#tenser's floating discourse

[macksting]

It's not the most important thing going on right now but I've been kinda having catradora brainrot the last couple days, and it helps sometimes. Whatever value there is in examining relationships in fiction and talk about normalization or whatever, I think one thing a lot of these pearl-clutchers who hate catradora with such a passion are very much missing is how very much a fuckup Adora is. I'm not saying she isn't a victim, I'm not saying Catra isn't a victim herself for that matter, I'm just saying that Adora's fucked-upedness is more socially acceptable because it's more pliant. She thinks she's without value unless she's She-Ra, and that fucks her up bad; especially since it's reinforced by Brightmoon all falling in love with her only, and I mean only, as She-Ra. Adora is a danger, a menace, and should be discarded. She must perform She-Raness constantly, and be everything they expect her to be, or else she is... unwelcome. Honestly, it's kinda like Ikari Shinji. I wouldn't bother bringing it up except I see it in real life. If one party is consistently more pliable because the way they were fucked up makes them unable to set boundaries or conditions, people love that person, but the person who is fucked up in a way that makes them angry or scared or scary is a menace, a terror, a monster. And god knows some of us could do better, and god knows I work on myself, but that inability to set boundaries, that feeling of worthlessness, that dangerous conformity... That's fucked up too. It's not better. I want to shake these pearl-clutching twits by the shoulders and yell at them "IT'S NOT BETTER." It's fiction. I'm neither condemning nor apologizing for anybody. That part's just not that fucking important. But this does mirror real life: if someone is the kind of fucked up where they're compliant and do everything you tell them to, that's not better.

[utilitycaster]

wild speculation re: fandom response to this party below the cut, ok to reblog I just want to make it a case of "well, you clicked, so if you're mad...you clicked."

I suspect one big heretofore unstated reason why people are vibing less with Bells Hells is because much of the party is really exploring some weird and unlikeable territory, and specifically the actors who I've found tend to get the most hardcore fans of their characters specifically are playing characters who are harder to proclaim as The Main Character Who Is Perfect and Moral. However it is a GREAT campaign for people who don't have preferences for a specific actor, as it is for people who are like "I want to study this character in a lab and put them in a pringles can and shake it."

[utilitycaster]

I think a reason why people are having difficulty accepting Chetney as Travis' real character is because... well, first of all his backstory is just weird, but also it seems to only be selectively canon. Like, did he really kill Santa? Because if so, that is really tonally inconsistent with the world of Exandria. But, I think Matt has said Santa isn't real in Exandria. But also, he does have a history of making toys for children. So, what's up? We don't know what to think. If Chetneys backstory is completely different, why is he the same character? Why not just make a new character we don't already have silly preconceived ideas about? Because the thing is, once you start rewriting backstory stuff - stuff we've already seen - to me at least, it makes it really difficult to get invested in the characters. Because, why would I bother? This version of the character might not exist next week. A similar thing happened in the last campaign with Beaus feelings for Jester - regardless of what you think happened there, a lot of people stopped watching afterwards. Because it's difficult to get invested in a story when you believe there's no guarantee of character consistency. And to top it all of, this entire situation really isn't helped by the fact that there is now a precedent for introducing joke characters with shallow backstories who will die soon, which I do think was just a mistake overall on the part of Critical Role.

I want to applaud you because you've made me do what so many others have failed: I have actually turned off anon for a brief and unspecified time. Not because I dislike it - on the whole, I enjoy getting anon questions. Not because of hate - it's honestly been few and far between, and I have pretty thick skin.

It's because this ask is so toweringly, unbelievably stupid that I actually want to make it impossible for a few days for people to contact me without revealing who they are so that I can be sure that if someone says something that's even a third as deranged as this, I can take steps to ensure I will never see their opinions again. I honestly want to know if you've ever seen a single TV show, movie, or read a single book or if you emerged from some kind of slab or perhaps pod of goo, binged Critical Role, and then the mad scientist who created you told you to send this to me. I just had someone be pretty biphobic in my inbox just now and honestly? I'd rather have that.

I'm just going to hit the...well I can't call them highlights, so let's just say main points.

"Like did he really kill Santa" no. "Influenced by" does not equal "is exactly identical in backstory". If you can't figure that out, I can't help you. Do you think that all toys are made by Santa? I need to inform you, as a former Jewish child and current Jewish adult that toys are made by people and you can buy them at a store and "toymaker" is a real world job that people have.

