#I started listening to Vox Machina from the very beginning

[northssketchbook]

-Vax'ildan-

[railroad-migraine]

In honour of Legend of Vox Machina coming out, can we have a Percy x (fem/gender neutral) reader with the prompt "You feel like home to me." Maybe reader also lost their home (or they were from Whitestone too)

'Welcome Home'

-> Percy x GN!Reader

Notes: Angst and fluff, hurt comfort. I started writing this piece in January 2022. As of June 2023, I have now watched TLOVM. Sorry it took a while Anon, but I wanted to save your lovely request for when I eventually got into Vox Machina 💙 Can be read as platonic or romantic

~ Poet

*****

It wasn't meant to be like this.

Things had not gone to plan. What was the plan, you say? That is debatable depending on who you'd ask.

To start, Vax was unfortunately spotted skulking around the enemy's camp. That then lead to small confrontation, one that he'd be fine to handle all by himself, one where he was suspiciously poked and prodded at innocently, but Keyleth instinctually stepped in to save him - thus getting the whole party involved and quickly overwhelmed. It was manageable until the exact moment where Grog lopped off the head of one of the bandits.

To put it simply, all hell broke loose and it all went to shit.

However, in the end, when the bandits lay dead and smloldering by the campfire, it was a victory for Vox Machina.

A victory, maybe. But not quite a win.

Wounds were in need of tending to, and Pike was far too exhausted to treat everyone. Camping in the woods did not seem to be the best option, the trees offering little cover, and neither did the cliff face nearby. Frustrated, tired, hungry - voices raising at each other prickled the hairs at the back of your neck and you knew you had to step up. To be the adult.

"There is a village," you start, but no one chooses to listen, your voice just another one in the argument.

"There is a village," you repeat, a little more firm and insistant, and the others begin to withdraw, eyes falling onto you, "not far from here. I- I didn't mention it before because it doesn't belong on the map. Not anymore, at least.

"We can go there, set up camp, sit down and just shut up for a few hours," you sigh.

Most of the party look hesitant but Scanlan raises a brow and shrugs with an easy nonchalance that you envy. "If you say it's safe, I'm down."

It wasn't meant to be like this.

"It is." You hope. "I promise.

Percy watches you carefully, the fading light of the Sun behind him casting shadows on his face, sharpens his already sharp jawline even further until it cuts into his coat's collar. Something dangerous in his expression. "Lead on, then," but he doesn't sound convinced.

And so you lead your friends to the home and earth that once nurtured your childhood, the very same that you abandoned all those years ago in favour of adventure.

You were still young. Like a child, scarrless, soft, green and new to the greater world that waited for you beyond your doorstep.

It wasn't meant to be like this, you think as you fall to your knees, taking in the grim sight before you. It's hard to tell what exactly happened, whether the homes had been raided and intentionally burned down, or if it had been a simple accident and the townspeople luckily fled somewhere safe.

How long had it been since you left home? What seemed like yesterday were many, many months for your people, and anything can happen in that time apart.

But you never expected to be returning home to a graveyard.

It wasn't meant to be like this.

"I'm sorry."

You sniffle and quickly wipe your nose with the sleeve of your shirt, choking back a bitter laugh. "Percy." He pulls his mouth into a straight line, a grimace of sorts. "You can be a thorn in my side at times, but why should you be sorry?"

He shifts his weight on his feet. "Because... because it's what people might have said to me when I was in a similar state. I'm not sure if it would ever have made me feel better, but I suppose it shows some level of... respect. Condolences. Comfort, sometimes. Or so I've heard."

He pulls his coat tighter around his torso, the bite in the air unforgiving even as you mourn for your childhood home while your knees press into dirt. You risk a glance up at his face, and his forlorn expression shatters your already broken heart. He feigns a weak smile, and ducks his chin in sympathy. "It's not for everyone, I suppose."

It's a cold comfort as your grip on the ashes of your home loosens, and slips through your fingers, like sand lost in the wind.

Percy says your name, clear and grounding, and you manage to tear your gaze from what's left of your history. "Look at me." You crane your neck to look to where he looms over your hunched form. "Home is a feeling... I know that more than anybody."

Slowly, so slowly and gentle as if caught in slow motion, he crouches down to meet your height. He appraises you for a hesitant moment, then reaches out to wipe a tear that trails down your cheek, one that you had accidentally neglected. It smears across your skin smoothly, leaving a clean line in the thin layer of dust you had acquired since the battle and trek over here.

He looks at you softly, and you nearly sob from the incredible amount of emotions you feel all at once. You grip his hand like a lifeline and press it into your face so that you can lean into the comfort he's providing, and a shudder washes over you at the warmth radiating from his glove.

Percy nudges your chin up with his free hand, and you have no choice but to meet his watery eyes.

"And you feel like home to me."

In that moment, you know you feel the same for him.

*****

[posts this and RUNS]

[38sr]

How did you got into marvel?

Hmmmmm, I guess I can answer this question now that I'm no longer working at Marvel. Before I begin, I want to preface that how I got to Marvel was very much a right time, place, fit and people situation. I don't think I would have been able to work on Spider-Man: Freshmen Year if it weren't for the genuine relationships I had built in the industry way before the production even started (or really pitched to Marvel in the first place). I go into more detail about networking and building vertical and horizontal relationships in depth in this previous ask. And with that, let's begin. So this story goes way back in March 2021 when I was going into my 3rd month as a storyboard revisionist for Critical Role: Legend of Vox Machina season 2. I had been DMed by a director I seriously admired and they asked me if I would interested in working on a sci-fi adventure show that would premiere on a streaming platform. I was so stoked. I thought, "Holy cow, I love this person's work and they actually looked at my stupid doodles and want me on their production????" So I say yes, go through the interviews, get the details of the show, etc. etc. Until we get to the actual job title they wanted to give me....which was a revisionist. I was kind of bummed out that they offered a revisionist role and not a board artist. At that point, I was a revisionist for almost a year and a half and I felt like I learned everything that I could in the position. But they persuaded me that being promoted is a possibility so I took what I could get (which I learned later is not always a good thing to do for yourself). I knew that I would be on CritRole until July and then switching back to Star Trek: Lower Decks season 3 until December of that year. I had no other job prospects beyond that so I said yes. But even though I said yes, it just didn't feel....right to me. And I should have listened to my gut at that time. Fast forward to end of July 2021. I wrapped up on CritiRole and went back home to NY for my birthday before starting Lower Decks S3 in two weeks. During that time, I had an assistant director over at Marvel contact me (we had worked together a year prior on a short pilot for an action show). They asked if I would be interested working on the new X-Men animated series as a board artist and---I said no. Yeah, I said no to Marvel. It wasn't because I didn't want to work on X-Men just 'cause. The start date conflicted with my start date for Lower Decks S3 and I just really enjoy the crew and production of that show and wanted to go back for another season. They understood and wished the best of luck for me. Although I won't lie that I was thinking about it a lot afterwards 'cause they had offered a board artist position....but what was done was done. So I go back to vacay mode. Until a few days later, I receive an email from Marvel Recruiting if I would be interested in working on an upcoming animated series. At that time, I thought the recruiter was talking about X-Men when she was actually talking about a whole different production. And granted, I can't be mad at the recruiter 'cause Disney is very lock and key with their productions. So me being dumb and not realizing it could have been a different project, I said no. Again. Yes. I did not say no to Marvel once , but TWICE. So fast forward to September 2021. I'm on Lower Decks S3 as a revisionist again. When suddenly, I get a DM from a friend inquiring me about when I would be done on Lower Decks. I tell him, " Oh, my last day is in December. Why, is the show you're on looking for board artists?" And then he proceeds to tell me that he actually left the production he had been on for 3+ years as a writer and is show-running his own show at Marvel. You've probably figured out by now this person was Jeff Trammell. Widely known for his work on Craig of the Creek (and many other productions haha) and the creator/head writer of Spider-Man: Freshman Year. We had met way back in March 2020 right before quarantine had begun and kept in touch in through social media over the years. Nothing big really, tweet here and there, comment here and there when we saw each other's work and such. I was honestly baffled. I had absolutely no idea that he moved to Marvel or had his own show there. But more importantly, this was the third time Marvel reached out to me about work. So I tell my older sister and she proceeded to push me into taking an interview with them. I really have to thank her for that haha. So I go into the interview, only with plans to hear them out and learn about the project. And then one interview led to another, and then another, and then another....until it dawns upon me: Holy crap. I...I don't think I can pass on this opportunity.

I wholeheartedly believe that I would have regretted passing on Jeff's show. The people I would work with, the project itself, and they offered me a board position not revisionist. In the interviews, it genuinely felt like they wanted me as a board artist and wanted to help me learn/grow on the production. It just...it just felt so right and I wanted to do it. But I was signed onto that sci-fi adventure show that would start when Spider-Man did. And in that moment I learned a huge lesson about job hunting in animation: Don't always jump at the first thing that presents itself to you. Learn about the project, your potential crew mates and take the time to think about whether or not it's a right fit for you/will it bring a new challenge to you. And I'll be honest, I wasn't happy with the offer I got on the sci-fi show. I had gotten comfortable being a revisionist and wanted something more challenging but didn't vocalize it properly. I wanted to learn and be in an environment that facilitated growth for greener artists....and that just wasn't what I felt from the sci-fi show. So I had to do the scariest thing I've ever done in my life which was ending my contract with the sci-fi show. I was so anxious about it....hoping that I wasn't burning any bridges or coming off as a flake for leaving (even though production didn't start until Feb 2022 and it was Oct 2021 at this point in the story).  But I had to do it and I did do it.....after 3 weeks of trying to get a hold of anyone at the studio 'cause I had no clue how to prematurely end a contract hahahahahahaha....but once it was done! I signed my contract at Marvel and would be starting on Jeff's show in the new year. And that pretty much sums up how I got to Marvel. Funnily enough, at the end of my contract for Lower Decks I had learned that the person who originally scouted me for the sci-fi show actually left the show before I did (along with other artists who I admired and wanted to work with). So in a weird way, everything turned out okay. The universe is strange like that I guess. But yeah, my experience getting into Marvel was a very much a series of life lessons that I'll never forget in a good way. I'm just incredibly thankful to Jeff for taking a chance on me and allowing me to be part of a really special production with such talented artists. If not for that, I think I would still be the same board revisionist who was too scared to leave my comfort zone haha. I hope that story was enjoyable(?). I understand that reading this might make emerging artists feel like, "Damn...I have to know someone in order to get on a good show like that?" And that's not true. It really is a matter of right time place, people and fit. And that's not something you can quantify or artificially create. It just...kind of happens and you learn how to read situations to gauge whether everything is lining up to what you like/need. And you don't really learn that skill understand you're in it as a green artist and experience it. At some point Jeff was a green writer, I was a green artist, all of us in the industry started out green without any big connections. and we had to learn how do to it. So with that, I hope what you take away from this story is building those genuine relationships with people really does go a long way in various ways in the animation industry.

[thessalian]

Thess vs TLOVM Reviews

The other day, I decided I’d go looking at the reviews for Legend of Vox Machina S2. Just ‘cos. I mean, I knew I liked it, but it’s nice to see what other people think, because I won’t say it’s perfect and it’s sometimes interesting to look at what other people think works (or doesn’t work, depending).

I gleefully noted that 97% of the reviews given in the UK were 5-stars. Lots of good commentary, both from people who’d watched the campaign and those who hadn’t. I also noted, with some interest, the five or so that gave it 1- or 2-star reviews. So I thought I’d have a look and see what they were saying.

I mean, first thing I noticed was that the things were very short and badly spelled with zero grammar and couldn’t even be bothered with capitalising the beginning of sentences. I mean, okay, if that’s how you write, go ahead, but I’m going to side-eye you a little if you’re offering critique that way. And then I read them. Obviously it did not take long.

My sheer disbelief over what I saw, however, engendered a lot of thinking of the angry, “Why do people review shit when they obviously did not actually watch the damn thing?” variety. So now I’m putting my thoughts on virtual paper.

The one that came up a lot was, “No plot”. Um. Okay, there’s a two-pronged answer to that one. I mean, S1 was “Oh fuck dragon infiltration” plus “vampire and necromancer infiltration and oh yeah they murdered one character’s entire fucking family“ plus “And now we have to deal with the demon said character allowed into his soul when he was clawing for survival and revenge after barely escaping with his life”. And when we get to S2, we get, “Oh fuck dragon infiltration was the step in a larger plan!” plus “We need serious weapons to deal with this” plus “What I Will Do To Save My Sister’s Life: A Compendium” plus “When people tell you that your sword is being an asshole, maybe LISTEN” plus “Let’s touch on the pain and tragedy of everyone’s backstory for giggles” with a topping of, “Could strange bedfellows not roofie our known allies, please? I mean-- wait; BBEG is doing what?!?” All of this sounds like plot to me, both of the personal development variety and of the “completing a mission” variety. Soooooo ... not sure where that one came from but at least four people said it. Also apparently focused more on the “sex-starved gnome” (ignoring Scanlan’s character development entirely) and “the alpha male beard guy” (and never mind that Grog has never been the dominant figure in the group and spent a whole lot of S2 showing his soft side and weaknesses - ‘alpha male’ my entire ass; it doesn’t just mean ‘big strong muscular person’ even to the assholes who believe in the term).

And then there was, “They always win; the things that they need always just appear and there’s never any feeling that they might lose”. Which is the point where I start asking, “What the fuck show did you watch?” Focusing entirely on S2 for a moment, we have:

Ep 1: Vox Machina and the entire city of Emon get their collective ass handed to them by the Chroma Conclave; Vox Machina specifically barely escape with their lives twice - once from the city itself, once from the Keep into Whitestone.

Ep 2: Mighty heroes go to Vasselheim for help, basically get told to go fuck themselves, eventually manage to get a tiny shred of information to go on after having their asses handed to them on the emotional level by a couple of spiritual know-alls.

Ep 3: Vex. Fucking. Dies. And that’s leaving out nearly getting drowned by fish people.

Ep 4: Vex is revived through her brother throwing himself into an open-ended deal with a death god, and then they all more or less get their asses handed to them on one level or another; only get out because Vax took self-sacrifice to its greatest heights.

Ep 5: “I AM VERY FLAMMABLE!” That one only gets resolved when Keyleth finally lets go of her anxieties (and if we’re talking about ‘the things we need just appearing’, if she’d figured that out when it was needed, a lot of things would have been a lot easier over the last season or so).

Ep 6: Vox Machina get their asses handed to them again, this time by sphinx. Saved again by character development and someone finally realising that not all wounds are physical ... only to get their asses handed to them yet again by black dragon asshole who takes everything they managed to earn in that entire fight - ally and Vestige. Oh, yeah, and buddy-on-buddy stabbing because of fucking evil sword, and splitting the party.

