#Will is the endgame goal for vecna and he always has been

[chirpsythismorning]

What’s up with the spores? Like, has anyone got info on what spores do to a person who is exposed to them????

This got me thinking about all the whose getting vecna’d speculation in s5, and it could very well mean ALL of them are in danger in terms of being targeted.

If all it takes is them being exposed to the spores, could they all be at risk?

Maybe they could all experience effects like nightmares/hallucinations??

This also reminds me of El’s line at the start of s4 where she says We’re all time travelers if you think about it!

Is it possible ALL of them could be dealing with having to confront past memories, ie they’re own form of time traveling to figure out how to defeat vecna??

[beaulesbian]

No bc Mike getting vecna'd is such a good idea if byler endgame is the goal. Like his regret/shame would be the fact that he can't say ily to his gf and the fact that he's in love w his best friend but repressing it. Then will could confess and this would remove some of that shame thus possibly saving him?? Cause people saying will gets cursed has me wondering what his regret would be (other than his love for Mike, which he seems to be relatively accepting of, whereas Mike (if he is in love w will) is repressing it much more and prob thinks it will hurt el whom he really cares about)

(this got a bit longer than i first wanted, but i have too many delusional theories 💖)

exactly, i see this more even as a great tool for their respective character developments than even for the ship itself, but ofc that would be best outcome if this all happened.

in my opinion if will gets vecna'd it would just be too similar to what hes already been through before, it would be unnecessary repeating. what we need is to see will have some connection to the upside down, that will help by the end to defeat vecna or whoever else in s5.

meanwhile it would be much more interesting to see this with mike. bc overall its a bit more difficult to see what hes really thinking, if we only see the surface level emotions.

first, he cares about all his friends beyond anything. and while will and el and max went through such trauma that was very visible, (and theyre still dealing with that, we still dont know much how mike is dealing with anything.

we only see how he changes depending on whos around him and how they interact together (dustin and lucas, eddie, will, el, his family - i feel he acts very different around each of them)

In season one his best friend went missing, was pressumed dead and had a funeral - mike thought, even for a while, he lost him permanently.

In that time el appeared and was helping find will, his friends suddenly think he likes her more than a friend (its whats normal, right? Ofc he should like her before he even knows himself...)

He fights with lucas about el in s1, and one of the things he said (i cant remember exactly now) is how he feels guilty they fought about it, "if only he could have said something more, something better, its my fault"

i think he said something similar in different situations during the first three seasons, and then in s4, when hes opening up to will about this, he tells him similar thing twice "if only i explained myself better, i should have said something more to el, do something better"

from that i get the feeling hes always trying to do not just the best he can, but whats expected of him. and when he finds he doesnt have the power to stop something, or physically cannot make himself say something thats probably not true, he blames himself afterwards.

S3 is such rollercoaster for him, hes with el but cant be with el bc hopper, and then cant say what he feels - or maybe he doesnt know whats hes supposed to feel. And then el and will are leaving. Two of his most important friends, and i think thats what made him all the more confused, bc what if he misses will more than el?

Why did the promise of will wanting only play d&d with mike made him smile so much, but then the kiss with el made him all the more confused?

theres two such contrasts in his personality, where one of his main beliefs is "friends dont lie" and he does as much as he can with honestly, but at the same time he pushes something inside him down and pretends it doesnt exist (his complicated feelings towards.. romance, lets say).

Back to the vecna theory - this is why i think if mike gets vecna'd it would add more perspective to his character and for us to see what all hes been going through in the past seasons.

Same as his feelings towards will, its been there building from s1.

It could be few flashbacks and memories telling the audience the scenes that already happened from mike's point of view, how he struggles at home,

how he regretted the words he said to will in s3 (its not my fault you dont like girls), bc it was more directed at himself than will, but he didnt realize that yet.

how finding eddie and playing in d&d club could mean hes slowly finding himself (and with d&d being like a connection will again, bc its something they both loved playing together).

And how all of this is so confusing, especially for their time in the 80s, and hes still trying his best, but slowly, more and more cant ignore that his heart wants something (someone) else than hes supposed to be with.

Its just all these things that will go either unnoticed and unmentioned in the series, which i think would be a shame, or it could be addressed in the way with vecna who would manipulate his fears and nightmares, and if others can save him (which im sure they would), he could start process it in a better way, more honest to himself as well to others. To accept himself, and by that also will's feelings (if he noticed those, which i dont think he did, i think will noticed mike's confused ones, if anything.)

[czechforrain]

Critical Role Episode 103: Are the Mighty Nein Gutless Cowards? The differences between them and the more Brash Vox Machina.

So we have just came off another episode where the mighty nein spent a lot of time deliberating and possibly trying to delay their fight with Vokodo. Trying to stack the deck as much as possible and get 3 tribal guardians, a few werebears and even a lesser diety to fight alongside them while also finding out if there was any weaknesses or exploitable backsides to this supposed god. 

