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[probably-a-fae]

I think what is frustrating me about all the talk about the gods place in Exandria is that while it can be good to discuss the gods and their relationship to people- exploring and even criticizing them- the thought line eventually ends at "should the gods die," every time. But the gods dying doesn't give people more freedom to make choices where to put their faith, it in fact lessens the number of choices people can make, it forces people into a box. Removing choices sounds exactly like the opposite of freedom to me.

Faith isn't just one defined thing. It's a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To some it is hope and inspiration in some higher thing, to others it's community or connection to loved ones, others its the belief in the goodness of humanity, apathy, annoyance, survival, and to others faith is something to despise. Now Ludinous had one experience with faith- a bad one- and consequently decided that all other experiences with faith were invalid and the gods should die. To refuse that other people can have nuanced or opposite experiences from you and that their experiences are just as valid, are the actions of a child upset that things don't fit neatly into their boxes.

[probably-a-fae]

I already know I’m gonna be in the minority who thinks it makes sense that the gods would take back their gifts given to their followers if they refuse to fight Predathos.

This is not earth. It’s a world with actual gods and being a follower is a willing contract. This willingness goes both ways. If, in a life or death situation, a follower doesn’t get the result they want and decide to stop worshipping their god, why can’t the gods do the same if their followers just watch them die?

The followers won’t drop dead or whatever, the gifts like healing or holy attacks won’t be available to them anymore. They’ll be just like all the people who don’t have them anyway.

And the ‘faith’ part does make sense. It’s like how at the end of a movie, a character holds out their hand and asks “do you trust me?”. And you either do or you don’t. The story is ending. There’s no time for logical arguments and you’ve already gone on a journey with this person to know them. This question isn’t coming from some void of mindless, baseless, thoughtless trust. It’s a question asking for faith built on something.

So, if the gods are asking for trust from their followers? Then yeah. After all, majority probably don’t even know what’s happening or what that streak of red breaking the sky is. Can’t even see it perhaps. Just know that something happened, and now the gods are asking for trust that this is a Bad Thing and must be fought. Without delay, without question. Time’s running out.

[probably-a-fae]

Honestly? The gods in Exandria are so fascinating, especially after what happened in the most recent episode. That was probably the first time we've had a proper interaction aside from surface-level coin flips and Pike's resurrection. And of course, because the pantheon is one of the most intriguing aspects to me of Exandria's worldbuilding, it got me thinking.

Ludinus sought to humanise the gods. To prove them as equal to (or even less than) mortals like him. Essentially, he saw their morality, their love, their infighting and their will to live - and he saw mortals. The same mortals that he oh so enjoys subjugating. That is something that I think is vastly different from how I see it.

I'm definitely not qualified enough to speculate on the PCs and their individual views of the matter, so I'm speaking purely from my own personal standpoint. I agree that the Exandrian gods are more like mortals than they want to admit. And like Ludinus, I see their morality, their love, their infighting, and their will to live too. But where characters like him see that as weakness, and I see that as strength.

If the gods (or at least, the Prime Deities) could see the mortals for all the evil and good they were capable of and choose to defend them; then it stands to reason that one could apply that logic to the gods too. The gods sought to survive, to live and love, and hurt each other in all the same ways we do. So? Let them. Let them fight for their survival. Let them reach out to their creations for help in the same way that the mortals reach out to their creators.

The Ruby Vanguard sees these flawed deities as not worthy of their love - but their flaws make them even more worthy of defending.

[probably-a-fae]

honestly, what bothers me so much about the screw the gods attitude both in show and out is that in Exandria specifically, the gods are impotent.  They don’t interfere with daily life, they can only do the bare minimum by providing clerics with spells and once in a while making a mortal their champion.  very rarely they can perform miracles, but that’s very rare and mostly in before the campaigns.

There’s a goddamn reason (pun intended) that the dawnfather didn’t just rush in and suplex vecna into oblivion when he started getting godhood aspirations.  There’s a reason the Stormlord didn’t burn Obann to a crisp the minute he looked at his barbarian daughter the wrong way. 

That’s literally how it is because after the Prime deities stomped the betrayer gods for the second time, they created the divine gate and went away.  They chose to limit their power on the prime material plane and keep their asshole siblings away from the world. 

literally everything bad in people’s lives is due to other asshole mortals or sometimes demi-god entities like like Uka’toa or the Traveler (archfey).  Not the gods on high.

