#but like. ashton and imogen really do Not get each other in a lot of ways. cad and jester were very opposite in a lot of ways

[shorthaltsjester]

Imogen Temult, Exaltant Hope of the Red Storm

Heroes and Monsters by Penny & Sparrow // Critical Role Campaign 3

[rationalnerd62]

Every time I see a post about how someone doesn't understand Bell's Hells distrust/dislike of Gods, I just don't understand what show they were watching.

First of all, most of Bell's Hells don't even dislike the Gods. They just don't particularly care for them, which is a completely different thing.

Orym is from the Air Ashari, and as a result expressed very similar feelings towards the Gods than Keyleth in C1. Aka, of course the Gods exist, of course they've got a purpose for some people, but Ashari folks don't particularly care for them and are fine with mutually staying out of each other's businesses.

Fearne is a chaotic fey who honestly doesn't really care about religion. Sure, some fey are into the Moonweaver or the Archheart, but Fearne grew up with an Archfey that was having fun on the Matron's playground, so that's not really an environment with a big respect or admiration for Gods.

Chetney is an old dude who was minding his own business for a while. There wasn't really anything in his background to push him into religion, his deal was woodworking and then figuring out the werewolf stuff.

I don't remember Dorian mentioning anything religious based, so I'm putting him in the "do not care much / neutral" category. At least until shit happened with Opal. It doesn't matter that it's a betrayer God here, especially when you know the primes could have gotten rid of them.

For the rest, yes, there are religion related background components to mention. Both Braius and FCG were definitely pro Gods, but FCG started very neutral on that topic. Then they kinda started praying to the Changebringer as a thought experiment. I'll note though that their first (or one of their first? I don't remember) interaction with the Changebringer was her threatening them if they weren't helping her regarding the Ruidus stuff. And like, I get it, the Gods were scared as fuck, but having a shit day doesn't allow you to be a piece of shit to others 💀.

Laudna is an undead woman who got kicked out of places multiple times by religious folks for what she was, without a single care for who she was or her humanity. Gosh, she crossed paths twice with the same exemplar of the Lawbearer, decades apart, and both interactions were shit (Meghan, I'm in your walls!). Despite that, she doesn't particularly hate the Gods, but she's learned to stay away from religious folks & deities as a result. See her surprise at being accepted by clerics of the Matron! She wasn't expecting religious people to not hate her on sight.

Imogen was a depressed isolated pariah in her small town, praying for help with no answers (see one of Nana's team building exercises), and when she was finally out, it was with the help of her undead friend who she's very protective of and who doesn't have a great rep with religious folks. Yeah, she'd probably stay away from that too.

Meanwhile Ashton was raised in a cult that ended up very poorly (they've got long term health issues from that time!), and would rather avoid any sort of organised religion (no matter the topic) as a result, which honestly, that's fair.

And that's mostly just background stuff! During the campaign, they also met someone who got brought back to life and is still kinda resentful about it, they found a whole village that was very much not happy about religious folks coming up to their town and trying to order them around (and had to fight a temple as a result, which left a bunch of contradictory feelings there), and saw Gods destroy a whole city to keep their siblings safe, in the middle of the Calamity which saw many deaths because Deities were fighting against one another. Ah, and Vasselheim is apparently deciding who gets to know what wrt history and would hunt people who know too much. Like, the Grim Verity was hiding from both Vasselheim & Ludinus.

And I know a lot of stuff here is more about religious folks rather than Gods themselves, but you gotta understand that if the Gods are away and only talking to a select few, then their followers *are* their marketing team. Followers being shitty to some people *will* lead those people to be suspicious about religion and Gods (or at least to want to stay away from it).

Trust isn't owed to Gods, even Prime Deities. It's something that is gained through background, time, opportunities... Even in Exandria where the Gods are real, there are probably a lot of common folks who don't particularly care about religion (or maybe some of them just follow along with the dominant religion of their hometown, without diving much into it).

So no, Bell's Hells aren't particularly big Gods lovers. They're also not Gods haters (nuances, what a blast). Hey, in a different scenario, they probably would have loved staying away from Gods and religion entirely.

But guess who in the group actually had the biggest connection to a cosmic entity that significantly impacted their life? Imogen with Predathos.

And no, this doesn't mean this group wasn't appropriate for the plot of C3, or whatever funny thing people like to say about C3 and BH! I think C3 was made a lot more interesting by folks disagreeing on their relationship to Gods - it'd be boring if they all agreed lol.

But if you're looking at BH and are tearing up about "why don't they love my blorbos deities", seriously, have you paid attention to who those people are.

[utilitycaster]

Idk how to articulate this but in regards to a lot of defense of certain elements of C3 being that they “make sense” in universe, (Ashton becoming indecisive, the party not knowing each other well because of the little passage of time, the party not having stakes in much of things,) it’s always very misguided because something can make sense in universe and still be a really bad writing decision. Especially if you’re trying to respond to an out of universe criticism with in universe logic.

Correct. I think there are two big problems with these arguments. The first, is as you said, the fact that these Doylist critiques (story poorly structure, party lacks investment) are being met with Watsonian defenses (makes sense for the party). We're saying "the party should have been given a reason for investment in the beginning."

The second is, and I've been reluctant to point this out because the bulk of hate I've gotten has been (largely false and frankly idiotic) claims of hypocrisy. But man is a lot of this hypocritical, the defense of Ashton specifically. Like, yes, Ashton is someone who's had a difficult life and frequently had very little power, so the fact that they do have power now isn't something they are used to. However, and this really is the even larger problem, just because a sentient being has a reason for feeling a certain way does not in fact mean that acting on it is excused from criticism. Ashton also learned he contained the shard of a titan only a few weeks ago; why aren't we granting the same "well, it's new, let them process" it to the party's fixation on avenging the titans? Why are we getting this from people who frequently treated Orym as "irrational" and bent on nothing but vengeance for deaths he'd carried for six years and had thought about extensively? Hey, Ludinus is acting from trauma! So is Liliana, according to a lot of these people. If acting from trauma is always valid, then criticism of any of these people is cut off. So clearly, what you do with that trauma matters!

