#I’ve been working on a lot of little things! including some cr fanart

[canarydraws]

May I offer you all a low-res wip in these trying times?

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E63 (May 21, 2019)

Sorry it’s late, guys. @eponymous-rose has narrowly avoided being blown away by tornadoes and I’ve narrowly avoided drowning in equally dangerous paperwork, so here we are at the end of all things. Preroll is post-its of donors for Red Nose Day.

Tonight’s guests: Sam Riegel & Liam O’Brien.

Tonight’s announcements: We’re opened by Mark Hulmes instead of BWF. He dabs. No one blinks an eye. After the music open, we find out BWF’s neighbor’s kid stole his keys and then he lost his wallet. It hasn’t mattered, because he’s about to be Mr. Ashley Johnson & people just keep giving him what he needs. They’re still raising money for RedNoseDay. Thursday morning, the Colbert one-shot airs on the Critical Role Youtube. You can donate at critrole.com/rednoseday. Mark Hulmes joined Taliesin & BWF today for an episode available on the CR Twitch.

Episode 63: Intervention

CR Stats: Caleb cast his 700th spell, Gift of Alacrity, on Caduceus. Nott rolled her 40th natural 1 this episode to understand the local sewer system. This was Caduceus’s first HDYWTDT. Everyone mourns that someone stole the Golden Snitch from Matt’s bag.

It’s more stressful not knowing everyone’s motivations, both within the party and the game world. Sam talks about Yasha’s mysterious past and Beau’s dangerous ties to the Empire, especially given how much they understood in the first campaign about (at least) who the bad guys were. Sam feels like once they have a shred of information, he wants to jump on it ASAP and make big, bold decisions on them. He’s dealing with the discovery that this might be not as great an idea. He’s not experienced this kind of “trepidation, failure, uncertainty...I don’t like this game. I don’t like it at all!”

Caleb likes using the little bit of dunamantic magic as a taste of a drug--each little hit makes him want more and more and more.

Danimancy? Make a Carrcana check. Sigh, Sam.

Sam made two big mistakes in the last fight: he missed the gender of the dragonborn, so he thought that one of the other voices Matt was doing was actually the dragonborn giving orders (and therefore the one in charge, while the drow was the one taking orders). He also saw the dragonborn leaving and was worried that he was waiting on the party to give him (Nott) the go-ahead to kick things off. He recognizes he put Caleb in a terrible position both in a meta yes-and sense and in the Nott-Caleb team sense.

The world devolves into campaign slander and propaganda. Everyone’s in it, including BWF and Dani. #samforpresident

Caleb told the Brightqueen about his past because he feels like they’re on a very tight timeline, looking for very slight drips of information like gold. He thought it was worth the shot.

Sam desperately wants to know what the missing years in Yasha’s memory hold. BWF tells him to get what he can out of her while she’s here; her show’s been renewed for another season. He sounds genuinely bitter as he says it, but he notes at least it’s the last one. :(

They ask Mark Hulmes about what Charm does for people. He helpfully tells us it doesn’t say if they remember or not. Sam also points out Nott has blown up Caduceus before, so doing a few more points to Yasha is *wigglehands*.

Caleb did not mean to kill the horse on purpose. Sam tries to get him to confess that on camera, but instead Liam needles him about not cuddling Henry.

Cosplay of the Week: @andy_srivastava’s cosplay of Beau. Gorgeous!

Both Sam and Nott feel the fight’s outcome was his/her fault. He expects her to feel very guilty next week. Sam genuinely felt and still feels bad about it. He also prefers hashing out reactions the night things happen instead of having to wait a week for the next Thursday. He feels it’s more genuine.

Caleb is very worried about Jester’s mom and Astrid’s crew finding ways to use her mom as leverage. He’s also worried about the kid, but is glad Shakaste is going to get him. Liam also always imagined running into his old crew against the backdrop of the Empire, and is now very worried that if he runs into them soon he’ll have the added perception of being a traitor since they’re in the Dynasty.

Liam and Caleb both were surprised he was given hints of dunamancy so freely. He looks forward to learning more.

Liam totally understands how easy it is to miss things now. He’s constantly looking things up and reading in an attempt to understand his spells, and therefore missing parts of the battle. He greatly sympathizes with Marisha. Sam, on the other hand, is finding it hard to adapt to rogue life; he doesn’t like the necessary “out there, bold choice” nature of rogues in D&D and having the pressure of making big decisions very fast. He prefers Scanlan’s nature of sitting in the back, casting spells, and being more reactionary than instigatory. Liam always is afraid of picking the wrong spells, and finds it much harder than Vax. BWF: “Dagger dagger dagger...dagger dagger dagger dagger?” Liam: “I kept track of that fine, it’s everyone else that was wrong.”

