#TITLE IS FROM BAD BLOOD BY BASTILLE ALSO WHOOPS

[rightpastnowhere]

so i watched episode 36 of campaign 3, saw my loves, screamed with my friends, then realized. god. this is like... the worst day ever for percy. imagine you’re just enjoying a quiet morning when your past trauma walks in through your office door with new faces. yikes.

i also saw some discourse about percy’s characterization in this episode, and thought i’d throw in my two cents in the form of a charcater study

title: all this bad blood here (won’t you let it dry?)

rating: teen and up

word count: 2.6k

genre: character study, introspection, weird lowercase ramblings but i do them while in character. also a dash of hurt/comfort for my tired boy

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CAMPAIGN 3 OF CRITICAL ROLE. ALSO SPOILERS FOR CAMPAIGN 1, INCLUDING THE DALEN’S CLOSET ONE-SHOT

•  •  •

percy is trying to be a good man. 

he is a good man, sometimes. saying anything less would be discrediting vex, who has been telling him for over three decades that he is a good man. it is something she believes, and something he has been slowly convinced of. 

but he knows - and vex knows - that no matter how good of a man he may or may not be, he is not a selfless man. 

he is not altruistic. his heart does not bleed at every person’s sharp-edged grief, blades in their hands and eyes and words. he does not let them get close enough. he does not bleed out at the cries of the masses, throwing himself into the crowds, as keyleth does; he does not bleed out at the individuals who collapse at his door, holding them close, as pike does; he does not allow each a shallow cut at his chest, droplets of blood in a trail of goodwill, as vex does. 

he will scratch his skin and bleed for his city. he will cut himself open and bleed out for his family. but he has nothing but sympathy - nothing except for sympathy - for those he does not know who have faced misfortune. 

(it comes to everyone, eventually, and he’s had more than his share of it. the only blood spilled, then, was that of his family.)

read the rest on ao3