#based and vex'ahlia pilled | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

burr-ell · 6 months

Text

cool vex'ahlia facts

general:

-regularly talks to and gathers information from relevant npcs

-is constantly on the lookout for traps or enemies whenever the party is traveling, and routinely guides them particularly when they're in her favored terrains

-regularly casts pass without a trace on the party to make stealth challenges trivial

-makes sure that the staff at greyskull keep are well-paid and frequently gives them bonuses and raises (to the point that even jarrett once told her that her generosity was respected but unnecessary)

specific:

-buys everyone winter clothes to keep them warm in vasselheim

-makes a shot to get them out of a trap in vasselheim with a roll of 35

-keeps the group grounded and balanced in whitestone, keeping them from going to either keyleth's noble or scanlan's violent extreme

-goes out of her way to research the raven queen to help vax feel better when she's the one who died

-comes up with the trench trap that takes out members of the goliath herd so the rest of the party can get into westruun

-releases grog from the raven's slumber necklace at just the right moment for him to deliver the killing blow against kevdak, saving all of their lives, and rolls a NAT TWENTY to intimidate the herd into bending the knee

-gives up 500 gold for a resurrection ritual for a child who was killed as collateral damage

-works out strategies with zanror for how to fight umbrasyl

-does almost 100 points of damage by herself on the first attack round against umbrasyl

-firmly says that most of umbrasyl’s hoard should go to the people of westruun and actively prevents grog and scanlan from taking more

-tells amelia about reginald's death and supports grog's gift of 400 gold to her

-comes up with a plan to get them across the gilded run to get to the shademurk bog

-gives pike and scanlan the broom so they won't get stuck in the boggy terrain

-leads negotiations with tooma and the other dragonborn to form an alliance against vorugal, and graciously apologizes when it turns out VM made a grievous and insulting mistake

-suggests pitting yenk the goristro against vorugal so they can more effectively take out a dragon and get a vestige in one fell swoop

-lands the killing blow on vorugal

-ensures that they don’t take too much from vorugal's hoard and asks tooma for permission first

-spends 15,000 gold to free two aasimar boys from slavery in the city of brass

-does almost 100 points of damage by herself in one round again, this time against thordak

-destroys thordak's soul gem, reducing his power significantly

-puts her mind and soul at risk to learn more information about opash and what raishan was trying to do on the island

-picks a lock in a goddess's library that was meant to be nearly impossible

-gives scanlan vital aid in his challenge with ioun

-indignantly stands up for scanlan against a dockmaster's prejudice

-persuades a man out of kowtowing to vecna

-comes up with a plan to get inside the earth titan's body even though she's scared half to death of what's to come

-lands the killing blow on anna ripley, delilah briarwood, and sylas briarwood, effectively completing the list that percy could not

-only worships gods with big dicks

i'll have to amend that one name, though, just to be fair. it's lady vex'ahlia, baroness of the first house of whitestone, grand mistress of the grey hunt, coinmistress of the council of tal'dorei, and leader of vox machina

#critical role #vex'ahlia #based and vex'ahlia pilled #long post

841 notes · View notes

vohalika · 1 year

Note

How does it feel to have the best opinions that are also objectively correct?

Like it sure is a good thing that I have a podcast to yell them into the world, isn't it!

Critical Role-Back - Based and Vex'ahlia-Pilled.

#shameless self promotion #critical role-back podcast #podded casting #thanks anon #flattery will get you everywhere

3 notes · View notes

burr-ell · 4 months

Note

Genuine question bc i always psyche myself out of writing due to this exact fear, how do we differentiate and avoid Shallow Angst when we pursue writing character studies? Situational angst seems straight forward where it's like oh no character got Hurt and now needs to be Comforted (the "plot" seems out to get this dude hurt and everyone centers on said dude with little other exploration), but say we did want to look at canon grief, using Vex as the example; what is the good way and what is the bad way to explore it? When do we go too far into excluding the rest of the story?

So I had conversations with @blorbologist and @essayofthoughts about this very thing, and what it basically boils down to is this: are you looking at these emotions realistically, taking into consideration the massive spectrum of how these characters interact with them and attempting to push past your own limited perspective of how feelings work, or are you just using them as a vessel to convey how you feel about something or what you think should happen?

Because there are plenty of very good fanworks that involve angst! Angst is, in simple terms, the examination of anxiety, dread, and sadness, and that absolutely has a place in the creation of art. Well-written angst attempts to find the character's voice in it all—it considers how they've dealt with emotions like that in canon, it asks what real-life expressions of grief or sorrow make sense for that character to convey based on their personality and past history, and as all good fanworks (and original works) do, it comes from a desire to understand someone who is not like you.

Take the example of Vex:

How would Vex deal with the loss of Vax? Based on what we know about her, I think it's safe to say that yes, she would be leaning a lot on Percy and Trinket, burying herself in her work some days to avoid the worst of it, but there are also days she'd be avoiding Percy, and maybe even Trinket, to go off on her own. I think she'd hold resentment toward the Raven Queen, even as I think she'd also want to keep the shrine standing in Vax's memory and actively push herself to forgive her. It would be complicated even further by her pregnancy, and all of the hormonal imbalances and physical complications that would entail. It would be complicated even further by the fact that she and Syldor canonically attempt to reconcile specifically in the wake of Vax's death; while I doubt they'd see much of each other in the first year or two, I think they would both be making incredibly awkward and loaded overtures that would be emotionally complicated and draining.

