#vox machina appreciation post

[justine-the-guillotine]

Trying to rewatch Critrole C1 again when I can... currently in the beginning of the Briarwoods arc...

I love CR and pretty much everything they put out but I have never felt so deeply connected to any of the characters as much as I am for Vox Machina... I don't know if it's because they were so cemented in their characters already before the live stream so it carried so much weight, history, and connection for the cast and that was obvious, or if it's just the rawness of being a brand new thing at the time and figuring shit out as they go, probably a combination of both, but I have not been able to connect to their characters from any campaign on the same level that I feel for C1. Not even the animated series makes me feel the same, but I still enjoy it.

I see a lot of people who started with C2 instead of C1 feel the same way for the Mighty Nein as I do for Vox Machina, so I'm wondering if maybe just whoever the characters are whenever you first fall in love with the show is the characters you just always feel eternally connected to... I also have seen people who started with C2 saying that just can't get into C1 which hurts my heart 🥲

Actually the only time I felt as connected to a campaign as I do for C1 was EXU Calamity and I have a love/hate relationship with it being so short lol love it for its rewatchability but hate it for not getting to spend more time in that world with those characters 😩

[andi-o-geyser]

Vox Machina: I wonder who's stealing vestiges right from under our noses.

Vox Machina 5 minutes later with 3 new bullet holes between them: oh god it's her

[nowyoursoulisforfeit]

Look at him go

[rainbowcaleb]

Rating: G | Words 4.9k ch. 1 | Characters: Mighty Nein, Vox Machina, Bells Hells

Tags: Alternate Universe - The Nutcracker Fusion, References to The Nutcracker, Winter, Holidays, Dancing, Dessert & Sweets, Winter's Crest (Critical Role), Party, Adventure, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Light Angst, Cute, Portal Fantasy, Temporary Amnesia, (only sort of), World Hopping, Banter, many characters meeting in many ways, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fairy Tale Elements

Summary:

A gust of icy wind exploded into the room, the door suddenly yanked open. Jester quickly raised her arms to cover her face against the artic blast of snowy shards, making it even harder to see. The contrast between the black outdoors and golden indoors made it nigh impossible to identify who was silhouetted in the doorframe; or what.

a winter's crest potluck fic fill :)

[reynolds-here-over]

Now I imagine that when laudna is brought back her parents are fighting the followers and Delilah since she got enough power to resurrect herself

Whitestone is probably uneasy and Delilah probably raised some undead when she got back so people are ready to fight undead monsters to the point that they mistake laudna for one

This opens the story to sadness as vex and Percy get back from killing Delilah and they prepare themselves to bury one of their children only for them to get back and there’s no body

They probably think that she raised with the other dead and that they’ll never truly put their child to rest properly

They go on with heavy hearts for roughly 10 years until laudna dies again and bell’s hells takes her home

Ok I’m gonna try cooking and someone can tell me if it’s burnt:-

Laudna wasn’t hung on the sun tree in 810 PD and was instead born around 812 PD as the younger twin to Vesper Elaina de Rolo

Laudnas name can change or not I’m not sure of that yet

But she’s raised as a de rolo with her loving parents vex and Percy and her siblings

I think maybe laudna still has that magic spark but it’s little things that she can do with magic that she kinda brushes off

but she’s still weird like I imagine her bringing home a dead rat as a kid and calling it pate but her parents aren’t letting their kid keep a dead rat so they switch it out for a live one that laudna names pate de rolo II

Then in 832 PD roughly, some briarwood followers try and give Delilah power (I assume she connected onto someone else instead of laudna after she was killed in 810 PD) so she can resurrect but Delilah wants revenge as well as the power so she tells them to kidnap laudna

So that’s what they do they kill laudna and in the same way as before dress her up as vex(I imagine laudna looks a lot like vex except she doesn’t have pointy ears so they cut them) and hang her from the sun tree to show them that Delilah is back and to use the sacrifice to give Delilah power and to get revenge.

This would happen roughly 8 years before laudna meets Imogen to she still wanders around for those eight years alone.

I have more of this idea but I’ll post it later but if anyone wants to talk about this or their own ideas that would be fun.

[utilitycaster]

The Long Mechanics Post

First things first: as most D&D players will know, there is not a perfectly objective metric of Best Build. Even “most optimized” doesn’t mean anything until you define what the character is optimized for; Caduceus and Percy are both “optimized” builds with very different skillsets. Unsurprisingly, given my URL, I have a penchant for versatility and spellcasting, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate an effective barbarian or fighter. For a bit more on what I tend to judge build by, see here; I’ll also elaborate further down. Note that relevance to the character is important to me. This is not simply a metric of combat ability (which, again, could mean anything from tanking to healing to damage output); it is also a measure of out-of-combat skills that enhance the RP and the ability of characters to progress the story on their own power (eg: recon/infiltration abilities; mobility both in and out of combat and both physical through wildshape/polymorph and teleportation, research capability, etc.)

