all negative modifiers

@crowliphale but like TTRPG/DND themed specifically

[crowforinitiative]

Hi Hello I'm Crowliphale (dnd/ttrpg edition)

MAIN BLOG -> CROWLIPHALE

RAMBLE BLOG -> AZIROWLEY

Side blog for my dnd ramble stuff! Mainly yapping about my own PCs or the podcasts I listen to or shows I watch (if they're dnd centric)

BIGGEST POSTING POINTS: Ignovita (campaign I play in), D&D (ttrpg I'm most familiar with), D&D related shows (Vox Machina, Critical Role, Dimension20, etc)

[crowforinitiative]

Oh also name change

crowlecroux -> crowforinitiative

[crowforinitiative]

Some friends are convincing me to try wildsea

[crowforinitiative]

Lowkey kinda just wanna stop associating with That Podcast forever atp

[crowforinitiative]

Ik you don’t really like avantris anymore… but have you seen starlight Kremy and Gideon.. I saw them thought of you, and went “oh I gotta go fill them in on this”

i have seen them and my hot take is i dont ljke them very much. sorry!

[caroodraws]

I have Skrimm brain disease

[crowforinitiative]

Technically made an original race for my first campaign but I can't even show it off cuz my friends follow me.. evil world

[artimaz1]

psst btw if coalecroux isn’t canon or kept ambiguous at the end of the campaign, absolutely nobody can say “Avantris just doesn’t have romantic relationships as a focal point!” (which is an argument people use) because we know they do simply because of the existence of pykephelia and Portia and Quibly.

(rant under the cut)

I have to admit, it gets to a point with the constant gay jokes. Sure, witchlight is a funny campaign, but it shouldn’t take 65 episodes for Kremy and Gideon to have a genuine conversation that feels romantic, that being the motorbike scene. Coalecroux feels like it’s been locked in a “will they, won’t they” stasis since they’ve gotten “married” and it’s actually starting to piss me off. I’m getting tired with having to survive off of scraps in the form of the same overused jokes.

“B-But it’s a slowburn!!” In order to make a good slowburn, you need a reason for them not to be together. Yes, sure, they don’t like to talk about their feelings, but this is DnD. This isn’t a TV show or a book, the players choose how fast their characters progress. If Richie and Mace actually wanted to make these two official, they shouldn’t be relying on jokes.

The fact that OUAW is a “funny, no-fucks-to-give” campaign is exactly what makes it so difficult for me to enjoy this ship anymore. They never talk about the few emotional moments they have, those moments might as well have never happened. They’re not acknowledged by even the narrative. To write a genuinely good slowburn, you have to have those moments. There’s no “realizing you’re in love” moments, there’s just conflict with no proper reconciliation or acknowledgment from either of them. Things are happening around the characters, not to them.

Coalecroux isn’t a slowburn anymore, it’s actively started to smoke and needed to get put on our plates two hours ago.

The unserious nature of the campaign has started to make me feel the same way Stranger Things 5 did (god forbid). There isn’t depth to them anymore. All of that depth was created by the fans, or so underutilized your hopes of it actually getting acknowledged are in the dirt. The progression of their relationship always happens suddenly, and it’s begun to feel like the “it happened offscreen” interviews with the Duffer Brothers. Going from reading analysis on Coalecroux or either character then looking at how much they get into it in the campaign is actually laughable. Until recently, fans were left scrabbling for any signs of Gideon returning Kremy’s feelings to the point people were going off of Mace’s expressions.

Adding on to that, the jokes without any genuine progression starts to take a toll on the queer audience: it stops feeling like a funny joke about their relationship, and instead starts to feel like a joke about the fact that they’re two guys in love. It starts to feel less like a lighthearted joke and instead poking fun at the idea that these two could ever be serious. The fanfiction jokes feel like that too. Like yeah, it’s so funny that you put effort into writing about our characters for free and being invested in the story. There’s no difference between FF and fanart, except for the fact that the vast majority of them are of Coalecroux.

