#to act like c2-concurrent talks machina/panels/firesides didn't include c1 questions/random d&d questions/one-shot questions

[utilitycaster]

I'll be missing the live wrap-up but i wanted to say it's been disheartening but sadly unsurprising the way a lot of people who started with Campaign 3 talk about Marisha and Laura especially. It feels as though they see them as little more than vessels to provide Laudna and Imogen content. They get outright mad when people ask them questions in the AMA Firesides or 4SD about their jobs in Critical Role as a company, or other characters they've played, or their personal feelings about things they enjoy. A lot of them hate the Cobalt Soul despite Marisha explicitly and repeatedly saying it's incredibly meaningful to her, and are vocal about this, but will attack you if you say you're not a big fan of Laudna. Their approach to Keyleth feels like little more than a convenient opportunity for them to say "you can't ever criticize Marisha! Look at the harassment she received" but they'll then direct this claim towards anyone, even people who watched C1 live and experienced that in real-time and opposed it. They'll engage in harassment themselves and claim it's in defense of Marisha, then turn around and shit talk the Cobalt Soul and yell about how the Ashari are evil Ruidusborn haters and Beauyasha is boring.

And to be clear I have a longstanding and documented history of disliking obnoxiously parasocial behavior or invasive/repetitive/overly generic panel questions. I think, and I mean this genuinely, that it's completely fine and reasonable to be a CR fan who is here for characters only, and isn't interested in the cast. Indeed, I think a lot of early fans of the show were mostly here for the story of Vox Machina, and I respect the people who didn't connect to the Mighty Nein nor have an attachment to the cast and politely stepped away. I am not demanding everyone love every piece of merch nor every creative direction choice lest they disrespect Laura or Marisha; that is not how this works. But there's a difference between "I'm not really interested in anything but Keyleth, so I'm only tuning in to TLOVM chats!" vs this entitled distaste, verging on disgust, among a certain set of C3 fans when Marisha and Laura especially spend even a minute of their out-of-character time talking about anything other than Laudna and Imogen. If you do this, you cede the right to any "they're having fun/it's meaningful or comforting or makes them happy" defense (which, to be clear, I do not think is a valid argument with regards to the quality of a story, but which a lot of these people hypocritically invoke) or "if you dislike this female character or F/F ship you're a bigoted person," especially when you resent the actual real-world women behind your pretend characters for choosing to answer a question about anything other than what you personally care about.

And ultimately, I think that if you are dismissive and resentful towards the bulk of what the cast/company does (this includes when you turn this resentment towards fans for daring to ask questions about anything else, even in places that aren't at all C3-specific like panels or cast fireside AMAs, or places where the crew or the cast themselves are the ones actually choosing which questions are answered), it is childish and embarrassing to then act like you are being wronged and your opinions cruelly disregarded simply because something of which you only like one small facet fails to cater to you. You don't have to like it; but you showed up to part 3 of a trilogy and got mad that the creators sometimes talk about parts 1 and 2.