You can feel any way about anything, but how you act matters, and time and time again, a huge number of Bells Hells and Campaign 3 fans have argued that actually it doesn't, and if you've ever had your choices curtailed your lack of agency means you are entitled to do whatever the fuck you want. It extends to themselves as well - doesn't matter if (for example) there's absolutely no indication that Gelvaan's issue with Imogen was homophobia or misogyny and in 118 episodes there hasn't been - if you feel like Imogen's experience is relatable to your real-world one where those were factors then obviously your feelings are right so who cares about like, the facts of the situation! You're new to the campaign! You can't be EXPECTED to LOOK THINGS UP and THINK.

You know what I realized, upon answering this question: I don't know if Ludinus realized that the impact of reaching out to Predathos would be the ruin of Molaesmyr; I don't think he was terribly worried about consequences but I do think it's fair to say "he might have not realized how badly this could go, and was surprised as any by the result". Just someone following a path because they were hurt and traumatized and not thinking things through. We keep talking about how Bells Hells might be remembered as Vespin Chloras, and they might be remembered as such, but Vespin was an arrogant but genuinely competent and even, arguably, well-intentioned person with a clear plan that was ultimately a gross underestimate. I think they're more likely to be just fuck-ups in the dark who could cause mass destruction because they cared far, far more about the hurt they'd received than the world around them.

[verday]

Ranking my satisfaction with the conclusions for each character of Bells Hells after the finale

The list will go from least satisfied to most satisfied. Feel free to share your own.

Braius: It was going to be hard for Braius to do anything that significantly left an impact on this group. While his final confrontation with Asmodeus was the best scene he's been in it was also like the only scene I ended up being truly invested in him. A not surprising ranking.

Chetney: His line about working with metal at the end was a perfect full-circle moment and a great final laugh. I really like that he got to help F.R.I.D.A with his new werewolf powers even if we didn't get to see it. Sucks that he had the shortest epilogue but it proved that there wasn't much left to do with him in the end.

Fearne: I feel like Fearne stayed relatively the same at the end which isn't inherently a bad thing. She's so wonderfully chaotic always. She was kind of the Caduceus in that regard (a static character). Would have love to have Fearne acknowledge whether or not she gave any thoughts to what Ashton said about her not thinking things through.

Laudna: Laudna's arc felt finished awhile ago but it was nice to see some more of her gaining back her autonomy through mortality. Other than that scene with Imogen I feel like Laudna didn't have any stand out scenes in the finale. But it's okay because she had many stand out performances through out the campaign.

Orym: Another character that remained mostly unchanged. But a lot of decisions felt right for his story. The scene with him and Keyleth was the best moment for him in the finale as he has always kept things so professional with her. Finally getting a chance to speak with her on an equal level was beautiful to watch. His line to Dorian about walking in the sun was poetic and a great conclusion.

Ashton: A roller-coaster of a finale. Absolutely had the best full-circle moment with their sacrifice and the "I love yous" shared. Got some closure with FCG (even if I personally would have wanted more). The scene with Fearne was hard to watch but I definitely see where it came from and was an overall great decision. Still think that at the end Ashton was a bit too hard on himself and would have liked to see him lean into his friends more instead of going off on his own.

Dorian: A scene-stealer (affectionate) at all times and that didn't stop at the finale. His scene with his mother was a real tear-jerker. He really grew into his confidence at the end. Loved the honesty with him and Orym and the gentleness of their relationship. Glad he patched things up with Dariax and Opal as well. The fact he is the glue that holds the party together is the best ending for him.

Imogen: Stole the show with that persuasion check with the gods. A great character to end Bells Hells with narratively. She played her role as the unofficial leader beautifully. Her cabin with Laudna was something many people, myself included, were looking forward to and their conclusion did not disappoint. The fact that Imogen looks forward to seeing everyone in their dreams was the sweetest detail as well.

[towards-toramunda]

What bothers me most about 'Orym is the reason Laudna killed Bor'dor' is iirc in the episode Marisha pretty clearly states Laudna didn't even really notice the nod? She didn't notice much of anything because she was fixated on that one objective, and nothing was going to get in her way. But of course, it still becomes 'Ashton and Orym were horrible for not stopping her.'

Yeah tbh I’ve seen a lot of people bring up that in 4sd Marisha said she was looking to orym and Ashton and Liam said that he wasn’t gonna let bordor leave that scene alive and he knew in that moment she might bring Delilah back but that Orym thought they might need Delilah for this fight and… Like… yes we can acknowledge the enabling, but I’ve seen so many people act like enabling someone to do something he would’ve done either way makes Orym an irredeemable person. I truly believe that the nod didn’t change anything and she would’ve killed bordor regardless. I remember while I was watching the episode thinking the nod felt almost like an act of tragic kindness in the moment. Like Liam/Orym could see how hurt and emotional Marisha/Laudna was in this moment and nodded to let her know that “its okay. I agree with you.” Almost as a way to attempt to lift the burden from her and let her know that she wasn’t alone despite how awful the situation was.

I think it’d be interesting for the story if Laudna was gonna kill him either way but was so traumatized by it all that she began viewing Orym’s nod as “the reason she did it” so she could deflect accountability for it all, BUT I really think she was gonna do it either way.

And like… everyone angry that “he is the reason she leaned back into her addiction” I mean since then Laudna and Imogen have talked about leaning into their dark side with each other and harnessing that power for the mission and nobody in the fandom seems angry at either of them for enabling each other. It feels hypocritical to be so upset with orym still after all this time because he… nodded in agreement with her killing a guy he was going to kill either way and thought they might need Delilah. (For the record I’m messy and I like drama so I’m always gonna support PCs enabling other PCs to do morally questionable things for the sake of the story like Imogen and laudna are doing with each other and like Orym did with the nod. Like yeah push that big red button what’s it gonna do? I’m curious and like messy stories)

[astralleywright]

d'ya think maybe people are mad about the bh characters this aggressively because it's really fucking hard to make fluffy domestic aus of this campaign or use basic character tropes with them or

OKAY HI ANON YEAH. YEAH I THINK THAT'S PART OF IT. you kind of mention two things in your question; the fluffy aspect and the tropes - and I think both are part of it.