Ep 7: Both halves of the team end up crippled - Team Gnome And Goliath because weapon (and the shit Grog goes through trying to shake the curse ... and it doesn’t even really work), Team Half-Elf And Know-All because half the party ends up tripping balls. The latter has the worst of it because the two guys get their asses largely kicked by Jell-O.

Ep 8: If people got what they needed exactly when they needed it, Vex would have had even the tiniest bit of support when she was soloing an archfey - one with a fucking Vestige, no less. (The twins have shit luck and worse resistance when it comes to powerful beings making passes at them, I swear.)

Ep 9: Team Gnome and Goliath have to more or less resort to sneaking, gain some allies ... kind of, but since most of them are terrified, that’s not really a lot of help. Beyond that, the only reason they don’t get their asses kicked is because they know they’re going to get their asses kicked. ...And then Grog goes anyway because fuck that, apparently.

Ep 10: What some might call ‘convenient’ breaking of curse is honestly about the only self-reflection someone with an INT of 6 and no real WIS modifier is going to get without flash cards. Then Vox Machina throws everything they have at the enemy and it still isn’t enough. Grog had to more or less kill himself to win that one, so shut up with your “It never feels like they’ll lose”.

Ep 11: Fancy trap? Nope. Get literally inside the dragon and pin it in place from the inside? Nope. Umbrasyl kicks their entire collective ass, even with Herd of Storms and three fucking Vestiges on side.

Ep 12: I found how this one ended interesting because it’s almost a callback to how they beat Brimscythe - distract by clearly being unable to fight, then hit with whatever you’ve got left. The only reason Vox Machina defeated Umbrasyl is because most of the team got their asses kicked so hard that they bowed to what they saw as the inevitable and Scanlan used Umbrasyl’s very draconic gloating (seriously - black dragons get off on people’s pain and misery) to ... let’s think how this would work because we couldn’t see it: get close to Umbrasyl while the dragon’s distracted, climb Umbrasyl’s right front leg, undo the straps tying Mythcarver to Umbrasyl without dropping Mythcarver, take up Mythcarver so it ended up more gnome-sized, get off Umbrasyl without him noticing, climb a bit of rock debris without making enough noise to wake the dead for the sheer momentum he’d need to pull that off, and then get Umbrasyl’s attention enough so that his strike would hit the weakest point on Umbrasyl - the eye, because he had no idea if Mythcarver would cut dragon hide without a lot of weight behind it and Scanlan is a fucking gnome and thus does not have that kind of weight.

I have seen the campaign - in fact, campaign 1 is the only one I’ve seen in full. I knew they were going to come out okay up to this point. But I was still on the edge of my fucking seat on these. So anyone who’s all about “They get what they need when they need it and they never lose” ... really has not been watching this show. Vox Machina has got its collective ass kicked so many times - Brimscythe, the Briarwoods on multiple occasions, Raishan, Vorugal, half the Feywild, the Herd of Storms, Umbrasyl at least three times... They win out eventually, but honestly that makes as much sense as anything else. It’s that “It’s always in the last place you look” thing - once you’ve found it, you stop looking so it’s obviously in the ‘last’ place you look. They fight until they win or everybody’s dead. If everybody died, that is the end of the damn show. The fact that they keep repeatedly fucking up until something works is actually pretty true to life. Sometimes you need to think more; sometimes you need to think less and act on instinct. They just do the thing until something works. But that’s not instantly “getting exactly what you need when you need it”. That’s trial and error.

Honestly, the main reason everybody loves Vox Machina so much is because they remind us of ... well, ourselves. We, too, are just flailing around the place until something works. Fine, we don’t have physical dragons to deal with, but our problems feel just as big and terrifying. It’s comforting to know that if you keep at it, reaching for help wherever you can find it at a price you’re willing to pay and just never giving up, you’ll survive this.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the ones who call Vox Machina “horrible role models” and complain about the “debauchery and crude behaviour”. It’s rated minimum 15 and maximum 18 for a fucking reason. Your kids should not be watching this, and if you’re offended by a few four-letter words and some carousing? You probably shouldn’t be watching it either. You were warned. There were warnings out the ass. Just because it’s animation doesn’t mean it’s for kids, doesn’t mean it’s going to be everyone shiny and happy and wholesome at the end talking about the power of friendship or how knowing is half the battle. We left that behind in the 80s, when cartoons were half morality play, half toy commercial. Respect the art of animation ... or at least please check the parental guidance on these things. This is like giving your kids Neon Genesis Evangelion to watch because that’s animation.

It would have been nice if the bad reviews were even remotely worthwhile? But this is ... this is just “people who didn’t actually watch the show but hate it when people have nice things”. It has to be. That or people with the situational awareness of a whelk.

[bougainvilea]

ok ok so my fave campaign is probably vox machina- my online handle is vax and the twins are my babies. top five chars are imogen, laudna, yasha, percy, and vax/vex in no particular order and yes the twins share a spot lmaoo

who are ur faves 👀

THIS PLAYLIST SLAPS i’m saving it tbh

aislinn’s isn’t quite so organized- i just deleted their old playlist and started a fresh one so this is theirs right now:

https://spotify.link/zgelGFGdcDb

they truly became a very lawful neutral/almost lawful evil (leaning that way) character not in personality but in actions bc they have become much rougher and sharper after everything

this is their ship playlist w their fiancée bella:

https://spotify.link/huQRKnNdcDb

bonus, the playlist for them and their toxic ex, ravenna:

https://spotify.link/RULbySUdcDb

for magic items- try to find a flametongue rapier! w dex like that and the bonuses it gives and the low rarity i bet it would be a great addition especially if she’s getting blessings for each element!!!!

OK BESTIE I'M BACK!

vox machina loves of my liiiiiiife i love them!!!! but bells hells also have suchhhh a spot in my heart!!!! my top 5 r probs grog, scanlan, vex, laudna, imogen ??? it's hard to pick haha but laura bailey simply has my heartttt and grog and scanlan are suchhh loves <3

IM SO GLAD U LIKED MY ALAIRA PLAYLIST!!!! im soooo proud of it tbh!!

OBSESSED W U HAVING WHATS MY NAME FROM DESCENDENTS IN THERE NFJAKDLHFAJ. i feel like there's some overlap between aislinn and alaira 👀 esp in the beginning of alaira's journey when she was just angry at the world and in her Rep Era. i love that closure is in there it seems rlly appropriate hahaha

i will have to look at alll of these playlists but full disclosure i'm not v active at listening to new music - i tend to listen to the same stuff on repeat and it's a struggle to integrate new stuff hahah

i will look into it!! i have some high rarity items that i want to sell and get a +3 weapon tho so ... it's ok to find a higher rarity!!! lmk if u have any other suggestions tho xx

[thechekhov]

I would like to know your opinion about this, if you had never watched/listened to the first season, would you have enjoyed the first two episodes of Vox Machina?

(Spoiler about this question regarding first two episodes: I personally hated the first two episodes because it did nothing to fully explore the characters as an impartial audience member. I stuck with it and I’m really enjoying the show now that we can spend time with the characters, but personally it was just such a weird heel turn from “here is a town we spent 3 minutes in that we care nothing about, to let’s kill a dragon cause it killed this town despite the fact it kicked our ass half and hour ago and nothing has changed for us as characters. We are not gonna train and get stronger, we are just gonna find it and kill it)

Iiiiii have been asking myself the same question, anon.

Although I gotta admit that the answer is gonna be - I don't know.

Because there is no way to go back and UNwatch VM, and erase it from my mind and start over fresh with the animated series.

I am sure you're not looking for me to convince you, so I won't, but for me personally it felt reasonable. And don't get me wrong "here's a town we don't care about" was... very much... the whole point of the episode. I daresay it was the whole plot of it - they DON'T care. They're looking for gold and that's it.

And the heel turn was, at least in part, shown and foreshadowed by Vax being kind to the two kids in the beginning, before they left. And by Vex and Vax's past with dragons. And by Pike, trying to do the right thing when everyone else didn't care.

Like, yes, it's a heel turn. But seeing the dead bodies of people you spoke to less than 24 hours ago, including kids, and not being able to HELP those people at that moment - when they failed to heal the child - that's... a pretty significant punch to the gut? At least for the two people who also lost their home to a dragon.

I agree it was clunky, but it wasn't any less clunky than most run of the mill anime where the characters are heroes just because they can be? Or maybe my standards are just REALLY low haha.

[princessamericachavez]

Hi, I’ve been wanting to get into critical role for a while, but I realized that there is so much that I just genuinely don’t know where to begin. Is there any tips how what’s the best way to get started? There is like years and years of critical role content I don’t know if I could keep up ehsjakkah

Well, lucky for you there are 3 different places where you could start.

1. You could start with the first campaign they live-streamed, especially if you are interested in Vox Machina because of the new series. It works well because you get to see the how their style changed slowly and how they went from 'home game' to 'live-stream sensation'. The first few eps might be a little weird, because they'd already been playing for a while and were basically mid-campaign, but you still have all the best arcs ahead. Also, there's a certain party member that gets increasingly annoying (to say the least) but they leave and after that you're left with the main cast and some awesome guests. There's ppl who have already made suggestions on what eps/moments to skip to avoid the worst of it. You could also start directly with the Trials of the Take arc or the Briarwood arc, imho, but the first few eps have some beats that later come into play if you want to get the whole experience (though you wouldn't miss anything major by skipping that first Kragghamer arc, in my opinion). Overall, it's an amazing campaign, especially if you're getting into this because of TLOVM.

2. You could also start with the second campaign, which has already finished. It's a good starting point for new critters because you get to see the characters start since lvl 2 and explore the way they and their relationships grow together. It's also fun because the cast was far more comfortable playing and streaming and you can see they made a lot of bolder character choices from the beginning. The Mighty Nein are a very different party to VM but their relationships are frankly amazing and it's a very fun overarching story that differs from more typical high-fantasy narrative beats. TMN are definitely far more outcasts and weirdoes than VM (at least VM at the point of the campaign where we meet them). It's fun and it's also already over so you can catch up with it calmly.

3. You could also join in on the third campaign which is currently streaming. They are 14 episodes in so far, which isn't too much. It could be a fun way to catch up and participate with the fandom's current conversation around meta, theories and ships. The story is barely starting to take shape, so it's not entirely clear what kind of narrative/campaign we'll get, but that's part of the fun, for sure! There's some throwbacks/cameos to previous campaigns, but mostly —just like campaign 2— you can watch without much context and not miss anything important. None of the campaigns are heavily inter-connected, they are all pretty much standalone stories.

As for tips for watching:

1. Don't stress yourself, it's a lot of content and there's no hurry to catch up. Even if you decide to go with c3 to catch up with the fandom, I assure you catching up is entirely possible and easier than it seems.

2. You can speed-run the episodes on YouTube at x1.5 so go a little bit faster. This is useful, especially during combat, which can sometimes take a while. I used to do this when they were planning/shopping etc and then slow down again when something I was particularly interested on happened.

3. They also come out in podcast form! So you can switch it up and just listen to some eps while you do other stuff. I used to do this, saving the 'important' plot episodes to watch on video and then listening to the ones that were more 'transitory' as the arc progressed. (Protip: if you're like me and don't have much of a poker face, beware, because I did smile like an idiot and had to muffle a few laughs while listening to VM at the gym).

4. In all honesty, if you aren't super anti-spoilers, you could always take a quick look at the critical role wiki to see what happens in each ep and maybe even skip whichever doesn't particularly interest you. Some episodes aren't as plot-productive or character-heavy as others. You can also look for those YouTube comments that compile time-stamps to just skip to the bigger or funnier moments of the episodes that otherwise don't have much going on, so that way you don't miss out on the fun but get to advance the story further. I mean... in the end, listening to all of it is a joy even with the slower eps (they tend to have some great character moments) but it's a good way to lighten the load of content.

5. Have fun! Enjoy the ride! Feel free to come here and comment on whatever you're currently on because I love to see new critters commentary about the campaigns. <3

[a-write-for-soreeyes]

IF ANYBODY IS LOOKING FOR GOOD DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS PODCASTS/SHOWS HERE ARE THE ONES THAT I ENJOY:

- Critical Role (Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein): can be watched as a video/twitch stream (live!) or listened to as a podcast! Very classic fantasy, LONG episodes (2-4 hours every episode), they’re all voice actors so it really attaches you too their characters! I’m a simp for Matthew Mercer :), there’s 2 campaigns the first one is 115 episodes and the current second campaign is 120-ish episodes that’s still going!!! A ton of content!!! - Find on, YouTube, Spotify and Twitch!

- The Adventure Zone (Balance and Amnesty): can be listened to on YouTube or listened to as a podcast on Spotify! 3 brothers (who have their own advice show) and their dad! SUPER FUNNY. Easy to follow for first time players/listeners! Emotionally investing!!! I have wept over this podcast!!!!!! There’s a comic book series that’s a novelization of the podcast and it’s super well done! I have laughed so hard I feel like I’ve formed abs listening to this! I personally enjoy their first Campaign ‘Balance’ the best and their second campaign ‘Amnesty’ is my close second! They are on their 3rd campaign and there’s a TON of episodes for each!!! - find on, YouTube and Spotify!

-Dimension 20 (Fantasy High and A Crown of Candy) can be watched on YouTube or listened to as a podcast on Spotify! [I personally prefer to watch the videos because drawings of the characters come up on screen, (even for the side characters that we rarely see!)] Brennan Lee Mulligan is my favourite DM (dungeon master) he does amazing voices and is so great at immersing you in the world him and the other players have created! Fantasy High has a HUGE mystery element that genuinely had me guessing until the end, Brennan said that he wanted to make a game that “was if John Hughes made a Dungeons and Dragons game” and it works amazingly together!! I binged Fantasy High over the summer and the chemestry the cast and characters have is so good it feels like a little family :) A Crown of Candy I’ve just started watching and it’s awesome so far! The characters are so much fun it’s like DnD CandyLand! Also the sets for both campaigns are beautiful!!!! They do a great job of pulling you into and adding life into the world the cast has created!! - find on, YouTube and Spotify!

- Dungeons and Daddies: can be listened to as a podcast on Spotify! I just finished getting caught up on this podcast! It made me LITTERALLY laugh out loud multiple times, it’s about 4 dads who get sucked into a DnD world to rescue their sons, the DM plays all of the kids and all of the characters who aren’t the dads, THE PLOT TWISTS OH MY GOD, I have cried a LOT listening to this podcast, they do this thing at the beginning of each episode where they say a dad fact about their character and they’re always so funny and it’s a great way to start off the episode! Since it’s a podcast the editor adds music and super cool sound effects to really immerse you in their world! LOTS of references and really funny real world-esque jokes, had me hooked from episode one and is still keeping me entertained!!!!!! I love how much stuff the DM lets the players “get away with” when it comes to plans and combat it’s always funny to see what kind of Wile E. Coyote plans they come up with!! - find on, Spotify!

