#it's like imogen would DO terrible things for laudna but i'm thinking of her Being Terrible* with fearne and i know my genre

[yashley]

aesthetic and fledgling tenderness aside, imogen and fearne really make me sit up simply for the fact I think their potential is so entwined in a internal way I'm unsure if they realize. imogen, with all of her conviction and apprehension, her fear and self-doubt and self-hate, the remorse and guilt that plagues her deeply rooted in the aftermath when she dips into her powers. she can’t savor the edge she has because she’s always been told, from stiff, polite expressions to outright grimaces, that her powers are what makes her... evil. her powers cast her out, her powers isolated her, her powers cost her her mother and shattered her father. imogen can’t even sleep without the promise of rest if her powers decide to torment her, she can’t even relax without her powers slipping from her control and she could hurt someone. she is a cage and she’s chained herself up out of fear, out of conviction, out of this iron will that she won’t allow herself to be swallowed by her storm.

and then you just have these little moments of natural reflex. imogen triggers a potentially fatal trap on opponents. once. twice. three times? imogen casually tosses a bomb towards other adversaries. not as an intimidation tactic, but as a casually brutal solution to an inconvenience. she has these sways of morality and these dabbing desires that nearly align with the nefarious tilt of her powers, she’s responding naturally and yet actively denying that her nature could also align with her powers.

and then fear and denial and splintering desire for control meets..... affable recklessness and brazen freedom. imogen meets someone who genuinely has no interest in the same way her own actions display. it’s not... malicious, per se? oh surely they wouldn’t do anything completely Evil, but... let’s roll the dice. let's see this “boundary” and see just how much inching until it’s not in our way anymore. fearne can do what imogen can’t let herself do, she can act now and not think later and not have her entire worth be questioned or care if her presence is cast out. fearne representing to imogen what it’d be like to act on every impulse without questioning her own character or doubt herself or fearing herself. imogen can witness fearne behave in a way she always told herself she would never steep so low to be and yet watch as fearne is smiling. imogen having all of the darkest, hurtful thoughts tearing her apart and watching as fearne glides along the precipice as graceful as she’s careless, as violent as she’s curious. for once in imogen’s life she doesn’t have someone damning her for her powers or checking her for her morality. and it’s like fearne is naturally the chaotic language imogen has always known but has never been able to speak. fearne not bringing out the best of imogen but bringing out the most ok.

[utilitycaster]

I'm a little confused. A lot of critters say that the gods have it out for Laudna specifically, and I can't find where that idea comes from? Like the closest thing I found is that she's a Hollow One and things that affect undead are usually holy/divine. But that doesn't mean that the gods hate Laudna or that Laudna's suffering is because of the gods, right? (I'm a little scared of those Laudna stans tbh)

If I had to guess where it comes from, it, like the similarly inaccurate statements people make about Ruidusborn, comes from the longstanding tendency by the uncreative, dull, and whiny to make their blorbo the most wronged little lamb who ever lived.

Clerics mechanically get Turn Undead as an ability, which affects Laudna, because she is undead. I do want to point out that Marisha specifically chose to make Laudna more undead than Hollow Ones typically are mechanically, ie, our boy Jumanji Costco would be fine in the face of Turn Undead; and that area of effect abilities such as turn undead are not what I'd consider "targeted", ie, if Imogen were to cast Reverse Gravity in an area containing other members of Bells Hells, and they became affected by the spell, I would not say this was Predathos having it out for Bells Hells specifically. I'd also note that a spell that literally creates undead, Animate Dead, is a general cleric spell. A loyal level 5 cleric of the Dawnfather has the capacity to have a pet zombie. Is this the greatest use of their abilities, probably not, and will their god provide them with consequences, possibly, but it sure is a thing they can do, so I think the gods on the whole are really up in the air re the whole undead thing. I also think that we need to acknowledge that within the text, at this point Laudna's met four divine champions, two of them have quite literally contributed to her continued undeath in significant ways, and the other two of whom have been like "yeah we are on the same side, politics, strange bedfellows, etc, etc, I'm frankly way more interested in Fearne."

One can argue Laudna's suffering is because of the god Vecna, though as a point of order the main portions of her initial suffering occurred prior to him achieving godhood, so really, it was the lich (undead) Vecna and the necromancer (currently undead) Delilah Briarwood who seem to be largely at fault. Undead are merely a classification of entity. Just as using Turn Undead against a horde of undead may result in Laudna being turned as well, if one were to cast Moonbeam on some hostile shapeshifter, Chetney would also be affected. As Gilmore as played by Aabria said, power is simply power; intent comes from the wielder. Someone could use Turn Undead specifically against Laudna; someone could also use powers from the gods to heal, buff, or resurrect her. I doubt the Raven Queen is like, jazzed and hype about Laudna, but her specific tenet is "Undeath is an atrocity. Death is too good a punishment for those who pervert the rightful transition of the soul" and Delilah seems to be the one causing the soul transition perversions.

I suppose one could argue Laudna's suffering is the result of the gods in the same way that if I were injured by a window box air conditioner falling five stories onto my foot, while both gravity and the fact my parents decided to have children contributed significantly to this moment, no one who was not embarrassingly unserious and extremely fucking stupid would put these things forth as the culprit in this hypothetical.

Do not be afraid of the Laudna stans. Either they're lovely people who just really like Laudna and are talking about her character arc or making art or something and agree this is a terrible take, or they are, as said, embarassingly unserious, extremely fucking stupid, uncreative, dull, and whiny. I can provide tips to avoid them or to annoy them as you wish but like, is it even worth bothering with the latter.

[quipxotic]

Time for another Campaign 3 wish list. Spoilers for the campaign up to C3E72, so be forewarned.

Here's a few things I'd love to see in upcoming episodes, in no particular order:

Ashton meeting a god. Preferably not the Dawnfather because I can't imagine that being anything but an explosive experience for everyone involved. Maybe the Changebringer? Maybe someone else? Not that I think such a meeting would change his opinion of them. But Ashton took the words of the angel in the Dawnfather's temple very personally and that's what motivated them to make changes in their life, many of which seem pretty positive. I've always thought their interpretation of that event a little odd and would love to see it challenged. Since the only ones in Team Issylra who could do that right now, Laudna and Orym, seem disinclined to do so, why not a god?

The witches spending some time together. If that leads to Imogen and Laudna telling Fearne they're dating, then great! If not, that's fine too.

FCG and Laudna talking about Turn Undead, including how it makes Laudna feel. Also all of Bell's Hells coming up with a plan for how FCG can still turn the undead while eliminating or limiting the damage to Laudna.

Orym and Ashton talking about how over the last day (in-game) our favorite halfling has rushed into battle twice, far ahead of everyone else, without support or communicating any type of plan. Both times he took major damage and in one he got very close to being knocked unconscious. He could get away with that kind of recklessness when the party was facing weaker, less organized threats, but they're dealing with some heavy hitters now and will be even more so if they go back to the dig site or to the moon. Personally, I don't think Orym has a death wish, but I do think he's willing to sacrifice himself for even the slimiest chance of preventing the people he cares about from dying on his watch. Previously the tanks had a pretty good track record of communicating and supporting each other in a fight. They need to get back on track before they face the battles they have ahead of them.

