WHERE THE FUCK IS VAX

Is Vax’ildan in this episode of CR?

[cr-boywatch]

WHERE THE FUCK IS VAX?

Hi! Welcome to BOYWATCH, the blog where ON GOD, i am going to see my favorite boy in real time

I love Vax. He means so much to me, and as you’ve noticed, he has recently begun to appear in c3, which is great for me, because i didn’t get to watch c1 as it came out. As such, i have waited with bated breath for my favorite guy, staying up late upon each aired episode like a child waiting for Santa Claus- except for two very notable exceptions:

the episodes that he’s fucking appeared in.

AS SUCH. I have made this blog to catalog appearances of my bl(orb)o, and to attempt to catch him in his natural environment (the throes of hellish suffering). All future Vax encounters will be put here to my own benefit, though i may create tags for past cr boys to watch for, like Caleb or Percy. We’ll see how this goes!

Looking forward to the journey. Is it Thursday yet?

[soath]

if they do kill the gods i want vax to disintegrate like a traveler who has just returned from seven years under a fairy hill and found that seven hundred years passed in their absence. i want him to collapse into feathers and dust. family guy death pose but then he melts into pure shadow incarnate. this is because my spirit is cruel and my taste for tragedy unending.

[isvaxstillanorb]

[isvaxstillanorb]

⬟ The Beacon is out of the Tower ⯂

◯ The Orb is still in the Tower ◯

⯂ But the Beacon is out of the Tower ⬟

🗲 And the Bridge is BROKE 🗲

[cr-boywatch]

Okay I totally slept through tonight’s episode did we get any boy mentions

[ailustrarte]

It is Thursday, and while we wait for when we can get a new episode, here is some new fan art: The Raven Queen, Matron of Death!

[shorthaltsjester]

i truly am baffled by some of the cr fandom when it comes to the topic of the gods and c1 and death in general because. the raven queen didn’t kill vax. in fact she gave him more time. she Does get the blame from keyleth and some from vex but even those two by the end were more so just holding grudges wrapped up in their own issues that were exacerbated by vax’s choices. but it was always vax’s choice. which, y’know, i’m aware of a portion of the cr fandom’s propensity for dismantling every interesting choice a character makes into something forced upon them, but the role of fate in exandria has never been like bad faith you must adhere to the path chosen for you, it’s much more like what brennan has spoken about wrt specificity: as one makes more choices they become more particular to a given outcome. but that’s not some curse by the gods that dooms characters that’s literally just. what living is.

and of course death is a complicated thing that everyone approaches differently but. god the amount of people who view vax’s dynamic with the raven queen as an injustice or his death as some unforgivable thing the raven queen caused some how? in the words of laura bailey, Were We Watching The Same Orb? it isn’t an injustice that vax, completely willing to pay whatever it cost him to save his sister, was bound to the Deal He Agreed To. his role as the champion was one he found meaning and purpose in. further, it was the raven queen that allowed him to be resurrected later in the campaign. like, it isn’t fair that vax had so little time but it is time he chose and time he was given, but vox machina tends to fall on the reaping the benefits side of unfairness of power in exandria. if what makes the gods — particularly the matron of ravens — irredeemable is that they have the power to make choices that mortals can’t like denying someone’s resurrection, how irredeemable must the group of heroes called vox machina (whose members drop like flies to be revived moments later) be to the everyday person who just has to watch the people they love die and make peace with it?

of course it sucks that vax could not have a happy ending or epilogue like the rest of vm, except of course, vex has a family and is happy and loved, and keyleth is strong and alive and protected, and i think that looks a lot like what vax wanted most.

[gauzemer]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Melora the Wildmother (Critical Role), Predathos the Red End (Critical Role) Additional Tags: Eating Disorders, Character Study, POV Second Person, Episodes: c03e099-101 Downfall Parts 1-3 (Critical Role), Aeor (Critical Role) Series: Part 7 of Bad Bitches of Exandria Summary:

On the reintroduction of the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park.

[acebender]

The Raven Queen

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

There's just something so fascinating about the way the Exandrian pantheon has decided to handle the Aeor Situation™ - by electing a few of their kind to be born as mortals in order to infiltrate the city.

The first to bring herself low was Ioun, and I can only imagine how lonely that must have been for her. To feel infinite wisdom creeping into her adolescent mind? To rise through Aeor's ranks knowing what they'd do to her if the authorities discovered the truth of her existence? Waiting, hoping, perhaps even praying that the other gods would follow through with the plan.