[thedeadhandofseldon]

The Anti-Mercer Effect

On the Accessibility of D&D, Why Unprepared Casters is so Fun, and Why Haley Whipjack is possibly the greatest DM of our generation.

(Apologies to my mutuals who aren’t in this fandom for the length of this, but as you all know I have never in my life shut up about anything so… we’ll call it even for the number of posts about Destiel I see every day.

To fellow UC fans - I haven’t listened to arc 4 yet, I started drafting this in early August, and I promise I will write a nice post about how great Gus the Bard is once I get the chance to listen to more of his DMing).

Structure - Or, “This is not the finale, there will be more podding cast”

So, first of all, let’s just talk about how Unprepared Casters works. Because it’s kind of unusual! Most of the other big-name D&D podcasts favor this long, grand arcs; UC has about 10 hours of podcast per each arc. And that’s a major strength in a lot of ways: it makes it really accessible to new listeners, because you can just start with the current arc and understand what’s going on!

And by starting new arcs every six or seven episodes, they can explore lots of ways to play D&D! Classic dungeon delve arc! Heist arc! Epic heroes save the world arc! Sportsball arc! They can touch on all sorts of things!

And while I’m talking about that: Dragons in Dungeons, the first arc, makes it incredibly accessible as a show - because it lets the unfamiliar listener get a sense of what D&D actually is. (It’s about telling stories and making your friends feel heroic and laugh and cry, for the record). If I had to pick a way to introduce someone to the game without actually playing it with them, that arc would definitely be it.

And I’d be remise not to note one very important thing: Haley Whipjack and Gus the Bard are just very funny, very charismatic people. Look. Episode 0s tend to be about 50%(?) those two just talking to each other about their own podcast. It shouldn’t work. And yet it DOES, its one of my favorite parts, because Haley and Gus are just cool.

And a side note that doesn’t fit anywhere else: I throw my soul at him! I throw a scone at him - that’s it, that’s the vibe. The whole podcast alternates between laughing with your friends and brooding alone in a dark tavern corner - but the laughs never forced and the dark corner is never too dark for too long.

Whipjack the Great - Or, the DM is Also a Player!

I think Haley Whipjack is one of the greatest Dungeon Masters alive. The plots and characters! The mechanical shenanigans! The descriptions!

Actually, let’s start there: with the descriptions. (Both Haley and Gus do this really fucking well). As we know, Episode 0 of each arc sees the DM reading a description - of a small town, or the Up North, or the recent history of a great party. And Haley always strikes this tricky balance - one I think a lot of us who DM struggle with - between giving too much description and  worldbuilding, and not telling us anything at all. She describes people and events in just enough detail to imagine them, but never so much they seem static and unreal - just clear enough to envision, but with enough vagueness left to let your imagination begin to run wild.

While I’m thinking about arc 3’s party, let’s talk about a really bold move she made in that arc: letting the players have ongoing control of their history. Loser Lars! She didn’t try to spell out every detail of this high-level party’s history, or restrict their past to only what she decided to allow - she gave them the broad outlines, and let them embellish it. And that made for a much more alive story than any attempt to create it by herself would have - but I think it takes a lot of courage to let your players have that agency. Most Dungeon Masters (myself included) tend to struggle with being control freaks.

And the plots! Yeah, arc one is built of classic tropes - but she actually uses them, she doesn’t get caught up in subverting everything or laughing at the cliches. And it’s fun! In arc 3, there really isn’t a straight line for the players to follow, either - which makes the game much more interesting and much trickier to run. And her NPCs are fantastic and I will talk about them in the next section.

Above all, though, I think what is really impressive is how Haley balances mechanics, and rules as written, with the narrative and rule of cool - and puts both rules and story in the service of playing a fun game. And the secret to that? She’s the DM, but the DM is a player, and the DM is clearly having fun. Hope Lovejoy mechanically shouldn’t get that spellslot back, but she does, and it’s fun. The changeling merchant in Thymore doesn’t really make some Grand Artistic Narrative better, but wow is it fun. And she never tries to force it one way or the other - the story might be more dramatic if Annie didn’t manage to banish the demon from the vault, but it’s a lot cooler and a lot more fun for the players if Annie gets to be a badass instead - and the rules and the dice say that Annie managed it.

Settings feel like places, NPCs feel like people, and the narrative plot feels like a real villainous plot.

Anyway. I could go on about the various ways in which Whipjack is awesome for quite a while - she’s right, first place in D&D is when your friends laugh and super first place is when they cry - but I’m going to stop here and just. Make another post about it some other time. For now, for the record I hold her opinions about the game in higher esteem than I do several official sourcebooks; that is all.

Characters - Or, Bombyx Mori Is Not an Asshole, And That Matters

Okay, I said I would talk about characters! And I will!

Just a general place to start: the party! All of the first three parties are interesting to me, because they all care about each other. Not even necessarily in a Found Family Trope sort of way, though often that too. But they generally aren’t assholes to each other. The players create characters that actually work together, that are interesting; even when there’s internal divisions like SK-73 v. Sir Mr. Person, they aren’t just unpleasant and antagonistic all the time. Listening to the podcast, we’re “with” these people for a couple hours - and it isn’t unpleasant. That matters a lot. (To take a counter-example: I love Critical Role, but the episode when Vox Machina pranked Scanlan after he died and was resurrected wasn’t fun to listen to, it was just uncomfortable and angering and vaguely cruel).

All of the PCs are amazing, and the players in each arc did a great job. If you disagree with me about that, well, you have the right to be incorrect and I am sorry for your loss. Annie Wintersummer, for one example: tragic and sad and I want to give her a hug, but also Fuck Yeah Wintersummer, and also her familiar Charles the Owl is the cutest and funniest and I love him. And we understand what’s going on with Annie, she isn’t some infinite pool of hidden depths because this arc is 7 episodes and we don’t have time for that, but she also has enough complexity to be interesting. Same with Fey Moss: yeah, a lot of her is a silly pun about fame that carries into how she behaves, but a lot of how she behaves is also down to some good classic half-elven angst about parenthood and wanting to be known and seen and important. (Side note: if your half-elf character doesn’t have angst, well, that’s impressive and also I don’t think I believe you).

There are multiple lesbian cat-people in a 4-person party and they both have requited romantic interests who aren’t each other. This is the future liberals want and I am glad for it.

Sir Mister Person, the human fighter! Thavius, the edge lord! Even when a character is “simple,” they’re interesting, because of how they’re played as people and not action-figures. And that matters a lot.

In the same way: the NPCs. There really aren’t a lot of them! And some of them come from Patreon submissions, so uh good work gang, you’re part of the awesomeness and I’m proud of you! The point being, the NPCs work because enough of them are interesting to matter. It’s not just a servant who opens Count Michael’s door, it’s a character with a name (Oleandra!) and a personality and history. They’re interesting. Penny Lovejoy didn’t need to be interesting, the merchant outside the Laughing Mausoleum didn’t need to be interesting, but they ARE! And Haley and Gus EXCEL at making the NPCs matter, not just to the story but to us as viewers. I agree with Sir Mister Person, actually, I would die for the princesses of the kingdom. I actually care about Gem Lovejoy of all people - that wouldn’t happen in an ordinary campaign! That’s the thing that makes Unprepared Casters spectacular - and, frankly, it’s especially impressive because D&D does not tend to be good at making a lot of interesting compared to a lot of other sorts of stories.

And, just as an exemplar of all this: Bombyx Mori. Immortal, reincarnating(?), and described as the incarnation of the player’s ADHD. I expected to hate Bombyx, because as the mom friend both in and out of my friend-group’s campaigns, the chaos-causer is always exhausting to me. And yeah, Bombyx causes problems on purpose! But! She is not an asshole.

And that’s important. Bombyx goes and sits with the queen and comforts her. Bombyx gives Annie emotional support. Bombyx isn’t just a vehicle to jerk around the DM and other players; Bombyx really is a character we can care about. To compare with another case - in the first couple episodes of The Adventure Zone, the PCs are just dicks. Funny, but dicks. Bombyx holds out an arm “covered in larva” to shake with a count, and robs him of magical items, but she also cares about her friends and other people! She uses a powerful magical gem to save her fertilizer guy from death! Yeah, Bombyx is ridiculous, but she’s not just an asshole the party has to keep around for plot reasons; you can see why her party would keep her around. And one layer of meta up, she’s the perfect example of how to make a chaotic character like that while still being fun for everyone you’re playing with, which is often not the case. And I love her.

The Anti-Mercer Effect - Or, “I think we proved it can be fun, you can have a good time with your friends. And it doesn’t have to be scary, you can just work with what you know”

The Mercer Effect basically constitutes this: Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master of Critical Role, is incredible (as are all of his players). They’re all professional story-tellers in a way, remember, and so Critical Role treats D&D like a narrative art-form, and it’s inspiring. Seeing that on Critical Role sets impossible standards - and people go into their own home games imagining that their campaigns will be like Critical Role, and the burden of that expectation tends to fall disproportionately on the DM. And the end result, I think, of the Mercer Effect is that we get discouraged or intimidated, because our game isn’t “as good as” theirs. (And I should note - Matt certainly doesn’t want that to be our reaction).

So the Anti-Mercer Effect is two things: it’s D&D treated like a game, and it’s inspiring but not intimidating. And Unprepared Casters manages both of those really freaking well. Because they play it like a game! A UC arc looks just like a good campaign in anyone’s home game. They have the vibes of 20-somethings and college students playing D&D for fun because that’s who they are (as a 20-something college student who plays a lot of D&D, watching it felt like watching my friends play an especially good campaign). They’re trying to tell a good story, sure, and they always do. But first and foremost, they’re trying to have fun, and it shows, and I love the UC cast for it.

And that’s the other half of it: it’s inspiring! It’s approachable; you can see that Haley and Gus put plenty of work into preparing the game but it also doesn’t make you feel like you need hundreds of pages of worldbuilding to run a game. Sometimes a cleric makes Haley cry and she gives them back a spell-slot from their deity! That’s fantastic! It’s just inspiring - listening to this over the summer, when my last campaign had fallen apart under the strain of graduation, is why I decided to plan and run my new one!

That quote from Haley Whipjack that I used as the title for this section? That’s the whole core of this idea, and really, I think, the core of the podcast.

The Mercer Effect is when you go “that’s really cool, I could never do that.” But Unprepared Casters makes you look at D&D and go “wow, that looks really fun. I bet I can do that!” And I love the show for it.

And I bet a lot of you do too.

[joyfulsongbird]

A Curious Beginning

the pre-canon Campaign 1 Feeblemind!Percy AU I made out of pure self indulgence, inspired by @rainydaydecaf 's Feeblemind!Essek fics that I ADORE and you all should go read!!

here's the AO3 link if that's where you prefer to read!

thank you, comments and reblogs are always appreciated <3

***

The bar is relatively quiet and subdued after the day, in the aftermath of an attack on a small village people tend to stay inside their homes; spend time with families after the reminder that they could be snatched from this life in an instant. Leaves more drinks and seats for everybody else, so it’s a welcome side effect of the attack. The members of Vox Machina are slightly scattered, some with more energy than others.

Scanlan and Grog are up at the bar, chatting with the bartender. Pike is sitting several feet away, swinging her feet from her stool and watching her friends silently. Keyleth is sitting quietly right by Vex and Vax, who both find themselves in conversation with one of the few townsfolk who is in this bar at this time of night.

“We can’t leave until we find some more supplies,” Vax is saying to the man, a simple butcher who was a good enough conversationalist. Vex is half listening, the other half of her mind nearly falling asleep from the long day. She hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, spending most of it on watch and the other half tossing and turning for little reason whatsoever. She’s used to spending nights sleeping on the forest floor, but for some reason last night she just couldn’t get her mind to relax. “All our casters are tapped of spells for the time being and the rest of us managed to lose many of our weapons in the battle. We won’t be able to rest if we can’t defend ourselves.”

“The old prison might have a few blades lying around, maybe a crossbow or two.” the butcher says, a finger twisting a curl in his long, brown beard. “I know it was one of the first places to get attacked by those beasts and is still empty, all the guards were forced to leave without taking any of the valuables.” “And what of the prisoners?” Vax asks.

“Let free.” the butcher replies. “Gonna be difficult as hell to round ‘em all back up, but the prisons half collapsed. Roof caved in. You won’t need to worry about dealing with the prisoners, I’m sure there’s something useful in the rubble and in the parts that are still standing upright.” “Let’s do that,” Keyleth pipes up. “You lost your daggers, and Vex still has arrows but her bow got stolen.” “Don’t remind me.” Vex sighs, leaning her chin against the palm of her hand. It was ridiculous, they’re supposed to be the best fighters in all of Tal’dorei and they got caught off guard in the woods. First, by bandits, and then immediately after, a monster attack on the nearest village. It feels like the universe is playing tricks on them, taunting them, giving them victories but at what cost? “But Kiki’s right, we should scavenge what we can before shelling out the money to buy new weapons.”

“Always the frugal one, sister.” Vax says before standing and clapping his hands to get their friends' attention. “We need to have a quick talk, huddle up.”

It’s discussed quickly, many of them are eager to either get back to the bar or to bed. Not everybody needs to go to the prison, afterall, it’s not necessary that all of the crowd into a building that may or may not be unstable and cave in on all of them at any moment. But it’s decided that both the twins will go; Vax for obvious reasons, they wouldn’t be able to open a single locked door or safe without him. Vex will tag along as well.

“I want to make sure you all get the correct things, I don’t want you going without me and finding out you decided to only bring back daggers and whatever whiskey they have stored away.”

And finally, Keyleth volunteers despite not having any spells left, she does have a few cantrips that could be of use. Pike, Scanlan, and Grog all decide to stay behind, the latter two out of desire to remain at the bar, and the first because she has no healing left and would be in more danger than use. And also to make sure the others don’t get too rowdy, just in case. They don’t expect much out of an old prison used just as a holding place for criminals before trial. All of them doubt many of the prisoners from a rinky dink, dusty town like this would carry weapons more than bare minimum in quality. Better to go and come up empty handed rather than not go at all.

They set out into the night, given directions by the butcher to the outskirts of town, away from what little civilization there is out here. If you can even call a town as small as this one a civilization. The streets are quiet and all three half elves blend in with the shadows, though Keyleth stands out with her red hair and green clothing, but there is no imminent danger. The walk is quiet, with few words exchanged in the companionable silence. They reach the edge of the town and start walking through a wide field, the land quite flat and vast until it reaches the edge of a forest. They can see only very little, and the only indication of where they should be headed is the rise of a dark shadow in the vague shape of something that used to be a building.

