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@eyydude-ao3
https://archiveofourown.org/works/63510829
@eyydude-ao3
Hiii <3
OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD THIS IS PERFCT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
THANK U SO MUCH <3
he is so pretty i would lose my mind on the spot if this stood in front of me
Why do you care?
Follow up to this from November
A dead little noble boy and his knight who definitely isn’t his protector and who he certainly doesn’t care about.
Why do you care?
Follow up to this from November
Do you guys think that Julien will get competitive with Dame Seremai? Will he get stuck in a proverbial protective-knight-dick-measuring-contest?
And do you think Dame Seremai is equally, if not more invested in it? I mean, she already asked to kill him once, but that could just be because he's Julien.
Dame "He brought my spirit back from the dead and I owe him everything. Please allow me to cut down any competitor."
VS
Sir "I don't care about him at all I promise that's why I keep risking my life to keep him safe."
And poor Occtis just like: 🧍♂️
Also I'd love to see Julien trying to figure out why he's feeling a type of way about a venomous zombie shambling after his not-favourite goth twink.
I will let you guess who is my favourite from @criticalrole campaign 4 💚💜
im not gonna survive the hiatus
julien, gesturing at occtis (matt explicitly says "i gesture towards occtis"): "tend to your exhausted charge, please"
no one does, and julien looks so... distraught
do we think it kills julien just a little bit that the main thing he can't do for occtis right now is heal him? do we think julien would have healed occtis outside of the tachonis manor when he had his pseudo heart attack if he could have? julien can't get healing through his class features - do we want to bet he picks up a medicine kit proficiency so he can tend to occtis?
god and how much did it hurt occtis that the only person who had his back, who cared about him, truly, in that moment, was julien? no one listened when occtis told them to stop touching him (he didn't use those exact words, sure, but the tone made it clear), no one healed him even though one of the people touching him was a paladin who definitely could have - a paladin who had been in charge of holding onto the thing that, for all they knew, was keeping him alive. a paladin who had been his friend and maybe isn't anymore
julien may not always know the right thing to say to occtis, but he always knows the right thing to do. and never once did occtis complain about julien touching him
If he lets himself, I think Julien is about to have some uncomfortable realizations about his emotions surrounding Occtis.
He vehemently denied caring about him, and then proceeded to follow him back into Obrimus Manor to keep him safe, and THEN explicitly chose comforting him over a fight with Occtis's father (though let's be real the decision not to engage was also based on Matt knowing Power Word Kill places Primus so far out of their reach it would have been suicide to try and fight him).
When speaking to his mother, Julien told her his goal right now is to kill every Tachonis, but he keeps putting himself in danger for this specific one, following him back into dangerous places despite Maya's request for him not to die in a dark hole. One episode previous his mother's request kept him from going to help Teor, but for Occtis he'll go back in.
After they reunited at Hal's Julien (who has no healing) asked for someone to heal Occtis, even though Julien was also hurt. "Tend to your exhausted charge, please." is what he says to Thaisha, but she looks past Occtis to Mara, who she takes and heals. I really don't think Julien cared if Mara got healed I think he was asking her to heal Occtis.
So, he's putting himself in dangerous situations to keep Occtis safe, and going out of his way to ask for healing for Occtis over himself. Yeah, Julien could have some uncomfortable conversations with himself.
oh my god
julien fighting the urge to throw himself at primus, looking back at occtis who's just staring into the space with trauma induced terror in the eyes
and then gently pulling him away instead
Considering Occtis and Julien's little spat.
I keep coming back to 'the things I THINK you want me to do.'
Occtis isn't doing the things Julien is telling him to do, he's trying to get ahead of that and do the things he THINKS the other man wants him to do.
That speaks strongly to how he's been treated in his family, and how he has learned, as many people who grew up abused and around volatile adults do, the hypervigilance and people pleasing that can keep you safe.
And here's the really crazy thing... I think Mr wisdom score of 8 clocks it in the moment. And I think that's because Julien does the same thing... or at least did when he was younger and smaller.
I'm not saying Raimond was as abusive as Primus clearly is, but I think he was volatile enough to keep Julien on edge, hyper aware of those moods and wary of when the anger might come out.
