#I USED TO LOVE YOU ALMOST UNCONDITIONALLY CR FANDOM WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU

[ledamemangociana]

wait...are people REALLY ACTUALLY HAVING ISSUES with kaylie’s reaction to scanlan in the last episode??? W H A T ?????

before i take you to the stuff under the cut, there’s an original thread here from this past weekend of my thoughts on people blaming kaylie for scanlan’s death (there is AN ACTUAL POST of someone ACTUALLY STRAIGHT UP SAYING THAT) and ppl looking at the situation and saying it’s another reason why they don’t want kids. like. gAIZE. whyyyyy. are we blaming fuck-up parents on their children. that’S. THAT’S FUCKED UP, GUYS. 

look. i understand the want, the desire for happy endings and good parent-sibling relationships, especially in a story told in a game in which one of the enduring jokes is that the most dangerous occupation in the universe is “parent.” BUT think of what you’re actually doing by forcing either a happier or more dramatic reaction from kaylie in this situation. you are forcing her to care about someone who she grew up thinking could give two shits about her. you are forcing a debt on her which scanlan never asked for, and which she doesn’t actually owe. she doesn’t owe him ANYTHING, even with all his efforts to be present NOW. remember when matt said not ALL narrative is bright and positive? that goes for this situation too. sometimes someone dying doesn’t change how someone will feel about them. kaylie is what now, 18? maybe 19? and scanlan has only known of her for, what, 5 or 6 months? there’s SO SO SO much time there in which scanlan was pretty much dead to kaylie. and when she was looking for him, it wasn’t because she wanted a father in her life. so why should his actual death change that now, esp when there’s been so little actual father-ing from him since he found out? it would’ve been nice to see her care that much, sure, but it also would not make a lot of sense for her character narrative.

honestly, we need to stop telling people that family is the end-all and be-all of relationships. it’s brainwashing, and that kind of thinking has led to some grave results in real life, we all know this. this is a thing that i am personally trying to wean myself off - i love my family, i would die for them, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t hurt me, and that doesn’t mean i can’t be angry with them and want some space from them, and that doesn’t mean i can’t change my mind about them and wonder if maybe they don’t love me the same way anymore either. some people have bad and/or broken families. scanlan and kaylie sure are one. love heals a LOT of things, sure, but most of the time that shit takes time. forcing it to be instant or dramatic just pigeonholes character narratives into tropes. let things be complicated. even in the media we choose to consume. some stories don’t have happy journeys or happy endings, and some take forever to get to a happy ending. that’s what makes the stories mean something; if all characters and narratives were just happy or dramatic all the time, we’d tire of them quicker. 

(that being said, i love that kaylie was told, and i love that they thought to try and get kaylie, but not for kaylie’s sake, because like i said, as much as kaylie is probably glad that scanlan actually cares about her and isn’t the selfish horndog prick she had [somewhat correctly] thought him to be before actually interacting with him. i like that they went to get kaylie for scanlan. in as much as kaylie is on the fence about scanlan, and rightly so, she became such a turning point for him that it makes complete sense for scanlan’s found family to try and at least notify his actual family, because - despite having said little about her to everyone else except pike - they knew she meant much to him, and in their attempt to bring him back, they went looking for his treasure. it’s a testament of the character development that he went thru, and an acknowledgement of the fact that he had gone from chasing romantic love which he knew he would never get from pike to relishing a different kind of love which was obviously enough to make him go from surviving day-to-day to thinking past tomorrow. and for the few things that matt has misstepped on, one of the things that i have strong faith in him is character narrative, so i have faith that should kaylie decide to try and help bring scanlan back, it won’t be a flower-y speech of “i never realized what i had until i lost it” because that’s not what kaylie is about with scanlan, it’ll just be about kaylie’s truth, and that’s what scanlan would want to hear, probably something more along the lines of “thank you for being a bit more than i thought you were” at most, maybe, although i would LOVE one tearful “you promised me you’d live but you didn’t and i guess that’s just ONE more disappointment you’ve given me” stinger.)

let kaylie not be able to take it all in. let kaylie not know how to feel about things. let kaylie not (yet?) know how much she’d be able to help in bringing scanlan back. let kaylie see only her side of the fence, the side she has lived on for most of her life anyway. let kaylie be kaylie. let kaylie be.

[parasite-core]

1, 19, 21, and 22 for the critter asks!

Thank you anon ☺️ I’m going to be placing this under a cut because it got really long. I...got a tad emotional.

1: How did you first discover Critical Role?

