I’m gonna be that person and quote myself from like two weeks ago:
Let us all take a moment to just remember and let it sink in and have it
ready to throw at the horrible part of this fandom that Marisha just
saved the campaign. Again.And got us all the weirdest, most confusingly
sexy sequence of events as of yet.
Honestly. Keyleth is probably the goddamn MVP for the entire campaign like what the fuck.
(ALL OF THE SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 113!)
“Alright,
Princess, you really gotta stop fidgetin’ or I’ll just end up making it worse!”
The tiny woman she vaguely remembered lectured her while slowly trying to pull
the arrows out of Cassandra’s body, hands glowing softly with healing magic.
Fidgeting,
in this case, meant rocking back and forth while breathing heavily and desperately
fighting down the urge to vomit.
“I know,”
Cass managed to gasp, desperately trying to shake off the memory of the last
time she had been struck down by arrows, the warmth of the healing spell not
enough chase away the creeping cold and the sensation of snowflakes falling
down on her while she watched her brother get away. No, no, no snowflakes this
time. She wasn’t even outside. She was in some sort of basement, there were
only two arrows stuck in her, no one had left her behind… The cold still wouldn’t
go away, though.
“What, you
get into fights often?” The gnomish woman snorted. Cassandra vaguely recalled
her being the missing gnome’s daughter… Hailey? Miley? Something like that. “Didn’t
think you were the type.”
“I’m going
to get us whatever healing items I have left in stock,” Shaun announced.
“I wouldn’t
recommend doin’ that before someone takes care of that giant-ass cut across your
chest!” The gnome reprimanded him, accidentally yelling right into Cassandra’s
ear. The ringing was a good distraction, though.
“My dear, I’ve
gone toe-to-toe with an ancient dragon before. Twice,” Shaun informed her, his
usual bravado slowly returning to him. “This is nothing I can’t handle.”
“So have I,”
Cass said quietly. With one arrow removed and the wound it left behind closed
up, she could now feel the blood rushing through her veins again, trying to
fight off the cold for her. “Not in a fight, though, I just played hostess to
one. Which Mother used to say was a battle in its own right. All the
hospitality in the world didn’t keep her from killing my brother, though, and
while he sort of had that coming, I supposes that’s just what guests do to our
family…”
“Screw the
healing stuff, this one needs booze!” The gnome now more considerably didn’t
really yell into Cassandra’s ear. This one felt different, too, magical
somehow, and despite the volume and candor was almost pleasant.
“I’d still
categorize that as healing items,” Shaun declared, then Cass heard a door
close.
“A man
after my own heart!” The gnome declared. “And I don’t say that lightly.” She
then turned around to Cassandra once more. “Okay then, Princess, one more arrow
and we’re done here!” She announced while eagerly rubbing her hands together as
they started to glow again.
“My name is
Cassandra,” Cass somehow found it in herself to remind her healer. “Cassandra
Johanna von Musel Klossowski de Rolo of Whitestone, Guardian of the Woven
Stone.”
“…Yeah, I
think Princess is pretty apt.” The other woman said after a short pause. “I’m Kaylie.
Shorthalt, I guess, but don’t tell anyone I said that.” She winced. “You’re
the, what, sister of the white-haired asshole then?”
That made
Cassandra laugh a little despite herself.
“I suppose
so,” she confirmed.
“I won’t be
holdin’ that against you, don’t worry,” Kaylie assured her for some reason. “So,
uh… You come here often?”
The tone of the show is supposed to be at least somewhat on the lighthearted side. If I wanted depressing, hopeless bullshit, I would watch Game of Thrones. I don’t want to see my favorite character have such a miserable end to his already incredibly sad story. (Yes, I am also far too attached to CR)
They have dark and tragic moments on the show, but they’re never grimdark. They’re never hopeless and heartless. They have meaning and purpose. They don’t revel in grimdark and shock value.
I really don’t want to see Vax die, hopeless and helpless, and leave his family to grieve for the rest of their lives. That takes this story of an epic team of heroes who were brought together by Vax and banded together to save the world, and makes it end with a really sad story about a depressed man who wasn’t allowed to live.
Even if this does happen, fuck anyone who tells me I should be happy about that, or think it’s an “epic” or “fitting” end. It’s not. Fuck that noise. I will not be happy that Vax died. I will not think that’s cool or awesome or an epic ending. I will think it’s a tragic, upsetting, sickening fate for a man who fought and fought for a bit of happiness and then his ultimate reward was to drop dead.