The fluff thing is like, I DO think you can make easy fluffy domestic aus with these characters, because that's what many of these characters ultimately want! The material is there, in baking and craft nights and burlesque shows! But I think people take the fact that the Hells' health/relationships/status are not following a straight upwards progression the way VM and M9's (apparently?) did to mean that the Hells are Doomed to Fail, because in no story have things gotten worse before they got better, culminating in a lowest point before rising to victory. And a lot of people attribute this far too heavily to some personal, inherent failings of the Hells as opposed to their position in this story, because the Fundamental Attribution Error is always getting people's asses.

Which folds into the part abt tropes, because I don't want to say the Hells are, on the whole, more complicated characters than VM or the M9, because I don't believe that's true. But they're definitely more difficult to break down into simple archetypes or fanfic tags, and even if you could, they're not widely appealing ones; they're NPC descriptions. Or the ease of understanding implied by them being tropes is constantly challenged by the story itself; the Hells love each other, are meaningful to each other like a Found Family, but they're still fraught with conflict. Imogen is both Refusing the Call and Accepting the Call and just trying to listen in on it, from a distance. Imodna are Slow Burn Best Friends to Lovers, but its not happily ever after when they get together. Ashton is a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold, but its often their heart of gold that compels them to act like a jerk in the first place. So if someone is trying to (or wants to be able to) rely on tropes to understand most of the Hells, it is probably leaving them in a lurch, and people love to get mad at things they don't understand. (Especially when that thing they don't understand keeps fucking up and doing bad shit).

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

Honestly, Im a little disappointed that it wasn't messier. Im disappointed that there wasnt more shouting. That Lauda was providing most of the pushing and everyone else was just kinda... rolling over? I wanted an argument that would have brought the roof down on them 🙄

the reason theres so much constant tension in this party is that they all havent tried hard enough to punch each other in the face - like really smash.

to be totally serious tho, remember when Chetney told Ashton to gtfo and thats what broke the tension? someone finally getting the guts to be mean and to push hard on someone else's reckless bullshit?

the fact that theres no such equivalent here? the fact that chetney hasnt intervened on that level? thats whats keeping this tension.

on one hand, the way some of the party treat laudna is so fucking patronizing, its actively painful - Ashton whispering to Laudna for an apology? wtf? the way they acted like she was a misbehaving toddler set my teeth on edge. Then Imogen... Buddy, pal, you just watched your mother regurgitate Ludinus's lies like they were stone cold facts and youre out here accepting the same thing from Laudna without a second glance. You know she has a problem! You know she's not the most reliable narrator! You know she fails insight checks against herself all the time!!!

Ashton and Imogen both needed to treat Laudna like a threat in that moment bc she attacked someone without provocation during a rest when they were trusting her to not do that and it was clearly premeditated because she covered herself in darkness. The fact that they dont demonstrates that neither are taking her capabilities seriously enough. The fact that they arent addressing the threat she presents - to others and herself - is allowing her to continue hurting herself and others.

Whereas, Fearne is complicit in it all because shes so conflict averse. She was never gonna be the one to hold Laudna over the fire.

Chetney and Orym would have. Orym was trying to but literally only Dorian backed him up. And Dorian doesnt know fuck about all. He joined them two days ago. Hes got no fucking clue whats happening!! Oryms the only one really pointing out the fact that he was attacked unprovoked

and sure laudna was aiming for the sheathe, but thats splitting hairs... i believe we removed targeting each armor piece somewhere in dnd 3.5 or something lol - if youre targeting a piece on someone, the usual call Matt makes is to give this a higher DC. Matt making Marisha roll arcana makes sense bc yes you can control wither and blooms "chosen target", but when the target is attached to something else, and moreover the target is a thing - not a creature like the spell says RAW... it makes sense that a failed arcana check would lead to that failure

for all intents and purposes, laudna was aiming for orym. she didnt mean to hurt him but again, shes operating under the influence (and yes I do mean that connotation). a lot of people do shit they dont mean under the influence. but they still gotta do the repairs when they come back to their senses. harm was still done. Orym attacking laudna bc he was hurt and blinded is also fucking reasonable. he didnt fucking know it was her in the first place.

for laudna to say that orym hurt her when she attacked him - that was grade A manipulation

and heres the thing too, when someone is acting under the influence, people usually call it out. they say stuff like "youre drunk" or "youre high" to acknowledge that hey, this isnt you but also this isnt acceptable either. no one breathed a fucking word about delilah until the very very end. they all treated laudna like she was in a reasonable state of mind, and she wasnt. they werent meeting her where she was at and so they failed to reach her

now to orym... did they all agree that the sword was oryms? bc that was a discussion they did not have... chetney made a one off comment about how theyll need permission for it (possibly implying orym but never explicitly stated)... was the idea that orym gets it because he got hurt first? that wouldve been stupid for sure

to dorian's point, hey its just a sword. swords hurt people. what youre gonna look at every sword with magic geometry and expect to see it cuddling puppies? swords are made to hurt. even when its defending. it can parry but if you need a shield get a shield. sure, this was otohan's sword but the sword is not sentient (laudna girl you need to insight check your patron pls). otohan hurt her not the sword. and to allow her to consume it was more leaning into her trauma - its not setting a good precedent for future healthy coping mechanisms basically

that said, dorian cant just say that without acknowledging the depth of laudnas trauma. the sword actively triggered her. this does reek of a PTSD episode where she went running to a soothing influence. to simply say its just a sword without paying respect to laudna's hurt is also incredibly dismissive - well aimed as it was.

chetney is sus. thats it. thats the take. i dont believe this old man when he said he trusts laudna. i think hes plotting

tl;dr - everyone tried to help laudna, no one tried to stop her which might be the only way to help her now. she needs someone to hold her back and call out when shes under the influence again.

[randoimago]

Hi there! Could you please do headcanons on what it’d be like to be in a polyamorous relationship with Laudna/Imogen and Ashton/Fearne? Thank you!

Fandom: Critical Role

Character(s): Laudna, Imogen, Ashton, Fearne

Note(s): I did some platonic poly headcanons for Laudna/Imogen so I'll do my best to add some more romantic ones here!