Second: when you start talking about parties and not individuals, this becomes even more complex. To give an example, Percival de Rolo is an incredibly strong build of a massive damage output ranged fighter; he also has respectable HP, very high dex making him useful in stealth missions; is capable of melee combat if necessary; and is highly intelligent and educated. Percy works well in Vox Machina. However, imagine if he were in a party of a wizard, a rogue, and a (ranged) ranger. This would in fact be a bad party build, no matter how good the individual builds were. Only the ranger has healing capacity and would likely be far from the others. The rogue would likely have to burn their bonus actions to hide most of the time as no one would be in melee, depriving them of sneak attack (though the wizard could perhaps try to grant advantage in other ways). Percy’s intelligence would not be a detriment but it would overlap with the wizard’s skillset in a comparatively small party, and if no one had high charisma the party might struggle in social encounters. A run-of-the-mill paladin who made sure to take Cure Wounds would do far more for this party than Percy despite not having the same sheer DPS, just on the basis of filling in needed gaps.

This is quite long, so there's a readmore!

Things that make character builds good:

Versatility. This is, again, my personal favorite, but it’s also a longstanding fandom favorite. Keyleth is not a high damage character much of the time, but the sheer versatility of Circle of the Moon Druid as a base subclass makes her incredibly powerful with little customization needed. Druid subclasses provide wildshape, which can be used for spying in the form of a small animal, and at higher levels permits flight. While there are few direct damage spells, Keyleth served as secondary tank and a formidable melee damager also through wildshape. Druids can heal and cast Greater Restoration; they can deal area of effect (AOE) damage; between Wind Walk, Transport Via Plants, Polymorph, and Wildshape she was also Vox Machina’s primary source of transportation. Speak with Plants, Commune with Nature, and Scry served as key means of gathering information. While Scanlan largely covered buffs and debuffs (making his party members stronger/weakening the enemy), Keyleth had a few major ones, notably Feeblemind. There is very little Keyleth could not, in some way, manage to do, and most of that which she couldn’t do was handled by other party members (Percy, Vex, Vax, and Grog all being strong dealers of individual weapon damage). Fjord is a similarly all-around versatile character with tanking, ranged (magical) and melee damage abilities, and even a decent amount of healing once he multiclassed; unlike Keyleth, he is a formidable physical attacker, able to navigate the party’s social encounters with ease, and has access to Counterspell, but he lacks her transportation abilities (which aren’t necessary, as Caleb, Jester, and Caduceus, all quite versatile in their own rights, have these abilities). 

Optimized specialization: If you cannot do everything, do one thing incredibly well and reliably so. This is where your min-maxers go; often the realm of fighters and barbarians especially. I think two of the greatest examples are Percy and Grog: Percy has, as mentioned, a number of skills including a very high intelligence, but at his core he is able to do a positively ridiculous amount of damage, at range, very quickly. Similarly, Grog has nearly 300 hit points and high mobility, making him the ultimate meat shield; the amount of damage he can also deal while engaging with a foe is similarly nothing to sneeze at.

Regardless of build, another consideration, particularly in combat, is action economy and resource allocation. If you’re an arcane trickster rogue or a bard, for example, you have core class features that use a bonus action (cunning action, inspiration). That doesn’t mean you can’t have bonus action spells, but it does mean you may find yourself wanting to both cast Healing Word and grant Inspiration, but be unable to do so. A paladin who gets two attacks might not want to cast a spell to deal damage, since saving that for smites and getting in two chances to hit is probably better than one. How the character is played matters just as much if not more than their build; a suboptimal build played thoughtfully is better, mechanically, than the greatest wizard build of all time who exclusively casts magic missile.

Note that many characters aren’t exceptionally versatile nor super specialized. Indeed, a lot of characters aren’t quite as good at a bit of everything as Keyleth or Fjord, nor as singularly honed as Percy or Grog, but are still quite respectable. And for PCs, that’s a good thing, because you’re not working alone, which brings us to…

Things that make party comp good:

This is a list of “things I think nearly every D&D party in a longform campaign should be able to do.” I would also add that the more characters you have, the more non-negotiable this becomes. If the three-person parties of (for example) The Adventure Zone, NADDPod, or Worlds Beyond Number are missing some abilities that’s understandable, but if Critical Role’s 7 or 8 person party lacks some, that’s a poor allocation of abilities. Also, as mentioned, this is for longform campaigns where the characters are likely to run into a wide variety of situations; a shorter-form more specific game doesn’t.