You know how Marisha said that Beau was in many ways based on Jessica Jones but like, Beau never fucked Luke Cage or had super strength? Or like, how House MD is loosely based off Sherlock Holmes but isn't in London in the Victorian era but rather in early 2000s New Jersey? Maybe not, if you've never experienced media, but anyway Chetney is in many ways based on Chutney, (crotchety toymaker who probably killed his boss) but the exact antagonist is not Santa. This is a very, very simple concept to grasp.

"Why not just make a new character we don't already have silly preconceived ideas about?" Because Travis wants to and doesn't owe you shit. Next question.

"Because the thing is, once you start rewriting backstory stuff - stuff we've already seen - to me at least, it makes it really difficult to get invested in the characters." Well that's what we in the biz like to call a You Problem.

"Because, why would I bother? This version of the character might not exist next week. A similar thing happened in the last campaign with Beaus feelings for Jester - regardless of what you think happened there, a lot of people stopped watching afterwards. Because it's difficult to get invested in a story when you believe there's no guarantee of character consistency."

Do you know the origin of the word shipping? It's because the X-Files was airing in the early-mid 90s just as enough people were starting to have home internet for there to be internet fandom. The X-Files, if you are unfamiliar, is a series in which two FBI agents - a tall psychologist man who believes in aliens, and a short physician woman who does not - investigate supernatural happenings, and the psychologist says "it was aliens" and the physician says "it wasn't". It was a pretty good show. Anyway, they were both moderately attractive people with very good chemistry and so some people were like "man I hope they bang" and some people were like "I'd rather they didn't" and thus the people in favor of Mulder and Scully entering into a relationship were named "relationshippers", later shortened to shippers, and the people who wanted them to keep it strictly platonic were called "noromos". None of them knew what to expect! It was an ongoing show that they were watching as it aired! Eventually, Mulder and Scully, did, in fact, enter a relationship, thus creating a situation in which some people were disappointed. BECAUSE THAT'S HOW ONGOING NARRATIVE STORIES WORK, DIPSHIT.

Like, look. We have fun here, or at least I do, on occasion, but this statement makes me legitimately ask if you are not familiar with like, television, or comics, or ongoing book series. Characters change all the time. We call that "development". Characters make choices you don't necessarily like. That is the fucking point. Do you actually think writers and actors are sitting around saying "oh gosh oh jeez I must make the story that M Utilitycaster's weird anon wants to see"? No, they are telling the story they want to tell, and if you like it that's great and if you don't like it you can leave. If a story goes somewhere you do not like, that's not a failure on the story's part. That's a matter of taste.

Also while I've got anon off and am choosing violence I'm just going to point out that first, Beau having feelings for two people and deciding to act on one over the other was never inconsistent. That was a lie people told themselves in a desperate attempt to ignore what was actually happening on screen, and if you've learned nothing else from a cursory glance on my blog I hope my utter distaste for that approach to media is apparent. Anyhow, things honestly got so much nicer after the sort of people who threw a massive tantrum about Beaujester not happening left. I mean, my sibling in Sarenrae, there were also people who would swear up and down until the camera turned off at the end of episode 141 that Jester was secretly in love with Caleb, and Laura, the person who actually originated and played the character of Jester - remember Jester? it's a relationship about Jester, someone who needs to want to be in this relationship as well, which a lot of people seem to forget - said she was unaware of either of their feelings.

Perhaps - and I know this sounds nuts, but bear with me - different people want different and often conflicting things, and trying to please them all is completely impossible. Perhaps creators should tell the story they want to tell in the end, and hope it finds an audience, rather than trying to appease whoever is most annoying online.

"And to top it all of, this entire situation really isn't helped by the fact that there is now a precedent for introducing joke characters with shallow backstories who will die soon, which I do think was just a mistake overall on the part of Critical Role."

I mean, I wasn't Molly's biggest fan either, but I wouldn't call him a joke character. I hope you don't take this personally but you are not the main character of the universe and no one gives a shit if you think it's a mistake.

Anyway if you can't enjoy the show while Chetney's there, that's your problem to deal with. No one's pulling a Clockwork Orange and forcing you to watch. No one promised you anything. You made up all these rules and expectations in your head, and now you're furious that some people who do not know that you exist aren't abiding by them.