Keyleth holds out her palm and a small ball of golden white light appears, casting a dim light around 40 feet around them. They can see, now, that the field is covered in old, dying grass and it is nice to know where they are stepping so as not to fall into a pit or step on a snake. They grow closer to the building, and with Keyleth’s light they can now make out the various features of the prison itself. At one point, it would’ve been a one story building, made of gray brick that still looks somewhat like it’s going to crumble. Now, one side of the building has collapsed, leaving a gaping hole that one could easily step through. It looks precarious, as if one flick could send the whole thing tumbling down.

“Well,” Vex says, her voice loud enough that it must travel across this open plain and back into the town. “Looks as if you don’t need to pick any locks.”

Vax chuckles and starts towards the building, Keyleth and Vex following close in his wake. They approach the gaping hole in the wall, inspecting the brick and the foundation for a moment before climbing through. Vax goes first, pulling one leg and then another over what is left of the wall between the inside and outside. One they’re all inside, they stand silent for a few moments. Keyleth’s light seems to grow brighter in this enclosed space, illuminating all of their faces and the rubble leftover from the attack earlier in the day. The place is a mess, but not so much of a mess that they can’t pick their way through this building until they find what appears to be the sheriff’s office. This door is locked, however, but Vax opens it easily enough.

“Rusty ass locks are no match against me.” he says with a grin before swinging the door open and letting them all inside. There isn’t much to find in this room, and in the drawers of the desk they find in the center of the office. Everything is either near bare or not of any use to them. Some writing utensils, papers, a smoking pipe, and other mundane things but that’s about it. Vex is about to throw in the towel when Keyleth lets out a yelp, not one of fear but of excitement. The twins turn their heads in her direction and watch as she drags a crate of some sort from under the floorboards.

“I heard a creaking and thought it sounded sort of hollow under the floor.” She explains as she strains to pull out the crate, Vax rushes towards her and helps place the wood box in the center of the office. It seems like it’s heavier than it looks, judging by how much effort both Vax and Keyleth have to put into carrying it. They pry it open and all three crowd over to get a good look inside, Keyleth holding her light closer to get a better look.

Vex grins. Inside is an array of items, but most importantly, weapons. Maybe not the best weapons around but it’s something. Vax immediately reaches in and pulls out one of the daggers, holding in his palm, feeling the weight. He nods to himself.

“They’ll do for now.” He does the same with another dagger that sits in the box, deeming this one suitable as well. There are no bows, sadly, though Vex had suspected that not many outlaws would be carrying around good quality bows. There is a shortsword and while it’s not her preferred weapon, it’s usable. She’d rather have a weapon she’s somewhat proficient in by her side rather than no weapon at all. She’ll go buy a new bow in the morning, though it will be grudgingly. She’d rather just hunt down those bandits but by now, they’ll be long gone and her bow will be on the black market. The thought makes her fume, even now, but she lets it go with a soft sigh.

There aren’t just weapons inside the box, some clothes are there as well. A few tunics, a couple pairs of boots, a long blue coat, a hat or two, even a pair of glasses. They leave all of it behind, for they have no need for it and perhaps the escaped prisoners will come back for their things one day. Vax is putting away his new daggers and Vex is turning back towards the door when Keyleth’s voice makes them both pause.

“Guys,” her voice comes out soft and confused, with a touch of fear. “What is this thing?”

Vex looks back towards her, her pale face is illuminated by her own light from below, the shadows creating a contrast on her pale skin. She looks almost deathly in this light, like her skeleton is starting to show on her outsides. And with how wide her eyes are, how blown the pupils are in the dim light, it is even more believable. Vex’s eyes are drawn away from Keyleth’s face when she lifts up some mechanism with a few careful fingers. It’s a metal thing, large but small enough to fit in one’s hands. The shape of it is… odd. Not like anything she’s ever seen before. If it was turned upright, it might look a little like a crossbow but even then, that’s pushing it. It’s nothing like anything Vex has ever seen, and judging by her brother’s face and Keyleth’s reaction, neither have they.

Vax reaches forward and gently takes it from her, Keyleth lets it go easily. He gingerly holds it, turning it over in his palm once, twice, and switches it to his other hand. “I- I don’t know. I’ve never…” Vex snatches from him, inspecting it in her own hands. The metal is cool to the touch, heavy but not so heavy that it strains against her wrists as she hands it in one hand. It’s obviously hand crafted, she can see where the metal was shaped, where the leather on the handle (or what she assumes is the handle) was hand sewn, how each embellishment was created with care. She has no idea what it is supposed to be, but no matter what, she’s intrigued and impressed by the craftsmanship.

“We should keep it.” she announces. “Whatever it is, I bet it’ll fetch a pretty penny. Never seen anything like it.”

“I don’t know, Vex.” Keyleth worries her bottom lip, looking apprehensive. “It’s just… I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“It’ll be fine, darling,” she assures her, tucking the thing safely into her belt. “It’ll be out of our hands in no time.”

They leave it at that, though Keyleth looks as if she wants to keep pushing the topic. There’s nothing else of value to bring back in this particular room, and they replace the top of the crate. They don’t put it back under the floor, though, choosing to leave it out in the open. There’s not much of a point of putting it away if somebody’s going to be scavenging through it anyways. They leave the sheriffs office with the door unlocked, the place is already in ruins there really isn’t a point in them trying to cover their tracks.

They walk down the narrow hallway, it’s relatively short too, and they don’t come across a door until the far end of it. It’s a small prison after all, and based on the size of it, probably not able to hold more than a dozen people and even then that might be crowded. The door at the end of the hallway is unlocked, and slightly ajar. Vax pushes it open, the light from Keyleth’s palm revealing a descending stairwell. Vex lets Keyleth pass first behind Vax before following in the back. The stairs are cold stone, damp and muddy and mossy in some patches. It’s disgusting, obviously a very old room, and smells of mildew and piss. Vex had forgotten what untended jails are like, not even a drop of care has gone into the creation of this place. She can see the walls are bare, the same stone as the floor. It’s like a stone box, closed in from every side, stifling and dark. It makes her pity those who end up in here, she knows that many of those who end up in these small town jails are just people whose crimes are petty theft or wrong place, wrong time. It is empty now, the cells separated by grimy metal bars completely bare.

“There’s not going to be anything down here.” Vex calls after her brother who is going to each cell and searching inside. “We might as well leave.”

“C’mon, help me look, Stubby, don’t you want to be thorough?”

“Oh, yes, of course, there’s going to be daggers just sitting around. It smells awful, Vax, let’s just-”

“Guys.”

Keyleth’s voice makes Vex stop her ramble, snapping her mouth shut at the tone she’s taking. A fake calm, gentle but gentle in the way you put on when trying to sooth an animal.

When no other addition comes, Vex moves towards where her friend stands. “What is it?”

All Keyleth does is lift the hand that isn’t alight and point towards the stairs. What they hadn’t noticed when descending them was that they are somewhat hollow, built in a strange way so that there is a hole between the stairs and the wall. Just large enough for a person to fit in, maybe stand if they were short enough or if they bent their neck. Now, when Keyleth is turned towards the hole, the light from her fist shining towards it, they can make out a huddled figure inside. Neither Keyleth nor Vex moves, they are frozen in place. Vex cannot make out who it is, what they are, or even get a good look at their figure, but the one thing she can figure out is that they are afraid. She can see their shaking form from here. The way their whole body moves in tremors. It makes her want to rush forward, to lay a hand on them and comfort in any way she can. But she cannot bring herself to move.

“Vax.” she says, under her breath. “Stay where you are.”

“Vex-”

“Just- stay.” she says, trying to command as much as she can through her tone. Her feet before she can even think about whether this figure could be dangerous, her strides take her almost five feet away from them before she even stops to think. She pauses, grips the handle of her new shortsword for a moment. She thinks about drawing it before deciding, ultimately, that there is something going on here with more nuance than just a monster in disguise or a criminal trying to fool her. She sinks down to sit on her ankles, motioning for Keyleth to come closer. She does, staying a few paces behind Vex but holds out the light to get a better look.

The figure flinches away, turning their face towards the wall. They’re obviously humanoid, if not just human, and curled on themself. She can’t seem to get a good look and scoots just a little closer. She knows that she’s being rash but there’s a pull in her stomach. Something that doesn’t feel right. Something that is making her reach forward and place two careful fingers on the edge of the hole in the wall.

“Hello.” her voice comes out soft, breathy. The person does not answer. If anything, they’ve only shrunken further away since Keyleth and Vex got closer. “Kiki, could you back away a bit?”

“I- alright. Vex… be careful.” she says, as the light fades slightly. Vex keeps her eyes on the subject before her, and the farther that Keyleth backs away, the more relaxed they seem to become. It’s not much, the shoulders are still bunched, the body still shakes, but at least now Vex can make out that it’s a human. A man. His face turns slightly her way and she can see, even now that the shoulders are stronger away from the light, that his eyes are wide, and bright blue.

“Hello.” she repeats. He looks at her, meets her gaze, and in this moment she knows. This man is not a danger. His gaze snaps from her face down to her waist where the shortsword hangs, recognition floods his eyes and he turns away again. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll get rid of it.”

She removes it from her belt and tosses it aside, “see? Gone.”

This, also, seems to sooth him. She’s heard of afflictions like this before. This man looks to be younger than her, but not so young as to be acting like a terrified child. The sort of magical affliction that removes all logic, all knowledge, all language even, the cruelest act you can put on a person. The spell that takes away every ounce of their dignity. She cannot recall the name nor the cure but at least she knows what’s wrong with this man. And that a cure exists. The realization on her part comes early enough she knows to remove all weapons and things that could scare him. She hasn’t met somebody afflicted by this before but she knows how easily spooked they are. Treat them like you’d treat a scared child, a healer she knew had once said. She removes the strange metal weapon from her belt as well, tossing it aside with the sword. The man’s eyes follow this closely, eyebrows furrowed close together as his gaze tracks the contraption. His eyes stay locked on it, gaze more focused than she has seen him thus far. She has no other weapons now, and holds her hands towards him, palms up.

“Can you speak?” she asks quietly, already knowing the answer, but hoping anyway.

There is no reply.

He is still shaking, still terrified, and the quiet is starting to get to her. She wants to leave but cannot leave this man behind, not in this state. He reminds her too much of (however ridiculous it is) Trinket, and of herself, afraid and alone.

“Vex, what’s going on?” her brother’s voice breaks through the silence and she shushes him when the poor man flinches.

“It’s alright.” she soothes. His gaze, as soon as he relaxes again, finds the metal contraption on the floor. It’s the only thing that, when he focuses on it, makes his eyes seem alive, bright. It makes him seem present rather than stuck in a reality that does not make sense, one that can’t comprehend words other than the tone that goes along with them. There’s desire in those eyes, but desire that is held back by fear.

“Is that yours?” she asks, even though she knows he cannot answer. He can’t even understand the words she says, let alone formulate an answer. But she goes to the contraption anyway, scooping it up and placing it before him. Close enough that he doesn’t have to move any closer to her in order to pick it up. He grabs it tentatively, as if he, too, isn’t quite sure what it is but recognizes it nonetheless. He holds it carefully, but in a way that clearly says he has done this before. He looks at it with admiration, almost with love. How strange it is to see a grown man cradling some mechanical object like a plaything, like a comfort toy. He relaxes much more, now that he has the weapon in his possession. Which should worry her, but to be honest, she is quite sure she could single handedly take him out in this state, even if he was armed and she was weaponless.

Now that he is facing her, she can get a better look at him. His face and hair and body is covered in dirt and grime, as if he’s been rolled in mud and dust and then was thrown down in this dungeon. But even under the grime she can see that he is young, maybe a couple years above his teen years but still. His eyes are that striking blue. Hair matted and so dirty she can’t make out the color or texture. It’s like he’s been down here forever. His clothes are the same, once they might’ve been of good quality but now are ripped and dirty and in dire need of a wash. Or even better, just being burned and replaced. Something fierce rises in her throat, something instinctual that tells her that he has been wronged. She doesn’t even know his name, but there are very few people in the world who deserve to have every means of communication and reality stripped from them. Very few people deserve to have their mind taken away and then in addition to that, locked in the dark and the cold. Who knows the last time he saw the sun.

That settles it for her.

“Darling,” she keeps her voice soft, knowing that the only way he can judge people is based on the sound of their voice. His head lifts a little, face turning slightly towards her so at least she knows he’s listening. She holds out a hand, gesturing towards her, hoping that he’ll get the idea. “Come here. We can go. We can get you out. Please.” “Vex, what the hell are you doing?”

She ignores her brother's words, pursing her lips as the man in front of her makes a whimpering sound at the harsh sound of Vax’s voice.

“It’s alright.” she coos. She wishes she had Scanlan here to cast Friends or something but all she can do is just try to get him out of here based purely on trust. It’s apparent that in this state, and probably out of it as well, he is not quick to lay his trust out in the open. It takes a long time, a long time in which she has to continually shut up her brother and sometimes even Keyleth, though they both mean well. She coaxes him out of the hole in the wall, spending minutes on minutes getting him more comfortable with her being close. She doesn’t know why she is putting this much effort in, if anything, it should be Keyleth who is pushing so hard to save some random civilian in danger. But she will not let herself leave him behind.

She beams at him when he stands, nearly falling on unsteady feet, but regains his balance after a moment. “Good job, darling. Now, up the stairs.”

She guides him to the front of the stairwell, lightly brushing a hand on his back as a way of getting him there. Barely a touch, barely even a brush, but he still tries to twist away with a whimper in his throat. She hates having to cause distress like that, but it’s the only way she can get him to go the right way. Otherwise, he’d just wander away or sit back down on the floor. She pauses at the first step, wondering how she’s supposed to help him up. But (thank the gods) his muscle memory still seems to be intact and he climbs the stairs easily enough, though stumbling here and there.

From behind her, she hears her brother's voice, now soft. “Stubby-”

“I don’t want to hear it, brother.” she whispers back. They all reach the top of the stairs and Vex grins at the man. “Well done, darling!” Something in his eyes brightens at the delight in her voice and he leans in a little towards her, his lips quirking up slightly in what looks like it could be a smile. He’s still cradling the weapon tightly to his chest, squeezing it like a lifeline. As soon as she turns away from him, though, she’s faced with Vax’s face, serious and stone hard.

“Keyleth, watch… him, please. Make sure he doesn’t run off.” and she grabs Vax’s arm and walks him down the hall, back into the sheriff's office. She closes the door behind her a little harder than necessary, already knowing what’s going to come out of his mouth.