And of course this leads to the same recurring topics being brought up again.

“The mighty nein are cowards.”

“ They try to run away from fights whenever possible.”

“They underestimate the hell out of themselves.”

“They draw out conflicts as long as possible going over several plans instead of making decisive moves and sticking towards them.” 

And the common reasoning for their super cautious play-style is the death of Mollymauk Tealeaf. After Fjord, Jester and Yasha got captured by the Iron Shepards, the rest of the Mighty Nein set out to ambush the party and this ended in disaster. Matt gave them several hints that this battle would be a lot tougher than they first thought but everyone was 100% in on ambush and combined with some less than stellar tactical decisions and bad rolls, we had our first campaign death 26 Chapters into the campaign. 

And then again in Episode 69 we had the Mighty Nein defeat Obann but after he died, the laughing hand did a number on everybody and fjord almost died after being grabbed by the laughing hand and everyone was beat to complete crap. 

Now these factors absolutely play a part on team morale and it informs their decisions to be more careful but I’d argue the real difference between the campaign so far is stakes. More specifically the consequences of running and hiding vs standing and fighting. 

THE STAKES

In comparison to Vox Machina, the mighty nein are less traditional heroes. Since the start of the campaign they balanced a decent relationship with the Authorities and Power structures with being involved in illegal practices such as helping the knights of requital to elevate one of their leaders to public office, working for a crime boss, providing Vigilante Justice and later stealing a boat and becoming pirates. Then after starting their quest to save Nott’s Husband they switched that balancing act to a more traditional play both sides mentality. The only difference of course being that there endgame was altruistic. They wanted to stop a war and they had to convince each side that they wanted something mutually beneficial while not appearing too friendly to the other side. 

Compare this to Vox Machina’s Four Major Arcs

K’varn

Threat: The influence of an ancient artifact is starting to get closer to reaching the surface and if unchecked could lead to major problems for the city. 

Personal: Beloved NPC Allura Vysoren’s friend (at the time) has basically been taken captive and they need to save her before she dies and she won’t go back until her dream quest journey is complete. 

Briarwoods

Threat: The Briarwoods sent gaseous assassins to kill their hostage chauffeur revealing that their influence could still reach the M9.  King Uriel had placed them under house arrest / city arrest while under investigation and their freedom was curtailed until they remove the charm on him by presumably killing the briarwoods.

Personal: The villains killed Percy’s family and took control of is city and home. Percy’s family is hinted to be alive in some manner and the reputation of the team is tarnished.

Chroma Conclave

Threat: Four Ancient Dragons controlling the continent of Tal’dorei and crushing anyone who would dare to threaten their newly seized dominion. Their current home is in the backyard of the leader of this conclave and their friend’s newly liberated hometown is also under threat. 

Personal: The head of the villains killed Vax and Vex’s parents. Tiberious was later killed by the threat and the instrumental figure in crafting the alliance betrayed and caused the death of many of the Fire Ashari.

Vecna

Threat: An old mage from the days of the age of Arcanum is planning to complete a seeding ritual to make himself a god and take over the world. 

Personal: Scanlan implores them that this is a very important quest and essentially returns for this reason. Lady Briarwood is serving the Whispered one which puts all of VM at unease. Vecna personally disintegrates one of Vox Machina. 

These arcs, along with Keyleth’s overall quest being something that she had to face despite her constant self doubts and idealism anxiety, were stuff that Vox Machina couldn’t run from. They couldn’t ignore the issues because the threats were present, personal and there were negative consequences to ignoring the call to action. 

Now compare that to the Mighty Nein who exist in a grayer campaign where the right path isn’t always easily identifiable and every action might have negative and positive consequences. 

And paralleling their journey it’s easy to see the differences.

Episodes 1-33

Episode 1-4 had them as complete strangers mainly fighting Kyrie, the devil toad to prove their innocence after the circus gets blamed for the results of the show. Then they take a job to rescue missing townsfolk from gnollish marauders. Once they arrive in Zadash, they sympathize with the Knights of Requital who desperately wants to replace High-Richter Prucine with their leader Dolan and they offer to help for some coin but the entire plan was supposed to be a series of heists, only turning violent when said the High-Richter returned and Ulog in a moment of rage killed himself and her in one go. 

They then end up whilst trying to get heat off themselves for the murder working for the gentleman who gives them tasks which he promises a healthy amount of coin for that mainly involve getting rid of monsters that are getting in the way of his business and also removing a gang / providing safe passage for one of his associates. Then unexpectedly Molly dies, and the group mentions running would be the smart thing to do but because Fjord, Jester and Yasha are still enslaved the group presses on with a strong resolve to save their missing comrades and avenge molly. 