Combat focused

At least one primary healer (or two half-healers); preferably some backup.

At least one primary tank; preferably some backup; this pretty much always doubles as a melee damager

Characters with ranged damage (magic or weapon)

Magic damage generally, ie, damage with types other than slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing

Buffers (giving bonuses/advantage/benefits to their own party)/debuffers (granting disadvantage or detriments to the enemy)

Characters with area of effect (AOE) damage

If you have a primary rogue in the party you should have at least one melee damage to grant them sneak attack; more than one is better since then the rogue has options.

The ability for the entire party to get the fuck out quickly. This can be via druids, polymorph, teleport, everyone being very fast, but part of combat is, at times, running.

Story focused

Ability to Find Things Out Through Magic: easy access to spells like Identify, Detect Magic, Scry, Commune/Commune with Nature, and Speak with Animals/Speak with Plants (those slashes are “or’s”, not “ands” in this case, ie, just commune with nature is fine). Obviously only relevant at levels where the party can take these spells.

Ability to Find Things Out Otherwise (possibly through magic): you should have a decent language spread, if relevant, or someone who can cast Comprehend Languages; people with good insight, perception, Int-based skills (all of them). Survival and Medicine can be useful as well.

Ability to Sneak Around Physically: stealthy people, people with invisibility, people who can become tiny creatures, or people with unobtrusive familiars.

Ability to Sneak Around Socially: disguises or Disguise Self/Alter Self + decent charisma; here again is a place where language proficiency or Tongues is useful

Ability to Get Places - mid level and up only as these start at level 9, but: teleportation circle/teleport/transport via plants/word of recall/plane shift.

Mechanical Cohesion

Ability to build upon each other’s combat moves, ie, Keyleth casting Faerie Fire means that even if no one is in melee, Vax (and later Vex) now have advantage and get sneak attack; Scanlan throwing or carrying people with Bigby’s Hand; Jester using Dimension Door to bring people to the right place in combat.

Some overlap is fine (indeed, you ideally want more than one person with some healing capacity, and most parties have a range of weapon damage) but you do as a rule want to avoid having two characters who are very similar in skillset; it’s better to have character who is good at A and B; character who is good at B and C; and character who is good at C and D, rather than two characters good at A and B and one good at C and D.

Customization to the story

If you’re in a Curse of Strahd game, you might want to be extra strong on things like healing/detection of evil. You might want to focus on a lot of radiant damage, survival skills, and stealth to be able to get through Barovia and kill vampires and ghouls; but it might not be as important to speak a wide variety of languages or be able to hit history checks, since your characters wouldn’t be familiar with Barovian history anyway. An Oops All Rogues party is good for a heist and an Oops All Paladins party probably wouldn’t be, but the reverse is true for dealing with a cursed temple full of ancient undead. Mechanics are highly situational.

I’d categorize characters as follows. This is not a perfect match, but I think this might help understand party comp better.

Versatile: Marisha described Circle of the Moon as a swiss army knife of a subclass and she’s right. As mentioned, Keyleth and Fjord can do a little of almost everything in battle, and quite a lot out of it as well. This is an exceptional case and not the rule; druids and martially focused support/utility classes or very good multiclassing and good stats are kind of the only way to get this kind of character.

Support caster: Casters who focus heavily on healing, buffs, debuffs, and crowd control, and less so on damage. Caduceus and Scanlan are both skewed in this way.

Utility caster: Caleb, Jester, Pike, Dorian, FCG, and Fearne all have access to a decent number of support spells, but also focus extensively on damage in combat. Not quite as versatile as Fjord or Keyleth, but not a pure blaster either. Tary is also arguably in here.

Damage caster: The famous glass cannon; a spellcaster who has some out-of-combat-skills but primarily focuses on damage. Tiberius, Imogen, and Laudna are all here - as you can infer, this is where most sorcerers fit, and I’ll talk a bit more about the classes below.

Tank/melee damage: Good at taking a hit and staying up, or being a target but being very hard to hit, drawing fire from weaker characters. I’ve combined this with melee damage because, to be honest, you have to work hard at building a character who is a tank and doesn’t deal considerable melee damage.  Barbarians are tanks by design; many paladins and melee fighters serve as tanks as well. Grog, Yasha, Beau (dodge tank) Ashton, Chetney, Braius, and Orym all serve in a tank role, but also see below.

