starrynima

[starrynima]

Here's my "The Mighty Nein" poster in the style of Thunderbolts*. I figured it might be fun to make, so I did it.

[starrynima]

[starrynima]

essek in all the m9 animated promo

[starrynima]

they’re not beating the “most beautiful person you’ve ever seen and just Some Guy” allegations in this animated series huh

[starrynima]

One of the things Matt harped on over the years is that, as much as everybody loves their favorite hot boy, Essek Thelyss, he for a very long time was not a very good person

say less travis I AM READY

[starrynima]

things matt has canonized for shadowgast (that i can remember):

essek and caleb have been living together since they got together (so roughly 7 years) and essek hasn't been back to the dynasty since before the mighty nein ended

caleb is cluttered and messy but essek tolerates it for him

essek bakes sweets (because i can't picture caleb being the one to do it)

essek wears caleb's clothes because they smell like him

essek and caleb have a portrait of the two of them together in their shared lab

essek has learned enough zemnian to curse in zemnian (and actively chooses to speak it)

essek and caleb have sat for couples portraits together

essek regularly sends messages to caleb when they're apart

essek has picked up some therapist habits (likely from caduceus) and has talked caleb down from a ledge during bad mental health problems

essek now wears bits of orange and caleb wears bits of purple

beau and yasha regularly come over and spend time at the shadowgast household

there's enough space in their house for guests (and jester has been by enough times to draw dicks everywhere)

they fuck in every room of the house

[starrynima]

one day, almost a decade ago, the m9 - specifically jester - wouldn't take no for an answer when befriending a guy who turned out to be a traitor.

now, laudna gets a second chance at a happy ending, and it’s all because a little blue tiefling said ‘i want a hug’ to a war criminal and turned him into her friend.

i will never get over jester's impact as a character. she loves essek into redemption. she loves artagan into being a god. she loves the mighty nein into becoming a family.

it's the Being Saved by the Love of Your Friends show, and she's the star.

caduceus said ‘it’s love that saves people’ but it’s jester who did it.

[starrynima]

Caleb's library time

[starrynima]

Caleb Widogast | Critical Role fan art for my ongoing PC project.

support the patreon

[starrynima]

Critical Role: The Mighty Nein Origins: Acquired Taste

Scans of the comic from Free Comic Book Day 2025!

[starrynima]

SINNERS (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

[starrynima]

remmick and the vampires present a false dichotomy

Hogwood (the man who sold the twins the mill) and the KKK are very obviously bad, they are outright malicious bigotry, they use the n-word and plan to lynch the moore's and their community, they are so blatantly racist and hateful it's unavoidably obvious

remmick and the vampires however say that they believe in equality, say that they want to create a community, and yet remmick's goal throught the movie is to both metaphorically and literally steal sammie's ability for his own goal of reconnecting with his irish ancestors, a white man wants to harm a young and upcoming black man and use talents for his own goals without giving any regard to said black man's autonomy or agency

when sammie sings 'I lied to you' in the juke joint and calls forth the spirits from the past and future, it's a blend of cultures; west african, east asian, native american, and african american song and dance blend together across time and space to tell the stories of blues; where it takes its inspiration from, the music genres it then inspired, the complex history of black american culture and its intersections with other peoples of colour in the USA

when remmick and the vampires kill and turn the people in the juke joint, and then perform rocky road to dublin, only remmick's irish culture is on display, there is no influence from the black and asian people he has forcibly assimilated into his song, it's juxtaposition with the earlier scene is blatant, remmick is more than happy to assimilate people of colour into his 'community' of 'equals', and yet its only whiteness that is celebrated, that is normative

remmick claims that he's doing people a favour by turning them immortal, conviently ignoring that he literally has to suck the life out of them to do so, trapping their spirits on earth, he claims that he's the good guy, that the KKK were gonna come and lynch everyone at the joint in the morning anyways, conviently ignoring that he's doing the exact same thing; a white man leading a mob to kill a bunch of black people

in the final confrontation with sammie remmick repeatedly dunks him into the river, a forceful baptism. both the celtic irish and enslaved west africans had their religions suppressed and destroyed by colonialsm, had christianity forced upon them by the british empire, and in that scene we see remmick repeating that cycle, using christianity to inflict harm, and sammie reclaiming christianity, despite all the complex emotions he has arround it, as many colonised peoples have and still do, when he recites the lord's prayer

remmick and the vampires are no less racist than hogwood and the KKK, are no less predatory or evil, they're just less blantant about their bigotry, they represent the system, the normalised white supremacy that is seeped into the very foundation of culture in america, the point isnt that remmick would call any of the black characters in the movie the n-word, i dont think he would, the point is that his exploitation and desacration and inserting-himself-into-when-he-wasn't-invited of the juke joint is a microcosm of what white people have done to black american arts and culture since ever since there have been black and white people in america, and even before that

theres a reason vultures are shown early on in this movie

[starrynima]

happy 1st anniversary to the best first kiss in television history

[starrynima]

The mighty nein portraits🤲

[starrynima]

It’s so interesting to me that Kingsley Tealeaf, unlike any of the previous people in charge of that body, does actually take interest in the past and those who came before him.

Molly used to run away from any mention of the person who had his body before hand. Nothing good ever came out of it, and every interaction with that past was intimidating and unpleasant to him. A reminder of the shaky foundation and loneliness his life started in. The only thing he knows, and needs to know, about that person, is that they died, and got buried in a lonely shallow grave from which he had to crawl, empty and alone.

Lucien, when he came back, didn’t want anything to do with Molly either. He didn’t care for “the speck”, he wanted nothing to do with the full life he lived, with the person he was. That person was nothing. There is only Lucien. Even as he yearned for the things Molly left behind, the warmth and love that the Nein had for this thing he saw as insignificant (yearning enough to consume, to try and pull them into himself and devour them to maybe feel their warmth), he never bothered trying to understand why. He didn’t have to crawl out of the grave probably, he had Cree to help him out, but he was still the man buried once before, not too far from this grave.

But Kingsley? Kingsley Tealeaf was born in the open, surrounded by people he barely recognised, but immediately showed him care and love. He was covered, warmed, held. Even when he found words again (with help and meddling from these people, who had been there for his entire life), even when he tells them “I am not the person you wanted”, they love him anyway. They don’t leave him. They tell him about the past, and he listens. This isn’t him, this person they’re describing with so much love, but… it’s not a stranger. Not an adversary. A brother. Someone he shares some things with, someone he can pay homage to, who came before him and paved some of the way. Who, in death, gave him the gift of a stable foundation, of people he can come back home to, who can tell him about what the world used to be for this body he’s in, and who the person who came before him was, when he’s ready.

And maybe sometimes they get sad. Maybe sometimes they look at him weird, like they are grieving. They are! They are grieving a friend they lost, but they’re not trying to force him to be that person. They help him find out who he is instead. And with that security, the knowledge that he can forge a future without expectation to repeat the past, he can look back and find out who these people who came before him were. Because when he’s confident he’s his own full person, these other people aren’t a risk to his identity, just a facet of the past he gets to explore.

He called his ship the Mollymauk. The vessel that carries him into the future named after the brother who in death left him the foundation of one.

[starrynima]

I love the thought of the new avengers showing up in doomsday with bob in tow and everyone else being like

“who the fuck is that”

“bob”

“why is he here”

“he’s our friend”