Sam is shocked the D&D Beyond campaign bit has dragged on. BWF calls his rebuttal “bogusly weak,” and Sam looks genuinely aghast. It’s hilarious. “I don’t know how he got to you, Brian, but this feels like coming on Fox News! You’re a partisan hack! I won’t take it anymore, but I love attention, so I will stay.”

Nott is super interested in the dodeca’s ability to give people different bodies, but Caleb is still the clearest path to getting her body back. It’s complicated because the Dynasty souls are “chosen” and Nott’s not likely to be so.

Liam is very excited to see this magic system Matt has created in dunamancy. Did he create it in response to Liam or had he already thought about it? Sam tells us he’s always been thoughtful about fate and the subverting of it. Liam is so pumped because in campaign one, fate strings existed and were uncontrollable, but in campaign two we’ve “developed physicists, tinkering.”

In re: Essik, Nott’s just happy Caleb has found a friend. She wishes he’d bring him home more often.

Sam finally busses Henry’s cheek and affirms to us that he actually loves dogs. Everyone in his family is voting for a new dog except for his daughter, who wants a cat.

Liam doesn’t want everything to be cat-themed, but likes retouching a few spells here and there for flavor. He also wanted to differentiate it from Scanlan’s Bigby’s Hand. Sam thinks he should reskin more spells.

SPOILERS FOR C1 IN THIS QUESTION. Sam talks about rogue high-stakes moments as genuinely, surprisingly stressful. Liam says Vax was stressful but exhilarating, especially when it came to moments that conflated poor meta decisions vs roleplay decisions. He specifically mentions Raishan’s chase as a terrible in-game decision but one that was right for the character. He and Sam will always do what’s right for the character, even if it’s bad narratively in the moment. Sam says he got a lot of support from the group thread this past week, though. END SPOILERS FOR C1.

Fanart of the Week: a gorgeous Caduceus portrait by @larndraws.

Nott trusts Shakaste to get Luke traveling safely. Sam also drops a bombshell on the world by telling us Luc is spelled Luc. It’s just that no one’s ever asked. Heavens!

Caleb’s made an effort to tell people he cares for them, but he fears it at the same time. He’s afraid he’s going to be put in a position where he needs it too much. Brian asks if he believes he’s truly irredeemable: Liam says there’s a certain road where he could feel he atoned, and there’s a road that might lead to balance, but there’s never a brass ring that he could reach that could let him relax entirely. I don’t entirely understand the metaphor, but I get what he means.

Sam likes that the theme of this campaign seems to be “atonement and reconciliation” compared to the first campaign’s “finding family.” There’s a bit of that in this campaign too, but he likes how everyone has something in their past that they’re clinging to, and he’s interested to see who will be able to resolve it, who will be able to handle it, and who won’t be able to let it go.

Mark Hulmes come on to talk about the Stream of Descent, which happened last weekend. He’s the DM for High Rollers, which airs at 9am Pacific on Sundays.

BWF talks about how C1 had a lot of the Hero’s Journey in various forms, and C2 feels a lot like “what it means to be good.” He doesn’t feel they fit the “antihero” archetype very well.

Liam thinks that if Caleb were going to leave the campaign, he’d have done it already.

Part of Caleb’s generation was to create a character the world would shun, and seeing if he could find a way to find compassion for them. He mentions the poem written for the Boston marathon bomber a while ago. BWF talks about how it’s a really interesting character choice because it depends on the rest of the table being willing to stick around and seek out that redeemable quality in your character, even when you’re making decisions that are true to the character but bad for the table/the rest of the group. You can’t always expect that to work with every group you play with.

Mark talks about Calliana being the other end of the spectrum from Caleb, because she also has a history of having done very terrible things, but she was taken in by a family who helped her understand she’d been manipulated and it was not her fault. He’s desperate for his recently mentioned package to be picked up because she has some messages for Caleb in it. Now she tries to see the best in everyone she meets as a result of her history. He has a whole folder of fanart of Calliana on his wall. Awwww.

It’s still never gotten old for Liam or Sam either.

Mark endorses Sam for President. Good job, foreign fellow. Is it Thursday yet?

[theteablogger]

Oh, FFS...

I’m not going to post the CR fanart that Andy shared on Facebook, but now that I realize the significance of it, I will tell you that the character he chose to represent himself and his feelings was Mollymauk, Taliesin’s character for the second campaign. Of fucking course. For non-CR fans, Taliesin also played Percy, the character that Andy latched onto during the first campaign.