Support martial: Not the best name for it, but: martial classes that are good at dealing status effects and controlling the space of combat - often highly mobile and often able to either shield others or cause status effects to their party’s advantage. Monks and many fighter classes cover this; blood hunters are also this. Stunning strike, battle maneuvers, and blood curses. Beau, Chetney, and Orym do double duty here. Molly is here; he probably would have grown into more of a tank over time had he lived longer, and I’d put Kingsley here as well. Veth also is here thanks to her arcane trickster subclass; Vax is here after he took paladin levels. Braius can be put here thanks to his bard levels; Yasha had a few tricks like her battle cry. I think Ashton’s class was intended to be this; however, its unpredictability makes it hard to put here as it sometimes was and sometimes was to the party’s disadvantage.

Ranged damage: Rangers, ranged weapon fighters. These are also often your stealth crew in addition to rogues; rogues are sort of in this space, but they tend to lack the same degree of range as a longbow (or gun). Vex and Percy are the core ranged damage folks. As you can see, ranged damage can be covered by utility/blaster casters. Veth and Vax both manage slightly less far-ranged damage.

Out of combat:

Skill monkey and/or linguist: the classic classes for this are rogue and bard - Expertise abound. Rangers are often also decent, especially if they take rogue levels (or, from what I understand, in 2024 rules) - even in 2014 rules, they usually have access to a ton of languages and some specialized knowledge. Vax, Vex, Scanlan, Veth, and Dorian. Beau and Caleb manage to hit a lot of this as well thanks to expertise and skill proficiency feats; it’s very easy to manage this through a smart race/subclass combo and feats alone.

Stealth/Infiltrator: Rogues! Vax and Vex, though much of Vox Machina could manage (honestly they were so good at stealth and at a high enough level that Keyleth turning into tiny creatures wasn’t super important). Veth, Beau, and Caleb (via Frumpkin) did this for the Nein. Fearne and Chetney covered this for Bells Hells, who often used invisibility. As for the disguise form - Vox Machina had the cap of disguise plus Scanlan had Seeming to cover everyone, and Keyleth had Alter Self (and Vax’s subclass explicitly makes him able to disguise himself). The Mighty Nein’s casters all had disguise self from a very early point; Beau and Yasha (and earlier on, Molly) were less able to do this. Bells Hells struggled here - they could stealth, and Imogen and Chetney could go invisible and Fearne could become a creature, but there’s a reason why getting through enemy lines never really got easier for them when it would have likely been a snap for the other parties.

Arcanist/Diviner: people who are good at getting information via magic, as discussed. Keyleth is the only real option for Vox Machina, hence the frequent check-ins with Allura, Gilmore, and Zahra. Caleb is obviously heavily focused on the arcane side of this, but Jester ends up being the point person for Scry. Both she and Caduceus use Commune regularly to gather information, and Caduceus notably casts Legend Lore. FCG does use Commune, but not frequently, and has one use of Identify per day; later, Fearne has Identify. Interestingly, Chetney ends up doing quite a lot of work via Grim Psychometry.

Transporter: Keyleth is Vox Machina’s; Caleb is the Mighty Nein’s though Jester and Caduceus have Word of Recall (used to great effect during the Vergesson Heist and mentioned during the Uk’otoa two-shot). Bells Hells have the Staff of Dark Odyssey.

The summary post put this all together, but to do it again - as you can see, Bells Hells was sorely missing key out of combat skills; combined with the lack of time to develop relationships with new NPCs, it mean that former PCs or NPCs ended up ferrying them around half the time. The Grim Verity, I would argue, could have been a compelling way to do this, but Ryn’s petrification meant it was always Keyleth, Allura, and Essek doing the same work they’d already done for past parties, mostly because Bells Hells were Assigned Main Character (and unlike how Caleb took on transport once he hit the right level, Bells Hells did not take the spells to do this). They also had a very weirdly balanced group in combat - three tanks, with FCG doing tanking and damage rather than playing pure support, and complicated by the fact that Ashton’s abilities were unpredictable by design; and three casters mostly focusing entirely on damage or their own protection. Otohan was a formidable opponent, and I can’t fault the party too much in the first battle, but I truly believe that either other party could have destroyed her in the battle in 91 at a comparable level with little difficulty (and, notably, I think either other party would have been able to do their earlier missions more efficiently, leaving them less drained at that point). Vox Machina’s gaps in ability were usually either within a single battle because Keyleth couldn’t do everything all the time; or were, as discussed, specific arcane skills that were organically outsourced to their allies. The Mighty Nein meanwhile had a spread across pretty much every skill imaginable and were exceptionally focused on high utility and support.

I think another really worthwhile consideration is that Bells Hells’ builds and especially subclasses almost all were either more focused on the self than others; actively working against versatility/flexibility, or in some way a liability, though again, as with all criticism of Bells Hells, a big part of this is that the campaign was really never customized to them as a party the way Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein’s campaigns were.

