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There was an Agreement
Between the Circus Kids, as Caleb had taken to calling them, there had been a longstanding agreement not to let the other forget anything important. Not when they knew that it could happen and how much it would hurt them to realize it when it did.
It had been Mollymauk’s idea. It was why he had given Yasha the book she used to press flowers and small keepsakes meant to be passed on to the woman she had wanted to show the world to. It had been Mollymauk’s idea, to find her on a bad night, and prod her back to reality to ask the small questions. The important questions.
“What colour were her eyes, love?”
“What did she used to call you again?”
“Can you tell me that story about that time you fell into the swamp? That was funny and I need a laugh.”
Yasha remembered every question. Every detail it had been meant to drudge up and back to the front of her mind. Every small smile she missed and the way Zuala’s eyes would light up right before she laughed. She remembered every small pattern of speech and the way her wife had been so fierce in her love.
And she remembered the way Mollymauk would never let her forget.
“Caleb,” Yasha had always been afraid that her voice was too loud when she intruded on these moments the mage would take. These little reprieves long after the adventure was done and their future was safe. When there was a familiar lavender tiefling off exploring the world with no apparent recollection of them, and the life being built around the broken foundations between them was still unsteady in the wake of it all; “Do you remember Molly’s laugh?”
She did.
She heard it often enough. In her memory and in every fresh flower in a fresh book she wanted to keep for herself. In every way Kingsley would strut or swoop in and out of her life with the same exuberance that Mollymauk had once clung to her when she made her way back into his.
Caleb would smile at the question. “I believe we still hear it often enough, no?”
“No… No, I don’t think it’s the same. Do you remember that time we had in Zadash, when he tried to get you in on a con to get us rooms?”
There was a moment when Caleb would have to pause. To think. To realize exactly what was being asked.
His hands would shake sometimes, as he got the drinks for them from some cupboard or other. His eyes would be wet, his smile would be sad.
Yasha knew that Essek had tried to do the same. But it was different with someone who never knew the tiefling they both loved. Essek could never offer an opinion or correction. Beau would never want to correct them unless they twisted something so far out of the truth that she felt the need to make sure the truth was still there.
But they had an agreement to remember.
“Caleb,” Yasha would say, often with an arm around Caleb the same way she would once hold Mollymauk when he asked the same questions. She missed how he would climb into her lap with that annoying, feline grin of his. Caleb would lean against her and drink with her; “tell me about Molly.”
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(Also now at my AO3: Here)
Something something the inherent longing of sun and moon coded characters who love each other but feel like the other is just out of reach.
Caleb Widogast stood alone in the night.
Somewhere, along the way, someone had handed him some champagne.
something new for me and you by @sockablock is my whole life right now, and i just needed to draw something for the new chapter!! please check it out guys, you won’t regret it
Official: We’re looking for a dangerous fugitive from the Dynasty by the name of Essek Thelyss, have you seen him recently?
Caleb: I’m sure I don’t know who you’re talking about
Essek, hiding under the table: *using mage hand to rotate all the jars labelled “Essek” to hide his name whenever the officer glances away*
Critical Role gets so much weirder when you remember that lines like “I wish for you in the future, to find someone who will mourn you when are gone” and “You were not born with venom in your veins” aren’t scripted, but lines like “Mother, I bring news from the womb” and “Meow. I’m a cat” are
Critical Role Ship Moodboards: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast/Essek Thelyss
The Flame
Quick, my fellow widomauk fans, I need your help!
If I was hypothetically thinking about making a short comic of a scene from a hypothetical fanfic idea where the Nein are folklore creatures in modern AU Nicodranas, and I hypothetically needed to pick a pet name for Molly to call Caleb in that scene
(For reference, Caleb is a phoenix and Molly is an ijiraq—the latter is a creature from Inuit folklore, I highly recommend looking them up if you’re interested in folklore they’re cool :D)
reblog if you’ve read fanfictions that are more professional, better written than some actual novels. I’m trying to see something
guys guys guys, fellow critters, oh my god, everyone please go listen to ‘Strawberry Wine’ by Noah Kahan and think about Caleb and the blumentrio while you do. it’s so sweet and sad and it’s so perfect for them, my heart can’t take it
like? do you hear?? these lyrics?? they so perfectly encapsulate how Caleb thinks of him and Astrid and Eadwulf. they loved each other deeply. they were forced together due to circumstance. he misses them dearly every day. he could never be with them again.