Everyone in BH talking with the tree. Let's face it, all of them need therapy and all of them could do with some hard truths.

No one in BH becoming incapacitated from cold damage on this sailing trip. This is one I suspect I'm not going to get; after all, there has to be a negative side-effect to traveling on a ghost ship.

Ashton using their Titan of Blood and chaos powers in front of someone not in BH but who recognizes those powers for what they are. I am partially dreading and partially hoping for this because so many interesting, and in some cases terrible, things could happen when someone powerful figures out who and what they are.

Imogen and FCG talking. I don't care what they talk about, I just like their dynamic.

Fearne and Ashton stealing from each other. If they end up having a real one-on-one conversation, maybe about that forehead kiss before the battle on the solstice, then wonderful.

Chetney not dying in his sleep or from any other cause before a) there are negative consequences for giving up that cursed sword and b) Deanna kicks his ass for trading away her ring.

Everyone sleeping in a great big pile together to conserve heat. I'm a sucker for the "there was only one bed" and similar tropes.

[masterqwertster]

Hurt/comfort prompts - # 17 or 31 for Ashton. He cares so much now about his found family. Bells Hells needs to be there for him the same way when shit hits the fan.

So I already did Ashton for 31 here in the C2 Class Swap AU. So I'm going to skip on repeating that one. I'll do 17 and set this one in the C1 Class Swap AU, just because I can. 17 "You don't have to be alone anymore."

"You know, we have a whole group of friends back there who are, by and large, willing to hear and help with your problems," Laudna offers, having shifted from the rangy wolf that tracked him down back to human. "You don't have to be alone anymore."

Ashton snorts.

"I'm never alone. I've got Me, Myself, and I." And they bamf out one of their star-strewn clones to prove their point. Ironically, the one to appear is the non-genasi one in Hishari leathers. The true Ashton scowls at the version of them that isn't.

"That's only three names. You've got four versions," Laudna patiently points out.

It's clear she's going to have to work at getting Ashton to open up about what's wrong. Though she can guess. That fucking museum had real deal Hishari leathers in it, and they obviously mean more to Ashton than being a style on one of their clones. He did steal the helmet after all.

"This fucker's grzgkgh," the 'name' coming out in a sharp, stony clatter that Laudna presumes is some variation of self pronoun in Primordial.

"Right. Well, I'm sure they're all good listeners, but it doesn't hurt to need someone who can talk back. You have us, if you want," she presses, fingers toying with one of the mushrooms on her staff.

"What's there to fucking talk about?" Ashton harshly questions.

Laudna gives a little shrug, trying for innocence. "I think you know why grz-" She's cut off with a hacking cough. "You know what? I can't pronounce that name. That one," she points to the Hishari dressed clone. "I think you know why that one looks the way it does and you're... freaking out? disturbed? ...unsettled. Yes, unsettled to find the actual outfit in a museum. What the fuck is up with that?"

Ashton lets out a heavy sigh, head thunking back against the tree he's sitting pressed up against.

"I told y'all before that 'that one' still made sense to me because I was soft once," they slowly explain.

Laudna silently nods, encouraging them to continue.

"It's- I knew this had to be however warriors dressed in wherever I came from originally. I mean, I'm pretty sure if things hadn't- Well, I'd probably still be there instead of ending up in Greymoore and shit. But I don't- I don't remember a lot about back then. Not clearly. Fuck, this fucker's basically the clearest memory I have of that place. And they're not even a real memory. Just the fucking echo of what could have been," Ashton haltingly lays out.

"And then we got a name, a bit of history, in the museum," Laudna gently offers.

"Yeah," Ashton morosely agrees. "Yeah. Apparent-fucking-ly, I was born into a fucking cult. Isn't that nice to know?" He gives a toothy grin that's more sarcastic than anything.

Laudna eyes Ashton, trying to find his angle, the point he is hung up-

"You want to know about where you're from," she says, no question present.

They look sharply away. "Is that wrong, when it was a fucking cult?"

"No, not at all," Laudna says softly, gently. "If I didn't have to go through Delilah herself or someone just as terrible, I'd certainly want to know why I'm alive like I am. Undeath is generally considered unnatural, yet here I am, a druid. If I thought I could get answers without horrible risk, I would try."

Ashton watches her, her sincerity. Weighs it.

"...Thanks, I guess. For listening, and talking back. You... you are better than Me, Myself, and I, and grzgkgh," they settle on, something softer in their eyes.

"I would hope so. Because I'll tell you a little secret: Paté is wonderful, but talking with Imogen was definitely a step up," she whispers into his ear.

And Ashton's laughter echoes through the swampy night, bringing a smile to Laudna's face as well.

[samuraiko]

Are you still doing those vignette requests? Would love to see you write about a conversation between fearne and orym after ep 34 (also do you think fearne lied about the coin flip or no? Pretty popular theory going around right now)

After the events of C3E33 and C3E34, I wasn't quite up to re-opening vignette requests, but... this is an idea I'd been somewhat pondering in my head already, so I'll answer this particular Ask.

Re: the theory... I genuinely don't know. I imagine it'll come out in the wash later, one way or another.

"Living With One's Choices"

It was late afternoon, or so Orym guessed as he sat cross-legged on the floor, Imogen curled up around Laudna's body to his left, Fearne curled up against him on his right. Even in her sleep, Fearne had one hand on his knee, her fingers loosely clutching his pants leg in her grip as though afraid he'd disappear.

Orym glanced over at Imogen, who was weeping softly in her sleep, and he gently tucked an errant lock of her hair back behind her ear, and Imogen subsided into silence once more. On Laudna's other side was Ashton, one hand resting on Laudna even in sleep. FCG was powered down nearby, and Chetney was in a small ball at Laudna's feet.

He felt a faint tugging at his pants leg, and Orym turned back to see Fearne's eyes were open and gazing up at him, shining with tears.

"You need to sleep," he whispered to her, but she shook her head.

"Not just yet. I... I'm sorry, Orym."

"For what?"

Fearne sniffled and let go of him just long enough to wipe away her tears with the back of her hand.

"I was... I was selfish. I brought you back, because I was scared and... I was lonely and I... I was so afraid for you."

Orym looked down at her in concern. "Why?"

"When I was... well, dead... before Letters brought me back, I was in this awful place. It was green and dark and really icky, and all these eyes... and well, it was a little bit exciting, but I really didn't want to stay there. And when I woke up... and Grass said you were dead, too... I was so afraid that you were in a place like that and I couldn't just leave you there."

Then she began to cry in earnest. "But now I've left Laudna there, and I feel terrible."

"Shhh, Fearnie, shhh." He stretched out next to her and hugged her, rubbing her shoulders in slow circles. "It wasn't like that for me. Not in the slightest bit. I think it's different for everyone. So don't you worry about Laudna. For all we know, she's with her mom and dad again. And she told me... she told me a while back how she'd had a lot of great things happen to her since... well, since she died. And she had a lot of love in her. I don't think she'd blame you at all."

"What do you think she'd say?"

"I think... she'd tell you to take care of Imogen. And be there for her."

"I was going to do that anyway. And, well, I did promise her that we'd find a way to bring her back."

"Then that's what we'll do. Together."

Fearne was quiet for a little bit, then very softly, Orym heard, "What... was it like? For you?"

