
friendship sense, he’d have plenty of people. He’d just heard Pike’s
poem to him, even. Not Grog’s song, something that will likely break all
of our hearts forever, but her poem.

So what he expressed
was his dissatisfaction with not having a partner in this, despite the
fact that Grog had been his close partner all the time, just not in a
romantic sense. And while also being fully aware that Pike loves him in
some way, just not in the romantic way, just not in the way that was
enough.

And by listing the romantic relationships over the
blood relationship, or the strong friendships even, the implication is
that a romantic relationship is more meaningful to him than the bonds he
does have here. A romantic relationship that Pike turned down. So the
implication is, if she hadn’t done that, it would have been enough to
make him stay. And the implication is there, no matter if you think he
was going for it or not.

Aaaaah also
Vex. Vex, sweetheart, no. I know you are a people pleaser at heart and just want
everyone to be happy and get along, but no. Scanlan was shitty to you
especially. He hurt you really badly, and I know you just want your gnome dad
back, especially when your new bestie is leaving you and your brother is happy
elsewhere, but no. Just letting everything go immediately is not the answer,
and I don’t say this often, but listen to your boyfriend/secret fiancé/secret
husband, he is right, you did not deserve this.

And because
I feel like ranting. Can we all just take a moment and remember that Scanlan
was furious at VM for resurrecting him in the castle they all only have access
to because Percy’s entire family (sans Cass, of course) died there, with no
chance of bringing them back?

No, really.
And this was right after Percy had that little speech about how he lost a whole
lot of people, the unfairness of the universe now letting the choose just to
not lose people anymore, and how after being resurrected, he doesn’t consider
his life to be his own anymore and that his remaining purpose was to do his
duty and stuff. And two days later, Scanlan comes around with “how dare you
bring me back”.

And for
real, Percy had been taking a lot of shit from Scanlan at that point. Remember
the modify memory thing about the Feywild? That Scanlan also never apologized
for and which was really fucking creepy? And which Percy never raised a fuss
about because there were more important things on hand?

Percy has
been fully aware that Scanlan was a pretty shitty person, but, in Scanlan’s own
words, up until then, swallowed it all and got used to the smell.

People act
like Percy has no reason to be upset with Scanlan, and while he’s definitely
lower on the list than Pike or Grog or Vex, yeah, uh, I get why he feels
fucking betrayed.

(Which is
not to say that the prank he and Pike pulled on Scanlan was okay. I also get
where that was coming from, and to be fair, the entire cast and most of the
fandom thought it was hilarious as well, so I can also see how Pike didn’t know
they’d taken things too far, but, yeah, uh. Even if Scanlan had been able to
laugh at that, it would have been in really, really horrible taste either way.)

Alright,
guess I’m not gonna fanfic this any time soon, so here we go.

Pike
dragging Scanlan for calling her magic fucked up is great. So gratifying. But
you know what should truly be addressed at some point about the things he said,
and the things Pike specifically should be upset about?

When
Scanlan made the point of listing off how everyone’s got someone, and he got no
one on VM, he started with Pike and Grog who would always have each other.
Which is, as far as we know, a purely familial bond. That’s fair.

And then he
went on and listed the couples? How they’d always have each other? When I’m not
even sure Percy and Vex were all that official with everyone yet (dragons kind
of made them have bigger concerns), and also, you know, twins?

Like, real
talk. Romantic relationships come and go. I don’t see either of them going any
time soon, or ever, but how is that any more significant than, you know,
twins?!

Not to
mention that Percy and Keyleth had a very platonic to familial relationship
going on as well.

The point
is, in that speech, Scanlan’s priorities were somewhat skewered towards
romantic relationships. I don’t have someone romantically, and that’s part of
the reason why all this is happening. Which places a really, truly unfair
burden on Pike, seeing how the entire proposal thing went down.

So, if she’d
just said yes, he’d have stayed? If she’d just taken one for the team and
accepted his proposal and advances, so he could have someone, too?

That’s just
gross. So gross. Up there with calling someone who’d been looking up to you as
a father figure out for daddy issues kinds of gross, if not worse.

And the
fact that he seems to be okay now that he has people “rooting” for him doesn’t
make this any better. Someone used the Tyra Banks gif in response already, VM
was already rooting for Scanlan. They all did have each other’s backs
unconditionally, and independently of romantic or blood relationships, it’s just
that apparently, Scanlan didn’t value anything else.

He had fair
points about being treated differently for his height and Vax being bad about
his personal space, and also leaving him alone after dying was not a good move,
even without the prank which was… Welll, an entirely different cup of tea. VM
needs like an aftercare ritual after intense fights, so no one has to spend the
night alone, also independently of the romantic relationships, so the burden
doesn’t fall to one person specifically. Like Pike. Poor Pike.

