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[squishy-wizards]

happy belated valentine's day to y'all in general and shadowgast enjoyers in particular. may you always have a life-long friend to platonically snuggle with

[squishy-wizards]

Do you ever think about how Caleb will live for nearly ten times longer than his actual lifespan because of the love he and Essek share?

Essek will probably name spells after his beloved partner long after he is gone. He will carry Caleb in his heart for all of his days.

One day when no one else remembers a dorky ginger wizard with a penchant for fire and cats, Essek may feel safe enough to use the name Widogast as his own.

What will this new world look like where Caleb has never tread but Essek loves him still?

[squishy-wizards]

liam o'brien may be playing orym of the air ashari in this current campaign but him immediately clocking essek and astrid in disguise proves that caleb widogast lives inside of him and puppets him like a sock

[squishy-wizards]

Congrats to shadowgast, Exandria's wildest cottagecore couple, who are apparently hanging out growing green beans and co-teaching magic seven years on despite one of them being a wanted traitor and the other having a side gig building a case against people who probably should be tried as traitors. Whomst is doing it like them. You CAN have it all. 😌

[squishy-wizards]

look man. look

essek saying "bren" out loud, claiming a position on caleb's side as the mouthpiece of his regards to astrid, did something to me. i can't tell if it opened a wound or punched me or gave me a hug. all i know is that i am feeling so many emotions right now

more under the cut because i'm about to get rambly:

"bren aldric ermendrud" is a separate character from caleb widogast. he's a young boy learning how to make magic. he's a deeply traumatized and indoctrinated teenager. he's the boy who curled up with astrid and eadwulf in a freezing tower for warmth all night.

essek never met bren. he met caleb and he's never known him as anyone else. if i'm remembering correctly, caleb never even said the name "bren" to him during the campaign, and neither did any of the nein.

essek knows caleb widogast. he knows the man who held up the object of his worst crime and then kissed him in the bowels of a ship and made a floor of infinite stars for them to walk through together. he knows the person who healed over bren's wounds—thinly, but enough. he knows the man that the boy has become.

astrid knows bren. she barely knows who caleb is. she still calls him bren after hearing him referred to as caleb repeatedly. she can't know him as the man he is, she only knows the boy. there's some of bren in caleb, but there is no caleb in bren.

essek saying "bren sends his regards" is him gauging astrid's reaction, on one level—if she freaks out, which she did, she's in opposition to caleb's cause and thus a threat. on another level, it's essek delivering a very different subtextual message from caleb: "the boy who loved you is giving you one final warning."

because essek is a threat to astrid. their last meaningful interaction was slinging spells at each other in the blooming grove. and that's funny in a "current boyfriend vs ex girlfriend exclusively fight each other" kind of way, but it's also deeply tied to caleb's recurring theme of transformation. "bren sends his regards" also means "i have healed enough to love enough for someone else to know this name and use it with my consent. and this someone else is your enemy. what does that make you think i've become?"

it also does a fantastic job of communicating subtle offscreen discussions that have happened over the years since the end of c2. we don't have the details of when or how caleb told essek his birth name, but we know that he did, and we know from all of c2 that the name bren occupies a place of immense emotional weight for caleb. it functions similarly to a deadname in terms of who uses it and for what purpose. trent exclusively calls caleb bren to wound him and place himself in a position of power. astrid calls him bren to remind both him and herself of who they used to be—same with eadwulf, though obviously he's not here.

the first time we hear essek say "bren" is on caleb's behalf and confronting one of the narrative representations of caleb's trauma. it's four words that manage to communicate "i, your enemy on a hundred levels, can speak for both the man i love and the boy who loved you, because i know him in his entirety."

astrid knows bren and essek knows caleb, but only essek can speak for both. because at some point, caleb gave bren to essek. and we know this from four words. four IMPROVISED words.

god. this moment is just so fucking good

[squishy-wizards]

Pain doesn't make people. The pain is inconsequential. It's love that saves them.

[squishy-wizards]

Endless Bells Hells

[squishy-wizards]

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

[squishy-wizards]

The Bright Queen sticking up for the Nein because one member decided to return a holy relict. This member is now living in a happy relationship with the man who stole the relict in the first place and is probably still wanted for treason by the Bright Queen. What a story.

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Kaffeepause in the study

Caleb and Essek from Critical Role C2

[squishy-wizards]

see you in the Senate guys

[squishy-wizards]

i forgot to post this last year so im scheduling it to post march 15th 2024 (it's march 17th 2023 rn)

[squishy-wizards]

big fan of essek thelyss, not the fanon interpretation, which is either "smol bean, tiny fragile elf who's a sweetheart and basically a child" or people mistakenly calling betrayal of one's home country a "war crime" and then proceeding to be flippant about it anyway, but the real Essek

pretentious motherfucker that committed treason bc he though he was smarter than everyone else

learned to float literally just to impress other rich people

canonically neutral evil

basically head spymaster of his country and master of lies but sucks shit lying to his friends

stayed bitchy even after his redemption arc

"there is nothing I would love more than to not be around you all for the remainder of this day"

a space wizard that crushed someone with telekenesis just to show off (the person was already dying)

sexy feet, nice ass, overall hottie

fell in love with a traumatized wizard of his enemy country and it was mutual despite all the betrayal

faggot

gave away state secrets to enemy wizard bc he though he was sexy

discovered time travel with his boyfriend

proceeded to say they shouldn't use time travel (bc now he's a good boy) but was willing to sacrifice everything and help if his bf wanted to use it

once confessed he had such a bad fight with his dad that his dad ran into the demon caves and never returned (essek doesn't feel bad about this at all)

young for an elf but still 120 years old, he called his bf "young man" and flexed on him about how much more evil he is

[squishy-wizards]

I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone ✨✨

[squishy-wizards]

the crescent city gang meeting the house of wind gang would solve 99% of my problems. we could get:

bryce meeting the valkyries

fangs and bangs/smut reading girls night in while the boys wreak havoc in the streets

ruhn and hunt showing cassian and azriel how to work modern technology

the house of wind gang in MODERN CLOTHES

the boys playing against each other in sunball

hunt and cassian comparing wingspans

bryce teaching nesta how to ride a motorcycle

syrinx taking a HUGE liking to cassian and azriel and hunt's just laughing because he won't leave them alone

juniper teaching gwyn ballet

the crescent city gang introducing them to modern food and they fall in love with pizza and burgers

riding in an elevator for the first time and cassian and emerie won't stop pushing all the buttons

karaoke nights in bryce's apartment where they push azriel out of his comfort zone and he destroys them all

tharion flirting with nesta and cassian getting all pouty and overprotective

ruhn, dec, and flynn bringing nesta, emerie, and gwyn down to the shooting range and teaching them how to fire a gun

bryce and cassian becoming best friends

five more people calling ithan "pup" or "kid"

ruhn convincing cassian and azriel to get their ears pierced

nesta and fury. that's it.

[squishy-wizards]

ofmd cancelled :((

[squishy-wizards]

i've noticed that some of my shadowgast pictures (both posted and not) are the drawing equivalent of an m-rated fic: there is a metaphorical and very tasteful fade-to-black, but me and the lads know what's up. anyway, enjoy