#luc brenatto
Veth’s Journey as a Metaphor for Body Dysmorphia.
I was just thinking about how one would showcase different mental illnesses in dnd when I realized the perfectmetaphor for body dysmorphia has already been done without even intending it.
Veth Brenatto aka Nott the Brave was transformed by a hag (we’ll call the hag mental illness for the purposes of this metaphor) into “everything that [she] thought [she] was” before she was cursed the hag was told “make her suffer”. She covers herself in bandages to avoid herself or anyone else seeing her. She avoids reflective surfaces. Even being called “Nott the Brave” in her goblin form…some days it takes real bravery to exist in your own body. And that name reflects that.
But the real thing that gets me is her first scene with Yeza. When she’s seeing Yeza for the first time she’s under an illusion that makes her look like her true self. But underneath that illusion she knows she is truly a goblin.Yeza sees her but she is existing in her goblin form, her body still feels like a goblin. She’s afraid for Yeza to see her the way she is and afraid of what he might think of her. Yeza sees Veth, but she knows how she truly looks underneath this illusion. And when she talks to him he keeps saying “but it’s still you, right?” and she can’t understand how he loves her, grotesque appearance and all. She voices this and he asks “you think that matters?” and she says yesbecause how could anyone love her when she looks the way she looks? Even the scene where Yeza is touching her face to see bits and pieces of the goblin beneath, this could be beautifully equated to describing bits and pieces of how you see yourself with body dysmorphia and letting someone you love see how you see yourself bit by bit.
Going back to the hag being mental illness, this actually works perfectly with how the Mighty Nein v Hag went. They didn’t fight her. Nott made her known to them, and they did all they could, they were ready to defend Nott and do whatever they could to break her curse. But they didn’t fight her. The only person who can fight and defeat your mental illness is you. Jester offered this hag a cupcake. This cupcake is what allowed the curse to be lifted because what your friends can do is distract, be there for you, comfort you, and take care of you. Even after the curse was lifted, Nott didn’t transform back immediately because she needed time. She needed time to work on herself and make sure she was ready. Just because you know the problem doesn’t mean you can implement the solution. I know my body dysmorphia in and out but it still haunts me because I need to do some more work on myself. It takes time to unlearn things.
Eventually she transforms back into herself, into how she is truly. This is accomplished using friends sticking by her, loving her, being there for her, helping her find a way to become herself again. Still though, this experience as a goblin will always be with her. She won’t be able to forget it, not truly. I know that this metaphor isn’t flawless, that you can’t be cured of body dysmorphia. But I’m not looking at her transformation back to her body as a cure, more just her transition out of her darkest days. The days when it was the worst, when it was the hardest.
There’s more little tiny things that I can add in the comments because they’re not as moving as these points, but I just wanted to share. Feel free to add on.
Just the best outdoor cafe reservations for the best halfling family
CW: Harm to Children
Luc the Brave
[ID: Digital art of a scene from Critical Role ep. 129. A towering fire elemental takes up most of the art, facing forwards with a furious expression.
Behind it, blocked off by smoke, are the smudged figures of Caduceus and Veth. Veth is in the middle of turning around, with her mouth wide like she’s about to shout.
In front of it is Yeza and Luc. They have their backs to the viewer, and Yeza is reaching for his son. Luc is staring straight towards the fire elemental, which looms over him, and aiming his small wooden crossbow./End ID]
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Veth has kind of come full circle in her emotional arc, from spouse and parent to adventurer and back. And if you follow it through, it makes perfect sense, but it’s still very bittersweet.
She was once anxious about having to choose between a future with the Nein, and one with her family, but over the last dozen episodes, the Nein have become so scared that it seems the choice is whether to die with the Nein protecting her family, or stay with her family and hope someone else somehow steps in.