Here’s some information from the CR wiki:

Molly’s appearance is ostentatious and flamboyant, with several tattoos (including one of a peacock). He’s also pretty badass in combat and has a lot of scarring, most of it presumably self-inflicted because he uses his own blood to activate his enchanted swords. 

I don’t know how Andy actually dresses on a daily basis, but during the first year or so that he was on tumblr, he presented himself as a fashionista who was always well put together, always dressed to impress, loved eye-catching accessories, dyed his hair in bright colors, and enjoyed experimenting with makeup. He talked a lot about how pretty he was, to the point that he called himself a bishonen several times. He toned this down somewhat after discovering Supernatural and becoming fixated on Dean, but still made quite a few posts along those lines. Andy also has a number of meaningful tattoos, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he sees Molly’s scarring as analogous to the many ways that he says his harmful actions toward others (which he blames entirely on mental illness) have also damaged him.

The wiki also says:

Molly is described as a "literal and figurative peacock". He frequently tells extravagant lies with little mind for whether or not his audience believes them. He does not seem visibly affected by insults, as shown by his lack of reaction when the old man in Ye Olde Mudhole called him a devil and told him to leave town.

In Andy’s own words: “...I am a weaver of word-magic to a degree that verges on dangerous in my understanding of exactly what I’m doing as a storyteller and rhetorician. I can get inside people’s heads. I can sell you realities.” See also: his many “fuck the haters” posts about how he doesn’t care what we think of him because we don’t really know him, and besides, people even come up with negative things to say about Gandhi, right?

Molly's [sic] acts as a promoter for the carnival and as a "fortune-teller" within it. His "abilities" in the latter area are the result of the application of cold-reading techniques and sleight of hand, not actual magic.

As far as I know, Andy has never had a fortune-telling shtick. But he has claimed at various times to be clairvoyant, to be telepathic, to be a medium, to be able to influence the natural world in ways such as reversing the flow of a river, to have a psychic connection to an alternate universe in which the events of his DAYD series were real, to have roughly 160 “Others” from alternate timelines who communicated through him... And I’m not sure whether anyone has actually said this, but based on things that Abbey, Little Sam, and some former DAYDians have written about their early interactions with Andy, I think he’s probably pretty good at cold reading. Even the promoter angle fits, as Andy has written many times over the years about how good he is at marketing and promoting himself and his work.

Elsewhere, I’ve seen mentions of Molly having a “mysterious past” about which he's been dishonest with the group. Apparently he seems to know an awful lot about some of the creatures that they encounter, for reasons that he can’t explain. He is a master of disguise. This is all very similar to the way Andy has portrayed himself--having a dark and mysterious past, “just knowing” things about a wide variety of subjects, being able to blend in anywhere in an Abagnalesque manner...

There may be even more there for Andy to identify with, but I’m not sure, as I don’t watch CR. Anyway, in Mollymauk, the above traits make him a fascinating character who’s probably a lot of fun to interact with as a party member. In Andy, these traits have led to a lot of people being hurt. I don’t know for sure that he was planning to start another “channeling” thing with Molly, or another fandom cult based on CR, but I am not inclined to give Andy the benefit of the doubt.

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E45 (Dec. 18, 2018)

Evening, all! @eponymous-rose​ is off tonight with such silly things like family and events and real life obligations, so I’m here to make bad jokes and have opinions instead.

For those who hadn’t heard, Brian & Ashley are engaged as of this week! Brian is taking both her last and first name to be ultra-progressive. Tonight’s guests: Sam Riegel & Matt Mercer. Matt is here willingly. Sam is not. We’re discussing Episode 45: The Stowaway, sponsored by LootCrate. Brian asks Sam for an impromptu song ad; he rhymes moot and loot and jigs and everyone is a little closer to death than they were a few moments prior.

Tonight’s announcements: Pub Draw & Name Drop are two new shows on the Critical Role channel--check out critrole.com for more details.

This Thursday’s episode is the last of 2018; Critical Role then returns on January 10.

Liam’s oneshot, The Night Before Critmas, airs at 7pm Pacific this Friday night. He’s been planning it for two years, and the VOD will be available December 23.

Talks Machina is also breaking for the holidays and will return on January 8, where they’ll have a cast-wide discussion on the state of the campaign so far. The questions open on Reddit, Twitter, and email on January 4th.

CR Stats: Nott has the most kills of the group with 37. The 45th HDYWTDT occurred in episode 45 as well. Twiggy’s dragon kill was the fifth guest kill of the campaign, and the 2nd guest HDYWTDT. In campaign one, guests got 22 kills and four HDYWTDTs. This was the longest episode of campaign two and the fourth longest of the series.