Ashton/Fearne

You have emotionally stupid Ashton and "does whatever the fuck I want" Fearne. It's a very chaotic relationship. Fearne has no hesitations with telling you what she wants, when she wants. She'll drag you both to the bedroom as soon as you and Ashton agree. Ashton, however, somehow still doesn't understand how he can have two partners that genuinely care about him.

So many pillows get used when all of you try to cuddle or spend time together. Fearne enjoys having soft, comfy things around, but it's also because of Ashton's pain. He really does want to give you two the love you deserve, but his chronic pain is a bitch. Which is why there's always soft pillows around to hopefully help ease him a bit.

You're not allowed to have anything. As soon as you do, Fearne "borrows" it and then Ashton "borrows" it from her. And then it just becomes a thing of sharing with your two partners. Of course, they will stop messing around or teasing if you actually say something.

Laudna/Imogen

With everything going on, they can't give you as much love as they wish they could. There's longing looks and fleeting touches between you three, but there's just too much happening for cuddling or spending the nights together.

But you know they love you (and each other) with how quickly everyone jumps to each other's defense. Laudna is happy to be scary when protecting you two or chasing off someone else coming in to flirt. Imogen enjoys doing her slightly off-putting telepathic thing to throw people off, too.

There is a lot of patience and secrets in this relationship, unfortunately. As much as you three love each other, Laudna doesn't always talk about her discussions with Delilah and Imogen keeps her conflicting feelings regarding her birth and mother to herself. They just don't want to put that much weight on you or each other and it's just secrets upon secrets.

Taglist:

@unhelpfulnpc

[aeoris4lovers]

i think ashton’s got a big storm coming when we switch teams. and by that, i mean i think they’re about to get aggressively cared about, whether they like it or not.

i have a feeling that he probably won’t be doing so hot after the end of 51 — this is, what, the third time he’s had the experience of something going wrong and then waking up (mostly) alone? i can’t imagine those parallels would be lost on him, and taliesin said some stuff on 4sd tonight that seemed to suggest that ashton is going to be pretty solidly in “it’s happening again” mode.

and who are they with? orym and laudna. you know, two of the people in the party voted most likely to ignore their own problems by focusing on someone else’s (along with fcg, of course). orym is for sure having lots of bad feelings about not being able to stop otohan again and finding out his family died for what was essentially a test run, and when he’s not doing great, his main coping mechanism is to just focus on worrying about someone else instead. and laudna is definitely super worried about imogen and freaked out by not having her there, and i think she needs someone else to focus on and take care of now that she can’t give that attention to imogen. and god only knows they won’t be able to let that out on each other because then they’d actually have to think about their own shit.

so what are they going to do when they see that their other friend is having a certified bad time? they’re going to make that their problem and ashton is going to experience the full force of his two designated helper friends who not only genuinely care about him, but also really need someone to care about so they don’t totally lose their minds. and that’ll only be amplified if my other suspicion is right and that team starts delving into ashton’s backstory, because i have a feeling that’ll be...a bit rough.

i don’t know, i’d just really like to see ashton get a healthy dose of “everything is fucked but these people do in fact give a shit about you and they’re going to be so annoyingly insistent about it that even you can’t deny it.” i think it’d do them some good, and i think laudna and orym are arguably in the best position out of anyone in the party to give it.

the hells have been slowly chipping away at ashton’s walls for a while and it’ll take a long time for them to get all the way through, but i’d like to think the split gives orym and laudna a shot at making a really good dent.

[willowbirds]

fearnie :)

I’m going to assume this is for that character ask thing. If it isn’t? Well you’re about to get infodumped my lovely Anon! (This is what happens when you ask about my blorbos)

First impression

Absolutely loved the Ashley got to play full time in a campaign, and was really excited to see what she had in store for Fearne especially since I hadn’t watched EXU: Prime.

Impression now

I am SO GLAD Fearne is the character Ashley is playing full time! There are so many intercity to her character and she has now live a life of a mortal and not a fey. It is so interesting how this world has affected her. For better or for worse.

Favorite moment(s)

Similar to Imogen, I don’t know how I would choose. Fearne has so many funny moments that they tend to outshine her more soft or serious ones. For humorous, probably when she found out that Imogen was afraid of heights and started swaying the cart whenever they were on it. For serious, I absolutely loved her most recent speech. Honestly take any of her more serious moments and I will probably say it’s my favourite.

Idea for a story

Well there is currently my Cyberpunk fic I’m working on and even though I don’t go too in depth with this version of Fearne, I still explore her a lot more. Even though I absolutely adore her, she is quite hard to write for me. I do have an idea where both Fearne and Imogen were raised by Nana Morri, but that will have to be explored at a later date.

Unpopular opinion (Again, I don’t know if this is unpopular, but I’m gonna say it anyway)

Okay! This is gonna be long. People need to stop acting like Fearne (and by extension, Ashley) has no agency. People keep saying how the rest of the party forces things on her and believe she hasn’t made her own decisions which is completely untrue. The shard incident comes to mind where people thought that Ashton (by extension, Taliesin) forced Fearne/Ashley to give him the shard even though BOTH PLAYERS said in a 4-Sided Dive that they thought the shard was supposed to go to Ashton. This then leads to some people thinking that Fearne was forced to take the shard because Fearne was adamant on not taking it but got worn down and gave in. Again, Ashley thought it was supposed to go to Ashton so she played Fearne as not wanting to take it because she didn’t want to steal Ashton’s backstory thing. She eventually took it because she thought, might as well, and look how excited she was to get that new sheet! If she had no agency she wouldn’t be playing with this group, and if she felt like the wasn’t making her own choices she would let them know off screen BECAUSE THEY ARE ADULTS THAT HAVE PLAYED TOGETHER FOR A DECADE!! I’ve been thinking about this ever since I saw people saying that the cast is forcing monogamy on Fearne. Tal was clearly on board with the idea of Braius asking out Ashton and Braius asked if Fearne and Ashton were a thing because he sees the world in Black and White (According to Sam on 4SD) and there for likely views the world in monogamy. LEST WE FORGET THAT LAURA BAILEY PITCHED THE WITCH THRUPLE AT A COMIC CON PANEL HERSELF!!

TL;DR: Stop saying that a grown woman doesn’t have agency over her own character.

