#cr1 rewatch

[ludinus-is-a-bitch]

first episode and keyleth+percy siblings is already evident.

"we're making comment cards!"

[thecreatureofchaos]

obviously TLOVM had to cut and modify a lot of events in order to fit CR1 into an animated show, but i think the biggest inaccuracy has got to be Percy thanking Scanlan for throwing the Orthax-possesed pepperbox into acid. canonically, im about 99% sure Percy still holds a grudge over that

[dontgofarfromme]

I do think the character beats/foreshadowing for the twins in ep3 work especially well if you take s1 into account. A lot of Vex's arc in s1 was spent establishing her as being compulsively self-reliant and hostile to outsiders, eg stating that she and Vax should leave when they were under house arrest in the keep and lashing out at Keyleth when she saw Vax getting invested in that relationship. It makes it really clear that 1. Vex highly prioritizes her and Vax's relationship but also that 2. Like much of her actual feelings, she doesn't show her fear that she will lose that relationship in the most straightforward way. This allows for s2 to dive headlong into exploring how terrified Vax is of losing Vex and how much he believes their relationship is this one-sided dependence of him feeling lost without her but Vex being completely alright without him, while providing us the baseline understanding that this isn't quite the case. It's more that their personalities are extremely different and they've responded to the way they were treated when they were young in very different ways. Vax wears his heart on his sleeve and is completely open about who he cares about, cutting Syldor out without a second thought and explicitly laying out to Vex over and over again how important she is to him. Vex puts a perfectly strong and composed face over everything, tries to salvage things when she can, holds herself together so nobody can see whatever she's feeling underneath. It's easy to think Vex doesn't need Vax as much as he needs her with that facade, but because we already got to see an entire season of her reflexively protecting that relationship and lashing out in fear that she'll somehow lose him, you can tell it's actually more that she's practiced at masking any feelings that might make her seem weak, even at the expense of coming off as cruel or uncaring instead.

[shorthaltsjester]

downfall has me thinking about the prime deities far more than is best for my mental health and so i’ve been rewatching c1 just because so many of the pcs have relationships with the gods — even percy and keyleth who hold lower opinions of the gods still have relationships with them — and good grief . you ever think about whitestone as this bastion of love that the gods still have for one another and the love that a party of idiots have for one another. that the centrepiece of the town is a tree from the dawnfather, one used for the builders of castle whitestone to take shelter from the tumultuous lands of the alabaster sierras. a mountain range that came about out of the conflict between the dawn father and the chained oblivion.

the fact that the family that whitestone’s lost son found and brought back with him amounted to two temples being erected, and how fitting that after defeating the briarwoods, the two gods that are given new houses of worship in whitestone are the gods of death and redemption, fate and compassion. do you ever think about how many of vox machina are champions but how much the ones who are not are still held in good faith by the gods, whether or not that is returned? do you ever think about the raven queen telling percy he is broken and reminding him that does not mean he is alone, that means he is mortal, as are all those whom he loves. do you ever think about percy’s death letter, read by vox machina in a tavern as he tells them that the raven queen calling him broken finally opened his eyes to the fact that he has chosen his life (and thus, he might choose better), writing “one the lie [that vengeance would bring my family back] was shattered, I scrambled to find a solution, to make a deal, to undo my mistakes and balance the scales. I now understand that there are no scales. There is no redemption, and no ledger that judges me good or evil. I am free to simply be myself and live with the terrible mistakes I’ve made. Tomorrow, I start upon a path beyond the gods and demons who have tormented me, and it’s your friendship that makes this possible. […] I will try and do my best for you all.” and signing it Percival, of Vox Machina - the family he found and chose, not the one he lost and buried himself in vengeance to avoid. and fucking, vex having just heard percy forgive ripley also hearing those words and having carved the word forgive on the weapon she carries who has a conversation with him to remind him (and herself) that committing to forgiveness over grudges and vengeance means also forgiving the person he’s been that prioritized vengeance. the fact that one of the main things they bond over is that they have similar dispositions to justice and a similar unwillingness to forgive but they both see that in themselves as something they wish to improve at, and that when they eventually marry, each time is by someone devoted to a god neither of them necessarily worship but each of which oversees a domain particularly relevant to that connection - keeper yennen is a worshipper of erathis, and thus the justice that both percy and vex care to honour; pike is a worshipper of raei, and thus the redemption that both vex and percy seek (and see in one another). do you get it.