Matt and Deborah had met extensively to discuss backstory and mechanics, but hadn’t discussed much personality. The only person who wanted to check voice/accent was Khary (with Shakaste).

Deborah was one of the first guests they reached out to when they started streaming all that time ago, but she initially said no because D&D was such a personal thing for her and she didn’t want to share it with the internet. Everyone agrees she was worth the wait.

Everyone’s furious about Daredevil’s cancellation. :(

Sam thought it was fun to play alongside another Arcane Trickster because... “she was very good at it, all that great stuff that I forget to do.” Nott was jealous that many of the things that made her unique were present in Twiggy. However, the jealousy was later reversed because of how excellent Twiggy was in the fight.

The Happy Fun Ball was a narrative device Matt had been planning for a long time--he liked the idea of a pocket dungeon with lore attached. When they realized Deborah’s schedule would put her on a boat in the middle of nowhere, he found a perfect opportunity to bring it in.

Sam asks if Matt intended the device to be a one-use single episode thing, or something recurring, something for the party to further explore at their will. Matt explains very circuitously (and hilariously) that certain DMs may have in the planning of the introduction of the Happy Fun Ball originally intended for such Happy Fun Balls to leave with the guest, and were very surprised when said Happy Fun Ball (and all its hundreds of extraplanar rooms to explore) was left behind with the party instead. He then basically dares Sam to press a button and see what happens.

Nott doesn’t resent Fjord for touching the window or setting a time limit on the library exploration. While it was cool in the library, there were too many things attacking them.

Matt doesn’t necessarily intend his traps for Travis, but he likes having good buttons and bad buttons. “I just want shit to happen. Surprise me!” He admires the player that occasionally gets bold, rather than the one who always sends their minions out to touch all the tiles and trigger all the traps before they ever set foot in the dungeon. He also enjoys the meticulousness of Liam being at the same table as Travis’s impulsiveness.

Sam does not want the fans to send him larger flasks. His current flask holds 128 oz, which is exactly a gallon.

GIF of the Week: @criticalschluck with a hilarious movie-trailer-style GIF of Travis explaining he’s got an intelligence of 6 (Grog), then an intelligence of 14 (Fjord), then pushing buttons and experiencing... consequences.

Nott approves of Caleb’s choice to abandon the books to go back to the party. While she wants as much knowledge in his head as possible, it’s because “a smarter Caleb is a more powerful Caleb, and hopefully a Caleb that can stay alive a little longer.” Matt likes watching characters be put in situations where they have to choose between long-reaching character goals and the people they have chosen as their family. He was fascinated to see the struggle as he was ticking down the time on his sheet. He’s very excited to see what’s going to happen this Thursday.

Brian and Matt both fanboy over Sam’s 1hp decision.

Sam reflects on Jester’s being left behind--”not in a malicious way, you know, but sometimes in a big family someone gets left behind at a mall!”

Matt circuitously explains that the stained-glass window could be used to access other places. This man’s being slipperier than soap suds on wet tile tonight.

Nott was aware that the hit she took for Jester could have been a killing blow, but she was ready--”it was what goes through her head around Caleb a lot: ‘I’ve got to protect my friends.’” She’s very protective and very maternal, and Sam would have been okay if that had been the last of Nott.

Both Sam and Liam (and others) have begun to experience the in- and out-of-game changes that come with finally beginning to really know these characters. They certainly wouldn’t have died for each other at the beginning of the game, even knowing how hard their friends worked on these characters. It was originally a “system shock” (as Matt puts it) which required check-ins after certain blow-ups at the beginning of the campaign to make sure they (the players) were all okay. Now, though, they’re closer and closer to being willing to die for each other for both in-game and meta reasons.

Sam reflects on how both Caleb and Nott hate themselves, but manifest that very differently in how they treat other people. Caleb withdraws and puts up thick walls; Nott is quick to trust and care about everyone.

Nott is least close to Yasha at the moment. She’s still a li’l scared of her.

Matt had a few battle options planned out regarding which parts of which chamber were futzed with. The black tapestry was the one curtain they didn’t mess with that would have led to a “very rough encounter.” Matt had six maps built off-stage, just in case.

Sam’s backup character is a handsome actor named Sam Seagull.

Brian is annoyed that every encounter starts with the chat screaming “TPK.” Matt: “I hope not. That’d be my fault if that happened.”

While the dragon was very powerful, Matt had expectations that the party would understand very quickly that the fight didn’t necessarily have to end with the dragon’s death--he wanted them to understand the challenge was the exit, not the dragon. However, they came in in a different order than he’d anticipated, including party staggering, and that was when he started to get nervous.

Whatever magic had first triggered the first crystal would have been the same magic required to open the second door. It was proximity-based.

