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Critical Role Finale Feels

This should go without saying, but warning there will be spoilers for the finale of campaign 2. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. And with that….

*screams in Shadowgast and demi*

Ahem. Right then. Getting ahead of myself.

There’s a lot to go over in the 7 hour long finale, but I’m mostly just really excited that everyone got a happy ending, especially a certain wizard boy I was very much routing for. Let’s break it down.

Fjord + Jester – There were so many good moments between them in this one. Jester nervously saying “I love you” and wishing she could take it back, then going to her dad for advice. Fjord setting up that romantic moment in the rain to say it back. The two of them hitting the high seas together. I am very happy they got their happy ending, and hope to see one of their adventures in a comic or some other form one day.

(Side note – I was also happy to see the Parent Trap worked and Marion and The Gentleman were at least testing the waters to see what they could make work. Jester deserves to see her parents happy.)

Beau + Yasha – Beau got some closure regarding her dad and ended up being more respected than he in the end. Meanwhile, Yasha got some closure of her own, revisiting her tribe and being able to properly say goodbye to Zuala. They both rode off into the sunset together and got their happy ending as well. Not much to say there other than “I’m happy for them”.

Cad and Veth both went back to their families and also lived happy lives. I love the idea of Veth starting an adventuring camp for little ones, like her son Luc.

Molly, I’m sorry, Kingsley, got to live the pirate life he missed and discover who he was. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him being a blank slate, but he turned it into an opportunity instead of a reason to mourn. I love the idea of him becoming king of the seas and living his best life.

And then there was Caleb. Of all the ships that potentially could sail, his with Essek was always the longshot for me. I hoped with all my might, but also understood that Caleb and Essek both individually had to work on themselves first. I was so happy to see them both accept that you cannot change the past, only learn from it. I was also very proud of Caleb that he didn’t try to alter himself to live a longer life with Essek. I know a lot of fans wanted it, but it would’ve negated the lessons Calab had learned about bending time and space to suit his needs. He accepted that he needed to live the life he was given and enjoy the moments as they came. I’m very proud of him. I also know there were some who wanted a more explicit showing of affection between them, but again, I think the way Liam and Matt presented it was perfect. At the end of the day all I wanted was for them to be together and happy, and they were. There was also some talk on twitter about Essek being demi which is how I identify so it felt very good to be validated in this way.

I know I was very slow to warm up to this campaign, largely because of my attachment to VM, but also because it just wasn’t the type of story I usually connect with at first. The Might Nein did eventually hit those “found family” feels though, and I was especially validated seeing a wide variety of relationships presented in the end. We had MLM/Demi love, WLM, and a more “traditional” straight couple. Plus some Ace rep from Cad! And of course the group will always stay in touch despite going their separate ways. I can only imagine the future sending messages Jester has for them all.

Thank you Matt and company for giving us these characters and making us feel all of the feels. Let’s do it again sometime.

Shadowgast

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.

Welcome to the Mighty Nein

Monday I mentioned some of my favorite moments from campaign 2 and that one in particular I would do a bonus piece on, so here we go. The following will have spoilers for C2 Ep 97 which was their C2E2 episode. It has only been slightly altered from its original text, which was written the day after the episode aired.

This episode of Critical Role had lots of laughs and two heart-felt moments and ended almost 3am local time so I had no time to process anything, especially THAT LAST SCENE.

Let’s start with how we got to the scene in question. Between high insight and some smart thinking from Liam, we get Frumpkin spying on “Lord Thane” and discovering he is really Essek in disguise. He’s got some secret dealings with the Martinet. Say what?? That reveal by itself had me reeling. I knew there was probably more than straight up BETRAYAL but was still shocked that Essek was the mole this whole time. I wasn’t sure if we’d get more of an explanation during the party, but I loved Jester’s plan to message Essek while around “Lord Thane”. You know what they say about the best made plans of the Mighty Nein though….

Everything falls apart thanks to Veth slipping Thane a paralyzer in his drink, but the Nein does a surprisingly good job of rolling with it and not drawing too much attention. And that brings us to the final scene for the night, where all the cards are on the table.