[utilitycaster]

I know I’ve been on the “many people in this fandom are fucking weird about Laura’s characters specifically” beat for the past like...year, but there’s a very specific tendency in the fandom I haven’t brought up regarding Jester but which I also can’t stand.

The best way I can put it is to badly misremember a quote from a book I once read that Victorian men treated Victorian women “as their superiors, certainly, but never their equal.” Like, there’s sometimes a treatment of Jester as almost semi-divine or immortal, but in a way that also kind of brings her out of the story and divides her from the rest of the Nein in a way that doesn’t allow her to be messy or unsure or live a normal life or be treated as just like, a character.

[utilitycaster]

@scrawleditalx FWIW I have no issue with people feeling represented or excited that Orym is specifically gay rather than bi! I think that's great, and I know people who were frustrated with the lack of M/M relationships depicted among the CR PCs, prior to Caleb/Essek, and that's valid too. The gay (or lesbian) vs. bisexual experiences I think share more than they don't, but they are different experiences, and I completely respect wanting a character who is a gay man.

My issue is first, Tary is, canonically, gay, so while I can understand being excited for a main campaign PC with much more screen time, Orym is not the first; and that Vax and Caleb were both bisexual men who had onscreen romantic interest in men, and who had canonical relationships with men (though Vax's was depicted much later, since he and Gilmore didn't end up becoming a couple), so the idea that he's the first mlm is fully incorrect and either ignorant of terminology (acceptable, it happens, even if it's like. look it up please.) or biphobic (bad).

(I also am not particularly thrilled at the insinuation I saw that this had something to do specifically with Erika being present since the idea of Orym being a widower specifically with a husband dates back to the concept of a backup character for Vax; ND Stevenson, Chris Perkins, and Mica Burton were all out as LGBTQ in at least some capacity when they guested on CR and Mark Hulmes and Ashly Burch have since come out and played queer characters at the time; and Taliesin is at the table every fucking week; but that's a whole other thing).

[utilitycaster]

Referring to this post: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/utilitycaster/693742024909864960

Now I am very curious about your correct opinions about Imogen/Laudna. Mostly because I'm having a hard time vibing with them and I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the greater fandom interpretation. (I can also DM you if you'd prefer but I'm weird and awkward, so this is what I did.)

Hey! No, it's cool, I'm happy to answer. And, for what it's worth, it's cool if you don't vibe with them! But I did find that I was able to embrace it as actually a very good ship after blocking as many tags associated with it as I could.

I have a long draft post about Laudna on her own so I'm sort of...grafting segments of it over here, but:

The general fanon for Imogen/Laudna that I've seen (and detest) has taken the following path:

They're definitely already girlfriends and they will never have any problems! We decided this within 30 seconds of them appearing together. This is beyond criticism, even though a not-insignificant portion of the fandom claimed that Beau and Yasha 100+ episodes into Campaign 2 "came out of nowhere" and "have nothing in common other than being lesbians", and "were queerbaiting".

I know they haven't said a word about being girlfriends or dating in 20 episodes but they ARE. I KNOW IT.

Uwu smol bean chubby glasses-wearing sweet baby Imogen gets headaches and nightmares and tall thin grown-up Laudna kisses them better! Wait IMOGEN is mad at LAUDNA? that STUPID SELFISH CUNT who's addicted to her nefarious power source doesn't know how good she has it. Laudna DEFINITELY didn't talk about having similar feelings about her own powers literally 5 minutes before this happened. Laudna's just a little baby and Delilah was so mean and YOU'RE MEAN TOO for implying she carries responsibilities for her actions.

Laudna's a CATCH and a WOMAN SCORNED. She should get with Dusk to make Imogen jealous. This isn't manipulative bullshit behavior at all. Wait. Laudna's more upset than Imogen? Laudna feels guilty for breaking the rock? Dusk is bad actually? Laudna freezes up and gets overwhelmed when dealing with Dusk? Uhhhhhh Laudna was specifically targeted and manipulated by Dusk because [footage not found]. I won't engage with the fact that Laudna herself feels as though she did something wrong.

(to be honest, I had blocked the tags by the time we got to the most recent episode so I don't know how they're spinning the fact that Imogen was in the role of helping Laudna at this point nor do I care to.)

