#Travis during the episode and Travis after the episode are completely different people. And he's so valid.

[wardensantoineandevka]

Travis, during the episode: icb you didn't let me just stab the bull 😒

Travis, the SECOND Matt ends the episode: Oh my GOd, Umudara is so touching and moving. 🥺 Going to walk all the way across the wildlands to end up at the dying Savalirwood. 😭

[burr-ell]

Putting Terms on the High Shelf: Main Character Syndrome

As I'm watching C2, one thing I've noticed about Caleb's various sidebars to talk to different people is that he's still very much involving them—the conversations reveal various different priorities not just for Caleb, but for the people he's talking with. Liam's RP is often geared toward encouraging character work out of the other players at the table; it's something you see with Vax early on, and it's very present with Caleb.

So I find the accusations and warnings of Liam having Main Character Syndrome, which started during C1 but really ramped up in C2, to be rather shallow. Look at the contrast between the tables during this:

and this:

In C1x27, Orion adds pressure to the cast's already-frayed nerves with him, compounded from previous incidents of bad behavior, by taking up several minutes of time purely to himself—his only interaction with anyone else at the table is to ask Keyleth for help with alchemy mechanics (fun fact, early Keyleth was into alchemy!). This included:

An attempt to buy 1500 mirrors to build a light array;

A request to his father to send in his home country's army to Whitestone; and

An attempt to combine a fog spell and a sleep spell after being told point blank that it was mechanically impossible

This was all very obviously an attempt to make himself the hero in what is clearly set up to be a Percy-centric arc. (Worth noting, for the record, is that up to this point Percy had actually had very little focus and largely kept himself in the background, while Tiberius had been in focus for most of the show's run up to that point.) Laura snarks that he's like the giant eagles in Lord of the Rings and can just do everything, and if you actually watch the clip that I've giffed above, Travis's tone is genuinely aggravated. This, by the way, is all after Tiberius was notably not present for Percy revealing his backstory to the rest of the party in episode 24; while everyone else voiced concerns for him and went down to his workshop to check on him, Tiberius largely ignored this and went off to do his own business.

That is a selfish player. That is selfish behavior and a clear example of someone who thinks the story should revolve around them. There are several reasons Orion was asked to leave, not just because he fudged his dice rolls.

C2x62 is a completely different story. None of the conversations Caleb has within that episode are just a way for Caleb to gain information; he's engaging with what the other people are doing. When he asks Nott and Jester about the letter they wrote to Astrid, he reveals a little about himself—something he is particularly reluctant to do with Jester—and they are given an opportunity to respond. His conversation with Beau gives time for both of them to check in on each other and where they're at and lets Beau give her own perspective on the politics of the Empire, the Cobalt Soul, and Xhorhas. The discussion with Fjord lets them both level with each other a little and does more work for Fjord's character, letting him open up about his insecurities and issues, than it does for Caleb's. Caleb is still initiating these conversations and he still gets something out of them, but both the players and the audience still get the benefit of the other characters pushing and pulling against that in response.

Like many terms that get thrown around in this circle ("player agency", "manipulating", "metagaming", "going dark", to name a few), Main Character Syndrome has been so misconstrued and warped to fit a heavily biased perspective as to be almost meaningless. Main Character Syndrome is not when a character initiates a lot of conversations, even if you personally don't like the conversations for whatever reason. Main Character Syndrome is not when a character chooses to take a risk or push a big red button, even if you personally don't like the choice for whatever reason. Main Character Syndrome is not when a character has an arc or aspect of lore heavily focused on them, even if you personally don't like the character for whatever reason. (Particularly considering that arc focus is entirely out of the player's control; Taliesin, Liam, and Laura did not in fact force Matt to focus a significant portion of each campaign's lore on Percy, Caleb, or Imogen's backstories respectively.)

Main Character Syndrome is specifically about player selfishness—it's a player inserting their character into scenes or roles where they do not logically belong in order to make them the center of the story, as we see with the example of Tiberius. The camaraderie at the current table versus what was going on back in 2015 does not suggest that anyone currently sees anyone else like that; everyone is laughing at the jokes made at someone's expense, and everyone is getting something to do. Your favorite character may not always be flashy or in focus all the time, but then again, you wouldn't want them to have Main Character Syndrome, would you?

[myroanokenightmare666]

A interesting comparison and differences………

So have you guys may be wondering something? Because I actually noticed something that I think many people find this comparison quite believable, and for good reasons. Because it also involves around a spin-off of the main show that’s set in an extended universe. Much like Helluva Boss. And that spin-off…….is Fear The Walking Dead. Now you guys may exactly asking “why or how is this comparison to two separated spin-off has notable similarities yet plenty of different things?????” When I answered that major question from you all, you’ll eventually understand.

Right off the bat, FTWD and HB has a similar problem/flaws when how comes to the later seasons as far as the writing, character, set pieces, etc. Especially with two common/noticeable problems between them…..among with explaining the different things to along with it.

Is how both show switch and just mostly focused on one or two characters, taking over the other important main characters purposes. Which is being Blitzo and Stolas, among with Morgan Jones. Hints how the fandom/community called both of them being “The Biltzo and Stolas Show” and “The Morgan Jones Show.”

Starting with Morgan Jones, his first appearances happened around the beginning of Season 4, set a few years later after Season 3 ended. And I can agreed that Morgan isn’t a good choice for a multitude of reason. But the main problem is how he doesn’t really do anything much or changed anything for the show beside just killing walkers and being insufferable despite being the new main protagonist after the story arc of the Clark family, whose purpose was to healed what was broken and helping other supporting characters, but his niceness and nobility is what kinda ruins him as one of the best characters from The Walking Dead universe. And this happened ever since Travis was killed off from Season 3, then Nick was also killed off during Season 4, Alicia was gone around the end of Season 7, and Madison just….isn’t the same person anymore. Because of that, he taking over for what could’ve been a potentially great new season for the Clark family after Season 3, if everything’s was different. But guess not. On the positive side, Morgan isn’t quite a terrible father nor a terrible leader. Since he still has a heart inside of him, still at time, deeply care towards the people surrounding him, and even tried his hardest to be a good father to his daughter, ever since he lost his own son….unlike with Blitzo and Stolas.

I’m just going to say this…..Blitzo and Stolas was two characters I used to enjoyed and ship a whole lot!!!!!! At first. They may seem like two fun characters who may be a bit of a gay horny couple and often at times, they would often used each other. But they do have moments where I felt them in between, was something I’ve never thought was that good….that is until Season 2 came, and their characterization is right I started to realize……they’re never a good character nor a good father, and most of the time, they both always appeared in almost every episode. And looking deeper. Really shows it all.

Like with Blitzo.

Although he can be hilarious at times and has a few moments that makes him stand out. Yet at the same time, he screw everything up and is a complete asshole. Especially how he treats Moxxie and even stalks him and Millie as well, despite the moment from Episode 6, Season 1. He still abuse the hell out of Moxxie, not to mentioned, taking advantage from Stolas, and most of all….neglectful to his love one/friends/colleagues. I get he has a tragic backstory, ever since Buck has never cared for him beside MONEYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! But just because there’s people who are asshole to you, doesn’t excuse the fact that you’re an asshole, abusive, and a neglectful imp who doesn’t let his own siblings nor colleagues just moved on and do their own things. But still been trying to have a relationship with his adopted daughter “Loona.”

Which perfectly leads to Stolas himself.

Stolas is not a good character and a good father. Straight away. He’s responsible for cheating on his own wife with a imp, leading into massive drama behind the Goetia family. It’s even possible Octavia has a good relationship with her father once when she was young, but as time’s goes on…eventually leading to her father relationships with Blitzo. But not for good reasons. Especially in one of the best episodes from Season 1, Episodes 2. It’s apparently cleared he only cared for himself but doesn’t cared about anything else, even if he tried to cheer his daughter up when taking her to Loo Loo Land. But it was around the same time when Stolas also invite, you guess it…..Blitzo! The same guys who he was falling in love and was cheating his wife. He only invited him….JUST TO BE HORNY TO HIM!!!!!!! Making him a complete fucking liar towards his own daughter about “needing security,” when you’re just having Blitzo to flirt with him…..the same can be said for Season 2, Episode 2 when he and Blitzo are trying to search for Octavia, after she accidentally ends up in LA. Yet, only for him TO JUST FLIRT ON BLIZTO INSTEAD OF BEING SERIOUS ON SEARCHING YOUR OWN DAUGHTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Another biggest problem between both shows is how it moved away from the original concept that both of them should’ve focused on.

Both the concept of the spin-off has a lot of potential. Especially how Helluva Boss is meant to be an episodic show about three Imps and a Hellhound forming an assassin team known as the I.M.P that involved around teleporting to the human world, in order to assassinate their targets that’s responsible for doing horrible thing. While Fear The Walking Dead is a prequel to The Walking Dead, which is set around the beginning of the Undead Apocalypse. These ideas, again, sounds freaking awesome!!!!!!! But, that’s where another problem rises, because FTWD moved away from the concept as Season 4 came by and Morgan coming along for the ride. It just only become more like a midquel/sequel to The Walking Dead than an actual prequel and the writing just becomes ridiculous and abysmal. As for Helluva Boss, it should’ve been an episodic rather than a plot driven show, which resulted into a complete mess of too many recurring plots and characters, an confusing world-building, characters personalities being assassinated or completely downgraded, many plot holes, etc.

Conclusion. These show, despite so many issue and flaws that cannot be ignored. I still have a lot of fun watching them with some fun I can enjoyed from, especially with its entertainment value. But with Fear the Walking Dead finally getting closer to end in Season 8 as Morgan Jones is officially leaving in the end of the first half, to search for Rick Grimes. Leaving a bit of a nice sendoff to him, leaving the rest of the original cast of the characters to conclude the rest of the storyline. For it to come to the end. As far as the current state for both HH/HB “mostly HB,” it’s not looking good for how the fandom has become a divisive mess that argues with their opinions/criticisms, and especially how Vivziepop has become a mainstream definition of how not to be an amazing creator, she’s not a terrible person …but not a good person either. Even the way she responded to criticism, is not looking pretty for both her and the future of her animated shows. Even growing some concerned for Hazbin Hotel….still……….

We must wait and see. Sooner or later.

[captainsspnanon]

C3E67 reaction

What a fan-fucking-tastic episode!!!!!! I LOVED IT!!!

Though it started off poorly, with my pet peeve of Sam. STOP telling other players what their PCs are doing. And STOP metagaming to try to have people RP a scene that you want to see. Nothing Marisha RPed in the past episode indicated that she was 'glowing', and in the episode before it could very much have been read as excitement over a new dress. And just because you saw Laura and Marisha roleplay their PCs kissing, doesn't mean that FCG suddenly can tell.

*grumbles* Sorry, like I said, pet peeve. He's done it multiple times in C3 (to the point where players had to actively contradict him trying to tell them that their PCs were doing something or had something happen to him), he did it a bunch in C2, and while I can't remember, he probably did it in C1 too. And several times when he does it, he ends up completely changing the characterization that the player was RPing- ie Fearne confidently flirting with the were-panther, and then he tells her that she's blushing and nervous, completely the opposite of how Ashley was doing it. (he also does it later again in the episode implying that they slept together. seriously fuck off with this sam.)

(on the other hand, I cannot deny that Laura just absolutely losing her shit while Laudna was stuttering was hysterical)

Why am I not upset at Marisha for doing a very similar thing afterwards (forcing Taliesin to talk about backstory)? One, it was information that her PC knew, and two, it wasn't presented as a good or funny thing. It was a clear deflection, and very angrily done. It is perfectly reasonable to imagine Ashton calling her out later for doing so.

Honestly, everyone's opinion on the gods make sense for me EXCEPT for Orym. Iunno, maybe Keyleth's attitude rubbed off on him during his training, and that influences the fact that he's had several positive interactions with gods and makes it more neutral?

Let me be very very clear. All the jokes about the flower names? 10000 percent worth it for the 25ish temp HP that the boss got at the end. Some of these were SO clever! Plus, Matt's exasperated face is always fun XD

Three nat 1s for stealth!! I cannot remember the last time that this happened, unless it was Travis with the three nat 1s for Fjord at the festival way back at the beginning of C2. DELICIOUS!

The combat was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! I do kinda wish I could see two different versions, one where Fearne's persuasion failed, and one where the enemies actually rolled decent. Because the group was freaking out a lot, but I'm actually gonna go back and do calculations, 'cause I'm pretty sure most of them were really good on HP? Like, I genuinely think only Imogen was in true danger.

Okay, before the short rest from last episode/start of this one - Fearne was at 16 HP, Ashton at 88, Orym at 79, Laudna around 72 depending on temp HP gain, Chetney 82, FCG 19, and Imogen at full. Unknown how much healing with short rest.