Fanart of the Week: @tehsasquatch, with this super-cool portrait of Nott.

On whether Nott feels as if she’s earned her comma: sometimes, especially in encounters like these, Nott feels just for a moment that she can be brave, she can be useful, she can be heroic--and then the moment it’s over the world comes crashing back down. When she’s out of those moments, she feels that she’s still just a goblin.

Is Sam ready for Nott to get the spotlight Fjord’s currently in?

Sam: No. Matt: [very intense face]. There’s a lot of backstory elements that he and Matt know that no one else is aware of, and he’s nervous about those coming to light.

The Traveler’s appearance was complete improv. Matt was reading the situation and the emotions and looking for ways to facilitate a heroic story, and when the dice worked in her favor, he felt it would be a wonderful, dramatic story beat to suddenly include--especially since the Traveler hadn’t responded much recently. Matt: “Yeah, that was really cool.”

The Traveler/Jester relationship has evolved in ways Matt both did and did not expect. He wasn’t sure how seriously Jester was going to take it. It’s the difference between believing in something and allowing that thing to define you as a person. He loves it. Sam: “The Traveler...is Taryon, right?”

Nott doesn’t see Caleb as abandoning her at all. “He’s a weak, puny man who needs to get himself out of danger.” It would have actually been harder if Caleb had been there, because if Nott had had to make a choice as to who to protect, Jester would be dead.

After Beau’s emergence from the orb, she probably for a few minutes would have thought that they were all dead behind her. It wasn’t that hours or days had passed--just a few minutes. Matt found Beau’s and Caduceus’s conversation at the end very fascinating and compelling, especially as a way to end the episode.

Nott agrees that Jester is not as happy and fine as she appears to be, especially after their talk about boys, but doesn’t feel it’s as severe as Caleb’s issues. “Jester’s a functional person.” However, Sam’s excited they’re getting past the “flitty person from the first half of the campaign” to the “core of sadness” as the story progresses.

Matt’s sure Yasha was not happy at all that her friends all disappeared without warning. “She spent six days thinking her friends were never going to come back. She doesn’t cry in a corner; she’s familiar with grief and loss. She hardens herself and moves on.” He’s hoping they’ll get to see some of that this week.

Critmas Spotlight: The Blind Weaver, a really, really cool 3D painting by a lady named Elaine Ryan, which has layers upon layers of polyurethane stained to make an amazing effect. See @elaineryanart on twitter and tumblr for more!

Talks Machina: After Dog

They decide where guests sit at the time of the episode. Matt likes to avoid the edges so they don’t feel like the outlier. Sam requests no attractive guests be placed immediately adjacent to him so that it does not detract from his glory. “That’s why I sit next to doggo Laura Bailey.” Brave man. Brave, foolish man.

Sam likes oatmeal raisin cookies. I am DELIGHTED, WHAT AN OLD MAN WHO SHARES MY TASTE. He also likes Werther’s, which is bringing back so many memories of my grandmother’s house. Matt likes ginger snaps, which are my favorite Christmas cookies also. I would kill for ginger snaps right now. Matt and Sam both are excited about pumpkin pie.

Essential D&D gifts, per Matt: dice, PHB, HeroForge custom minis if you really want to get them excited. He finds that getting in there and making a character can really help hook someone on the visual aspect & get invested in their character. Everything else is fluff. Sam suggests a music playlist for the first game; when he ran his first game with his kids, he liked having gridded paper to draw the maps on.

Matt does not feel that the crew of the ship has been mistreated, but they have been “neglected and dragged through places they didn’t expect.” He does think they’ll talk about everything they’ve done to all their friends and family when they get home in a very “you won’t believe this!” kind of way.

Sam always wears the same tie when he’s voice directing and on the first day of a new show. He’s wearing it tonight and can’t discuss the new show.

Favorite holiday movies! Brian: “Love, Actually” and “Die Hard,” as well as “Miracle on 34th Street.” Matt loves “A Christmas Story” (my favorite also, bless this man). Sam likes “Prancer” and “Scrooged,” but realizes mid-sentence that this is Brian’s first Talks as an engaged man.

Brian on proposing: ”It’s...the best.” They’d been together for over six years & met during the first Last of Us game. Brian describes himself as a former “piece of shit” and a very different person back then. Ashley had no expectations that he was going to propose & was totally surprised. Gah, this is too romantic.

Brian: “I always imagined for years what that moment would be like, and this topped all of my expectations... What more can you really hope for in this life than to feel that feeling with another person? It’s to me the pinnacle of our human experiences to be able to say ‘I’ve been through hell and yet found someone that I can definitely say I want to spend all the days of my life on this earth with,’ and the fact that it happened is fucking cool. It’s like heroin with none of the bad side effects.”