Fresh pain tore through Orym's heart like a jagged blade, but he swallowed hard. "I was... in Zephrah. And it was just as beautiful as I remember it. And..." He tried valiantly, but still the tears fell. "Will... was there. My beautiful Will. Waiting for me."

Tears welled up in Fearne's eyes once more. "Oh, no... no no no and I stole you away from him-"

"Shhh." Orym hugged her even tighter and pressed his forehead against Fearne's. "No. Don't you dare think that. I chose to come back. And Will understands why. There's still so much to do. So much to set right. And you need me." He pulled away just long enough to kiss Fearne's forehead and then rested his against hers once more.

"It's okay... I promise." A flash of a sad smile crossed his face, and without thinking about it, he imitated Laudna's cultured tones. "'Focus your brain forward. It's not worth being sad about what can't be changed.' That's what she said. So that's what we'll do."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay. You're the smart one." Fearne hugged him closer. "I'm so glad you're my friend, Orym. Thank you for coming back to me." Then she closed her eyes, and Orym heard her whisper, "And thank you, Will, for understanding. About the whole stealing thing. It's borrowing, really."

Despite himself, Orym chuckled. "Now get some sleep. We've all had a really long day." He sat up once more and settled himself comfortably in a cross-legged position, only to feel Fearne once again reach out and take his hand in hers.

Before long, he heard her breathing become slow and steady, leaving Orym alone in the stillness with his thoughts, remembering the warmth of Will's embrace, and feeling the warmth of Fearne's hand in his.

[svartalfhild]

Hi, hope life is treating you well. For the prompts ask for ashna, what about 21 or 6? Your choice :D

Why thank you, Anon. You as well. ^_^

And I say por qué no los dos?

21. "You're a terrible liar."

Laudna loved being with Bells Hells. She had been alone for so long, and then she'd found Imogen, and now she had a whole group of friends. But it didn't fix many of the things that she'd hoped it would. No amount of wacky hijinks or indulgence of her strange nature seemed able to banish the gulf that was ever present between her and the truly living. She felt forever apart from everyone, even Imogen, like there was some barrier that kept her from ever truly belonging. Delilah was inside with her, always telling her that there was nothing for her beyond those barriers, nothing truly worth having, and she in turn had nothing for them. She was an empty husk, a puppet simply going through the motions of being alive, and if they saw that truth, they would abandon her.

It was easier to block out those thoughts when Imogen was talking to her, but after everything they'd been through lately, even that was losing its power. What was she to do when even the comforting presence of her best friend could not fill the gaping void inside her? And what of Delilah? That woman could do so much damage through her. She could hurt or even kill her friends. Wouldn't it be better, safer, if she just stayed away from them? It wasn't like any of them would miss her anyway. Well, except perhaps Imogen, but a wonderful person like her would certainly be able to find a better friend in no time. And it wasn't as if Bells Hells needed her. She caused more problems for them than she solved, as far as she could see.

"Hey. What's eating you?" The sound of Ashton's voice interrupted her dark thoughts, and she looked up from her tankard to see their tall crystalline form had dropped onto the bar stool next to her. She gave a start and an awkward smile.

"Oh! Nothing! Unless..." She paused for a moment to check and make sure there wasn't a rat or something chewing on her ankle. "Nope! I'm good. Just having an ale, thinking about maybe making a new outfit for Sashimi. You know, nothing important," she laughed, giving a casual, dismissive wave.

"I would argue that a new outfit for Sashimi is very important and I can't wait to see it, but that's beside the point. You're a terrible liar," Ashton replied before taking a sip from his own tankard.

"What makes you say that?" Laudna fixed them with an indignant glare, but it had no effect.

"If you were fine, you'd be playing cards with the others right now."

"I'm not very good at cards. I'd be out of the game soon anyway."

"You and I both know that's not the point of playing. At least with friends. If you're playing against some asshole for real stakes, then winning is definitely the point." Ashton took another sip of their drink and stared at her with that you-can-stop-pretending-now look that they reserved especially for her. Her cheerful demeanor dropped, and she looked away, letting a few stringy locks of her dark hair fall over her pallid face.

"Going through the motions of fun isn't the same as having it," she told Ashton quietly, and he shifted in his seat, but she didn't move her gaze away from the depths of her tankard.

"No, but some days you just gotta go through the motions. Who knows, maybe you'll surprise yourself." As if on cue, they heard the sound of laughter and Chetney letting loose a string of creative curses in that high, scratchy voice of his. Laudna glanced over her shoulder at the group playing at a table across the room before turning back to Ashton. She found him gazing at her with a new expression it took her a moment to place. His concern was mingling with what she could only think to call understanding. A strange panic rose up inside her, and she got the urge to hide like a spooked woodland creature. He'd looked at her like this before, but for some reason, it hit different this time. He'd spoken to her softly, and it had made her feel loud on the inside.

"Not..not today,' she responded sheepishly, doing her best to keep her voice even.

"Alright." Laudna thought they'd get up and go back to the group after that, but they stayed and continued to drink beside her in silence. The strange anxiety Ashton instilled in her didn't go away, but somehow she didn't want them to leave.

"Oh, my dear, surely you can see he's only playing service hound because he doesn't want your moods to prove inconvenient to the operation of the group. He doesn't really care about you. You know he'll break every bone in your body the moment it suits him," Delilah's voice piped up, and Laudna tensed. She clutched her head and screwed her eyes shut.

"No! Shut up, Delilah!" she hissed.

"I'm only trying to look out for you, my dear. As always."

"He wouldn't! You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Don't delude yourself; it will only get you hurt." Delilah's poison words filled Laudna's heart and made her chest ache. Her fingernails dug into her scalp in desperate anger. She wanted to rip herself open just for some vague hope of tearing Delilah out of her.

"Laudna. Laudna! Hey! Look at me!" Ashton's low, gravely voice broke sharply through the noise of her mind once again, and her dark eyes shot open, snapping to him like a startled dear. He was cautiously reaching for her, and when she didn't pull away, he carefully took her hands from her head and held them gently but firmly, keeping eye-contact with her the entire time. "Can she hear me?" he asked, and she nodded. He leaned forward, staring deep into her eyes with a burning intensity in his one good one. "Hey, Delilah. Fuck. Off." Against Laudna's will, her fingers dug sharply into the backs of Ashton's but he didn't even flinch. In fact, he grinned devilishly and chuckled. "You ain't shit, Delilah. And one of these days, you're gonna get yours."

"Tsk, childish," was all Laudna heard in response before the presence faded back to the depths of her mind.

"I'm so sorry! I couldn't...I-I-" she stuttered, releasing her grip on Ashton's fingers the moment she could.

"Nah, don't worry about it," they replied nonchalantly, their smile becoming more of a comforting one. "You okay?"

"I...I don't know. I'm not sure you should antagonize her like that. What if I had really hurt you?"

"Oh, that wasn't about antagonizing her. If I really wanted to piss her off, I would've put a lot more effort into it."

"Then what was it about?" Laudna asked, a hint of annoyance in her tone, and Ashton gently squeezed her hands.

"Letting both you and her know I'm in your corner."

"Oh. Thank- thank you." With that, they let her go, and she found herself missing the warmth.