Most of Bells Hells' subclasses or builds in some way either actively worked against more support/team-focused efforts in combat, which led to them being able to do a very large amount of damage, but not having much ability to work together and build on each other in combat. Orym is of course the exception here - Battlemaster is a class that allows a fighter to specifically assist or protect others or debuff the enemy, and the maneuvers he took, particularly bait and switch, made him honestly one of the stronger support characters in the party, which is a wild statement to say in a party with a druid, a cleric (much of the time), a bard, and two sorcerers.

Going around the table, Chetney had the risk of attacking other people at low health. This actually was kind of a non-issue because it was rarely enforced later in the game, so really, he mostly played as a straight tank, and actually, through a combination of magic items (Shatter as cast through Turmoil) and the blood curses, he managed a decent amount of support.

Laudna's build was heavily dedicated towards keeping herself up or helping herself (form of dread, hound of ill omen, strength of the grave, blur, mirror image, gift of the everliving ones). Spell Sniper would have made extremely long distance combat a good option; but she also took the (helpful to others!) Silvery Barbs and Counterspell which only work when in much closer range; plus as a two-caster multiclass for the start she was already cantrips Georg, so taking more via a feat was a weird choice with no underlying story reason to justify it. She also had a massive number of reaction spells, which is generally unwise from an action economy perspective. Most of her other spells were damage focused, and she rarely used the AOE spells she had despite a tank-heavy party. And, as discussed, she and Imogen cover almost the exact same area in a party with massive ability gaps. The versatility warlock invocations would have offered could have been of immeasurable benefit; I also may make a post that simply covers how uniquely poorly her build and backstory fit together.

I was an early critic of FCG's subclass, and frankly, still am: transfer suffering is a tanking/damage ability in a party that was desperately in need of pure support. The rest of it is honestly fine, but as a first level core feature, it set a standard that was hard to overcome. I also would have gone with Potent Spellcasting or a different build of stats with Divine Strike; FCG was really not much of a weapon damager. Braius was honestly fine; I don’t have much to say here.

Wildfire Druid is an incredibly good class and Fearne did quite a lot of support especially outside of combat (notably, she is a big part of why Ashton didn't die permanently when they took the shard), but in combat, she did focus heavily on targeted damage when again, this party desperately needed crowd control/AOE, which her subclass even offered. And, as mentioned, rogue really was a good individual character touch [and I’ve been pretty vocal about thinking that Fearne especially got a raw narrative deal] but the party as a result lacked some serious utility.

Imogen’s build was for the most part standard sorcerer, and it’s again a party comp problem, but there are choices that could have been made. I think Careful Spell would have been a far better metamagic option that would have opened up the possibility of AOE without damaging her party; I also don’t know if Laura swapped out spells, but, for example, Synaptic Static is great and on-brand…but highly limited in when it can be used. Because sorcerers are extremely limited in the number of spells they can take and do not have prepped spells, every spell counts, and teleportation circle (or, again, Careful Spell that made Synaptic Static more useable around her party) would have done quite a lot of work. I also think that her dedication to psychic and lightning was good as a character choice, but as the party were often fighting creatures like her, a shift towards other damage types would have been wise.

As discussed, Orym was great.

Ashton’s build has similar issues as others above: it was unreliable. When it worked out well, it really worked; when it didn’t, it didn’t. As a tank they were often running around rather than controlling the center of the combat as a tank frequently should, in part because of these abilities, and I think as with many of my criticisms, it’s “this character would have been fine in a party that had more support focus and versatility, but in a party that was almost all tanking and damage with a lot of confounding factors that made them unreliable, everyone kept leaning further into tanking and damage and unreliability, rather than trying to address these gaps.”

Dorian is also, honestly, a build I have really liked elsewhere, both in EXU and in other shows (Fabian Seacaster from D20, and Jens Lyndelle from NADDPod) but the thing about Swords Bard is again, you’re using inspiration not to inspire others but to empower your swords. This works for Fabian, who is in a party with Adaine, Kristen, and Fig, all of whom have extensive support abilities (plus he is part battlemaster); it works for Jens because the premise of Trinyvale is that all three characters are kind of terrible people (and because he still does a great deal of healing). For Dorian, it works in EXU, but again, Bells Hells really could have used pure support as from a lore bard or similar.

It is, as with many things in Campaign 3, less a problem of any single character’s fault, and more a lack of session zero and cohesion among things that would have been fine in a context more suited for them, but this was, still, a constant problem.