Math!

fun facts:

If Matt had rolled somewhat below average ( = under 300), Keyleth might have survived.
Grog would have survived this fall.
Grog, raging, would have hit the ground running.
Grog, raging, would have survived the full 600 points of damage.
Official terminal velocity rules (20d6) aren’t enough to kill a single party member at this point.
Even at Max damage, only Vax and Pike would have even gone unconscious.
So Marisha was kind of right; according to the official rules, they are golden gods that would have been fine.
I do agree with Matt that that’s ridiculous though

So we already established that Percy isn’t allowed on death trap islands near female villains whose names start with R anymore, right? Or just islands will do, really, the rest is weirdly specific.

Well. Between the lava and tonight, I propose that Keyleth is permanently banned from jumping. In any way. In any context. Forever.

On Percy and “stuff”

So by now
we’ve all reached the conclusion that objectively, outside of the guns Percy
may or may not know about, nothing Scanlan has or Percy said he wants is
actually “his“ – the earring was a gift either by Tiberius or Allura because
Tiberius asked her to make it (they get the very last earring from Allura in
the earlier episodes), and the gate stone was technically gifted by Lilith to
the whole team.

And while I
think you could argue that both of these things were made “for the members of
Vox Machina,” so arguing that you lose all claim to them when leaving the team
isn’t that far out of it, that is really, really not what the entire thing was
about.

To quote
Taliesin himself from the subsequent Talks Machina episodes, Percy has anger management
issues and abandonment issues. He also fancies himself a very logical person,
the voice of reason, the only adult in the room at any given time. What he’s
trying to do here is attempting to rationalize the hurt he feels about Scanlan
leaving, by making it not about feelings but about material, tangible things. Something
you can build a logical case for or against.

That case
might be lacking in some way, as in the earring was a gift to each person
specifically and Vex gave the gate stone to Scanlan of her own volition with
the rest of the team agreeing, but Percy wasn’t there for that part of the conversation.
And it’s not really about having a waterproof case that would hold up in a
court of law here, it is, again, about redirecting the hurt and anger he feels about
what Scanlan has done.

Same goes
to his argument about how “useful” Scanlan would have been in hell or while
fighting the Kraken. First, this is objectively true. You can literally see Sam
silently panicking during the Kraken fight because Tary is useless and Scanlan
would have done so much better. You know who else was completely useless and
helpless during that fight? Percy. Just by design. He had to watch everything
go to shit, Vax dying, and not only was he completely incapable of doing
anything about this, there was also the nagging awareness that with Scanlan
there, things would have gone so, so much better.

Which, by
the way, also ties in back with his argument about stuff: Having the gate stone
and an earring for Tary would, objectively, have made every single adventure
they’ve been on after Scanlan left easier.

Of course,
feeling like he was only “useful” to the team and nobody cared about him beyond
that was one of the major points that made Scanlan upset enough to leave. Of
course thinking about people in terms of usefulness to a team is pretty blasé and
dehumanizing and inconsiderate and just not a very nice thing to do. But it’s the
term Percy has always been thinking in. And, again, a coping mechanism to avoid
dealing with feelings.

(Also,
objectively verifiable. That makes it an attractive way of thinking when you’re
trying to avoid actually feeling stuff.)

Another
thing to keep in mind is that Percy knows this about himself. He knows he’s not
really a very nice person. He knows he thinks about people strategically rather
than emotionally most of the time, especially where their adventuring lifestyle
is concerned, especially when it comes to keeping the largest number of people
alive as possible. Hence why he checks in with people he considers “nicer” or “better”
than him.

Exhibit A: Having
that conversation about stuff with Vex in the first place, and listening to
what she has to say here. Vex herself tends to err on the side of being rational
rather than emotional (in stark contrast to her brother), but she’s a lot more
in touch with her feelings and empathy comes easier to her. Which, by the way,
makes her uniquely equipped to understand where Percy is coming from, but also
to make him consider things from a less utilitarian standpoint.

Exhibit B:
Checking in with Pike and Kerrek before pulling the prank on Scanlan after the
resurrection, another scene that is quite frequently misinterpreted. Percy was
in a very bad place, hurt, had also just died for the second time, and he was
fully aware of his own mental state. He was fully aware that he was being
spiteful and that this is probably not a good idea, but Pike and Kerrek, at
least to him objectively better people than Percy himself, agreed that it was
okay.

Now, of
course, it wasn’t, and would have been in poor taste under any and all
circumstances, but up to when Scanlan woke up and it all went down, Pike
herself was convinced it would be okay. I’ve seen someone argue, I believe in
this tag, that if Scanlan had mentally been where the party thought he was, he’d
have found it hilarious. I think that’s stretching it a bit, and that the joke
was carried a bit too far in any case, but I can see why Pike and Percy wouldn’t
think so until it was too late. Scanlan did do a great job of hiding where he
was actually at, and the characters literally weren’t allowed to know any
better because of die rolls and meta gaming, making the entire scene so much
more infuriating on so many levels, but heeeey… Not really what I am here to
talk about.