Listen, Matt Mercer Is, Respectfully, A Beautiful Man As He Is. But Matt Mercer As Amodeus? Holy Fucking

"Vax coming back wouldn't be narratively satisfying!" is a take I keep seeing so it's time for my daily reminder:

This narrative does not exist to satisfy you.

This is a group of people you don't know who have been kind enough to share their personal, deeply emotional DnD campaigns will an audience. If Matthew Mercer decides that its worth it to let his friends have a happily ever after including Vax - you're just gonna have to suck it up. If it bothers you so much that you have to write full-length essays on Tumblr, or, god forbid , harass the CAST, go make some friends and run your own campaign. Or write a fucking fanfic.

Batoctober day one 🤧🤧. I don't know, I could think of anything other than the bastard Batman Who Laughs.

Honestly? I haven't taken a drawing "seriously" for a year or two.

Credits to @dariapencommissions they is the one who created the event.

So, day one complete !

"Whitestone Endures..."

HAPPY SATURDAY I CAN'T BELIEVE I'VE DONE THIS!!! And it's not DONE done, not yet. I still need to make the armor, but the clothes are pretty much done and I am THRILLED! I got so excited to finish this because it reminds me of when I first started cosplaying. I bought the accessories, but I am not a seamstress so I thrifted/found the clothes and painted the jacket for this.

When I wanted to cosplay Neon Katt and Nora Valkyrie from RWBY back in 2017/2018, buying the costumes outright wasn't really an option so I had to buy/find regular clothes and alter them. I still don't OFTEN outright buy full costumes and even more rarely do I use EVERY piece of a bought costume, unaltered, but getting together a bunch of unrelated pieces and making them a cohesive costume just feels like so much more of an accomplishment to me! So I'm thrilled I got to do this like this! I found the white jacket at the thrift store for LITERALLY a dollar and painted the collar and then a friend sent me the blue dress because she ended up not using it for level 13 Imogen.

The armor is NOT going to be quite this simple but I have a bit of a plan and we'll see how it works out! I'm also starting on Level 20 Percy for my fiance so HOPEFULLY Lord and Lady de Rolo will be out and about for Anime Frontier! (Why so late in the year? Well, you'll see 👀🤫)

Thirty years plus inflation...

I forgot I have this

Although brief,it was kinda weird seeing Matt as Asmodeus instead of Brennen.

My favourite style of comic <3<3

Just started watching ep. 118 (yes I know I'm behind, I've been busy playing Prey and writing essays on Octavia Butler with life) and in listening to Ludinus' monologue I had a thought about a specific disconnect that cause many, in universe as well of out of it, to view the gods as tyrants. Imogen points it out when Ludinus laments about his family being collateral damage in the battle between the Lawbearer and the Crawling King: would he rather the Crawling King have been unleashed on the world to wreak havoc uncontested? (to which his response was a long silence and glaring at her)

It’s an inability to understand and accept the true scale and nuance the gods operate on, and in doing so choosing to place individual suffering and slights over ultimate consequences that may, and often do, affect the entire world. Yes it’s horrible that the gods struck down Aeor - but they were defending themselves against a weapon of mass destruction, and any other action would have been akin to lining themselves up to be shot. Yes it sucks that the Titans, who were there first, were killed - but they were trying to exterminate all mortals. Yes the deaths during the Calamity were unforgivable - but the alternative would've been to let the Betrayers kill everyone. Yes it’s horrible that the primes wouldn’t let their champions oppose Lolth in taking Opal - but they are in the middle of a battle for the world in which all hands are needed, and losing champions to a minor skirmish when they want the same thing would be pointless. Yes it’s unfair that the gods won’t personally step in and help every little person suffering, such as Ashton and Laudna - but they're literally gods responsible for the lives and afterlives of millions, and also separated by the Divine Gate, which was literally erected to protect mortals from the fallout of too much divine meddling.

