I can be feminine in all my rage

And I’m FINALLY done! 

This took so long to finish  but I had so much fun making it. I tried to capture some of their character in each figure. 

 So the Nein on their way to adventure.

Enjoy!

I can’t name three things I’d change about my world because it would take more than that to get back what we must have had.

“Sillah!”

The unnatural bob of bronze hair turned toward the voice with a smile that instantly betrayed curiosity.

“Dad! Did you find something?”

“Sillah I found it I’ve been searching there...there’s been evidence we’ve found pieces before but nothing nothing like this it’s...it’s...”

She stands up immediately, expecting an answer hoping that he’ll say.

“A Pocket.”

A legend. Her dad found a legend that they had both been chasing for as long as she could remember. For years they found scraps of things. Pieces left behind from a world no...a lifestyle that was scrubbed from digital history.    Every shred of paper is like gold.  The greatest thing they’d found before today was a ballpoint pen with some ink still in it.  Mom said we should save it, but dad insisted that we use it.

“I’d be happy to come back to you, except that it was you who went away.”

I stand there stunned and temporarily guilted into complete silence. She’s glaring at me daring me to answer. Always too intuitive for her own good or anyone else’s.  The cars keep rushing by behind us, consistently followed by the sound of wailing sirens, there to remind me that we’re not in a good place. I look at her.  There’s dark makeup smudged around her eyes, but she must have cried and rubbed them because there’s a dark streak across her nose as well.  The bottom of her brown, thin curls are bleached a horrific shade of orange blonde that only comes from a poorly executed DIY dye-job.

“What was so bad that you felt you had to run away?”

She lifts her chin defiantly with such timing and precision I’d easily believe that she practices emulating her favorite misunderstood heroines on a daily basis.

“Same reason you left.”

I know that can’t be true because the reason I left hasn’t been home for seven years and  is either missing, dying, or dead.

“I grew up I didn’t leave there’s a difference.  There’s a huge difference Maggie between making plans to go to college and walking out the door and disappearing like that.  Mom and Dad are having dual heart attacks I flew across the fu-freakin’ country to find you! What do you imagine gives you the right to do that?”

For a second I think she feels bad but then she stalks up to me, as if getting in my face will make her point of effectively.  This whole situation is exacerbated by the fact that my little sister is now a whole head taller than me.

“You can just say ‘fuck’ I’m not a kid anymore.”

I look at her, all five feet nine inches of seemingly stereotypical rage and teenage rebellion. She clearly fried her ends, now that she’s closer I can seem how brittle and stringy they are, and the make up mess doesn’t stop at her eye liner.  The dark lipstick is patchy and unlined, the concealer meant to cover zits is more than a few shades lighter than her foundation which highlights the blemishes rather than hiding them.  She’s wearing a t-shirt of a band that either doesn’t exist or she wouldn’t be allowed to listen to, judging by the graphic its probably trash.  If I had been home I could have saved her from destroying her hair, I could have taught her how to apply makeup and shown her which eyeliners are actually waterproof and which ones are liars.  I could have introduced her to good rock music and screamo if that’s she was looking for, I know my shit and I’ve dabbled in all the genres at this point. If I had stayed maybe I could have been a good sister.

“Why do you think I left?”

“Because you were suffocated, because they controlled every aspect of your life and you were sick of it! That’s why you left and that’s why you never come home! I don’t even want to go to college so why should I wait to leave?”  

She doesn’t know shit why I left. Which is fine, I’d prefer she didn’t know. I left because I couldn’t keep pretending that years of living in fear of our brother and being manipulated and abused and just constantly tip-toeing around like there was a bomb about to go off hadn’t affected me. I had to get away from that and she was six when I left so she didn’t understand what I had lived with for years before was even born. I probably won’t ever not hate myself for leaving, but I also don’t regret it. Maybe part of what she said was true though? I know our parents can be controlling, but for the most part they’re not unreasonable.  But it’s better that she thinks we’re just both selfish.

“Look, you can go wreak havoc on the world when you’re eighteen, no one is making you go to college...I did leave for lots of those reasons and I don’t come home and I’m sorry, but they don’t deserve this.”

Mom and Dad already lost one kid and they fought for him with everything they had.  Thousands of dollars and millions of hours went into therapy, special schools, rehab, mental institutions, nothing ever worked, but that wasn’t their fault.  Then I left. Its not fair to force you to be the one who stays, but please for the love of all that is good, at least stay a little longer.  Don’t make me come back.  If I go back to fake smiles, and nightmares I’ll go back to needles and nooses and I’ve been clean for years now. Please.

