Guns and Daggers: A Land of Gunslingers and Rogue

It's been a hot minute since I did anything Percy De Rolo related so I decided to do something different: OK, I know he used to have brown hair that he dyed white and doesn't have a tragic past (Not that I know of but I did see one time he mentioned in a TikTok that he struggles with his mental health before) however I'm convinced that Taz Skylar is perfect as Percy de Rolo! You guys are going to be like, "He already played Sanji and now you want him to play the gunslinger who sold his soul to a demon and went on a revenge quest?! You're out of your mind!" Listen, listen, this is important and it's worth it!!! If by chance IF *hypothetically* there was a live action movie of Vox Machina, they should really cast this beautiful man that is Taz Skylar, Taliesin Jaffe where you at dude?

Poly Headcanons

FANDOM: Critical Role, LoVM

Character(s): Vax’ildan, Percival Freddy Something De Rolo

Type of Request: Headcanons

Note(s): I really love all the characterization in lovm so I'm happy to write for these two!!

Poly Vax/Percy

So to anyone else, it doesn’t seem like a poly unless they squint. But to you three and those close to you, everyone knows that you all have huge soft spots for each other.

There are many times when Percy and Vax are just exchanging sass while you are watching. It’s very amusing how Vax is throwing in many, many flirtations and innuendos as well while Percy is calling him a child.

Vax is absolutely the one that is more affectionate with you in public and alone. Just holding your hand or pulling you into a hug. Gives you kisses on your cheeks. Percy is just trying to eat some breakfast when Vax comes over and peppers your face. Smoke boy really is, “Right in front of my salad?” but doesn’t complain when Vax gives him a kiss to his cheek as well. Really doesn’t complain if you kiss his other one.

Mood 😞

Now we wait for another year-ish 💕💔💞

A/N - For this one, I wanted to take a more recent season turn of events for this one. Y/n for this one is a type of follower/priestess of Raven Queen, and both men’s POV on that

One thing that caught both of these men off-guard is the color of your eyes. Being a follower Raven Queen, they expected a dark color, but yours are so…bright.

For one who follows Lady Death, there’s still a vibrancy of life to your demeanor.

To Percy, he knows he should be afraid of you, but he’s not.

He knows his past, what he’s done, but you never look down on him or see him as “second best”.

There’s deep talks and reassurances on how life is, and that it’s all the more cherished and special now that he is a part of yours. And you, his.

On other hand, to Vax you’re his “security” person, his go-to.

He feels safe and reassured with you, and can talk freely about his arrangement, along with treating each other as their own person.

Admittedly, Percy may feel some guilt and/or frustration about Vax’s deal with the Matron, but you’re more of the mediator between that situation.

and then while I was thinking about that (and also revenge tragedies, in general) I started thinking about Hamlet, as I am wont to do, and how much Percy is Hamlet because he’s so fucking aware of the shape of his own story and the fucking… self-defeating level of narrative savviness it takes to look at your own life from the outside and be like “this is going to end badly” and still do it.

i mean just as a note first off i love how literal that comment about the friends is, because hamlet was directly referenced in ep 69, and they went “nope, we care about you more than that, and we have what hamlet didn’t which is access to resurrection magic! now get your ass back in the game and stop trying to take the easy way out of your redemption arc”

but also he’s not just going through the characters in hamlet, there’s a direct progression of themes as well, which is honestly really fascinating and something that would be hard to do in any other format than this progression of dnd characters (though it’s now giving me a lot of ideas for ways to do a production of hamlet with, a very different message than the original)

hamlet itself is a tragedy, so hamlet can’t learn from the people he meets, the story won’t allow for it, and he’s the kind of person that even knowing the story, he himself wouldn’t allow for it. the path he takes is just circular destruction until it ends by everyone dying. but in another story, in another life, he could learn from it.

percy, up until episode 69, follows the hamlet pattern to a t. estranged son of royalty, whose entire life was changed when his family was murdered by those that then usurped his throne. becomes obsessed with revenge, incited by a supernatural force, and driven to restore his home and make things right. but it goes wrong, he kills people he didn’t intend to, scares the people who care about him, no one is sure if he’s evil or crazy or just straight up suicidal (and the answer of course is a little of all three). leaves home, changes his perspective on things, but by then it was too late - the circle of revenge set in motion by both his actions and those out of his control keeps on turning until he finds himself in a perfectly matched (were it not for the trap he didn’t know about) duel, and everyone left in the circle dies.

and that, for a while, was taliesin’s plan. percy’s perfect ending. the final piece in this story told so many times. he even said percy didn’t want to come back, matt was waiting on taliesin to confirm it before resurrecting percy, depending on what the others said during the ritual. vex, as she has so many times for so many reasons, saved his life.

