One thing I did NOT realize was going to make me extremely emotional as the second Critical Role campaign draws to a close here is that it’s once again driving home to me how surreal it feels to have Caduceus, confirmed aro/ace protagonist, as one of the main cast members -- and what it says about my relationship with fiction and representation that I get to enjoy the close of this story with so much less apprehension than usual.
Because like. The thing about finales is. They often pull romantic relationships out at the last minute in a way that I really struggle with. “Pair the spares” is a very real thing, and even when stories are better told than that, it is super, super common for a relationship that was well-developed but previously platonic to swing romantic really fast at the end of a story -- because that’s what happens in a happy ending, right? That’s what people are supposed to want, isn’t it?
And yeah, there have absolutely been stories I’ve followed where a main character or two -- or sometimes, though rarely, even more -- that I like a lot has stayed romantically unaffiliated all the way through, but the other thing, the thing where of course they end up in romantic relationship by the end, that’s how it’s supposed to go, happens so dang often that I just... expect it. I go into finales assuming it’s going to happen, with this vague sense of dread that by the time this story ends, there isn’t going to be anyone plausibly like me in it -- which is an awful feeling in general, but made far, far worse by the fact that I know the reason it happens is because people think it’s better, and happier, and more complete for that to be How Stories End -- without people like me in them
It also seems especially common for it to happen in stories that have other queer representation in them -- I don’t know why, exactly, but I do know that all the examples I can think of that have left me feeling the most utterly gut-punched have all been ones that other friends of mine have actually been thrilled over, because there are characters like them in it..... but no one like me. And of course I’m absolutely still happy when they get to have that! It makes me happy too! But it has also left me with this awful feeling that I have to wait my turn to be represented in stories, after everyone else gets it, and be willing to smile and congratulate all these other people even while personally feeling like I’ve had the rug pulled out from under me, over and over again.
So it’s a lot for me to have this story -- which I love! which many of my friends love! which is important to a number of people I know because of all the other kinds of representation in it! -- and get to look at it in this totally different way, where I already know for sure, without that vague dread that I always get when stories I love end, for the very first time in my life, that I will get to be included in the end of this one. I’ve never had that kind of guarantee, and I’ve never realized how much of a weight off my shoulders it is to know already “Someone like you is going to be a part of this happy ending”
Which. Goddamn. Saying that feels good would be an understatement.