[rachandroll]

I've been splashing in the puddle that is stats and combat comparisons between the main CR parties in my lil excel document (thanks crstats and omen archive) since C3 ended and while I've not finished pulling enough information to make any definitive conclusions yet, there's a couple things I've noticed that I find interesting. First, the number of combat encounters in C3 (82) is drastically lower than C1 (120) or C2 (139). Second, the Hells spend on average slightly fewer episodes per level, and the spacing between level ups is much more even; the Nein average out to about 10 and a half episodes per level, while the Hells average out to about 9 episodes per level (I'm only comparing the Hells and the Nein because Vox Machina's uneven leveling makes including them headache inducing, shout out milestone leveling, all my homies love milestone leveling).

I think *why* the Hells having so many fewer combat encounters has a lot of factors to it; for one, they tend to try to avoid fighting quite often, talking their way out of things. For another, it seems like Matt is purposefully moving away from using a lot of the classic sort of hoard-of-enemies monsters because quite a lot of them are humanoids who have been depicted as racially evil in DnD, i.e. goblins, orcs, gnolls, kobolds etc etc.

The thing that's prompting me to make this post musing aloud, though, is that I am wondering how much of that was actually part of making this campaign more challenging for the players? Fewer combat encounters means less time to get a feel for your build and how you might best mesh with other players. Spending on average fewer episodes per level on top of that puts the players in the position of gaining new things before they've got a feel for what they've already got. And cutting out most of the damage-farming, high-kill-count swarm type encounters or those with weaker enemies deprives players of the psychological boons of the Easy Win. I don't think I appreciated just how much Matt was quietly twiddling the less obvious knobs, in terms of making this campaign more challenging. I dunno, it's neat!

(I also really want to know when they all took rests in relation to their various combats, too, because the Hells were also often in the position of doing what amounted to a dungeon crawl in terms of resource use before their biggest fights, with very few rests in between. It pains me so much that we never got to see them take on Otohan with like, anything in the tank.)

[moonstrider9904]

Here is a library of my gifs for you to navigate. If you like any of these posts, please consider reblogging to support me! I put a lot of love and effort into all of these, and I’d really appreciate the reblog. 🌙✨ Please do not repost any of these gifs without my permission!

Also please mind that I made some of these a long time ago in a galaxy far far away when I hadn't mastered the art of giffing so they aren't my best work, but I did want to include them ❤ However, the ones for TBB Season 3 and any remakes are my best work.

The Bad Batch Season 1

Soft!Crosshair meeting Omega

Hunter gives me Hozier vibes sometimes

Crosshair gets Wreck'd and Lula'd

Crosshair in the battle simulation

Imperial Crosshair

Tech Tuesday

Crosshair for May the 4th

Crosshair's different helmets

Wow I was in denial about Crosshair's chip lol

More Imperial Crosshair

Crosshair in Reunion

Crosshair in Return to Kamino

Crosshair in Aftermath

Imperial Crosshair (remake)

Comfort Crosshair gifs

Crosshair - After Dark by Mr. Kitty

Tech - Five by Sleeping At Last

Tech

A set of Crosshair gifs I made for my birthday

Tech's more deviant than defective

Crosshair no

Season 1 Crosshair (remake)

Crosshair on Ryloth (remake)

The Bad Batch Season 2

Tech in Faster

Crosshair across season 2

Crosshair - epiphany by Taylor Swift

The Bad Batch Season 3

Crosshair and Omega - Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift

Batcher with her dads

Crosshair in The Return

Crosshair in Point of No Return

"How Touching"

Crosshair's sparkling personality

I can fix Crosshair, no really, I can

Crosshair in Aftermath + Crosshair in The Cavalry Has Arrived

Crosshair, Omega, and Hunter hug

The Bad Batch - Eye of the Universe by McKane Davis

Hunter in Aftermath + Hunter in The Cavalry Has Arrived

Hunter and Omega in The Cavalry Has Arrived

Crosshair - Every Step and Between by McKane Davis

Hunter and Omega in Aftermath and The Cavalry Has Arrived

The Clone Wars

The Clones - Goodnight, Saigon by Billy Joel

Wolffe, my beloved

Wrecker vs. The Decimator

Arcane

Steb in Act 1, I

Steb in Act 1, II

Steb in Killing is a Cycle

Steb in The Dirt Under Your Nails, I

Steb in The Dirt Under Your Nails, II

Star Wars Rebels

Ezra says goodbye to Kanan

The Book of Boba Fett

Jumpy Grogu

Kenobi

Space Jesus

Leia's Skywalker genes run rampant

The Legend of Vox Machina

Percy de Rolo

Percival

Lord Percival Fredrickstein Von Mussel Klossowski III

Bad News

Percy de Blorbo

The long lost De Rolo

Percy in A Silver Tongue

The duality of Percy

Percy's righteous anger

A set of Percy gifs I made for my birthday

You can also find these under the tag #moon's gifsets.