but let’s look at taliesin’s original plan. because here’s where it gets really fascinating - what purpose does the player king (and all the other players) serve in the original play? well, to show the power of a story. you can make people laugh with a story, you can make people cry. you can change someone with a story, but equally you can use a story to reveal someone’s true nature. which is the purpose they end up serving, to reveal claudius’ true nature and prove that he deserves to die. the players, in a story about the cycle of revenge, ultimately only serve to facilitate that revenge.

taliesin had molly as a backup character for percy for a long time. but the molly that would have joined the party if percy had died for good back then, is not the molly we’re used to. taliesin’s original plan was to have the carnival swing through town, with a play about “the terrible tinkerer of tal'dorei” - a caricature of a character that was ripley and percy all rolled into one, which he made specifically because he wanted the rest of vox machina to hate his new character on sight, and then see what happens from there. in this version of things, molly’s stories might have been revealing percy’s true nature, or ripley’s, they might have been changing people’s perceptions and twisting the memory of them, they would definitely be proving they deserved to die. and who knows what vox machina would have done in response to that, but it would only be negative, would be continuing the cycle of revenge.

caduceus, in percy’s story, is a character that didn’t exist. he wasn’t part of taliesin’s original plan, he was made on the spot over a weekend part of the way into the next campaign. the gravedigger in hamlet has useful advice, were hamlet in a different situation, but he’s not, and we’re too far into the story to turn back now, by this point the dominoes are falling and they’re all going to die. this role, in this story, is ineffective, a fancy for another time and place.

but say hamlet wasn’t doomed by the confines of his narrative. say he had friends with resurrection magic, and got another chance.

what does he learn from his own story? that revenge is only ever destructive, and ultimately worthless, in the end. that you can’t change others, only yourself, so you might as well focus on the good in your life rather than the bad. removing bad people from positions of power is, of course, justified, but don’t let them consume you. put good things into the world, spend time with the people you love, and forge a new future, away from the things that dragged you down.

your past does not define you.

hand that message off to the player king. what does he have to teach now? away from the cycle of revenge, those stories are no longer a tool to hurt, but a way to inspire. sometimes bad things happen, in a world you have no control over, but you don’t have to limit yourself to that world. there are millions out there, that are yours for the taking. maybe your past is terrifying and dark but you don’t have to accept it. stories change people. and with the right story your future can be colourful and magical and more you than your past ever was.

and they may not be real, but what does it matter? a tear shed from watching a play is still a tear, a laugh is still a laugh. you don’t owe the world the truth. sometimes a lie is far more beautiful and far more comforting, and makes people happy. and they may not last long, but the impacts they leave last a lifetime. even the shortest of stories still matter.

we learn this from the gravedigger too. we’re ready to hear it now. the dominoes stopped falling a long time ago and all we’re left with is silence. the gravedigger knows that everything comes to an end eventually. that once we’re in the ground and our stories are over, our bodies are just food for the earthworms, or the plants that grow over the graves. but we mark our graves so we know where our loved ones are. we keep their memories in our hearts forever. which circles back to percy’s philosophy, really. a person doesn’t live as long as their body. they live as long as people still remember them. which is why stories are important, and why none of us are ever going to stop telling them.

and, 1) im actually really proud of this so it’s getting another reblog for being one of the best things i’ve written

2) KING. FUCKING. TEALEAF. TALIESIN.

like i know, i know it’s not a reference to this, because it’s a long may he reign reference and the fact that all three tieflings are predisposed to acting as royalty, lucien as a cult leader, molly in his scams that were always meant to make people happy, and kingsley in just straight up naming himself king

but also, long may he reign wasn’t even first said by molly/beau in this show! percy said it back in c1e89 as a joke bc it’s a taliesin phrase, molly just immortalised it bc beau said it at his funeral

something something cycle of characters and taliesin as the wheel that keeps turning

i’m holding out hope for ophelia, tbh

I do not particularly have art skills, but I wanted to try to group the characters through this lens.

and then while I was thinking about that (and also revenge tragedies, in general) I started thinking about Hamlet, as I am wont to do, and how much Percy is Hamlet because he’s so fucking aware of the shape of his own story and the fucking… self-defeating level of narrative savviness it takes to look at your own life from the outside and be like “this is going to end badly” and still do it.