After the short rest, Fearne took no damage in her regular form, Ashton only took 16 points, Orym only took 22, Chetney took 14, FCG took 19, and Laudna took none. Imogen went down and was brought back to 4 HP.

So.....Yeah, I don't get why they were freaking out so hard, when basically all of them had a bunch of HP. (I also don't get why Tal tends not to tank despite having the best HP and having rage damage reduction.) Ah well. Still entertaining! Plus seeing them freak out is always fun, even if at times confusing.

Travis and cursed swords, what is a better pairing?

ASHLEY. FEARNE. BOTH OF YOU. WHAT ARE YOU DOING, THIS IS AMAZING, I LOVE THIS AND CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE FALLOUT OMG (also you totally should have just propositioned him right then and there! XD)

[wolfepirat3]

Magnificent Seven 1998

This, is not going to be a structured post by any means.

I am about to spew so much shit out your mind will be left reeling because you have no fucking clue about what im trying to say

But, im about to talk about my intense love for this show.

Its going to entail a lot of jumping around between thoughts and ideas because i dont know where to begin when it comes to me talking about this show and how much i care about it.

If we are going to start somewhere, it has to be the friendships

I love how almost all of the seven have a closer friendship to one out of all the rest of them. Examples being vin and chris, buck and jd, and josiah and nathan.

Unfortunately ezra doesnt have that, but i do love when the fandom makes him have good friendships with the rest in their own ways (i have a huge bias towards ezra & vin, ezra & jd, and ezra & buck friendship fr)

Vin and chris were literally destined to be bffs, i think it comes with being named Chris and vin because this is one of the few things actually retained from the 1960 version of mag 7 and i really do love the connection the characters have. Especially with how they basically communicate with little looks and gestures and dont even really need a full out conversation to be close with one another.

Buck and jd actually make me go crazy and i want to cry everytime i think about them because the friendship chemistry they have is insane. Their banter and how theres literally at least one scene of them hanging out together in ever episode makes me so happy. Literally found family brothers of im being honest.

I dont have as much to say about josiah and nathan (though i do love them very much), but i like how their friendship is established as already existing during the pilot because it adds a nice difference to the fast forming friendships of the other two pairs. I also like how im season twos premiere that when the seven split up, they still went together to the seminole camp to continue their lives. Its just really nice to have a strong, established friendship that holds up through the series.

Okay so now i want to talk ezra (hes literally my favorite and hes also literally me idc)

Ezra is such an interesting character because he doesnt have that bond between him and another one of the seven like the others do. Yeah he hangs out with all of them but you cant really point to one specific character and say 'yeah, thats his bff'

Out of the seven hes the one who has the least amount of reason to remain in the town (also for my sake im just going to call it by the fandom name through here on out- four corners- because its a fitting name and the town doesnt cut it for me) unlike the rest. Everyone all wants to protect four corners, but getting into specifics:

Chris has mary and billy he wants to look after

Vin has a place to call home that he doesnt have to run from due to being wanted (even though that gets resolved in sins of the past)

Nathan has people he can take care of and heal

Josiah can repent and do something good

JD can make a life for himself in the west and prove himself

And Buck can try (and fail) to get ladies (and of course look after JD)

But ezra? The most he had was wanting to buy his saloon, but thats ruined by maude (and i have so much to say about ezra and hers relationship)

Well i guess the most prominent reason he had to stay was when judge travis made him stay for 30 days so he could get out of being arrested. But then by the time the days were over he decided to stay (which shocked everyone including himself)

I believe that subconsciously, he realizes that four corners and being with the seven is where he belongs and that this is the right path in life for him.

I also like how his relationship with other characters grow throughout the show and how he (slightly) improves as a person. Also also how you can see that he isnt completely self absorbed from the get go

examples:

Literally the pilot episode where, admittedly, he does try to run. BUT he ends up coming back in the end to help everyone out because he knows its the right thing to do

In serpents when yes, hes trying to steal all the money. BUT he realizes that someones trying to kill mary and literally puts his life on the line to save her?? Like yeah hes selfish and hedonistic, but he does do the right thing eventually

Like in working girls when he was giving the ladies lessons. He did do it for money reasons, but he was also trying to make sure that theyd be able to get onto their feet and have good lives. He also didnt have to do drag to distract the people at wickestown, but he does because he knows that itd most likely succeed in the end.

And now, onto his mother.

If theres one thing i want to get straight, its the fact that i HATE when people demonize maude and try to make her out to be a horrifically malicious woman that hates ezra and only manipulates him for selfish reasons.

Yes, she sucks a good deal of the time and does actively make life hell when shes running a con, but shes also doing what she knows will keep her afloat in life.

She did drop ezra off at familys places when she went off to do cons ezra couldn't, which did contribute to her bad parenting because it really isnt fair to do that to anyone. But i think some people need to realize that she was a single mother that had to provide for a child and was just trying to do it in a way that she knew best.

Her tactics are manipulative at times and she has done things during the course of the show that shit on everything ezra was working for (namely: ruining his one dream of owning a saloon by almost immediately buying it out after he spent so long saving up money) and most of time its because she wants to 'teach him a lesson' but we cant hate on her for being a shittier person than she actually is.

Its extremely clear that she cares for ezra and loves him and its also very clear that ezra loves her back because he still puts up with her everytime she comes through four corners.

Okay ezra rant over i think

Now i kind of just want to talk about fandom and headcanons and those kinds of things

Now im not an active participant in the fandom (mostly because its very small and very dead and idk where to find other fans), but i do read a lot of fics from 20 years ago and ive picked up on a lot of things that they did back then that ive come to love very much.

If theres one thing i love it's ezra centric fics, especially ones that include the seven comingore to understand his philosophy about things and realizing that what he does is how he shows he cares, something bad happening that involves a misunderstanding of some sort that leads to an arduous process of realization and forgiveness, and also i do love just good friendship and teamwork

I also like all the AUs that people have come up with (such as the ATF one, i was wary of it at first but i think its so cool how well thought out everything is). Also how they share ideas and ocs and theres always a thanks and acknowledgment towards the people who created the ideas. (Like when i first started getting into the fics i thought Chaucer and Four Corners were canon names, but i was so shocked when i found out that someone came up with it and everyone agreed that theyre really good names and went with them)

Finally, for now, i want to cover some of my headcanons for the guys cuz im a little silly like that and i have way too many thoughts bouncing around in my cranium

Buck with heterochromia

I thought of this one when i was trying to do a drawing of the seven and i found out his eyes were blue and not brown like i thought. Instead of conforming because im too cool for that, i decided to just go with blue and brown

Ezra probably knows most of the main romance languages (specifically french, spanish, and italian)

It just feels like something he wouldve learned either by maude making him or something hed do on his own for con reasons

Vin is more blond than he is in canon

If im being completely honest and genuine, for the first probably six months after getting onto the show i couldve and wouldve sworn that vin was blond. Then i was getting pictures of the characters when o realized that hes actually a brunette??? So anyways my thought process for the blond thing is that its kind of bleached by the sun considering he spends a lot of time outside and especially due to his upbringing

JD has a little scar through his eyebrow because he was fooling around and got cut there

Another thing that came up when i was drawing a few years back. I just thought it looked cool but its something that happened as a complete accident that jd thinks looks cool, but when someone asks how it happened he gets really embarrassed because he was doing something stupid

Post series, Nathan and Ezra actually talk shit out and find common ground so they arent so pissy with each other

I just want them to be friends tbh, like genuinely theyd be the kind of friends that hate each others guts but would do absolutely anything to anyone if something bad happened to the other one

Character ages are another headcanon i have. Last year i wanted to see how old the actors were during the filming of the show compared to how old i thought the characters were and i was a little surprised at some if im being honest. Anyways heres my headcanon ages

Chris - 37

Buck - 39

Vin - 31 (which actually coincides with how old eric close was so i did pretty good in this matter)

Ezra - 29

Nathan - 30

Josiah - 49

JD - 21 (though i have seen some people say hes meant to be 18/19? Idk I just know hes meant to be young)

Okay i think thats completely it for now. I said so much but i dont actually know how much makes sense

Thanks anyways! Plz watch the show if you havent i promise is so worth it!!!!

Have a good day, until next time

[nellie-elizabeth]

The Legend of Vox Machina: Into Rimecleft (2x06)

Eyyyyy we're splitting the party, this should be good.

Cons:

Okay. So. Keyleth encouraging Vax to talk to the Matron of Ravens... I get why they added this little detail in, but to be honest it's a characterization change I'm not sure about. Keyleth in the streams has always  been very dismissive or even distrustful of the gods. It feels weird that she should be the one to gently nudge Vax towards exploring that relationship. Maybe I'm misremembering and Keyleth says something to him in the stream too, it's hundreds of hours of gameplay and character choices aren't always 100% consistent, but this just rang false for me as a Keyleth moment.

Literally I have no other complaints though, this episode is perfect.

Pros:

I've been saying that all the episodes could use a couple more minutes of breathing room, and this episode really helped by having a section where everyone's just walking on their journey to meet the second sphinx, and they have a chance to chat, to catch up. The aforementioned Vax and Keyleth moment happens there, and we have Pike worrying about Grog, we have the ADORABLE moment of Percy giving Vex his coat... he's so smitten, I love it. It just really gave the group a chance to breathe and check in with each other before their next big moment of tension.

Grog's nightmare at the start of the episode was so intense, and was mirrored so beautifully by the agonizing ending where he stabs Pike with Craven Edge! This is changed in circumstances to how it happened on the stream, although something similar did occur, and it's so brutal to see it play out! Travis is killing it in the voice acting department. He really only offered comic relief last season, but now he gets to shine.

That goes double for Scanlan - see, when I started watching Critical Role during campaign one, my original favorites were, quite predictably, the twins and Percy. Percy's got that anime angst thing going on, and then pretty quickly so does Vax, after the Sunken Tomb incident. But as I kept watching, slowly emerging to the forefront of my "favorite characters" list was... Scanlan Shorthalt. It's partly the genius of Sam Riegel. He's such a charismatic man, he can take the jokey little gnome bard character and just shatter you to pieces with what happens next. And since watching this show, they have the time and space to set that up properly... hot damn, this is one of my absolute favorite episodes of the whole show thus far.

To start, we see that Scanlan does have people checking in on him, in their own way. He's not as completely isolated as he pretends to be, it's just that his humor is deflecting people from noticing his pain. Grog offers to carry him to warm him up, and yeah it's a comedy beat, and yeah Grog is manhandling him, but that's Grog's way of showing he cares, too. And Pike wants to talk to him about Grog, and yeah she tells him off for making a dumb joke, but she was looking for some sincere conversation from him, and he was the one who failed to give it.

Then we get Kamaljiori. This is a significant shift from how this encounter went down on the stream. I actually laughed out loud when the sphinx just introduced himself, because let's just say that's definitely not how it went the first time around! I love how Kamaljiori's trials are similar to Osysa's, in that they both involve touching on the insecurities of the party members: Vex doesn't have family who cares about her other than Vax, Grog needs to find where his strength comes from, etc., but it's also different. They're finding fun ways to mix up all the different combat scenarios from the show, what with this being a one-on-one test of strength that's ultimately won by emotional damage.

Fucking Scanlan, pulling out a pop ballad to wound Kamaljiori's heart... and it's honestly such a good song? Sam has such a good voice, damn! I actually got goosebumps. It's such a funny twist, and so heartfelt, and Scanlan actually finds a friend who understands him on an emotional level, who he can joke around with but who understands there's a heart under all that, and that he's having a hard time. It's so heartwarming for Scanlan to find this, and he even gets his own Vestige out of the deal! Mythcarver. I like how they've added in the twist about Mythcarver being tied to all the other Vestiges, so it can lead them to find the others as we go.

And then... just to pile on the angst... looks like with Ripley's assist, Umbrasyl has found Vox Machina. This was such an epic showdown, and again it's increasing the menace of these dragons. We just watched how Vox Machina couldn't get a hit in on this Sphinx, and now Umbrasyl is able to go toe to toe with him! I was genuinely moved by Scanlan and "Kammi" defending each other during the fight. This ancient powerful being risked his life to protect his new little friend. In fact, he lost his life, after thanking Scanlan for letting him see Osysa once more before the end. This totally broke my heart!

And while we're all being sad about this Sphinx dying, meanwhile Grog is losing his battle to control Craven Edge, as he ferociously tackles Umbrasyl single-handed. Keyleth is trying to get a plane shift spell going, Grog is covered in Umbrasyl's blood and won't stop attacking, Pike tries to stop him and... gets impaled for her trouble! Gasp!

I'm actually really excited to see the Fey Realm stuff play out and the Westruun story also take strides, while our party is split up. It feels like it's a good opportunity to mix things up, and honestly will build to a really satisfying reunion in a few episodes!