It was extremely stressful--but only the logistics. Apparently Matt’s proposal was extremely logistically intensive; Brian sympathizes.

And on that lovely, quiet note, we’re done for the night. Happy holidays, everyone. <3

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E29 (August 7, 2018)

Tonight’s preshow: favorite moments from the live show at GenCon last week. Y’all, Dani is so short in real life, I can’t even. Less adorably, I’ve burned my popcorn. Why must life be so cruel?

Music fades out, then hard smashcut to Brian passed out in his chair. Bless, he looks tired. Smashcut to Marisha and Liam also sleeping on the couch. Get these kids some rest, I tell you what. Tonight’s guests: Liam & Marisha.

Announcements: Tonight’s sponsor is Dwarven Forge, who’ve recently launched their kickstarter for the Cavern’s Deep set. See more at critrole.com/dwarvenforge. Honey Heist 2: Electric Beargaloo airs this Friday at 7:00pm PST (on top of the regular episode on Thursday). They actually shot it last night, and it’ll air unedited on Friday. Liam: “No audience, no fucks left to give.” Marisha and some of the others will hang out in the chat Friday night to share the experience, and Brian will be posting some behind-the-scenes photos and videos at the break. The Mighty Nein shirt is back in stock and available at critrole.com. 

CR Stats! The MN reached 159 “9″s this episode, which includes all rolls ever. The 150th 9 goes to Beau--dex save against the fire trap. Beau dealt 147 damage this episode, the most for anyone in any episode in C2 so far. Liam: “This is the class you were born to play.” Marisha: “I’ve never been a Grog before. I’m so excited, you guys.” In Episode 7, the Bust of Estelle Getty attacked twice and hit both times. In Episode 29, the Bust of Nefertiti attacked four times and missed all four. Lorenzo’s last action was Cone of Cold; after that, the party dealt 117 of their total 146 damage. The 6 rounds of this fight is the longest fight of this campaign.

Sam’s outfit? Liam: “What are you going to do next year?” Sam’s panicking. Xenomorph? Cthulhu? Matt Mercer costume? Marisha: “What, are we talking prosthetics? Long hair and a henley aren’t really amping it up.” Liam: “He could wear a vest.”

Liam likes both the intimacy of being around the table and the live theater’s energy. Seeing people cosplay as their characters chanting and screaming is unreal. It feels like a bottle rocket going up next to them. Brian always cries at live shows because of the impact that it has on people--reading tweets is one thing, but seeing the love in person is beyond words.

Liam wasn’t surprised at all at how useful Frumpkin was as a spider. “I don’t know why anyone would think it would be a bad idea.” Marisha: “I got shit for the things I turned into for THREE YEARS! It’s my turn to make fun of other people’s animal choices!” Liam: “#thankskeyleth.”

Beau’s newfound confidence with ladies is both luck and Molly’s influence; she’s always been a bit of a flirt, but Marisha thinks “disaster lesbian” is totally accurate. Liam pitches a 70s exploitation-style spy movie on the spot. Marisha talks about a few times that she almost pursued something with Yasha/Ashley, but then she left and Marisha didn’t get the chance. Brian commiserates. 

Beau waited until Keg could walk off into the sunset to avoid morning-after awkwardness.

Caleb’s first impression of Caduceus is “he’s really ready to put his life in danger. There’s that. I mean, he wanted to get out, so he could have taken a train ride through Alaska, but instead we invaded a compound.” Beau doesn’t have impressions yet. She’s been so desperate for help that any help was a win.

Caleb doesn’t enjoy having power over others. He has an ability to think critically and get things done, but hasn’t been in that position for a long time; he has big plans but no ability to achieve them. He wants to just start getting comfortable again. “Caleb is a mess of contradictions. I change my mind as to what he thinks or I think any given moment.” He wars with liking people and needing to walk away from people because what he’s doing is “more important.” He isn’t sure which part is lying to himself--he just knows that as he lies to himself, he’s still doing something completely different.

To an excellent question about character development by Brian, Marisha talks about finding ideals for a character that you have to go all in on, while still knowing that the world is going to go in on you at the same time and that you’ll change whether you like it or not. Some characters are more stubborn (Caleb); Beau is a little more vulnerable to outside forces of change, such as the death of Molly--she’s never had someone die that she cared about before.

