schemer table enjoyer

There's like 3 doodles I did in ms paint I think you can spot them lol

Campaign 4 Episode 28: Chasing Shadows

Bonus: “Thaisha.”

i kinda believe that hal trusts his children more than that??? he knows that his daughters are not little girls but young brilliant women and he acts accordingly. i mean of course he would never put them directly in danger, of course he protects them, of course he wouldn't want them to be harmed in any way BUT

he very well knows that they are capable and smart. and they have each other, and they have elodie, and they have him and he has them, and they are not alone. he doesn't tell them everything but he's not actively hiding stuff or something. he gives them the opportunity to know things they get to know. he's honest when he says that everything's bad

he lets shadia use the paint and the blades even though he himself does not feel very confident about them

he lets hero be around and organize their little conspiracy teams

and yeah sure, he would potentially kill anybody who put his kids in danger (or is the source of the danger). but he's not as overprotective as people think about him and obviously not as overprotective as thjazi was towards him

Please enjoy some shenanigans.

No Oryms were significantly harmed in the making of this reel (only a little rug burn I’m sorry Briar 🥹)

THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA | Season 4 Various Color Scripts

Murray (a) agreed and allowed Azune to ask Demodus for help, (b) accepted Demodus’s decision, and (c) went with them to the presentation.

She did it! 🎉

The turmoil is a significant part of developing her character, and people have rightfully pointed out that Murray was making a lot of statements based on unexamined biases, but the result is that she still decided against those instincts. No one forced her to. She made that choice.

Murray wants this to be simpler. She wants to be able to move this resistance forward without involving people like Demodus. She wants there to be a set of people who have to pay the costs and take risks while everyone else gets to be safe. She’s even fine with being part of that set! And she isn’t the only one who wants specific people to be safe! Hal wanted that too, it’s not even unique.

The issue is that’s what Thjazi did, and it failed. You cannot create a class of tainted people who bear the burden of change while the innocent people get to be protected. The Firefly of it all!

And Murray knows that. Marisha said as much that Murray knows that Azune is right. But Murray is wrestling within herself about how to achieve these goals without it spilling onto people who didn’t ask for this. She doesn’t want to be the one to do that. It feels horrible. She even deflected to Azune in the conversation, and it was clearly at a time where the stress overwhelmed her. She’s normally so confident and sure of herself, and we saw what strips that away from her: the fear that she’s sending someone who she believes should be protected to his death.

It makes total sense why she snaps at Azune so many times, and it makes sense why Azune doesn’t snap back. He isn’t sure if it’s what he’s afraid of (she hates me because of where I’m undercover), or if she’s stressed the fuck out (and it’s exploding out of her in moments of vulnerability), or or something else, or a mix. But they’re struggling through it together, and they get to the same place: they ask Demodus for help, he agrees, and the three go together and risk their lives.

The story is that she did it! It felt awful every step of the way, but she did it!

The point of it isn’t that Murray did something wrong: it’s that she was in a position where every preference was pointing her in one direction, she knew that following it would weaken their position and put Azune at greater risk, and in the end made the decision that meant their efforts were most likely to succeed. This could have just as easily gone the other direction: a Nat 1 is precisely as likely as a Nat 20, and Murray doesn’t know there’s dice being rolled, but she implicitly understands the nature of chance. She had portents to use, but they were not necessarily going to help in this instance. Sometimes the universe isn’t in your favor, and for all her power and intelligence, she can’t always force it.

So of course she was afraid. And she did what she told Azune to do: suck it up and do the job.

Have you also considered that he likes fucking with people on purpose