A couple small things to call out: the Vax and Percy tension is still there simmering in the background. He's short with Percy about reading the runes, then shoulder-checks him on his way to go face the Sphinx. I'm obsessed with guilt-ridden Percy trying to make nice with Vax and just getting nowhere... I hope we get some of that in the next batch of episodes. Keyleth has a moment where she's hesitant about trying an unfamiliar spell, and Vax calls her "Kiki" and encourages her to try, and she is quite calm and more self-assured than we'd normally see her as she agrees to try. I love this! She's growing into her confidence more and more! Grog's attempts to hide what's happening with Craven Edge are very suspicious but also very funny. This week, he claims he was talking to the trees, to throw Pike off the scent.

And that's it! I can't believe this show keeps making me wait after such tense moments. Pike is seriously injured, Grog is drowning in guilt, the group is separated... can't wait to see more next week!

10/10

[handsomeamoeba]

Alright, two of these polls timed out, it's go time. Stories and the correct answer under the cut

potentially psychically attacked my best friend during a fire drill TRUE

Okay bear with me here.

It was freshman year of college and I was living in the dorms. As those who have lived in a dorm are probably familiar with, the fire alarm went off at like 3 AM (I think someone burned a bag of popcorn or something). I was very disoriented so I just kind of stumbled out in my bathrobe with no shoes.

The problem with this was that it was January, and about 5 degrees outside.

I looked around for my bestie so I could complain about my self-inflicted state, but i couldn't locate her. That's about when I realized that she was probably at her then-boyfriend's house snug and warm in bed.

We were outside for about an hour, waiting for the fire department to sweep the whole building, before they thought "hey maybe we should send these guys to the other dorm building to warm up." I staggered down the freezing pavement wearing my other friend's gloves on my feet. When we got to the other dorm I grabbed my bestie's roommate and said, "I know where she is, and when I see her, I'm gonna kill her."

AT THIS VERY MOMENT, my bestie snaps wide awake from a deep sleep for reasons unknown to her. She figures as long as she's awake she might as well go use the bathroom. When she returns from the restroom, she is shaking uncontrollably. After climbing into bed, her trembling wakes her boyfriend, who rolls over and touches her and asks her "what the fuck, did you go outside?" because she is so cold to the touch.

The next day we exchanged notes and put two and two together.

---

came out as trans because of the McElroys TRUE

Look I just realized I liked referring to myself as "boy" at a certain point. And then an episode of Travis & Theresa McElroy's "Shmanners" where they talked about gender-neutral honorifics sealed the deal.

---

teacher challenged us to climb up a greased up poll for money TRUE

Okay. Okay. So when we used to do Field Days in school (for those who aren't familiar, a Field Day is a day when your school or other organization just goes out and does outdoor recreational activities for a day) there was a game we'd play where our teacher would slick the tetherball poll in vaseline and challenge us kids to try to climb it to get a $10 bill stuck to the top. It never worked but boy we'd try.

I brought this up to several people recently and apparently nobody else ever fucking did this?

I went to an unlicensed Montessori school if that makes a difference.

---

sold a classmate into slavery TRUE

Uh. So this one. Is even weirder than it sounds. And it involves a game of Monopoly.

When I was in high school I took an elective course in sociology for a semester, taught by a teacher we'll call Mr. N. He was a strange and charismatic man. Once he challenged us to spend 24 hours in isolation and write a paper about it. But by far the most memorable thing he ever did was have us play Monopoly.

The game lasted... I wanna say about a week, week and a half of in-class time. At the start of the game he laid a few ground rules:

At any time, the teams can merge following a vote.

At any time, the teams can split following a vote.

For a nominal monopoly money fee, Mr. N would pass private correspondence between teams for us.

For a starting bonus, we could pick a "company" name and bring in our own playing piece.

The winning team would receive a pizza party. The rest would not receive anything.

Our team was named Fantastic Cactus, and we had a small live cactus as our playing piece.

It did not take long for the game to go completely off the rails. We would conspire and plan outside of class time. Our opponents became enemies. Mr. N egged us on, starting to offer deals. He would offer to buy possessions off us-- little things at first, like pencils and erasers-- for more Monopoly money for our team. He would then auction them off to our classmates for real money (which went towards the scholarship fund he ran).

At one point one of our teammates suggested we were becoming too ruthless. We voted her out of the team, forcing her to become an independent company that we then immediately drove into bankruptcy.

I sold the shoes off my feet to Mr. N.

Eventually one smaller team approached us for a merger, and we voted to agree to buy them out and have them join our team.

Which is when we decided to sell one of them into slavery to Mr. N.

We almost didn't do it! Not because we had ethical qualms about it though, but because one of the stipulations was that he had to be on time to class every day, and we didn't trust him to do it.

Another classmate became so stressed about the game that it exacerbated her ulcers, and she was excused from the game and allowed pizza on the condition that she act as Mr. N's assistant.

Anyway, Fantastic Cactus won.

And as we're enjoying our pizza party and gloating at the end of the game, Mr. N stands up in front of the class and says this:

"You know, at the beginning of this game, I told you at any time, teams could merge. If at the beginning of the game you had told me, 'Mr. N, we all want to merge so we can all have pizza,' you could have done that. But you didn't, because that would be communism, and you have been trained by a capitalist society to compete."

Anyway, I'm a borderline communist now.

---

incited a flag burning as a child TRUE

So, my elementary school (you know, the one with the greased poll) used to do these parties before every Thanksgiving break where we'd make a Thanksgiving lunch from scratch in the way people from a chosen historical period would have done it. I'm talking down to churning butter and everything. There's a whole separate story about just that process, but that's not what we're here to talk about.

One year the theme was American Revolution. After lunch, as a fun little activity, our teacher (the one who greased up the poll) had us stage a mock Boston Tea Party. A few of us were sent out in a tiny boat onto the pond behind the school to throw boxes of shredded leaves into the water while all 20-something of us chanted "NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION."

This managed to whip this group of 6-12 year olds into an insane patriotic frenzy. It got to the point where, in the revolutionary spirit of the afternoon, I quickly drew a union jack and brought it out and we, completely unsupervised, threw the flag onto the campfire and cheered and screamed. (It was the 90s, nobody cared about kids being unsupervised around fire I guess).

One of our teachers, who was an English emigrant, had to go home early.

Another had to sit us down and give us a talking-to about flag burnings.

It was not, incidentally, the teacher who had got us all stirred up in the first place.

---

spent a period of my life deeply threatened by the number 5 FALSE

It was the number 7, actually. I don't know what to tell you, I have psychotic depression and was convinced I was seeing omens.

Do you know how fucking often a number shows up when you're scared of it? It's a lot.

---

was interrogated for writing a satirical article about my high school TRUE

For shits and giggles as a teen, during a study period, I wrote a list "100 Ways You Know You Go to [School]". I'm not entirely proud of some of the items that were on that list, there was some kind of ableist shit in there but I was like 16 and an asshole, I had a lot of learning ahead of me in life. But other list items included such incendiary claims as accusing two of our teachers of having an affair, another that one of our chemistry teachers smoked crack in the closet between classes, yet another that a teacher had so many botox treatments she no longer experienced emotions, and that dogs were openly mating in the parking lot. A lot of these things were common memes and inside jokes among the students.

I shared the list with a few friends and classmates who unbeknownst to me made photocopies. And then they made photocopies. And suddenly the list was everywhere.

Eventually I am pulled out of Photography and brought to a private room by the dean of students and asked if I know anything about The List. Apparently I am a suspect because the list is "well written," and I am told that nobody is going to be "in trouble," they just "want to know."

On the one hand I am flattered because it was just a listicle and I didn't think it was that good. On the other, I am fucking offended because how stupid do they think I am? "Nobody's going to get in trouble?" Then why are you pulling me out of class to interrogate me alone?

So I put on my best Innocent Model Student face and tell her, "I have no idea, Mrs. K! You know I'm always out of the loop on these things. I mean, I've seen it. But I couldn't say who wrote it." We'd had a good relationship up until that point, so she believed me and sent me on my merry.

I never trusted her again. Then again, I should've stopped trusting her when I took her health class and she told us the Orange Juice LSD Urban Legend like it was something that had happened to one of her students personally.

---

hurt Rob Thomas' feelings by not believing in him enough TRUE

So in high school when other kids were listening to... what the fuck did kids listen to in 2004? Usher? Anyway, I was having a Matchbox Twenty phase.

I was active on their official forums. On the forums, you needed to register an account to post and nobody could register one of the band members' names for their account so no one could impersonate them. They would make an occasional post. Actually, former rhythm guitarist Adam Gaynor would post rather frequently and we called him "Uncle Adam" which in retrospect is fucking weird. But also besides the point.

There was also an official live chatroom, but you didn't need an account to use the live chat, you could just choose a name and start chatting. I didn't use it often, I preferred the forums, but sometimes the chat was chaotic and fun. At any rate, one day a guy shows up claiming to be Rob Thomas and says he'll do a Q&A. Obviously we do not believe him. We know how the Internet works. He tries to get us to do a Q&A with him for about a half hour until we bully this troll out of the room.

Which is when actual fucking Rob Thomas himself posts on the forum with his official account to say how hurt and offended he was that nobody would listen to him in the live chatroom. And then we had to explain to this fucking Gen Xer that people tell lies online.

---

dad pulled my baby teeth w/ a paper towel hand puppet named after a Nazi scientist TRUE

Okay this is admittedly in somewhat poor taste.

I had issues getting my loose teeth out as a child, so I often recruited the assistance of my dad to dislodge them for the purposes of extorting the tooth fairy for cash.

This help came in the form of a paper towel hand puppet who was a cackling mad scientist threatening to experiment on my teeth. The goal was to get me to laugh and distract me from how scared I was that losing my teeth was gonna hurt.

Except the hand puppet's name was. Dr. Mengele.

Imagine my fucking surprise when we were watching the History Channel one day and I learned who Dr. Mengele was.

The bit persisted though until all my baby teeth were gone.

Some years later, my mother, who has never known the appropriate moment to tell a story to save her life, told the story of the Dr. Mengele puppet to my orthodontist.

Dr. Schwartz.

And do you know what, he didn't find it funny?

---

buried a toad alive because it was ugly TRUE

Oh god okay christ.

I was 8. I think.

In my childhood I held a lot of funerals for wild animals. It was the way of kids who grew up in the woods. There was a little graveyard beside the school where we buried a variety of frogs and snakes and squirrels and bugs and even a mole at one point.

Well one day me and my bestie found a toad in the pond, and this bad boy was so super warty. He had lumps and bumps everywhere. Just a lumpy, bumpy guy.

We were convinced he had cancer. And was actively dying.

Well, what was there to be done?

Obviously we had to bury the poor thing.

So we committed him to the animal graveyard, going so far as to bury him under stones and everything.

I'd like to imagine he dug his way out eventually. But probably not.

I'm gonna do 3 of these polls because I thought of a LOT of things, check my blog for the others. Each poll contains one item that is ALMOST but NOT QUITE true. Which one is it?

I can elaborate when the polls are done if people are interested.

[c-is-for-circinate]

So I have finally caught up with CR as of today’s rebroadcast, and oh MAN what an episode to be caught up on.

Most of those feelings are about Fjord, at the moment, because holy shit but in such a compelling way, I love this character and hell yes Travis for playing him this way, specifically in the context of how different characters feel about sacrifice.

We know, we’ve known for a few episodes (and man am I sorry I haven’t been jotting down post-ep notes for the past few eps, I have gotten out of the habit and I need to get back in) that most of the M9 expects they might die here, to one degree or another.  There’s been an absolutely fascinating range of reactions and attitudes around that thus far, too. 

Caleb, full of guilt and the desire for redemption, holding onto every intention of dying for his friends and the absolute conviction that’s a thing he can control and enforce on the world.   Caduceus, raised around death but never quite so close to him or so far away from home as it is now, saying his goodbyes and trying to make peace with a thing that clearly frightens him.  Beau, who expected to be probably-dead or at least much more alone by this age anyway, only talking about the possibility of her own death as a possible logistical necessity as she focuses not on what comes after but only on getting through this fight.  Yasha, who’s outlived so many people, who can rage through unconsciousness, even into death as though it’s only an inconvenience, making jokes-that-aren’t-quite-jokes about how she’ll probably be fine and survive them all, knowing she probably can.  Jester, who always, always tries to be positive, to make light, to be joy and fun that hides the darkness under the bed where it can’t be seen, saying “what do I need money for, we’re going into the North to die”, another joke-that-isn’t-a-joke, another fear that she can’t face or admit or buckle under because how selfish would that be, right now.  Veth, who feels so much desperate guilt and torn duty and half-broken devotion to her family, determined to survive, still so scared she won’t for their sake.