Sarenrae has a husband and children as Trist. I can't help but consider the parallels to Liliana Temult, with a 'higher calling' pulling a mother away from her family. The conversations in the temple suggest that she would have been aware of what she was by the time she started her family. Yet she loves them, cherishes them, even knowing that she might not see them again. Will Amaris, Haylie, and Topher learn that Trist is a goddess? Or will that only be discovered when they find their way to her realm in Elysium?

The Matron was once mortal, and she willingly returned to that form in order to help her newfound siblings dismantle the Aeorian threat. Her steward since childhood was Purvan, helping raise and guide her despite his old age. Imagine being a little girl, guarded by the Champion of Ravens himself and his wolven companion, completely unaware of your own divinity until later in life. Imagine the night she woke up, remembering her ascendency, seeing Purvan and recognising him.

And what of the families that gave birth to and raised the four Betrayer Gods? What of the halfling family who watched their precocious daughter scale a fence with far too much ease than it should be? The day the tortle's parents found him crying in pain and tearing at his skin to distract himself from a memory so distant and yet so real? Or Milo, who became a priest, not to follow in the light of the Dawnfather (like his parents may have thought), but to mock his brother even as a mortal?

These gods spent entire childhoods with families and friends, taking refuge from the skirmishes caused by their other siblings. Who, despite those similarities, have very different opinions of humanity, of Aeor, and themselves.

[essektheylyss]

Wait is this like... a Jesus situation. Did the gods straight up become mortals for a while to get past Aeor's wards to figure out what the fuck was happening in there. If so that's incredible, I am obsessed with that as a choice.

[essektheylyss]

This is FOR SURE a Jesus situation. But for war. What a choice. Holy fuck. I am absolutely THRIVING, INCREDIBLE, SHOW-STOPPING.

[shadowwulf]

Taliesin has always talked about wanting to play a monk in a calamity setting that has ties to the Clay family.

Thinking back to the Tale of Clay, Dust, and Stone, it was said that the body of the nameless champion "needed to be gone from the city" and was thus split in 3 and taken by the families.

This is giving me a LOT to think about

[lalimauk]

some of my suggested ship names for dorian / braius:

brorian

braiorian

brian

[definitionofacritter]

The moodboard for when your dead character shows up to save the love of his life, only for him to get orbified and used to start the sequel apocalypse.

[definitionofacritter]

Can you believe it's been 450 days of this hell?

[isvaxstillanorb]

[gauzemer]

Okay, so. The idol in Aeor that the Hells found-- the one the liveshow will presumably be focused on-- we all think it's Gruumsh, right?

I have some evidence to the contrary.

So the symbol we saw is a small circle inside a larger circle with lines radiating outwards between them. We've never seen this associated with Gruumsh before, but it sparked something in my memory. I think I found it.

We were first introduced to this deity during the Search for Grog liveshow, when VM found a small shrine to her in Pandemonium. She has not been mentioned since.

Everyone, meet the Lady of Pain.

Small circle. Bigger circle. Lines radiating between them. Hell, here's a stylized form of her symbol:

But the blood and eyes that Liam's been posting on Twitter-- definitely Gruumsh, right? Well, maybe not. On a hunch, I went to the Lady of Pain's wiki page and hit ctrl+f for the word "eye," and this came up. "The face of the Lady of Pain served as the logo for the entire Planescape Campaign Setting and thus appeared on every sourcebook or accessory. Her image in the logo was intentionally removed from the Faction War sourcebook, but it appeared in the background with a bleeding eye."

Okay. Okay. Cool. I found the Faction War book.

OKAY. OKAY. COOL. UM. So it could be Gruumsh!! Could be!! Two instances of connection is still a coincidence. But three?? Oh, I'd really have to wrack my brain to come up with three connections, right???

WRONG. CHECK THIS SHIT OUT.

"According to the great wizard Mordenkainen, the Lady of Pain had some sort of connection to the Raven Queen, another enigmatic character. It was said that only the Lady of Pain knew the Raven Queen's true intentions."

So. Uh.

I'm gonna be very interested in seeing the results of that liveshow.

[gauzemer]

Munching on a burger oh I know this one that’s the Lady of Pain

[gauzemer]

I’ve solved it

[cr-boywatch]

Boys to watch for tonight (in order of likeliness)

Essek

Eadwulf Grieve

Caleb Widogast

Caduceus/Kingsley/Fjord

Vaxildan (pleas)

Sam’s new character