fluffy-wet-cat

[fluffy-wet-cat]

Every time I see a post about how someone doesn't understand Bell's Hells distrust/dislike of Gods, I just don't understand what show they were watching.

First of all, most of Bell's Hells don't even dislike the Gods. They just don't particularly care for them, which is a completely different thing.

Orym is from the Air Ashari, and as a result expressed very similar feelings towards the Gods than Keyleth in C1. Aka, of course the Gods exist, of course they've got a purpose for some people, but Ashari folks don't particularly care for them and are fine with mutually staying out of each other's businesses.

Fearne is a chaotic fey who honestly doesn't really care about religion. Sure, some fey are into the Moonweaver or the Archheart, but Fearne grew up with an Archfey that was having fun on the Matron's playground, so that's not really an environment with a big respect or admiration for Gods.

Chetney is an old dude who was minding his own business for a while. There wasn't really anything in his background to push him into religion, his deal was woodworking and then figuring out the werewolf stuff.

I don't remember Dorian mentioning anything religious based, so I'm putting him in the "do not care much / neutral" category. At least until shit happened with Opal. It doesn't matter that it's a betrayer God here, especially when you know the primes could have gotten rid of them.

For the rest, yes, there are religion related background components to mention. Both Braius and FCG were definitely pro Gods, but FCG started very neutral on that topic. Then they kinda started praying to the Changebringer as a thought experiment. I'll note though that their first (or one of their first? I don't remember) interaction with the Changebringer was her threatening them if they weren't helping her regarding the Ruidus stuff. And like, I get it, the Gods were scared as fuck, but having a shit day doesn't allow you to be a piece of shit to others 💀.

Laudna is an undead woman who got kicked out of places multiple times by religious folks for what she was, without a single care for who she was or her humanity. Gosh, she crossed paths twice with the same exemplar of the Lawbearer, decades apart, and both interactions were shit (Meghan, I'm in your walls!). Despite that, she doesn't particularly hate the Gods, but she's learned to stay away from religious folks & deities as a result. See her surprise at being accepted by clerics of the Matron! She wasn't expecting religious people to not hate her on sight.

Imogen was a depressed isolated pariah in her small town, praying for help with no answers (see one of Nana's team building exercises), and when she was finally out, it was with the help of her undead friend who she's very protective of and who doesn't have a great rep with religious folks. Yeah, she'd probably stay away from that too.

Meanwhile Ashton was raised in a cult that ended up very poorly (they've got long term health issues from that time!), and would rather avoid any sort of organised religion (no matter the topic) as a result, which honestly, that's fair.

And that's mostly just background stuff! During the campaign, they also met someone who got brought back to life and is still kinda resentful about it, they found a whole village that was very much not happy about religious folks coming up to their town and trying to order them around (and had to fight a temple as a result, which left a bunch of contradictory feelings there), and saw Gods destroy a whole city to keep their siblings safe, in the middle of the Calamity which saw many deaths because Deities were fighting against one another. Ah, and Vasselheim is apparently deciding who gets to know what wrt history and would hunt people who know too much. Like, the Grim Verity was hiding from both Vasselheim & Ludinus.

And I know a lot of stuff here is more about religious folks rather than Gods themselves, but you gotta understand that if the Gods are away and only talking to a select few, then their followers *are* their marketing team. Followers being shitty to some people *will* lead those people to be suspicious about religion and Gods (or at least to want to stay away from it).

Trust isn't owed to Gods, even Prime Deities. It's something that is gained through background, time, opportunities... Even in Exandria where the Gods are real, there are probably a lot of common folks who don't particularly care about religion (or maybe some of them just follow along with the dominant religion of their hometown, without diving much into it).

So no, Bell's Hells aren't particularly big Gods lovers. They're also not Gods haters (nuances, what a blast). Hey, in a different scenario, they probably would have loved staying away from Gods and religion entirely.

But guess who in the group actually had the biggest connection to a cosmic entity that significantly impacted their life? Imogen with Predathos.

And no, this doesn't mean this group wasn't appropriate for the plot of C3, or whatever funny thing people like to say about C3 and BH! I think C3 was made a lot more interesting by folks disagreeing on their relationship to Gods - it'd be boring if they all agreed lol.