I reject grimdark bullshit anywhere, but especially here on this show.
Brian can take his “happy endings are boring” shit and shove it elsewhere. Happy endings are important and meaningful when they are earned, and by god or whatever else higher power, how much more can a person do to fucking earn their happy ending.
Insert quote about stories that really mattered here, even though it’s something only Movie!Sam says and Tolkien’s actual point was slightly different because that shit resonated with me, dammit.
So once again Matt averts the whole bury your gays thing, but damn if he doesn’t try REEEAAALLY hard to get there. Like. The attempts are escalating like fuck.
And I mean. I’ve always wanted Cass and Kaylie to hang out more. Uhm. Preferably under different circumstances.
Okay. Okay so. Calm down your nerves. Just. All three of them are save for the time being, having a gay old time in every sense of the word the world isn’t ending IT’S ALL GONNA BE OKAY
When Liam wears his sexy black shirt, you know you’re in for one hell of an episode. That gets possibly very kinky.
But honestly, though he is REALLY weird in a fucked up and occasionally sexy way, Artagan just seems so lonely? And like he just wants people to hang out with? So in a best case scenario, he just becomes that frequently visiting even weirder uncle to Keyleth’s weird aunt, looking after Whitestone’s Xth generation of quarterelves to mess with, occasionally meeting weird aunt Keyleth and her new boo J’Mon.
…Let me dream of happy endings, okay?
Let us all take a moment to just remember and let it sink in and have it ready to throw at the horrible part of this fandom that Marisha just saved the campaign. Again. And got us all the weirdest, most confusingly sexy sequence of events as of yet.
Multiple people bothered by Vex’s focus on nobility in the comic forget one thing; This is about their beginning, before she had the character development that set her on the path of not wanting or needing nobility to be happy.
Its possibly only a few months in of both of them only just leaving Syngorn and being on their own. She hasn’t had the time to become who she is now.
Even at the start of the show, she was always more focused on how people perceived her and the need for money to be stable and safe. She was the one more focused on nobility and respect from others then Vax was.
It seems ooc to us now, to see her this way, but we don’t know how she was in the beginning besides the start of Critical Role, where it lines up almost perfectly with who Vex used to be.
I don’t like her focus on it in the comic any more then others, but from a writers standpoint it does make sense that she wouldn’t be the person she is now if she was just starting out.
It is exactly because this is their beginning that I am bothered by it. I mean, given their level of competence and age and skill, I highly doubt they only just left Syngorn – Stillben is a ways away and a lot of things have to happen between leaving and meeting the other VM members for the first time. Getting Trinket, Vax joining the clasp because of Vex’s stalker and working with them for a while, travelling to Byroden to find it ruined which is the direct opposite direction from Stillben… Saying they only just left Syngorn just doesn’t add up.
Vex was hurt deeply by being rejected by elven society. Those scars weren’t fresh when we saw them on the show, but they still hurt her like hell. If the implication is that they only just left Syngorn, then there is no distance to what went down. Then they have just reached their turning point with their dad. What we see on the show happens a few years later, and has Vax being mostly resigned, but Vex is furious about her father and his treatment of them.
And no matter when this takes place, the same person who tells Syldor she’d gladly tear his blood from her veins because she wants no part of him wouldn’t cheerfully use their blood connection to make some weird claim to nobility.
Also, if she tried to tell that to anybody else, that’d be one thing, but this is Vax. Had she tried to bullshit some NPC, that’d be fine. But Vax knows any claim she tries to make at nobility is bullshit, and he knows how things actually worked back in Syngorn. And, hell, if Vex had ever said things like that, would Vax really have reacted to her eventually becoming nobility the way he did? When it came up on the show, he was questioning why she’d even want that and how he’d never known about it before. He was completely taken aback with how much the title meant to her. If being nobility had been something she had ever been focused on like this, his reaction would have been a lot different.
The biggest fear I have about this is that these comics will just be another instance where Vex is used as a contrast point to show how great Vax is. Even though early!Vax we saw was a lot more morally ambiguous than Vex. Wouldn’t be the first time she gets shafted to forward him, either.
Overdressed & Underappreciated 