i share my dreams with ghosts.

ryn. | 20-something. | the strongest stars have hearts of kyber. | redemption is the way.

[magicseeker91]

Pike Trickfoot did terrible things, and that's wonderful.

In this essay, I will..

Ahahahaha alright alright alright, the last three episodes of season 4 were a lot and I wanna talk about the various reactions I've been seeing to Pike. Also included are my thoughts (that nobody asked for) on why her terrible, immoral choices are actually a great thing for her character.

Let's first recap what Pike's been dealing with since the season began: 1. Felt abandoned by friends who (as far as we know) made no attempt to contact her or Grog for a year.

2. Sees first-hand the damage caused by the Chroma Conclave and blames herself (and to an extent Vox Machina) for not stopping it faster (Survivor's guilt! Get your fresh survivor's guilt over here! It's so in character for Pike to carry the guilt of suffering she "could have stopped.")

3. Encounters a former mentor/priestess of the Everlight who mysteriously turned completely fucking evil (and necrotic). Let's not pretend that seeing one of the most devoted followers to your god turn over to an evil god didn't impact her in the slightest.

4. Starts having weird visions about an ancestor no one told her about who is somehow connected to sealing away the Whispered Prick.

5. Loses her grandpa in a horribly traumatic way.

6. Not only can't convince Scanlan to join them but overhears him say that leaving the team was the best decision he'd ever made. Rejected, indeed! I'd put good money on that particular moment of BL playing out in Pike's head when things got dark.

7. Loses Grog - the one person she could count on to be by her side.

Throughout all of this, she receives NO help from the Everlight. Whether this was because Pike cut herself off (like in season 1) or the Everlight was cut off from her by other means, we don't know. What we do know is that this is a lot. I wouldn't expect ANYONE to be thinking rationally by this point.

And even then, it took THIS MUCH for Pike to reach that point where she became broken and hopeless an vulnerable enough to be manipulated by the WO.

I'm not gonna argue Pike's innocence. She brought the WO back by willingly giving her blood. Fought her friends. Stopped them from getting to the WO. Hurt Grog. Put the entire world in danger. NONE OF THAT IS OKAY. No matter how she was manipulated or how her mental state was or what she had going on, that doesn't make her actions excusable. They are, however, understandable - even as understandable as Keyleth risking the entire realm for the hope of saving Vax.

But I've seen posts saying Pike should have been stronger or "helped herself" or that her actions were disappointing or that she's blaming everyone for her problems and I think that's completely missing the point. Plus, it gets addressed BY HER IN HER OWN LAMENT:

"Who heals me?"

She's already been strong - for way too long! Pike is always the one to help and heal. She helped Scanlan find a solution to being with Kaylie. Played a huge role in bringing Percy back to life. Forgave Grog for listening to Craven Edge. Just this once, she's ALLOWED to be weak, angry, and even cruel. Her grief, helplessness, and depression skewed her entire world. It cast everything through a negative lens and made her genuinely believe her friends didn't care about her aside from what she could do for them.

So...Pike did bad things when bad things happened to her, and it makes her such a realistic character whose redemption is going to be all the brighter for it. Because the Everlight is the goddess of...say it with me...

*REDEMPTION*

That's the thing with dynamic characters...they have arcs. They make horrible choices that have lasting consequences. They grieve in unhealthy ways. They do things that we, without the trauma and grief that they've been through, would never do. I cannot imagine how dull it would have been if Pike had just been a-okay this entire time. If she hadn't felt abandoned by VM or had no survivor's guilt or got over herself and talked with the Everlight or didn't feel compelled to drown herself in copious amounts of alcohol just to cope.

And I also wanna point out that Gideon/the WO didn't get to her at first. She walked into Thar Amphala, mace and Mythcarver drawn, and the first thing she did was try to smash Gideon's face in. It was only when she saw Grog - when she had a CHANCE of getting back something dear that had been lost to her - that she made her choice to listen. And she made her choices. She fucked up.

And now she gets to make it right because she is Pike Motherfucking Trickfoot and that is what she does.

[kamomeusart]

silly sketches for a silly team!

[natalierso]

experimenting with some collage stuff on photoshop :)

[forestgreenivy-deactivated20250]

Touch starved… but it’s for a cool autumn breeze.

[kosmogrl]

pre hairwash melancholy

[etiennelux]

the ideal chai latte is one of the most amazing things on this earth. it’s a shame that most cafes think they have to serve either a cup of grit or milk that they whispered the names of spices to

[vethbrenatto]

PIKE TRICKFOOT & SCANLAN SHORTHALT IN THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA SEASON 2 (EPISODES 7-9)

[foolhearteyes]

Oh, okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that gaslight gatekeep girlboss meme, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you think modern feminism has been co-opted by corporations. But what you don’t know is that that meme is not from Instagram, it's not from Twitter, it's not from Tiktok, it’s actually from Tumblr. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in January 2021, Tumblr user missnumber1111 posted, "today's agenda: gaslight gatekeep and most importantly girlboss." And then I think it was a-m-e-t-h-y-s-t-r-o-s-e, wasn’t it, who reblogged it with an image of the phrase edited over a piece of "Live, Laugh, Love" wall art? And then gaslight gatekeep girlboss showed up in the feeds of eight different Twitter repost accounts. Then it filtered down through Instagram and then trickled on down into some tragic “alt side of Tiktok” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that meme represents millions of notes and countless Tumblr users and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from Tumblr when, in fact, you’re wearing the meme that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of “stuff.”

[jkthinkythoughts]

I swear this is how I feel every time I see a Tumblr screenshot out in the wild

[gh0stienj0yer]

i need to get off tumblr i’m at the aquarium admiring the fish and my brain goes “posts that make you want to get in the water” what are you talking about. these are live fish in the room with you. what post.

[gh0stienj0yer]

posts that make you want to get in the water

[loveridden1999]

[creativepromptsforwriting]

Don't forget to feed your wip some lines of fresh words today and then let it roam free in your head.

[tired-shipper]

being a tumblr user is fun : the staff look like they're trying their hardest to kill the platform, half of the internet thinks we're dead, the other half reblogs our posts on pinterest, and we celebrate the murder of julius caesar every year.

[userlecter]

A deleted scene from The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

"You're tough, aren't you, Officer Starling?" "Reasonably so, yes." "And you'd hate to think you were common. Wouldn't that sting? My! Well, you're far from common, Officer Starling. All you have is fear of it."

The Silence of the Lambs (1988) by Thomas Harris

[emwheezie]

"time heals all wounds" WRONG. time is chasing me with a knife

[austenacious]

The Other Bennet Sister ~ Text Posts [18/?]

[e-sadg]

There are other women like you. There are other women who think the way you think, who feel the way you feel, who act the way you act. There always have been and there always will be. Womanhood isn’t whatever shallow archetype the world has tried to convince you that it is. It’s going to be okay.

[jimbodyson]

can we get some appreciation for Ashley Johnson's stammering in this scene like this is the best stammering I've heard in a long while