When pressed, Ludinus switches to saying that it isn't the collateral itself that is the problem, but that the gods won’t personally remember and beg forgiveness for every single life lost. In saying this, he also claims that he is different - but is he? Does he honor the lives of Orym's family? The children tortured under Trent and other suffering caused by the Cerberus Assembly? The thousands lost in the war between the Empire and the Dynasty because he wanted his own beacon? The entire city of Molaesmyr? Does he even remember the many individuals indoctrinated into his cult and lost in the ensuing battle?

In the end, it isn't about collateral, or honoring those sacrificed. It's that he finds his suffering uniquely bad, and his goals uniquely warranted. Only HE (and people who want the same exact thing as him) has the right to make desicions that affect all of Exandria.

There won't be another Aeor now, because Aeor was a very specific kind of tragedy, wherein the gods prioritized their own survival over the survival of huge swathes of mortals. They had choice after choice after choice where they could have diverted to a more merciful path. Even in the very last moments, they could have just destroyed the Factorum Malleus and spared the rest of the city, and found another way to deal with the knowledge that had been disseminated. But they chose their own immediate security over the lives of every regular person in Aeor, every refugee and civilian and child. The Primes may love mortals, may work to protect them, but when it comes down to it, they will choose themselves (and their Betrayer kin!) every time. It is love with a very big caveat.

Two thirds of the world's population died in the Calamity because the Betrayers were initially banished, not destroyed. The gods say they cannot let any of the Betrayers die because they might need them if a bigger threat arises, but what good does that potential possible protection do Exandria if their warring wipes the world out now? Why should anyone, god or mortal, expect that the Betrayers would help fend off such a threat anyway, when they very clearly want the Primes and all mortals dead? There was so much emphasis in Downfall on how, despite it all, the Primes and Betrayers are family and the Primes cannot let that go. It's hard to take Ayden at face value when he says that they need the Betrayers, in the light of that. SILAHA says "That's all our problem. It's all about ourselves. At least I have the, well, confidence to actually accept it." And that's the truth of their motivation that their actions indicate in Downfall.

The Arch Heart and the Matron explicitly told the Hells that the world was on the cusp of another Calamity. Except for those two, when confronted with the possibility of Predathos, the gods wanted to chose, once again, to sacrifice the lives of countless mortals in order to protect themselves. The Divine Gate is meant to stop another Calamity, but now we know that they are willing to tear it down to save themselves. So Calamity is the threat that hangs over the world much more immediately than potential cosmic horrors.

I don't think anyone is out here saying that this plan with the gods becoming mortal means that there will never be any danger to Exandria again. There ARE terrible threats that exist, like the Chained Oblivion and there are almost certainly more that exist out is the cosmos that are currently unknown. Predathos might eat those or it might not, we don't actually know. There absolutely will be more evil mortals, just as there will be mortal heroes to stop them, as they always have. This is not the creation of utopia. It's the aversion of another apocalypse.

But something that struck me, at least, about Aeor, something that I think often get lost underneath all the other debate, under the focus on hubris, is the stark fact that mortal understanding grew to the point where they could create a weapon that could kill a god. That's incredible. If the gods saw mortal understanding reach so far and instead of saying "you are children and cannot comprehend and so we will strike your knowledge from the world because it is too dangerous for you," said "you are our children and you are growing up, perhaps we should help you understand" what might mortal innovation have accomplished? What solutions would mortal creativity come up with that might have surprised their creators? If the gods chose to treat mortal attempts to understand with encouragement instead of condescension, what might the Cassida Previns of the world built?

You say that level of power has to exist to fight off the next eldritch horror that arrives. Why does that power have to be concentrated in a small handful of gods above any sort of accountability? Why can't it be power distributed amongst a larger number of mortals, defending themselves? Why can't it be mortals, no longer children to be shielded but instead come into their ascendancy to fully inherit the world and its responsibilities? Why can't mortals be equal to the gods, not in the sense sought by those power-hungry mages, but as a collective, with the gods reborn among them and treating them, as it were, as adults, who might come to understand?