So I’d been playing Pathfinder for about a year before Critical Role got super popular. My partner Zane, who is also the only person I played Pathfinder with back then, started watching and was pretty into it. I had a vague interest at the time, but it was already well into the Vecna arc by the time I really started hearing about it. I actually remember the first scene I ever overheard Zane listening to when he was catching up was the love potion scene 😂 Amazing first introduction. The only CR 1 episode I listened to live was about an hour of the final battle with Vecna. I didn’t actually think back then that I’d ever commit to watching it, because four hours felt like a big chunk of time weekly. Then I realized that one of the players was Liam, and I have been a huge fan of his voice work since high school. I’d heard of Laura, Travis, and Matt beforehand, but finding out Liam was in it was what really got me interested enough to take the dive and start watching live when campaign 2 started. I never looked back. Ironically now I’m the only one in my immediate friend group who still watches now.

19: Who’s your favorite cast member?

Despite my previous answer alluding to me being a huge fan of Liam’s work for years, it’s actually a tie between Liam and Taliesin. Even beyond being a huge fan of his voice work (he just has a really great recognizable voice and I always feel happy when I recognize him in something) I adore how in character Liam gets and how much thought goes into how he expresses his characters. I love how excited he gets for the fandom content too, as the art dad of the cast. I love his descriptions and how he uses D&D as a way to show his love for his nerdy best friends. But it’s really Taliesin who’s affected my life in very big very personal ways. He also really came out of left field for who I’d end up really liking of the cast. See, I grew up in a very socially conservative home. My mom is very judgmental about piercings, tattoos, clothing, hair color/style, all that stuff, and when I started Critical Role I was still fairly fresh out of college and hadn’t yet pulled myself from some of that judgmental mindset I’d grown up with. So when I first saw Taliesin, my immediate reaction was basically ‘isn’t he kind of old to be dressing like that?’. I went in basically expecting to enjoy the entire cast except Taliesin, entirely because he was an older goth. I dropped that bullshit pretty fast after I saw him play Percy and Molly, his characters have consistently been some of my favorites. Hearing him talk about self expression, and learning to not give a fuck about what people whose opinions don’t matter, and all that really helped me to let go of some of my own toxic bs. And as I started exploring my gender identity more, I saw him as an example of how to be okay with myself no matter how I ended up wanting to present myself on the outside. After Mollymauk died I had a major spike in my depression, because I’d been kind of using Molly on an unhealthy level to keep myself going on a weekly basis (telling myself “I have to survive until Thursday so I can see what Molly will do next” “I have to make it to Thursday, maybe we’ll learn more about his backstory this week”, stuff like that). Then one day I was watching some other show online Taliesin was a guest in, I don’t remember what it was just that he was there dressed in the most fabulous purple outfit, and it kind of hit me that I could do that too. I could just make Taliesin and Molly’s worldview my own, I could dress loud and bright and be someone who people remember fondly. I could try to leave every place better than I found it. So I’ve since bought a bunch of clothes I just think are fun and fanciful, just because I like them, and I’ve tried to let go of my first instinct of being scared of how people will view me, and I’ve made a very conscious effort to stop that judgmental way of looking at people that made me almost not give someone amazing like Taliesin a chance. So anyways that was probably way more personal info than you wanted to know 😂 Tl;dr, I consider Taliesin an inspiration and a role model.

21: Who’s your favorite CR1 PC

That’s hard. My first instinct is Percy. And it’s a good first instinct. I love my dark tormented soul type characters who don’t consider themselves redeemable (see: my CR2 favorite). But also I love Grog, he’s hilarious and Travis really just made him a joy to watch. His antics are some of the first things I think of any time I think of CR1. Also I love the twins, their interactions were wonderful, and Vax’s storyline was so good and so tragic. But, no, I do think I have to go with my first instinct and say Percy. I’m just a sucker for a guy with a demon in his head seeking revenge and finding a family who helps to make him a better version of himself. That final moment admitting how much he misses his family and how hurt he is by what happened and his survivor’s guilt is all so heart wrenching. Angry “No Mercy Percy” coldly going after the people who hurt him and his is so dark and mildly terrifying and so fun to watch. Just...I enjoy Percy.

22 Who’s your favorite CR2 player character?

If he hadn’t died, it probably would have been Molly, he was easily my favorite for a long time. And I still adore him and I can’t wait for what’s coming. But there’s been such a long time between then and now, I ended up falling into my love of characters with dark backstories who don’t believe they can be redeemed. Caleb is definitely one of my favorites. I just like my sad haunted guys, I’m just that predictable. But also like I said earlier, I really like how Liam describes things, and Caleb and his magic really lend themselves to that. And he’s a dork who loves cats, and his found family. Although Beau blindsided me and ended up also being one of my favorites. I just love the Empire Siblings. Beau is so gutsy and plays up not giving a fuck but she also loves her friends so much that losing them would have been the biggest sacrifice she could think of for the hag. She came from a terrible toxic environment and she rose up and made a place for herself and she found her own family who loves her unconditionally and just 😭 I love Beau.