Liam talks about how Caleb has that ability to bring back some fundamental aspects of the person he used to be, in part because he’s now forming connections with people he doesn’t want to admit to even himself. However, what happened with the Shepherds made him angry in a way he never anticipated, plus losing so much of the party... ”I want to do the impossible. If I can’t do this?” The Caleb at the beginning of the campaign was happy to sit back and skulk; this new Caleb, who has been angry, and who is now one of a very small party, cannot skulk. “There was no hanging back. Decisions had to be made.” He doesn’t want to be a leader, but he’ll get things done if he has to.

Beau doesn’t and will never feel vindicated for Molly’s death. BWF: “Revenge and closure aren’t always the same.”

After the live show and Keg, Taliesin told Marisha, “Molly would be so proud.” One of the things that lingers with Beau is that she put on a front in her last conversation with Molly while he was trying to be totally genuine, and then he died before she ever opened up. She’s processing the fact that she missed that opportunity, which is why she jumped on that opportunity with Keg. Marisha also talks about the documentary about Glow on Netflix, where the woman who played the “heart” of Glow talks about her regrets of being in love with the producer but never telling him, and now twenty years have gone by and she’s still in love.

GIF of the Week: @seraphinedreams, which is a Star Wars-style scroller about the Anti-Wheaton Ashly Burch and all her 20s/19s/18s from the live show.

BWF talks about one of the theatre workers recognizing Brian and pointing out the Tal outfit was “worse than last year’s.”

The Nefertiti lamp was a loan from the Egyptian Room of the Murat Theatre.  Khary saw the lamp and went off about how much he needed the empowered figure. Liam: “Thank God we had her, though. Really turned the tide of the battle.”

Going into this fight, Caleb was still furious at the Iron Shepherds. Even so, even during the fight, Caleb was telling himself, “You need this, you need this,” so that he can go to the next thing.

Marisha likes Matt’s revision to the Cobalt Soul class. She’s still figuring out the right things to ask but is liking it much better in terms of expertise costs.

Liam: “I don’t think many moments in my life will rival the impossible moment of that motherfucker dying, on stage, with so many people watching. It was bewildering [to have so many people watching] and it made that moment of blind luck so much more amazing.” Marisha’s not sad at all that he’s dead. Everyone talks about the crazy energy of the HDYWTDT in front of 2500 people.

Brian isn’t apologizing in advance for or after the Honey Heist. Consider me piqued.

Beau cares about Caleb’s mental health. She’s sympathetic, especially since she’s starting to care for the rest of their group. She still believes in the importance of keeping teammates healthy out of both care for them and selfish concern for herself in a fight.

Marisha talks about how emotional she got when Shakaste talked about them being good people doing good things, leaving places better than they found him, especially since Khary’s not caught up on the campaign. Now Beau has to think about the themes that keep cropping up. Caleb knows what they’ve done here is good, but still thinks that the universe is pretty random & that even if they saved an entire orphanage, Caleb will still find himself unforgivable and terrible. “Nothing will erase what he’s done.” BWF: “Nothing?” Liam: “Nothing.”

They hid Khary the whole weekend to keep him from the critter crowd. “It was like telling a 12-year-old in Las Vegas that they had to stay in the hotel.”

Fanart of the Week: this lovely piece by @emtousi12 on twitter, featuring all the guests of the campaign so far.

Caleb/Liam regretted the invisibility scroll casting even before he cast it. He was stressed, the haste was a dud, and he was almost totally out of spells. Liam commiserates with Marisha about having planned very badly on selecting his first level spells for this fight-- “I had a bunch of spells I couldn’t do dick with.” However, he really, really, really didn’t want to die, so even though he desperately wanted to save the scroll, he wanted to live more. 

Neither Beau nor Keg think they plan to make this a recurring thing. “Hit it and quit it.”

Liam’s asked again about why he dedicated the kill to Frumpkin & not Molly (same question as was asked at Gencon). Liam starts talking about how Caleb had a girl cat as a child (also named Frumpkin); later, he recreated his cat using magic, except this one was male (oops?). This--boy, this is a lot very quickly. Marisha: “Is this something you worked out? Is that a narrative beat you thought of in your head?” Liam: “That was a ‘yes/and’ improv thing because Liam also had a cat named Frumpkin as a little boy, and that cat was a girl. But I decided when I was creating my character that Frumpkin was a boy. But because I have real memories as Liam of the cat as a girl, I kept messing up the gender of the fucking cat in the game, so then I retooled my story. So the first part of my answer is that Frumpkin is more important than a magic spell. Frumpkin is a piece of his lovely childhood, his wonderful childhood, and he wanted to have a piece of that in his miserable existence. The second half of that answer is that [the kill] wasn’t dedicated to Frumpkin. Caleb was exhausted and bleeding out, on the verge of death; that line was the equivalent of ‘fuck this day,’ and to say [points emphatically] ‘That was for Molly’ is too--on the nose! I mean, they were all thinking it. They’re all weighed down by it. There’s no need to say it--the day is awful, and what’s more, Molly’s dead--for all they knew in that moment, the other three are dead too, they don’t know! This is a torture chamber! They’re in a Saw movie. They don’t know how the other three are. So maybe they’re all dead. Certainly Molly’s dead. So no, it was not dedicated to the cat.”

