Resident Angry Queer

[alphacrone]

as a child i assumed that martha’s vineyard was a fancy private vineyard owned by martha stewart and the reason rich people vacationed there was because they were friends with martha

[depsidase]

[headspace-hotel]

[katacala]

Something that gave H.P. Lovecraft nightmares is the work of my favorite artist. In "At the Mountains of Madness" he specifically mentions "the strange and disturbing Asian paintings of Nicholas Roerich."

This is what Roerich's paintings look like:

[chaifootsteps]

#hp lovecraft thought penguins were grotesque and horrifying#he was not a difficult man to frighten

[mylordshesacactus]

"We would REALLY appreciate your hospitality." "Yes please. I just got beat like a tetherball by sabertoothed Alpine orangutans."

[mylordshesacactus]

"Good grief counseling can prevent wickerman bullshit."

[mylordshesacactus]

"Don't worry about [Monk]. He's on our si--well. He's norma--well. [long pause] He's with us."

[mylordshesacactus]

"We need you...to let us into the Amber Temple...so that we can destroy the Star Forge."

[mylordshesacactus]

DM: The guards would like to know what you're doing here. Badly Concussed Cleric: [woozily] Bleeding, mostly.

[mylordshesacactus]

I'm being mocked in the groupchat.

[mylordshesacactus]

Atri: Okay, my HP max was cut in half yesterday but I'm at my full possible maximum. I can take a hit or two and this enemy clumping is too perfect to not take advantage of Spirit Guardians. I'll only be in melee range of two of them, this will be fine!

Enemies Revealing They Have Multiattack:

[mylordshesacactus]

I'm being mocked in the groupchat.

[mylordshesacactus]

"The Klingon religion has syncretized with the worship of Bahamut and the Morninglord is involved somehow. So...Kahless now has a golden dragon. And is Catholic?"

--This is just canonically how religion in Barovia works

[mylordshesacactus]

"At this point even if you had money, you are a day's travel up a mountain." "Yeah, but we could be a day's travel up a mountain with MONEY."

--Good-natured bitching about the loot drop rate in Curse of Strahd

[mylordshesacactus]

"If I got eaten by Elon Musk before we got a chance to fight Dracula, I WOULD be upset."

[doctorwhowatchesthewatchmen]

the circus is empty, all of the monkeys are here

[luimnigh]

So like...

Are the Gods like a recurring theme in Critical Role? Because we have the Whispered One rebelling against the Gods here, I know that a rebellion against the Gods happens in Campaign 3, and my understanding is that Campaign 4 is set in a world where the Gods are Dead.

[jcogginsa]

My understanding is that the Gods in Campaigns one and two were there but handled in a more typical to DnD way. And that the Adaptations are changing their presentations a bit to help make the Campaign three rebellion feel more natural.

Though take that with a grain of salt, as my main source here is people who didn't like the Campaign three stuff complaining about the changes.

[luimnigh]

Ah.

...so what was the original endgame of Vox Machina like? Did it just end with the Dragons?

[mylordshesacactus]

That's....not really accurate honestly.

No, the original endgame of Vox Machina very much was the Whispered One, with the core themes 100% intact--the "changes" in the show are entirely because, as with every other arc, the campaign arcs followed TTRPG logic and pacing.

(Not a criticism. It was a TTRPG. Different mediums NEED to follow different rules.)

In fact most of the changes and 'retcons' in the show are really just turning the pacing into anything that makes ANY narrative sense outside of a wargame. That, and taking the opportunity to make forward references--now that they're crafting a coherent narrative and Matt has had a chance to do more in-depth original worldbuilding as Exandria and its theology expands into more of their own thing rather than just D&D Setting TM.

It's very obvious in both the show and the campaigns (and VERY sweet honestly) that Matt absolutely ADORES the Raven Queen in her classic incarnation and has continued to expand her importance. I also think it is, at best, intellectually dishonest to say that the portrayal of the gods "changed" in C3. They were really just being engaged with differently.

