#veth the brave

widonotts:

i’m sure this bit of meta has been discussed already because i’m a whole two months late but god, i don’t think i’m ever going to be over this watch scene. for the exchanged i love yous, initiated by caleb for the first time and punctuated with an “always” from veth; for caleb’s admission of how broken he would feel and has felt without her, while veth doesn’t realize—doesn’t let herself realize—that for him, “on his own” means anywhere without her; for veth’s stubborn self-correction trying to talk only about her love for and devotion to the nein rather than caleb, while caleb is so clearly focused on her and how much she means to him; for all these tiny moments. and i love their dialogue just before that beautiful hug and final exchange much more than i expected.

“then it’s… goodbye.”

“i don’t wanna think about that.”

“well then, good. think about your guilt, and i’ll think about mine. and that’ll keep us company.”

a laugh line, sure, but also an acknowledgement that they both feel guilt, and their guilt can’t be separated from the other. they’re both guilty about their devotion to the other and what they’ve done because of it. veth’s not trying to lessen it like she was at the beginning of their conversation; she acknowledges that it’s there, and and she lets them feel guilty and complicated together, because even in this, they’re not going to be apart. and she’d rather the both of them go through their guilt now, together, than think about the goodbyes to come.

ow.

vethany:

i do think a lot about how young veth is, and how small and tragic her life has been, how little of it she’s really been allowed to live. but that quiet “i’m not prepared to die” still knocked the air out of me

vividxp:

I’ve been noticing for a while that there’s a spectrum of reaction that runs from mild bemusement to frustration and anger that Veth has been treated gently by the people who love her (particularly Caleb and Yeza) in spite of her flaws. It didn’t start all that recently, but the last two episodes have really brought this type of sentiment to the forefront.

I have to say that I don’t understand it at all.  Especially considering how hard Veth is currently treating herself. What purpose would it serve for Yeza to yell at her the stuff she’s already thinking?

modernvetherature:

can. can we talk about veth going “what about mine?” when she was talking with cad and cad was reassuring her about luc’s happiness. god. god give me a second. hold on. give me a second hold on oh god—-

What I say: I’m done writing Veth meta no one wants to hear now.

What I mean: until recently, Veth has always asserted herself as a protector of TM9, especially Caleb - but in ep128, she saw the thing which frightened him the most and which before now, she would have done anything to protect him from, and used him as her shield from that threat. She’s moving away from Caleb and the nein, and I’m not okay with that.

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.

Jester and Veth only seemed like chaotic enablers, when really neither of them ever needed enabling in the first place.

It was Yasha all along, only one quick walk with Veth from being the most chaotic of them all.

While I would have like to see Caleb’s Bisexual Maelstrom, it’s pretty clear from a DM perspective why Matt got in the way of it. A lot of characters in campaign 2 are a complete 180 from Vox Machina, because their relationship problems aren’t insular.

Matt had to force external ties on most of VM in campaign 1, but Veth, Caduceus, Caleb, and Jester all have extremely important relationships maintained (in some form) with living people who are NPCs, who have been engaged with the plot in the last 5 episodes. That’s a lot of the core emotional roleplay which would be directed by a PC at Matt, rather than at another PC. By excluding all the different NPC interaction options from occurring at once, the DM can try and redirect players to focus on relationships and RP between PCs.

I’d like to present to you: Widowgast’s Veth The Brave! ✨ Happy Thursday Critters

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I spent a lot of time learning about the art of shading

Been missing critical role, can’t wait to see their return!! Celebrating with some faves

[Image description: a drawing of Veth the Brave from Critical Role. Veth is a fat brow skinned halfling woman with dark braids and aquamarine tattoos around her eyes. She also has a bright red eye in the enter of her forehead. She is looking up at someone and saying “Why are you looking at me?” End description.]

Gotta appreciate the cognoza’s aesthetics

modern nein!

The Mighty Nein Smols!