Using the only other campaign I’ve seen in its entirety as an example (since nobody but Coalecroux really have a lot of romantic possibilities in canon in OUAW), SDR:A is similar. Pyke and Ophelia have conversations about their past, and were in a “will they, won’t they” as well. They got themselves figured out and we got confirmation they both still love each other, and a full on kiss in less than 10 episodes. Meanwhile, Ko and Pixel had romantic chemistry from the start, were at each others side the entire campaign, and had some of the most memorable and sweet moments in the entire season. It would’ve made sense for them to kiss in episode 16, there were multiple moments when it would’ve been good. And all we got was an ambiguous cheek kiss that was never addressed again. Pyke and Rett also had debatably romantic moments, but there were gay jokes about those two since the first session. (Oh and don’t even get me started on how they removed the— albeit joking— queer coding of Quibly)

“It’s DnD, they can choose what they want to do with the characters!” You’re correct. But this is a channel with 2.5 million subscribers. They are on the same level as D20 and Critical Role. They know there is a large amount of queer people watching, and while we can’t make them do anything, they need to understand they have a shit ton of people who trust them to treat queer representation with respect. And similarly to other various controversial choices made by Avantris (the usage of Baron Semedi, a god from a closed religion; Farryn’s death, and how they played into the ‘bury your gays’ trope; and the debatable Asian representation), it doesn’t seem like they know that.

I don’t think that Avantris is bigoted or doing any of this out of malice, not even close, but I do think that they continue to make choices without understanding the consequences it might have on the audience.

oh and if Coalecroux isn’t canon, it’d be queerbaiting, argue with the wall.

[daiisiy]

Add Lethicus to the mix aswell.

Don't get me wrong, I like the sun-moon dynamic, but the more campaigns you watch, the you recognize the pattern of heterosexual relationships being treated with more respect that gay ones.

I don't think they're doing it on purpose, by the way. Not that it fully excuses it. But I think there's a clear subconscious bias that they don't notice. Which is gay=funny.

Notice how in interactions between male and female charscters, the "romantic development" is taken for granted.

Sarnax and Shepherd genuinely have one of the best relationships of all their campaigns. They rely on each other. They trust each other. They're fucking devoted to each other.

But they're not gay for each other. And each time the idea that they might want to be more than friends is brought up, suddenly this tenderness turns into a joke.

And yes, this is Legends of Avantris, they joke. But I don't recall them joking this much when Lethica and Marius or Pyke and Ophelia had moments together. They were allowed to have serious, relationship building moments that weren't interrupted for a gag.

In coalecroux case, I would've said "well, maybe they're not comfortable with that." But they were the ones that leaned into it. Coalecroux could've died in the first episode if it was only a "oh, we're just bussiness associates" but they kept doing it again and again. Kremy loves Gideon but he's in denial. Gideon does NOT care. Or maybe they do love each other!? Find out by buying our plushies!

I don't care if it's a D&D Podcast. If there's no in-screen confirmation, I'm calling it queerbaiting.

[artimaz1]

I was tempted to bring up Lethicus and Shepnax but I haven’t seen Edge of Midnight or Curse of Strahd yet but I agree. Once you actually start watching the campaigns, you will notice a consistent dynamic, where two guys will be super close and dare I say domestic (ESPECIALLY pykerett), whose relationship can be easily interpreted as romantic (again, pykerett. I literally had to stop during the first episode to check and see if I missed any confirmation they were together.) and is perfectly normal… until the idea that they could be together gets brought up and then it’s “haha whattt that’d be so weird. But funny. And marketable. Now watch our 600+ hour campaign to see if we continue making the same jokes!! And no, we won’t have a genuine conversation or entertain the idea of it actually happening, but here’s an animated short where they kiss for half a frame!!”

It’s not just a OUAW problem, it is a problem with all their campaigns. Gideon and Kremy, Shepard and Sarnax, Pyke and Rett, Toa and Felix, Booker and Grumley, Orpheus and Vandrys, fucking even Skrimm and Barnabos, and Gricko and Frost, and Glup Bondo and Quibly get those jokes. And then they later retconned the possibility of Quibly being gay!