(D&D People TM in my experience are fundamentally allergic to a) the idea that other tables might run the gods differently than you b) the idea that gods are personifications of ideas, and can and SHOULD embody all facets of those ideas.

The sun is beautiful and life-giving and brings hope and exposes cruelty to the light. It will also kill you. Spend too much time too close to its power and you will get burned. The gods are people but they're also not. There are people who simply cannot handle hearing that without whining that they're chaaaaaaanging iiiiiit, they're ruuuuuuuuuinging the loooooooooooore because the sun god is eeeeeeeeevil now.)

Anyway. Tl;dr yes, the role and nature of the gods, what they represent and how, what it means and what worship means and whether or not you think they deserve it, is something that Critical Role has always been interested in.

[mylordshesacactus]

I'm also gonna be like SO honest here--a LOT of people seem to have completely missed an incredibly unsubtle and massive hint as to the Matron's backstory (a piece of phrasing you haven't hit yet so I won't spoil anything but one that had #RealRavenQueenFans FREAKING THE FUCK OUT) and have concluded as a result that she's being portrayed as way more evil than in the source material.

I'm just saying right now outright y'all are wrong.

[luimnigh]

So like...

Are the Gods like a recurring theme in Critical Role? Because we have the Whispered One rebelling against the Gods here, I know that a rebellion against the Gods happens in Campaign 3, and my understanding is that Campaign 4 is set in a world where the Gods are Dead.

[jcogginsa]

My understanding is that the Gods in Campaigns one and two were there but handled in a more typical to DnD way. And that the Adaptations are changing their presentations a bit to help make the Campaign three rebellion feel more natural.

Though take that with a grain of salt, as my main source here is people who didn't like the Campaign three stuff complaining about the changes.

[luimnigh]

Ah.

...so what was the original endgame of Vox Machina like? Did it just end with the Dragons?

[mylordshesacactus]

That's....not really accurate honestly.

No, the original endgame of Vox Machina very much was the Whispered One, with the core themes 100% intact--the "changes" in the show are entirely because, as with every other arc, the campaign arcs followed TTRPG logic and pacing.

(Not a criticism. It was a TTRPG. Different mediums NEED to follow different rules.)

In fact most of the changes and 'retcons' in the show are really just turning the pacing into anything that makes ANY narrative sense outside of a wargame. That, and taking the opportunity to make forward references--now that they're crafting a coherent narrative and Matt has had a chance to do more in-depth original worldbuilding as Exandria and its theology expands into more of their own thing rather than just D&D Setting TM.

It's very obvious in both the show and the campaigns (and VERY sweet honestly) that Matt absolutely ADORES the Raven Queen in her classic incarnation and has continued to expand her importance. I also think it is, at best, intellectually dishonest to say that the portrayal of the gods "changed" in C3. They were really just being engaged with differently.

(D&D People TM in my experience are fundamentally allergic to a) the idea that other tables might run the gods differently than you b) the idea that gods are personifications of ideas, and can and SHOULD embody all facets of those ideas.

The sun is beautiful and life-giving and brings hope and exposes cruelty to the light. It will also kill you. Spend too much time too close to its power and you will get burned. The gods are people but they're also not. There are people who simply cannot handle hearing that without whining that they're chaaaaaaanging iiiiiit, they're ruuuuuuuuuinging the loooooooooooore because the sun god is eeeeeeeeevil now.)

Anyway. Tl;dr yes, the role and nature of the gods, what they represent and how, what it means and what worship means and whether or not you think they deserve it, is something that Critical Role has always been interested in.

[bogleech]

"uh ohhhhhh!!!!" - a oyster when this happens ill bet

[bogleech]

It's just that theyll grow on anything solid and they have flotation bladders to keep them upright, like a lot of seaweed, so when they get big enough they can float away with whatever they're growing on, like small rocks or broken coral. But they got called oyster thiefs because you notice this phenomenon most if your livelihood depends on farming creatures that are also roughly similar to small rocks.

[poondragoon]

Ochrophytes stole my oyster harvest. Can't have shit in Cornwall 😤

[flipomatic]

Gabrielle's sneak attacks

Bonus: