#isnt it basically all of vox machina???

[yudol-skorbi]

i am marathoning trough critrole rn as you probably can tell

[sparring-spirals]

I honestly adoring those episode, it has everything I could have hope for

FCG discovering their soul, that they developed themselves

The group fighting (literally) for Laudna

The interactions between VM and BH where perfect, Percy’s understandable anger towards the thought of being Delilah back, Vex’s guilt because she feel responsible for Laudna’s first death, and Pike just being Pike, the best damn baker

Oh, I am absolutely with you on that. GOD what an episode!!!! So many highlights!!!!!! So many fascinating character interactions and conversations and onion-peeling-layers and smidges of angst and determination and love and- nice. NICE. Im still so excited that everything is kind of coming out in interconnected jumbles, and I am absolutely going to end up writing individual metas about more of these, but suffice it to say:

(i got so excited, this got long, sorry. its basically like 5 different seeds of metas)

- I loved F.C.G's reaction to getting definitive proof they were alive. I love that it was almost less joyous and a little more scared. Because it IS scary! All this time, F.C.G has been living their life for others, divining their purpose from others, they haven't really been living like they were. Alive. Realizing you have a life on your own terms, under your own control, is freeing, and that freedom can be scary! and kind of shitty, sometimes! You have all this space to fuck up. You have all this responsibility if you do. F.C.G realizes they have a life, they are alive, their life matters. and their first reaction is "well, shit." thats SO GOOD. "Well, I have to live." "Unfortunately, true." 👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌🥳🥳🥳🥳

- I'm a little less confident on my reads of Vox Machina but from what I knew I really liked how those conversations played out. It all made sense to me. which is nice. Percy with his family and hard won peace around him, seeing his worst fears rise up and threaten. Vex with guilt around her shoulders but the chance to help. Pike with that kindness and sincerity and flour on her clothes and being unused to reviving again but so good at helping. And also Keyleth really needing a nap and a few hugs maybe. Someone get that gal some calming tea, stat. The interplay- Vex touching Laudna's ears, Pike watching everyone with entertainment, THE ASHTON AND PERCY CONVERSATION. god that conversation

- I've got so many feelings about Bell's Hells literally fighting for Laudna, fighting through a mindscape comprised of Laudna's personal demons. I've got SO many. Some people have already written excellent posts about it (@c-is-for-circinate's post here, and @mockingmolly s post here, come to mind), and I already waxed poetic about it right after the episode but like. its so good! its symbolic and sweet and weighted and poetic and like. When Pike proposed it, they all said yes, almsot immediately, with almost no hesitation. This party of people who were always so eager to dive into each others problems, to help each other, getting to LITERALLY. Dive in and fight and help and save. And they did it through a weird fucked up slumber party. perf. (and i JUST READ A OSOT ABOUT THIS and need ti add it here and its about how laudna Isnt Getting A Say In It rn as well intentioned as it is which. also makes it. kind of fucked. god this needs its own post but like. yea.)

- you didnt mention this explicitly but the ashton and percy convo and tbh everything about how ashton reacted to these massively powerful people- the unsureness and reservations then just- straight up opening up to Percy, in a way, in their fury. the changes in them moving them to anger, still, but of a different sort. pleading, but angrily, furious, trying to push reason. so offensive their defense dropped. that conversation was SOMETHING.

- Also not mentioned but like. Imogen, my gal. My buddy. my darling. oh boy.

- chet's little kindnesses and reactions through the ep were also Something

- i hope fearne steals something

anyway sorry lost the plot a little here but YES what an EPISODE i am HOLLERING and BLOWING AIRHORNS 🥳

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Do you do art tips?

your very good I want to know how you do expressions

🥺

i can sure as hell try! this is entirely in text sorry <3

half of the battle is knowing how faces move. whether you're drawing people, animals, what have you, having a solid foundation of anatomy will help a ton. make faces at yourself in the mirror, watch shows or documentaries or realistically animated movies - basically just know how skin/muscle squishes and stretches over the skull

im not saying you have to extensively study skulls and muscles. or really even study study. just having a basic grasp of dimensions and that squish/stretch helps a Ton

then you wanna know what style you're aiming for. cartoony? exaggerated? realistic? i usually use a scale of cartoony being shows like Adventure Time or Gravity Falls etc. exaggerated is Dragon Prince or Disney or Vox Machina or some animes. realistic is Arcane or Spiderverse etc. that way you know specifically what to look at the most when figuring out expressions

for practicing them, i think it's best to start small. granted, i started drawing in 5th grade & drew in a super simplified style for years. but it is usually a good idea to start gently and then break into a sprint from there - art tends to follow that trend.

make sure to practice facial features independently. draw eyes & mouths in different states of emotion & in different cartoon styles. USE REFERENCES!!! USE A LOT OF REFERENCES!!! DON'T BE AFRAID OF REFERENCES THEY ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND!

actually yknow what - its tangent time.

people will tell you that using references is cheating and taboo. thats stupid as hell. everyone uses references, from new artists to professionals. use real life, media, and yes you can use art from artists you really like.