“Vex, you know this is a bad idea-”

“I know what you’re going to say-” They both cut off at the same time, sending each other equally heated glares. Vax takes the initiative and keeps going, she listens as she crosses her arms over her chest. They’re both stubborn as hell, and in this she has already decided that she’s going to win.

“We can’t just go around picking up strays, Stubby.” he says, voice lowered and even despite the obvious frustration showing on his face. “That guy out there could be dangerous. Who knows how he ended up in this place!” “He was left behind, Vax. In a crumbling building. It’s a miracle he didn’t get trapped down there, or we came a day or two later and he was dead from dehydration. How can you want to leave him behind, when he’s- when he’s so vulnerable.” She can’t explain why she’s so passionate about this, but there is not a world in which she can imagine herself leaving behind this man in that prison. She is not known for being the morally strong one of their group but her mind will not let it go. Seeing him curled up like that, so weak, so vulnerable, so open to an attack… it’s not alright.

“I’m just saying maybe there’s a reason he was left behind, alright?” Vax says, running a hand through his hair.

“Somebody hurt him.” She snaps. “Somebody did this to him and I would hope that if the same was done for me, you’d hope a stranger would help me.” “What is up with you?” He asks, his voice strangled and frustrated. “Why are you deciding that now is the time you’ll try to be like Kiki?”

“You say it like it’s a bad thing.” “You know what I mean.” She groans, “I’m not leaving him behind, Vax. Believe it or not, I do have a heart.” “I’m gonna need a little more proof before I believe that.” she punches him in the shoulder (hard enough to hurt a bit, but not too hard. She still loves her brother) before opening the door back to the hallway. She lets Vax through before turning back to look at the crate. She remembers all the clothes that are sitting on the bottom of the crate, and then remembers how dirty their new addition’s clothes are. Probably for the best that he gets a new shirt or maybe more.

She leaves the door open and makes her way back down the hallway, where it is no longer light and Keyleth stands awkwardly. Their new companion shifts from foot to foot, she can see his head twisting around in the dark, as if searching for something or someone. As she approaches, his head turns towards the sound of her footsteps. She can see his eyes even in the dark and sees how they relax just slightly at the sight of her. He starts walking, stopping a few feet in front of her and letting her close the distance until they’re nearly shoulder to shoulder. It’s odd that he’s so much taller than she is. It feels as if it shouldn’t be like that, when he’s so childlike and hunched over. But if he were to stand to his full height with proper posture and all, he’d be a head taller than her, maybe more.

“I think he’s imprinted on you, Vex.” Vax quips from a few feet away. She ignores him pointedly.

“He got scared of the light,” Keyleth explains. “So I put it out. I think now that you’re back I could start it back up though, he feels… safer with you.” “Yeah,” Vex nods to Keyleth and she opens her palm to make Light again. “I think we should get him some clothes, then leave.” She doesn’t turn to look at Vax, she knows her brother well and she knows exactly how much of an apprehensive, disbelieving expression he will have on his face. She leads them down the hallway and back into the sheriff's office where she immediately goes back to the crate, removes the top, and starts pawing through it. The man (should she call him a boy? He’s barely a man) leans over and watches her move things around, looking for clothing that might fit him. He’s thin, leaner than Vax even and most shirts look like they’d be large on him. As she’s doing this, he leans forward farther and grabs a bunch of fabric in his fist, pulling up what looks like a large blue coat. His expression brightens significantly, as he holds the garment out in front of him with one of his hands.

“Is that yours, darling?” Vex asks, and though he cannot possibly understand, he holds out the coat towards her, as if asking her to help him put it on. In his eagerness to pull it on, he even allows her to take the weapon from him, replacing it at her belt for the time being. She takes the coat from him and holds it out in front of her with both hands, it’s navy blue, made of good material if a little dirty, with buttons that are still shiny and pockets that still appear to be laden with small trinkets and the sort. In the last moment before helping him into it, she has the foresight to check the neckline for any indication of where it might have come from, as many garments had stamps from where they were made. But there were no stamps or tags of any kind, just one word, neatly hand stitched into the collar.

Percival.

“Huh.” she says aloud. She looks up into the boy’s blue eyes. “Percival?” Even if he does not know his name, it is obvious that this sparks at least a feeling of some sort. He sways on the spot, his eyes getting that brightness again. He makes a sound, low in his throat, not a whimper like he had before, but one that sounds closer to being content.

“We’ll call you that then.” she decides as she repeats it in her mind. Percival. Percival. Turns it over in her head, remembering how it felt on her tongue. Percival. She tries to seek out any familiarity in it, tries to remember if they’ve met before to give herself a reason for caring for him so much in his vulnerability when she could’ve easily left him to fend for himself. She comes up with nothing. Now, with his coat on, he looks much more regal, more like a grown person rather than a child. It sounds ridiculous to say since she does not know him but he looks more like himself. He looks happier with that coat on, even twists side to side to watch the bottom of the coat flap around.

Before putting on the coat, she chooses a few other garments out of the crate. A white (or what was once white) button up shirt. A pair of pants. And upon realizing he’s barefoot, she grabs boots and socks from the bottom of the crate and tucks them under her arm along with the other clothing. He’s still watching her, staying close. Maybe Vax is right and he has imprinted on her in some way, the same way a duckling imprints on the first animal that it sees after being hatched. She might’ve been the first person to show him kindness after being reduced to this mindspace. She can’t bear the thought of leaving him even more now. Perhaps she’s become a bit irrationally attached the same way he has to her, but she’ll let it go. He’ll be healed and out of this spell in no time, and then she’ll be able to let it go.

It takes a ridiculous amount of time to get the socks and boots onto Percival, but she does it, with not much help from him at all. She’ll wait on the other clothes, on the most likely false hope that Pike will be able to magically fix him as soon as they get back into town.

Before they can head out though, Percival reaches into the crate again. After rifling through it for a few moments, he pulls out the one pair of glasses that had sat at the bottom. It’s a damn miracle they didn’t shatter.

“Yours, too?” she asks, taking them from him and reaching up to place them on his nose. Again, this makes him look that much more right. Judging from the brightness that enters his expression again, this is good. Perhaps he’d been half blind without them.

“Alright, let’s go then.” Keyleth and Vax are suspiciously quiet as they leave the prison building, coming away with a lot more than they had anticipated when heading over here. She knows that Vax is angry with her and Keyleth… well, Keyleth cares about Vax. And about Vex too. Vex does not blame her for feeling conflicted when two of her family disagree like this, even if they are siblings who tend to disagree on the daily. Percival stays close, now trusting her seemingly implicitly. He is allowing her to touch him, gently of course, but she is able to hold the sleeve of his jacket and lead him through the field. He had allowed her to put on his boots, even let her lay a hand on his forearm for a moment. Out of the prison, he is more at ease, Keyleth’s light doesn’t seem to bother him so much. It’s a relief to see that he has stopped shaking so much out of fear, only does he tremble when there’s an unexpected sound or anybody besides Vex gets too close.

They make it back to the town and Percival moves closer to her, choosing between two evils: close contact with Vex or having to be without comfort in the new environment of the town. He flinches at every passerby (even though there are very few at this time of night), jumps at every sound, even sometimes his own footsteps. So he presses himself to her side, holding his weapon with one hand and bunching up the fabric of her jacket with his other. She allows it, trying to soothe as best as she knows how as they make their way back to the tavern.

They reach the front of the tavern, it looks nearly empty now but vex still worries that it’ll be too much for Percival to go in. She can’t exactly leave him outside by himself though, and she doesn’t trust Vax to recount the story of finding him truthfully. So he comes in with them. He takes these steps with relative ease and follows her through the door without hesitation. He shrinks back in on himself, though, when as soon as they enter Grog and Scanlan shoot up from their seats upon recognizing the three half elves. They stop moving towards them, however, when they see the fourth person who arrives with them when they had left the tavern with three.

Surprisingly, Pike is the first to reach them, as if sensing something is off. Percival steps back, looking back towards the door. Vex holds onto his sleeve, keeping him from running when he quite obviously wants to.

“Sorry, dear, you’ve got to stay.” She turns back to Pike. “Long story, but I need you to fix him. I don’t know what it is exactly that’s wrong but I’d hoped you might.” Pike nods, expression resolute. “Let’s go to a back room, come on.”

Vex manages to coax Percival along, following Pike out of the main tavern and into a washroom of some sort. There are candles and things keeping the place bright enough to see, the glow golden and making Pike’s white hair look more yellow. In this enclosed space, Percival seems far more nervous, more like he was when they first found him. Hands shaking, head twisting side to side to try and look at all of his surroundings at once. Vex pats his hand gently, doing her best to help while knowing that the only way to help him, truly, is to heal this spell.

Vex recconts everything wrong with Percival to Pike, who listens in her usual comfortable silence. How he cannot speak, can’t understand a thing they say, his fear, his childlike demeanor. She nods along and after just a few minutes of speaking, she interrupts Vex.

“Feeblemind.” As soon as Pike says it, the connection makes sense. It was just at the back of her mind, an itch she couldn’t understand. She hasn’t interacted with Feeblemind before but from what she has heard, it’s exactly as painful and terrible as she’s heard.

“I don’t have the magic to fix it.” Vex’s shoulders sag at the words, what are they supposed to do? “I’m sure other healers do, we can ask around but I can’t fix him.” “What do we do?” Vex asks, rubbing her face with both of hands. “He can’t exactly take care of himself right now. It’s Feeblemind. The whole point of it is that it takes away all capabilities. I just… gods-” She feels a soft nudge on her shoulder and looks away to see Percival looking at her, blue eyes wide and… there’s concern there, isn’t there? Real, genuine concern. She bites the inside of her cheek, a little perturbed by that fact. That’s the nature of this spell, isn’t it? It makes you less trustworthy but it also has made him put so much trust in her, the person looking out for him, the one who has shown him kindness. He’s making assumptions based on the first thing people do. Vax, and his sharp words. Keyleth, and her magic. Vex, and her gentleness around him. She swallows thickly, the knowledge heavy.

“I’m alright, dear, just tired.” The look on her face must suffice as he leans away and continues watching Pike warily.

“I know,” Pike says. “There’s nothing we can do tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll ask about a healer. But for now, all we can do is watch him and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. Maybe give him a bath.” Vex turns to look at Percival, at his grime covered face, at his wide eyes, and the openness on his face when he looks at her. What has she gotten them into?

“Alright.” she sighs. “Let’s go break the news to Vax, hm?”

***

Vax, surprisingly, hadn’t been surprised. He’d simply looked at her knowingly, took a gulp from Scanlan’s drink and audibly sighed. “I’m going to bed.”

When he was gone, Scanlan laughed. “First, Trinket. Now, a full grown man. What’s next? You’re working your way up rather quickly.” She had simply rolled her eyes and not replied, ordered a hot bath in her room, and left before Percival had a panic attack right out in the front room. It hadn’t occurred to her how raucous all of Vox Machina could be when they were in one room, people trying to talk at the same time, laughter as loud as a shout. It was not the correct environment for the Feebleminded, so they left after just a few minutes. Up the stairs, winding through the hallway until they reach her room on the second floor. She opens the door and lets him inside, follows quickly while shutting and locking the door. She drops the clothes she’d brought for him on the floor in a messy pile, and looks back towards Percival. He’s gazing around, taking in the room in its entirety. Quite neat, since she hasn’t yet stayed there for a night. The desk empty except for an empty notebook and a pen. The bed made and the pillows fluffed. There’s a tub in the middle of the room, filled with steaming water.

“You’re covered in dirt.” she says, as a way of explanation even though he couldn’t understand. She feels better giving an explanation, despite it not even counting. She’s torn between two sides of her mind. One side, concerned that he can’t consent to anything in this state, that his mind is that of a toddlers. The other side can’t bear the idea of him sitting and sleeping covered in dirt and mud and what looks like it might be blood. In the end, the latter side wins out and she goes about trying to do this while touching him as little as possible. But she finds that as more time goes on, the more willing he is to let her come near him. His allowances had started as just the occasional brush with fabric between them, and now, not much later in the night, he is letting her slide his jacket off his shoulders, unbutton his shirt. She pushes the thought of “why?” away. This trust isn’t real, and it shouldn’t unnerve her.

She gets it done as soon as possible, stripping him to his bottom layers but leaving on any undergarments. Better to leave some sense of dignity for when he wakes from this state. She does not know the specifics of the spell but she does remember the subject tends to keep most of their memories. He’ll remember exactly how trusting he was, how willing he was, how afraid he was. He’ll remember it all in excruciating detail. She guides him to step into the tub, crouching by the edge as he lowers himself down into the steaming water.

She snatches a rag and a bar of soap from where they were left on the floor beside the tub, holds it in front of herself for a moment. Shs shakes her head, if he couldn’t put on boots by himself, he sure as hell can’t wash himself.

Moving as quick as she can without startling Percival, she removes her coat and rolls her sleeves up past her elbows. He’s looking at her again, and this time, she avoids his eyes. Why? She isn’t quite sure but everything about this feels wrong. She knows that if she were in his position, she would want somebody to clean her but how is she to know if he would want the same. It doesn’t feel right. She pushes away the thought once again, apologizing out loud as she wets the washcloth and lathers the bar of soap against it.

He just watches.

She gathers so many small details about him from this interaction. As she cleans his skin, she finds that under the grime, he is porcelain pale. Paler than her and Vax, the kind of pale that shines under light and seems to glow in the dark. But on that pale skin are a multitude of scars. At first, she writes the scars off as just accidents, maybe from childhood, maybe from the hazard of whatever his occupation is. But the more she finds, the less she is able to write them off. When she reaches his chest, she swallows, averting her eyes. Covered in scars. Same on his back. She washes them clean, trying to ignore their presence but she finds herself tracking them. Keeping track of where they are clustered on his body. Most of the more severe ones reside on his chest and back. But she finds many others scattered around. She tries not to dwell too much.

As she’s finishing with his body, she carefully scoops water in her hands and pours it over his head, trying to avoid his face. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to mind when water trickles down his face, though Vex makes sure to take his glasses. She continues with that process, finding that his hair is much more coated in mud and dirt than what she had originally thought. It’s coated, matted, definitely intentionally so. Like somebody, perhaps Percival himself, had covered the original color in an attempt to disguise himself. As she works to clean off the dried mud, she finds the strangest thing. The hair underneath isn’t brown as she’d originally thought, nor is it blonde, or even red, it’s white. Shock white. Sea shell white. She frowns as the color starts to appear more clearly, the mud finally coming loose. White.