In the final narration for Downfall, Brennan says:

"In short, brief life can even the infinite change, realize, recognize, commit to something new, singular. To move forward on the paths of destiny and fate, changed."

And I think this choice being given to the gods to become mortal again, beyond just giving them the ability to survive at the cost of their power, is also offering them the chance to learn and grow the way mortals do again. Being mortal in their quest to destroy Aeor, ending even as it did in something horrific, did actually change them enough that they created the Divine Gate. That was a sacrifice and it was better than what was before it. But it was not enough and now that the flaws in that approach have become clear, it's time to look for another path. Mortality offers that. And I think seeing how mortality could change them further will be a hell of a story, and I'm looking forward to it.

Anyway, I don't particularly think this is going to convince you or anything, you seem pretty mad, but it's fun to talk about this stuff, and you gave me an excuse, so thanks.

Damn, Vordo (And I assume Ethedok) have been trapped in Predathos' stomach being slowly digested for millennia or even eons? And Bells Hells wanted to risk condemning the rest of the Gods to this fate? Cuz reasons? What the fuck guys?!

(Not to mention this does count as attempted Genocide, the Gods are a species, they (were) ?Born? ?Created? ?Always Existed? ?Sprung into being? like this, so it is a bit discriminatory to be like; No! Bad! Kill them all! Just putting that out there...)

Yes, they are more powerful than mortals. Someone is always going to be more powerful than you, it's unfair, that's life. With all the Gods gone, someone will still be more powerful than you. OR you'll be more powerful than them. Something WILL fill the power vacuum and to pretend it won't is foolish. (Everything will be sunshine and roses comparatively until the eldritch abominations from the astral plane or wherever find Exandria and decide to make a new home with all the tasty snacks on it now that BH has (potentially) driven away the planet's most powerful defenders). And let's be real, the power structure set up Exandria has (had?) going with the Divine Gate and divine and arcane magic is about as good as it's ever going to get with a species and power difference that vast imho.

This hatred of the Gods I've seen both in the campaign and from some fans is the exact same sort of hatred Lex Luther has for Superman if we're being real. He hates Superman because he's stronger and faster and could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and almost no one could stop him. And I get that feeling, it's understandable. No one likes feeling small or powerless. But Superman doesn't WANT to do any of that, and it's not his fault he has superpowers.

The light of our yellow sun grants Superman's powers, like the collision with Reality granted the God's domains of power to them. And the only times there is terrible damage and trauma and strife is when Luthor picks a fight and then there are city blocks leveled. Meanwhile Superman is like, hey, would you please chill, I really don't want to be a dictator or anything I swear, I just want to rescue kittens from trees and stop bank robbers and prevent the occasional alien invasion. The only difference as far as I can tell, is that Superman is the main character of his story, and The Exandrian Pantheon aren't the main characters of this one.

And before anyone says anything, Yes, the Calamity was the Gods fighting each other, but I just want to remind everyone once again, that mortals are the ones that kicked that event off in style. The Betrayer Gods were in jail, they were dealt with. Vespin Chloras and The Ring of Brass majorly fucked the world over. (The Ring of Brass also helped save the world, but they helped almost destroy it first so it kind of evens out a bit I guess lol. Is that how that math works? That doesn't feel right.)

As for everyone chanting that the Primes should have just killed the Betrayers... for starters, are you also this pro death penalty in real life? I highly doubt it just based on CR's core demographics lmfao. And second, they already explained that there were some threats in the universe that required the combined might of all of them to face. And I am NOT convinced that they only meant Predathos. That is one hell of a gamble to assume that! (Not to mention they're family and the sole survivors of a terrible cataclysm and refugees in a strange land and they love/hate each other).

Long spiel short, yikes! BH might be the bad guys. Uh Oh!

(I know they were talking about controlling it, but like, how? And to do what? Chase the Gods away? And for how long? Forever? Seems like a somewhat ill-conceived plan lol).