i mean just as a note first off i love how literal that comment about the friends is, because hamlet was directly referenced in ep 69, and they went “nope, we care about you more than that, and we have what hamlet didn’t which is access to resurrection magic! now get your ass back in the game and stop trying to take the easy way out of your redemption arc”

but also he’s not just going through the characters in hamlet, there’s a direct progression of themes as well, which is honestly really fascinating and something that would be hard to do in any other format than this progression of dnd characters (though it’s now giving me a lot of ideas for ways to do a production of hamlet with, a very different message than the original)

hamlet itself is a tragedy, so hamlet can’t learn from the people he meets, the story won’t allow for it, and he’s the kind of person that even knowing the story, he himself wouldn’t allow for it. the path he takes is just circular destruction until it ends by everyone dying. but in another story, in another life, he could learn from it.

percy, up until episode 69, follows the hamlet pattern to a t. estranged son of royalty, whose entire life was changed when his family was murdered by those that then usurped his throne. becomes obsessed with revenge, incited by a supernatural force, and driven to restore his home and make things right. but it goes wrong, he kills people he didn’t intend to, scares the people who care about him, no one is sure if he’s evil or crazy or just straight up suicidal (and the answer of course is a little of all three). leaves home, changes his perspective on things, but by then it was too late - the circle of revenge set in motion by both his actions and those out of his control keeps on turning until he finds himself in a perfectly matched (were it not for the trap he didn’t know about) duel, and everyone left in the circle dies.

and that, for a while, was taliesin’s plan. percy’s perfect ending. the final piece in this story told so many times. he even said percy didn’t want to come back, matt was waiting on taliesin to confirm it before resurrecting percy, depending on what the others said during the ritual. vex, as she has so many times for so many reasons, saved his life.

but let’s look at taliesin’s original plan. because here’s where it gets really fascinating - what purpose does the player king (and all the other players) serve in the original play? well, to show the power of a story. you can make people laugh with a story, you can make people cry. you can change someone with a story, but equally you can use a story to reveal someone’s true nature. which is the purpose they end up serving, to reveal claudius’ true nature and prove that he deserves to die. the players, in a story about the cycle of revenge, ultimately only serve to facilitate that revenge.

taliesin had molly as a backup character for percy for a long time. but the molly that would have joined the party if percy had died for good back then, is not the molly we’re used to. taliesin’s original plan was to have the carnival swing through town, with a play about “the terrible tinkerer of tal'dorei” - a caricature of a character that was ripley and percy all rolled into one, which he made specifically because he wanted the rest of vox machina to hate his new character on sight, and then see what happens from there. in this version of things, molly’s stories might have been revealing percy’s true nature, or ripley’s, they might have been changing people’s perceptions and twisting the memory of them, they would definitely be proving they deserved to die. and who knows what vox machina would have done in response to that, but it would only be negative, would be continuing the cycle of revenge.

caduceus, in percy’s story, is a character that didn’t exist. he wasn’t part of taliesin’s original plan, he was made on the spot over a weekend part of the way into the next campaign. the gravedigger in hamlet has useful advice, were hamlet in a different situation, but he’s not, and we’re too far into the story to turn back now, by this point the dominoes are falling and they’re all going to die. this role, in this story, is ineffective, a fancy for another time and place.

but say hamlet wasn’t doomed by the confines of his narrative. say he had friends with resurrection magic, and got another chance.

what does he learn from his own story? that revenge is only ever destructive, and ultimately worthless, in the end. that you can’t change others, only yourself, so you might as well focus on the good in your life rather than the bad. removing bad people from positions of power is, of course, justified, but don’t let them consume you. put good things into the world, spend time with the people you love, and forge a new future, away from the things that dragged you down.

your past does not define you.

hand that message off to the player king. what does he have to teach now? away from the cycle of revenge, those stories are no longer a tool to hurt, but a way to inspire. sometimes bad things happen, in a world you have no control over, but you don’t have to limit yourself to that world. there are millions out there, that are yours for the taking. maybe your past is terrifying and dark but you don’t have to accept it. stories change people. and with the right story your future can be colourful and magical and more you than your past ever was.

and they may not be real, but what does it matter? a tear shed from watching a play is still a tear, a laugh is still a laugh. you don’t owe the world the truth. sometimes a lie is far more beautiful and far more comforting, and makes people happy. and they may not last long, but the impacts they leave last a lifetime. even the shortest of stories still matter.

we learn this from the gravedigger too. we’re ready to hear it now. the dominoes stopped falling a long time ago and all we’re left with is silence. the gravedigger knows that everything comes to an end eventually. that once we’re in the ground and our stories are over, our bodies are just food for the earthworms, or the plants that grow over the graves. but we mark our graves so we know where our loved ones are. we keep their memories in our hearts forever. which circles back to percy’s philosophy, really. a person doesn’t live as long as their body. they live as long as people still remember them. which is why stories are important, and why none of us are ever going to stop telling them.

We'll start with

From Critical Role C3EP121