Favourite relationship

Imogen and Fearne honestly. Their shared connection to ruidus aside, these two care about each other so damn much. I know I ship them (and since Laura pitched the Witch Thruple I think she does too) but I think currently in canon they see each other as sisters. Again, mentioning the serious moments that I love with Fearne, the amount of protectiveness she has for Imogen is only beat by Laudna. The fact that she gets nervous when the Nightmare King says that Imogen is special and asks what they would do to her if they got her, the way she casts earth bind on her while she’s in her dream because she doesn’t want her to go away, her scream of desperation as she tries to wake her up, Ollie’s vision of seeing an older Fearne reaching towards a burning red light (I know it’s not an Imogearne moment, BUT IF YOU SQWINT-). Anyway, Imogearne for life :)

(This is not to diminish any of her other relationships. They are all so important to Fearne’s character, but my witchy shipper brain took over)

Favourite headcanon

If you’ve seen my blog then you might be aware of my Blue Blooded Fey headcanon. This is obviously my favourite, but I’ll add a few others for funsies.

Blue blood, ambidextrous, tooth gap, small fangs, glowing ember tipped ears (after she got the shard), warm to the touch (even warmer after getting the shard)

[shorthaltsjester]

taliesin and laura remain truly so fantastic at making characters who… don’t necessarily have something extremely and inherently in common but do have experiences that were caused by similar sources and that lead them to have quite different opinions/ideas about things but in ways that are typically very reconcilable? which is a lot of qualifiers but it’s a through line of vex/percy with nobility, jester & cad with loneliness (and also god stuff but in a different post maybe someday i’ll talk about how actually their god stuff is intensely related to their different experiences of loneliness), and now imogen & ashton with being left behind.

like vex was this character who technically had a claim to nobility due to her blood but at the same time was burdened because of that same claim. and percy who was born into and raised by nobility but that nobility ended up making his family the targets of a massacre. and then vex who lets down her walls and Do I Look Like I Come From Money? and percy giving her the title grand mistress of the grey hunt because it has nothing to do with blood, or his love for her, or anything aside from the fact that it’s something she can prove herself worthy of simply by virtue of who she Is, not who someone makes her. and percy and vex’s conversation about forgiveness and it’s necessity for growth as probably two of the characters most inclined to hold grudges.

and caduceus clay who gets left behind with nothing but his Belief while his family goes off into the world. and jester lavorre who gets shut inside with no company except her Belief as her mother protects her from the world. and they both get the burden of loneliness and the understanding of love’s nonmalicious imperfection. and caduceus having a panic attack on a ship and jester telling him that the world is a lot bigger than his cemetery and that means he has to break out of his comfort zone to find his path. and caduceus telling jester that he doesn’t think she gets as much credit as she ought to and she deserves more pastries. and jester thanking caduceus for showing her how cool it is to actually heal people and caduceus asking if she wants to use his shield while he doesn’t need it.

and ashton who was left broken and dying on the ground and was given inescapable pain as their means of survival. and imogen who was left behind by the only person who could provide true understanding of the pain she’d one day come to feel. and ashton who’s a barbarian, who wields their rage casually and unapologetically and who sees the Shittiness of the world but is unrelenting in his version of optimism. and imogen who is weighed down by pessimism she doesn’t Want to have but hasn’t cracked how to undo and who doesn’t admit her anger until it comes up again and again and again and carries it like a burden or like guilt, who we only see really Grasp and feel Confidence about her anger being something good in front of others when she has those conversations with ashton. and like. ashton who looks at imogen and sees a superhero. imogen venturing through ashton’s mind and holding his bleeding and exhausted head and saying i’m sorry. i’m sorry. and imogen who looks at ashton and sees someone special. and fucking “we got him killed.” and “no, we didn’t. don’t you dare. […] we are not what fucking killed that man. […] we are his eventual victory. we are his fucking revenge.” and “i’ll be his revenge.” and “i have no fucking doubt.”

and in general rp wise they both tend to make some of my favourite characters (also typically the ones i find most frustrating) because they both tend to make flaws that are easy to hate and they make those flaws very central to their characters but i think that’s also what makes their character interactions so deeply compelling because so frequently it’s like. yes yes these two characters have like. a helix of things they have in common but also things they deeply disagree on but they’re going to spider-man point at the things that are the same and they’re going to honour their differences while doing so. and it’s just. i always enjoy it so much and i was psyched when i heard about an imogen and ashton side pit stop in last nights episode and i was not let down when i watched the episode today.

[utilitycaster]

I think this is the last I have to say about it, certainly not until new episodes air, but the thing about What The Fuck Is Up With That is that it's emblematic of the issues Bells Hells have - and to be honest I suspect always might have - regarding trust. It's a party game. It's a fun way to get surface-level answers. It's an infodump. It's telling not showing. It's not a bad thing, but you don't build trust, actually, by providing every piece of information! In fact, sometimes, it's good to keep your inside thoughts inside! You build trust with other people through your actions: through keeping your word, through proving your ability to do what they expect of you. Perhaps this is a personal experience and not a universal tenet, but people who share everything about themselves right away and people who end up being genuinely reliable and close and trustworthy are often two nearly entirely separate camps.

This also does once again feel like something with an interesting echo within the fandom. Earlier on in the campaign, before the introduction of 4-Sided Dive, I received a lot of questions about whether it would be helpful if we had something like Talks and my response was usually "no, the issue is that I know everything about the backstory and not actually much anyone's motivations; I have a factual list of personal history and I'm looking for a sense of someone's personality." This still comes up occasionally when I talk about Laudna, whose motivations remain hazy much of the time; we have a quite detailed outline of her history but it is missing the only things that actually matter. We know what. We don't know why. Bells Hells knows so much what about each other and they still struggle, even now, with "why".

And when it comes to why, telling people is nice, but it's very easy to lie about motivations. Indeed, that's why Imogen ends up fooled by her mother; she knows what Liliana did but assumed there was a deeper why than there ended up being; that Liliana wasn't simply seduced by the idea that Predathos would free her and Imogen from the burden of their powers but was also working as a force for good within the Vanguard and wouldn't hurt so many people. The revelation that the "why" really was that simple was ultimately why Imogen felt betrayed. Knowing more details about Liliana doesn't help.