tracing is similar! it helps a ton! it gets you familiar with how shapes flow and interact. pick s simple image to draw, like a deer, and draw it freestyle. then trace the deer with the same movements you use to draw normally - trace smart. then draw the deer freestyle again. you will probably see immediate improvement!

just make sure that if you trace from an artist, don't post it without the permission of the artist, don't post if they say no, and never try to pass it off as your own. same with if you heavily reference an existing piece of art.

people say all the time that the best thing to do is practice. practice practice practice. and thats true! but practicing isnt just drawing the same thing over and over again - that'll get you nowhere. real practice is studying, using references, draw consistently (bc your skills will weaken if you don't, trust me on this) all that good stuff.

tangent over <3

so focus on faces! know how they move! know what you're aiming for before you draw and don't be afraid of using references to get the vibe right!

once you can get the emotion in features down, it's fairly easy to translate to different monsters and creatures and people as long as you're aware of how their heads are shaped

and also be aware that improvement takes time. sometimes its a week, sometimes years. i know im still far from where i want to be lol, but we all get there eventually.

and last but MOST IMPORTANTLY! have fun with it! fuck around and find out, & i mean that in the most positive way possible! your art will thank you for it, i prommy

[mydoorin]

this is long and made for no one but myself

I like certain aspects of C1, and a lot of Vox Machina is endearing and wonderful, but I find all of the first campaign really hard to watch

From a player and a DM perspective I just cannot watch a 5 1/2 long episode with half the cast yelling over each other and the other half doing world-breaking shit. I know there was a sort of loosey-goosey transition between their Pathfinder homegames and 5e, and Matt and Taliesin are used to editions older than 4th even, but there were a lot of times when I felt basic rules got swept under the rug for Vax and Percy but were unfairly or even sometimes incorrectly applied to Keyleth and Vex. Vax literally broke the game multiple times, and I know a lot of the campaign was like Matt’s gift to Liam, but it’s a campaign with 8 of your friends that you’re now producing as a show so it can’t just be about the one guy anymore. No one likes playing D&D where one character is literally touched by fate and can move 120 feet and doing 5 attacks a round. even if the rest of the team are like, high level barbarians fighters and spellcasters it feels unbalanced and it isn’t fun to watch.

a lot of the combat mechanics in C1 feel sloppy too, in terms that PCs didnt know their own character abilities or had a misunderstanding of how Action-Bonus Action-Reaction 5e combat works. It’s not really anyone’s fault, that happens when you change game systems, but to the point that I actually skip combat scenes, which unfortunately can be like a majority of the episode (and have really important character moments, like death). the Kraken fight comes to mind (there aren’t 40 feet fast eels Keyleth I’m sorry), it felt like Grog had the best grasp on his character’s mechanics and goals, and I was yelling at the screen for the other PCs to look at their character sheets. i dont know why Keyleth wasnt a water elemental to start or why Vax didn’t spend all his time stealth-investigating for the lodestones or why Percy didnt think to try luring the beast or talking to it or why Vex didn’t- actually Vex did everything she could Rangers have massive drawbacks. But!! These are issues I have with VM in most fights, theyve gotten better in their level 20 one shots, but still there I want them to please read their character sheets, bc Keyleth is an archdruid who doesnt use spell components anymore and can cast from Wild Shape and that’s tight as hell. Vex’s character mechanics still suck at level 20 but that is not her fault at all 5e literally just hates Rangers. And can we talk about that? Why do Rangers not get half the shit other classes get? How come Rangers have to wait until level 17 to use hide as a bonus action? Rogues get that at 2nd level. Anyway.

I think another part of it comes from player experience, and what kind of PCs are and are not fun to have at the table. Personally I dont like the fate touched concept, I don’t have fun as a player when one character is designed from the start to be more special and important, esp when that character talks about hating it so much all the time. TBH I don’t know why Vax is such a shit about the Raven Queen deal it seems like you got something no one else has ever gotten (she let you have your sister back bro) and you literally signed up for this. A God is giving you Special Awesome God Powers that make you more of a terrifying game breaking monster and you’re gonna keep calling the Raven Queen a bitch? for what? because you didn’t check for traps? because you didnt have a spellcaster that could use telekinesis? what about that situation wasnt entirely character choices lmao

betwen Vax and Percy (dont get me started on Mr. I Know Better Than Everyone, i really fucking hate PCs like that and i will fight about my distaste for percival von frankenstein monsterenergydrink the third) there are a lot of moments in C1 that aren’t fun to watch bc I know they arent fun for everyone at the table to play. it can be really cool to watch someone else’s backstory unfold, but if that’s all you’re doing it’s super easy to check out (I dont think it’s an RP decision when Grog has no idea what’s happening, I too haven’t been listening to Percy argue about this inconsequential thing to no one in particular) think of all the early C2 Caleb-Beau moments when it was clear half the tabl wasn’t paying attention, and how quickly that was resolved after people voiced their opinions on it (Matt for sure talked to them about dominating RP and making too many smaller moments that leave out the rest of the table, I wish a certain wizard would take it to heart), but that didnt feel like a conversation anyone had during the first campaign.

maybe it’s because i didnt watch C1 live or because I watched C2 first, but I have- not even a preference really a deference to the Mighty Nein. I think they’re more fun, more entertaining to watch, more emotionally involved and driven, better developed and created, better in all aspects, smarter and funnier and sexier than Vox Machina. I dont care about high fantasy stories with legendary heroes that are basically gods that is such a boring way to play D&D, I want the dumbass characters to use and magic to play pranks on local shopkeepers and i want the lesbians to have a slow burn romance.

