#Eight Bells

[ltwilliammowett]

Eight Bells, by Winslow Homer, 1886

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

beauty and the beast is an incredibly tragic tale from the pov of the heroine, an enthusiastic monsterfucker who accidentally ends up in love with Just Some Guy

[mothbyte]

[shorthaltsjester]

obsessed with the fact that bell's hells won that fight explicitly because of their reliance on the gods. imogen and laudna both vocally saying 'thank you matron' at the beginnings of that combat as they use new skills or spells they've refreshed, orym wielding his sword, braius wielding his divine power, the entire party instilled with a hero's feast prepared by a cleric of the wildmother, imogen using power granted by the arch heart to bring down predathos -- an entity that has been described as welcoming her home, offering a womb she has longed to return to, her as its kin -- in imagery evoking the moment where the gods too decided to turn their backs on their home when faced with the monstrosity they were tied to, that they'd help bring about (something something, the arch heart gave mortals magic and imogen gave predathos its vessel). and the fact that bell's hells has slowly grown more reliant on the idea that predathos does not hunger for mortals -- something they in fact scoffed at when it came from liliana and ludinus' mouths -- predathos took several of them in his maw and tried to consume them.

viewing the story as one of a group of people predominantly blinded to the reality of their situations by the fog of their traumatized feelings -- as i've chosen to do for the sake of my sanity listening to them go on and on about gods that never gave them a lick in the same breath that they complain that the gods have too much power -- it is so extremely poetic that orym cut down ludinus with a sword blessed by the wild mother only for bell's hells to retread the path ludinus set up for himself. it is extremely ironic for a group of people who have implicitly raised complaints about the inherent manipulation that comes with the god's existence to come up with a plan that is explicit manipulation, demanding the gods become mortal or die [which to be clear, extremely interesting plan with interesting consequences that would be compelling to see! absolutely dogshit reasoning skills and moral assessment. but it is continually ASTOUNDING to me that a campaign that gets treated by some as the height of critical role's sociopolitical philosophical exploration features so many PCs who struggle (and not in the fruitful, developmental way but in the head-in-hands, can this student talk to the prof during office hours so I don't have to feel the second hand embarrassment of them making it obvious they haven't ever attended a previous lecture or done the class readings way) with ideas found in any first year philosophy course].

and to be clear this is not me devaluing the role of bell's hells in actually fighting the fight -- but all they've done is the same thing the gods were already doing, keeping predathos sealed, except now its in a volatile-at-best mortal who is on borrowed time re: being lost once again to its power. the only suggestion the hells have that this might be a justified and right course of action is the support of two gods -- one who has proven themself to be okay with the idea of death until it actually arrives before and the other one who is the only being on record who actually chose to be a deity -- out of a much larger pantheon, and their personal inclinations to agree with the ideology of a man who they have claimed to ardently disagree with but it turns out that was just because of his methods, I guess. scattershotting catalysts for change and hoping that change results in a Better World just. on its own (almost like. idk. fate) that you haven't even suggested practical (I'd even take theoretical ones atp) methods to achieve beyond Get Rid of a bunch of beings who are involved in actually extreme amounts of metaphysical and magical infrastructure isn't actually a course of action, its a course of chaos, and that is in fact worse than things staying the way they are if 'the way things are' that you keep referring to has only been shown to, currently, be that you and your friends feel sad and a little miffed that the gods you haven't offered anything to are only willing to do things for you when you serve them. unlike you, a group notorious for the way you do things for people you don't know without asking anything in return (this is sarcasm, if that wasn't clear).

anyway, I will continue to be frustrated by the lack of grounding for either (a) bell's hells having actually incisive and contextualized criticisms of the gods (either their own or from the actual mouths of the 'little guys' they are allegedly fighting for) or (b) more engagement with the fact that bell's hells as a party are not interested in making the morally right choice, they are at Best looking for a morally neutral choice. that said, if I ignore the actual story c3 has portrayed, the last few episodes have been a great wrap-up to a story about how singleminded trauma can make you and how that can lead you to place where there's no longer any Good choices to make, only potentially satisfying ones, where the question of who to satisfy takes the reigns over what is best.

[daffsforstag]

This might be the thing that takes me out.