Beau felt the same thing, especially since Nott already went into the cage and had the moment with Jester. They were all feeling it and thinking it--it was there--and no one felt the need to say it aloud. “To quote Scarlett O’Hara, ‘I can’t think about that right now. I’ll think about it tomorrow.’“ Liam: “The bottom line is that Caleb is in love with his cat, and the shippers need to focus on that. Send me fiction about that.”

Everyone dreads telling Jester, Yasha, and Fjord what’s happened to Molly. Marisha thinks Fjord will be pragmatic, Yasha will be angry, and Jester will blame herself.

Marisha hypothesizes that since Lorenzo seemed interested in capable fighters, he might have been creating almost Winter Soldier-type slaves that he could use to fight for him.

Everyone’s relieved Sam didn’t fall off the stage in the rollerblades. Apparently he had a dry run out of costume that...did not go well.

Marisha loved the stunning strike moment and the HDYWTDT moment for each of them. Liam loved Nott’s kissing Caleb while he was invisible. BWF does NOT encourage this behavior and we should NEVER DO IT AGAIN and he does NOT WANT THIS IN THE FUTURE but he laughed pretty hard at whoever yelled “It’s High Noon” at Matt towards the beginning of the show.

Liam had a great time playing exhausted--yes, it’s awesome to have the amazing moments, but he loves the fun of the failures too. 

Travis made it to the actual studio today and got a round of applause. “It’s like seeing a hologram of Tupac.”

After Dark: They’re So Tired I’m Tired For Them Edition

Oh, God. Twenty minutes in I realize my video froze during the break and I had no idea. I wondered why it was taking so long. Where are we? I’ll fill it in in a second.

Would BWF ever allow Sam to pick his outfit? He doesn’t know if he has the guts. Sam’s closet is full of ties and sneakers according to Liam.

Liam loved two critters cosplaying as gelatinous cubes at GenCon this year--he recognized one of them as one who came as a beholder last year and applauds her creativity. Marisha loved how their swords were floating around them.  Liam swoons over all the Vaxes with functioning wings; Marisha loved Opening Title Sequence Matt; BWF gushes about the pair who came as him from Signal Boost and Liam Las Vegas; Marisha loved the Percy with the Orthax shadow. There was also a pair of little girls who did the twins one day and Yasha and Beau the next; all three get a little fluttery.

Most of the panel from GenCon is up on Critical Scope.

Marisha would prefer to face a party of wizards over a party of monks. Liam would prefer avoiding both, but if forced would take the monks since they have range requirements.

Thanks, broadcasting.

Liam isn’t bitter the two clerics didn’t heal him. Not at all. Not bitter at all. He was at two hit points before he healed himself with the potion.

Marisha started tearing up when they found the party members in part because the game is very real to them, and they miss Laura, Travis, and Ashley so much. Sometimes the very real reactions catch them off guard. Liam points out that they’re family and it never feels good with part of the family gone.

Live show was the best thing they did at GenCon, but seeing the booth was pretty cool too. Everyone was “cranky” Sunday morning. BWF: “Oh my God, you’re being so nice right now.” Marisha was annoyed from the moment the makeup artist knocked on their door the next morning to get Matt ready to be Pumat. The entire group didn’t say a word to each other over breakfast except to snipe at each other. “Do you know what time it is?” “You’re looking at your phone.”

Liam talks about some cool oversized minis he got for his daughter’s Ravenloft game at the Privateer Press booth. BWF got some new dice (as did Marisha for both her and Matt at the Level Up booth), a Wyrmwood box, and some Iron Kingdoms books.

BWF admits he is a deep nerd and loves Warmachine; he could have talked to the Privateer Press people for hours about the lore if he didn’t think they’d have chased him off.

Did Vax take Molly to the other side? Liam doesn’t know. He has his own ideas--Ariana, their official artist, did a picture of Vax on an obsidian throne & surrounded by obsidian, with white antlers growing out of his shoulder & holding a raven skull, and that’s what he feels his afterlife is like. He does like to think that Vax took Molly to the other side. “He was so colorful and full of life. I’d like to think so.”

The VOD of Matt’s Fireside Chat is up on the critrole Twitch! BWF: “He’s so articulate.” Marisha: “A living bard.”

That’s all for today! Is it Thursday yet?