Chetney ends up being the illustrative exception here, if that helps. He arrived late to the party. He never played What The Fuck Is Up With That. He even told them what he was there for (looking for Gurge) and lied about the "why" (werewolf reasons) initially. He to this day keeps secrets. But he's open about keeping secrets. That caginess allows him to be one of the party members most people trust on a fundamental level. They don't trust him to be kind, or generous per se; they don't even trust him to not hurt them. But they trust him to not hurt them intentionally, since he's repeatedly shown he will take steps to avoid this. He is cagey and uncooperative during most of the honesty exercise, but when he finally says something, it isn't a judgement - it is an explanation of his own behavior. When he declines to share his deal with Morri, he still reassures them that he did not do anything that would fall to them - and that's honest, and that's what matters, that he made a deal for himself and himself alone. Compare with Orym, who hides even the fact he made the deal, or Ashton a couple days ago, who hid their true plans with the shard. On the surface, Chetney is the one hiding something - but he is honest that he hides things. If Chetney's secret comes out? It won't change the party's understanding of his trustworthiness; it will just change some of the facts. If Orym's comes out or when Ashton's was revealed? That's a huge change in the party's understanding of their motivations.

Honesty in this party has been a game from the start, and as the exercises show, it still mostly is. A panopticon is, unsurprisingly, not a great way to make people trust each other; a little open hiding and actions over words are in order. I don't think that's necessarily a problem, in that I think Bells Hells share, if not a vast overreaching goal, an agreement regarding their pretty significant task. But I think any deeper trust is yet to be actually tested, tried, and forged.

[centaurianthropology]

Given how things are shaping up in C3 I have some thoughts about what might happen next (moon scouting aside). It’s clear that the Hells are given power-ups similar but different to the Vestiges of Divergence quests in VM. And honestly, I totally understand how the shard ended up with Ashton rather than Fearne. From an in-character perspective (and even from a player perspective), of course it went to them. The shard appeared at the end of what has essentially been Ashton’s backstory quest, which has been all about titans. Ashton is about titans and dunamancy. Fearne is about fae and a touch of infernal. So when people insist she get the titan shard just because they’re both fire-based? The shard that appeared right at the end of Ashton’s quest for information about himself? Yeah, I’d want to give it to him too, concentrating titan power into Ashton.

And that leads me to my real thoughts about what happens next: essentially the Hells, or at least several of them, have doubled down on what originally gave them power. Ashton has doubled down on titans, Laudna on Delilah (and I think we’ll get a full quest of that later).

I think that the moon scouting mission will double as something of Imogen’s continued backstory quest (a lot of the early part of the campaign started it, but this, I hope, will focus on Leliana). I think we’ll probably gain some moon object for her to absorb and power her up with moon stuff. And that’s another thing about the way this is shaping up: they are embracing the most dangerous parts of themselves, the parts that could kill them or turn them evil. That’s what each of them will have to grapple with (and why I’m thrilled it was Ashton who got the fire shard, because that puts them on a collision course with repeating the choices their father made, and really coming to terms with what being Hishari means. From a storytelling perspective, this is by far the cooler choice).

I have an idea that Laudna could literally absorb Delilah in a way that Delilah is no longer in control. Laudna becoming her own patron is the best possible end to cutting her puppet strings, and that would be a fascinating way to do it: stealing all the power and the last bit of essence of the woman who murdered her. There is something of a darkness there, with the end of a vengeance storyline, which will be juicy.

Fearne would have two options: doubling down on being Fey by obtaining something from another spelunk in the Feywild, or going to the hells and retrieving something infernal. I think the infernal route is likely the real Dark Fearne route, while the fey route likely puts her on the path to becoming Archfey, which could be a very interesting end for her character (and likely one Ashley would be intrigued by, to become the new Grandma Morri).

Chetney is likely going to delve either into something Catha-related (other moon, whoo!) or something nature-related. I think going white moon to Imogen’s red moon would be cool, and would really focus in on controlling his werewolf side.

FCG is likely going to have to go Aeorian. They could go divine, but I think Aeorian would be juicier. Delving into their past and the person they used to be before they lost their memories is something I’ve been excited for, and even though they’re already coming to the conclusion, realizing that what makes them themselves is their choices now, not a thousand years ago, will be very cool. We might even see a different side to FCG come out and be in conflict with his current self (something else I’m expecting in a lot of these storylines).

And finally there’s Orym, the little guy. He’s actually the hardest to define how to give a power-up to, because so much of his story is about not having that. All his friends are magical powerhouses, and he’s a little dude with a sword. So I actually am hoping that Orym either goes for another nature-based Wildmother powerup (making him the one with divine powers), or one of entirely humanity-based power, possibly by teaming up with someone like Percy, who was also never divine.

Anyway, this all may get proven wrong (and a lot of the finer details almost certainly will!), but this is sort of the trajectory I see in the next leg of their journey: getting their own legendary power-ups, but those power-ups forcing them to confront their past and the possible futures. And because they’re incorporating them into their very beings, those confrontations are both inevitable and necessary.

[inconmess]

Ok. Prefacing this, I know some of the points I mentioned here will overlap with stuff already posted and speculated but this is also my POV and not really leeching off their ideas. (probably you guys wouldn't really care but I have run into problems of "plagiarism" and don't want to risk it)

So the cast split up. Brilliant move, truly. For the sake of convenience, Orym, Ashton and Laudna are the ES (Emotionally Sane) and while Chetney, Fearne, FCG and Imogen are LC (Lost Chaos)

Putting everything under cut cuz this is a long ass post

First, covering the main things about the split up:

LC has all the healers and senders of the group and is majorly the group which relied on having a tether/required the most support from their "better halves." Fearne needed Orym, Imogen needed Laudna and FCG needed Ashton to guide them because they were all naive in some way or the other in the mechanics of the world. And Chetney was relatively close off until he was thrown back to face his past. This group essentially lost the "mature and protective people."