and god the entirety of the final arc of vox machina is truly some of the most interesting cr content for me just because you get the silliness and depth of vox machina in the face of these Beings On High and they all gaze at these idiots trying to save the world with fondness and the realization with downfall that in many ways those gods were just as much idiots trying to save the world makes that so, so interesting. and i wonder what might’ve happened if one of the gods they’d gone to see had been the lawbearer or the wildmother, what might have been made of percy and keyleth. i wonder if the lawbearer might have taken an interest in a calculating and curious man who loves to strike a deal and stick to it, even if manipulating the contents of the deal made to better suit his ends - especially given that percy was rejected by ioun for his propensity not to share his knowledge, and especially given that whitestone has a historical precedent for worship of the lawbearer. and i wonder what the wildmother would make of an angry girl who is fated to watch the people and places she loves be irrevocably changed and die, who wields her vestige, and who favours the world and it’s people over the gods and their rules — something i’m willing to bet melora would find some common ground with.

there’s also some beautiful symmetry between the relationships of the gods to which vox machina become champions and their own relationships with one another. and i’ve made my post about vax and vex vs. the matron of ravens and the dawn father, but i also think quite a lot about vex and scanlan vs. pelor and ioun. vex and scanlan who can be quite antagonistic to one another but also understand each other as few others do; scanlan who tells the dawn father that vex is not perfect but she is the most perfect among them, vex who hears the knowing mistress tell scanlan that his stories give vox machina strength and genuinely tells him it’s true and that he is very powerful, even when he tries to joke about it. ioun and pelor were the ones to take on tharizdun, ioun nearly perishing and having to hide away to recover. when vox machina asks pelor for her location he doesn’t know it. and fuckin. dalen’s closet. should be a silly little wedding oneshot ends with fuckin. vex glowing with the light of the dawnfather as her and percy, the living son of whitestone, are married by pike who is a cleric and is also the champion of the god of redemption, where the champion of ioun turns into a. dinosaur to walk his friend down the aisle and then grants a wish so that she can see her brother again and the champion of the matron of ravens comes to visit - something that is explicitly stated to be allowed by the matron of ravens. where a twin glowing like the dawn and a twin darkened by raven feather embrace. do you get it . do you see it. the fact that the first story we all heard in exandria was one of a family threatened by fate who could not beat it but did their best with it and that now downfall, the newest story but with parts of the oldest story in exandria’s timeline, is the same. a family who is doing the best with what they have, and what they have isn’t always great.

[aq2003]

prefacing this post with "i am aromantic" to give it context anyway i simply cannot stand when "i broke the world for us" is seen as sympathetic/aspirational/etc or ppl say x other tragic-but-otherwise-normal relationship would fit it. like i have very little sympathy to extend to a character that kills and tortures kids bc they couldnt stand the thought of their significant other dying

[bellowsthebard]

So since 4sd this week I have been thinking about my favorite critical role quote.

"It's about a very long story and we are, even you, a tiny part of it."

Which is from campaign one episode 56 (near the end I could look up the time stamp but I am lazy). It's a Percy quote and it is a CRIMINALLY under rated cr quote cause have you ever heard anything more perfectly describing critical role? Any way my point is I love this quote and it is never included in cr quote lists AND IT SHOULD BE. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

Listen.

I've got a lot of feelings about the next season of The Legend of Vox Machina, and I'm 98% sure we know how it's going to end but just listen.

A Bards Lament

12 letters in that phrase. 12 episodes in a season.

The creators of TLOVM have the opportunity to do something very tragic with their episode titles in the coming season.

[scribefindegil]

(Obligatory "this is about personal preference not a moral judgement against ppl who interact with fiction differently" disclaimer)

Me at a good 85% of violence in media: I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

Me watching a female character brutally murder a dude who was sleazy to her: YES YES YES YES YES hahaha fuck him UP!!!

[lucifer-kane]

rewatching the perc'ahlia supercuts. 2016 me in my head: rewatch the whitestone arc rn

[eponymous-rose]

Another million-view (HOW???) YouTube video: part of the series of very long character-centric compilations I did at the end of campaign one based on lists of moments compiled by CR Stats! The one with the highest view count is, of course, two and a half hours devoted to Grog Strongjaw as played by Travis Willingham. Please enjoy campaign one through the eyes of a character with zero impulse control.

MAJOR CAMPAIGN ONE SPOILERS and episode-by-episode timestamps in the YT video description.

[raiinbowwitch]

broke: essek to caleb: I'm pretty sure, young man

woke: pike to scanlan: thank you for the advice, wise old man

[ludinus-is-a-bitch]

okay but first episode keyleth asks sam/scanlan "don't you have family trauma" in regards to the goblins coming out of the cave in kraghammer.

[the-velvet-worm]

very important podcasting notes

[thequeenofmyownscreen]

For all the crazyness that happens here, I'm NOT opposed to hearing the Evil!Sun Tree talking.

I've deeply missed this high-off-his-pants-californian-surfer-dude voice.

[pinkfey]

when keyleth trimmed the burnt edges her hair after it caught on fire that was literally top ten moments in herstory

[aq2003]

every day i gain more respect for tlovm season 1 episode 3 for how it established the briarwoods as villains and how it portrayed percy's complete unhingedness thank u guys round of applause