All of this is absolute garbage and terrible for the following reasons:

just, narratively, if two characters start off as already in a close relationship (by which I mean romantic OR platonic here), said relationship is going to be boring as fuck unless something happens, and honestly, unless they drift apart and grow more independent for a time before reuniting, each with more to bring in to the relationship. I want to be clear: in real life, a stable relationship with no major conflicts is the dream. In fiction, if you actually want the relationship to be something interesting in the forefront (vs. just being a detail about the characters) this is absolute poison. The motion towards something new is the story. And for romance specifically, look, I know that the standards for M/F ships in a lot of fiction really is "vaguely attractive, are next to each other" but that's ships in BAD fiction and those ships are BAD and making pablum utterly lacking in chemistry gay does not actually improve it. Multiplying zero by a big number still gets you zero.

Laudna keeps being like "your powers are great! you're great" and meanwhile Imogen is like "this is a curse and I hate it" and it feels like this has not clicked for Laudna in two years, whereas like, Hondir and Orym and Fearne, at minimum, and even to an extent FCG, have all fully picked up on how this affects Imogen within minutes to days at most.

This is getting meta but: the fanon of the past two campaign ships involving Marisha and Laura's characters were HEAVILY skewed to "but Marisha's character is the powerful leader one, and Laura's character is here to fulfill the contractual obligations of this being a F/F ship" and you cannot support that narrative for Imogen and Laudna. And as such, many of the people who are shipping it HATE Imogen, because they always hate Laura's characters for daring to not just be a barnacle on their actual fave's ass, but they also hate Canon Laudna for not fitting into a Keyleth or Beau archetype. This is a whole other post but is also a significant factor in why this ship's fanon is so deeply fucked.

ALL THAT SAID here's what's good about it:

They are two people with similar goals, who are both possessing of their own powers which are a really mixed bag, and tempted by some darker forces.

Imogen is tormented with dreams and powers but shes DOING something about it, she's the one with flashes of leadership skills, she's the one who can still function when they're in a fight with each other even if she's still upset and hurt and angry. Laudna meanwhile is essentially the clingy loser slacker friend archetype who breaks your precious stuff by accident and who's been putting off "deal with my murderer-slash-warlock patron" for 30 years. It's very rare to see this archetype for a woman, let alone portrayed sympathetically, which is extremely exciting.

They have both been incredibly isolated by their powers. It's made Laudna terrified of people leaving her, because she's been alone and hated for so long, to the point that she needs to be pried off even people who are betraying her. Imogen, meanwhile, is just...deeply tired and angry. It's an amazing flip of what you'd expect - the immortal being the insecure "please like me" half and the young woman just being Done With Everyone. I'm excited to see what happens with it.

They do, legitimately, care deeply for each other, and I think being in a party where they can both grow as people and figure out who they are on their own means that the story of them being able to then come back together could be a really great one. There is a ton of potential in them that is utterly lost if you say "no they're already together and everything's fine" but I'm invested in that incredible potential.

[utilitycaster]

I feel between the posts I've made about Fearne and FCG this weekend and the (growing and valid) frustration a segment of the fandom has towards people who won't engage with Chetney at all, I at least have been dancing around this and anyway I'm just going to say it:

There's a handful of opinions about the cast members and their characters that seem to have originated largely from cherrypicked out of context moments of Campaign 1, are accepted as Absolute Truths by a lot of people, and are all complete bullshit and I wish they'd stop. They are:

The idea that Travis and his characters are stupid or simple or not to be taken seriously; may I remind you that people said "Can you imagine Travis playing a druid? his head would explode" with apparently no sense of shame not six months ago.

The idea that Sam is the only cast member who can legitimately do comedy or is uniquely good at mechanics or plot twists (I really do not mean this to be harsh here, and I do in fact like Sam - and Scanlan, Tary, and Veth - a lot, but like...in terms of mechanics and dealing with major narrative curveballs that he isn't controlling, ie, not Tary, he's one of the weaker cast members.)

The idea that Liam's characters are all Sad Boys and either the main character (people who inexplicably think Liam invented acting) or attention hogs who think they're the main character (people who inexplicably hate Liam).

A general flattening of Marisha's characters into Mary Sues by the very people who claim they're their favorites; I understand some of this could be a reaction to how much hate Keyleth got but like...Keyleth isn't Keyleth without those flaws (and the same goes for Beau and Laudna) and I'm of the belief that holding someone above all valid criticism is not going to do anything to counteract the invalid.