There are times she would lash out and times she would be hollow, and there's a lot she probably wouldn't be able to talk about because she just can't, because grief isn't something you can often put into words. There's a lot she'd also laugh and joke and smile about, because coping with loss means letting the wound scab over. There are times she'd be able to connect to Percy and Keyleth over the loss and times she couldn't, because the loss of a loving-but-complicated family and the loss of a lover don't feel quite the same as the loss of a twin who was all you had for over a decade.

There are a lot of ways to convey all that! There's no "right" answer; this is up for interpretation. But I do think "Vex will never braid her hair again cause Vax used to do that!" is definitely a wrong one.

Vex and Vax were codependent, but I think people tend to overstate the degree, and tend to ignore their canonical relationship development and Vex's characterization. I think it's important to note that Vex actually handles being separated from Vax during the Trial of the Take arc much better than Vax handles it; she makes fast friends with Zahra and generally seems to be enjoying herself and having a good time. Vex closes herself off a lot, but I think an underrated part of her speech at Percy's resurrection is how it recontextualizes the titling in Syngorn—he made her a part of something precious to him, and by the end of the campaign her stated goal is "make Whitestone the tits". Vex didn't just like, wind up as a city figurehead by marriage and shrug and decide to make the best of it; she was offered a chance and made it her bitch. The Raven Queen took part of Vex away when she took Vax, not all of her.

Yes, the loss is incredibly tragic and the end of Campaign 1 is bittersweet, but there are ways to portray Vex dealing with it that don't involve the general tenor of "ALRIGHT EVERYONE, DAILY REMINDER TO BE SAD ABOUT VAX". Like, I don't think Vex's first thought when she saw Laudna's body was "she looks just like Vax :( time for my daily Two Minutes Sad". (My issue with that isn't even whether the thought might occur to her—it absolutely could! But after thirty years, I doubt it would have been anywhere near the same level as "this innocent young woman was horribly killed for looking like me and I have to help her however I can; also if Delilah comes back I can should must and will tear her a new asshole". Like, the Vax thing might have come up long in the aftermath of her and Percy's inevitable late-night alcohol-induced therapy railing, but probably not before.)

A lot of the shallow angst you see in fandom generally has the same voice—not necessarily because it's written by the same people (although you do see many of the same people purveying it), but because the trending popular angst has to trend and be popular somehow, and it does so by channeling thoughts and emotional expressions that are broadly approved and accepted by the community, whatever that community happens to be. The characters in these fanworks behave the way that they do regardless of whether or not it makes sense in the narrative because shallow angst isn't about the narrative—it's about making your audience sad in the specific, narrow way that you are sad. It's about projecting yourself and your own emotions and how you would deal with them onto a character instead of trying to really understand someone who's different from you.

In our discussion, Blorb described fanworks in a way that really resonated with me—they're conversations with canon. Good, effective conversations are real attempts to communicate with people, trying to understand where they're coming from and connecting with who they are. Shallow conversations are one or multiple parties only thinking of the other person as a reflection of themselves, getting out their own thoughts and feelings with little interest in trying to figure out who other people actually are. And it's not that I think people who make these kinds of works are ontologically bad; it's that I think they're stifling their own creativity and growth. Everyone deserves better than to be limited to themselves.

#cr meta #vex'ahlia #critical role #based and vex'ahlia pilled #asks

83 notes · View notes

burr-ell · 1 year

Note

So I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your takes on the cr gods debate. I'm religious too, and it's been very refreshing to read your thoughts here. (Also, let me join you in stanning vex's lightbulb dad lol my mans is trying his best, probably).

Yeah, absolutely! I've always been delighted by the different ways in which the parties deal with religion and how all are valid choices—Percy and Keyleth's apathy toward the gods is just as readily accepted as Pike and Vax's devotion and Vex's newfound faith. I mean, that's part of the point of diversity and representation, y'know? It's important to see yourself in a story, but it's also important to relate to and empathize with people who aren't like you.

Y'know, it's interesting, because I think Pelor represents all of the things that Vex earned for herself by being herself, and that's such a great contrast to how Syldor represents things that Vex was never deemed good enough to have. Becoming his champion is an amazing culmination of her arc of belonging and worthiness, and while I do love the shippy stuff and I love what the whole scene says about Vex, I also love what it says about Pelor. Because only part of his trial is about actual physical skill—the other part is asking Vox Machina what Vex means to them, an aspect notably absent from the trial of Ioun.

Like think about this group of mortals: a violent dimwitted barbarian; the champion of a resented usurper goddess; an anxiety-ridden agnostic who's already been rejected for her faithlessness; a criminal kingpin who meddles with people's minds; and Percival "gestures generally" de Rolo. They're powerful, sure...for mortals. They're trying to do a good thing. But why should a god give a rat's ass what they think? Even the holiest out of all of them is only one cleric, and bands of adventurers with good intentions are a dime a dozen.

But Pelor cares. He cares that Vex inspires Keyleth and her power, that Grog believes in her, that Scanlan thinks she's the closest to perfect of them all, that she's like a sister to Pike, that she's Percy's heart and his judgment and the future he has chosen and his betrothed, that she is Vax but better. And Pelor doesn't just like, roll his eyes or shrug and be like "I guess, whatever"—he smiles upon her and lets her see his true face, and declares that there is hope and gives her his blessing.

And I'm supposed to think he's an asshole?? Y'all. C'mon now.

#critical role #cr meta #pelor #vex'ahlia #based and vex'ahlia pilled

93 notes · View notes