Nott had accepted her old life and her love for Yeza and Luc as part of a past life - they were no longer current to her after she’d spent her time falling in love with the Nein and going on adventures. She was emotionally distant from her old family, because she’d accepted the loss of that closeness and consoled herself to watch from afar with a new family, for whom her love and life was current and vibrant. Even after she got her body back, she seemed to mostly interact with Yeza for sex, probably over-compensating for emotional distance, or to talk about their son and little else. Sure, the massive degree of emotional infidelity, both romantically but also just sort of generally, made her feel awful - but it didn’t make her in love with Yeza.
But as time has passed and she’s seen her son grow up, the danger has become more and more overwhelming, and Veth has been second guessing herself again. She’s gotten used to being able to occasionally see him. She’s resigned herself to the idea that either Caleb doesn’t return her romantic feelings, or he is so averse to disrupting a child’s family that he’d never act on them if he did. The excitement of adventure have been yielding less and less reward for their mounting risks, and the tasks they’re doing are becoming less and less optional and the results of failure more terrible. She’s stopped promising to always be with Caleb, and begun thinking about going back to Yeza and Luc - and has begun to see them not as distant people she loved in the past, and may see in the future, but part of her imminent future and present.
When Veth went to talk to Yeza before what happened in 129, it wasn’t clear to me if she actually wanted to go back to him, or had actually been considering calling for a “break” to whatever their relationship was, to make doing what she’s about to do feel easier. But nothing will hammer home how close and present your child is when he’s blown up and killed right in front of you. That relationship is now linked to his life and wellbeing and is suddenly the most important, urgent thing in Veth’s life.
She’s completed the journey from loving the Nein and wanting to be with them but feeling obligated to go back to her us and and son, to desperately wanting to be with her son and husband and feeling obligated to continue a dangerous mission with the M9. The adventure is now an obstacle to her being with her child. Caleb might be fried and unconscious on the ground but she’d step over him a thousand times to reach Luc. She didn’t spend a day talking about parenting, or guiltily spoiling Luc or fucking Yeza - she spent a day doing chemistry with her husband like she used to and spending precious time with her child - she even denied him excessive gifts in a world first for her.
I have a lot of feelings about it. I want the best for her but I also still want her to be curled up inside of Caleb’s grubby coat on the side of the road stealing trinkets and cracking cases with Jester and having little adventures with the M9 which didn’t threaten the world.
Pumpkin Spice Fluffernutter
[image description: a digital drawing of Veth and Luc Brenatto from Critical Role against a muted teal backdrop. Veth, a halfling woman with brown skin and dark braided hair, stands with a hand on her hip. She wears a yellow dress, a blue scarf, and arm bracers with LOTS of buttons. She’s holding up a small pumpkin with a smaller fluffernutter bomb inside of it and has a satisfied-parent grin on her face. Luc, a halfling boy with tan skin and short brown hair, wears yellow overalls and a dark sweater. He’s grinning with his weight shifted forward and wields a crossbow. To the left, a bolt-riddled pumpkin sits on a table, almost looking like it has a jack-o-lantern face shot into it. Text from Veth reads “Ready for the pumpkin guts?” /end description]
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[Image description: A black and white comic titledAdventures in Re-Veth-ification: It’s Been A While. Luc Brenatto, a white passing 20 year old halfling with a curly dark ponytail and short beard, a loose fitting shirt, and a button earing, is sitting in the kitchen of the Xhorhaus with Beau Lionet, a scarred asian woman with short hair who still looks in her twenties despite being much older.
In the background Fjord, an older half-orc with graying hair and beard, both loosely tied into tails, is pouring himself a cup of tea while Caduceus Clay, a firbold with a long mohawk piled into an updo, chops vegetables at a counter.
“…And that’s when she shot me in the ass,” says Beau, smirking.
“Holy shit,” Luc replies. “That’s pretty crazy.”
“Heh, c'mon kid, you know your mom.” Beau says. She makes a dismissive gesture, “Though she was still a goblin at that point. She calmed down a bit after she changed back”
Luc stares at Beau, confused. “When she… sorry what?”
