lesser nerd

LONG MAY THEY REIGN. Is it Thursday yet?

Caleb: open your SAT prepbook. delete the contractions. add the verb “mumbled.” stir in german and self-loathing to taste.

Jester: she! is very excited!! about everything!! About anything!! About nothing at all!!! occasionally sprinkle in some friendly wisdom. her cheer is a mask of deep-seated pain but that’s alright because this town has a bakery.

Beau: AY, are you talkin’ to me? I said, are you talkin’ to me? Are you ready, motherfucker? Are you ready to throw down?? I will piss on your ashes, I don’t give a fuck. I hate my parents. I love my friends.

Molly: i am an idiot who never learned to read. My accent might as well be irish, and all my bullshit is well-intentioned. Fuck a bagel. Love yourself. Would you like to hear a fortune? I am contractually obligated to end on the word “dear”

Nott: hey, have you met my son? My wonderful, talented, incredible son? Oh, what’s that? Your parents aren’t around? Hey, how would you like to be my son? I know I’m not much, just a little goblin, but I can teach you all about crime.

Yasha: imagine all of scandinavia. make her sentences unbelievably vague. End abruptly. Stir in allusions to a horrifying past and a generous helping of I Loved My Dead Wife

Fjord: y'all’d’ve'f'I’d’ve

you love so fiercely you make me feel stronger you make me feel safe

I mean it really says something about Laura’s acting abilities and general creativity, because Jester can just do things no other player could dream of, and often has. She’s gotten, in canon, several characters to fall in love with her, and to our knowledge, is totally unaware of this. She’s kept a weasel alive that we all know deep down shouldn’t be. She got Essek Thelyss to be endeared to her despite not being a wizard, and to my mind, that’s fucking incredible. She’s convinced she can get her estranged mom and dad back together parent-trap style, and judging by her last conversations with both of them, it might just work.

The tricking of the Hag may be the greatest moment in Critical Role’s entire run, and only Jester (and by extension, Laura Bailey) could both think that would work and be capable of making it work, stats be damned. Think about the moment during Traveler Con where Artagan is getting pulled away; it’s not the fact that Jester loves him that he gets released, but instead that he loves her. The sheer magic she just brings into the world around her is so intense, that she literally asks the grass what happened to her old friend’s body, and with a charming personality and a remarkable memory for a weed, it tells her exactly what she needs to know. Disney Princesses ain’t got nothing on her.

And it’s remarkable that you have this character who has so many people willing to die for her, kill for her, drop everything and do anything for her, and the consequences of this great power, this great burden, could not possibly be held in better hands. It could not be given to anyone less likely to abuse it for anything more that some mostly harmless pranks. And it’s not that she’s perfect. because she has plenty of flaws (her jealous streak and inability to take her hurts as seriously as everyone else’s most prominent among them); but her incidental charm, and let’s be honest, Laura’s incredible acting, just sort of draw your eyes away from them, so you have to work against your own impulses to ever notice them in the first place.