I dont even wanna touch on C1 romance bc like, gag me with a spoon I don’t like the way Kashaw or Vax interact with Keyleth theyre both so fucking annoying. Idk why men cant be normal and talk to the fantasy girl they have a fantasy crush on, but Fjord managed just fucking fine.

i need to go back to sleep but in essence my opinions are that C1 was a classic 1980s D&D campaign that would have made Gary Gygax proud. And now that D&D is a lot better than it was in the 80s, more accessible and a lot less shitty, we can have cool modern fantasy stories that expect more from PCs, DMs, and the audience. We can do cooler, better things than we used to, and the structure of 5e actually helps facilitate more roleplaying between characters. The 5e PHB has whole sections devoted to roleplaying your character, and now Tasha’s gives everyone a way to get rid of stupid racist features and make your characters cooler. I’m really happy to see the progession of both WOTC and Critical Role into better, cooler, more awesome and less shitty versions of themselves (this isnt a WOTC defense post im not a shill they should pay the Dragonlance writers)

[ravenghcst]

F/O Takeover Asks- 🏳️‍🌈 🐋 🥰 🤔 ⭐️ for any of your f/os ~ rebeccaselfships

🏳️‍🌈 - What's your sexuality?

"bisexy ;)"

🐋 - What's your favorite place to bring your s/o outside of the house?

"gonna be honest. hard to make em leave the house sometimes. their exact words were "I have my cat and my bed, what more could I need?" ...cant argue. the answer boils down to just driving, though. we go to the park if its warmer but it hasn't been."

🥰 - Compliment your s/o. Just absolutely gush about them.

"theres something wrong with them. theres something wrong with them that is also wrong with me. I think that's why we were so close, so fast. I love vox machina, but I'll admit that I took months to trust any of them besides my sister and trinket. it might have been because vm had already broken down some of my walls, but they got to me so easily. big smile, bright eyes, all that. they got trinket to love them in minutes, then when I brought out Simon for the first time around them, wouldnt stop gushing about how adorable he was.

...they're reassuring. they seem to know when shit is wrong with me, or kiki, or vex, any of us. snd they'll check in and not take no for a damn answer. stubborn. like me, like vex. but they're hard to read, so I cant tell if something is wrong with them. we'll be snuggling and suddenly they're basically jumping out of bed and saying they have to go. cant understand it... I figure that they'll tell me when they're ready. theres things we all keep to ourselves, isnt there?"

🤔 - How long have you two known each other?

"honestly? bit more than like 8 months. they're closely guarded about a lot of things but still absolutely amazing. I know that they care, even if they're aloof."

⭐️ - Have you ever gone stargazing with your s/o?

"nah, never have enough time. they're in school and work too, and we just havent gotten a chance."

-vax'ildan

[kouichikimura]

CR scenes part 39

97 and 98

(ep 97 were the best first 15 minutes ever aka Kiki’s death)

-First 20 minutes: Kiki jumps off a cliff to get the diamond. She dies. This is how she died. The Keyleth way.

“WE’RE GODS” *Jumps*

I couldnt stop laughing on the train and my side hurt so much

Now everyone in Vox Machina has died.

-

Kiki: We like untrustworthy. None of us are trustworthy. Its good.

JB: I know, I’ve read 53:20

-

buseyness 1:01:00

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Pike’s night terrors 1:05:15

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Oracle Arrow into the black orb 1:13:01

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Very long whisper 1:13:10

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Nat 20 on Grog finding a book on werewolves 

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Shadowfell 1:26:40

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married Kilura 1:28:35

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Grog: I’m going to reset Keyleth’s brain 1:30:51

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Scrying on Tary 1:42:30

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Vex: What did you see what did you see?

Kiki: BITCH! FUCKING BITCH! GOD

Vex: where is he? who has him

Kiki: People wonder why we have trust issues!

1:45:19

-

Tary: -and then we can send her to look after that little creep (scanlan) that you’re always talking about. 3:19:50

-

Tary isnt that hard to find 3:32:37

—-

98

Grog has had some wine already 24:32

-

Laughing Ninny? 27:20

-

“Life needs aloe to live” 41:56

-

Liam and Laura rolling same number

twinsieees

Matt: Look at that….thats disgusting 52:30

-

Pickle is already drunk with 3 sips 1:20:33

-

Grog is basically Bed and Bath and Beyond with all the things he has in his BoH 1:32:23

-

(speak with dead)

Pike: good day, sir. Its not a good day for you. Sorry… 2:33:30

-

You are Parkour 3:08:32

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“I guess I’ll punch a baby” 3:43:47

-

“Who put Pike on a 40 foot wall on top???” 3:52:51