The uwu smol-bean-ification of Laura's characters (other than Vex, who really does resist that) and more broadly this idea that Laura has zero agency in her character depictions or class choices and that her characters are similarly deprived of agency (from which Vex isn't exempt); someone else once said people tend to treat her characters as self-inserts and they were right.

An over-nitpicking of Ashley's mechanics specifically; I get that she's had a bit less experience but in thinking about the Fearne stuff I remembered how people were also super weird about Yasha's stats and feat choices.

(Taliesin mostly escapes this, which isn't to say his characters don't get wildly misinterpreted at times, but I think because Percy's arc came so clearly and early in C1 this kind of reductive bullshit couldn't set in the way it did for others)

[utilitycaster]

Not me seeing a post about how Emily Axford or Laura Bailey couldn't do Calamity because of their playstyle as if Emily's incredible skill as a player isn't in her fantastic ability to meet the DM exactly where they are and understand just how far she can go and as if Laura wasn't literally tapped to be in the miniseries and started creating the character that would become Patia and only dropped out for scheduling reasons

[utilitycaster]

Why don't you like stuff like Imogen with glasses, Orym with a tail, etc.? Is it just personal preference or..? I'm genuinely confused, feel free to not answer if this is a dumb question.

Not dumb, but I have answered both before, the Orym one earlier today. In summary:

Imogen w/glasses: part of an ongoing pattern of the fandom infantilizing Laura's characters; part of an ongoing pattern of the fandom ignoring the canon of Laura's characters; started because of a weird beaujester shipper on Twitter so I already don't trust their opinions on Laura's characters; a lot of the fan artists can't draw glasses for shit.

Orym (and more generally halflings) w/a tail: I find it completely misses the point of halfling lore in general in terms of them being extremely mundane and yet able to become great heroes because of their stalwart nature and spirit; particularly notable for Orym who's whole thing is that he's Just A Guy. Also most people drawing halflings with tails shy away from the (fully canon) large hairy feet so it's like. Cowards. You want to distinguish halflings, do that.

Both: overwrought in the more literal sense of the word, in that it's too worked over and trying to put one's own spin on a character with a canonical design, but instead of developing an interesting visual style it's just pin-the-tail on the halfling. Also, as stated earlier today, it's not even creative; it's always the same old round glasses and the same old lion tail. I am personally more interested in people who can take a list of restrictions, ie, the canon character depiction, and do something compelling with it, than people who add weird frippery.

In short: while I do tend to lean towards canon compliance or at least a hearty respect for canon in art and transformative work I'm not ultimately opposed to changes; but they damn well be saying something worthwhile. Neither of these are.

[utilitycaster]

What about Sam's playstyle makes you think it's not suited to playing a cleric? I will admit so far for me his use of spells has been lacking, especially in the healing department, but I hadn't considered his playstyle as being a cause.

So Sam is really pessimistic about the rules. You know how like, Taliesin, Marisha, and Laura are often like "can I use this spell in a super weird way? Do I get advantage because of a bizarre circumstance?" Sam is the opposite of that. We saw this a lot with Veth - he tended to assume she couldn't get sneak attack or use evasion even when she would. So he tends to assume failure, and as a cleric you need to shoot for the fences sometimes.

He also has the following somewhat conflicting traits as a player:

He really struggles with not taking the most optimal option and tends to be indecisive about it, and he also really enjoys failure. This is just straight-up really bad for the party cleric and the subclass makes it worse.

I know this sounds harsh but a lot of it is coming from the place of like...for some reason Sam developed a reputation in the fandom as being The Mechanics One and in my opinion he is, mechanically, the weakest at the table, and it's weird that this reputation happened. There are two very specific highlights in his gameplay- and they're valid highlights! But they're both single turns from 2017 and 2018 respectively and they were also, interestingly enough, both scenarios where it was, in a way, a failure but also the optimal move (the 9th level counterspell on Vecna meaning a failure on using Wish on Vax; and the choice to not disengage from the blue dragon thus allowing Jester, who could both heal or who could pick up an unconscious Nott, to avoid an attack of opportunity at the risk of having Nott knocked unconscious).

Like...you know how Sam was often frustrated late in C2 that Veth couldn't get sneak attack in some scenarios? I don't think he ever used Versatile Trickster, which would have helped a lot! He didn't realize Imogen and Laudna were sorcerers! He does best with a consistent solid strategy and not a huge number of options and also in a scenario where suboptimal conscious decisions are ok.