The more she interacts with Percival, the more strange he seems. The hair. The scars. The odd weapon. The more she’s becoming worried, for him and for herself. But he cannot provide an explanation, so she doesn’t ask. Simply continues cleaning him up until the water is cloudy but his hair is white as a lily and his body is scrubbed clean.

She helps him, dripping, out of the tub and wraps a towel around his shoulders. He’s still looking at her, silent and eager. She guides him over to the fireplace, sits him down in front of the fire to dry off before she helps him dress. She’s tired, and just wants this to be over. Just wants to stop feeling guilty for making this man trust him in his most vulnerable state.

She sits on the bed, watching him quietly. It’s been a long day and she just wants to rest but can’t until he falls asleep. She has to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere. Then again, the door is locked and he definitely doesn’t know how locks work. If she leaves him be, she’s sure he’ll fall asleep soon enough but she should watch him, right? She’s feeling more and more like a babysitter. That’s really what she is at this point, isn’t it. He trusts no one else. He looks to her like a guardian. She sighs, letting her eyes flutter closed. She should stay awake. She should stay-

When she opens her eyes, the sun is streaming through the window. The early morning sun rays cast a gray-yellow light over her entire room. She shoots to her feet, blinking her eyes rapidly as everything starts to come into focus. Dammit. She knew she shouldn’t have let herself fall asleep, he could have burned himself on the fire, he could’ve figured out the lock, could’ve opened the window, could’ve-

Her eyes come into focus and see the figure lying in front of the dying embers of the fire, exactly where she left him last night. He’s curled up in front of the fireplace, his weapon loosely held in his hand, head tucked against his elbow. She lets out a sigh of relief. What a babysitter she’d be, if she lost the person she’s supposed to be watching on the first night. Hopefully, last night. She goes over to Percival and gently prods his bare shoulder where the towel has slipped away. Guilt pangs in her chest, he’s still undressed. It’s a good thing it isn’t cold at night this time of year or he might’ve gotten sick.

“Percival.” she murmurs. “Come on, it’s time to get you healed.”

His eyes flutter open, confusion first and then are overtaken by relief at the sight of her. She smiles back at him, happy that he’s happy. He looks better today, cleaner for one, and stronger too. Less afraid. But maybe that’s just because he’s alone and it’s quiet.

“Let’s get you dressed.” she says, helping him up. She grabs the clothing off the floor and shakes it to get rid of what dirt and dust settled on it overnight. First, she struggles to help him into the pants, but gets it done as fast as possible. She’s never really done this before and finds it a tad ridiculous to struggle so but moves on from her embarrassment quickly. It’s not his fault he can’t do it himself. Next, the shirt. This is easier. The buttons take awhile to finesse, her fingers are clumsier when trying to do them on somebody else but soon he’s all dressed, coat on his shoulders, glasses on his nose.

“Very refined.” she says with a smile.

He just beams back at her, his hair even whiter in the daylight. She wants more than anything for him to be out of this Feeblemind. She leads him out the door and through the hall, winding her way downstairs until she gets to the main part of the tavern where she’s surprised to find many of her party already there. All they’re missing is Vax. Percival stays close to her side, especially now that there are more than just the other members of Vox Machina in the bar area. But she was right, this morning he has calmed slightly. Whereas last night he would’ve broken down completely from all of the different senses being used, and the amount of people around, he is now just shakily holding onto her arm and staying immeasurably close.

“Your little friend cleans up nice.” Grog says, looking at them both. Percival shrinks back from his huge form, understandably so. Grog is not exactly palatable to those who are especially fearful.

“I talked to the bartender,” Pike pipes up from a stool at the bar. “He says that the healer further in town could take care of him.” “Wonderful.” Vex sighs. “We’ll head there right away. I think it’s better if not all of us go, but I don’t want to go by myself just in case anything goes wrong, familiar faces to him maybe. Keyleth? Pike?”

Both women agree to go, and with a promise of a breakfast for Vex and Percival when they get back, they’re about ready to go.

“Oh, before I leave,” Vex says. “Where’s my brother? He’s usually up by now.” “He’s sulking.” Grog answers. “Something about you, I’m pretty sure. He’s quiet and broody when he’s upset with you.” “Yes, I know.” she grimaces, before walking with Keyleth, Pike, and Percival out of the tavern and out onto the bustling street. Percival huddles against her shoulder, even closer than he was yesterday. Pike has the directions to the healer’s home, she says according to the bartender it’s close enough to walk. Which should be a relief, but Percival significantly slows their pace. He stumbles at the cobblestones, flinches at every passerby, struggles against Vex’s grip when people get too close. She wishes she didn’t have to hold him so close, it feels like a violation of some sort, but if she didn’t, it’s apparent he would break away from them, go hide in the dark the way he was in the prison. He seeks out solace in Vex and Vex alone, everything seems to cause him to flinch, to whimper, to cry out. It pains her to put anyone through this, but finally, they reach the healer’s home. It looks suspiciously like a normal building, made of red brick and with a large oak wood door. Pike saunters up to that door, raising her little hand to knock on the door. There’s a long pause, before the door swings open and they’re faced by an old, elvish woman wearing a nightgown.

“What in hells are you doing here?” The woman's voice is scratchy, her hair gray and frizzy. Knowing how slowly elves age, she must be hundreds of years old in order to appear as if could keel over at any moment. Her nightgown also appears to be old, worn and ripping in places. Vex suddenly has a little less faith that this healer will be able to cure Percival.

“Uh- we’re here for some help.” Pike’s voice is soft, as it usually is. “Our friend is in need of some assistance.”

The woman narrows her eyes at Keyleth, Vex, and Percival, before pointing a long finger at Percival. He shrinks even farther back from them, he’s by far the tallest person in this group, counting the elf woman, but he doesn’t seem like it when he’s bunching up his shoulders, trying to appear as small as possible.

“That one.” she says.

“Yes.” Vex says. “It’s Feeblemind. Can you fix him?”

The woman sniffs, then gestures for them to follow as she turns around and walks on unsteady feet back into the house. For some reason Vex thought a healer, no matter how old, would appear a little less… sickly. But they all follow her inside anyway. The home is small, even more so from the inside, every surface is cluttered and the walls are covered top to bottom in shelves. Some of which are filled with books, but many of which are just laden with trinkets and baubles and other small colorful things. The whole place smells like chamomile, herbs waft from every direction, the combination of smells seems like it should be overwhelming in the sheer quantity of it but it’s actually a quite calming mixture. It seems to put them all at ease; Percival’s shoulders relax slightly, Keyleth clutches her staff a little less tightly. They follow the elf through her home and into the farthest room down the hall, a kitchenette of sorts. It’s very small, containing only a small dining table that could seat two, maybe three people, a stove with a kettle on it, and several shelves, some of which have silverware and dishes in them. The woman is already pouring them tea.

“Uh- what’s your name, miss?” Keyleth asks.

“Lyth.” the woman answers, passing out little teacups and saucers, sloshing some of the tea in the process. The water was obviously not hot enough, so in all of their hands, they’re holding lukewarm cups of weak tea that no one wants to drink. Keyleth takes a few polite sips before placing it back on the table.

“So,” Vex says after a few beats of silence. “You can fix Percival?”

“What? Oh yes.” she waves a hand absently, as if it’s not important at all at this moment.

“Well, then do it.” she puts her little teacup down on the table a little harder than necessary, splashing warm water over her hand and onto the saucer. “That’s why we came here, we don’t need tea.” Lyth grumbles under her breath, Vex only catches a few words but she can piece together to be something about “no manners” and “young people”. She chooses to ignore it. “Yes, yes, stand please.”

Vex begins to stand up before Lyth pushes her back down into her chair roughly by the shoulders, “not you, him!” Mouth agape, Vex twists around to look at Percival, who is shrinking away with the woman, especially after seeing her put hands on Vex and the sound of her voice. “It’s okay, dear, just let her.”

He meets her eyes and she nods, this moment between them where he isn’t paying attention gives Lyth enough time to place her hands on his chest. Percival jerks roughly, trying to pull away as hard as he can, but Lyth is surprisingly strong, managing to keep him in place as the spell starts to work its way through his body. Golden light emits from her hands, spreading through him starting with his chest and then going up to his neck, to his arms, to the very tips of his fingers. For half a second, he is completely aglow before the spell dissipates in a puff of golden mist.

There is silence, silence, silence, before Lyth steps away, and says, “who’s paying me then?”

“Uh, we will. Come on, Kiki.” Pike takes Keyleth's hand and follows Lyth out of the room. The sentiment is clear, Vex had been the one that had been trusted, she had been the one he had clung to, and she is probably the one he would want to speak to first out of his Feebleminded state.

“Hello.” she says, turning her body completely towards him. He’s still got his head ducked, chest rising and falling rather quickly. As she waits, she lets her gaze wander from where his face will appear to the rest of him. His body language has immediately changed. His fist is clenched under the table. His shoulders aren’t bunched but neither are they relaxed, they’re stiff, held tight to give the illusion of relaxation. He keeps his feet flat on the floor, whereas the Feebleminded Percival would often tuck his feet under himself, or hook his feet behind the chair legs. He’s… different. She takes all of this in, gaze searching him and then returning to his face, in just a moment or two. And it only takes that long for him to lift his face and look at her.

He licks his lips, and she waits in anticipation. “Hello.”

She can’t help but let a smile bleed through. His voice is… what is she to say, it’s his voice. It matches everything about him in a way she cannot explain. It just does.

She holds out a hand. “I’m Vex’ahlia.”

He finally meets her eyes. Those blue eyes… they’re different now. They’re colder. Far, far removed from the trusting openness she has experienced for the past twelve hours. Gods, has it only been twelve hours? It felt like days. She couldn’t have expected him to be the same, of course, Feeblemind reduces you to something that is not yourself, you are not under control of yourself nor your emotions. He is not the same. But it still causes her a little pain to immediately see that he no longer trusts her, even if she expected it. She will just have to try to earn it again.

“Percival.” he takes her hand, she notes right away that his palms are rough, calloused. Another strange detail. “You can call me Percy.” “Percy.” she repeats. “It’s nice to meet you, Percy.”

He nods. “It’s good to meet you, too.”

It’s a good thing, she thinks, to act as if this is their first meeting. Because in the end, the Percival she had interacted with was not the real one. Just a watered down, cursed version.

They both open their mouths to speak at the same time, Vex snaps hers shut, gesturing for him to continue.

“I- uh- thank you.” he says, voice quiet and hesitant. As if he doesn’t know how to do this. “For all that you did while I was… you were good to me and I thank you. I don’t think I can properly express my gratitude.”

“You’re very welcome.” she says with a nod. “It was my pleasure.”

He gives a half smile to her, his expression guarded and removed. It’d be a lie if she said that it doesn’t sadden her that he’s suddenly so far away but she lets it go, lets the sadness drift away in a moment. It does not and should not matter what she is feeling, when he was under such a spell.

“Who did that to you?” she asks finally, the question that’s been bouncing around in her mind since finding him in that prison. “How did you find yourself in such a situation?”

Percy hums under his breath, eyes wandering as he seems to be thinking. “It was my own fault, I was careless. And I won’t allow it to happen again. That’s all that really needs to be said.”

Vex would beg to differ but she already suspects this is an argument which she cannot win, that she shouldn’t even try to engage for there would be no point to it. He has already been so exposed to her, physically and emotionally, he deserves this autonomy and dignity. He can close himself off to her, to everyone, she doesn’t care.

“Thank you for keeping my gun.” Percy's voice cuts through her thoughts, she follows his hand to where it’s resting on his waist. Right over the metal contraption. He touches it with the same comfort he had when under the Feeblemind, she had been right, it’s obviously important to him. Something he touches when he’s unsure of where to put his hands. Something he holds for comfort. That all transfers over from Percival to Percy.

“Ah, that’s what it’s called, then.” she says, eyeing it from her seat. “I wondered… what is it exactly?”

He taps the handle of the gun absently. “It’s- difficult to explain. Think of it like a bow and arrow, but more… mechanical. Compact. You’ll get a demonstration someday, I’m sure.”

That doesn’t help her but she nods along, and eventually she rises, “we should head back to the tavern.”

“I-” he hesitates to stand, she can understand why. He was never meant to come into town, he was never meant to meet Vox Machina. Them and him could’ve easily missed each other in every other reality, but now their lives have collided in a way that has entangled them together and Vex is not sure how to disentangle it. Or if she even wants to.

“Come have a drink with us, darling.” she finds herself saying. “Just one. Then you can get us out of your hair.”

This decision of his, this agreement to one (just one!) drink is probably the one that damned him. One drink became many, one night became hundreds. It’s not his fault. The threads of their lives became so tangled and nobody ever seemed to try and untie the knots. They just let it happen. He never really realizes just how much he has let her become a part of him until she’s gone, and then returns. Until he goes, and then returns. Eventually, he comes clean. Eventually, he tells them exactly which evil woman gave him those scars, took away his mind, and locked him in a jail. Eventually, he learns to trust.

He tries to forget about the circumstances of their meeting. It’s difficult, as the other members of their party are often so insistent about teasing him. But he brushes it off, too embarrassed of how he acted, of how he presented himself with so little care. After a while, they have new memories to associate with him, new things to tease him about, that they seem to let go the way he was when they met. He doesn’t speak of it. Neither does Vex. at least not until it is years later. He’s sitting on a bed, on their bed, and it’s almost as if he comes to. As if he is waking up from a very, very long sleep.

“Vex?” “Hm, yes, dear?” she replies from where she is leaning over the desk that’s against the wall of their room in Whitestone. In his home. She’s scribbling at papers, sorting out some last minute numbers before bed. She’s dressed in a nightgown, her hair loose and falling over her shoulders. She’s beautiful.

“Do you remember when we met?” she stops writing, freezing in place. They never really speak of it. Only when Ripley is a part of the conversation do they even think of it, and they never talk about Ripley either. It’s an unspoken rule. Percy doesn’t like to hear about it, to think about it, to speak of it.

“Of course.” she says finally, putting down her pen.

“And the way I was?” “Yes. You were Feebleminded.”

“And you helped me.” She doesn’t say anything for a long time, just leans back in her chair and looks at him. “I did.” “Why did you? Help me, I mean.”

This, too, takes a longer than normal amount of time to reply to. Vex is quick, silver tongued, and prides herself on being able to outwit anyone she comes up against. It says more than a lot that she is thinking about her answer with so much care, taking the time to arrange her words in her mind before speaking them aloud.

“It wasn't out of pity.” she finally says, slowly.

“Wonderful start, dear.” he says with a laugh.

“Oh, shush, I’m thinking.