[junoshifts]

for the short & sweet ask game:🍦,🦷, ✉ - any dr! :D

hi there lovely ! i will be answering for my gwyn reality ( acosf + vox machina crossover )

🍦  𑅕  TASTE  ＼  how do you leave traces of yourself? a signature scent? one of your interests? perhaps just your appearance is enough to leave a mark?

my signature scent is one of perfectly burnt marshmallows, sandalwood, cinnamon, and coffee— it’s the scent of a cozy coffee shop or a night spent huddled around a campfire, a reminder of how sweet life can be in the presence of loving connections. my appearance is also a major part of how i leave a mark in peoples lives— big brown doe eyes and soft golden hair, with a smile to leave others in awe.

🦷  𑅕  DON’T SMILE  ＼  who in this reality can make you laugh even at the worst times? do they purposely try to get a giggle out of you? is it completely unintentional?

gwyn, em + nesta for sure ( and dawn as well obviously ) . . . one of the things i value about my friendship with them is our ability to find joy and companionship in even the darkest moments of our lives. i know i can turn to them without a shadow of a doubt, they have my back as much as i have there. with that in mind, sometimes our ways of interacting with each other make me laugh a little too much, even under ungodly pressure. i don’t think any of try to make the others giggle while actively under stress, since we know risks and things at stake in our work. we do know how to cheer each other up after, relying on each other with inside jokes and silly comments to ease any residual post-fight adrenaline.

✉️  𑅕  DUMB & POETIC  ＼  what about you juxtaposes another trait of you? do you hate the spolight but love to be appreciated? do you love taking care of people yet neglect yourself?

first and foremost, i’m a healer but travel with a band of warriors, so there’s that. i advocate for nonviolence but when the situation calls for it, i don’t hesitate to defend my friends or people who need protecting. i want to say that these aspects of my identity juxtapose each other, but truthfully, they’re two sides of the same coin. i love to help people and receive individual thanks for my work (on a small scale) but i cannot stand major celebration for achievements or actions.

[kalolamultifandom]

Funny critical role clips

Hi guys! I decided to start making posts with yt links to some fun Vox Machina and critical role related videos I stumble upon.

Let's appreciate all the amazing creators and people who took their time to make this content.

Here's one comparing the glorious door moment between the campaign and how it was animated in the cartoon.

[cringefaecompilation]

I would love to know what the thought process is behind hating the C3 characters so much while declaring every single one of the M9 to be morally superior, while also knowing these characters were created by the exact same people. Who have yet to voice anything but the same measure of appreciation for BH as they have for either M9 or VM. So many of these fans have voiced wanting the cast to “learn from their mistakes” as if they have a higher level of clarity about Exandria and the gods, and I wonder if they’ve noticed they don’t regret the way this story unfolded. Like, at all.

i mentioned a little while back that there's this weird kinda object impermanence people have towards the cast. like that the characters are not actually being played by them and are their own living breathing people independent of one another.

which is how you get takes like "why didn't bell's hells think about the mighty nein and vox machina clerics and paladins before they got rid of the gods? are they stupid?" like i dunno, they PLAY THEM CURRENTLY. THEY KNOW WHAT SO AND SO WOULD THINK. it's fine to criticize the cartoons flattening the characters to be more relatable to a wider audience, but this kinda screams "i actually know their characters better than them :p" when it comes to the livestreams.

actually i have a post about this in my drafts based on both this and that orym thing i just reblogged hold on

[nowyoursoulisforfeit]

This post is for the singular purpose of appreciating Grog.

Like, my man is the biggest, strongest, most stereotypically masculine of Vox Machina, and despite being considered pretty dense, he is the most emotionally aware of all the guys, maybe even the whole team. No spoilers, but in the Origin comics, he also single handedly saved the whole groups asses by just being nice to a nymph. He is so understanding and concerned for his friends, and even people he doesn't know. He has such a good heart.

Somebody tell him he's doing a good job or give him a gold star, just do something because he deserves it.

[art-of-vox-machina]

hi! popping here first to absolute thank you for all the hard work you've been doing here. can not imagine how hard must be to manage and find all of these behind the scenes arts, me as a concept art nerd lover, am beyond the words for all the work you do. thank you. and i also, lastly, wanted to ask you if you have already seen any full-image arts from s2 credits? i've been dying to get one of them, but i could not find :/

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it! During this extra long hiatus, I haven't been doing a great job keeping up with this blog and definitely need to start posting daily again, so I apologize for that! Have a lot more in my drafts! And, as a fellow art nerd, I'm sure you'll be thrilled to know that there will be an official art book for Vox Machina, so you'll eventually be able to find all this art and much more all in one place!

