I have a big long post on the finale that is going up on Monday, but the twitter discourse on one thing in particular has me needing to get some thoughts and feelings out. (Side note: Twitter is a terrible place to attempt to have meaningful conversations about sexuality.) Spoilers for the CR campaign 2 finale will follow.
I’ve seen some critiques about how Caleb and Essek’s relationship was presented during the finale that range from polite disappointment to borderline acephobic. Let’s get into it.
The big issue seems to be that it was “ambiguous” if they were in a relationship or just friends. I have some thoughts on this. While I understand not loving the use of the word “friendship,” Caleb also said something along the lines of “I spend the rest of my days with him, if he’ll have me” which to me screams relationship. I get that MLM relationships are often presented poorly, but in a live play TTRPG nothing is planned out. Their feelings were never verbalized because it never came up. But every forehead touch or kiss on the cheek was a sign of affection, at least the way I saw it. And Liam even said on an episode of Talks Machina that Caleb was attracted to Essek but needed to focus on fixing himself first. I get the argument “if you need to clarify outside of the media then you didn’t do it right” but that applies to tv and movies, not a live action roleplay show that is not scripted. I’m sorry if anyone wanted to actually hear the words “I love you” come out of their mouths. At the point their relationship starts, they are two broken people who probably start off slow and build trust over time. Also keep in mind that they were at the end of a 7 hour session. Sorry if they were a little tired (physically and emotionally) and maybe didn’t words good.
The other thing that really got to me is the amount of entitlement some of the fandom has shown when it comes to the stories Critical Role has presented us, especially when it comes to relationships. I don’t want to generalize that the whole fandom has been awful, but there’s definitely been more than a few bad beans crying they didn’t get what they wanted and tweeting at Matt and Liam they didn’t do it right. These are their characters. This is their story. It is not your place to tell them how to play their characters. One day they are going to decide this isn’t enjoyable anymore and take this beautiful world away from us, and we will 100% deserve it.
I will close by saying, this bi demi girl felt so seen by this couple, and y’all almost had me in tears last night. I went from crying happy tears about demi rep to almost crying actual sad tears because I felt invalidated. We need to be better about politely asking for certain stories and rep without invalidating the relationships and stories we did get. Remember there are actual people behind the screens you’re yelling at. And especially remember what these nerdy voice actors tell us every week:
Don’t forget to love each other.