There’s so much focus from each of them on their own deaths, even as they try to protect their friends.  There’s Caleb and Beau explicitly willing to trade their own lives for the sake of the rest of the group if they have to, if they can; there’s Caduceus and Jester, less explicit about it but expecting to face one loss or another, resigned to it; there’s Yasha and Veth and expectations of survival already bound up in survivors’ guilt even before the question gets asked.

Or: the questions, plural, because there are two different questions being asked here: there's "am I willing to die to save my friends?", and there's, "am I willing to die to win this fight?", and they're all bound up in each other in slightly different degrees for each person. The consensus for most of the group seems very much to be that, yes, they're willing to die for the sake of this fight, that's what it means to be here in the first place; and as far as their friends go, well, if someone has to die during this fight, let it be me and not them. And that's beautiful and honorable and chest-aching in seven different unique ways for each party member, but the one I'm thinking about today is Fjord, who I did not mention on my list above, who has added one more question to his list.

Because while everybody else in the party is asking themselves what they're willing to trade their lives for for, Fjord has skipped over that step entirely (to save the world, to protect his friends, yes, yes, of course, obviously). The question he's asking, here and now, is "who else's life am I willing to trade for this fight?" And that is a question I find incredibly compelling.

Nobody else would've told the rangers to engage. I don't even think Matt as Essek expected Fjord to suggest they ought to engage, not directly; perhaps try to lay a false trail, perhaps try to implode the exit as previously mentioned, but not this. Fjord ordered half a dozen men into a massacre. He did it on purpose, to burn a few of his enemy's spell slots, to try and buy his team another hour of sleep. He didn't even have much expectation of victory. But he did it, because the math in his head said this would give the Nein a better chance in this fight, and winning this fight is more important than anyone's lives.

Even long before the Tombtakers showed up at Aeor, I kept thinking about that conversation with Beau about a fallback position for retreat. "There's no leaving this fight," Fjord said, "not for me, and not, I think, for you either." It's about the specifics, the logistics of not needing an escape plan because they don't plan to escape, but it's also very much a statement of intent. It's Fjord saying, I will buy this victory with my life, because victory is more important here than my survival. And it is, at least a little bit, Fjord saying, I will buy this victory with your life too, if that's what it costs. Because victory is more important here than anyone's survival. Because survival, at this point, is not even a consideration in the mathematical equation of tactics and necessity, except in that we can't win if we're dead. Our lives are worth nothing if we lose here, so we will spend whatever we have to in order to win.

It's a kind of ruthlessness I find incredibly interesting and appealing as a character choice, because there's little or no selfishness in the cold calculation of it. At no point is Fjord choosing or even contemplating anyone else's sacrifice for the sake of his own survival. He would die happily to save any of his friends, is more than willing to die in this fight himself, and would consider it a complete victory if doing so stopped Lucien in the process. It's just that Fjord also seems painfully aware that his own death isn't necessarily the price this victory is going to cost. If it's a choice between letting Yasha die and stopping this ritual, he already knows what he ought to choose. If it's a choice between cutting down Beau and Caleb to protect the part of the party that can still fight Lucien, or trying to save them, well, there's a reason he's the one Caleb asked to fulfill that promise. All else being equal, Fjord would save his teammates over himself, but that's never been how the throes of combat work, and all else is never equal. Fjord might be the only member of the group right now who would deliberately save himself at a teammate's expense specifically because he'd have the highest chance of stopping this mad city's return. And that is a lot.

All of which means I am incredibly excited to see what sorts of choices Fjord is faced with in the coming weeks. When it's more than just hypothetical, when it's Jester in danger instead of some nameless rangers on a mountainside, will he stick to his desperate pragmatism or will his love and protectiveness win out? How does he face himself after either version of that decision? What is he going to have to do? I cannot wait to find out.

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E111 (Redux! Oct. 13, 2020)

Gooooood evening good evening good evening, all! I started the VOD late for this recap and somehow the first four or so minutes of the show have a Twitch audio copyright claim, so I am reduced to only reading Brian's lips when he asks if we're on the internet. Hilariously, Marisha's background room is a comfy-looking blue/gold fabric wall with a ceramic colorful abstract lamp and a yellow silk scarf over the lampshade, and Taliesin's is an industrial looking games room in grey and black with multiple monitors, overhead speakers, and mysterious metal fixtures behind him. What a treasure this group is, honestly.

Tonight's guests: Marisha Ray & Taliesin Jaffe, discussing episodes 110 and 111 again. I wildly speculate once more about what might have caused their absence: jury duty? Sam appearing on The Masked Singer? Something to do with the animated show? One day, we’ll know, one day... (One day this “copyrighted audio” section will come back from the wars, too. Ugh!) Finally! The audio comes back to reveal Brian discussing the endless reality of digital meetings and Marisha talking about (I think) her glare-reducing glasses she’s wearing. Welcome to the New Age (welcome to the New Age, to the New Age).

Announcements: Marisha suggests checking out Dimension20, another live tabletop gaming group, which premieres live on Wednesdays at 4pm (CollegeHumor). 

Brian immediately wants to know how they feel about the revelation that Molly is alive. Taliesin’s personal reaction: he “knows some things” he can’t talk about and is aware of several possibilities that might be going on, but had a sneaking suspicion that there would not be a body for them to find. He says it’s almost all there for anyone to see in past material. Marisha’s personal reaction: she just wants to know how she’s doing with her theories, & was trying to block Tal’s face out deliberately as she was going off on her theories in the last episode. Taliesin says he thought her ideas were pretty good!

Cad has no clue what to think - it’s like listening to your friends talk about Buffy. Marisha thought it was a 50/50 Molly would still be there, but Beau had no idea. Not that it mattered, because as soon as Matt went through with it the reveal still blew their minds. Tal laid out his plans for the character with Matt during Campaign One (towards the end) after they all got their VM tattoos.

It is a “horrifying and gross” thing to dig up a body, and Beau was pretty reluctant to do it. Tal, as Cad: “Sometimes dead’s better.” The moral quandary of trying to speak with a dead friend was very different here than the frequent occasions they used the spell in C1.

Taliesin says his poker face is very bad, so it’s easier for him to over-react and let it all play out. The only other player he can see very easily from his place in their current setup is Travis, and because he knows Travis doesn’t watch TM, tweet, or participate in social media, he admits he thoroughly enjoyed watching Travis freak out at his freaking out. He says he only knew about 20% of what Matt described at the end of that episode. He was picking things to mug to increase Travis’s surprise. I love this so much.

Taliesin provided the table left leg shake; Travis provided table right. Ha!

Beau is really accepting her role in the Cobalt Soul. It’s good when “as a person, you feel like you can settle into your calling. Sometimes you can do more from the inside than fighting from the outside.” It’s a mirrored but opposite path of Keyleth from C1; Beau felt like she was too good for her duty, while Keyleth thought she wasn’t good enough.

Caduceus is not a big believer in jumping to conclusions. He does have an idea/notion of the “city of the undead” and thinks all this necrotic energy must come from somewhere, and wonders if this is the “capital of anti-death.” He’s willing to believe whatever he sees. This is one of the few things that trigger a bit of loathing and disgust in him. It was terrifying that the Wildmother didn’t know anything.

Beau is pretty confident in her Charlie Day impression laying-out-the-research last episode. She enjoyed taking the things that were known & extrapolating around them; this is a huge facet of Marisha’s own personality and she really enjoys it, so she built a character this time that would allow that kind of puzzle-solving. It’s also why she repeatedly notes when Beau journals, so she can avoid metagaming. Trent’s mention of Vess Durogna’s tomb raiding was completely circumstantial, and the only reason she’d made the connection to the Tombtakers was because she’d recently reviewed those notes for a separate unannounced project. Sometimes she tries to make connections and Matt is like, “It was...just descriptive. Just flavor. The curtains were red...” and she has to discard a paragraph of notes. She feels like it’s still something they have to do because of “look at what he does! Look! It’s totally valid!”

Cosplay of the Week: @kitsunstudios with a gorgeous Caduceus with a very intricate silk vest.

Caduceus’s takedown of Trent! One of my favorite moments in the entirety of C2. Taliesin felt Trent was an asshole; Caduceus felt sorry for him because of how dumb he thought he was. Caduceus’s response was "this is the dumbest man I’ve ever met in my life. He’s so dumb! Is nobody going to tell this guy how dumb he is? Oh, they’re all freaked out. Somebody needs to tell this guy he’s an idiot before somebody gets hurt.” (Marisha: “Before?”) Tal says it was the product of several years of therapy and many drunk conversations with Whitney Moore. It was from a genuine place of concern from Caduceus. “How are you allowed to have this much power and be that dumb?”

Brian loved how funny it was to watch everyone tiptoe around Trent and then Caduceus bulldoze through the end of the meal.

Taliesin: “Damage doesn’t make you interesting or better. It’s not what makes you good. Character isn’t found in damage. Just recovery.”

Brian & Marisha commiserate going through the stage where believing surviving something automatically made you a stronger person, better for the pain; instead it just meant you had to pick up the pieces after. Marisha talks about how strength through survival may be true for some people, but it shouldn’t be considered a necessity. Taliesin talks about how he used to think he had to be miserable to write. Brian talks about how believing he liked reading and writing miserable things only limited him for years.

Marisha feels it’s a C2 theme that almost all the PCs have someone trying to handwave or take credit for their accomplishments or explain their pain as being for their own good (Trent, Beau’s dad, Obann). She thinks it’s interesting to see all the various ways people try to take credit for your work/delegitimize you as a person. She loves that RPGs allow you to explore these odd moralities in interesting ways. The only way to fight it is to have a sense of your own self-worth, which is a problem a lot of the M9 started with.

Caduceus likes everyone, and really likes people who appear to need role models (Eodwulf). “With the right friends and the right bar and the right attitude, I think he’d be okay. Come over here where it’s so much better. That seems like an exhausting friendship that you have there.”

Marisha loves the mix of personalities in the M9; Veth, Cad, & Jester were all “we kind of like them!” after the dinner, and she immediately made eye contact with Travis and they both shook their heads. She knows Beau has to go along with it for Caleb’s sake for now, but she & Fjord are pretty sus of Trent’s proteges.

Beau is less concerned about Artagan’s relationship to Jester because “he showed his ass--she’s less worried about Jester now because a little of the magic is gone.” It’s a little like becoming an adult and realizing your parents are also just adults & human. Caduceus wasn’t suspicious of the Traveler for a long time until they got to the island. Aside: Taliesin loves the pantheon in D&D. “The notion of attempting to apply common Western conceptions of religion to a world where you have a pantheon of interventionist gods as baseline makes no sense to me. Everyone admits that every other god is there and doing shit; it has more in common with ancient Rome than anything else.” Now that he knows it was a con, he feels the wind had been taken out of it. He does have a sense that Jester’s gotten back together with an ex: “I hope that I’m really happy for you.” They’re both interested to see how Jester navigates the new relationship.

My internet goes out, of course. I panic for a second, thinking I’ve lost everything above, but all is well! Thanks, Form History Control addon!

Marisha loved punching Artagan, but regretting rolling so poorly. “I miss violence.” Dani lets us know it’s been about four episodes since the last battle.

There’s no way the Cobalt Reserve doesn’t have a single document on the Eyes of Nine. Beau believes “there are no real secrets” because people are just bad at not writing things down. For there to be no information at all seems really suspicious for her.

Fanart of the Week: @oddalchemist on twitter with some awesome Beau conspiracy red-thread boards overlaid a distant shadowy Molly walking away.

Caduceus feels a little guilty for really enjoying his time right now with the M9 and not wanting to go home. He’s starting to suspect that he’s going to go home very different than when he left. “He has the softest problems. I don’t know if I want to move back in with Mom & Dad.”

Beau is trying to get comfortable with the idea of being happy. Jester is probably Beau’s first real best friend & one of the first healthy female friendships she’s ever had. As long as she still has Jester in her life, she doesn’t care. For Yasha... “At the end of the day, Beau is a lonely person and has always been a lonely person. And I think you kinda reach this point where once you’re not lonely anymore, you can kind of come out of the fog and realize that was horrible! And terrifying! And is even more terrifying now that I know what I could have, and I don’t want to go back to that. At the end of the day Beau doesn’t want to be lonely anymore. There’s always been that flirtation with Yasha, but everyone had to figure their own shit out. And now it feels like it’s coming out a little bit of that haze, maybe this actually could be...” There are a lot of ways they complement each other & are good-different from each other. Marisha believes people can be attracted to more than person at once.

Caduceus doesn’t think nature turned against him on Rumblecusp, it was just a reality of nature being dangerous and violent. “He has a complex relationship with nature.” He doesn’t expect special treatment.

