It amazes me that people like you get upvoted with your vague appeals to authority and grandstanding.

Orion's statement had numerous, factual contradictions to his own previous statements and actions, and indeed even within that very same statement of his. It didn't add up, and people that want to ignore the very clear signs of tension, public comments, and actions of those involved don't get to re-write the reality of the situation and wag their fingers at those that don't agree.

During and immediately after separating "amicably," Orion deleted Tiberius art and references from his social media accounts, added "pariah" to his Twitter bio, deleted his Facebook account (and then made a new one), stated on his own stream that he was strapped for income (and needed to get subscribers), talked about needing work, made Facebook posts and Tweets about not trusting nor having friends in the industry, and a short time later released his own Spotify playlist littered with thinly-veiled songs giving the finger to his former castmates. His statement about why he left Critical Role directly contradicts nearly everything that he did immediately after his departure.

Meanwhile, apart from the announcements on stream and a request to respect the situation by Matt, the entire cast was silent on the matter. There was no outpouring of affection. There was no encouragement to go and check out Chalk Talk. There was no cheeky back and forth on social media about new show developments.

Orion's statement implies that his separation from the show was somewhat similar to Ashley's. Except Ashley was given a proper send-off during the story arc, said her goodbyes on stream, is often referenced during sessions, and the production bends over backwards to get her on the show any time an opportunity arises.

What happened with Ashley is exactly how a player amicably fading into the background is handled by this production crew. What happened with Orion is what happens when an employee/employer is separated, either by resignation or termination.

Both situations happen every single day in millions of workplaces around the world. In the first situation, someone gets a better job, puts in their two weeks notice, says goodbye to everyone on their last day on the job, still pops in from time to time to say hello to everybody, and even occasionally picks up an extra shift. In the other situation, an employee disappears on a Wednesday after previously being written up by his boss a couple times and taking a few days of "vacation," his locker/cubicle are immediately cleaned out by security, and the boss sends out an email to all employees stating that he is no longer with the company.

Sorry, but the "pariah" thing wouldn't have happened if it was amicable. His departure wouldn't be announced, without his presence, on extremely short notice. He wouldn't abruptly leave in the middle of a story arc. The castmates wouldn't somberly and silently avoid eye contact with the camera while Mercer announces the separation on the show. His former castmates wouldn't, by and large, publicly ignore his existence, neither on social media nor on the show itself. He wouldn't have deleted social media accounts and removed all references to Tiberius. If Orion truly was so busy with other projects, he wouldn't be focusing nearly 100% of his public creative efforts on Tiberius projects. If he was so busy with work, he wouldn't immediately be talking about financial stress. Someone so busy and wanting to move on to other opportunities doesn't enroll in an Acting 101 class. He wouldn't release a playlist of songs that are almost all a big FU to whatever folks he felt wronged him. His former DM wouldn't later state that someone fudged dice rolls and would NEVER appear on the show again, implying it was Orion (unless you think Wheaton, Kit Buss, or Felicia Day were who he was talking about...lol).

This is totally ignoring the outright conflict between Orion and Matt on stream, Orion and the rest of the cast, Orion and critters on Twitter, and a number of circumstantial things that, when pieced together for the bigger picture, gives us a pretty clear idea that there was something rotten in Denmark.

We'll never know the fine details, but it is very clear that this was an unplanned separation that both sides have less than positive feelings about. Frankly, I don't care what those details are. I do care when people like you demean others for having opinions based on clear evidence that contradicts Orion's sunshine and rainbows re-imagining of events.

But you're Mr. Poker expert, and anyone who disagrees is concocting a pointless conspiracy theory rather than observing and discussing what they think really happened.