“I was… I don’t know, truly, Percy. I think I was lonely. And something in me couldn’t let you go.” she pulls one of her knees up to her chest, leaning her cheek against it as she stares off into the distance as she speaks. “I thought about it then and I’ve thought about it ever since. My brother bothered me about it and I never came up with a sufficient answer. I saw you, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t turn my back on you.” “It wasn’t love at first sight, then?” “Percival, I’m trying to be sweet and you’re making this very difficult.” she stands and goes to him, places her hand on either side of his face. She smiles down at him, and in this moment, as he thinks about what she had said, he understands. Never, in any life, can he imagine leaving her to the wolves, turning his back on her. Even if his memory was wiped clean, if they did not know each other, he wants to believe he’d do the same. Now, years later, he still remembers what it was like being under the Feeblemind. Fear. Lights everywhere. Voices ten times louder than they’d usually be. It was a sensory assault from every direction, and he was so scared. Everything hurt and all he wanted was to crawl into the dark even though that scared him too. But there, in the center of it all, was Vex. A calm in the storm. The only reason he crawled out of the dark. The only reason he removed his mask.

“You’ve got a strange look.” Vex comments, her thumbs brush under his eyes softly.

“I’m only thinking,” he says. “I love you, Vex.”

She smiles, a warm smile that reaches all the way to her eyes. “I know. And I love you, Percy.”

She leans down to place a kiss on his forehead. And he thinks he has never been more awake before this moment. Maybe he has been half awake for as long as he can remember. Maybe his mind has still been addled by the Feeblemind until right now. He is whole, awake, alive, in love. It’s more than he had ever hoped for.

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Vox Machina/Critical Role Rambles

You all may have noticed, I've been going a little crazy with the Vox Machina posts. What can I say? I started watching The Legend of Vox Machina earlier this week and I kind of got hooked.

Now, I didn't know much about this show before going into it. Really the only thing I knew about it was that it was an "adaptation (I guess?)" from the first campaign Critical Role did. And I knew about Critical Role very loosely, knew it was a D&D tabletop stream done by voice actors but beyond that, I'd never really checked them out before. I had wanted to but then I kept on hearing things like "they're overrated" "or they've become over-serialized and too commercial" and whatever. But then I realized, you know, I haven't watched a D&D stream since the Natural Oneders from TFS at the Table and maybe it was time to get into another D&D campaign. And since I have so little experience with streamed D&D campaigns, how am I going to be able to tell "who's too commercial" or "who's overrated"? And really, these kind of comments will typically always pop up whenever something becomes successful -- we humans are jealous creatures and sometimes we let our envy get the better of us, so maybe I shouldn't listen to judgements on something I've never seen before. Now if anyone thinks they're overrated or too commercial, I'm not dissing you in any way, not saying you're not entitled to your opinion or anything or that you're jealous or envious of them, I'm sure you have your reasons. But just in my experience when people use phrases like overrated or overserialized and stuff like that, I've learned to take a grain of salt with that.

But anyway, whilst watching the show, I also started watching the campaign 1 on Youtube while iIm at work. Mainly because while watching the show, I found out Vax is voiced by Liam O'Brien, whom I have a HUGE vocal crush on (ever since listneing to him in GunxSword) and if you're telling me that there's a stream that goes on for hundreds of episodes with him in it and I can listen to his voice for hundreds of hours, then yes, I'M ALL IN. Listening to Liam O'Brien is like constantly being in the throes of vocal passion and pleasure to me and I'm not sorry. I kind of forgot how quickly sometimes the day can go by while at work and you're just listening to a D&D campaign. It's been fun and its fun to go back to the show after watching a few installments of the campaigns and finally understanding some of the inside jokes they put in the show.

Now the actual show, The Legend of Vox Machina, particularly in the beginning feels pretty clunky. You just don't know that much about the characters when you're first introduced to them and then them having these character moments a few episodes in, you just don't know how to feel because you don't really understand the characters that well. But perhaps this was done on purpose as a call out to the beginnings of Critical Role. I mean, when Critical Role first starts, we're essentially all dropped into a campaign that they've already been running for 2 1/2 years prior so there is a bit of a period when you're still trying to get used to and understand the characters, there's all these inside jokes and character dynamics you don't have context for). Plus D&D in general is also not super great when it comes to story telling in general, it definitely has its own flavor of story telling but you know, when you're bound to some dice rolls, and characters, their decisions, and where they go are dictated by several people, the story can go places that don't always make sense and don't always have a semblance of a cohesive story. So in that respect, you can definitely see the D&D flaws within the show. BUT give it a few more episodes, and you'll find you don't really care, you've fallen in love with the characters at this point so you kind of forgive early show.

Obviously my favorite ship is Vaxleth (Vax and Keylethe). They're both my favorite characters and they are so awesome and so awkward all at the same time, I mean come on, I have a weak spot in my heart for rogues and awkward characters, there was no way in hell I was not going to ship them. Now, whenever I listen to music, I keep imagining them in my head, might create a playlist in Spotify for them. And I seriously CANNOT wait until I get further in the campaign to see Liam and Marisha roleplaying this dynamic I saw in the show. I don't necessarily like how at the end of the show, Vax just says "I'm going to walk away now" after Keylethe rejected him especially since I've seen snippets of what Liam actually says in the campaign stream and it is just the most romantic, intimate, understanding, wonderful speech to being rejected that I've ever heard, like Liam O'Brien is just a total romantic sap and I AM HERE FOR IT. It's like why would you not use that speech! It is such an integral soft vulnerable part of Vax. But at the end of the day, maybe they'll use it at a different point in time (also, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about because I don't have context but whatever). And I get it, the "walk away" line is probably a call back to the campaign stream where everytime Vax talks to Keylethe, at the end, Liam will say, "and I walk away".

I also love Vax and Gilmore too. I think those two together are really fun. And who knows? Maybe with a little more confidence from Keylethe, we could end up with an Ot3 on our hands.

But anyway, I just had thoughts that I needed to get out and here they are. Thanks for reading and putting up with my fangasms.

[dent-de-leon]

Hiii, Leo, I've been interested in getting into CritRole for a while now, but the sheer amount of episodes strikes terror into my very soul. I know it's mentioned that you can start with Campaign 3 as your first entry, but I also hear that older characters show up, so do you agree? Would the Mighty Nein be a better jumping on point instead? Or would it be best to start at the very beginning with Vox Machina and go from there, as my completionist instincts urge me? Any insight you might have is very much appreciated!

Hi! I think if you want the easiest, quickest way to start watching CR, you should be good with jumping right into Campaign 3! They just streamed the first episode last Thursday, and they'll have the VOD for it up on youtube tomorrow!

As for the older characters: there are some members of the C3 party so far that we've seen before, one from a few standalone oneshot games, and three from a short mini series that streamed over the summer (about 8 episodes, I think?) But you can definitely watch C3 without prior knowledge of those characters, and I think a lot of the CR's content lately has actually been geared toward helping new listeners get onboard. Matt Mercer recently released a video that briefly goes through the like creation and gods lore of the world for anyone interested, and lately they've been updating a timeline of when exactly all the campaigns occur. Little things like that.

I think the first episode of C3 was lots of fun and there are definitely some new characters I adore, but I'm going to be honest. I personally just?? Really enjoyed episode 1 of Campaign 2 being my real intro to crit role? There's just something about all the characters and the way they all come together that instantly grabbed me. I feel like a lot happens in C3's first stream, wheres C2 begins with--just a colorful group of outsiders and travelers that all come together to!! Go see a mysterious and magical circus!! I don't know, there was just something so fun and whimsical about all of it. And maybe it's just the nostalgia, but I just instantly fell for all of those characters and their relationships with each other.

Again, there's lots of cool stuff that the beginning of C3 does too, and there's lots characters and dynamics that I'm also already getting attached to. But I realize watching all of C2 is a big time commitment, so I'll say...give watching episode one of both C2 and C3 a try. If you really love one over the other, then you can stick with following that series. C2 has the benefit of already being finished and you can always start it whenever you want and go at your own pace, whereas C3 is very good for beginners because there's only 1 episode out and you can just keep up with it week by week.

I totally get that it can be intimating to start CR when there's so much content, which is why I really got invested in it when CR2 first streamed, because starting with a new campaign is usually a really easy entry point for new fans. I just happened to get really lucky in that the Mighty Nein ended up being my favorite (so far) of all the parties.

And if you're curious about Vox Machina, I actually have some good news! If you don't want to go through the whole first campaign right now--on February 4th, the kickstarter animated series for it is coming out! You can find a few really cool teasers for it if you look it up, and I'm especially in love with the opening sequence. I just have a lot of love for animation and I think a lot of heart went into this project, so if you're looking for an entry point for VM in particular and are okay with waiting a bit longer, I think you can definitely just jump in and watch the animated series when it streams! Hope this helps!

[hellebore-petall]

I can't believe it's over.

Don't get me wrong, I am extremely excited for Critical Role Campaign 3, and have been for months, but last night when the finale ended it just hit me hard.

I have poured more time into these characters than I have any other. The length of Critical Role means that it's been over 500 hours of watching the party grow and change and overcome challenges and face defeat. Most shows you don't get to see that much screen time of the same characters. It's natural to get more strongly attached to this story than any other I've seen.

But also, Critical Role has been a huge coping mechanism for the past couple years. I started Campaign 2 not long before my grandfather passed away. I caught up this past September, a year later, on the reveal that Molly was gone from his grave. Soon after that, my area plunged into strict restrictions, and I was cut off from my friends. My mental health plummeted. Those close friends cut ties with me. Critical Role was there every week, giving me a reason to get up on Friday mornings and have some semblance of a schedule, even when my classes and practicum put me on leave for my mental health. I don't need that weekly reminder anymore, my practicum (which I have now returned to) keeps me busy and I am starting a new full-time job in a few weeks, but it's been nice to have something to look forward to.

The characters themselves have been extremely important to me as well. There was a time I related strongly to Caleb Widogast, feeling the guilt for the person I was in the past and the way I hurt people, brainwashed by forces who told me it was right. Jester Lavorre and her loneliness, relying on her imagination to pass the time. Fjord's crisis of faith as he severed ties with Uk'otoa and built a healthier faith with the Wildmother. Caduceus' reminder that faith does not have to be toxic and harmful. Seeing Beau and Yasha in one of the first fictional canon wlw relationships I have seen since realizing I am queer. Yasha's sense of loss over her wife. Beau not living up to her parents expectations. Veth doesn't have anything I specifically related to, but her humor and compassion helped make the group what it was. They have given me a source outside myself to process immensely difficult emotions and remind myself that my past and my hurts don't mean I am undeserving of love and compassion.

Of course, Critical Role is no longer my only show of this caliber. TAZ was the first DnD show I got into and I still loyally listen. Unprepared Casters launched at a time that could have been my darkest, but gave me something new to focus on and pull me towards the light. Dimension 20 is incredibly therapeutic (hello Kristen Applebees) and I have so much content to catch up on, I'm not even finished Fantasy High yet! And of course, I still have so much of Vox Machina to watch in the gap until Campaign 3 begins. I'm only at the Whitestone arc. My heart is not empty, but it is still an emotional goodbye.

I'm really happy with how the campaign ended with all of them. They all got endings that demonstrated their character growth. None of them are alone and hurting the way they were at the start. They have people surrounding them, and they visit one another often, even if they've gone their seperate ways. They are bringing change to the world, leaving it better than they found it. I am so incredibly proud of them and agree this is the best way to end off.

But I'm also going to miss them so much. I'll miss seeing them every week. Of course, there will be one shots, and the Mighty Nein Origins comics, and maybe someday they'll even animate a show like they are doing with Vox Machina. They are still very present in my heart and mind, and will always hold special places there. But this is still goodbye and I have never been good at goodbyes.

So goodbye, Mighty Nein. And CR cast, I can't wait to see what awesome shit you pull out of your sleeves next!

[wordstrings]

hi! bit of a weird question, if you don't mind me asking - if I wanted to watch just a couple episodes of Vox Machina to, say, get a bit of an idea of the relationship between Percy and the twins early in the campaign and what Percy's workshop in Greyskull Keep looks like, would you happen to have any episode suggestions? -Chock

Oooh this is a fun question, and I love the implications of you asking it! It’s been a couple years since I started getting into CR (I listen to the podcast version, as it’s easier for me to consume the long, long episodes that way) so my memories are fuzzy about what happens when. I went reading through some episode recaps to refresh myself.

I’m going to list a bunch here that have meaningful bits, but then I’ll highlight a subset in case you really can only afford the time for a select few. (This got LONG but I tried to be specific about the parts that matter!)

Episode 18, "Trial of the Take: Part 1" – I feel like this is the first time we really get to see Percy’s character take the stage, beyond firearm support in various battles. The party is split, with Vex and Vax separated, so Percy only gets to interact with Vex here (along with Grog, Scanlan, and two delightful guest characters, one of which is played by Felicia Day). Most of the focus is on making progress on the mission, though Percy does have an entertaining battle moment in his skivvies.

Episode 23, “The Rematch” – The first half of this episode is just a big championship boxing match between Grog and an NPC, but the second half has Percy hunting for ammunition supplies, and Matt goes full ham into playing the most ridiculous, comedic side character in support of that. It’s fantastic. By the end of the episode, the party is back at Greyskull Keep, with Percy heading down to his shop to get to work.

Episode 24, “The Feast” – This opens with Percy in his workshop, where he talks to the party about his backstory that’s about to come into play with the current story arc. Percy does a lot of tinkering in this episode. He and Vax do some identity-disguising. (It’s either at the end of this episode or the beginning of the next in which Vax, in a moment of panic and fluster, calls Lord and Lady Briarwood “both very attractive” right to their faces. Bi disaster icon.)

Episode 25, “Crimson Diplomacy” – Intense battle with the baddies of Percy’s backstory. Vax doesn’t fare well. Percy has an iconic one-liner that sets up his next major arc. (This is also the kickoff for the Percy-centered storyline that flows through the next ten episodes or so. With so much focus on him, there are a lot of scattered interactions he has with the twins alongside the rest of the party, hence me listing almost every episode of this arc.)

Episode 27, “The Path to Whitestone” – Percy’s workshop is the site of an encounter in the first part of the episode. Just before the mid-episode break, there’s a conversation between Percy and the party where they pledge support to him. The second half of the episode is mostly adventure action.

Episode 29, “Whispers” – The first half of the episode has Vax, Percy, and Scanlan out on a mission of their own. (This is the birth of Vox Machina’s most persistently confounding opponent: doors.) The second half has an encounter significant to Percy’s arc and the whole party’s relationship with him, particularly Vax, Vex, and Keyleth.

Episode 30, “Stoke the Flames” – Some character- and relationship-building conversations are had between Percy and the rest of the party, particularly with Vax and Vex, at the outset of the episode. Lots of adventuring subterfuge for the remainder.