'so that you'll stop trying to kill me'. Julien hasn't actively tried to kill Occtis. But the fact that THAT was the genuine fear in Occtis head, combined with what they saw of Primus shortly there-after, I really think made Julien actually look at what has been going on between them. He was much softer right after, comforting him and drawing him away from his family to safety.
Julien may only have one gear in his head but right now it's turning for Occtis.
Which does make me wonder, once that gear has finished it's work... what will Julien think about Vaelus' actions? That she wasn't trying to kill Occtis, but just either didn't think of him or didn't care that his life could be collateral damage to her actions?
It feels like he's doing his guard dog impersonation, and if no one else is going to care about Occits, well... he NEEDS something to guard and protect, he doesn't have Aranessa, and he doesn't have Thaisha who she tried to pass him off to. He's like boarder collie who, if not given charges to heard, will drive itself and everyone around it crazy, and likely start to herd the family children because it NEEDS to work.
Can I just say how much I love how gentle Julien was being to Occtis after the events at the manor, even after their fight? Between his worry at Occtis’ magical heart attack, helping him through his panic attack, putting his arm out protectively while sneaking back to Hal’s house, and jumping to Occtis’ defense when the others were questioning them about leaving Thimble, it was really sweet to see. Also what Julien said to Koral “Your family has taken nearly everything from me and has definitely taken most everything from your own brother, Occtis”, which I was definitely surprised he mentioned. I’m very excited to see more of their dynamic since they’re staying on the same team.
"it doesn't make sense as a pairing" / "they're just pretty and next to each other"
...meanwhile, TWO SECONDS after deciding to leave despite Thimble still being inside because "they're here, we have to leave, I hate this"...
Occtis "I'm tired of pretending I give a shit about you" Tachonis turns back around and goes after Julien when he gets dragged by his shadow.
.....you're not fooling anyone, boy. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Damn, the confirmation from Mara that the plan always had been for Thjazi to escape. Mara was meant to be in the Tenebral Reaches and Thjazi was meant to escape, and it was only because she wasn't that Thjazi realised he had to let the execution take place and let himself be killed.
He said, "Not you, anyone but you" when he saw Azune was the Arcane Marshal assigned to scan him, so he realised what position this would put him in. He knew Azune would immediately be arrested if he escaped. But - he only realised he had to actually die when he saw Mara. So there were a few minutes in there - standing on that stage, joking around with his brother over their lunch plans - that he was fully prepared to snap the glyph and put Azune in the noose instead.
So don't worry, Azune! Thjazi didn't let himself be killed just to save you! He was ready for you to die in his place from the moment he realised it was going to be you doing the scan!
It's so funny how everyone was fighting over if Thjazi was a bad person because of his actions or good because of his plans and then Mara was like "oh he was an abuser with good plans" like YES Thjazi had very good intentions and was close to getting them into motion, but to get them to work he also had to hurt many people and their pain is justified.
Like yeah Thimble and Aranessa were right in that Thjazi was trying to do good, but so were Bolaire and Julien in that he was a person that did not care about hurting others and sometimes did so intentionally.
something something "pretty boy" but can we also talk about occtis' skeletal hand?
i'm the most predictable person in the world for drawing this moment, though i think my favorite part about this scene was occtis whispering "i appreciate that" after kattigan healed him, considering literally no one else in the room had given him any sort of medical attention after he had the undead equivalent of a heart attack
We gotta talk Bolaire.
I'll confess the Bolaire discourse is bothering me. I'll own up front that generally i like Tal, enjoy his gameplay, and appreciate his commitment to interesting and unique characters. So yeah, I'm probably a bit biased.
But I want to break this down from the (objectively true) perspective that Bolaire is an abuse victim. I see a ton of discourse about whether or not Bolaire is right/being fully honest/acting reasonable with regards to Thjazi and this, to me, feels like willful blindness and victim blaming with regards to Bolaire's history.
Let's take the facts as we know them:
Bolaire was created by the halflings for the direct purpose of killing Rauwyn
Bolaire and his siblings succeed and are scattered
Bolaire is picked up and used throughout various conflicts without his consent because he doesn't have free will.