Thoughts on the mansion: “Man, it’s nice to be seen.” Marisha: “I don’t know how I ended up becoming the Scanlan of this campaign, but I’m living for it.” It felt like an echo of “I’m better for having known you.” They compare Marisha taking specific notes on the campaign to Liam taking specific notes on people’s favorite tapestries, comics, etc.

They talk about missing theme parks and daydream a park version of the mansion in CritRoleLand. It’s lovely.

Taliesin never expected Divine Intervention to work; he just wanted to roll some dice. He’s still processing what he saw/heard. They all agree it was very useful in the Vokodo fight.

Vilya! Marisha: “Ah! Ah! Ah!” As a player, Marisha was so deep in Beau’s eyes she didn’t pick up it was Vilya at first (especially since Matt really emphasized they should not be looking for C1 NPCs). Marisha’s brain melted. She bawled her eyes out on the ride home after that episode. Right after it ended, Laura told Marisha “Keyleth finally gets her happy ending,” and it makes Marisha emotional again since Keyleth’s story ended so bittersweetly. She talks about the very real feelings of “just wanting them to be happy, though!” She went back and listened to all her old Keyleth playlists. Everyone was teary after the episode. “Everyone has these 100% real memories of being these characters and having these good times.”

And that’s that for that! Thanks for your patience, all, and is it Thursday yet?

[mircallablue]

So, in the wake of BeauJesters seeming passing, I’m going to take a moment to be more than a little self-indulgent and explain why I love these characters and their unique dynamic so goddamn much, as well as why I’m so disheartened by the way the show seems to be taking them. Warning: essay ahead lol. This is just a rambly rant that I’m writing because it’s cathartic to vent a little bit of frustration, and I love these characters so much. (and I love the entire cast, every goddamn one, and every other character in the show too. This is about love, not hate). 

So, for a few brief and wonderful episodes in this campaign, I actually believed that I was being told a love story about falling in love with your best friend, and figuring out your sexuality, while also unlearning all of the untrue lessons that the world taught you about love while you were growing up, and in so doing, finding value in yourself. Which, for me personally, is just super relatable. Like, that ticks every damn box I have lol, which partly explains why I love BeauJester so much, and I know a lot of B/J shippers feel the same. I’ve shipped B/J from super early on, but I never in a million years really believed it would happen, for a lot of reasons. Mostly homophobia, biphobia and heteronormativity. But I enjoyed their dynamic nonetheless, even though I thought (and was often TOLD by other shippers) that it didn’t stand a chance in hell of happening. 

So you can imagine how VALIDATING it was when Marisha, both in character and out of game, confirmed that Beau had very significant romantic feelings for Jester. All of the crumbs we’d collected over the course of the campaign were finally coming together and all of the gaslighters who told us we were delusional suddenly had to acknowledge that there was something there. And once it had been acknowledged, it was OBVIOUS. Omg it was so obvious and I loved every second of it. It was so undeniable for the next few episodes, and in hindsight, that there was something building there between them, there was potential. There was definitely a connection between these two characters. And for a few weeks, it was great. 

Then Liam - out of character - mentions that Caleb is in love with Jester. And it is immediately, fandom wide, treated with more respect than Marisha and Beau. 

I know a lot of people get very very angry when this is brought up, but it is just the ugly, unfortunate reality that a lot of people in this fandom treat Jester like a manic pixie dream girl. Even the people who do not consciously believe her to be that (and I don’t think there are many that genuinely believe it), are perfectly fine /treating her/ like one, as long as it serves one of the straight men that they love so much, usually Caleb. And this is where the heteronormativity comes in. Because even though it was an out-of-game confession with no bearing on canon, Calebs feelings immediately took precedence over Beaus in terms of the fandom narrative. 

I personally have never liked the way Liam handles romance in game. He did pretty much the exact same thing in campaign 1 as well, where his sad boy pines after the happy girl from afar until he’s uncontrollably in love with her, and then with no warning he drops it like a bomb. He just happened to drop it out of game this time. The main reason I don’t like this style of romance is because of how (unintentionally) manipulative it is. You see it in bad romcoms all the time. The guy makes a public declaration of love that pressures the girl into reciprocating or looking like the bad guy. But the main reason I don’t like /this particular/ declaration is the timing. 

Liam - who has always said he likes things to come out in game - inexplicably decides out of game reveal something as major as Caleb being in love with Jester, right after Marisha IN GAME took steps towards Beau and Jester being together. And it completely changed the narrative. Suddenly it was “top table top table”, and that's if Beaus feelings ever got mentioned at all. It was not at all helped by the fact that a lot of cast members (sam) still pushed Fjorester HARD, even with Jester telling Nott to stop, which must have sucked for Marisha/Beau. But even as recently as episode 99, Beau was still flirting with Jester, and there were definite hints at Jester maybe having unacknowledged feelings for Beau.

Then the hiatus happened. When we return, Beau is throwing herself at Yasha, and there’s not even a song for Jester on her playlist.  And then Travis reveals (also out of game, like Liam) that Fjord has feelings for Jester (in a playlist heavily curated by known fjorester, Dani Carr). And even /that/ is treated with more weight by some fans than Beaus in canon confession. And Yasha is having all of these super convenient dreams where Zuala tells her its ok to move on, and Beau and Jester are barely speaking. And now Beau is calling Yasha her GIRLFRIEND? WHAT??? Did I miss 20 secret episodes that aired during hiatus or something???? Beau and Yasha have still, in 107 episodes, only had ONE meaningful conversation and yet their relationship is being treated as deep and inevitable. Sure, you can read into their other interactions if you want. But as a queer person, I am sick to death of my love needing to be represented as subtext.

And so it has become pretty clear that the cast has decided out of game to go in a different direction. And of course they are well within their right to do that. But I just can’t help feeling incredibly disheartened, and again, more than a little bit gas-lighted. It really does seem as if Beaus' feelings for Jester have just been scrubbed from canon - as if they never even happened. All, seemingly, to make way for a typical happy-girl-sad-guy relationship with either Fjord or Caleb, and a typical pair-the-spares barely-any-depth relationship between the two out lesbians because its easy.

For the entirety of campaign 2, BeauJester has been treated as one thing - inconvenient. Inconvenient by the fans, who prefer other ships and have treated BeauJesters terribly, and now it seems, inconvenient by the cast, who have seemingly discarded it and scrubbed it from canon. 

And one thing that really upsets me is the amount of genuine viciousness and vitriol coming from (some) BeauYasha shippers. I really wish BeauYasha was something I could get on board with, I do. And a lot of people who are sending me hate seem to assume I don’t want them to end up together. But I would be fine with that. But as it stands, they’ve literally only had one real conversation in 107 episodes, and they’re calling each other girlfriend? While literally having not spoken about anything like that? While one of those characters is supposed to have canon romantic feelings for another woman? Imagine that situation with any other characters and it would be comical.

I swear, the queer ladies in this fandom have been done dirty. All of us. Imagine if, in campaign one, Grog and Keyleth, in episode 107, started calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend in the middle of a battle. (I picked those two because they probably had the fewest moments together of any VM pairing). That’s pretty much what happened here, and we’re supposed to like it - be grateful, even - because it’s wlw rep? And I swear, the number of times I’ve been called lesbophobic in the last month is absurd - all because I’m not comfortable with a canon lesbians canon feelings being swept under the rug. All because I want wlw relationships to be allowed to have the same depth and growth as the straight ones. Yes, even if that relationship is B/Y. We should not settle for less. Imagine if they had done this with any other character's canon feelings for another. People would be angry.

And I know there are going to be a lot of people saying “It’s their game, they can do what they like”. 

True. I never said otherwise. But it is also a show. It is a product. They sell merch. It is something that they have taken the time and the steps to make sure that we care about. And this is what that looks like. 

I know what happened here isn’t technically queerbaiting, but damn if it doesn’t cut the same.

[lsobelevans]

Horror tropes? In my Roswell, New mexico? It’s more likely than you think!

In this essay I will...

...be mentioning a few horror/thriller movies and while nothing explicitly gory or scary will be shown in this post, those movies definitely contain scenes and themes that can be disturbing/scary/triggering, do your researches if you’ve got doubts!

...be focusing on the Maria and Alex road-trip, from the moment the car breaks down to the last scene with Travis’ twin. I’m probably going to be led to briefly mention the other scenes that are intertwined with this arc (the echo date and the Planet 7 Kyle and Isobel scene, as well as the marlex car drive when I feel like it is relevant). 

...be approaching specific themes that are used in the scenes that compose this little arc and also more general ones like sound, editing, cinematography and color. 

... be reaching a lot. I do not think everything I will be mentioning is 100% thought-out and voluntary (although you never know). But I’m a firm believer that in filmmaking, yes even inside a CW show, the symbolism comes through subconsciously. So like, maybe they didn’t mean to use corn field as a mark for transition, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that this symbolism works with the story they’re telling and for the journey the characters are in that moment. Additionally, lighting, decor and costumes are always a choice, just like the camera doesn’t position itself randomly, someone’s behind and thinking of the composition of shots that, even if it’s in a basic way, has meaning.

... be starting chronologically but I’ll also make jumps backward and forward, grasping on themes when they come up. Ok, then, let’s dive in! 

This episode references and uses a lot of the iconic mechanisms of the horror movie genre. Alex and Maria’s comfortable road trip atmosphere, open hearted conversation in the car, breaks at the same time as the car itself breaks. The camera, steady so far, the shots following a well known pattern of shot/counter-shot, becomes more unpredictable and shakier and suddenly we’re out of the car, and bam, large shot. 

From the moment they’re out of the car, you won’t be able to see the horizon. Maria and Alex are stuck in a corn field, and they’re stuck in the frame. 

Then poof, Travis appears out of nowhere, accompanied with a pang of music, frightening us and them. Well, more exactly, it cuts on a shot that we’ve seen before without Travis, now with Travis, which gives us the appearing out of nowhere effect. 

Alex says it best.

Well now they’re stuck with a strange guy with an axe, and in a corn field 😬

Hey, have you seen he’s got an axe??? or do you need a close-up???

Okay, this scene ends there. So, let’s take a break and talk about cornfields. There’s many examples of horror movies making use of a field of corn as a location, famously Children of the Corn (1984), Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1995) Signs (2002), that last one also involving, you guessed it, aliens. 

Screenshots from the Signs trailer.

Corn fields are strongly associated with rurality, especially rural America. More largely, they can represent renewal, fertility or abundance. In the contrary, they can be seen as a very ominous location due to their immensity, a labyrinth in which you can’t see very far away and from which you’ll have trouble coming out. 

Although I’m pretty sure Maria’s chase in the cornfield is more of a reference to The Shining (1980) it reminded me of one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies Tom à la ferme (2013), in which Tom is basically held hostage in rural Canada. The corn field chase is a turning point, the last of Tom's attempts to escape. 

Cornfields apparently also often imply scarecrows, which are inherently scary in my opinion but we’ll talk about it more later. 

The next scene takes place inside of Travis' cabin. 

The lighting here is pretty low, the light coming from a few small sources, creating a lot of shadows. The main color is a greenish/yellow which can be associated with nature and earth, rurality, dirty, suffocating. If we look at it, the color scheme of the entire road trip is very much following this pattern of browns/yellows/greens because of the cornfield and the color of the characters costumes (the exception being Maria’s truck which is a bright red). In opposition, the scenes that are intertwined are either blue and orange for Max and Liz or a lot of pink/blues/purples for Isobel and Kyle in planet 7 (bi bi bi).

The cabin is messy, supposedly reflecting the state of the owner’s mind. We get a nice close-up on meat + a knife and all of the creepy skins on the walls. Also, it’s noticeable that from this moment on, the camera is shakier, we experience different angles too. 

We are given many visual clues that something is wrong. 

I’m gonna pass on the sound of the sound of the cow parodying a werewolf + the vampire diaries inside joke. 

Btw, if the fact that Travis names his cows -- that he skins for a living -- like human women isn’t enough for you to think mmmm. we are in danger. Well, don’t worry. The cw spells it out for you!!

We know Alex! We got contextual clues!

Right after this, Alex and Maria make another direct reference to being in a horror movie situation. 

ALEX: This is why I don’t like horror films. The gay guy always dies first.

MARIA: ???? 

ALEX: Or... second. Okay, that’s fair. That look, that’s fair. 

I think this bit is interesting, because not only does it denounce an horror movie cliché (the black person of the cast dies first, the queer person is second) but also in this situation I believe it can be see as kind of a callout on the fandom’s behavior that i’m not gonna spell out for you but yeah. Fellow queer people, don’t forget you’re not the only one who is sometimes badly/unfairly represented. 

Moving on. In the next scene, Alex is searching the cabin for clues, and we are also given some about Travis. 

Either he has a twin brother or he’s got a framed picture of himself on his wall. Oh, and he’s military.