Episode 31, “Gunpowder Plot” – Vax and Percy have a team-up moment during the initial battle, and Vax ends up bookending a lot of Percy’s actions throughout. Vex and Percy have an intense interaction in the aftermath. The back end of the episode is more subterfuge and battling.

Episode 32, “Against the Tide of Bone” – After some initial action, the party splits, putting Vex, Vax, Percy, and Keyleth together. When the party is reunited, Vex expresses some concern about Percy to Pike. Vax and Percy have a heart-to-heart during the night watch in the second half of the episode, in which Vax lays clear how he’s felt about Percy in the past, but he comes around.

Episode 33, “Reunions” – Vex, and to a slightly lesser extent Vax, is generally supportive of Percy as they meet an old enemy of his. In the midst, and aftermath, of a battle, Vex and Percy and Vax all have interactions that point to their evolving relationships. Another encounter pits members of the party against each other against their wills, including these three who take hits from each other before coming back under control.

Episode 40, “Desperate Measures” – After an initial battle, there’s a scene in Percy’s workshop that involves various party members, but notably Percy and Vex facing off against Grog.

Episode 44, “The Sunken Tomb” – While camped out at the loch, Vax and Percy share a watch again and talk a bit. In the wake of an encounter, Percy and Vex make a hasty decision and Vex pays the price. Vax makes a deal to save her, initiating a significant pivot point for his character.

Episode 45, “Those Who Walk Away” – Percy tells Vax that what happened to Vex was his fault. Vax isn’t pleased.

Out of all of these, if you really just want the Best, Most Concentrated Percy + Twins Stuff™ (understanding that you’ll be missing some of the plot/motivations), I’d recommend:

First half of episode 27

Episode 29

Beginning of episode 30

Episode 32

Episode 33, mainly the battle and aftermath bookending the mid-episode break

After that point, we’re kind of past the “early campaign” stage. I hope this helps! And I’m here to chat or bounce ideas around or whatever! :)

[your-turn-to-role]

hi okay i hate sending asks to people without knowing them but you seem kind so im trying: during the break, i’ve been working my way through VM, and i’m at episode 75. my question, because i’ve read some of your more recent meta, is “what’s Percy’s deal?” i know he’s loved by the fandom, but i can’t find myself relating to him, and i find his assertions that he’s the only one with a plan offputting. is there more context you can give to me about percy’s character that explains his motivations?

aww, thank you!

(and yeah, asks like this are totally fine, i totally get that anxiety, good job on sending this!)

i mean, first off, you don't have to like a character everyone else does? if you don't relate to percy you can just, not relate to percy, that's fine

(and to be fair, as much as i love him as a character, i would not want him as a friend, because he's a very flawed person that has a lot to work on, but in fiction those traits are interesting to watch rather than difficult to deal with)

but, percy's deal! the short answer is people generally like him because taliesin's funny and charismatic and he does morally grey right, which is rare and a fun thing to explore (also in his relationships with other people, the entire vex-vax-percy-keyleth square is full of neat parallels and opposites and interesting things and i have whole essays in my head on all six combos there)

i don’t know which posts you’ve read so i’ll link this one here too, just to cover a couple more of the generally unnoticed aspects of his character, and things i like about percy

he’s also far from perfect, as you’ve noted, he does tend to believe he’s the smartest person in any given room, because he’s young and clever and used to being that, which you’re allowed to find off putting, but i will say i find he does that less than a lot of characters of his general archetype? he listens to pike, he listens to keyleth, he listens to vex, he respects when they have more knowledge than him on a particular subject, he’s not above asking for help. and generally most of the arguments he has with keyleth on that subject aren’t him asserting he knows more than her, but more a matter of principles and values (they’re a really interesting pair that way, they have similar backgrounds, both children of royalty running away from the crown, but they’re such opposites. percy is a natural leader who would rather anyone rule than him, keyleth fumbles her way through all of it but sticks to it because she doesn’t want to let anyone down, percy is a pragmatist, keyleth is an idealist, they both are too focused on the big picture but in two completely different ways, i could write a whole other post on this, but to get to my point, they wouldn’t be such good balances for each other if percy didn’t absolutely respect where keyleth is coming from)

for the long answer, i’m gonna break this down into parts and try to get to the core of percy's character and why he is the way he is

(under the cut bc this gets long)

1 - heavy trauma

like... this is the really really big one. percy, at age 17 or 18, had his entire life up to that point completely destroyed. his family was killed, his friends were killed, people he trusted like family (professor anders, who was a more present figure in percy's life than his actual parents) betrayed him and helped the briarwoods, he was imprisoned in his own castle's dungeons and tortured for information, they threw his siblings' bodies in there with him to make a point, cassandra helped him escape but as far as he knew she died helping him. he has two years of his life after that he straight up doesn't remember, his hair turned white from the stress of it. 

trying to go after ripley the first time didn't work, he was captured and left to starve in a prison cell, for the first few months of travelling with vox machina he genuinely believed it wasn't real, because realistically no one was gonna come save him, this was just a hallucination of his dying mind. returning to whitestone he was forced to confront the fact that literally everyone he ever knew growing up (with the sole exception of archibald) was either dead or working with the briarwoods, and even after retaking the city there's a lot that can never be repaired. 

and he's just... never really dealt with any of this? like, he gave vox machina the technical details of what happened to him in the briarwood arc, because they needed to know that information, but the first time he actually started processing his trauma, the first time he admits it out loud to anyone, is the final episode of campaign one. before then it had been occasional snide or handwavey comments, and like, he'll let himself feel the anger over it (in the beginning of the story he encouraged it, because then he didn't have to feel anything else), but he's never processed the grief, never admitted to himself how badly that affected him

which means he's got a lot of pent up emotions in there that he just keeps burying, and sometimes they come out in unhealthy ways. having so much taken from him also makes him really motivated to keep the things he does have - he’s got some deep set abandonment issues and takes any kind of betrayal really badly, don’t know if you’ve got up to the scanlan stuff by the time i post this, but that’s something to keep in mind as to why he acts the way he does there. (and it’s not more explicit because percy was raised nobility, keeping a brave face through anything is part of who he is, he tends to cover emotions he’s insecure about in snark or indifference or, for the intense ones, anger, because those are the things he thinks he’s allowed to show, but the real emotions show up occasionally, when they’re particularly strong, or if you’re reading between the lines. he really does care a lot about vox machina)

2 - legacy and loyalty. 

speaking of nobility, it's hard to do a character study on percy without mentioning whitestone and the house of de rolo. this is the number one thing to percy. he was raised to respect title and name, and most importantly, raised to respect the people he represents - both the townsfolk of whitestone and also percy's ancestors and future de rolo generations. whitestone is more important than any one life, he has a duty to protect and serve it, and that comes before any personal wants he may have. it's also important to him for family reasons - he was a pretty lonely child, but he loved reading about the history of the city, all the weird ghost stories whitestone had even before the briarwoods. it probably made him feel more connected to all of that, this is the place he belongs. and after his family dies, it becomes even more important, because this is his connection to them. the soul of a city lives as long as its people, by protecting what's left, he keeps a little bit of what came before

(and also in just tidbits to understand percy's character, he sees all cities and man-made things the same way - in a world where some races live for centuries or millennia, their history exists mostly by word of mouth, you can physically talk to people who were around 500 years ago and get their take on things - humans don't have that, they get 100 years at most, so the things they build are vital to their heritage. this is how you keep people alive long after they're gone, by honouring what they created. and especially for someone so concerned with legacy and history, percy literally says abandoning westruun would be blasphemy, because the place people grew up is important, yes it's better that they live, but letting the city be abandoned and destroyed would be an irreparable act of violence.) 

this is the number one thing on percy's mind when evaluating anything about himself, where do i come from, and what do i leave behind? which is a question that has a lot of moments to be tested, because of my next point...

3 - pragmatism and terrible thoughts

when it comes down to it, percy is a very ends justify the means kind of person. he finds it very easy to square away any kind of collateral damage as long as it gets him to his end goal. see: trial of the take, where he's fine to catch his friends in the blast radius of a new bomb design because he's so excited that it worked, preparing to fight vorugal and resigning himself to potentially having to kill innocent people to kill the dragon (he wasn’t okay with that, but he would do it), also his conscious decision to let ripley go, knowing she would lead to the deaths of thousands because it was her or the briarwoods and he wanted revenge 

(this is by his own admission his lowest point and worst mistake, because as mentioned, he thinks about the consequences of his actions near constantly, he knew she would reproduce his guns and they would lead to a whole new form of warfare. but in that moment he was just blinded by grief and way too emotionally burnt out and did not have the capacity to care. and he spends the rest of the campaign and honestly probably the rest of his life trying to make up for that one)

he's also, by his own admission, someone who has a lot of bad thoughts he doesn't act on, he's very clever and creative and ideas for ways to use those skills for violence or vengeance come easily to him (like, percy as an actual villain would be ripley but worse, ripley's intelligent but a very direct point a to point b kind of thinker, percy has multiple times criticised her lack of imagination, a percy with her lack of morals would be terrifying)

(honestly this is why i was seeing percy so much in taliesin's narrative telephone, because "sometimes i wake up having dreamed of a terrible thing, and normally i just file that away for things that i would never do, because i wanna maintain friendships, but then LIAM did something to me." and the whole being absolutely fine with throwing the rest of the cast under the bus just to enact revenge on liam was quintessential percy)

but we’ve seen the pragmatic anti hero everywhere, anyone can be a terrible person, and have reasons for it, that alone doesn’t make an interesting character (at least not for me)

what does, is my last point

4 - trying to be good

i still vividly remember when i first watched campaign one, being really surprised at how much percy asked for help? like, i went in expecting the usual full on demon possession storyline, i expected percy to hide how bad it was, i expected him to make poor decisions without realising he was doing it until he was in too deep to back out

and like, he had some of that. but at the first sign of things being out of his control, he asked his friends for help. he let pike greater restoration him. he told vax to kill him if things ever got too out of hand. he was really, genuinely scared about what he got himself into and what he might do because of it. there was never a point where he pretended, even to himself, that making a deal with orthax was okay. the minute he realised there was a demon involved, he was working to stop it. and yeah, by the time he realised it was already a bit too late, there were already some things out of his control (and also taliesin kept having the worst rolls against the whitestone corruption which was really fun on a meta level), which is how things got as bad as they did. but honestly, all things considered, there’s very little to criticise about the way percy handled himself in the briarwood arc. 

and he keeps doing that, trying to get better. he struggles with it, he struggles a lot, against his anger issues, against all the trauma, against the fact that he really doesn’t want to be here and things would be so much easier if he were dead. but he recognises he holds grudges too easily, so he starts actively trying to forgive those who’ve wronged him (this is something he and vex have in common, and something they were working on together before they were together, which probably helped a lot in getting them to that point as well). he recognises he makes poor decisions when he’s angry, so he starts learning to step back in those moments and leave the decisions to someone else. he has never not owned up to his mistakes, he takes responsibility for everything he’s done, and if he notices a problem he can’t solve himself, he asks for help.

and i find that fun to explore. like, percy’s been likened to hamlet in the actual show, and i was the kid who got super obsessed with hamlet when i was like 15 because i was in that same mental space of suicidal self hatred and existential melancholy but also thinking i was the smartest person in any given room and being too young to have gotten over the arrogance that makes you ignore everyone else’s needs for the sake of indulging your own problems. and then i got older and realised there are smarter ways to go about things, like having empathy and appreciating the light in the world and not being a dickhead to people because it makes you feel better, and maybe hamlet can be justified and in the wrong at the same time. and while there’s some stuff i won’t spoil for you, percy after ripley kills him is definitely starting to learn that, which you rarely see in the hamlet archetype, bc everyone’s like “ah yes so Deep so Important who cares what bad things this person did they had Trauma and are Clever”

well, percy cares about the bad things he did, and cares about not doing those anymore. so like, he’s still a disaster of a person bc he’s like 23 and no one has their life together at 23, especially not someone in percy’s situation, and honestly i find that fun to watch as well bc i like watching characters make stupid mistakes and do stuff i’d never approve of in real life, and as i mentioned at the start, taliesin makes captivating and funny characters. but yeah, that’s generally where percy’s at, most of the time

[morningsound15]

Hey dude I’ve been seeing a lot of CR stuff from you lately and I love me some Ashley Johnson and was thinking about starting it and realized there is an absolutely insane number of episodes!!! I wanted to ask if you been watching from the start? And if you usually watch it or listen to it as a podcast? Sorry for the questions I’m probably going to start it anyways bc what the fuck else am I gonna do during this panasonic LOL thanks dude

omg yes hi! you mean my wife Ashley Johnson, whom I would die for? She is lovely

So to answer — yeah I know there are so many eps. Very daunting! It took me a few times to actually get into CR, because I never reallly played D&D and the eps are like 4 hours long each but I was entering winter quarantine and it came highly recommended from a friend of mine (plus I love lesbian hijinks) so I stuck with it! And am now obsessed (clearly).

So they’re obviously in campaign 2, meaning you can totally skip all of campaign 1 (vox machina) there are like mentions & Easter eggs from that campaign that you won’t understand but you don’t need to have watched it to get this story. I started from the beginning a few months ago and I’m somewhere in the early 30s right now, but I ALSO have been watching live for the past several weeks. Watching live is really what encouraged me to stick with it because the drama! The stakes! It’s such an adrenaline rush. Anyway so I’ve seen like the first 30 eps and the last 6 or 7, and then I’ve also tried watching compilation videos on YouTube to try and get a basic understanding for the almost hundred episodes of story I’m missing in between. I don’t mind spoiling myself since watching live basically ensures I’ll be spoiling some big things (like deaths), so there are also synopses you can read, wiki articles about the characters and their backstories, etc. etc. But yes, a daunting number of eps, I felt the same way, I just am watching nothing at the moment and still locked away in quarantine so I figured fuck it, you know?

It’s definitely tough! But I’m having a blast. I usually watch it as a YouTube video on 1.25 or 1.5x speed that I’ll slow down if something I’m invested in happens. I love watching because half the fun is seeing the cast as actors react to what’s happening in-game, always a delight, but I know people who podcast it too. There can be quite a lot of dead air, especially in the early episodes, so I try to do something else while I watch (clean, cook, do laundry, color, read sometimes) which also helps! I will warn, if you go in mostly for Ashley she spends quite a lot of the early campaign away, because she was filming for a TV show at the time and her schedule always conflicted, so there are big Yasha gaps until the later numbers (80 or so?) When her show gets cancelled and she’s back full-time. But you’ll totally fall in love with the whole cast, they’re so funny and joyful.

Anyway I can’t recommend CR enough! Except for all the stress and anxiety it’s been giving me recently lol but if you ignore my sleep deprivation