"Mm. It's always been true; it just seemed like it needed to be declared." They shrugged and took a big swig from their tankard, and Laudna found herself fixating on their lip as they wiped away a bit of ale from the corner with their thumb. She quickly looked away and folded her fingers together in her lap.

"You know, Ashton, you're a much kinder person than you give yourself credit for."

"You take that back!"

"Oh, my apologies, Your Crankiness. Didn't mean to offend," Laudna mocked.

"The fuck you didn't," Ashton grumbled in return, and there was a brief tension between them before they both broke into big shit-eating grins.

6. "Did you miss me?"

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Laudna desperately threw an eldritch blast with one hand and clutched her side wound with the other. It dealt the jungle beast a terrible blow, but as she attempted to back away, she was struck to the ground. She heard Ashton bellow her name and he seemingly appeared out of nowhere between her and the creature. He batted back its claw with his hammer before putting an arm around her to drag her further away. A living branch whipped around and impaled him as he went, sending both of them toppling back to the ground.

"Ashton!" she screamed, and she watched them go unconscious in her arms. The light of a streak of fire from Fearne pulled her gaze back to the battle in time to see Imogen exploit the tree creature's panic over the fire with a tether of violet lightning. She searched for the glint of gold that would tell her FCG's location, but she couldn't see them from here. "Fuck! Ashton's down!" she called out to no one in particular. Surely someone had a spell or a potion or something and could get over here in time before he slipped off this mortal coil. "Don't you dare fucking die on me," she griped through gritted teeth as she did her best to drag him along the ground out of range of the creature. Why did he have to be so damn heavy? And her with her toothpick arms.

To Laudna's horror, the terrible tree swatted Chetney out of the air, and Orym's blade glanced off its barky leg. A giant spectral axe hacked into its shoulder, and she finally saw FCG rolling at top speed out from around it.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" they called urgently. Th creature reached for them, but with a snarl, Laudna sent another blast at it, this time directly at its head, blowing it apart. As it crumpled, FCG reached them and placed their hands on Ashton. After a brief glow, the genasi gasped back to consciousness and coughed.

"Fuck. Is it over?"

"Yeah, it ain't movin' no more," FCG soothed, and Ashton relaxed.

"Why'd you do that?! You could have died!" Laudna berated, and his bleary gaze wandered to her.

"Aw, didja miss me? Don't worry, I've come back from worse." Even in this state, he managed a bloody grin, and she wanted to slap him, but it wouldn't do any good, so instead she made a series of indignant sounds. "Listen, someone's gotta be your meat shield."

"No! No meat shield! You almost died in my arms like one of those fucking plays, Ashton!"

"Too late. You're stuck with me." Gods, how did Ashton manage to be so sweet and so frustrating at the same time?

[nochiquinn]

campaign 3 episode 19: how're the fjord moon theorists doing

(I still do not know what the fjord moon theory was, I missed that meme train)

update: preroll music still slaps

djsdlk matt started too early didn't he

travis being a hand model

wait why are liam and laura swapped

oh THAT'S why

sam no

"this is why you wouldn't let us see the copy!"

I'm just fully not looking at the screen anymore. I have a pringles car in front of the subtitles

no wait I lied I looked over in time to see travis dying

POP POP

the tary dice are amazing

"ahhh, too real"

"surprise us" they're all getting lime juice

took me a solid ten seconds to realize travis is wearing a ring pop

and laura too! I know things

laura will never get the name of that place right

ashley's glasses are cute

"does this person still have enamel on his teeth?"

taliesin doing the kombucha girl meme

aw him lonely :(

GOO MONSTER

MOON

oof, premature labor

hey, I recognized dressig's name!

ALYXIAN that's a badass name

liam's eyebrows at "matron of ravens"

[side-eyes That One Part of exu kymal]

lmao MATT forgot the name

you've met with a terrible fate, haven't you

he keeps saying "ill omen moon" like "ruidus" is voldemort

I always want to laugh at extremely location-specific tavern names but everything around here is "peach state [business]" and when I was in dc everything was "capitol [business]" SO

"calm down, DAD"

laudna

"I can't roleplay while you're watching"

liam's eyebrows went into space again

"gingers, man"

"don't you 'just vex' me you fuck"

"VAX stopped aging" sir

it's a valid theory tho!

"what is happening at this table right now?!" "it's the lime juice!"

they just can't not take the piss out of their old characters

I miss caleb's keen mind

"caleb knows EXACTLY what time it is, but liam..."

"cold dead eyes, come here"

"you can't have my eyes" "gotta sleep sometime"

samuel

shroom 20

aww

"I KNOW what I'm about to say"

"I'm so excited to see what your next character is"

"are we getting off-track here?" "probably, but it's fun!"

FROG HARNESS

this is the water plane isn't it

deadlights

baja blast water plane

okay gepetto

"if we ever need to get rid of chetney"

you fish for that backstory laura

chetney's face

wait was it The Tree

"that tree had some serious pollen in it"

WALL KNIFE

sam

marisha's face

orym

"I assist by smiling"

okay that's so smart tho

travis u okay

TRAVIS U GOOD

lil cal

"I've had this club night"

travis

"I love a choking hazard"

travis ur face

am I the only person picturing the werewolf episode of doctor who

not the glasses

"you have a hard time focusing" vibe of the night

OH??

MOON STORM

RED MOON STORM

IMOGEN MOON DREAMS

"and it kills travis"

"he's going to find a werther's"

simultaneously having emotions about imogen and sasha nein, which is A Spectrum

y'all this is gay

[quiet chants of "po-ly-cule, po-ly-cule" in the corner]

sam

moon check

MOON DREAMS

liam are you trying to make me cry

oh good he is. excellent.

gonna fly to la and kick him in the shins

"us around old people"

awww

wholesome creepy

PATE AND SASHIMI

polyratorous

chetney

ur face

"I NEED TO GO TO BED"

chetney

"thinking of the story she told him the other night" oh shit

"I'm gonna regret this purchase" "I'm not! :D" "you're not the one sleeping next to it" "nope :D"

"which one" which one do you THINK, MATT

"it got red! it got red!"

WE HAVE DREAM SIGN

liam sdfjs

bitch out the moon

travis is me

hello 911 laura bailey is murdering me with acting

OH??

don't you call it now matt mercer so help me god

hey what the fuck

it's the other one for all wielders

orym :(

feaRNE

laudna :(

"I could help you"

!!!

fearne

fearne I would kill for you

I'm just picturing all-white eyes with purple lightning-veins

ten years :(

and she's only known laudna for like two, right?

all those years waking up alone

what if she thought if she didn't get to safety in the dream she wouldn't wake up

sdkfjslk

god that's so fucking wholesome I'm gonna fucking die

everybody gives her one and she looks like the most popular girl at camp

"everybody loves the FUCK out of you and we will FUCKING murder a fucker"

orym's little pillbug sleep

the dice support the narrative

oh I like this dark goldy color

my roommate calls friendly players in red dead online "blueberries" bc they're blue dots on the map so every time they say it about imogen I get confused

marisha really ships it huh sdlkfjsl

this is making me wanna play dishonored

"I'm never gonna use it for myself" li am

okay that's a little badass

oh god they're gonna blow up the whole thing

"wind folly" I don't know why that makes me miss dorian

"a very potter musical" draco malfoy vibes

it's ON MARS

he's already so tired of them lmao

I fucking love this

"we should have scouted" "YEAH"

they're trying to get the laser tag rules and the attendant's just 🤷‍

he gets hoa letters all the time

they try to go back out the front door and get attacked by zombie dogs

"massive warhammer" "no armor?" "bard!"

laura

sure jan

trying to clock the cleric

matt: nice try

throw the tanglefoot bag right as they go

that's my prediction for next week

"this is a normal thing that every child did!"