Then Travis startles Alex and plays a little bit of banjo, which is a good excuse to stop and talk about music. The show uses a lot of diegetic music aka music that is present in the universe of the story, that the characters can also hear. It justify the use of said music and it ties the audio with the picture.

The banjo already is heard at the very beginning of the arc during a cut from the planet 7 scene to the road trip scene. We get a few notes that indicate a change of scenery and that helps smooth up the transition, and I’m pretty sure it was also supposed to be diegetic music coming from Maria’s radio. The banjo, like the corn field, is super linked with rurality and rural America (again!)

Another reference of the banjo in horror/thriller would be Deliverance (1972).

I can’t not think of this movie when I hear banjo unfortunately. 

The way Travis plays, aggressively bad, and while singing I Think We’re Alone Now, is supposed to make you think about that scene in The Umbrella Academy be quite unsettling, another point for isolation horror. 

So sweet of Travis to attack Alex with a guitar, and then a smol knife, and not with the axe <3. 

Then we’ve got a traveling zoom-in (or equivalent I’m not sure it isn’t a steady-cam here but the effect is the same) on Maria. This kind of effect can feel a little bit over-the-top and dramatic, in a old genre movie kind of way. It is usually used to bring the audience in, make it feel like you’re evolving in the same universe as the characters (here you’re walking toward Maria). In a scene where you should feel scared, it can be a mean to make you feel more engaged, as well as underlining Maria’s expression, her fear. In my opinion, this is also a way to tell you that from now on, Maria is the main character of this arc, the one that you will be following after the commercial break (that occurs right after) and making it more suspenseful. 

The scene after the break is the start of the corn-field chase. Travis steps out of the cabin, the cuts are faster, many close-shots, some even out of focus, that accelerate the rhythm, and a long fade-in of a new song: a modern, electronic song (Kim Petra’s Close You Eyes) completely in opposition with the acoustic banjo and with the atmosphere of the scene, which makes it strange and makes you think oh, what a weird choice! (at least it did for me lol). The lyrics, however, go very well with the scene. 

I feel it coming on You've got nowhere to run There's no way you'll make it out alive

Yep. 

We find out right after that the music is in fact diegetic but for Isobel and Kyle, it’s another use of music to ease a transition between 2 scenes that are different in every possible way. 

Now, the corn-field chase. As I mentioned before, I believe it’s a direct reference to The Shining’s ending chase scene where Jack Torrance chases his son Danny through a vegetal labyrinth with an axe. 

From the shots to the lighting (from behind or on the side, making the characters look like silhouettes) both scenes are very similar. Also, Travis is styled like Jack Nicholson ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh look, Michael’s here to save the day!

Oh well, guess not. 

Yeah, in this scene, and like we’ve been shown before, Maria is going to be the one that saves everyone. The racist cliché of the black character dying first in a horror movie is reversed, Maria is the last one standing. The scarecrow (that looked conveniently a lot like Maria) is supposed to play in favor of the bad guy, it’s a scary element, creating confusion and unease, but here the character decides to basically take it into her own hands and bend the rules. This character says i’m not that archetype, and she’s going to be using the horror movie tools against itself. 

Lastly, the final horror movie recurring theme that I’m going to talk about is the twin/the double. 

Yes, twins is a spooky tool used in horror movie because their similarities make them unsettling, uncanny. 

There’s also the idea that if one were to replace the other, you wouldn’t be able to tell. The impostor is a very scary concept that Roswell has also dealt with before. 

I can’t be the only one that has been traumatized by that halloween special of the Simpsons where Bart has an evil twin... 

It’s the last twist of the arc, there is a bad!Travis and a good!Travis. The bad one kept the other locked-up somewhere and had taken his place. 

It’s particularly interesting for Roswell that has a history with twins/doppelgänger, and that since the original show. It is a clear instance of in-world foreshadowing here! (howdy)

My conclusion about all this is that the people who worked on 2x06 had a great time building the episode and it shows, while also making it enjoyable to watch and yeah, we love to see it! 

[alexhoghdaily]

Alex and Marco’s HBO Nordic ‘Watching with’ livestream

This is a very long one, I’m so sorry. I just thought everything was so interesting. Therefore I’ll put the topics under the cut!

AND OF COURSE, SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT TOO SINCE IT’S THE FINAL EPISODE!

Marco and Alex possibly have new Projects coming up, (Marco said his is around March.)

They changed the opening theme for the show. Alex liked the original opening better and Marco likes the new one.

Everything on the show is shot in Ireland except for Bjorn vs the bear, that was in canada. They also filmed in Norway.

Their first scene was on top of a mountain and Marco had a line “This is what it means” which he couldn’t get right, and he was crowched the entire scene. By the end of it his legs were jelly.

During Alex’s scene with Alfred before the battle, Marco was seated on a horse for 5 hours straight.

The braiding of Alex’s hair took forever so he decided to keep them in after filming because he had to film again the next day. They gave him a hairnet and he was walking around the grocery store with a hairnet and braids, still muddy from work. Marco also went out to the grocery store, wearing his make up and contact lenses and got refused because they thought he was drunk.

On his first day of riding a horse, Marco wore loose sweatpants. That wasn’t pleasant.

Alex purposely didn’t read anything about the other characters, because he was both a bit lazy and he wanted to be suprised by their storylines when he would watch the final season.

On the question “Who is the true heir?” they both agree that all of the sons have different traits of ragnar. (They also all have women issues.)

The battle scene of the last episode took 9 days to shoot, the last 2 episodes took around 2,5 months to shoot. Usually they do two episodes every month/5 weeks.

Alex loves the spiritual vibe in the show/season and it’s some of his favorite parts of the show. Both Alex and Marco also really love the cinematography.

Alex’s favorite part of the last episode is the last scene on the beach with Floki and Ubbe and his and Marco’s scene.

Marco fell 3 times in a row filming the charging scene of the battle. He felt so stupid because the extra’s had to keep getting back.

In the fighting sequence Marco split a stunt guys lip open because he hit him with a sword. Marco stopped, but the guy said he had to keep going because Marco was in the shot.

Ivar and Hvitserk’s close moment in the end wasn’t even written in, Alex and Marco wanted the brothers to be brothers and have love just this once.

Alex had to learn Icelandic for his final speech and it took a really long time.

He also loved that Hirst made Ivar an extension of the army and the army of him in the ending sequence.

Alex loved that Ivar was killed by a random soldier, because everyone got this big hero death in the show and he loved to do the exact opposite. He discussed it with Hirst because he wanted to do it that way. They also discussed the possibility of Hvitserk just putting Ivar out of his misery.

The filming of the death scene was very sudden for Alex, and he wasn’t ready for it. They went straight into it and Marco was the only one ready, already hoisting him onto his lap. Alex felt Marco’s tears on his cheeks and he started crying.

Marco’s not sure what to think of Hvitserk ending because he never expected to get an actual ending at all. They had previously informed him many times that he would be killed off in the next episode. They kept deciding to keep him on for another 10.

If Alex could choose any character on the show to be, he would choose Floki. But he does think he can’t do better than Gustaf. He’s very happy with the role of Ivar.

His favorite characters also include Ragnar, King Harald, and King Ecbert.

Marco’s beard took one hour in the make-up chair to be done, Alex’s took 2 hours.

Alex likes how in the ending of this episode they went full circle in terms of the end of the Vikings and Norse mythology through Hvitserk’s character.

Both Alex and the fans asked what Marco thought of the ending for his character. (Him converting and renouncing his own faith). Marco was very confused about the situation because prior to the ending he had sex with a Goddess, so he doesn’t understand why he did it. He also didn’t get the chance to talk to Hirst about it. He thought it was cool but confusing.

Alex said that one of the most beautiful moments he’s ever experienced during working was when they were shooting his death scene. They were both crying and they have to re-do the take. At that point all of the extra’s (300 of them) we’re all sitting/standing around just watching them very quietly and it almost felt like they were an audience in a theater. He could feel that it was something big. (Usually they shoot multiple scenes at the same time but not during this scene.) It was also Alex’s last day on set.

The favorite scene they did together was of course the ending, but also the scene in 6A were they meet again in the woods and they sit together. Alex and Marco wrote this scene themselves and they love it.

They have a tight schedule and they have to get through a lot a day. They only get 2 or 3 takes every time.

Alex’s favorite season is 5A. He likes the York scenes. Marco’s favorite season is 6.

Both Alex and Marco kept their armrings from set. They also kept a shield that was signed, and Alex kept a beautiful horn.

The scenes Alex prepared the most for were; the Icelandic scenes, and more importantly the scene where Ivar has his big speech about going into battle against Wessex and Alfred. Alex couldn’t get through it, he had difficulties with his lines and he said it was a horrible day.

They said that doing the sex scenes are actually very non sexual and also uncomfortable at times. You’re almost naked with just their privates covered, Make-up everywhere, a big crew standing around. It’s very mechanical. They are not the nicest scenes to shoot and it gets uncomfortable. Alex also said that he stays focused on just them as two people and also likes to ask if they’re okay and comfortable. They have to think about everything they’re doing and it’s not sexy at all.

Alex: “maaa can you get me a beer?” followed by Alex’s father actually bringing him a beer. It was also his birthday.

The ages on the show aren’t very clear, But Alex thinks Ivar was about 23/24 when he died.

When they have to do a scandinavian accent for self tapes, they catch themselves doing their Viking accent.

Marco trained 3 days per “smaller” sequence for the complete final battle sequence.

Marco shared a story about Travis at a work dinner event, where he was dressed in a tracksuit, and with his long beard, someone mistook him for a homeless man and they gave him money.

In response to someone saying that Alex looked better with his braids, Alex sarcastically answered: “Thank you. Lovely. Outstanding. I appreciate that.”

Marco told a story about the coldest day of filming where he was out in the cold and mud under a rain machine the whole day and halfway through, he almost got hypothermia. A doctor came in to check his temperature. His body was too cold to actually work.

Alex rememberd the blood eagle scene for Aelle, it was in the winter and it had been snowing and raining the whole night. He said that as soon as he hit the ground, his body froze from the cold.

Someone asked about the funniest story from behind the scenes. They said every single day was filled with banter. They said every single day was fun. Also the left over food fights and water fights. Alex told the story of Jordan spitting water at him when he was sleeping and he was so used to it that he didn’t even react.

Alex said he and Marco drove 6,5 hours to stockholm to do 20 minutes of auditions for Vikings. Marco was also sick at that time. It was after they did Uro together.

Marco was supposed to audition for a voice job for Assasins Creed: Valhalla. But he was very busy and the project was differently titled at that time. He declined and he regretted it very much.

Alex said that he would really love to do voice and motion capture projects in the future.

[santiagonex]

As 2020 is nearing, it’s time to see what 2019 has brought us when it comes to gay representation in tv shows and movies. Below ‘read more’, there’s a whole list of tv shows/ships/movies (with pictures and basic description) which include/are about gay (used as an umbrella term) men and couples (so basically have gay storylines and at least one gay person is a main character of the show/movie).

Since I’m a gay man, I keep up mostly with mlm, if I included wlw as well, I don’t think the list would be complete with my lack of knowledge, so sorry about that. I’m pretty sure there are more competent people who can do that instead of me.

Total Count of TV Shows in the list: 65 Total Count of Movies in the list: 27

 Anyways, here we go.

TV SHOWS

TV SHOWS WITH TITULAR/CENTRAL GAY CHARACTERS/SHIPS

The Other Two: the funniest most-relatable show centered around three siblings – one of them is gay (left). A must-watch for sure. He’s pretty much the hugest part of the show, there are some love storyline (...and they were roomates), some self-loving moments and iconic lines. Just watch it, you won’t regret it.

Sex Education: show about two best friends, one of them (right) is gay. His name is Eric and he gets involved with his enemy Adam (left). Amazing show.

Special: show about a gay man Ryan (right) with mild cerebral palsy, who wants to live his life as an independent person to the fullest. Easy and short show to watch.

Druck (German SKAM Remake): if you don’t know SKAM, it’s pretty much a show where each season is devoted to one character. Third season of German SKAM aired this year and it was revolved around a gay guy (left). For the first time in SKAM history, the main character’s love interest is a trans guy (right).

Skam France (French SKAM Remake): the French version of SKAM had a gay season this year as well. 

WTFock (Belgian SKAM Remake): Belgium has a season focused on the main gay character this year as well.

El corazón nunca se equivoca: I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of Aristemo from ‘Mi marido tiene más familia’. Well, they’d already aired the first season of the new spin-off centered around their lives in college (I think).

Merlí: Sapere Aude: Bruno (left) and Pol (right) fans, it’s time to make some noise. Brunol is coming back because Pol is getting a spin-off which will be taking place in university. Bruno will be in it as well. First episode airs on 5th of December this year.

Pose: second season of Ryan Murphy’s popular show with main transgender and gay characters has aired this year.