Unfortunately, all those lovely credit color scripts have not been released, but you can see a few in this post: https://www.tumblr.com/art-of-vox-machina/710727066246676480/howard-chen?source=share

[cpunkwitch]

short tmi warning incase this bothers anyone, post talks about showering

i really need to ask because any advice would be great.

as a person with severe anemia and cfs+cps, i have a bad habit of making the water in the shower too hot for my body because the hot water feels really good on my muscles but it causes me to take a knee and a few deep breaths or i risk passing out in the tub. i was really careful with the water temperature today but still found myself close to collapsing, i had to sit in the tub with the water pouring on my back for about 5 minutes before i could even try getting on my feet and slowly standing up again. i got out and sat on the floor mat till i didnt feel so light headed anymore.

i already have a really hard time showering because of dysphoria and dysmorphia and it just seems like my issue with showering because of my disability/ies. i cant buy a shower chair and i have basically the same issue with taking a bath instead of a shower (ive already passed out and fallen asleep in the bath several times before because i cant tell when the water is too hot until i get out and im lobster red and steaming.)

so im really hoping that maybe someone might have advice or ideas that can help me make showering easier.

i have no money atm and im saving up for school so i cant buy anything, i can ask my mom to look into it which might make showers easier for both of us as we're both physically disabled, but theres no guarantee for it esp when my parents are also tight on money and the shower is over a relatively small/narrow tub built into the wall.

if anyone knows something i could do to make this easier it would be greatly appreciated. /srs

im wondering if theres some kind of diy shower chair or something else i could do to support myself without having to sit in the tub or just shower in cold water?

[ID: banner reading "dni if... proship, transx/id, syscourse/discourse blog, anti-mspec lesbians/gays, anti-lesboy/turigirl more in pinned rentry. this blog is protected by the addams family, the de rolo family and co." in all black lowercase text. It has a grey cloud background. On the left is the De Rolo coat of arms with a cobweb in the top corner and symmetrically flipped on the right is the symbol of Vox Machina with the same cobweb in the bottom corner :End ID]

[vaxyl]

Writing Update!

Okay, so still struggling to write anything but making progress.

For the past 2 weeks, I have worked on the following stories;

Soul Drunk - requested (only request I'm doing!) - An alternative ending to episode 9 of The Legend of Vox Machina season 3, where Vax faces the consequences of his deal with the Matron when he's overwhelmed by the souls of the dead after killing the dragon who killed his mother when he was young.

Separation Burns - An alternative universe where Vex'ahlia and Vax'ildan didn't find each other again when Vex abandoned Vax after they ran away from Syngorn, as seen in flashbacks from episode 3 of The Legend of Vox Machina season 2, and Vax falls into the hands of Byron Anders and, in time, the Briarwoods while Vex finds herself in New Byroden.

The Cost Of One Soul - An alternative ending to episode 12 of The Legend of Vox Machina season 3, where Vax pays the ultimate price to save Percy from Orthax and unintentionally gives the demon his soul instead.

Growing Pains - In an alternative universe where the Chroma Conclave don't attack until later on, Vox Machina start hunting down Delilah's cult when Vax is captured by cultists and is used in a ritual meant to make Delilah a new vessel to return in that ends up turning Vax into an infant. Vox Machina find themselves working against the clock to protect Vax while stopping the cult from bringing back the Briarwoods, while Vax has to grow up all over again.

Not My Mark - An alternative universe with a/b/o themes, where Vax is an omega who is forced to pretend he is an alpha by his father until he is caught during heat by the Briarwoods and falls pregnant as a result. How does Vax handle this new trauma? How does Percy react? And could Vax really bring Sylas' kids into the world and raise them as his own? What changes?

And We All Fall Down - An alternative ending to season one of The Legend of Vox Machina where Vox Machina are defeated and taken captive by the Briarwoods after the fight at the ziggurat. Very dark, no good. Just angst, evilness and suffering.

DISCLAIMER - While I am still actively working on these fics at current, there is no guarantee I will finish them as my mental health is ever swinging back and forth like a pendulum, and my motivation is the same.

Any questions about my stories are appreciated in the form of asks, comments or reblogs!

If you're interested in any of the stories mentioned, the following are actively being posted on my AO3 account [ vaxyl ] here;

Hoping to make these updates more consistently in future. 🤞

[halusidoart]

Keyleth appreciation post :)

Probably going to rewatch season 1 of The Legend of Vox Machina because it's such a good series, but at the same time I want to start watching C1 lol also, interactive reel on my IG