“I know you’re angry, and I understand that dyeing your hair shouldn’t be this big of a deal, but you’re making it worse.  Just get in the car and we’ll talk this out.  We’ll cut off those dead ends and if we can come to an agreement I’ll show you how to bleach your hair without murdering it...but you’ll probably have to earn it. You hurt them, you broke trust, next time...”

I hate that I’m standing here lecturing her, but I never learned how to be her sister, not really. I knew how to be a protector, a shield, a barrier...a third parent but never really a sister.  

“What? Next time what? I should talk to them? I should turn to you? Maybe I would if you were ever here!”

“I’ll talk to them about the hair dye, but please don’t even t ask about tattoos.  Just try to be good for them okay? For me? And remember you can still call...”

“Once a fucking week.”

She’s right I did say that, she has every right to hate me.  

“No, not once a week, whenever you need me.  I promise I’ll answer whenever I see you calling.”

She doesn’t look like she believes me, and I can’t really blame her.

She sort of collapses against me crumpling and suddenly sobbing. I stumble back and I just try and hold her.  She’s taller than me and stronger than me, it seems to be a running theme in my family.

“Why? Why did you leave what did I do to make you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you and I never have.”

I hate what I couldn’t be for you.

“And I’m sorry...”

I’m not sorry I left

“...I’m sorry I left you”

Hope others will join me in celebrating by remembering their favorite Marisha moments.

I’ll start! 

When her liveshow outfits gave the gays everything they wanted

“I….wait.”

“You’ve never heard of boulder, parchment, shears?” 

That time she came onto Talks just to lie down and take a nap

Her Vex impression during the Honey Heists

Her Marlon Brando impression during the Honey Heists

wearing her most flammable pants to the fire-spinning episode of AWNP

“Don’t worry guys, it’s going out. Slowly but surely -” “THERE IS SMOKE IN THE HALLWAY”

Hazel Copperpot’s extria sylliables!

Honestly everything about the Honey Heists, those are my go-to when I’m sad

All of her descriptions of Beau doing cool monk shit

Keyleth being Maid-of-Honor-zilla during the wedding oneshot

Keyleth using control weather to move the storm out of the way when VM were on an airship, and Marisha’s description of it

And the ever iconic fall after successfully casting Feeblemind

-The insanely generous and involved way she portrays every character she touches

-the example she sets for women in creative fields who think that they’re limited 

So if ya post Critrole stuffs reblog so i can follow you! 💕

Art, fanfic, meta, gifs, cosplay ect

I wanna follow you!

Caleb only has the anti-scrying necklace because one of Trent’s men was guarding him in the asylum. Trent had a guy watching Caleb for eleven years. That doesn’t seem to me like the actions of a dude who has totally forgotten his failed student.

Now, does Trent probably not care too much about Caleb, and only think of him as a broken tool? Sure, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t also think of him as a lost and potentially dangerous asset who he needs to get back under his thumb.

As for why Trent watched Caleb for that long, why he put him in an asylum in the first place instead of killing him, and why he would even care about getting a hold of him again - I think we finally have an answer. If Trent was handpicking students not just because they had the potential to be powerful mages, but rather because of their potential with dunamancy, then Caleb is a rare investment who he might not want to get rid of permanently, even if he “failed”. 

So, if all of that is the case, then that means that Caleb believing Trent is actively out to get him IS being overly paranoid. In-game we’ve been given no reason outside of Caleb’s claims to believe Trent wants him that badly.

But, if it’s not paranoia and Caleb’s right… Why on earth would Trent be so desperate to get Caleb back in his clutches? Why would he actively go after the people around Caleb just to get to him? SOMETHING made Caleb believe he not only needs to wear a locket that hides him from scrying at all times, but also needs to use fake names and try and remain so dirty that he’s unrecognisable. Maybe that something is just Caleb being a little unstable (which is believable), but…

As I’ve stated since Beau and Caleb argued about Calianna, Beau’s reaction to Caleb in that moment was very valid and probably what needed to happen, even if she was harsh about it. That was very much a case of a character with trauma allowing paranoia to overcome an ability to communicate. Paranoia from trauma can indeed make people controlling in a very negative way.