Bolaire gains free will
Bolaire murders his captors to escape being used against his will
Thjazi at some point figures out who/ what Bolaire is and blackmails him into his service
Amid all the conversations about the ethics of Bolaire's body snatching, about his outbursts and bad behavior and cattiness is how Bolaire is a victim of both his creators (who built him in an age of magic with knowledge our current PCs don't have access to, but presumably with the exact understanding of what they were doing) and Thjazi, who forced him into service against his will. I've seen plenty of discourse about how Bolaire is a monster for how he treats the bodies he rides and i see a lot of talk about consent for everyone BUT Bolaire so I'm gonna refrain the way he was treated in new terms in hopes it offers some insight into Tal's (imo) really nuanced gameplay.
*Imagine bolaire was built to seduce a god instead*
-your form was built for a singular purpose or service
- you're given no choice what you do with your form. You do as you were made. You seduce as your told. Because you have no mobility in your form you must share a body with one of your captors without your consent as they carry out the task you're designed to do- whether you like it or not
- you gain sentience and must use your seduction skillset to escape your captors, who have been forcing you to use your skillset against your will.
- you win your freedom, are forced to find a form so you can continue to exist. You choose the least kind person you can because you know you will destroy the body eventually.
-you build a life of sorts and begin to try to understand the world you're in and who you are, you've only ever known what you're told you do.
- some guy finds out "what you used to do" and decides he'd like some of that action, that someone with your skillset would be useful to his machinations and so he begins to threaten you and blackmails you back into the life of service you've just barely escaped.
Do those lists look pretty much the same? They look pretty the same to me. If you felt differently about the second list, thinking of this is terms of forced SA, than you do the murders, I posit you're probably wrong about Bolaire- or at least how Tal is playing him.
Tal's behavior isn't out of line or out of pocket. He's playing an abuse victim with no support who's being blamed for their abuse because their friend group loved their very charismatic abuser.
I've seen mile long essays justifying folx who've killed their abusers but we think Bolaire is being a little bitch because he rightfully called Thjazi an asshole? We want to bend ourselves into knots and cry buckets over Occtis (rightfully so, let me be clear) because he grew up in the Tachonis household but we don't feel bad for Bolaire's entire sentient existence being one forced murder after another? We're weeping over Azune's sister (another murderer btw) and his (justifiable) identity crisis and crash out because of it but we don't allow Bolaire the same over his *5 other siblings*? And that's to speak nothing of the fact that it's Thjazi's fault neither of them have been able to search for them in the post-rebellion years?
Y'all. Y'all.
Come. *ON*
And just- just worth pointing out that according to the NIH has conducted studies on the mindsets and behaviors of abuse victims and here's a list of the most common:
increased aggression
depression
distrust
alienation
tendency to withdrawal and isolation
impaired self-protection
poor social integration
Read that list twice and tell me Talesin isn't playing Bolaire as a medically accurate abuse victim. A full 100% of Bolaire's bad behavior (according to popular fandom sentiment i obviously think he's totally reasonable) *including the mistreatment of his body* is in line with the behavior of a person who has sustained long term abuse and frankly- and disgustingly heartbreaking- since Bolaire is emotionally only about 13 years old he's playing an abused teenager with terrifying accuracy.
Do i find Bolaire's behavior grating and distasteful sometimes? Sure. But I also find my teenager grating when they're acting out too, and they're a relatively well adjusted, average human. I don't think emotional behavior makes a bad person or character. I don't even think that Bolaire has let his emotions interfere with the Schemers ability to accomplish their goals and have no way interfered or put the rest of their group in danger; something we can't say is true for Julien, Wick, Tyranny, Hal, Thaisia, Murray, Azune or Thimble.
What i do know is Bolaire is now standing in a room full of people who are justifying his abusers actions because of his intentions, telling him he's being unreasonable about the abuse he suffered and he should just "let Thjazi go" so everyone can get on with the task of saving the world now that they're in clean-up mode after piecing together Thjazi's breadcrumbs.
I dunno fam, if my friends told me to just get over my abuser and hang with them while they sang his praises and would i mind too much helping with my abusers plan and oh maybe loan one of my siblings or myself out for a ritual that very possibly could destroy me, or the world maybe, it'd just be great so please suck it up and deal? I'd put Bolaire on myself and deal how I see fit.
I'm open to being wrong but as an abuse victim myself I think Tal's got the right of it.