The part where I do start to get more genuinely frustrated is that a few times he's made suboptimal decisions that really negatively impact the rest of the party. The ones I have in mind are him taking a really long time to summon Devossa in C1, and more recently choosing not to identify the rock for Imogen or that twice, he's been urged to heal someone immediately and has paused such that Matt has gone another round requiring the person in question to make a save, and the entire table has yelled at him. It just doesn't feel the same to me as like, debuffs people have taken upon themselves (Caleb's issues with fire, Imogen's psychic headaches, or outside of CR, Adaine's panic attacks in Fantasy High); all of those were notably something that was made clear relatively early on and that primarily disadvantaged that player, not other people.

I am particularly harsh on primary healers (as someone who has played the primary healer). You simply do not have the luxury to fuck around like this as the cleric. You don't get to do things like ignore halfling luck when you're the main healer. You just don't. You heal people RIGHT AWAY. Not to be melodramatic but you're frequently the bulwark between success and a TPK. That doesn't mean you can't mess around out of combat, but you simply do not have the luxury of fucking around or indecision, and Sam is really indecisive, and then on top of that he has a subclass that explicitly sets up decisions that would be a challenge even for an incredibly mechanically strong and decisive player.

[utilitycaster]

Actually, I do have my own thoughts on why people aren't engaging with Chetney and they're mostly way simpler (and also this will probably be the last I have to say on this unless I get questions; I will return this evening probably to post about the depressing gay pirate show and also the funny gay pirate show).

1. As many others have said, he's old and weird and perceived as unshippable/unfuckable by some despite that not being a requirement for characters nor even true (The unshippable part, not the old and weird part). I honestly think this is a major contribution and if he were younger and hotter we wouldn't be having this conversation to the same extent.

2. I remember after the Darrington Brigade a lot of people said they wanted to see these characters in a full campaign and folks, they are largely joke characters built for a one-shot; the few that were C2 back-ups were likely reworked significantly. I really, truly feel that if Travis were playing FCG and Sam were playing Chetney and absolutely nothing else changed, I would not have heard the same pushback of "oh I'm sure there's a big reveal coming" for FCG when I expressed I didn't like them, and I wouldn't be hearing the same...honestly, almost resentment towards the bait-and-switch as we're seeing towards Chetney. And that's deeply messed up. I could be wrong! But I don't think I'm wrong. I think this is all really fucking with some people's preconceived ideas of who gets to make jokes and big reveals and play the smart one and they're not taking it well.

But also, in the end: you do not have to like a character and I'm not here to make you like them against your will, but I was recently introduced to the (I think older) fandom phrase "If it's not about you, it's not about you." If all of this doesn't describe you then as long as you're leaving other people alone, feel how you want! But the response to Chetney seems wildly disproportionate and that's why we're talking about it.

And finally, if you truly are not in a place to emotionally handle the unexpected/disappointment in a TV show I cannot stress that first, this is worth at least mentioning to a mental health professional because that is a somewhat excessive response; and second, an ongoing D&D actual play campaign, a medium in which random chance is invited into the process and things may not be concluded for months or years, is perhaps the absolute worst genre for you to be watching. I mean, this is another conversation but like, it's not actually a bad thing to leave and find something you like better.

[utilitycaster]

OK real talk here: I deleted the ask about this in annoyance first thing this morning but the level of scrutiny for Keyleth's spell choices is, and I use this word having thought about it very carefully, insane. When I talk about mechanical strengths among the cast, while I bring up specific examples, it's about broad trends (eg, understanding spell management/modular builds/integration of story and mechanics/adapting to circumstances). In fact my criticism of some of the perceptions is, in fact, that people point to a handful of isolated incidents as proof of greatness.

My points about Marisha as Keyleth still stands. She was usually the only prepared caster on screen which meant that she was picking spells, sometimes on camera (pre-D&D Beyond). She had to adapt to a party that had changed drastically since the home game, in a new TTRPG system. Like, if there was a major problem for which Vox Machina's resources did not work? Keyleth was the only person who could truly change within the next day to perhaps address it; everyone else could only look through what they already had or reach out to NPCs.

If you can rattle off every time she misread a spell that was entirely new to her across nearly 400 hours of content? That's fucking weird of you.

And if you can do this and you come up with 4 instances? And you come to the conclusion of "yeah she wasn't so great with mechanics, because in a high pressure scenario she averaged one misread per hundred hours of spells she was often picking in the moment"? I'm sorry but you're just not very good at this.