However, and because I relate to Caleb in a “wow, PTSD is a bitch” kind of way, I also want to point out something that I’ve found in relation to this behavior in my own life. In situations where my trauma makes me snap into “get shit done, get out of this situation, survive somehow” mode, I’ll get one of two reactions from people around me. If the situation is an actual emergency, and I suddenly snap into “this is bad, we need to get out of here now, here’s what we’re going to do,” and we all make it through that moment, the reaction is often “Wow, you really held it together, we would have been so lost without you! No one else was doing anything!” Never mind that I was dissociating pretty much the entire time the crisis was happening, and had a private breakdown hours later. No one even knew. But when I react like that in situations that aren’t a legit crisis or bad scenario, people (very rightly!) get super pissed at how controlling and bossy I’m being. Because my need to do things in a certain way for “survival” is, in that situation, not rational.

The problem for me and other people with PTSD though (and something that’s important to work through in therapy) is that, in the moment, I cannot tell the two kinds of situations apart. When my brain snaps into “survival” mode, I’m not very aware of how unreasonable I’m being until I calm down. And that can cause major interpersonal conflict, and is very much one of the more ugly sides of this particular kind of mental illness. I think sometimes PTSD and Anxiety can get so…I hate the word “woobified,” but I can’t think of a better one, online that the parts that make it hard to live with and cause problems can get glossed over as they’re unflattering and make a lot of people unsympathetic to the conditions. And you know, kind of understandably. It’s wrecked some of my relationships in the past, and that wasn’t really anyone’s fault but mine. 

I relate to Caleb’s trauma from an anxiety lens…I don’t have a specific traumatic trigger but I have a high anxiety disorder that will throw me into fight-or-flight mode in sometimes unsolicited situations. This is so much more common when I’m stressed, which is something I see in Caleb a lot. His responses when stressed or tired are so similar with anxiety.

The past few episodes, Caleb has been increasingly in what my husband and I refer to as the “High Alert Zone”, meaning his guard is constantly up and anything (real or perceived) can trigger fight-or-flight mode. He has a good deal of restraint and keeps it together fairly well, but you can see the alarms getting louder in his head.

I think the moment I realized where he was mentally was when he got pushed into the mud by those two orcs amd cast enlarge on himself. When questioned, Caleb couldn’t give a solid answer to whether he was all right but gave a very frightened/unhappy response of “I don’t know what I’m doing. I think we should leave.” This rang out as such a ptsd/anxiety response because a) his own feeling of wellbeing was super hard for him to pinpoint, b) he’s responding to situations instinctively and recognizing that his response might be kind of impulsive and out of his control, and c) he’s willing to drop all current missions to leave because that’s what his instincts are telling him-run. Leave. This environment is extremely bad and stressful, we need to get out.

But as they stayed and things have continued to be less-than-peaceful, Caleb’s stress and high alert has only risen. Liam said on Talks that he was playing Caleb on 56 as needing to talk to people privately and just kind of…being quiet and unhappy until he could (which never got to happen). By the time they got to the Queen, he must have been near explosive. I know I would have been in full panic attack mode if I hadn’t been able to process all of that stress yet.

The number one thing I’m saddest about, is that he died before we could watch Taliesin discover he was wrong about his own character.  And I’m also weirdly comforted that everything happened the way it did, because even though that would have been amazing, in a lot of ways it feels perfect–the literary and metatextual kind, where everything is foreshadowing and inevitability and themes and arcs that curve around exactly the way the story always should–that it didn’t.

As I lay me down to rest,

Trickster, won’t you be my guest.

Come and see me in my sleep,

And know my heart is yours to keep.

And when the morning dawns with light,

Trickster, keep me in your sight.

As I go about my day

Come and teach me in your way.

And when the world is harsh and cruel,

Trickster, use me as your tool.

Correct the wrongs as you see fit,

Criticise with word and wit.

And when a problem comes my way,

Trickster, promise me you’ll stay

To see it through until the end

And all the while remain my friend.

And when my heart is hard and hollow,

Trickster, find me in my sorrow.

Comfort me in times of pain,

And help me learn to smile again.

And when my heart is filled with glee,

Trickster, won’t you laugh with me?

Together, shall we mock the Earth,

Lighten our hearts with joy and mirth.

As I lay me down to bed,

Trickster, you are in my head.

Whatever morning has in store,