#'their all murderers nott' yeah but is it right for me to view some characters as worse than others????

[purgemarchlockdown]

Thinking about how I treat characters again and wondering about if it's morally permissible to dislike characters as people again. I dunno why my brain does this to me but it's currently half fuzz half "Am I causing damage to the world by believing certain characters are bad people?"

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E85 (Nov. 19, 2019)

Here we go! Tonight’s guests are Marisha Ray and Liam O’Brien.

It’s the 3-year anniversary of Talks Machina! Everyone talks first impressions. Liam: “I tried to compare it to all the other talk shows related to Dungeons and Dragons and how they do it...”

Brian: “Talks Machina: It’s Good Enough(TM)”

Announcements: the Adventures of the Darrington Brigade one-shot is happening live in Austin, Texas this Saturday! They ask that anyone in attendance at the show avoid spoilers---it will be aired online for everyone on the 29th at 7PM! Brian has a special thank-you for everyone who watched the Undeadwood finale: he appreciates all the wonderful feedback and misses all the characters so much. Liam: “You two people sitting here have created something really, really beautiful, and I’m so proud of you both.” For the month of November, CR has partnered with OSD.

Twelve minutes in, we get a title screen, so it’s time for...

Episode 85: The Threads Converge

Stats for this week’s episode: Caleb cast his twentieth Magic Missile spell this episode. Caleb also cast his tenth Cat’s Ire spell. “Well, we haven’t been around horses much, so not a lot of call for it.” Beau used her 200th ki point for Patient Defense.

How long has Beau liked Jester? “I have been obviously tagged in this question a few times, and thinking about it all weekend and up until now, how I’m going to answer it. And it’s hard, because there’s no real defining moment. [to Liam] You’ve been through this before. It just happened. Like relationships. Just... they’ll do something, and it kind of cocks your head, and you’re like, aw, fuck, that was cute. And you go like, hm. And you forget about that, and something happens. And then they build. And then they build.” She highlights that Beau wouldn’t have let Jester dress her up if there wasn’t something going on there. “The way she views things. She’s very empathetic and looks at things from a positive-- in a weird way, she reminds me of Keyleth, where she sees the good in everybody first. Fuck, that’s endearing.” Getting into the campaign, Marisha didn’t want a relationship in this one, and got a bit blindsided by Beau’s feelings.

Liam brings back the Cuddlefish voice.

There’s an accidental ad for Men’s Warehouse, as you do. And much discussion of pistachios.

Caleb hasn’t been consciously connected to Rexxentrum for a long time, and before that he was a farmboy from the outskirts, but it’s still a part of him. “He did spend a couple of years enjoying Rexxentrum. My sense of Rexxentrum is that it’s more the heart of old Zemnian. That shit stays with you. Yeah, he still feels very much a part of that.”

Beau’s feelings for Jester are much more, and “non-comparable” to her previous flings. “Sex for Beau has always been like a bandaid.” Liam mentions, as a viewer, that he’s curious about how the dynamic between the three might change once Yasha comes back.

“If you’ve been paying attention through the campaign, Caleb’s been very protective with [Jester] with her mother and her search for her father, because he’s fucked up his situation beyond reparation, but she can have the things she wants.” That was a conscious decision. “Kids should have that. Young people should have that. Everyone should have that.”

The show in a nutshell: 

Brian: “Let’s check the tape, Steve.” 

Dani: “I’m right.”

“Beau feels like her dad is a shithead, so she’s gonna feel like, well, if your dad’s a shithead, then fuck your shithead dad. Beau is desperately compartmentalizing all that.” She mentions that for all the times Kamordah has been brought up, they still haven’t made it there, and Beau’s starting to prepare for the possibility of actually having to go back.

Liam and Marisha talk about how amazing an actor Laura is and how much fun it is to watch her do improv scenes like the discussion with the Gentleman at the table. Marisha: “It’s so much fun to work across from as an actor.”

Cosplay of the Week: the entire Mighty Nein, all by Christina Silvoso (xtinaiscrafty on Twitter)!

Caleb isn’t sure how focused he is on the crisis at hand versus just being freaked out at being back in Rexxentrum. Caleb’s major drives in life are starting to feel small and less significant: “he doesn’t really want to believe that, and he really wants to stay focused on his narrow”. Both Caleb and Liam are freaked out (and also excited, in Liam’s case) at the potential for Caleb’s backstory coming back to haunt him here.

Beau’s definitely been thinking about the Cobalt Soul’s connection to Ioun lately. “I kind of view Beau as someone who goes to catholic school because it’s better than the public schools in the area. I never imagined religion as being Beau’s rebellious point, so I think she was always just like, aw, fuck, aw, cool, this bitch seems awesome. Just, yeah, fine with it. She doesn’t have a lot of emotional investment, but yeah, I’ve thought about it.”

Caleb sees similarities between himself and Yasha: “first of all, I feel like they’re the two nerdy loner outsider kids in class who don’t talk to each other, but just look over and go, hey, you’re fucked up like me too. And then they also have-- they’re both murderers, and they have both been, and one is currently being manipulated and abused in the extreme. So Caleb hasn’t made Yasha his number one driving focus, but he empathizes with her a great deal.”

Caleb feels like he doesn’t know enough about the Assembly to judge Yussah’s assertion that not all of them are bad. “He might talk a good game about how the Assembly needs to be eradicated, but it’s more personally motivated. No question that Trent is a monster, and I think that the leadership of that organization is pretty wacky, but one or two neutral parties in there.”

How does anti-authority Beau feel about getting placed in higher and higher positions of authority? “Oh, fuckin’ great, it’s what she always wanted. Doing great, yeah. Fuck yeah, look at me now, bitches!”

Fan Art of the Week: Nott and Caleb falling through the storm (by Alex Payne).

What was going through Caleb’s head, reading the letter from Astrid? “Letter seems like a trap. Really wonders-- he’s not optimistic, because he knows what happened to him and them, he knows the state of the Scourger they fucked with in the Dynasty, so that was a bad sign. But... I don’t want to tip the scales. I mean, Astrid is very much on his mind. So is Eodwulf, but Astrid especially. I’m really looking forward to that nut getting cracked open, and not knowing what it’s going to be.”

Beau had “a lot of regrets about Molly, and the fact that she really liked Molly and was an asshole to him the whole time. He was a big lesson to her, because they were just coming from such opposite ends of the spectrum. He ended up being a lot of the starting point of a lot of Beau’s growth. So yeah. I had that [tattoo] in mind for quite some time, and I almost just got it as a tattoo as a character” and then Orly showed up, and it worked out well, along with the all-seeing eye symbology. “It’s got layers.”

Liam on Beau confiding in Nott: “Sometimes, when you share secrets, it’s because you want to be found out.” Marisha: “How dare you. No.”