#primo nature/nurture interactions here

[topaz-mutiny]

Who wants more Critical Role rambling?

Me. I do. My brain is at full capacity and the thought goblins need somewhere to go.

First off, All Minds Burn.

I implicitly trust All Minds Burn.

One might think, based on previous Matthew Mercer horror show extravaganzas, this is a bad idea. And it very well might be.

But I got a vibe. It's already a terrifying psionic mishmash of mold, slime, and rotted corpses able to (it's smokable!) connect people through a fuzzy buzzy hivemind, but then Matt adds that its mind is completely alien to Imogen. Straight up implying it's even more unfamiliar to her than anything they've seen of Predathos, the Reilora, and the twisted life of Ruidus.

The emotions it shares with Imogen are a facimile. A replication. Observed from those connected to it. It's not actually feeling these emotions, but is choosing to respond with those meanings.

Now, it could still be an elaborate ruse. Or it could still be just plain dangerous to Exandrians (as Matt kept saying "yet"). But consider how Exandrians are as alien to it as it is to them.

And it is deciding to navigate Exandrian life interactions instead of doing whatever would come naturally to it. It is an immense psychic entity and yet is deciding to be polite to Imogen and shies away from Ashton instead of becoming aggressive when Ashton makes it aware that they're not sure if their dunamantic funhouse would hurt to connect to or not. The way Matt describes its mental force is like a hypothetical interaction between a blue whale and a sparrow. The whale has no intention of hurting the sparrow, but any movement it makes is just so massive in comparison that a gentle nudge would rightly feel like an immense weight.

It's a bit of a stretch to call it good, as clearly those connected to it are severely altered in some manner, but it does seem... honorable. For as much as that means between alien creatures. We have yet to see it force entities to become under its will, merely offer the opportunity. And it straight up offered to help, in whatever way it can.

The moon is an interesting choice to seed. It might have an ulterior motive, but the impression I got was that it was interested to see a new dry dusty desert - a biome which it seems to prefer, for surely those connected to it have made it aware of the nearby jungles, cliffs, and caves. Ruidus, despite being cursed and red, is kind of a familiar landscape to an entity that's existed solely in the Hellcatch. And the people there are also psychic, which seems to be preferable to it.

So yeah. Trustworthy hivemind made of nightmares. This episode was fucking bonkers, y'all.