Now for ES. This group consists of people who have their own issues and relied on the fact that people relied on them to cope. They were protectors, the front liners in battle (mostly) and are possibly the masters of avoiding, deflecting and repressing shit. Yeah, they all talk about their shit to each other, Ashton and his regular talks with Laudna, Ashton checking up with Orym... Well, Orym talking when someone asks. But they all are repressing stuff really bad no matter how much they portray talking about it, they have their bouts of silent panic and insecurities and every single fucking shit and this separation is gonna take a toll on that. This group essentially lost its "distraction/support people/the reason they actually held onto their sanity."

Where are they:

Team LC - Uthodurn. Chetney's homeplace, close to his personal shit and FCG's too.

Team ES - Personally, I think they can be in Terrah, for some reason I always think about the "missing week of EXU and the crater" or Issyylra. Not in Marquet or Wildmount as far as I consider it.

(On a side note, I stand corrected, the wrap-up mentioned a pregame with a crater and not a chasm but I mixed the two of them up. Sorry for all the posts I had mentioned it on)

Expectations:

Team LCs: a lot of lore dump, history dump and characters dealing with their personal history while Imogen and Fearne come to terms with how the ritual of Ludinus is going to affect them, Imogen in particular being an exaltant. Does her powers diminish? Vanish? Does it change and mutate? Does the whole thing affect Fearne in some way? She wasn't an exaltant but was Ruidus born nonetheless.

Possible happening of getting a depressed Fearne cuz Orym was her halfling and the lack of their relationship with Ashton so she really doesn't have someone to balance her nature out. Like yeah, Chetney and her have a great relationship in and of itself and while we haven't seen it much onscreen, Imogen and FCG too, but I feel like her main circle was Orym and Ashton so she is definitely going to struggle with that. And take drastic wahs to cope with this loss too, eventually without anyone keeping her in check. Might also become a handler for the group eventually, but not initially.

Imogen will have to deal with her dissonance probably. Reevaluate a lot of stuff. The beliefs of her mom. The reassimilation with her powers depending on whether it's mutated, changed or gone as stated before. And even if it is unchanged, rethinking about her powers, strengthening herself. And not to mention, her dreams. Are they still there? How do they change? And how does she cope without Laudna when she get them?

Chetney's past. Period. And how he needs to control the wolf around this place, especially if the hunters are out there. He has control over it, more than anyone expects, yes. But can he have full control over it? Is that something which is possible for him? Technically his favourite target had been Orym but he wasn't here now. Can he handle his path and learn more about his wolf and control over it at the same time?

FCG is... Well, he has the Aeorean ruins for one, getting to discover more about his own kind and is definitely probably going to have another episode and I am counting on it, tbh. I am expecting each and every one of them to blow up in a certain way. And if they meet up with the Darrington Brigade, his relationship with Dotty is something I wanna see!

---------------------------------------

Team ES: Probably head-on smashes with Ashton's past and personal history, info dump and lore dump on that. Or they are near the Crown Keepers and get to deal with a rogue Opal. Laudna wondered what happened to Pate. Well, first they do need to figure out where they are anyways, and how to fucking communicate and get shit done.

Orym has his guilt and all three of them are spiralling in worry. He comes to know of the cause of the death of Will and Derrig, witnesses Keyleth almost killed by Otohan, failed in disabling the backpack and also was partly the reason Keyleth came there in the first place, luring in the Champion and providing Ludinus with what he needed. And so many regrets and guilt and just the fact that he has been separated from Fearne, who had in her weird sociopathic Fey way been his anchor, was now gone and nothing was to be known on what was up with everyone and is so worried that I am pretty sure he is gonna have a meltdown and go apeshit if he has to also help deal with Ashton's past because he is at that threshold and is barely hanging from the edge of it and really really needs people right now. The wee halfling deserves to go apeshit, blow up and break down, please!

Laudna... I honestly don't know apart from the fact that being separated from Imogen is going to deeply impact her cuz as far as I know, Imogen was the first person to accept her for who she was and they were just on the cusp of developing their relationship and she is worried for Imogen for the most part. Oh and maybe Delilah shows up again!

Ashton, I am rooting for him having to confront his past the most, a possible meet up with the Nobodies, if possible and their overall worry over the whole group, but especially FCG and Fearne. A possible breakdown and apeshit on the horizon along with some memory problems I believe. Not to mention them trying to find a way to find out more about the Dunamis shit that's going around, probably that also messes with their head a little bit...

Possible faces we can see:

The Crown Keepers (secretly rooting for them), Darrington Brigade, Possibly members of VM and M9, a few past NPCs (sorry I haven't watched much of the other two campaigns so maybe you can tag a few of the names you expect to see?

[eldritchmochi]

Word prompt for the letters! SWORD TIME

mina pls that is so many letters lmao

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

okay, if it is not obvious, i have thought SO MUCH about disability in exandria, so heres a general worldbuilding headcannon vs character based hc but it's shown that disability isn't overly impactful in exandria. basically everything we've seen ranging from pcs like shakaste to big npcs like dancer and also smaller one off pcs like the moorbounder dealer in the city of beasts, whatever the name is, they're fully functional within society despite major physical disabilities and theres functionally not a whole lot of ableism at a surface level when it comes to worldbuilding (thanks matt).

however..... its not hard (for me) to extrapolate how the dynasty in particular would have a not great view on disability (thank u cherry for putting it into words as i was charlie day-ing over coping skills early on). it's not something that i talk about explicitly in coping skills (and may not since it would be really info dumpy and not vibe with the way i write or characterize the wizards lmao) but it's something ive spent a great deal of time thinking thru for the dang fic and my in-head notes are basically a) in a modern setting like coping skills, the healthcare situation moves at a glacial pace partly because elves live forever so what is a several year wait for a non emergent specialist issue and b) major disabilities, things that impact daily living to a significant degree that cannot be "fixed" with magic, are at best really only tolerated until anamnesis or consecution so the body can be reset into a more perfect form

i could wax poetic about the nitty gritty as it relates to coping skills specifically, but that is like, the base premise of 90% of the fic lmao

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

okay so, heres the thing: with the exception of a few squicks, if something is well written with some fukken *heart* i will eat up just about anything. theres some tropes i don't really get myself and haven't found anything with it that's interested me, like hanahaki, but i have fav fics involving things i notoriously avoid, like kid fic and hs aus. like legitimately, my absolute fav fic is a non explicit hs au, which considering i basically dont read non explicit fics OR hs aus is fucking wild