“If I could lose you, I would”
“Strawberry wine, and all the time we used to have/Those things I miss, but know are never coming back”
“If I was empty space and you were a formless shape, we’d fit/But love leaves little runway, and every time we run/Straight over it”
and “No thing defines a man like love that makes him soft” followed by “for a moment, I see you” reminds me so vividly of drunk Caleb mistaking Jester for Astrid, and it makes me wonder how many other times his new family reminded him of his old one.
did Fjord ever laugh like Eadwulf? did Molly have the same taste in drinks as Astrid? did Caduceus and the Wildmother remind him of Eadwulf and the Raven Queen? did he ever give Astrid the same wildflowers that Yasha had pressed in her journal? did he ever wake up curled beside the Nein in the dome and think, for just a brief moment, he was somewhere else, huddled against a different band of ragtag wannabes?
wait wait wait guys have you ever thought about how the Mighty Nein are everything they shouldn’t be upon first glance
no no guys guys listen to me they’re all the antithesis of what they’re meant to be and that’s why they’re such amazing and heartfelt characters
like, Caleb is a wizard who’s afraid of his own fire magic. his own power causes him to falter in battle. his strongest spells are his most dangerous to himself. wizards are supposed to be prideful of their magic, but Caleb’s is the reason he hates himself
Beau is a monk who never wanted to be. her job is one that people normally associate with being calm and collected and Beau was a wild rebellious kid who got dragged into this line of work against her will. she never wanted to be this!! but now she is and she’s gotta deal with it!!
Fjord is a warlock who never wanted power from his pact, which is why you’d think a warlock would make their pact at all. but no. Fjord made his pact because he wanted to live, not because he wanted power. he was a scared orphan who hated his tusks, not a buff, muscled, angry half-orc like people assumed
Nott is NOT, that’s the whole crux of her narrative! she wasn’t pretty, like a halfling girl was supposed to be. she wasn’t a goblin, she was just transformed into one. and not only that, but despite being a three-foot-tall alcoholic kleptomaniac, she’s the mom of the group!
Jester is a Cleric whose god isn’t actually a god and who would much rather bash bad guys over the head with her lollipop than have to stop and heal her friends!! she’s a bubbly, optimistic ray-of-sunshine, but you know when she says she’s gonna change the world with friendship she means it as a threat
Mollymauk is an amnesiac, but he doesn’t want to remember who he was. if you ask him, that wasn’t him! he might be a flirtatious hedonistic carnie, but he’s also single-mindedly devoted to making the world a better and more loved place than it was when he found it. he’s a liar, but he means well. he’s an arrogant fool, yes, but he’s right! he did it! he left it better!
Caduceus seems like he’d be creepy and grim from growing up in a graveyard, but he’s actually the most chill out of the entire Nein by far. he’s calm, he’s sweet, and he’s comforting, more than anything else. you’d think he’d be amazed by seeing the outside world for the first time, but he spends the whole time knowing that one day he’ll return home, that he wasn’t supposed to be the one to leave
Yasha is a barbarian with skeletal wings and a dramatic, monochromatic look, but she’s a complete sweetheart. she’s Molly’s best friend, she was a carnival bouncer, she’s a lesbian disaster who collects pressed flowers in a book out of love for the wife she lost. those black wings were actually hiding soft white feathers
Essek was born straight into the den of politics, he was a spymaster, he literally started a war for his own gain, and yet. he’s sounds irredeemable on paper, but. he’s not!! sure, the Nein kind of have to drag his alignment kicking and screaming into neutral, but they manage it. Essek learns and grows and he overcomes his nature. he becomes good, against all odds
guys guys guys don’t you see it!! look at them!!they’re such compelling characters!! they’re everything they’re not supposed to be!! dude y’all how didn’t I realize this earlier!! they subvert their narratives in the most interesting ways ever and I justhshsbhshshsjnsmshsnhsfn!!
“Don’t you dare have fun without me.”