This scene hit me in the feels in so many different ways. When Essek first starts talking, Matt does such a great job conveying emotion between the visible slump and inflection in his voice. Essek looks so deflated in these first moments that I immediately felt sorry for him. Caleb calling him “friend” when asking what he’s doing digs the knife in my heart a little deeper. You can hear it in his voice that Caleb is clearly hurt by this betrayal. Again, another beautiful bit of acting from these people.

Everyone pitches in to drive the scene forward in their own unique way. Jester and Caleb do most of the heavy lifting asking the most questions, and add a mix of tension and levity by injecting their personalities into their tone. Caduceus helps with a bit of insight on his part during a moment where Essek pauses by saying, “If he says it out loud he’s not going to like who he is”. Way to break both Essek and the entire audience with that one.

With that little push, Essek breaks down The Plan. He gave two beacons to the Assembly, for research purposes from what I gathered. When the Mighty Nein shows up to return one of the beacons, he decides he needs to keep an eye on them and oopsie daisy ended up liking them. He repeatedly says this is “Not part of the plan” and you can tell by the way he says it that he generally feels bad. Notice how I’m focusing on story here instead of acting choices? That’s because at this point I’m so immersed I can barely remember this is a bit of theater we’re watching. Nope, these people are real and I am very invested in their problems and what happens next.

I’m also going to pause for a moment to say that as he’s describing why he first started keeping tabs on the Nein is when I realize how much I’ve fallen in love with Jester in recent episodes with one single response.

Essek: I needed to make sure you didn’t get too close.

Jester (singing): backfired

Me: Goddamn do I love her ❤️

Essek goes on to essentially say he already told them what his goals were, he just didn’t reveal until now how far he’d gone to achieve them. Caleb drops to his knees to force Essek to look him in the eye. This is the part I am obsessed with and probably will still be thinking about for a long time. I noticed the similarities in what Essek had been saying about himself and Caleb’s past, and apparently Caleb did too. Caleb was like Essek, but friendship changed him. “These people changed me,” he says earnestly. There are too many good lines from this speech to repeat them all. Liam is such a good actor, and it really came shining out in this scene. At this moment I notice all sound has been sucked out of the room. I almost forgot it was a live show, it was so quiet. It erupts in cheers as Caleb concludes his speech by kissing Essek between the eyes and saying, “Maybe you and I are both damned. But we can choose to do something and leave it better than it was before.”

I’m not crying, you’re crying 😭

Essek was a loner. He never had to worry about anyone he cared about getting hurt. Now he has this group of friends that clearly care about him and he cares about them and feels terribly they are now in danger because of his actions.

As they move on to the resolution of this scene, it is revealed that there is no espionage plan regarding the beacon or the meeting. Those involved are just trying to put the pieces back together. You can hear the relief in Essek’s voice as he realizes the M9 are going to follow the plan and not snitch on him.

As Veth mentions how much she’d like to be able to use this to get the others involved in trouble (Trent is one of the people involved and I’d also love to see him burn) I am wondering if down the road Essek will end up somehow helping Caleb in some kind of revenge or final showdown with Trent. The balance of power has definitely shifted, and Essek owes them big time for their silence.

We close with three great moments that pulled at my heartstrings even more:

Essek saying he has “far more allegiance to the Nein than to his country or any Dynasty”

More talk of them being friends. They really drove that point home because he needed to hear it, and my heart was mush by the end.

The final speech from Veth, which I took the time to copy down because I loved it so much,

“You are a broken person who had ill intentions and wandered aimlessly into a path you had no idea how to complete, and yet somehow along the way you found a heart. You sound like all of us. Welcome to the Mighty Nein.”