Anyway, as with all things where people start disproportionately criticizing the women of the cast in a way in which I don't agree: you want to attempt to convince me? get off anon and onto a real blog.

[utilitycaster]

@mer-birdman, it takes very little to convince me :)

I wonder if this isn't close to what might have happened had Molly not died: the concept of Lucien was something Matt had in mind from the beginning. Had Molly still been around...I wonder if the tombtakers/Lucien plot would have taken over the narrative in the way the Ruidus stuff has, and if he would have been put in a position like Imogen's.

It's entirely speculative but like...realizing that the Main Character positioning of Imogen has entirely come from Matt and not Laura makes me wonder.

[utilitycaster]

people putting down Emily Axford?? as if I wouldn’t froth at the mouth to see Emily build a 14th level character filled with hubris, standing at the end of the world with everything to lose??

Yeah it's a uh...weirdly popular post actually but yeah, the problem is that the post says "oh Emily and Laura are legendary but they are Too World-Breaking for this."

Laura's a great player! She's consistently one of my favorites in the CR cast, in fact! And I love the scene with the hag very much, but like..., how is this somehow disqualifying from EXU Calamity as opposed to like, counterspelling Vecna at 9th level or playing chicken in front of a volcano with your warlock patron only to break your pact or pulling a stunning strike on Lorenzo. Brennan tried at least twice to specifically kill Amethar in A Crown of Candy and Lou stopped him both times. There is literally no one in the Critical Role or D20 Intrepid Heroes cast who wouldn't be able to knock this out of the park. There is also no one in these two casts who hasn't done something that caught the DM off guard. That's why they're good D&D players.

Secondly, "these 'legendary' players couldn't be trusted to understand the assignment and take it seriously" is not the generous take people think it is - it's actually pretty insulting to Laura and Emily - and that's not even taking into account that Emily in particular has an incredibly good understanding of the story being told. She does wild stuff on D20 because that's the show, and like, notably, the D20 cast members (and for that matter Aabria, who's been in two of D20's best miniseries and is a DM herself) are especially good at understanding genre because the entire premise of Dimension 20 is "what if we had short campaigns and miniseries that drew inspiration from and paid homage to various genres". I mean, full offense, but saying Emily couldn't be in EXU Calamity is as stupid as saying "Luis can't be in this because it's not about vampires in modern-day Los Angeles."

And finally Laura was selected for EXU Calamity and was replaced by Marisha for scheduling reasons, so the entire statement is based on a demonstrably incorrect assumption.

[utilitycaster]

caleb presented both him aging AND him moving back to the empire as a reason to leave essek, so the fact that we see him grading papers with essek, presumably in his job in the empire, is what has people wondering if liam changed his mind

You know anon, I was going to ask you why you sent this to me and not OP. However, it just so happens that I do, in fact, chat quite regularly with OP, and you did send it to OP, so why, on Gruumsh's no longer green earth, did you send it to me, a person who has been making unsubtle jerk-off motions all week in the direction of people who spam multiple askboxes on anon.

Anyway, if people heard "together for a while" and assumed that specifically meant six months and not, potentially, several decades, and are now acting upon that unfounded assumption, that sounds like a them problem. Given the truly delusional confidence that regularly appeared from supporters of unrequited ships, I am baffled by the number of people who have decided for themselves that if Liam does not explicitly state in so many words that Caleb and Essek check off at least a quarter of the Kama Sutra, it's considered proof positive their relationship clearly fizzles out within the year.

[utilitycaster]

Regarding the post about people saying Laura Bailey and Emily Axford being "too world-breaking for Calamity" do you have any theories about what it is about Laura that attracts these kinds of takes?

I can't speak for Emily, as I haven't seen any of the D20 content she's in, but I've noticed Critical Role fans tend to have a particular sort of bad take about Laura or her characters that is like, affectionate on the surface, but is actually deeply condescending and dismissive of Laura and her talents as an actress.

I'm talking about things like insisting she didn't have a say in how Vex was portrayed in LOVM, refusing to see Jester as a fully adult woman character, deciding Imogen having glasses would be cute, but only Imogen having glasses would be cute, and interacting with all three only insofar as they relate to other characters. It's like, the people "love Laura", but they don't really love Laura, if that makes sense.