But if you're looking at BH and are tearing up about "why don't they love my blorbos deities", seriously, have you paid attention to who those people are.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

Blocked the assholes who kept harassing me. I am leaving the posts up for now just because I haven't done anything wrong. Except make an unserious post that to a few people didn't read as such. In the future I won't engage with negative and hateful posts anymore, I have said my piece on that matter. My opinion that hate and bullying has no place in fandom spaces remains, however I am aware that it won't go away.

Edit, a day later: I have taken all posts down because I'm just tired of it all. If my original repost misread as an attack and the sarcasm didn't come through, I apologise.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

Matt: Predathos could have been destroyed with the beacon.

Some C2 fans: SEE, THERE WAS ANOTHER SOLUTION, KEEP THE LIVING BEING CAGED AND THEN KILL IT

Matt: We could have had Mighty Nein intervene if Bells Hells had a TPK.

Some C2 fans: We could have had it all!

Matt: The status quo would have lingered, which I wasn't a fan of.

Some C2 fans: More Essek! (Yay, war criminals, but only if it's him, the others can rot)

Why do the solutions endorsed by the fans of only c2 endorse domination and violence over others both inside the story and the fandom?

For being someone that loves an adventuring party built around empathy and victims of tyranny, some of you sure are a merciless bunch.

Is this the kindness the Mighty Nein have taught you? Some lessons didn't sink in well enough, apparently.

For once we get an interesting choice that doesn't choose violence and you hate it? It's called negotiating, the thing we wish people did instead of fighting wars.

You know, the thing Caleb did with the beacon and the Kryn Dynasty and Essek.

You don't have to like the story or the other campaigns, but at least be objective with your observations, don't conveniently forget about what happened during campaign 2 only because you want your feelings validated.

Empathy is not there only for the Mighty Nein alone, it's there for everybody else too.

You don't care about the Mighty Nein's story of empathy and forgiveness. You care about your favourites alone. That's not embracing the message they gave us, that's playing favourites.

Empathy cannot play favourites, otherwise it would stop being what has the potential to save mortals, gods, aliens, repentant war criminals. Everybody.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

Honestly, learning that there was, in fact, a way to destroy Predathos that the Bells Hells just missed confirms to me even more that Ludinus was victorious in his conspiracy.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

God, I'm still laughing about Jester blatantly lying about realizing Essek was there. I love the entirety of Vasselheim apparently watching this silly and bewildering exchange. Some random guy in disguise just helped this wizard—from the party the Bright Queen endorsed—resurrect somebody with dunamancy, revealed himself to be of Kryn origin, and immediately evaded a very sudden and pointed attempt at capture by the Kryn contingent. This party who no one in Vasselheim actually met, but who was, to reiterate, endorsed by the Bright Queen, blatantly lies to their benefactor about knowing who this guy was despite the fact that he was basically in the wizard's lap. The Divine Gate shattered ninety seconds ago and here on the ground the most unrelated minute-long melodrama is playing out for seemingly no reason.

The rest of the world suddenly remembers why they stopped inviting Wildemount to anything.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

I think part of why I find all the posts talking about how Campaign 3 supposedly had no consequences deeply tedious is because 1) they don't engage with the way consequence was embedded into the character arcs and motivations, and 2) they often treat outcomes that were the result of the players working really hard to prevent a worst case scenario as evidence that everything was handed to them.

The reason most of the Hells survived the campaign is because their battle strategy prioritized protecting one another above everything else. Laudna died and they put everything they had into getting her back. They CHOSE to not accept it. It took them five episodes, a huge boss battle, and a roll-for-it res ritual to get her back, and each of those things barely worked. They were so traumatized by the experience that they were trying to give her just about every potion and protection item even til the end, when she hadn't even gone down for something like what, 60 episodes? Because they chose to save her, they lost their patron to Otohan, and they became less tied to one city. Because Otohan terrified them so much, they never faced them on their own terms, and only finally escaped her with FCG's sacrifice. It is not a removal of consequence that Laudna was able to come back; it is a consequence of how much they were willing to pursue it, and it had consequences that echoed forward and forward and forward. It impacted the way they moved throughout the story a great, great deal, and it is just one example.

We don't know all the consequences of the god situation because they are, quite frankly, too big for an end of campaign. But of course there are HUGE consequences—the order of the world and the cosmos has been changed! We saw some glimmers of what that means on a personal and political level, to be explored later.