I close with some final thoughts. First, Caleb had the chance to take down Trent with the information Essek gave him, but he didn’t take it. He chose friendship over revenge. Everyone in the group has grown a lot over almost 100 episodes, but he has grown the most. It’s incredibly heartwarming to see this broken, shell of a man get slowly put back together again through the power of friendship. Second, I praised Liam and Matt on twitter last night, but the entire cast deserves credit for their incredible acting. A lot of emotion was packed in that final scene. It was so good that I rewatched it again this morning. I was very slow to warm to campaign two, but now that the group has grown as people and is starting to become more of a family I am fully invested in this story and cannot wait to see where it takes them next. And I especially can’t wait to see what part Essek plays in all of it. This is one of the few NPCs I have truly fallen in love with, and while there are others I like plenty well enough, after last night I would die to protect my sad drow boy who finally found his family.

Note: Future me now looks at this and smiles, because at the end of the day Essek was the only one there to help them in their final fight. He stayed true to his word that his loyalty was with them, and truly became a member of the Mighty Nein in the end. I’m sure I’ll have more to say after the finale tonight.

For now, don’t forget to love each other, and don’t worry, it’s almost Thursday.

Monday Musings: Mighty Nein Edition

This week will see the end of campaign 2 of Critical Role, so I wanted to take a look back at the Mighty Nein and their journey. There will be many spoilers for all of campaign 2 and some for campaign 1. You have been warned.

When the campaign first started I will admit that I had a hard time connecting to these characters. Campaign 1 meant a lot to me, but I’ve seen them play one shots and loved those too. I think the problem was that they spend a very long time keeping secrets and not trusting each other. When Molly died there were tears, sure, but I didn’t feel as deeply upset as when Percy or Vex died in C1 (and those characters were able to be revived). Over time I did start becoming more attached and invested, but it took a long time. I think right before when the peace negotiations were underway is when I started really getting into things, followed by Traveler Con to the end. Basically Laura Bailey won d&d with a cupcake, and Jester won my heart.

After that there are so many great moments. Caleb gave a great speech to Essek which I wrote a whole piece on because it was THAT GOOD. (I posted it on twitter but never here. Maybe that can be a bonus post later this week.) We got to see who the Traveler really was and meet Keyleth’s mom. Two great ships sailed that I was hoping for (Fjord/Jester and Yasha/Beau). And then there was Lucien.

When Lucien first rose from Molly’s grave the entire fandom got excited at the idea of Molly coming back. Personally I loved the idea of them having to fight Lucien and come to terms with the fact Molly was gone, and worried the fandom would react poorly to this storyline. Last week was the Boss Battle with Lucien, and a failed attempt at a resurrection seemed to have the story end with Molly at peace. I could have been happy with that, but then Talisien had to pull a Hail Mary and get the second divine intervention from the Wildmother. Part of me feels like this is an appropriate ending, as the Mighty Nein now officially have nine members. Part of me feels sad for Molly going back to being an empty vessel. I hope this week we see him gain some memories of his friends and get to live his life the way he always wanted to – leaving the world a little better. We could all use that feeling of hope and accomplishment right now.

In Defense of The Traveler (Cr C2 Ep 107)

Credit: @Madartsyworks https://twitter.com/madartsyworks/status/1303422861374177280?s=21

There’s a saying: better late than never. This is what I tell myself every time I give myself a deadline that I miss, and it applies to the following words I have regarding episode 107 of Critical Role: specifically regarding a certain conversation between Jester and the Traveler towards the end. I pulled some choice quotes for my own reference, but in general this conversation is everything I wanted from them. I love how sincere it is but still has the jovial nature their relationship is based on. Most importantly, between this and the actions the Traveler makes in the next episode, I think I can say without a doubt that, while he might be an agent of chaos and a troublemaker, he is not looking to hurt anyone. At least not in a malicious way, and especially not Jester or her friends. If you want a sense of his motivations, you simply have to listen to what he says. Never forget that Archfey can’t lie. They choose their words very carefully, and Matt is a calculated enough DM who plans far enough ahead that I believe everything you need to know about Artagan is in what he says to Jester in their moments alone. Especially two lines in particular:

“As much as I’ve guided you through the years, don’t think you haven’t guided me”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone, not intentionally”

I pulled far more than this from their conversation, but these two lines give you everything you need to know about him. 1) Jester has changed him since we first met him back in campaign 1, and 2) He is not malicious in his intent. I think Artagan truly thought dropping people on an island where they would forget about him was his way of setting them free and fixing his mistake. I don’t think he saw it as endangering anyone. I also don’t think he expected Jester to ever be in real danger, either because he trusted in her ability to take care of herself, or because he was prepared to save her if needed.

