Feb 8, 2022
to new beginnings.
.
(closeups and alt versions under the cut!)
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Latvia
seen from Germany
seen from Australia
seen from China
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Russia
seen from Finland
seen from United States
seen from Finland
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from Australia
seen from Austria
seen from China
seen from United States
to new beginnings.
.
(closeups and alt versions under the cut!)
Ok but can we talk about Caleb holding Veth AND Essek close after the failed Molly ressurection as a direct parallel to when he held Nott at Molly's grave? Like hello????? I'm screaming.
Can’t stop thinking about how Molly’s death shaped not just the M9 personally but the whole campaign.
The Iron Shepherds were supposed to be long-term villains. The Tomb Takers could have been allies, or at least enemies to be used, played, outwitted. But losing Molly cut off the path of fostering a relationship with the Tomb Takers, and in their grief and rage the Nein did something they perhaps shouldn’t have been able to, and took every Iron Shepherd down. (And while they all wanted to save their friends, it was Molly’s panic over Yasha that drove them to set up a hasty ambush in the first place.)
And then...and then what? The beginning of the campaign had a lot more structure, more like c1. And while that could be attributed to their lower level, I think something about Molly’s death transformed them from a typical adventuring party into something else, this wandering, searching family.
What would a campaign without that loss have looked like? We’ll never know, but I think “unrecognizable” is a safe bet. It’s not that the rest of the campaign is about Molly, it’s that losing one of their own so early changed their priorities. Vox Machina never failed a resurrection. They had more deaths but they never really had to pay that piper until the very end. The Nein know they can lose people. And it changes their whole focus as a party.
They spend literally the rest of the campaign, until the Cognouza arc, not setting out to save lives or kill monsters (although that happens along the way of course) but searching for meaning. Searching for who each of them even are, what they can even do, what it all means. They reunite families, remake themselves, save each other’s homes, right wrongs and rescue each other when the past comes calling, save an Archfey who dared to grow a heart, keep each other in check. They focus inward, drag each other along and lift each other up, dedicated from that one instant to spending the rest of their lives making sure none of them are ever lost again.
"I’m doing this because they’re my friends and I love them.” Veth-then-Nott says to Caleb on the Glory Run Road, to keep him from running.
“Why else have we come so far?” Caleb asks over 100 episodes later, placing the culminating evidence of all his growth as a wizard on the chest of the corpse that was once his friend, ready to destroy it to bring him back.
This campaign could never have had a typical structure because from the moment one of them was lost, it was never about making friends that help you save the world.
It’s about saving the world because your friends are the ones who live in it.
Essek: *gets targeted with the guilt eyeball*
Essek: *no change*
The eyeball: w h a t
Essek: This is just my state of being
Critters, a week ago: I can’t believe they’re ending the campaign here, I just feel there are so many loose plot threads that need to be resolved for it to be satisfying 🤷♀️
Critters, now: This is the perfect note to end the campaign on. The poetry, the parallels, the drama 👌🏻
(Also absolutely no hate to anyone with this, I just think it’s funny how much of a 180 happened in regards to people’s feelings about ending the campaign 😂)
Im having heart palpitations, my nose hasn’t stopped sniffling and i am wearing a dumb grin on my face.
I love this goddam show so much. I know its coming to a close very soon but dammit i love this show.
EMPTY... LOVE
The end of ep 140 was a roller coaster.
i haven’t cried during a cr episode yet (i’m not done catching up with either campaign, but i know enough to have been watching live eps for the past 2 months-ish)
but i gotta say
crying at 1:30 AM over a flamboyant purple person who currently can’t speak in sentences and is full on naked, now being embraced by a motley group of assholes after beating him up in a flesh city...
is either something i will never share with people i know or is the peak of my existence lmao