The Politician: another show from Ryan Murphy was created. The main protagonist of the show (right) is played by Ben Platt and he’s gay. The show contains many LGBT+ main characters.

Tales of the City: the revival of the Tales of the City sequence of miniseries aired this year. The show includes many LGBT+ storylines.

The L Word: Generation Q: the revival of The L Word show will air on 8th of December this year. The show is mainly about lesbians, but based on trailer, there will be a gay couple included as well.

Years and Years: very futuristic show with a political message. Includes both mlm and wlw as main characters.

The Red Line: the plot of this show involves a white cop in Chicago who mistakenly shoots and kills a black doctor named Harrison. Harrison had a husband (left) and daughter (right). The show deals with the consequences of the event.

Now Apocalypse: all I’m gonna say is that Beck from Victorious got to make out with Scott from Teen Wolf, Matty from Awkward and Jake from Glee. The show was renewed for second season and later this statement was taken back and it got cancelled – which I guess says enough about the show.

This Close: the show is about two best friends who are deaf. One of them (left) is gay and has a storyline and spicy scenes with the guy on the right and some other guys as well. 

Schitt’s Creek: David (right) and Patrick (left) aka the cutest softest couple of all time. The last season of the show will air next air. Watch the show if you wanna laugh and watch the healthiest gay couple on tv. They also got engaged this year, which was beautiful.

NEW TV SHOWS (1 SEASON) WITH MAIN GAY CHARACTERS/SHIPS

Daybreak: both main characters and basically on different sides of the battles. Who wouldn’t want to watch enemies being in love Romeo & Juliet style.

El Juego de las Llaves (The Game of Keys): very interesting and fun show to follow, the one on the right is the main character. He’s closeted, has a girlfriend and gradually realizes there’s something else out there. Nice kissing scenes, plus one very spicy scene. Doesn’t hurt that the guy on the left he will be involved with looks like a dollar store Chris Evans if you squint hard enough.

Five Bedrooms: 5 strangers moves in. The guy in the middle is gay. His mom is a very traditional Indian woman who just wants grandchildren. The whole show is heart-warming and sad at times. The guy gets fair share of screentime and some love interests including a cop from the neighbourhood.

Made In Heaven: Indian show that follows the lives of Tara and Karan (left), two wedding planners in Delhi running an agency named Made in Heaven. Karan is gay. Very progressive show with spicy gay scenes.

What/If: haven’t seen the show yet but friends said these two have a nice storyline in the show. Threesome included.

Bonding: show about two best friends Pete (left) and Tiff (right). Pete is gay. They basically... do freaky shit for work... umm. Just watch trailer or something.

Osmosis: I have no idea what the show is about but the guy on the left is set to betrying to find a soulmate or something. I think I remember seeing some spicy scenes.

Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists: basically some gay romance with the guy on the right and someone else. The one on the left dies the first episode so I did not even bother after that. But you can be the judge of it.

Doom Patrol: Larry (left) is a superhero, kinda. There’s something haunting his past, though. Something that involves being gay.

The Umbrella Academy: Klaus (left) my favorite character. He’s kind of a hero along with his other siblings. There’s a deep gay storyling along the way.

Weird City: anyways... all I’m gonna say is that Dylan O’Brien played a gay for one episode in a show. Wish there wasn’t this huge ugly age difference.

Roswell, New Mexico: cowboys, aliens, bisexuality, homosexuality and all that. Didn’t really see the show but there’s a lot of content with these two.

Good Trouble: never saw the sow but the guy on the picture is a main bisexual characters. There are some mlm scenes.

The Society: Grizz (right) and Sam (left) literally the highlight of the show. Just watch it, it is worth to see it for both of them. Sam is also deaf. The show is basically about a bunch of teenagers getting stuck in a town with no one else in or around.

High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The High School Musical tv show has just started airing on Disney+. Carlos (left) is confirmed to be gay and to be getting a nice development this season which will probably involve Seb (right) as well.

The Heights: Australian tv show. Sully (left) is gay. Got a thing for Ash (right) at the start. Then things were messy. Then they suddenly kissed. And the things are messy again.

El Club (The Club): very interesting show. The gave these two really (like REALLY) spicy scenes. Some romantic stuff. But there’s really not much depth in my option. Check and see.

Volevo fare la rockstar: didn’t see it but it’s an Italian show and there’s a romantic storyline between these two.

No Good Nick: Jeremy (right) came out this year on this sitcom. Nice and very weid sitcom. Unfortunately it was cancelled, but the way they handled his gay storyline was rather nice.

World on Fire: follows lives of ordinary people from Britain, Poland, France, Germany and the USA during World War II. Two of them are gay. And yeah one of those two is Will from sense8.

TV SHOWS (1 SEASON+) WITH MAIN GAY CHARACTERS/SHIPS 

Andi Mack: the show that made history. Andi Mack is a Disney Channel show and for the first time in Disney Channel history, Cyrus (right) came out using the word ‘gay’ and made it official with the recurring character TJ (left) this year. The two-season slow-burn was really worth it.

Shadowhunters: Malec got married this year. Yay.

Grey’s Anatomy: Levi and Nico still going strong.

La Casa de las Flores (The House of Flowers): despite the first season making it seem like it was the end for Diego and Julián, that’s not the case. In season 2, they’re stronger than ever, the scenes are spicier than ever and the show is gayer than ever.

Baby: first season was mostly focused on Fabio (face on right) realizing he’s gay. The second season has shockingly showed us that Brando (face on left) is gay as well. Very toxic ship so if you enjoy Gallavich this is probably for you.

Élite: Omar and Ander continuing their journey.

Shameless: Ian (up) and Mickey (down) came back to Shameless season 10 as main characters. About time.

Station 19: new love interest (left, a deaf character portrayed by a deaf actor) was introduced for Travis (right) in the season 2 finale. Let’s see what happens in season 3, which airs in 2020.

Ackley Bridge: they pretty much baited us with Cory (left) and Naveed (right) this season. They stayed just friends, but Naveed found a love interest, so that’s nice.

Find Me In Paris: Never saw the show, but Jeff (on the picture) is gay and his love interest Isaac gets introduced in second season that aired this year.

13 Reasons Why: Tony and Caleb going strong. It was also revealed that Monty (right) is a closeted gay and had a storyline with Winston (left). There’s probably more to come with them in next season. 

Insatiable: unfortunately they didn’t serve much Bob (right) & Bob this year. But they introduced detective Rudy (left) and there were some scenes and twists and turns. Whatever.

Riverdale: I don’t care. Kevin (left) is still there. There are some gay charcters based on wiki, but yeah. Crumbs, I bet. Whatever.

Charité: second season (which has the two main gay characters) takes place in Berlin in 1943. You don’t need to watch the first season at all, to understand the second one with them, it’s basically a stand-alone.

Animal Kingdom: Deran and Adrian’s story coming to an end?

The Magicians: Well, they killed off the central bi character Quentin (on the picture), so fuck them. 

How to Get Away With Murder: Connor (left) and Oliver (right) still there.

Dear White People: haven’t seen it, but Lionel (on the picture) is still there and he’s gay.

Zoe Valentine: there’s this web series and these two have a storyline in second season that aired this year.

SOAP OPERAS AND TELENOVELAS

Sturm der Liebe: Boris (left) and Tobias (right) are married and lived happily ever after. Really cute and sometimes dramatic storyline overall. Check it out.

Malhação: Vidas Brasileiras: Santiago (left) and Michael (right) had a gay storyline but the show ended this year.

Malhação: Toda Forma de Amar: Guga (right) and Serginho (left) have a gay storyline in the show.

Eastenders: Ben (left) and Callum’s (right) storyline has begun this year.

Neighbours: David (right) and Aaron (left) aka husbands still in the soap.

REALITY SHOWS

Queer Eye: five gay guys helping others. Season 3, 4 and a special have aired this year.

Are You the One?: for the first time in the show’s history, season 8 of this dating reality show had an all-sexually fluid cast this year. Which means mlm and wlw and anything else. Really fun show.

MOVIES

Benjamin: don’t even remember what the movie was about but I rec because it was cute and I mean hello Merlin.

Boy Erased: homosexuality and religion. Has a Troye Sivan in it. Very decent movie.

And Then We Danced: my favorite gay movie of this year. All the things they had to do to be able to film this in homophobic Georgia (the country)... just wow. It’s a must-watch.

Who Would You Take to a Deserted Island?: didn’t know what to expect from this movie. It is based on a play and it shows. Watch and be the judge of it. The acting was really highlight of the movie.

This Is Not Berlin: hasn’t seen it yet since it was just officially released. But it is included in an LGBT+ section so... hopefully they didn’ lie.

Rocketman: movie about Elton John with Taron Egerton and Richard Madden... I mean, phew.

Un Rubio (The Blonde One): gonna watch this, apparently it’s amazing based on what some of my mutuals have said.

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan: Jon Snow being gay and kissing Chris Zylka. Made by Xavier Dolan. A literal tripple threat. Genuinely enjoyed the movie and the soundtrack.

Ranchlands: haven’t seen this but my friend said it’s amazing.

Steam Room Stories: this movie was something... Eating Out levels of ‘I-’ but without all the sex. I guess watch this if you are bored.

Posledice (Consequences): very spicy and intriguing movie. Slovenia snapped with this one.

Papi Chulo: didn’t like this movie and the concept of it but... you can check out and see for yourself.

Dolor y gloria (Pain and Glory): Antonio Banderas kissing a man. Hopefully it really is a gay-related movie because I haven’t seen it yet.

Die Stropers (The Harvesters): brilliant cinematography but I expected much more from the movie.

Giant Little Ones: what happens when you’re into your best friend’s sister but the best friend gives you a BJ. Well... watch and see.

Kanarie (Canary): a war musical about a small town boy who gets chosen to serve his compulsory two year military training in the South African Defence Force Choir and Concert. Loved the involvement of the Boy George music, aesthetic and story. One of my favorites this year. 

Luciérnagas (Fireflies): haven’t seen it yet but the description says that the main gay character (right) “flees from persecution in Iran and ends up living in the tropical town of Veracruz.”

El Angel: haven’t seen it but apparently there are some implications it was lowkey gay... so yeah.

Dear Ex: from wiki “San Lian was devastated when she discovered her late ex-husband left his insurance payout to his male partner Ah Jie. She decided to bring her son to fight for their rights, but her son instead chose to stand on the other person's side.” Will watch this soon, sounds interesting.

Sauvage: one of the best gay movies this year. Don’t know how to describe it so let me copy paste the description “ Léo is a sex worker who uses drugs whilst longing for love.”

Sócrates: haven’t seen it yet as it was just released.

Marilyn: story about a farm worker who discovers his sexuality in a hostile environment. Didn’t see it since someone has told me there are some scenes that are really HARD to stomach and I ain’t about that life.

Les Crevettes pailletées (The Shiny Shrimps): the movie is about an Olympic swimming champion who makes a homophobic comment in a television interview, and is disciplined by the national swim team with the responsibility of coaching a gay water polo team who aspire to compete in the Gay Games. Sounds and looks like an amazing comedy and can’t wait to watch it when I will be able to.

Fin de siglo (End of the Century): it’s not out yet as far as I know, but it’s about two men who meet in Barcelona and realize they have met already 20 years ago.

Matthias et Maxime: another excellence by Xavier Dolan. Story about life-long friends who question their sexual identities after they kiss. Looks amazing and I can’t wait for it to get released finally.

The Goldfinch: not a gay movie, but I’ve seen many people considering it as LGBT+ cinema because of the book and you know what, they kissed after all so you can perceive it beyond friendship if you want. If not, then just skip it. I feel like it is worth mentioning it tho.

Mapplethorpe: movie is about the life of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Didn’t see it but Doctor Who plays him so there’s that.

UPCOMING

TV SHOWS

9-1-1: Lone Star: The spin-off of a popular show 9-1-1 by Ryan Murphy is premiering 19th of January 2020. It’s confirmed that the main character TK (a firefighter, left) will be romantically involved with the main character Carlos (a police officer, right). The show will also have a main trans man.

Love, Simon: The Series: A Disney+ Love, Simon spin-off is on its way and will premiere in 2020. The series will follow Victor (right) and his coming-out story at the same high school where Love, Simon took place. Didn’t find a photo with his love interest. The guy on the left will most likely be his enemy.

[captainsspnanon]

C2E55 - Duplicity - rewatch reaction

Starting off my reaction with a recommendation of Lilli Furfaro. Just listed to her M9 and VM songs again last night, I love them so much. I prefer the M9 ones because of course I do, but the more I listed to the VM songs the more I fall in love with them.

