Nothing like a super indulgent screencap redraw to beat art block. I’ve been catching up on season 2 of The Legend of Vox Machina and this whole scene made me laugh.
Matron Of Ravens: We guide souls to pass on. Death is natural and we respect it.
Vax: I understand my Matron.
Keyleth: *Almost Dies*
Vax: Oh actually fuck that.
“I’m in your hands, and I am no longer afraid”
I drew the bestest bird boy again 🤲💕💕
On the good side, I think [Percy] finally at least realized that he has a family; that he wasn't alone… And I think he understands that now, because he feels very guilty and ashamed for being such a burden to his family, and that he's been screwing everything up. He's going to spend the next few episodes trying to make up for that very badly. From a place of deep shame and guilt, which is the greatest place to try and be helpful and remind everybody that you're more than a demon that tried to murder them. It'll go great. It goes great. Really helpful. He's going to be super helpful. Nothing bad is gonna happen.
The Twins™, based on that photo of Liam and Laura.
I’ll be your champion.
hope u like it i worked so hard to make him as pathetic as possible
On a serious note with Percy’s character, I think part of the reason I myself am drawn to him is because he’s a very good portrayal of PTSD, especially because he touches on the aspects of it media tends to cover less.
PTSD, especially Complex PTSD, can often cause a person to do things that don’t just harm themselves, but harm others as well. It can sometimes, from personal experience, feel like there is a monster inside of you or that you a monster wearing a person’s skin. With C-PTSD, which is what Percy likely suffers from, there especially tends to be a difficulty with self identification, as that long-lasting trauma and repeated stress has made you unable to fully recognise who you were before as it has practically shaped your person.
Percy is not a good person either. He’s more akin to a bad person trying to do good things, someone very morally grey. You can, of course, still be a good person with trauma, just as much as you can be a bad one, although that’s a simplification of it. The point is, there are no rules as to where you end up after experiencing something traumatic - it differs. Percy, in this case, is someone who seeks vengeance to an unhealthy degree and his morals tend to rest in a very blurry, grey area because of that. He is someone filled with anger and resentment and he can bottle that up, but eventually he completely loses it and it all spills over. He is shown to be visibly scared and panicked, but he is also shown to be aggressive and unhinged, and these are things that can and do co-exist with PTSD.
He kills his tormentors in an act of revenge and does so mercilessly, believing his actions completely justified, whether they are is a question for another day, but the point here is that Percy walks a fine line where he nearly becomes more like his tormentors. That is an experience that hits very close to home. And what I appreciate is that even after defeating Orthax, he doesn’t stop being like this. Yes, he stops his plans for revenge and manages to calm down a bit, but you can still see the trauma evident in the way he acts*, he isn’t suddenly better by defeating his inner demons, those demons go beyond a physical manifestation. Trauma doesn’t just go away, and with C-PTSD - PTSD too for that matter - because these events have shaped your life, it’s very common for them to always be there, even if you’ve managed to heal.
* Editing just to clarify that his behaviours in season two and more subtle and he seems to be back in the repressing a majority of his emotions phase. His fear of being abandoned and his impulsive behaviours are definitely still visible though and he overcompensates a lot to make up for what happened with Vex, which, considering he was in his late teens when his family died, and he’s barely in his twenties now, it’s likely he, as many traumatised individuals do, puts blame on himself for what happened to his family as a way of processing and coping, and so to have killed Vex, that’s another person he’s responsible for. The overcompensating is another thing that hits painfully close to home. He’s not suddenly better in s2 but he’s also probably scared to express himself negatively anymore after what happened previously, and thats just as harmful for him, and it won’t end well. So I’m hoping season three addresses that.
Percy shows a range of the different effects trauma has, from a scared boy to a man filled with destructive anger, and I’m glad. Every time we get a portrayal of trauma that shows all the sides of the coin, whether they be ‘pretty’ or not, I gain a few extra years to my lifespan.
This is about the show specifically as I am still not on the Briarwood arc of the campaign, but perhaps I’ll add more to this when I do reach to that point.
Can you recommend me some hurt!Vax fanfic, preferably without any major spoilers in it?
ALRIGHT i did some searching and found a few that might fit the bill, but if anyone else has any suggestions, feel free to add them onto this post! i tried to go for a mix of emotional and physical hurt haha and mostly gen fic
Interesting and Clever Painkillers by CatKing_Catkin (1,739 words) - set post Episode 14 of Campaign 1, Percy and Vax keeping watch (vaguely shippy gen)
“Does your foot still hurt?”
“Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the Third, half my foot is gone. Of course it hurts. It’s fucking agony.”
As Vox Machina licks their wounds and takes a rest after escaping Emberhold Fortress, Percy and Vax find themselves on watch together. Vax isn’t really feeling that watchful, however- he’s too busy trying to swallow down the pain that’s lingering after his unfortunate brush with lava. Thankfully, Percy has sharp eyes, and notices in the end.
Of course, he can’t do much - it’s always easier to break something than fix it, after all. But at least he can provide a few minutes of distraction, and maybe talk Vax out of a few bad ideas.
Trinket, meanwhile, just wants these two ridiculous boys to shut up and get some rest.
Rational Fear by Lesetoilesfous (4,298 words) - post Episode 25 of Campaign 1, Scanlan comforts Vax after Vax’s near death experience (gen)
Scanlan is rarely openly concerned for them, even now, and part of Vax hurts to reject him like this. But most of him is scared, and humiliated, and hurting. Most of him has never known how to trust anyone but his sister, and even then, there have always been things that he’s kept from Vex’ahlia. “Worried? That’s not like you. I assure you that if you’re concerned about my ability to keep up with the rest of you in battle, I continue to be rather handy with a knife.” The deflection is easy, and Vax knows as soon as he says it that Scanlan doesn’t buy a word of it.
( A little coda to episode 25, about Vax dealing with his brush with death and Scanlan Shorthalt being a surprisingly good friend. )
In Hindsight by sparxwrites (5,447 words) - sometime after Episode 44 of Campaign 1 (spoilers for a character thing that starts in that episode, but nothing more than that), Vax gets injured and things almost go very badly (gen)
If they’d known when they took the contract with the Slayer’s Take that Manticore by no means meant only one of the goddamn things, thought Vax, viciously, then they might have come a little better prepared. Healing potions, a full night’s sleep, all their spells – rather than no potions, a night out drinking, and half Pike’s heavenly light spent on easing all of their hangovers.
(In which Vox Machina is rather overconfident in their manticore-slaying abilities, and Vax pays the price for it.)
one more rec under the cut, because it has major spoilers for episode 58 (i wasn’t sure if you meant for the end of the campaign or for throughout the campaign, but i figured i’d include this one just in case)
I accidentally made zoros hands way too fuckig big but yeah 🫶 pulling your shit down