[probably-a-fae]

Man, just after that 4-sided dive and seeing where some of the players feel about the whole God debate got me thinking again. I guess part of me had assumed that maybe the players would have been more protective of the lore of Exandria and thus more inclined than maybe their Charaters are to be on team Save the Gods.

Taliesin talking about Ashton being punk about the interventionist gods got me thinking too. Like, we can't change the fact that there are Gods in Exandria, but those gods live a very interesting role? Like, lore says that as they created Exandria and mortals, that the.views the mortals has of them helped shape who they became. So like, the gods as we know them became who they are because of people.

I once saw a post that explained that the flawed personalities of the Greek gods was because those gods behaved a lot like aspects of their domains. I think there might be something similar in Exandria. Like, the sun is bright and proud in the sky, so maybe mortals viewing that shaped how they thought of the Dawnfather. So like Vax said once, the gods are flawed, and flawed in very human ways.

But also like,,,,, The gods are interventionist beings, but they very specifically separated themselves to protect Exandria and her people??? Like after the disaster of the Calamity, they realized that mortals would be better if they left to no longer walk the face of Exandria. They separated themselves! They are purposefully limiting how they can intervene!

Like, what Tal was saying Ash was punk about becomes interesting in that regard. Like the gods purposefully limit their intervention to protect mortals. Now, should they in Ashton's view step back entirely? Let the fate of all mortals be up entirely to circumstances? Or do the gods, as being who have the ability to intervene, have a duty to interact with Exandria to try and improve things? Very interesting enough is that how we do mostly see the gods intervene is through the actions of mortals, people who have a free will to choose. And we have seen divine magic users too in Exandria who have complex feelings and interactions with the gods, so like they aren't just dishing out magic to only the mortals that are the most devout.

So like, the gods are flawed beings, much like mortals, who saw the damage them being in the world could cause, decided that it would best protect mortals if they set themselves behind the divine gate, but as beings of a higher power, do they not have a duty to try and help mortals live better lives?

Yeah! I dunno! I dunno. I think Marisha is right in that it is a fun thought experiment to question the gods in canon, but releasing a god eater is a whole other matter.

[probably-a-fae]

Deanna and FRIDA had some interesting views on the gods and the after life that while I may disagree with some of it, found it very interesting.

FRIDA's view was what I saw some describe as very Aeorian. Though they felt a bit more neutral than the vibes I got from Aeor? It's odd. Anyway, they said they thought that people were like "batteries" that giving their faith to the gods and that kept them "powered on," and that maybe the gods after so long wanted to sleep.

I pretty much disagree with all of that. Faith as something that feeds the gods is an idea that is popular in fiction, but the gods represent things like nature, the sun, death. Those things all exist independent of mortals and their their views on it. If everyone on Exandria died, those things would remain. Besides, didn't the betrayers want to destroy mortals in the Calamity? Why do that to something you need to feed on?

As for the sleep thing, the gods literally communicate with people all the time, why would they not tell mortals they want rest? It just seems like FRIDA is making some assumptions on the gods based on their own experience awake. Which admittedly is very cool and interesting. It's fun to see Exandria host such a variety of views.

As for Deanna's experience. Her description of the afterlife reminds me of the Fugue plane in dnd lore. Like Exandria has it's own seperate cosmology so I don't know if this is a thing here, but in dnd lore the Fugue plane is where the souls of the Faithless go after they die. If you weren't bound to a god in life, then instead of your soul returning to that God, it ends up in a seperate plane where lost souls gather. The interesting thing about the Fugue plane is that over time the souls there fuse together and become part of the plane itself. Which sounds a lot like what Deanna was describing with the snowflake and ocean metaphor.

Her cleric status is recent from what I understand, so maybe when she died she did end up somewhere like the Fugue plane and that explains her experience. I wonder when she dies again, will she end up with the Dawnfather this time? Either way, it seems she was relatively at peace with her fate of "joining the ocean" so I wonder why her soul was willing to come back in resurrection? Is she regretting returning to life? She doesn't seem to yearn for death, but there is something interesting there.

Her own faith is also fun. Not being sure and questioning your faith, but holding onto it because you felt a connection? That's a very interesting stance to have as a cleric. I think we commonly think clerics have to have this absolute devotion, but real faith doesn't work like that. People question and people don't always fully commit to the object of their faith, but sometimes they cling to it for some connection. Deanna felt a connection to that light that brought her back, so she clings to it though she has very little faith to give. And that's a perfectly fine way to experience faith.

