gwendolyn de rolo, the most charming person in whitestone (feat. the eyes of charming)

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an addendum to this post

#scaredycat

i know its partly the nature of critical role as a whole changing for this third campaign, but its SO funny to me that "Dont Trust Anyone Not Even Yourself" Paranoid Chucklefucks The Mighty Nein were showered in kind and helpful guest PC's and ended up So Good at the Magic Of Friendship (threatening). While Bell's Hells of "time for therapy!!!!" "do you think they'll be our friend" "what the fuck is up with that game time!!" have wound up with a like. 40% hit rate for villains in their close friends. like this is a MASSIVE oversimplification and it makes sense but its mostly very funny to me. rip to early campaign m9 you would have loved all of your paranoid instincts constantly paying off in the worst way

Okay I NEVER post art but I have been consumed by this moment….

drawing from when i was watching last night of tha girllls !!!! from when jes and cad reunited n laura and taliesin hugged :''')

trying to be so, so normal about thinking about a half-orc with whittled down tusks and another man’s voice without a home running into a blue tiefling seeking out adventure and a place in the world who asked him if they could “walk together a bit”. and now a half-orc who is an admiral with a home port and a family who loves a blue tiefling who helps her friends fight undead and trauma (and on occasion both) who has a godfriend she can drag through a gate spell and ask to do her a favour once a week. trying to not lose my mind about jester growing up reading about whirlwind romances and teasing fjord about them but confiding in yasha that one of the things she values most in her relationship to fjord isn’t all the things that come from her understanding though her mother and romance novels, it’s that she feels comfortable with him. and like, even decked out like the most romance novel cover versions of themselves, they are still both kinda goofy and awkward and charming about their relationship in a way that fulfils jester’s big silly romanticizing heart but also is very, very genuine to who both the characters are and how they go about the world.

like i know a lot of people talk about the laura and travis of it all a lot and it is a very sweet aspect of fjord and jester but i cannot emphasize how much jester and fjord as characters who meet and then grow around and because of each other, who see beneath one another’s masks and support each other is something that is so compelling and well done and built towards regardless of the ever present claims that it only happened because laura decided to romance travis in their dnd game.

I've been thinking about Mollymauk, as I'm periodically wont to do, and the fandom discussion about him as a moral compass. Because the interesting thing here is, Molly wasn’t a very moral character. He was an unrepentant scammer. He had no respect for interpersonal boundaries and would deliberately push and break them. Generally, he was an asshole. As far as actually having a strong moral stance I would say Fjord was the standout of early m9, and to some extent Beau.

But here’s the thing: almost all of early m9 thought of themselves as horrible people. Fjord had been bullied so bad growing up that he still dealt with self-hate from it, and now suffered from survivor's guilt to boot. Caleb had killed his own parents. Beau, while she hated her dad, also had internalized self-hate and on some level thought she’d been such a shitty daughter she deserved his treatment. Nott was stuck in a body she considered monstrous. Yasha had survivor's guilt and knew she’d done bad things in her blank spots. Even when they did good, they didn’t think of themselves as good. Most of them were suspicious and asocial and faced the world with the same kind of distrust they expected to be (and were experienced in being) met with. (Jester was an exception, an agent of neither good nor bad but of amoral chaos)

But Molly was different. He was outspoken about loving life and people. He wanted to spread joy, even to people he didnt know or had even met: he slipped coin into people's pockets, hid a silver in a tree just so some stranger would one day be happy to find it. He openly cared for the party early on; was one of the first to step in and help Caleb when he went catatonic in battle. Above all, Molly had rules: where everyone else would agonize over what was the right or wrong or smart thing to do, Molly loudly proclaimed we don't leave people behind, and we leave every place better than we found it.

But the thing about Molly’s rules was, they were largely a cover. While the rest of the m9 thought they were bad even as they did good, Molly thought of himself as good even as he did bad. He scammed people, but made it a good and memorable experience, therefore thinking he gave more than he took. He charmed Nott and Fjord without consent, and when confronted would claim it was to help them. Out of the group, Beau saw through this, not because she was a better person but because she was a cynic. She saw that he caused harm, just as she did, and was personally affronted that he still thought of himself as good and tried to leave people happy, whereas she deliberately left every place worse than she found it.

I see Molly as a moral compass of the group not because he was actually any more moral than them, but because they made him their template. He was joy and brightness and he died trying to save them because it was the right thing to do, and they all chose to honor him by emulating his rules more than Molly himself ever did, because to them it was more than just a cover, backed up by genuine moral thought and discussion rather than small gestures. He taught them that it was possible to be kind of a shit person and still be good, to still love yourself and others. The idealized Molly they created never existed, and finally died for good when they resurrected him in the end and were met with a stranger, who they welcomed with the same love and care they would've expected Molly to show them.

Fun fun fun! AHHHHHH

i have this pet headcanon that imogen actually inherited relvin’s eyes (but tinted by the moon). and when liliana looks at her she’s seeing a little bit of both the people she left behind 🌙

polymorph therapy isn't for everyone

I will never let you go.

When a relationship is "like family" but in a bad way. "Like family" in the sense that it becomes the only allowable place to seek care. In that it legitimizes the isolation and violence of an us-vs-them mentality. In that it creates hierarchical power structures and conditions where abuse and control are both easily rationalized and near impossible to break out of. Where the only way to escape your subjugation is to stop being the child and become the parent, starting the cycle anew. And this is both expected and encouraged. Where you feel obligated to repay your caretaker by becoming the kind of person they want you to be. Where everyone looks a little too much like you.

I am once again drawing jester and nott

Ah yes, my favourite Critical Role dynamic. Sad Wizard x Other Sad Wizard.

the mighty nein - critical role

this is a place where i don't feel alone. this is a place where i feel at home.