#Critical Role observations

[deramin2]

I'm so glad that Liam is getting to play a bizarre creepy freak (affectionate) at maximum that requires perch sitting, constant movement, and tremendous physicality. It's like getting to watch a delighted tiger tear into a pumpkin filled with hamburger for enrichment.

Taliesin: "I love this, Liam. I love this for you."

[deramin2]

Etymology of Jester Lavorre.

common origins of suffering, euphoria, and ferret

substack

[deramin2]

The great thing about a show bursting with queer characters as a normalized part of the world is that the story can have sexy tragic queer villains without it being a homophobic trope.

Diversity win! The hot card shark antique collector demon is queer! But so are most of the heroes and the Emprix that sent them there. The middle age sapphics are having a moment, and so are the situationship bis.

[deramin2]

Campaign 1 Travis: My 1980s action fantasy barbarian is unromancable. He's just DTF the ladies off-camera.

Campaign 2 Travis: My wife romanced me on and off graph paper, and we're getting a wedding one-shot.

Campaign 3 Travis: My horny old man poly bisexual werewolf is canonically into pup play while transformed.

[deramin2]

Orym just got over of the most of the most deserved HDYWTDT of the entire series! That man has tormented 4 of Liam's characters directly.

[deramin2]

Dropout 🤝 Critical Role

An owner of the company named Sam initiates some kind of consensual non-sexual kink-adjacent physiological torment scene with their friends as part of an elaborate bit for improvised internet streaming entertainment. And Brennan Lee Mulligan is there.

[deramin2]

Heads up, Critical Role just announced in the Beacon TV Discord server:

🚨 IMPORTANT UPDATE 🚨

As the evolving fires in Los Angeles are directly impacting our cast and crew, we're taking a break from streaming this week with the intention of returning to Exandria next Thursday, January 16th.

In the meantime, the kindness of Critters like you has allowed us to make a donation of $30k to the California Community Foundation's Wildfire Recovery Fund through the Critical Role Foundation. Your generosity continues to help us fund emergency response efforts around the world and close to home, thank you!

While the situation evolves remember to take care of one another, reach out to those you can help, and stay kind out there. Light will always break through the darkness,

❤️ Critical Role

Learn more about CCF's Wildfire Recovery Fund

https://www.calfund.org/funds/wildfire-recovery-fund/

Donate to CRF

Updates and Resources in Los Angeles

[swordscleric]

I'm only halfway through the second phase of Predathos (which, to be clear is an incredible vibe for a bossfight, love a good head & hands/multitarget-same-entity boss) but I cannot shake the feeling of disappointment and just dissatisfaction I have had with this campaign that definitely started with Dusk/Yu, got followed up handily with the first Delilah/Sun Tree fight and then has been unfortunately reinforced with every discussion surrounding the Prime Deities since Hearthdell. This campaign is fascinating to pick apart, I have been really enjoying pulling apart why it isn't working compared to C1 or C2. But as much as I'm having fun dissecting where the worldbuilding has led to the current weaknesses in the gods' argument or reading other people's incisive commentary on the lack of personalities on the Ruby Vanguard's end, the "girlfailure" nonsense, etc etc, man do I wish this campaign was better than it is.

There are so many avenues of improvement -

Matt telling everyone to prep and write characters for this campaign instead of a C2-esque character-focused campaign.

Matt working religious organisations into the world properly.

The cast engaging with Marquet as a genuine location rather than set-dressing.

Otohan, Ozo and the rest of the Vanguard having more than "*insert snappy line here*" for their personalities.

No Delilah.

Bell's Hells having an iota of curiosity for anything outside of their own selves, including but not limited to: the gods, religious worship, the Elemental Titans and why they were sundered, how the people of Exandria feel about the gods, Vasselheim and its role in suppressing information about Predathos, Ludinus Da'Leth's plan and how it would still break the world if they did it in his place

I don't know why all of this fell into place in the way that it did, but it did. We can endlessly speculate why - the cast resting on their laurels after C2, not having enough time between the animated shows and Daggerheart and Candela Obscura and, and, and - but at the end of the day I really do hope that whatever form the final campaign wrap-up takes, they burn the damn questions asking the cast "what if the world was made of pudding and this character and this character kissed?" and instead pick questions that get them to introspect for a potential Campaign 4. Otherwise I don't know what will happen, but it sure as hell won't be Mighty Nein part 2: Issylra Boogaloo.

[ariadne-mouse]

Orym: I don't believe in blind faith.

Braius: well. you saw.