[cicatrixtwigs]

You know what i find funny?

Essek clearly wont be privy to the PVP nonsense going on in the room next door because if you genuinely believe he doesnt have his own variant of Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion by now that he is absolutely not letting the Hells in to you are crazy.

[zwoftt]

8 hour finale better have good shitty angst, but it also better have dorym content that i can cry over (preferably happily).

[starlitsheep]

[dailydamijon]

Day twenty-eight of daily damijon

Dc’s Saved by the Belle Reve

Damian and Jon’s vastly different ways to help a young queer kid from getting bullied.

[tinkgaskarth]

Whoever decided that the final TIT show and the critical role campaign 3 finale would be on the same day needs a STERN TALKING TO what am I supposed to do I can’t be DOUBLE insufferable I have WORK TODAY. Please. I can’t do this.

[deuteragonist1]

Sejanus: We should have dinner together. But not as friends.

Coriolanus, narrowing his eyes: As enemies?

[danwhobrowses]

Eight Hours? EIGHT HOURS!?

Every time I think I'm safe for the week Critical Role finds a new way to knock me through a loop XD

The State of the Role today revealed that Ep. 121 is to be the finale of Campaign 3, having a record-breaking 8.5 hours runtime - effectively an entire work day! I suppose if you're gonna break a record the finale is the best place to do it, but seriously that is so much and so much can happen in it! I am curious why they opted against splitting at least the live showing into two parts, perhaps running one half on Thursday night and another on Friday just to give a breather then the whole thing in the VOD, but perhaps there just isn't as neat a cut between them to be feasible.

It's a wonder what can occupy such time though - and no, stop it, don't think that, I won't entertain it after everything they've fought through - I assume a lot of it could be chatting with the gods (potentially with an array of guest voices and maybe a friendly ghost aeormation playing as mediator), since there's a lot of gods and they want to convince all of them of the Option C plan, with potential ground rules and addendums put forward in the negotiation. There may be some bits with VM and M9 too since the god stuff does directly affect some of their characters, and then a final wrap up for the Hells themselves - even if it's just having a wild ass party and waking up to a new dawn. It's likely going to occupy dominate my thoughts for most of the week, and then the 3 hours I can possibly watch on stream while working, but still that is a lot.

I'm still not ready for it to be over, and there are still things I want to come out of the campaign that while are definitely up to the cast would enrichen the experience for me personally, but now we know when exactly the end is coming, and it's going to be a big one.

[misfitprose]

THE LAST ONE?!

THE LAST ONE!

The last one. 😭😭😭

Man... this was my first full REAL campaign, and I'm not ready to let it go.

Oh, God, how long is it?

EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS!?!!?!?? AND THAT'S NOT INCLUDING THE TAILGATE PARTY???!?

I've never heard of a Critter TPK before, but I think that's about to happen. I don't think I can stay up until SIX AM to finish the entire thing, and avoiding spoilers is going to be the hardest possible thing ever.

[dark-elf-writes]

“You are not to interfere,” Zeus snarled at the demons who have crawled out of hell armed to the teeth. Who have been stepping in for fights where they can, who pass their summoning rituals around to any demigod who needs an adult to rely on.

“You're not my god.” is the only response.

(and for gods who love their children but who never could interfere, perhaps their children find books and summoning rules)

Demons as a rule adore demigods.

The demons in the legions and/or who work the gates in particular are very protective of any demigod because the legions get it and the gate deals see first hand just how much these kids go through topside as more and more come down for therapy.

So even if Greg and Bel weren’t planning on testing just how far the “gods and demigods working together” stipulation could be stretched for their kids (which they very much are) there was already going to be a riot because these kids are going through two wars back to back and getting even less help than they did the first time by Zeus’ decree.

Zeus is hardly the first god they’ve stood up to, after all. And he is very shortly going to realize that he has bigger problems at hand because while Lily and Penny can’t go to the surface they can sure as hell get their hands on him and they (along with Judy) have some fucking words for Zeus’ decision to close Olympus when the kids need gods to help them end the giant war THE GODS KNEW WAS COMING

[slugkitties]

Strange...

[foreign-bodies]

When Eight Bells Toll; Anthony Hopkins