[sparring-spirals]

@jewishsuperfam

ok real question, though: how is imogen being terrible? because it’s only been 2 in-game days since the fight, and as far as i can tell the worst thing she’s done to laudna has been to give her a cold shoulder at times, which. is a pretty normal thing to do when you’re In A Fight with someone??? like, it’s a little shitty, but *terrible* seems like an exaggeration

Hm. Well, okay, i think there's a few things going on here.

Okay first, yeah, probably an exaggeration? I tend to use the words "terrible" and "menace" pretty liberally and with great affection. So you can probably dock it down a few levels of severity, if that helps, and if you want, ignore the rest of this post. That said.

Me saying that isn't really meant to be a value judgement on Imogen as a whole. I'm not really saying it in like, a condemning way. I think you can be under distress and make slightly poor decisions and have those decisions be a lil terrible, and that is not necessarily a judgement on you as a person. Me saying Imogen is being terrible is not me saying Imogen is a terrible person, its just that like. Her actions aren't ideal, and I think she feels like that's the case, and feels pretty torn up about it.

And, for further clarity, I'm really not trying to focus on the "right" or "wrong" thing to do. Because who is right or wrong in these situations is. Uh. IMO. Not usually the point. What I’m focusing on above- and in general, tbh, is more about how I think the characters ~feel~ about what they're doing, and how that drives their next steps. "Terrible" in the sense of, Imogen being kind of internally conflicted, now too, having a sense that she might have been a bit in the wrong, but continuing to brush Laudna off anyway. It makes sense why! Its understandable! She's fucking going through it! Lot of internalized instincts there. But it doesn't make the actions or the rippling effects 100% okay, either.

(Like, all of that said, I would also argue that its more than just a cold shoulder, for them. Its very specifically a very sudden, firm cold shoulder towards someone she is clearly unused to enforcing a rift towards, towards someone who is taking it pretty hard, over a situation where she isn't even sure her reaction was warranted. "Terrible" in the sense of, this has had bigger consequences, and is rippling out, and she isn't sure she was even right in the first place, and shes torn up over Dusk getting closer to Laudna right as there's sort of a vacuum there even though Imogen is, arguably the person that put the vacuum there.)

I dunno. My point is that I wasn't really talking about the goodness or badness of it all, or even if I was, not about Imogen as a person- who is still whole and flawed and kind and trying her best but also Making Decisions as she goes. That's all.

Imogen is so, so deeply defensive.

Imogen is so, deeply defensive, so consistently in survival mode, and like. It Fucking Makes Sense. Nightmares and stress and headaches and people thinking shit they don't say and saying things they don't mean. Imogen tries her best to be kind, and be empathetic, but Imogen also lives in a little wound up ball with walls up in a world of generally terrible people and like, of course she does. How the hell else does she survive.

So when it's something like this, when it is about trust lost- she felt knee jerk hurt and disappointment and betrayal- of course, that first reaction is to flinch away, is to yank up those walls, is to be angry, and furious, because that is safe.

(It is always safer to inflict loneliness and boundaries on yourself, to set up those lines in the sand rather than get let down).

(Its about control, too, right, in a life where she doesn't have nearly enough of it).

Imogen stays away from Laudna and it feels more, and more wrong, more like Laudna was right and good, but Imogen can't say that yet. Because that flinch reflex is still there, and it's not about the gem at all, its about the way her stomach must have dropped when it happened, how badly it hurt. Its about the way Laudna keeps doing good things even when she's being angry and a little terrible-

and about the way that Dusk keeps looking at Laudna with stars in their eyes and they keep chatting so friendily and the way that Imogen really doesn't like that in a way that cuts past this distance and rips away that control, again-

and her fucking hair is gone-

Imogen is so defensive- in the way you pull your hand away from a hot stove, in the way you squint when the sun is too bright, in the way of self preservation and caution that makes you feel reckless and foolish to ignore it. Imogen is defensive in the way that being cornered fills you with fight or flight adrenaline, and one of those options feels like it gives you a little more control of your situation.

Imogen is so, so fucking defensive, and she must be so goddamn tired, and none of it is about the goddamn gem, at all.

[utilitycaster]

do you really think the reason Imogen doesnt get as much meta as Caleb (who got every little detail discussed with thousands of notes!) is because people are afraid of a reaction, when its so obviously sexism?

The same reason she doesn't get the exact number of notes as Caleb? No. There's multiple reasons. I'm sure some is misogyny. Some is probably audience size for the respective campaigns, and some is simply accumulation over time - a post about Caleb from 2019 has had 5 years to gather notes.

But also. Are you fucking stupid. You literally showed up because of my tags to be kind of a dick in my inbox. I and multiple people who committed the grave sin of *checks notes* interacting with me were sent hate messages for hours on a Saturday night because I hinted in the tags that I kind of liked Fearne and Ashton as a ship while not being terribly into Imogen and Laudna, and some absolutely deranged loser decided this was an appropriate response. I was called out by someone who had made a blog specifically to block me when I responded to a reblog from someone else on a post I had made stating that Gelvaan was almost certainly not homophobic in canon and that treating Imogen's psychic powers as a metaphor for queerness has a lot of really unfortunate implications. And this hasn't even touched on that one person whose entire raison d'etre appears to be harassing every single person who doesn't think Imogen, Laudna, and their relationship is perfect; and who specifically made multiple alts to harass me. Like, the "It's Obviously Misogyny" people are genuinely putting more effort into being a dick to me than in writing meta about Imogen. You might be one of them.

I talk to many of my mutuals, some of whom really like Imogen, and yes, people do decide "you know, this could be interpreted by someone as too critical, and I don't feel like dealing with the heat" and keep that meta to the DMs or don't share it at all.

You know that post that Matt liked on Twitter that people have been, let's not mince words, jacking themselves off about ever since? If you actually try to say something with substance and evidence about how Imogen has Liliana's fear (the fear that meant that when Imogen begged her mother to leave the Vanguard, Liliana turned her own daughter down, claiming to need to stay with other children) or Delilah's love (which made her cruel, ruthless, and ultimately all-but doomed her) or Ludinus's desire for power (led him to commit endless atrocities) but resists these things in her desire to be a good person - and frankly, I think painting her with the same brush as Delilah or Ludinus isn't even true but I would love to dig into her similarities to Liliana - some asshole who smugly reblogs that post every time someone says "not to be controversial I think Imogen sometimes says things that could maybe be hurtful to other people I think" will throw a full temper tantrum and might send them an incoherent anon calling them a little hypocrite.