[probably-a-fae]

Almost there!

[probably-a-fae]

I had to get this out of my system

[probably-a-fae]

Okay, some appreciation for Matt's foreahadowing. There have been pieces to this we have known about for a while and it's amazing to see it all come together.

First, we have Keyleth. We know she was attacked by Otohan's forces and the use of a posion the prevents resurrection was in play. Keyleth was a target, what for? We didn't know. But that attack likely got the attention of a certain guardian of death.

Next, Caleb and Beau specifically said that Ludinus was being sloppy here, almost as if he expected resistance. Now we know that he not only expected it, his plan hinged on it. I almost want to bet that luring Caleb and Beau, who have long hunted him, only to have them watch helplessly, was part of his plan.

Finally, the missing lens. It was barely established at the start of the episode that Ira thought their design was missing a part. At first this had us excited, maybe they aren't as ready as we feared. Maybe we can use the missing lense to bluff our way in. But instead, it is revealed that the missing lense role is to be fulfilled by freaking Vax getting turned into an orb?

So Ludinus has people attack Keyleth people in such a way that Death's eyes are on her fearing another attack with cut her life shorter than destined. Then when the time of the apogee comes, he lures in his rivals who have hunted him and neutralize them, giving them a front row seat to watch his plan come to fruition. Finally, he lures in Keyleth, who has Vax watching over her for love and also because she had been targeted by these people before. All falls into place, and Ludinus is able to get his lense and stand triumphant over those who would see him fall.

Just, wow. I can't wait to see how the story progresses now that the party is split.

[probably-a-fae]

"A Cryptic Sending"

Challenged myself to do a comic with actual dialogue for once, and this scene from episode 49 made for a perfect candidate.

(can't wait to find out i'm wrong about who D might be lol)

✨do not repost my art | Reblogs are love✨

[probably-a-fae]

As we near the apogee solstice in c3 with all the stuff with the moon and the imprisoned god eater, I can't help but think back to the last time we saw the solstice. In EXU: Calamity. Now the thing that comes to mind when I consider these two solstices isn't actually about the solstices themselves, but a different parallel. Let me explain:

So in Calamity we learn that as Avalir travels the leylines, the Tree of Names that the Gau Drashari placed in the city is working to enscribe a spell that will protect Exandria. Protect from what you may ask? Well if the wiki is to be believed, it is to protect Exandria from "those things beyond which should not come." Which I interpreted as meaning things from the Far Realm, or basically Aliens.

Now here we are in c3 learning of Predathos, a being from beyond that came to Exandria to consume it's gods. After it was captured in Ruidus, knowledge about is was eventually lost/hidden away. Only just now is that knowledge being revealed.

Now, back to the Gau Drashari. Them wanting to protect Exandria is all well and good, but protect it from what? When I first watched calamity I assumed the "things from beyond" were probably things like illithids or other creatures of the Far Realms, but now I wonder if the Gau Drashari knew, maybe not directly, of Predathos or that such a threat from beyond could exist.

Makes me wonder if the Tree of Names had been able to complete it's work before getting Blighted, if that would effect the events of c3. Like, would that spell over the world have prevented the Reiloras from interacting with Exaltant Ruidusborn? Would there even be Exaltants or would those protections prevent them somehow?

[probably-a-fae]

this is a critical role blog now.

And so. NOW IM GOING TO YELL ABOUT THE NEW EPISODE.

CALEB AND BEAU IN MY CAMPAIGN 3???? ITS MORE LIKELY THAN YOU THINK.

[probably-a-fae]

I'll be honest, I don't know what to do with this blog. I've really fallen off when it comes to dsmp and mcyt stuff. I haven't watched any streams or videos in months. I still like what I did post here, and I like this handle too much to want to get rid of this blog so...

I dunno, I think I might convert this blog to another fandom I'm more interested in being active in. Like critical r*le or Stormlight. I only have like 6 followers here so it shouldn't be a big deal I guess.

Before I commit to that, any last questions on mcyt stuff people want from me 😅 I'm always happy to share my takes

[probably-a-fae]

Starshower

[probably-a-fae]

i made this for the sand. it got out of hand. i am ill

[probably-a-fae]

Nobody's parasocial until ranboo's hair comes into it.

[probably-a-fae]

I think therefore I am by @limelocked