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

lets see, i did one here for an ashrym fic, and one here for general shadowgast so lets go with a single character, and a delightfully weird song for her

obviously imogen, again, because its funny. do not ask me why spotify recommended this german edm country album to me a bit ago but i listened to the whole thing and it fucking slapped, and this song immediately went on my hells playlist

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

I AM ONLY DOING ONE BECAUSE I DONT TRUST YOU MINA (ilu but also damn many letters lmao)

but callowmoore is just chefs kiss. i don't see anything necessarily romantic between them but i love the idea of the two of them bonding over being absolute gremlins. ashton definitely needs a charismatic wingman and fearne definitely needs someone who has (some level of) smarts re Doing Crimes, so the two of them playing off each other is just delightful and i love how soft they are with each other in cannon and in turn all the fanart (especially the forehead kiss???? im still not normal about that)

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

hmmmmmmmmmmm okay i guess maybe reylo? the rots kiss was absolute garbage rey deserves better BUT i am in theory into her domming the shit out of him but reylo shippers as a whole soured me on the ship and now i just hhhh no thank you, even from authors i trust to write it in a way i'd enjoy :C

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

T answered here! (basically no lmao)

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

homestuck :I like part of it was definitely the Fandom Cycle of falling out if interest with something, especially once there stopped being new cannon i could access but a bigger part of it was seeing all my fav artists and writers in the fandoms, particularly the ones 30+, PARTICULARLY Black artist, being absolutely shat on by kids for the crime of... being adults in fandom spaces basically, or otherwise creating fanworks that featured non-white, non-thin depictions of the characters. i live vicariously thru @/roundandtalented when they spam share hs art because i still love those characters but yeesh ye olde tumblr hs fandom got VERY toxic

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

answered once here with ashton and here with astarion so i guess i gotta keep the train going with "a" name characters

hmmmmmmmmmm

okay lets say abby from ncis (i have watched Many crime procedurals lmao). i imagine she and i would be GREAT fashion buddies, especially when i'm bubblegum pop kawaii to her scary goth. we could swap tips on breaking in big stompy boots and all the best places for cute clothes, and i think we're fairly close in size too so could even SWAP gasp The Dream

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

god i do not know if fandom as a whole has picked up on any of the various things i've built in my fics but tbh i think its absolutely hilarious how i inevitably write a porn/camming au for like every fandom i write multiple fics for. it happens, every single time. EVERY TIME. in fact, mine and cherry's sg camming au started with me lampshading this trend i have, laughing about how FINALLY here was a fandom where i couldn't write camming and make it work, except whoops i thought too hard on it and made it work. this occurred over the course of like..... a single evening. i had the basic outline sketched out within twenty minutes of me being like "theres no way i could write camming into critical role, NO WAY" i am not even exaggerating

so i guess maybe my hilarious contribution to critical role is the contemporary magical setting proof-of-concept???? cherry did say there werent really that many at the time i asked because i lov me some modern aus

there are maybe some letters left idk at this point lmao but here is the meme for those of u who made it thru all that

[captainsspnanon]

C3E58 - reaction

I am very entertained that they are fighting a creature with many mouths who causes psychic damage from the sounds, considering I'm in the gibbering mouther section of my C2 rewatch and about to get to the laughing hand, so it's all just fucked up mouths for me XD

LOL the fact that FCG has started consistently fucking with who doesn't get bonded and it's an issue each time. I love it! Though I'm worried about their stress points, I'm also kinda looking forwards to a little blow up.

I saw a few spoilers about the episode before I watched so I WASN'T terrified when Fearne went down and got swallowed, but holy fuck if I hadn't known she lived for a threesome, that would have been so stressful!

I'm so glad we got to see at least a tiny glimpse of the wolf-king! I want Matt to post a picture of it on twitter please! Please please just for me!

Huzzah for bag of holding! Great with the notes and harness and rod for plot development, good for funds for refilling some pockets, especially because ...well, I don't even know what the funds status is of this group. VM was rich AF, M9 was poor AF, I have no clue where BH falls. Especially because a lot of it is based on RP (I think M9 probably had as much as BH, but rped as much poorer - nope I lied, counting today's haul, BH has like double the amount that M9 had by the same episode)

Wish we could have gotten more from the FRIDA moment, interesting that Matt has Christian be much more active in the rolls and directions, whereas with Ashton and Fearne's dad (not Birdie, I can't remember his name) they were much more passive while Imogen and FCG/Laura and Sam really took the lead. Confirmation of Aeor though! Sounds like they got smited by the gods though I don't think we had any idea previously that some Aeorians were against using the malleus factorum. Not surprising once I think about it for like, two seconds, but never considered it before.

THREESOME!!!!! Oh I SO hope that Fearne holds to her early game comment and does 'work her way through all of them'. PLS PLS PLS. Anyhow, a touching and mostly hilarious moment, I loved every second of it. I'm also pleased that the first kiss and first sex scenes were from PCs that it seemed like the fans went out of their way to desexualize, I love it.

All the gifts! Hoodies were adorable, and then two wooden gifts from Chet! With how frequently the table gave each other game related gifts out of game previously, I do enjoy how much it's a lot of in-game gifts now.

Oh fuck those scenes with the Changebringer and Dawnfather were INTENSE. HOLY SHIT. I am very hyped, for the gods to just force visions and make demands (at varying levels of demandingness)!!! I wonder how many non-PCs are also receiving these visions? Did Caduceus get one? Fjord? Pike and Vex and Scanlan? Random other clerics and paladins of the world?

Seriously, I am so hype. C3 took me a bit to settle it, but it is a very easy second place for me out of the three campaigns! Still won't beat C2 for me, but I'm pretty sure that's because 1) it was my first campaign and 2) it's when I really hit hyperfocus on CR and could watch two and a half to three episodes a day. ...yeah, I binged HARD on C2. Started late January 21 and finished in time to watch the finale live.

I'm also intrigued to see how all this is going to go. They physically CAN'T have Aabria and Christian playing once everyone is back together, there's just no room at the table. What is going to be the thing that splits them up? I wonder if it'll end up coming down to an NPC having to be 'group regulars go to this location, group guests go to this location' to have a natural and realistic separation.