It's also fascinating because a lot of the tantrum-havers who will defend Imogen of even the most anodyne "perhaps this is not the most positive trait" and who will cite harassment Marisha received 7 years ago as a reason to not breathe a word of criticism about Laudna - and many of these people joined the fandom about 2 years ago if not sooner - will do this at the very people who have been supporting Keyleth since Campaign 1 was still airing. I mean, seniority doesn't mean anything but if you're lecturing people about something you weren't there for and they were? Clown behavior. Oh and a lot of those people doing the lecturing? Don't really like Keyleth very much, because she does things like "be angry" and "support Orym" and "have a measured viewpoint that doesn't match theirs" and "pretty clearly, along with Allura, who they also barely ever talk about, is directing Bells Hells along a specific path of that pesky moon plot because contrary to a weirdly widespread belief this is the moon plot campaign and not the baking cookies in a cottage campaign."

I mean, half these people forget about Fearne much of the time. The only NPCs I see many of them even talk about are the Vanguard generals and occasionally Abbadina when she's convenient for an argument. Not a damn word for Orlana or Birdie or Dancer or Weva or Rashinna, and they mostly treated Deanna, Prism, and Deni$e as nothing more than implements to shove Imogen and Laudna together but man do they have mountains to say about Bor'Dor. Hell, go to the blog of someone who whines about the way people treat Imogen and look through their meta, if they have it, and the vast majority of the time it's about Ashton and Orym and Ludinus and then they spend the rest of the time complaining about how The Big Mean Fandom is So Mean to Girls but they sure don't have much to say either because turns out if you can't say anything even remotely critical of a female character, it's really hard to write anything, and that's assuming they actually care about writing about female characters instead of just being an asshole, which as stated above is, in my mind, in doubt.

If you have ever spent a single second harassing actual living women online because you didn't like their thoughts on a pretend woman you are, at least in this specific scenario, easily the shittier person. Personally I am confident in my feminist bona fides through, you know, real world activism and how I interact with and support women and feminist causes socially, professionally, financially, and politically in my actual life, but yeah even I sometimes say "you know, I have thoughts about this thing regarding Imogen...but I've had a rough week and I don't feel like having one of the fandom tar pits on my ass" so I'll send my thoughts to a few friends and then idk, write about something else. And I'm pretty thick-skinned (this is the other problem with this strategy; you filter out the more measured and kind and sensitive people first and you're left only with people like me). A lot of people have flat-out given up writing about Imogen (or Laudna, much of the time) because they don't feel like dealing with backlash over some really mild statements. And because you send kind of dickish anons I suspect that it's more likely that you might be part of the problem than part of the solution. So no, it's not the only reason, but it's absolutely a significant one. Congratulations. You played yourself.

[utilitycaster]

The wildest part about people being mad on Imogen's behalf is Imogen herself understood Keyleth's position in spite of her own wishful thinking, helps acquire the blue flowers for her, was the first to acknowledge the Changebringer's help, and the first to say "I'm sorry" to Orym losing more of his people. I'm really baffled to read these "Orym is manipulative" takes and that it was dangerous of Keyleth to validate his anger. Do you think it goes back to the god stuff, or is it just Imodna?

I think a little of column A, little of column B, little of several other things. Since I've been on the "hey could we consider that Imogen and Laudna are adult women who are responsible for their own actions" train for over a year, the specific "Imogen can be mean-spirited as well as unintentionally insensitive" train since at least this past February, and the "Orym is correct and Bor'Dor signed his own death warrant by casting Vitriolic Sphere at a group of people who were not violent towards him" train for a month, let's break it down.

There are a small handful of people in the fandom who just really hate Liam. Per a very salty rant I put into my drafts shortly after 3x63 to describe this type of person, it is a small, scattered, bizarre group of people who for no apparent reason have decided to be foaming-at-the-mouth levels of furious because, as far as I can tell, a nerdy Gen X-er dad who went to Tisch is kind of corny sometimes. Anyway nothing he does will ever sit well with them so we can ignore them forever. Moving on.

Some is Imodna; I thought the whole issue of Imogen and Laudna as agency-less infants against a cruel world would have been ameliorated by them entering a canon relationship (one currently compatible with the 2013 Pinterest board vibes of fanon no less) but it appears to have not been the case. For more on this, see this still relevant post and, while I personally haven't ever written something up, there's just, again, a complete black hole of empathy from a segment of the fandom when it comes to any of the other characters; my post from this morning about Imogen as compared to Caleb touches upon it. You know the Far Side cartoon where a guy is talking to his dog and the dog only recognizes a small handful of words? I feel this is similar, like, they see that Imogen wanted one thing and Orym and Keyleth wanted another thing that wasn't even, as you point out, terribly incompatible, and then the "well if not thing Imogen wants and not 100% deferential to her then BAD BAD BAD" attitude kicked in.

But I do think, in the end, a lot of it does come back to if not the gods exactly, the idea that the Vanguard is, unmistakably, the enemy. They are not the revolution here to usher in a new era of rule by the people. Keyleth is not here to raze Vasselheim to the ground but to have a diplomatic discussion; neither is she here to grant any leniency to the woman who attacked Vax regardless of her connection to Imogen. And she finds the idea of a world without the gods, regardless of her own personal feelings, to be one to be avoided. [sidebar: I hope we get Matt on 4SD; I am wondering, after the one-two-three punch of Hevestro, the Raven Queen, and Keyleth all placing a heavy thumb on the scale opposing the Vanguard if he did not expect the party to be as conflicted about the role of the gods and is trying to wind up an argument that I think as of last episode reached the end of its useful life.] When you couple that with Orym's positive attitude towards the gods, that explains the animosity towards him.

The undermining of Orym's position over the past few episodes has always been one of emotion. First he was not objective - as if anyone else was objective! As if any moral decision is ever 100% objective! We all have biases! What kind of early 2000s atheist forum shit are you on to claim perfect rationality that conveniently matches the ideas that apparently came to you in a godless vision? It's insane. Then it was his grief; grief makes you irrational (unless you're Imogen grieving Laudna, in which case you are objectively right at all times, even as you shout down every other suggestion, beseech Laudna's first murderer, not a month later consider the potential validity of the her second, and try to to undo her immutable past) and remember, moral decisions must be made by the rational. Then it was his impatience (nevermind that Imogen has absolutely no patience). And now it's his anger, and he's apparently been manipulating the party the whole time by...having suggestions for the group which he mentions, and openly stating what he was feeling and what he wanted, and not intuiting that Laudna reawoke Delilah with his approximately no magical ability and then encouraging her to finish a job she had started herself. Because god Rational Objective Conceptual Being forbid women do anything; it is the role of the man to protect their fragile souls from all consequences.

Even more generally I think a lot of people- not just in this fandom, though certainly within this fandom - are terrified of anger. Like, they think they like it - they say they love barbarians (though rage is its own beast and I think very different from the anger Orym and Keyleth exhibit) but most of the discussion of them tends to veer more into angst, and most players of barbarians are often exploring emotions like grief, self-pity (as Ashton says), or frustration just as much if not more so than anger. I think a lot of people perceive anger as this awful thing inside them to be controlled and denied, or alternately to only be let out for whatever they think is a sufficiently righteous cause, and instead sit in an increasingly toxic stew of simmering resentment and conflict avoidance until they begin to think this is not just normal but aspirational - anything but that awful beast they call anger. It's not new in discussions of Keyleth, and it's not limited to her and Orym; I can point to nearly every single character who has had even the slightest of outbursts - even something as mild and controlled as Orym's whispered profanity or less - and I promise you there's been pearl-clutching for every single one of them.

