#watchmachina

[artificialhaunts]

Vex.... my beloved

a redraw of a master-study I did in 2023

✨2023 version ✨ Reference ✨

[enchantedmerry]

absolutely enamoured with the way Vex is pained by using a single gold to bribe someone. she's literally perfect from minute one.

[burr-ell]

this was a grownass 32 year old and i do not care he was a BABY. where are his wrinkles. where is his sleeplessness. he hasn't even brought news from the womb yet.

[watchmachina]

Kicking off Watch Machina this week with Campaign 1 episode 1, "Arrival at Kraghammer"! From today, March 17th, until Sunday, March 23rd, we're rewatching and reacting to the very first episode of Critical Role, which you can watch here or directly on YouTube. You can also follow along with this Linkable Transcript over on Kryogenix, and if you plan to liveblog, don't forget to tag your posts #watch machina!

The break begins at 1:32:21 and the second half begins at 1:43:40. (All timestamp links open a separate tab to YouTube.)

As with all first attempts at streaming, we start off reliving the magic with an audio issue! It doesn't impact anything important, but it lasts from 12:30 to 13:38.

For those not familiar with the characters or even if you'd just like a refresher, these first dozen or so episodes have prerecorded intros showcasing every character's backstory, using a combination of stock art and the character art commissioned from artist Kit Buss. If you'd like to skip it, the intros stop at 12:30.

[mareastrorum]

The excitement for that first on-stream HDYWTDT by Sam is just so satisfying. :D

[enchantedmerry]

It's a shame this line comes so early in c1, the character intros do not prepare you for just how ironic this statement is

[mareastrorum]

Love that the jokes about Ashley’s absences started right at the beginning.

Matt was like, I’m not gonna step in her shoes either, Pike’s going to bed at 6pm. 😂

(I’ll also note that the 10 minute short rest clearly didn’t last, but it made sense because so few in their level 9 party recovered anything during short rests anyway.)

[mareastrorum]

Chewed on Episode 1 a bit because it’s a touchy thing to comment on.

Elephant in the room: Orion Acaba eventually leaves the first campaign after a falling out with the cast. I did not watch the stream live, but I clocked the friction among the cast during my first watch, then was fairly relieved once I got to the episode where they announced he would not return. A lot of the general mood of the fandom now is to avoid talking about him if you can help it.

I’m not going to do that.

I don’t know Orion personally nor the veracity of any fandom claims about his character. I’m not going to bother with any of that. I’m just going to comment on what I like or don’t like of exactly what occurs on the screen without any speculation about events outside it. Just like any other character, I’ll probably have several positive and negative observations about Tiberius.

I’m fairly consistent with my tags, so if there’s any commentary on Tiberius, I’ll include that character tag so people can block it if they want. I usually only do team tags if it’s about the group as a whole, but as an exception, I’ll add Tiberius’s character tag if there’s even one sentence that highlights anything about him.

Anyway, this is just a heads up so anyone who has a strong aversion can block that tag if they don’t want to see that content.