I can count three confirmed, well thought out heterosexual relationships in their campaigns: Portia and Quibly, Lethicus, and Pykephelia. There isn’t a single queer relationship that is confirmed canon. All these pairings, all these jokes, for what? When does “essentially canon” (Derek and Mikey’s words) just become canon?

[cheesed-2meetu]

I’d even throw Ko x Pixel on here! It’s obvious they’re setting up something romantic but I’m a little worried it’s going to become Coalecroux but in space. I find it odd that they keep suggesting the relationship to be mildly “sisterly”.

They’ve kissed. 3 times.

Idk I have hope that Kopix won’t become a half canon half queerbait friendship because SDRA is pretty goated and the campaign really highlights character development and seems to handle queer rep decently. (Looks at Pykerett warily)

[artimaz1]

If I saw anyone act the way Ko and Pixel do with their siblings, I’d call the police.

[artimaz1]

Don’t be shy tell us the 1% of problems we didn’t bring up 😈 (positive, I’m so happy that this post was found by a popular artist and got more traction, thank you so much for reading and im happy you liked it!!)

[crowforinitiative]

I mean, if you insist....

I'll preface this by saying 1) some of these are HOT TAKES that I do NOT expect everyone to agree with, they're just things I personally feel are weird,

and 2) not all of my gripes will be queer-centric, as I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to bring up some other vague issues (I can only really speak on the queer ones, but I've at least noticed others).

My hot take is that Kremy started as an actually INCREDIBLY strong representation for gay men. Watching Witchlight for the first time, you immediately get the sense that he genuinely has no interest in women. In fact, I'd argue for the first 60 episodes it's clear from his behavior and interactions with women that he is in fact gay, not just queer or ambiguously bi.

There is nothing wrong with bisexual people! I'll be the first person to stand up against biphobia, but there's a HUGE difference between deciding to take your character in a different direction, and deciding to use your gay character for shock humor by making him sleep with a woman.

I'd argue, through this, they already have queerbaited.

(NOW I MAY SOUND EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE, but I don't mean to! I'm trying to be Blunt, but that doesn't mean I want Avantris cancelled or punished, I just want my wording to be Clear. They clearly haven't done anything intentionally malicious yet, I'm simply hoping that by bringing awareness to this stuff it'll prompt them to Learn.)

Also, I know not a TON of people have seen icebound, so I'll also throw Skrimmbos in here. I don't even personally ship them, but Andy CLEARLY plays it straight with Skrimm's crush on Barnabos. Sure, he uses the crush for comedy, but I think you'd have to be blind to not interpret it as a real, genuine crush. Barnabos clearly doesn't reciprocate, but that's fine.

Mikey called the ship a "crack pairing," which, giving him the benefit of the doubt on the definition, still reads as a lack of compassion for queer ships. Unfortunately, it does still sort of read as bait when Skrimm's feelings are almost instantly removed once he starts hanging out with Daisy. NOW IN THEIR DEFENSE (what? Defense in the middle of a critique??) Skrimm moving on from Barnabos is actually a pretty contained story, and it does make sense for him to naturally like Daisy's company more than Barnabos's after some inciting incidents, I only bring this up because of how the pairing was handled externally, and how it might read to fans who got attached to that initial character decision.

Okay. Some of my other vague issues include:

- Nikki's characters mostly falling into misogynistic stereotypes (I'm aware she's a woman and can play her female characters however she likes, but I've noticed a pattern after drawing Every Single Avantris PC) (if they aren't tiny whimsical things, they're super sexy and horny, and sometimes they're both. Nothing wrong with being that way, but again, patterns),

- the noticeable carelessness when it comes to PCs from other cultures (Frost is the most recent and also least questionable of their Asian PCs, but even then, he keeps unfortunately getting whitewashed when translated into other universes [they don't give him any Asian features] which I know is likely an artist communication issue, but they should still be a little more mindful...),