Episodes 34-49

After this they take a trip to Jester’s hometown and they help her mom out by attacking and mutilating a customer of hers who is acting abusive and controlling in regards to his companionship with her. They end up stealing a boat because they’re not sure how to explain what happened to the guards because they essentially got into a fight for no reason. 

They sail around on fjord’s quest with Avantika for a while despite being quite unnerved by her fanaticism and her end goal to free Uka’Toa. They try to get dirt on her in which to frame her and succeed but her companion has locate object and just before the mighty nein are exposed Caleb recognizes this is a crucial moment and launches the first attack. 

They do run against a young blue dragon but it’s a situation where they all don’t have any need to beat the blue dragon and are just trying to get out. But regardless this is the first winnable encounter they actually end up running from.

Now it’s not unusual up until this point but so far most of their encounters have been quests, stuff that they are paid to get rid of, they’re told about this thing and they kill it for the most part. They’ve felt pretty generally confident about whatever springs up

Episodes 50-87

Now once we get into the Angel’s Irons section things start to change. They go into Xhorhas close up the portal and retrieve evidence to earn a favor from the bright queen before that turns into them being closely watched heroes. They smartly negotiate a truce with the giants instead of wiping them out as they were originally paid to do and free their home of the demonic incursions. They fight Obann the first time and chase after him as they try to get to the bottom of this portals business and eventually things end in heartbreaking failure. 

This kicks off to the Ancient White Dragon Iceflex heist. In this situation them not running would be catastrophic and  it’s completely understandable that they ran. However this episode did get some criticism because they had a long repeating running gag with Yeti’s undercover business that led to about an hour of planning and really slowed down the pace. 

Then a few episodes later they scry on yasha and receive knowledge that she is going to the Lotusden Greenwood to find the heart of the inevitable end. After a stroke of luck with charm person where they take the hand out of the situation they sneak up on Obann and fail at stopping him with Nott’s mage hand. This reluctance to fight here seemed a bit off to people because they already killed Obann but it’s understandable if they didnt want to engage directly though this could be classified as a winnable fight if they played their cards right. There was a hostile tree but incite greed kind of removed it from the fight vs Obann.

We then go to the Happy Fun Ball where a Golem like entity essentially hunts them through many rooms until they get to a point where they can no longer run from it and use machinery in the workshop to help destroy the thing. They probably could have kept running but the continuance of this threat eventually got them so annoyed that they chose to fight it then and there. 

Then we get the whole round 3 vs Obann where to save Yasha, there is no way that they can run away from this fight. When the fight in the cathedral ended, even if the MIX felt fine leaving him alone, Nott got charmed into following them beneath to act as a vessel to break the seal. That and obviously they wanted to give this creep who messed with Yasha what was coming to him and prevent his shenanigans from returning to cause them trouble. 

Episodes 88+

The cupcake moment was brilliant and an excellent subversion of a Hag Fight. Jester bet on herself and for the time being it worked out masterfully giving Veth a free out of her curse. 

Similiarly with Caduceus’ Family they couldn’t just leave the gorgon roam free and not revive his family when they had the chance so they stood their ground and fought it. 

Contrast this with the Dragon Turtle encounter where it’s a threat to them sure but they’re under no obligation to defeat it. Why fight for no good reason and risk death when you can just turn it into a sea slug and bounce?

Why fight Vokodo now when they can greater restoration each other and bring more allies and possibly even the traveler himself to their side? 

The main reason why the Mighty Nein have constantly ran from encounters is that there hasn’t been enough reason for them to stay and fight. When there is a reason they are pretty cautious to not go in under-prepared and thus have moments where they over plan. 

A possible problem that can come from this risk averse approach though just made itself clear in this last episode though. There ship was destroyed because they didn’t defeat the turtle or keep the ship hidden away or sailing where the turtle couldn’t reach it. 

Because they didn’t go straight at Vokodo, either the first time or at a later day from the jump where they had a solid plan they are gonna be down spell slots if they do indeed end up not reaching caduceus in time. If they do end up reaching him in time that might mean they have to burn even more spells and will have to try again some other time. Despite there existing some benefits to playing it safe, there are also negatives and I feel like Matt has been stressing that more and more lately

Vox Machina couldn’t afford to rest when it came to the Briarwoods or the Chroma Conclave and I think if the MIX were in a similiar situation they would also step u to the plate it’s just so far they’ve been generally fine with avoiding dangerous situations when possible but it looks like things may be changing in the future. And when people they care about or places they care about are threatened by such outside sources I think we’ll see a lot of the same gumption from the MIX as we did with Vox Machina. It’s just based on there start as a secret grungy kind of illegal group that preferred to stay out of the limelight and experiences with rushing into trouble that it’s taken them longer then Vox Machina to get to this place.

