I'm so glad marisha said that THANK YOU THATS EXACTLY WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING
there ARE consequences but we are all the victim of time and human constraints and critical role isn't over!!!! There's more content coming!!! They aren't going anywhere!!! Open ends are great both for them as they create content AND for fans!!! Make your own stories out of the open ends!!! Go forth and keep the world going in your own ways!!!!
None of y'all here know me irl, or even personally on any level online. I'm pretty new to Tumblr lol.
I just wanted to share the story of how I found Critical Role. I'm feeling sappy.
It's gonna be long but here it is:
I started college in 2020. I grew up in a small trad Catholic cult community and had deconstructed and needed to get out of my house. So I decided to live on campus.
I met my roommate on my first day, and we got along amazingly. And she told me she was really into Critical Role and Dungeons & Dragons
I had no idea what that was, but I loved Tolkien and I loved dragons, so it sounded like fun.
But I'm a bit of a hypocritical asshole: I try to convince everyone around me to get into the media I like, while I have little to No Interest At All (usually) to try to get into anything anyone else likes. Most of the time, I simply Do Not Care. (I'm working on it now, but I certainly wasn't back then.)
Anyways. She told me about the entirety of Vox Machina's campaign one night. She had started watching Critical Role about 15 episodes in (of Vox Machina). She's been there since the very beginning, which is very awesome. But I remember very little about the whole conversation, except about 1) the name Briarwood (for some reason I really latched onto that) 2) an evil god thing and 3) Scanlan's Counterspell/Vax's departure.
I moved on.
Until I couldn't stop thinking about D&D. She was in some games, playing online over Discord so I'd overhear about one-sixth of the entire conversation lmao. I loved looking at her dice. I asked to read through her Players Handbook (I got bored quickly at the time lol).
And then, sometime in fall 2021, I asked her how to start watching Critical Role.
She was so excited and put together a whole doc, but ultimately told me I had joined at the perfect time since they just ended a campaign so I wouldn't have to catch up on hundreds of hours, and the second campaign wasn't really linked to the first so I should be fine if I just wanted to start when campaign three started.
So that's what I did.
We watched together for a few weeks, but she was busy working on her degree while I was busy... playing Minecraft and watching YouTube and getting frustrated about school.
I ended up getting very invested very quickly into Bell's Hells, and wanted more content so I binged all of the Mighty Nein in three months. (My reason for MN instead of Vox Machina was that it was a complete campaign, start to finish, and didn't start all the way back in 2015 lol)
And after that I watched Vox Machina.
Things didn't work out with my roommate. I haven't spoken with her in years and we ended on bad terms. I will only say that 19 is a rough age, and I'm sorry for some things I did and said, and also not really sorry for other things. The details of course are all irrelevant, we are all human, and change is inevitable.
Bell's Hells was my first campaign I kept up with in real time. (Except for a six month period I stopped watching, only to catch up and my first live episode back was the one in which FCG died 🧍♀️I'll never forget that.)
And I'm so glad I watched the other campaigns too, because if I hadn't, I would've lost SO MANY REFERENCES LMFAO
It is bittersweet to see it end. I think of the person I was when I started watching Critical Role, and the person I am today, and everything that's happened in between. It's been a wild fucking ride.
To quote another of my comfort media,
"Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you, I have been changed For Good."
Critical Role has been such a shining light in my life these past few years. I've found my role model in life (Caduceus Clay). They've been with me through ups and downs and I've crocheted So. Many. Things. while watching their streams xD.
I struggle to express just how happy I am when I think about them, when I see them, when I consume any sort of content that they and fans post online. It's certainly the most mature fandom I've been in 😬
Anyways.
ALLLLLL of this to say: thank you, Rachel, for introducing me to this amazing community and this wonderful show. Just a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sitting around playing Dungeons & Dragons. I would not be the person I am today if it wasnt for you, and I am so, SO grateful. Thank you. And here's to the next ten years with Critical Role!!!! 🥳🎉🎉🎉