- the persistent use AND misuse of voodoo (it's a closed practice, but at the very least it shouldn't be paired with a white character) (picture from the crooked moon) (also this ties into an issue of them kinda whitewashing Kremy but that feels like a reach from me so. Don't go crazy about it)

(AGAIN, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, PLEASE DO NOT ATTACK ME OR ANYONE ELSE, I BRING THESE UP AS LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES)

All in all, when you're obsessed with something for over a year, you tend to start picking up on a lot of niche details about it. I understand that Avantris, unlike critical role or D20, started as a group of unknown friends that spiraled into popularity through their humor. I know that comes with a lot of adjustment and mistakes, but at this point it's been what? 3-4 years? I think it's time to start making some serious change. I say this as a fan, who WANTS to endlessly enjoy their content.

It just gets to a point.

[artimaz1]

psst btw if coalecroux isn’t canon or kept ambiguous at the end of the campaign, absolutely nobody can say “Avantris just doesn’t have romantic relationships as a focal point!” (which is an argument people use) because we know they do simply because of the existence of pykephelia and Portia and Quibly.

(rant under the cut)

I have to admit, it gets to a point with the constant gay jokes. Sure, witchlight is a funny campaign, but it shouldn’t take 65 episodes for Kremy and Gideon to have a genuine conversation that feels romantic, that being the motorbike scene. Coalecroux feels like it’s been locked in a “will they, won’t they” stasis since they’ve gotten “married” and it’s actually starting to piss me off. I’m getting tired with having to survive off of scraps in the form of the same overused jokes.

“B-But it’s a slowburn!!” In order to make a good slowburn, you need a reason for them not to be together. Yes, sure, they don’t like to talk about their feelings, but this is DnD. This isn’t a TV show or a book, the players choose how fast their characters progress. If Richie and Mace actually wanted to make these two official, they shouldn’t be relying on jokes.

The fact that OUAW is a “funny, no-fucks-to-give” campaign is exactly what makes it so difficult for me to enjoy this ship anymore. They never talk about the few emotional moments they have, those moments might as well have never happened. They’re not acknowledged by even the narrative. To write a genuinely good slowburn, you have to have those moments. There’s no “realizing you’re in love” moments, there’s just conflict with no proper reconciliation or acknowledgment from either of them. Things are happening around the characters, not to them.

Coalecroux isn’t a slowburn anymore, it’s actively started to smoke and needed to get put on our plates two hours ago.

The unserious nature of the campaign has started to make me feel the same way Stranger Things 5 did (god forbid). There isn’t depth to them anymore. All of that depth was created by the fans, or so underutilized your hopes of it actually getting acknowledged are in the dirt. The progression of their relationship always happens suddenly, and it’s begun to feel like the “it happened offscreen” interviews with the Duffer Brothers. Going from reading analysis on Coalecroux or either character then looking at how much they get into it in the campaign is actually laughable. Until recently, fans were left scrabbling for any signs of Gideon returning Kremy’s feelings to the point people were going off of Mace’s expressions.

Adding on to that, the jokes without any genuine progression starts to take a toll on the queer audience: it stops feeling like a funny joke about their relationship, and instead starts to feel like a joke about the fact that they’re two guys in love. It starts to feel less like a lighthearted joke and instead poking fun at the idea that these two could ever be serious. The fanfiction jokes feel like that too. Like yeah, it’s so funny that you put effort into writing about our characters for free and being invested in the story. There’s no difference between FF and fanart, except for the fact that the vast majority of them are of Coalecroux.

Using the only other campaign I’ve seen in its entirety as an example (since nobody but Coalecroux really have a lot of romantic possibilities in canon in OUAW), SDR:A is similar. Pyke and Ophelia have conversations about their past, and were in a “will they, won’t they” as well. They got themselves figured out and we got confirmation they both still love each other, and a full on kiss in less than 10 episodes. Meanwhile, Ko and Pixel had romantic chemistry from the start, were at each others side the entire campaign, and had some of the most memorable and sweet moments in the entire season. It would’ve made sense for them to kiss in episode 16, there were multiple moments when it would’ve been good. And all we got was an ambiguous cheek kiss that was never addressed again. Pyke and Rett also had debatably romantic moments, but there were gay jokes about those two since the first session. (Oh and don’t even get me started on how they removed the— albeit joking— queer coding of Quibly)

“It’s DnD, they can choose what they want to do with the characters!” You’re correct. But this is a channel with 2.5 million subscribers. They are on the same level as D20 and Critical Role. They know there is a large amount of queer people watching, and while we can’t make them do anything, they need to understand they have a shit ton of people who trust them to treat queer representation with respect. And similarly to other various controversial choices made by Avantris (the usage of Baron Semedi, a god from a closed religion; Farryn’s death, and how they played into the ‘bury your gays’ trope; and the debatable Asian representation), it doesn’t seem like they know that.

I don’t think that Avantris is bigoted or doing any of this out of malice, not even close, but I do think that they continue to make choices without understanding the consequences it might have on the audience.

oh and if Coalecroux isn’t canon, it’d be queerbaiting, argue with the wall.

[daiisiy]

Add Lethicus to the mix aswell.

Don't get me wrong, I like the sun-moon dynamic, but the more campaigns you watch, the you recognize the pattern of heterosexual relationships being treated with more respect that gay ones.

I don't think they're doing it on purpose, by the way. Not that it fully excuses it. But I think there's a clear subconscious bias that they don't notice. Which is gay=funny.

Notice how in interactions between male and female charscters, the "romantic development" is taken for granted.

Sarnax and Shepherd genuinely have one of the best relationships of all their campaigns. They rely on each other. They trust each other. They're fucking devoted to each other.

But they're not gay for each other. And each time the idea that they might want to be more than friends is brought up, suddenly this tenderness turns into a joke.

And yes, this is Legends of Avantris, they joke. But I don't recall them joking this much when Lethica and Marius or Pyke and Ophelia had moments together. They were allowed to have serious, relationship building moments that weren't interrupted for a gag.

In coalecroux case, I would've said "well, maybe they're not comfortable with that." But they were the ones that leaned into it. Coalecroux could've died in the first episode if it was only a "oh, we're just bussiness associates" but they kept doing it again and again. Kremy loves Gideon but he's in denial. Gideon does NOT care. Or maybe they do love each other!? Find out by buying our plushies!

I don't care if it's a D&D Podcast. If there's no in-screen confirmation, I'm calling it queerbaiting.

[artimaz1]

I was tempted to bring up Lethicus and Shepnax but I haven’t seen Edge of Midnight or Curse of Strahd yet but I agree. Once you actually start watching the campaigns, you will notice a consistent dynamic, where two guys will be super close and dare I say domestic (ESPECIALLY pykerett), whose relationship can be easily interpreted as romantic (again, pykerett. I literally had to stop during the first episode to check and see if I missed any confirmation they were together.) and is perfectly normal… until the idea that they could be together gets brought up and then it’s “haha whattt that’d be so weird. But funny. And marketable. Now watch our 600+ hour campaign to see if we continue making the same jokes!! And no, we won’t have a genuine conversation or entertain the idea of it actually happening, but here’s an animated short where they kiss for half a frame!!”

It’s not just a OUAW problem, it is a problem with all their campaigns. Gideon and Kremy, Shepard and Sarnax, Pyke and Rett, Toa and Felix, Booker and Grumley, Orpheus and Vandrys, fucking even Skrimm and Barnabos, and Gricko and Frost, and Glup Bondo and Quibly get those jokes. And then they later retconned the possibility of Quibly being gay!

I can count three confirmed, well thought out heterosexual relationships in their campaigns: Portia and Quibly, Lethicus, and Pykephelia. There isn’t a single queer relationship that is confirmed canon. All these pairings, all these jokes, for what? When does “essentially canon” (Derek and Mikey’s words) just become canon?

[cheesed-2meetu]

I’d even throw Ko x Pixel on here! It’s obvious they’re setting up something romantic but I’m a little worried it’s going to become Coalecroux but in space. I find it odd that they keep suggesting the relationship to be mildly “sisterly”.

They’ve kissed. 3 times.

Idk I have hope that Kopix won’t become a half canon half queerbait friendship because SDRA is pretty goated and the campaign really highlights character development and seems to handle queer rep decently. (Looks at Pykerett warily)

[artimaz1]

If I saw anyone act the way Ko and Pixel do with their siblings, I’d call the police.

[artimaz1]

Saw your post about Kremy/Gideon and I just wanted to say I’m glad someone is speaking about it! I’ve had similar thoughts for a long time but been afraid to talk about it publicly because of how overly involved the Avantris crew/players are in the fandom.

“Some people think they should decide how we play our characters” no. But some of your audience are queer and feel uncomfortable with how you portray queer relationships and characters for profit but refuse to speak up about our rights.

On a similar note, the way they use queer characters and storylines in their campaigns, yet keep talking about how much they love Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling is very upsetting. Mikey wrote "No matter who you are or where you're from, you'll always have a seat at our table" but it’s hard to feel welcome when they’re making jokes at our expense and supporting a woman who funds literal hate-groups.

In times like these, when our rights are already being taken away, when our people are killed, it’s sad to see a group of people use your identity for laughs.

I don’t think they’re intentionally being bigoted. I’ve watched every single one of their campaigns. I’ve seen the questionable gay jokes in early prime (and the fact that a big plot point is that one of the female characters has a ‘male’ name, a running joke that another has ‘manly hands’), I’ve seen the canonically lesbian characters in prime, eom, cos and bdw. i don’t think they’re transphobic or homophobic (or i would obviously stop supporting them) but I do think they’re not educated enough on queer issues, and I wish they’d do some research before trying to use our identities for content.

Thank you, this is really sweet! I honestly made that post because I needed to vent and honestly didn’t expect it to get a lot of attention. I was even worried that it’d be causing unnecessary drama or that I was being overly dramatic and sensitive.

I’m happy that people are able to feel more open about their feelings on stuff like this thanks to my post! I really love Avantris and its community, but I also know that this kind of behavior won’t change if you don’t start pointing it out and having a conversation about it. I think the people in the community (especially those who aren’t LGBTQ+) who think we’re being dramatic don’t realize that this isn’t a statement made because we’re shippers and are upset because our favorite ship isn’t canon, it’s made because we’re queer. It isn’t parasocial, entitled, or controlling to want representation treated with respect simply because it’s a DnD group.

The fact that this is a DnD group is why this is jarring to me, because you rarely see queer rep genuinely treated like this by a popular DnD group. DnD has always been a safe space for LGBTQ+ people, even during its creation in the 80s. The jokes about specific races like tieflings always being gay are popular for a reason. (There’s a really good article explaining why this happens so much and why good LGBTQ+ rep is important!) So seeing a popular group be uneducated and not treat their queer characters with respect and understanding was a bit of a shock to me. I was attracted to this group because of its “large amounts of queer rep” according to friends, so imagine my surprise when all we got was a bunch of characters stuck in ambiguous gay hell or dead. Jokes aren’t representation, they never will be. They don’t make people feel good or like you care, it just makes them feel like you’re making fun of them.

Also, the fact that the Avantris crew is cishet (which we don’t know they are) isn’t really important. You can be cishet and make good queer rep. Their identities have nothing to do with the fact that they’re not making good queer rep. Some examples of cishet people making good queer rep in DnD include Brennan Lee Mulligan, Matthew Mercer, Liam O’Brian, and Emily Axford.