"Consequence" unequivocally does NOT mean "punishment." You may be disappointed that a character/group of characters is not punished for what you perceive to be their crimes, but that does not mean that the narrative is without consequence. And if that is the specific kind of consequence you think is necessary for a good story, if you think that it is superior storytelling to punish characters, that is your prerogative, but I personally do not agree and think that viewing the story through that lens deeply misunderstands the ethos of Critical Role.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

This. I'm starting to remember why I stayed out of main fandom discourse in the first place. All this hate is just so annoying. If you don't like bells hells then don't watch it. But quit hating on the people who like and the cast. And srsly what is your beef with happy endings? Some of y'all need a serious reality check. This is still the casts dnd game and not purely your entertainment. It's also theirs. You wouldn't watch your friend's dnd campaign and start shitting on them because they made a choice you didn't like if you don't play in the campaign. There's a difference between constructive criticism and uncalled for hate and stupidity. Especially those people who don't understand Ashton's resurrection, it's not that complicated why raise dead on it's own didn't do it. Ashton was only alive because of dunamancy. Ofc they need it to continue living. And those crying about consequences: the gods are fucking embryos rn what do you want them to do?! Matt even said that the betrayers could go after bells hells in 20ish years. Also fucking Luda is still out there so he could start shit any time. The main campaign may be over but bells hells as a whole is not. There will be one shots or comics in the future picking up a few more threads. All these hate posts got me really angry because it feels like you want those of us who loved bells hells to feel stupid for liking it and that's not okay.

are people really hating on the finale because the ending was too good?? bc most things and character storylines wrapped up too nicely? tbf i have limited knowledge of c1 and c2, having just watched tlovm and like 14 episodes of c2. so most of my knowledge is through c3, but like..... i loved the ending so much. but i was scrolling the main tag for like 5 minutes and i see so much hate and disappointment. especially directed towards matt???? calling him a bad gm for not actively fucking things up for them? like he tried to kill off ashton. taliesin really seemed prepared to let them die. do some of you guys really mean matt shouldn't have allowed the other players to save them? do you just hate happy endings?

[fluffy-wet-cat]

People again are forgetting that first and foremost those are their beloved characters and that makes sense for them to be happy after 40+ in game years.

I don't understand how their decision is being intrepreted as cowardly or cheap in anyway...People have long accepted the fate of Vax and Keyleth. It was sad, but it made sense. They are not doing this to appease any side of the fandom.

It takes a lot of courage actually for them to say, "You know what, this is important to us, so this is what we are going to do."

[fluffy-wet-cat]

[fluffy-wet-cat]

I LIVED BITCHES!

Redownloaded tumblr bc if Instagram is gonna go to shit, I might as well start posting my cosplay content here. At this point I'm also past giving a shit about keeping my tumblr anonymous 😂 I won't change my handle but maybe expect some content that isn't shitposting at some point.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

I guess I'm team "the wwdits s5 finale was not good". The thing is yes Guillermo is allowed to change his mind and yes Nandermo fans were well fed this episode but you know what my problem with Guillermo's decision is? He doesn't want to kill humans but he literally has killed countless vampires. So to me this reads as if Vampire lives are worth less to him than human lives. And idk that just doesn't make sense for his character to me. So yeah the last few minutes kinda ruined the show for me and idk what to even expect from season 6 now. Maybe at some point I will write something more coherent but for now this is just me screaming my disappointment into the void. Season 6 with vampire Guillermo had so much potential but well. At least I'm not desperate for new episodes right away now.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

I MADE A MEME

[fluffy-wet-cat]

If I had a nickel for every time a blonde, flamboyant queer man with a love for books has abandoned his gothy, grumpy, "evil" love interest with a love for black leather pants, to return to his old life after said love interest kissed him, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

something about how "is sent to judge humanity but falls in love with a human instead" is perfect and when they tacked on "also, neither party knows how to handle this at all so they're both increasingly stupid about it" is just *chef's kiss*

[fluffy-wet-cat]

[fluffy-wet-cat]

Drew the gay pirates being soft.

[fluffy-wet-cat]

Drew this last year actually but never had motivation to finish it…

Now is a good time! What a time to be alive tbh 

I’m super exited about Q’s return and yeah fresh qcard food ;)