“When Caleb turned her back into a halfling?” She says. She smiles a little awkwardly. In the background, Caduceus stops chopping to look at them, concerned. “… After we lifted the curse?” Beau continues.
Luc just looks baffled, bordering on alarmed, “Lifted the- Mom got cursed!? When the fuck did that happen?” He says
Beau, Fjord, and Caduceus all freeze, looking at Luc with pained and awkward expressions as he waits for them to answer his question.
Fjord breaks the silence first. “Well, this will be terrible,” he deadpans “I’ll get Veth.”
“I’ll make more tea,” says Caduceus.
“I’ll be real with you-” says Beau, putting her hand on Luc’s shoulder. “This conversation is gonna suck balls.”
A short jump in time later, Luc is sitting with his head in his hands, yelling a long drawn out “Aaah” while his mother Veth, a chubby halfling woman with partially braided hair and facial tattoos, tries to comfort him.
“… you were just so young, Luc, and it was confusing enough with me just showing up again and I was so worried I would scare you- I was scary! And you were so young-” she rambles. Fjord and Beau are beside them, with Beau leaning on the back of Luc’s chair and Fjord gesturing emphatically by Veth.
“I mean, you knew she didn’t come home right away, what did you think she was doing when she was Nott? Why’d you think we calledher that?” Fjord says.
Luc slams his hands down on the table. “I wasfive I thought fuck all!” he shouts. “ And even if I had thought about it I wouldn’t have gotten to ‘goblin curse’ from 'Nott the Brave’ because that’s fucking insane! That’s like expecting me to get to 'Ex-Wizard Assassin’ from 'Caleb’!”
“Wait, you know about the wizard assassins?” says Veth. Beau looks at him from over the back of the chair.
“Damn, how’d you get to wizard assassins before goblin curses?” She says.
“I don’t fucking know, Beau!” Luc yells. Caduceus takes Veth’s empty tea cup without comment.
Veth puts her arm around her son. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” she says. “If it means anything, it’s not just you I kept it from- It took months to tell the Nein. Hell, I didn’t tell you’re father everything until…” She trails off, a look of realization creeping over her face. “Until, uh….”
Veth suddenly hops down from the table and rushes off, speaking so fast her words slur together “Fuck, okay, hang on a second i'm gonna go get him-”
Many cups of tea later, Yeza, a halfling man who looks like an older version of Luc with no beard and large glasses, and the rest of the Mighty Nein have joined the others in the kitchen. The Brenattos are all at the table- Yeza and Luc are staring off into space, while Veth has both hands on the table ans is looking to the two of them with a slightly manic expression. Beau is still leaning against Luc’s chair, now with a cup of tea in hand. Fjord is sitting with Jester, a middle aged tiefling with short dark hair and one broken horn, on the counter eating sandwiches.
Yasha, a middle aged aasimar with white hair braided with flowers and an eyepatch, sits on the far end of the counter, straining to see over the people closer to the table, namely Caduceus, who is pouring more tea to add to the plethora of mugs now littering the table, and Caleb, a middle aged human with glasses and long hair in a side ponytail, who is standing behind Veth with his hands on her shoulders.
“And that’s everything!” Veth shouts, far to excitedly. “All on the same page! Everyone good?”
The rest of her family look profoundly nonplussed.
Luc leans back in his chair. “Ah,” he says.
End description.]
Being in your twenties is just like *accidentally unearths repressed family trauma in a casual conversation* *accidentally unearths repressed family trauma in a casual conversation* *accidentally unearths repressed family trauma in a casual conversa-*
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Uncle Ducey!
Do Not Repost or Crop!
I had to.
That episode was a rough roller-coaster and Luc is such a sweet boy, we don’t deserve him ❤
Family first
Major spoilers for CR C2E129
Please allow the revival of Luc to include him becoming a fire genasi.
i know their overalls were yellow but i was really attached to their description as minions
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We are the mighty Nein!