On some level, I have to admit that finding the root cause of this does not ultimately matter and I would just like people to stop saying stupid things on the internet, a futile wish to be sure. I do have some thoughts though (below); I also think this specific instance was just like...someone trying to make a post that made them sound like they had an analysis but they actually didn't so they just did some bullshitting; stupidity and not malice. I guess it there probably is some sexism in that like, they said Emily and Laura and not Zac and Taliesin, but ultimately I think it still boils down largely to "the op of that post was just saying words without actually engaging in thought."

My personal theory is that it's a really toxic combination of being unwilling to openly criticize a woman in the cast but also, well, disliking Laura for reasons that I suspect are largely tied to either shipping or not liking her characters or both, and so to reconcile these two things they instead remove Laura as a person with agency from the equation, not realizing that this is actually also terrible. Much-longer-than-intended post below.

I joined the Critical Role fandom in Campaign 2 but from what I understand, while both Laura and Marisha got plenty of hate and sexual harassment in C1 (some of the stuff I saw in my C1 binge on the early Twitch chat before I realized I could put a sticky note over it or maybe listen to the podcast was bad), Marisha-as-Keyleth got a disproportionate amount, quite literally to the point of death threats.

Then, what seems to have happened is that some people saw this and rather than saying "yeah, there is a way to indicate you did not like a character choice, or you find aspects of the character annoying overall, or even that you outright dislike the character while still treating the actor with respect, and we should encourage that and not tolerate, you know, the death threats" this curdled in some people's brains into "Thou Shalt Not Criticize The Female Cast Members."

Except a lot of people truly didn't like Laura's choices. Why? Well, that's their business, and as this post will continue to make clear, I don't care if you don't like Laura's choices and it's your right to do so. I think a lot of them wish that Vex had ended up with Keyleth, or that she'd died instead of Vax, or that Jester had ended up with Beau, or Caleb, or that Imogen was with Laudna already (yeah there is a particular pattern of this especially having to do with Laura's character's relationship with Marisha and Liam's characters). Or maybe they just found Vex to be bitchy and bossy and materialistic, especially in works set earlier in the campaign like the comics or TLOVM (she is all these things and this is why I love her) or Jester to be grating (which she could be at times in early C2).

And, you know, if they had just said "man I'm disappointed my ship didn't happen, and I don't really like this other ship that did happen" or "yeah I'm just not a huge fan of Vex/Jester/Imogen", or even "the theme of being a person who presents a very different face to the world than to themselves and who struggles with vulnerability doesn't do it for me and so I generally don't vibe with Laura's characters", it would have been totally fine. But I think people got all caught up in this stupid unwritten rule of Thou Shalt Not Criticize, so they try to reframe it as "oh, no, I LOVE Vex, I just hate how she was portrayed in TLOVM" or claiming that some kind of nebulous forces stood in the way of their preferred ships. Except that the logical conclusion of both those things is "Laura doesn't have any creative voice within the company and can't make choices relating to her own character" which is in fact a far more fucked-up, insidious, and insulting thing to say - to everyone involved. I think this is also why Laura's characters tend to get twisted and hollowed out and infantilized; it's again, a way to say "oh no I like [vaguely-Vex/Jester/Imogen-adjacent OC], totally" instead of confronting the fact that they do not, in fact, like Vex or Jester or Imogen as they are actually portrayed.

You know, people hated on Matt Colville, who wrote the early comics, for saying that he didn't like Vex much...but the fact is he wrote her in a way I happened to enjoy a lot and which I felt made sense for the character, and I have to assume Laura was probably okay with it as well. Being a goddamn adult and honestly expressing your preferences is healthy and allows you to engage with a work with a clearer eye. (By the way, want to know of an actual player who often plays characters whose arc over the campaign concerns being able to more healthily express negative emotions? You will never guess who it is.)

Anyway, that's what I think is going on. This happens to be one of my personal hills to die on, tbh - not just re: Laura, but in general. Like this is why I've made posts about the weird and wrong Official Fandom Opinions people have about the cast (many of which I believe have similar roots in acceptable/unacceptable targets of criticism), or why I've been so vehement in saying "let me dislike FCG" - it's because it's actually fucking important to be able to say "I don't like this, and this is why, and I don't want you to tell me why I should like it, and if you are not able to hear people criticizing a thing you like - or if the mere act of criticism or dissent is a problem for you - you need to find a way to get past that because it is deeply toxic to everyone around you and I can't imagine it's great for you either."