Anyway, you make great points! One of the things that struck me about this episode and prompted my frustration and my post earlier today is that Imogen has changed. I think she's been mulling over Liliana since her appeals to her during the Key's activation were unsuccessful; she hesitantly told Chetney when he asked in Uthodurn that yes, if Liliana's death is necessary, she understands; and I think seeing the utter devastation and pain that was inflicted on Keyleth brought it into focus. She was much more open to FCG and the coin as well. And, you know, if one had embraced Imogen's moral ambiguity in the leadup to the solstice, and the possibility that she could betray the party, instead of shouting that down? Then one could see this as a beautiful moment of growth for Imogen. One could, in fact, if one was so inclined, attribute it to her new sense of ease thanks to her circlet, or even to her nascent romantic relationship. If one, of course, had wholeheartedly embraced Imogen's past moral ambiguity and the possibility of her betrayal.

[utilitycaster]

i think you've talked about this before, so i apologize if you're repeating yourself, but i've only ever played dnd once, so while i've picked up a lot of knowledge from just watching CR, i'm having a bit of trouble fully wrapping my head around why laudna's multiclass is mechanically bad. (storywise i get; combat not so much.) i know it takes longer for her to get access to higher-level spells, and i know that part of the problem is that a lot of the spells she is taking are more based on self-defense than either support casting or direct offense, but i feel like there's something more strategic i'm missing about sorlock being a weak build.

Sure! As with all mechanical posts there is a degree of personal opinions in here which I'll try to call out when I'm getting really into my own preferences, but sorlock really is generally not that great and I think it's mostly popular because of coffeelock posts.

The biggest one is that warlock, specifically, in 5e has a different spellcasting system than all the other casters. You only get a couple spell slots, all of the same level, and they recharge on a short rest. If you're a warlock multiclass, you add these on to your other spells. This is different from how a full caster multiclass works - if Laudna had been a sorcerer/bard, to give an example, she'd actually have the exact same spell slot configuration as Imogen or FCG - she just wouldn't have access to 5th level spells. She could still upcast lower level spells to 5th level, however. But she's not, so instead she has one lone 4th level spell and a glut of low-level spells. It's not even that she's not picking great spells; I'd have to do a deep dive into her spell list but it's decent (just as fighters only need one sword you really do only need like 2-3 good damage spells; it's just cooler if you have more) and warlocks are built to be fighting with cantrips anyway. It's that she's got a jack of all trades/master of none situation going on in a caster-heavy party with another sorcerer no less, so she's not adding a ton.

Sorcerer is one of the most specialized classes, and, in my opinion, by far the weakest of the casters. You get very few spells compared to other classes (tied with warlock; less than bard, of the known-spell casters, and less than what your average druid, cleric, or wizard can typically prep). Your spells include some arcane utility but you don't have the freedom of choice or versatility of a bard (more spells known and imo a better-curated list for a more defined support role) or a wizard (as many spells as you can find and transcribe). Meanwhile, warlocks also don't get a ton of known spells. However, what warlocks do get is invocations which often grant you cool abilities or even at-will low-level spells. Laudna only has 2. A 10th level warlock would have 5. Basically what I'm getting at here is that all multiclassing is a trade-off, but warlock is a class that's really built to be a warlock and with a handful of exceptions (hexadin) doesn't multiclass super well, imo. A dip into warlock of one level for eldritch blast is pretty good; more than that and you start to not really get a full return on your investment unless you're a really strong subclass.

Which is the other thing: her subclasses are vital to her aesthetic but neither of them is particularly strong as a general multiclass. Either would be fine on its own, but Strength of the Grave is a niche case, Eyes of the Dark is fine but with this party casting Darkness is rarely useful (honestly Darkness is a spell that seems cooler than it is), and hound of ill omen looks cool but is mechanically not terribly impressive. Form of Dread is legitimately good, to be fair. Honestly, I think she should have had a single-level dip in one or the other.

[utilitycaster]

i was thinking about your post about your frustrations with the way fandom talks about romance and True Loves—do you get the sense that there's been a bit too much romanticizing of the "i broke the world for us" line? because i feel like the reason it works is that it is, among other things, an encapsulation of how selfish the briarwoods were, rather than a depiction of a healthy romantic relationship worth preserving or emulating. and i'm sure the players know this, but with the way people have discussed that quote regarding imodna in particular, i'm not...fully sure the fandom does? it's like people want imogen and laudna to wrap their entire lives around each other to the exclusion of everyone and everything else.

like, the reason that line is interesting to me in relationship to percy/vex is that their relationship wound up serving as a narrative foil to sylas and delilah; while percy and vex very explicitly influenced each other not to go down that path, they also had several other people in their lives who mattered to them and impacted their growth. and idk i just get the sense that rather than examining the idea of unhealthy codependence, fandom just wants to see these two characters perennially attached at the hip, and i can't say i find that idea terribly interesting. (as you said, there's a reason the briarwoods were npcs; a dynamic like that among player characters could get very tiresome.)

You know, it's hard to say, but I think so. The thing is, it's a great line, but the context is actually quite important: Delilah says "I broke the world for us" as Sylas is being killed by Keyleth's Sunbeam, after the aborted attempt to summon Vecna. This is the line of someone who thinks she's failed; it can be seen as "I had to do all this, some of which I didn't particularly wish to do, and then I don't even get what I wanted, which was to spend eternity with my hot vampire husband?

In other words, I think a lot of people interpret this as "I would do anything for my love" and I think that's part of it, but there's also a not inconsiderable undercurrent of "I got in WAY too deep in the hopes of saving his life, and now I don't even get more than five fucking stressful years?" I mean, Delilah is not terribly sympathetic, because of the murders and the necromancy, but it is in many ways indicated that Vecna was rather opportunistic into calling out to a powerful necromancer who happened to be vulnerable and desperate. On some level I have to wonder if, perhaps, prior to her deal, the Briarwoods did have friends; and then with Sylas as a vampire and Delilah going harder on the necromancy work, they had to cut ties to hide the secret, or they lost those friends when they were discovered and kicked out of the assembly. We see them at a point where all they have is each other...but that could be the result of what they've had to do to have each other.

Regardless, I hesitate to attribute this to why people are weird about other ships; I think that comes from a lot of places, and honestly I've seen far worse justifications or characterizations of ships. I think some of this being brought up for Imogen and Laudna when the story has not really backed up that kind of devotion is just because Delilah is in the story and so they're reminded of it. But I do think that saying someone would break the world for someone else isn't necessarily a sign that it's a dedicated and all-consuming romantic relationship; merely that it's one with little foresight or sense of proportion.

[utilitycaster]

If you're up for it, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on c3 pacing. There's something that feels different to me but i'm having a hard time putting my finger on it or putting it to words.

Yeah I think it's been weird and a slow start for a few reasons.