A good example of a joke that is about someone’s queerness is the relationship between Gorgug (played by Zac Oyama) and Ragh (NPC) in Fantasy High. The entire season, Ragh had gone from asshole bully to a repressed gay kid who came out of the closet. And that wasn’t a joke or taken for laughs, those moments were genuine and actually really sweet. The joke comes when at prom, Gorgug kisses Ragh so he can have a kiss at prom and get over his crush on his asshole team captain. That joke didn’t make me feel like they were making fun of me, it made me so happy because Ragh’s arc completed and he got to have a kiss at prom. The major difference is that I know that wasn’t a joke at the idea of them kissing each other. I know that if Brennan and Zac wanted to, Gorgug and Ragh would’ve absolutely become a couple and their relationship would’ve been explored properly and with respect. They don’t make fun of people who do think Gorgug and Ragh should’ve gotten together, and they continued to make good queer rep.

(Also do not say I’m telling them to be more like another popular group, since this is a problem with representation and not play style. I don’t want them to play more like Matt Mercer, I want to see good queer rep on my screen.)

The problem doesn’t come from the jokes. You can make jokes like the ones Avantris does without it feeling in poor taste, as long as you have genuineness to back it up. It wouldn’t be weird or forced to have Kremy stop and pull Gideon aside to talk in these next few episodes. It wouldn’t be weird or forced to have Toa and Felix get together. It wouldn’t be weird or forced to even explore the possibility of Pyke and Rett, which would further Pyke’s arc of moving past his former life and accepting the mistakes he made.

But they don’t. All of this possible queerness feels fake. It feels like they’re dangling a carrot in front of our faces. At this point, I’ve resigned myself to expecting Kremy and Gideon to just be semi-canon, or stay ambiguous until the final episode. But frankly, I shouldn’t have to feel that way, and there is sadly a large portion of people in the Avantris community who expect queer people to just accept what representation we have because they think we’re trying to force the players to play a certain way.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I have never seen a shipper in the Avantris fandom have a ship without proof. That is how often they make jokes like this. You can ship anyone in the Krew and you’d have content from the campaign for it. We’re not “forcing everything to be gay”, we’re taking what they’re giving us and running with it.

[crowforinitiative]

Hi crow!! I know you’re moving away from Avantris content, but I just wanted to lyk that you’ve inspired me a lot, especially recently. I didn’t really have the courage to talk about my issues with Avantris and is queer characters because of how anti-criticism the community can be, but seeing someone that I looked up to and who brought me to the fandom also have those opinions helped me a lot.

Not really an ask, just wanted to say hi and thank you!!

Oh wow that's amazing!! I'm glad to have given you the courage you needed!! Yeah Avantris fandom can be scary as HELL sometimes, but I think those discussions are really necessary to keep people grounded. Discovering flaws sometimes just means you have more stuff to play with in terms of "fixing" it--at least that's how I see it hehe...

Happy to hear! ☺️

[crowforinitiative]

this one oughta treat me right

[crowforinitiative]

I think having a healthy recognition of your favorite media's flaws can actually boost your enjoyment in the long run, but my worry is that sometimes people get very defensive when you point out these flaws. I'd like to have a larger discussion about the many flaws in Avantris, but someone stronger than me will have to do it

[crowforinitiative]

Congratulations to Morning Frost for being the first ever nonbinary Avantris character

Edit: didn't think I'd have to specify but this is his official render by saltmatey, I didn't draw it

[crowforinitiative]

I'm getting more into the mechanical side of dnd now that I've grown comfortable with the character creation part, and some of these spells are downright Wacky or just useless. I am never in 10000 years going to need the spell that codes my message for me. There's actually 0 chance the dm even remembers I'm sending this message in the first place while he's juggling 8 other plotlines in the background. Why is there a spell to marry 2 people that gives them an increased armor score??? WHY DOES NO ONE TALK ABOUT UNSEEN SERVANT??

[crowforinitiative]

Thinking about making this acc more general-dnd-focused. Like yes I'll still post Avantris stuff here cuz it's DND related, but I have a lot of other DND thoughts to discuss...

[crowforinitiative]

Still thinking about hopping back on icebound but I keep remembering I left off like. Right after the lighthouse arc or something. Definitely wasn't a very good time to suddenly stop watching methinks