There is another saying: actions speak louder than words. And since I waited an extra week to write this, we got some real clear signals that Artagan cares about Jester, as he was not prepared for her to risk her life to save him. He accepted the mistakes he made and was prepared to deal with the consequences on his own. I am very glad Jester managed to use her words to save him, and that they don’t have to separate. I know a lot of people asked “what happens next” but I don’t see much changing between them, other than Jester now knows that whatever spark the Traveler gave her was a boost. He lit the spark, but she grew into the person she is now all on her own. I look forward to see her continue to grow as a person, and see how much more influence she has on Artagan’s arc. I appreciate her friends and fans ready to thrown down to protect her, but ultimately I just want her to be happy. Right now, the Mighty Nein and Artagan both make her happy. I want to see them continue on their journey, and let chaos reign.

Why I Love Critical Role

I’m going to start by saying that in my brain this article started with how different shows have different fans and how the fanbase can add or detract from the enjoyment of a thing. It quickly turned into the story about how Critical Role changed my life and became one of my favorite things on the planet – and how that was just as much about the people involved in the show as the content of the show itself.

Where to begin? I guess I should start by telling you a little bit about my current obsession (and the subject of this article) – Critical Role. It’s a show on Geek & Sundry’s Twitch channel about a bunch of nerdy voice actors who play D&D together (Dungeons & Dragons for all the non-nerds in the room). Each episode seems like a commitment as they range anywhere between 3-5 hrs long, but as they say, “Time flies when you’re having fun”. I don’t think I’ve ever watched an episode that felt like it dragged, even a little. The show is a ton of fun. You can tell that even the cast is having a blast. There have been many nights where even though it was getting late and some of them had early call times for other projects, they still get disappointed when they have to wrap up for the week. This is thanks in equal parts to the fact they are all a bunch of friends getting paid to have fun, and their DM Matthew Mercer is a great storyteller. This last fact is another part of the reason episodes fly by, despite their lengthiness.

Now that I’ve given you an idea what the show is about and how much I love it, I would like to talk about their fanbase (or Critters as we call ourselves). Critters are some of the best group of people on the internet. They have formed a community that communicates on a Facebook fan page as well as their own subreddit. Every week on Thursday night they gather together to watch the show and talk about what’s happening. True there will always be some bad eggs on the internet, but for the most part they are the kindest and most supportive group of fans I’ve ever met. It got me thinking about the last thing I obsessed over – Doctor Who. Don’t get me wrong, I’m probably one of the few people left on the planet that has zero complaints about this show, but the fans have never been the best. Maybe it’s just the negative ones are louder in this group where the positive Critters rise to the top in that circle, but I definitely have noticed way more negativity in the DW community than the Critter nation. Thinking about this made me appreciate the Critters even more, because it’s so rare to see a bunch of strangers be this nice to each other.

I want to close with one last reason I appreciate CR so much, and that is the effect the positivity surrounding it has had on the fans’ lives. I know that when I’m having a bad mental health day my first thought is to throw on an episode of CR. They recently put together a fan video where people sent in snippets of what Crit Role meant to them, and I was brought to tears at how many people said it literally saved their lives. This community has given people with no hope something to look forward to and a reason to keep going – one week at a time. That in itself is amazing, but what’s even greater is how much the cast truly cares about the fans and are truly happy to be making a difference. Obviously this was not their intention going in, but now that they see how much power they have to make a difference they actually try to use that to make good things happen. Whether it’s a charity drive during a stream or reaching out on social media, these people don’t just hide from the world when they’re not on stream. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside to know there’s this thing that connects a bunch of strangers in a positivite way, and that there’s a corner of the internet where a majority of people don’t suck. Times being what they are, this is needed now more than ever. With that I have only one thing to ask:

Is it Thursday yet?