I think Campaign Three has had a more defined immediate plot, but it's come at the cost of character development. We're only just building out some of the character relationships; for all people joked about "what the fuck is up with that" the important stuff often doesn't come out in a group setting (after all we had the Mighty Nein Zone of Truth in episode 14); it comes out in one-on-one conversations. An urban setting with a group that had money for separate rooms, existing places to stay, no need for overnight watches, and a defined goal is like poison to new one-on-one relationships. There's a reason why Heart to Heartmoor feels like a breath of fresh air: there's finally some fucking lore driven by the characters just hanging out, rather than the DM.

As for why this has happened, I think there's a few factors:

The first is having long-standing pre-existing relationships. I know a lot of people love this. I do not. Like, look. The twins are great! But Vox Machina always, to me, felt so divided into little subgroups: the twins; Vex and Vax separately each with their respective partners (or sometimes as a whole group given that they also tended to represent the level-headed side of VM, particularly when Pike was away); Pike and Grog; Grog and Scanlan; Scanlan and Pike. There were some excellent group conversations, Liam especially made efforts to reach out to others at the table, and there are some stand-out one-off conversations like Keyleth and Grog talking after Umbrasyl, but like, some pairings just did not happen. I think the Mighty Nein were infinitely more vibrant because there were precisely three pre-existing pairings, none more than a year or so, and all were either not terribly honest/detailed in what backstory they'd shared or were very new - plus Yasha was often gone and Beau was indeed a true free agent, and then Caduceus joining mixed it up further and put Yasha in a more interesting position.

Meanwhile, Fearne and Orym (and earlier on Dorian) have been traveling together for something like 8 months and their goal in Jrusar was very narrow and immediate (compare to the Nein, whose goals were much broader and/or far-off); Laudna and Imogen have been friends for two years; and FCG and Ashton have known each other for the better part of a year as well. I think Chetney coming in revitalized things because that free agent was there again; Beau was for me one of the most compelling characters in the first few arcs of the Nein specifically because she had to build all her own relationships from scratch.

The second is the starter city. You can run a compelling campaign starting in a city or even based in a city (see: Calamity; NADDPod's current season has also only just left Ezry after 14 episodes and I don't have the same pacing concerns, though granted 14 NADDPod episodes is maybe 4-5 CR episodes in length). However, no one in Bells Hells was from Jrusar, and Ashton was the only one who had been there for any significant length of time (vs. the Ring of Brass being deeply tied to Avalir and NADDPod's Duck Team being longtime residents of Ezry). Additionally, everyone in those two groups (Ring of Brass and Duck Team) knew each other previously and had existing relationships to lean on, whereas see the previous point to the pre-existing groups making it hard for people outside of those groups to bond.

I know there's been complaints about a number of the characters not even being from Marquet originally - and I think that's valid - but solely in terms of pacing, having the characters more rooted to the setting of Marquet even if they are not from there originally would have solved. That's why so much is happening this arc - FCG and Ashton's backstories are in Bassuras and we are finally in Bassuras. As is, much as I love Eshteross, it meant he was pulling well over his weight as a character, because on some level none of Bells Hells have a reason to give a shit about Jrusar's politics. For what it's worth: Imogen is from Marquet and has ties to research across the continent so I'm not worried about her; Fearne's parents are giving her connections to Bassuras; Chetney's quest for the Gorgynei and Orym's search for the people who attacked Zephrah and killed Will are all out there to serve the party when they go elsewhere so they've got hooks on the continent. I am a little concerned about whether Laudna will have anything to do that is actually tied to the location, which brings me to my next point.

Thirdly, I think the prohibition on references to Campaign 1 served Campaign 2 phenomenally well and made those connections all the better when they arose, and I think a similar "no direct ties to previous campaigns" rule would have served them here. I know Orym has long been a concept for Liam, I do; I know that the choice to continue some of the party from EXU Prime even made a connection to Tal'Dorei make more sense; but Orym and Laudna's extremely tight connections to not just Tal'Dorei but to Campaign 1 have cast an immense shadow that I'm not sure Matt realized they would. It feels like even the rest of the cast (understandably) kind of stops everything and listens to the Vox Machina-adjacent lore. I've really tried to be as objective as I can about this because I know I can be pretty hard on the weird pedestals C1 gets put on (and cognizant that I might be doing the same for C2) but I really do think that it just brings things to a screeching halt and the story stops being about Bells Hells in Marquet and turns into Vox Machina lore rehash.

I know Laudna is an immensely popular character, and she's genuinely a lot of fun, but I just...feel like she's on some level dragging back the story to 810-812 PD, and I don't want to go there. I don't think it was Marisha's intention, nor Matt's; I think both of them just didn't realize the extent to which this would happen. I'm not sure I did until last week as the pacing issues started to slowly resolve. (Orym is an easier fix in that like...personally, simply making him Earth Ashari and moving him to Terrah instead would have solved this entirely, but the core story of a guard to a person of legendary status who is tracking down the people who killed his husband in an attack is universal enough that I think it's easier to move past.)

Overall: again, I know people didn't like the start of Campaign 2 due to the meandering nature. Honestly, as someone who was simultaneously binging C1 at the time, I also recall being particularly not that engaged in Alfield or early in the Zadash arc. But the click came for me around episodes 14-15, when the group bonded while on the mission for The Gentleman, even as the plot remained fuzzy, and looking back at the finished campaign, I think that meandering early on was necessary to have for the payoff of who the Mighty Nein eventually became. This might be a personal preference, but for actual play especially, where the ending is truly unwritten, the organic development of characters, their relationships, and onscreen backstory reveals through showing, rather than simply telling, are more important than the low-level plot, and the balance has been off this campaign.

The good news is that we do now have solid hooks and motivations for much of the party; I think dealing with Treshi will close the door on the initial arc; and while I'll be sad to see Eshteross go I think an extended break from Jrusar and more travel and relationship building will resolve any lingering pacing issues.

[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."

[utilitycaster]

My read on Laudna being "run out of town" and it not quite fitting could be a matter of perception on Laudna's part. People do look at her with apprehension and distrust, and that could be misconstrued as disdain. Laudna could have misread the situation, and Imogen was the first person who didn't have immediate mistrust.

We also saw in her introduction scene that she wants to be seen as playful and ends up coming across scary (the children she tried to be fun scary with and terrified) and in some towns or villages people could have seen her as threatening when she was just trying to be fun scary, and there would have been no one with her to bridge the gap if things went wrong.

That would account for her being run out of town despite the world not seeming to have space for that experience.

I fully respect your opinions on Laudna and can see how she is the one in the group that doesn't seem to have much motive to be there, and not much reason to bring her back narratively. But I also respect that Marisha wants to keep playing her, and until a time where that is not an option I appreciate that the cast for trying to facilitate their friend's fun.

Going to keep this brief:

While to be fair the afterlife realm shown in the last episode could be Laudna's perceptions and not the reality, it does depict her being attacked and her hut being burned, so I don't think this is a turn of phrase.

Still raises a lot of questions on how Laudna was continuously misreading this for 30 years without like, changing anything or realizing that people found her off-putting.

My opinions of Laudna would be significantly helped if I did not feel that a large perception of her character relies on the first episode of C3 and the first episode alone because my problem is that she and many of her relationships feel terribly static and stagnant.

If the cast isn't having fun, then I'm not having fun, but if the cast is having fun that truly makes no guarantees on my opinion and it's getting tiresome that this keeps getting brought up when it's entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.