Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer...

++ The trailer for Critical Role's 4th campaign was revealed, with the premiere date of October 2nd. That's very soon, much sooner than I had thought. Not that I'm complaining, of course. After my complicated feelings regarding the third campaign, I'm ready for this refreshing switch-up. I've already seen the character art, and listening to Brennan's monologue in the trailer it certainly has piqued my curiosity on what the campaign is going to be about.

++ The newest addition to the V/H/S franchise, V/H/S/Halloween, has also released a trailer and will be premiering October 3rd. I had no idea that there was another one already, but I'm not entirely shocked either. This features two of my favorite things: the V/H/S franchise and Halloween. I'm all in.

++ As I've been catching up with snowflake_challenge, I've also been using this opportunity to comment on people's posts who participated in the challenge. It's something I haven't done before from the previous years of doing Fandom Snowflake, mainly being rather nervous and awkward with interacting with someone who I didn't know, but this being a fandom event part of the reason why these things exist is to be interactive with one another. It's part of the reason why I miss that sense of community, what I used to do on LJ plenty of times. I like being able to talk with people about fandom things, and this is a good way of doing so.

This is definitely a process that I'm relearning myself. As someone who constantly harps on wanting more of a fandom community in these kinds of spaces, I need to do my part in making that happen, and part of my goals for this year and the future is to do that, which I am.

++ Critical Role wrapped its third campaign. I kinda stopped watching midway through and only paid attention to the highlights of what was going on, and the finale episode was eight hours long (why they couldn't have split it into two four hour long episodes, I don't know). Most of my thoughts are jumbled to make coherent sense and I'll make a longer post soon, but my brief overall feelings about this campaign can be summed up to this:

( Not wholly positive, but not wholly negative either. )

++ I don't care about football or the Super Bowl, but that Kendrick Lamar halftime show segment? *chefs kiss*

++ Good Omens has scrapped its planned third season and the show will end with just having one 90 minute "episode" (really just a movie wrap-up) due to the multiple sexual abuse allegations against Neil Gaiman. I've only read the book, which I enjoyed, but had no interest in watching the show so I have no horse in this race.

++ The Legend of Vox Machina has been renewed for a fourth season, which is unsurprising since it seems to be doing quite well, especially with bringing in newcomers to the story. I do have thoughts on what's been happening so far with it, since they have changed certain arcs and directions in the story including particular powerful character moments which has a bit of mixed reactions from fans, but overall I know that with any adaptation there will be changes to fit a new medium. Critical Role has over 400 hours worth of material from its first campaign alone, and only having thirteen half-hour seasons to go through and pick out which pivotal moments to leave in to keep the story going. Much of their game was streamed live and had such amazing moments improv'd, it's hard to recreate that kind of energy when doing an animated series of that campaign. What worked for their streaming might not always work when animated, it won't hit the same way especially much of it was based on the cast reactions to in-game decisions and dice rolls. Furthermore, Ashley Johnson was gone during the campaign most of the time whereas the animated series is allowing Pike to actually have an active arc that she never got to participate in.

At the end of the day, it's good to remember that the animated series is an extremely condensed version of the game itself, and while it's okay to feel disappointed in what was changed the actual campaign they played hasn't gone away and can still be rewatched.

( Is it Thursday yet? )

My Comments: Critical Role is an actual play TTRPG show, specifically of Dungeons & Dragons, that first started streaming their already ongoing campaign in 2015. It has since grown into something much bigger than they had ever anticipated. This fanvid is more of a celebration of where it all began and why I began watching in the first place, which was for the people involved and how engaging they were at telling this story. It only focuses on the first campaign, and at least midway through the first campaign, which is where I started when it was airing, so there aren't much spoilers. For those who have only seen The Legend of Vox Machina and know nothing about Critical Role, this will be a great fanvid to watch just to see the energy these people put out.

I also added a bonus video that is basically a supercut of all of the characters attempting to say Percy's full name. Just because.