[terrible-as-pie]

I am obviously handling this well

[deramin2]

This is why I write Shadowgast like I do.

Sure, it's theoretically possible that since Essek is demisexual they're fucking somewhere off away from my camera, and sure it's possible that Caleb uses friend because the same words in German can be used for friend or lover. But enough people already write about that in ways that flatten it into amatanormative archetypes that are virtually interchangable with any other couple.

I want to explore how they are just incredibly Not Normal™ about each other because they recognized each other's minds and wanted to crawl in there like a raccoon figuring out a grain conveyer belt is a reverse slide with a fun-scary drop at the end and hurling themselves into it over and over.

I want them reciting some line of obscure magic-adjacent poetry and experiencing a kind of all-consuming intellectual attraction that the allos cannot conceive of that's more intimate than sex. Like trying to press your brain meat together through the telepathy of words.

Where "lovers" is technically actuate but incomplete, and "friends" is technically accurate but incomplete, and they're not "soulmates" because it's predestined by the universe, but because they choose it. In the way that you can never unknow what it's like to eat brown bread and melted brie cheese ever again, and the knowledge that they could be experiencing that at any point drives them together. Memories constantly repolished like the brass of an animal statue's face as every visitor boops the snoot. One day it will become fragile and crumple in at the last touch of being loved to death.

It will not last forever, so they have to savor it right now while they can. To be together whenever it's possible, and apart while they must, but build that memory so it lingers and outlasts them. No one will ever quite match that freak again, and that's beautiful.

But sex? Eh, it's just sex. Doesn't hold my attention. And romance is just a set of limiting expectations other people put onto things so they fit some predefined form we're taught to recognize. Done to death, in my opinion.

the best kind of ships are the ones that have something aromantic going on

[wardensantoineandevka]

I do NOT want Chet to die, but if he d100 dies in his sleep at Zephrah, it'd be so funny because that would make 2 out of 2 Travis PCs in this campaign whose burial is someone in Vox Machina's problem.

[spectralpluto]

It truly is fascinating how Ashton Greymoore's mere existence within these last 3 to 4 years exposed so many diet t/erfs and diet gender essentialists in this fandom

[sacred-algae]

Transmasc!Dorian Storm my beloved. 10/10 little trans guy energy. I have not met a SINGLE trans man that does not act like Dorian Storm.

Send post.

[deramin2]

This is such a good summary!

I love that Critical Role's Thresher miniseries does most of these, and the Candela Obscura game/series does all of them.

Notes on Torturing The Character In The Science Facility

my takes on this trope rarely if ever have anything to do with the character being "special" or being studied for powers they innately have, if they are special its something that was done to them

it's about the medical trauma

it's about the violation and lack of bodily autonomy

the "living weapon" trope, but the key characteristic is catastrophic functionality

i love, love, love the concept of "catastrophic functionality" in a person: character that can tank ludicrous amounts of damage and just Keep Going in virtually all circumstances barring outright dismemberment. They can keep going, so do they "deserve" rest and/or pain relief?

after a lifetime of having their distress treated as whiny and unreasonable, they have what would be a dangerously high tolerance to pain and exhaustion.

another key function of the Science Facility is to fix the damage Character takes, maybe using enhanced healing technologies or 3D printed organs or something. this leads to Character's body being treated as relatively disposable cause "we can just fix them"

extreme version of this: Character can't die even if they wanted to

people who work with Character are informed that they're dangerous and arbitrarily violent, and their fear of Character makes it easier to justify restricting autonomy

It is TRUE, cause Character does not have tools to set boundaries or protect their body other than violence. vicious cycle of being perceived as dangerous and therefore denied autonomy, and being forced to use violence to defend autonomy

the restraints used to hold Character look like major overkill, which underscores how dangerous they are. LOVE this trope

character being desexualized to the point that their non-consent to touch, to being stripped down and examined, or to procedures is trivialized. There is no non-clinical context for their body, and the "clinical" framework eclipses any possibility for bodily violation to be understood as violent.

types of uncanniness: Character looks human but has some subtle inhuman traits or characteristics. (I'm obsessed with reflective eye shine, personally.) OR Character looks like they've been taken apart and put back together, like flesh pulled over a much more unforgiving and indestructible metal scaffold. OR Character gives off "undead" vibes; they're just not quite alive in a way that sets off air raid sirens in people's brains

Often, Character is dead and Came Back Wrong (varying levels of literalness)

anyways yeah. i never stopped writing this trope and probably never will. it's a good one

[luddlestons]

gotta let the twink elf dom sometimes, for his enrichment

uncropped: pillowfort | bsky