TLDR; I wouldnt say they are cowards but their experiences when combined with lower stakes if they bail out of fights means that unless they feel like they cannot run away due to personal connections or a sense of duty, they probably will run if the threat looks somewhat fierce. That has helped them some risks but it also can possibly lead to more in the future. But I do feel that the story is moving towards a place where they are gonna have reasons to stand firm and fight and become heroes in their own special way.

[ellekandera]

CR Ranty Thing

I never post on Tumblr. Ever. I plan to, then never do, because anxiety is a fucking bitch. However, I feel like I need to. I NEED to say this or I will tear apart everything in my house because HOLY SHIT. This last episode of Critical Role was a BITCH, and I mean that in faaaaaar more ways than one.

Now, I’ve been faithfully watching this show for a long time now and I, like so many people in this wonderful fandom, get annoyed with it from time to time. From Vax’s extreme impulsive nature that gets the people he loves hurt more than once, to their shitty ass planning that always go awry, to Scanlan’s *ahem* rather stupid decision not to use an item that needed to be used (but more on that later), and the list goes on. I’ve even gotten angry at points, but it usually wears off fairly quickly. HOWEVER, during this recent episode, I didn’t just get angry. I was FURIOUS. I was FUMING. I was ready to chuck a rock at my tv screen because I wanted to kill EVERYTHING.

No show in existence has made me this angry before, but maybe that’s because I’ve never been so invested in a show like I am with Critical Role (or maybe it’s just this circumstance because I love a lot of shows). Everybody probably knows why I’m this pissed, but I need to put it into words. Two, to be exact.

FUCK. RAISHAN.

FUCK HER STRAIGHT TO GODDAMN HELL OR WHATEVER FUCKING PLANE THAT WILL BRING HER THE MOST PAIN AND SUFFERING. NEVER HAVE I EVER HATED A VILLAIN ON THIS SHOW SO GODDAMN MUCH. NOT KVARN, NOT HOTIS, NOT THE BRIARWOODS, NOT THORDAK, NOT EVEN FUCKING RIPLEY. I HATE RAISHAN MORE THAN ANYTHING EVER.

It’s not because she managed to knock almost all of them unconscious. It’s not because she’s a smug ass with these shitty spells up her sleeve and it always feels like she’s five steps ahead of the game. It’s not even because she managed to kill off both Scanlan and Vex, and Vex is my favorite character!

No, I hate her because she got away.

I was already worried that they were fighting her in the first place because THANKS VAX, but it’s more than that. It’s that everybody knew she was going to turn on them, and everyone was prepared for it. She obviously wasn’t going to do with Thordak’s body what she said she was because, A) speak with dead allows more than one question and she only needs one or two to get her cure, B) she could have used a number of ways to not let her true intentions be known to Vox Machina during the spell like using a different language or something, and C) BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE WAS. SHE’S A FUCKING CHROMATIC GREEN DRAGON, YOU JUST HAVE TO ASSUME (ha) THAT THEY’RE LYING ABOUT EVERYTHING.

Fighting Vox Machina wasn’t her endgame for this whole arc, it was just an obstacle she had to get past to get what she really wanted, and SHE GOT IT. She got everything she wanted. She got Thordak’s corpse, she got the eggs, she probably assumed (ha) that she killed several of them or at least slowed them down enough to know they couldn’t follow her, she made sure that none of them knew where she was going, and she did ALL of it without letting any of her true intentions be known. She WON.

This has never happened before. Vox Machina has always won. Even if somebody did get away, or they had to wait awhile before defeating them, they still finished their primary goal. That didn’t happen. They killed Thordak, yes, but the other half of the goal was to take out Raishan. To end the entire threat of the Chroma Conclave, and they didn’t do that. They won, but they also lost. If Scanlan had just blown that whistle earlier, or if they had taken a chance to heal before the fight or just waited for the others to catch up or to even get her to a more advantageous position before instigating the fight, there is a good chance they could have won. They didn’t, though. It’s done. She got everything she needed and now they have no idea where she is or what she’s going to do. Fucking shit. All the while I have this sneaking suspicion that Vecna is somehow involved or going to come back into the story and fuck up everyone’s shit.

Now, don’t take this the wrong way, I’m angry at the character, but I’m not angry at any of the real life people involved. Nobody should get mad at Matthew Mercer for playing Raishan like he did because he played her perfectly. All of this was exactly what she would have done and Matt is a great DM for going all out like this. He was great. All of the actors were, everybody played it exactly as they should have and I have no problems with them at all, and nobody else should either. Don’t blame any of the cast for what happens in game cause that’s just fucked up and we’re all lucky to even get to see all this happen at all.

Okay, okay, this was long. I’m ending this rant now. Before I go, I have two words for everybody.

FUCK. RAISHAN.

(also i’m really happy everybody is still alive holy shit i was crying my eyes out ohmygod)

Peace out, ya’ll.