OKAY ONTO THE EPISODE WITH DELIGHTFUL CALEB ANGST

Live show soon! Excited!!  And while I do miss the live shows, I still think that CR can do them even with the pre-recording going on.  Just film one shots in the time slots.  The VM ones were live shows, the M9 post campaign one shots can be live shows.  Do a sequel for The Darrington Brigade!  There are many options.  Plus, I know some people actually prefer the live shows to be outside of the main campaign due to the cast hamming it up a bit for the audience, and also sometimes audio issues.

(Dear Matt you are fucking glorious omg.  I miss this haircut for you)

The VM guest one shot stretch goal is announced here, and it was confirmed that they got Wil Wheaton.  *deletes a massive paragraph that, while likely that everything would be fine, has a slight chance of starting drama* I hope one day he can come on as a guest in a one shot again.

(it has now been several hours since the above comment.  Today suddenly got CRAZY. OKAY, back into this.)

lol right into mini-combat because Nott and Fjord completely failed their perception rolls

Beau’s throwaway line of “I don’t want kids” after shrugging off the fear effect from the impy thing hit me very hard out of the blue because YOU WILL ADOPT KIDS WITH YASHAAAAAAAAAAAAA (to be fair, I wonder how much of the comment was Marisha versus Beau, but STILL.  BEAUYASHA FEELS)

I don’t really have anything to say about this section, but Marisha playing Beau freaked out, Sam and Travis goofing as Nott and Fjord, Laura having Jester hack away while Liam has Caleb watch horrified, I just have a giant doofy smile on my face as I watch this.  Moments like these honestly don’t have much ‘importance’ to the game, nothing that impacts plot or even characterization, but it’s so warming and delightful and enjoyable to watch.  These are the moments where it’s just a group of friends dicking around, and you just feel good.

Honestly,  I’m not a fan of Caleb going ‘wowee wee wow wow’ and basically staring right up at the suc/incubus that charmed him during like the whole conversation.  Even the Astrid letter bit felt off, the charm wouldn’t affect how he would respond to that, so I don’t know how to interpret the stilted smile and lack of response aside from Liam RPing the charm weird in the moment.  It doesn’t feel like Caleb, in moments where I feel like he still should.  On the other hand:

Light them up, Pretty

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS I love everything about this fight – mostly a lot of the OOC reactions

Matt narrating Caleb’s reaction of realizing that all of his ‘friends’ were actually trying to kill them, he has to save himself, I LOVE IT I LOVE IT

Oh hey, Yasha didn’t take damage from wall of fire even though it hit her.  Ah well, she’s a tank so 7 or 15 points probably isn’t gonna make much difference in the fight

I do like Yasha being the one to free Caleb’s mind though, considering how frequently she gets charmed, and considering the fact that THESE TWO NEED ALL THE SCENES TOGETHER PLEASE.  PLEASE.  Why was I robbed of the Ashley Liam combination for so LONG?!  Pike and Vax WOULD have had so much with Saranrae and then the Raven Queen fucked that all up, and then Caleb and Yasha should have had SO MANY scenes together, but so many others were priority and of course limited Ashley.  I’m getting some good in C3, but I NEED MORE.

Lol already at break and still not much to say.  Doesn’t surprise me, combat heavy sections don’t really have much to talk about.

Love how Matt goes to have charmed!Yasha go attack Jester, and then Laura redirects him to Beau.  C’mon Matt, don’t know you the doomed lesbians always have to fight each other when charmed?  Cinematic parallels, c’mon dude!

Oh hey, this is the episode where Marisha nails Liam in the face!  *looks at the new youtube thing*  LOL yup “Most Replayed Moment” YUP.

Awww, Matt being a good friend.  Mino-dude is stunned and Jester does Guiding Bolt, and Matt reminds her that she can move in and out without an attack of opportunity so she can use and likely hit Inflict Wounds, which she always wants to.

From Caleb angst to Caleb DOWN up DOWN up DOWN up

I honestly did forget that Taliesin takes a LONG time during combat when he’s a spellcaster.  Much faster when he’s just a damage dealer.

Had to pay CLOSE attention to Marisha when Sam says “Henry David Thoreau-regard”. I 100% didn’t catch it before (why would I?), but Marisha actually says “that’s an interesting thing you just said”

Dani Carr delayed screaming in the background for the howdedurdedurdis YES

“It’s an explosive arrow”  Matt realizes first, Laura instantly after, Sam realizes when they react, and then it’s a waterfall of everyone else realizing.  And to be fair to Sam, he looks legit horrified, so this wasn’t one of his troll-y moments.

...you know, I’m never distracted by the background music, and first watch through I certainly wasn’t, but this time ‘round I’m distracted because this isn’t good Revivify music. Distracting!  ALSO “Traveler, tell The Wildmother that Caduceus needs help” is particularly beautiful because it’s a moment of respect for another persons beliefs.  Jester is always trying to get people to worship the Traveler, but in this moment of seriousness, she asks for help from Caduceus’s god, not hers.

Cad’s vision is timed quiet well, because I think it was in a fairly recent Talks that Tal admits he finally got Matt his backstory XD  So the story of Stone, Dust, and Clay was probably very new and Matt was getting it in as soon as the moment worked in game.

Beau gets her lighting gloves, yay!!!!!   With this, I think Beau is pretty much ‘complete’ in terms of her build?  She gets a fancier staff later on, but I don’t think that’s til Rumblecusp or after?  And the fan isn’t for ages either.  So right now, I think she’s maxed on the gear she gets.  Got her goggles, got her bracers, got her gloves.

I’m looking forwards to when they eventually find out about the Chained Oblivion, because I DO NOT remember how opening rifts into the Abyss helps him out in anyway.  ...wait, did Adeen Tasithar help place these?  No, it was just the Empire dude, right?  And Adeen was only framed for the beacons?  This is where I get confused, because there were the overlapping plots so I can’t quite remember which was which.  Just that Mr. Fancy Name from the Empire was in charge of them (I want to say Vance, but I feel like that’s not right, and I’m too tired to look shit up like I normally do)

@suicidallyreckless

[justaweirddruid]

I say this as a Fjorester shipper who is 100% ambivalent about W*dojest — I genuinely am, I’m not trying to pull some fake fandom credentials for credit — but your post about Liam was needlessly antagonist, and really not fair

Liam has done nothing disrespectful to Fjord or Jester, or to Laura and Travis. He has never tried to take a Fjorester moment and make it about Caleb — even when he saw them cuddle for the first time and acknowledged it, the Fjorester moment was already over and it was fine, it was fair game for Liam to say that (WJ shippers, on the other hand, are *constantly* making Fjorester moments about Caleb, but I’m not talking about them) Caleb has never once implied that Fjord and Jester shouldn’t be in a relationship together, and neither has Liam. And Liam has confirmed that he had no intention of having Caleb pursue Jester romantically, so it’s not like there’s a secret plan for Caleb to break up Fjord and Jester. And really, Liam was so excited and proud of Travis in episode 118! He meta-teased them in episode 119! Liam is happy and approves of Fjorester.

Yeah, it’s easy for Liam, speaking for Caleb, to gush about my Beauyasha! It’s easy for Caleb to be happy for them. His feelings for Jester (which themselves are not disrespectful in anyway — Jester treats Caleb with kindness and love and consideration, because she treats all of her friends that way, and Caleb is/has been deprived of that kind of attention — it’s not some weak excuse made by Liam to create dramatic tension to say that Caleb has developed feelings for Jester) and even his arguable attraction to Fjord make things more difficult. And that’s totally fair.

And unlike Beauyasha, Liam had no reason to describe his feelings about Fjorester on Talks Machina! The Beauyasha date already happened, and it was a lovely and grand moment — while Caleb had yet to talk to either Fjord or Jester about their relationship, so Liam has no reason to go in depth about his feelings for his friend’s fake relationship on Talks. It would be much more impactful to address it in character, during the game, and as far as I’m concerned, that discussion will happen. So long as there are no surprising perma-deaths that make that discussion impossible, Liam probably wants Caleb to talk to one or both of them about it. We have been inundated with emotional conversations lately, we’ll have a dozen more before they fight the Tombtakers, and it will be fair game for Liam to talk about it as much as anyone wants him to on Talks after that.

I know that there are people who hate Liam no matter what he does, and take all of his choices in bad faith. I’m not one of them, I love Liam, but you might be one of those fans — idk you, I just saw your post in the fjorester tag and thought, wow, that’s not at all the interpretation I made at all. Your post might have just been your form of venting, and you almost certainly weren’t expecting an anon to write an essay in your asks, so feel free to delete this without any guilt. But I feel like your post really missed the mark and implies that Liam isn’t a supportive friend or player at the table, and imposes fan-created ship drama onto the players

Hey anon

I wrote a long post replying to all the things you mentioned because I disagree with most of them, but I decided that I don't wanna add to the discourse today because I know we won't change each other's mind.

So just the most important points:

- I'm not a Liam hater, although I'm not surprised you said this because since the campaign started every time someone tries to criticize Liam or Caleb, people try to discredit them as just mindless haters that complain about everything they do.

I like Liam as a person, I like him in every other CR content, I liked Vax as a character and the twins were my favorite part of vox machina. I just don't like his playstyle when it comes to romance (since C1) and I was never a big fan of Caleb (since way before wj was even a possibility)

- Second, the thing that bothers me is not the ship itself. But the fact he made a point to show Caleb acknowledging fjorester (aka Jester's choice when it comes to her romantic relationships), but still didn't change the way Caleb behaves with her. That moment would've been the perfect way to close this chapter in Caleb's story in a meaningful way.

I know feelings don't simply disappear, but is it really necessary to bring them up all the time now? I mean, just look at Pikelan in C1, Scanlan never stopped loving Pike, but when he realized things needed to change, he stopped bringing it up all the time and focused on other important things for his story. 

I know both ships are completely different, but you can understand what I mean. If Caleb is aware he needs to move on, than why bring it up all the time? Or at least have him *talk* to someone (not fjord or jester because I think this would be even worse) about it instead of just narrating everything in an unnecessary way, have it be a way to show growth instead of being a weird guy in a corner staring at an unaware woman. 

- Finally, I don't think Liam is doing this in bad faith, maybe he's not even aware. Media spent decades showing these type of stories. How many movies and tv shows do we see where a guy showing affection for an unavailable woman is portrait as the highlight of romance? I'm not surprised one of them thinks this too and chose to include it in his character story.

My only comfort is knowing Critical Role is not a scripted show, otherwise we know how this would end.

I just wish people respected a woman's choice to pursue romance with whoever she wants and realized that a grown ass man pinning for his friend for a year while fully aware she doesn't feel the same is not romantic.

[renatogpadilla]

FFVI as a D&D Campaign:

OK, so I've been watching "Critical Role" (Campaign 1, Episode 31, no spoilers!) a LOT lately and it got me thinking how FFVI (arguably the BEST "Final Fantasy" game out there) is essentialy that. The biggest moments could be atributted to CRAZY rolls! I can see each of the characters being played by one of the people at the table! * Marisha as Terra Branford: Would be phenomenal. Her mentality is kinda in-line with Keyleth's. The "Kill Their Own Emotions" moment in the boat shakes the table as a whole. And when it's time to run an orphanage and protect her kids from Humbaba, the emotion in her voice destroys everyone in the Party. The "Mama?" moment becomes the most fan-arted moment for her character until the final fight. Her Trance ability is agreed to be the coolest looking skill at the table. To say nothing of the way she'd react to the whole Slave Crown bussiness!

Matt: "She killed 50 imperial soldiers in a few minutes." Marisha, and the whole table: *S H A K I N G*

* Taliesin as Locke Cole: "Treasure Hunter!" every single time somebody calls him a thief or a rogue. The "Rachel" story would be absolutely heartbreaking with Taliesin's expressions. The solo-sneak through the town while meeting Celes would be one of the highlights of the Campaign... That and his frienship with Terra would only be accentuated by Taliesin's and Marisha's irl friendship. Not to mention him puking on the ship would serve as some comedic timing straight out of "Critical Role"! Also, "That bow looks good on you" LAUNCHES the ship to heights undreamt of.

* Sam as Edgar Figaro: I mean, COME ON! IT WRITES ITSELF! Besides, it would be enjoyable to see him use his -Artificer- Machinist abilities as creatively as he does! Can you IMAGINE him rolling high enough one day and then he just creates the Noiseblaster? And with that he pulls out the microphone every time he uses it and proceeds to shout some thing Scanlan would be proud of... Not to mention his friendship with Sabin would be amazing if played by Sam! "The little shrimp has become a mighty Lobster!" You can HEAR Sam Riegel's voice come out of that! And the two headed coin? Now THAT's a Scanlan! This without mentioning the violations of the Geneva Convention that the Bioblaster would certainly entail...

* Laura as Celes Chere: I mean, OBVIOUSLY. Meeting Locke in the dungeon? The apparent betrayal? THE OPERA HOUSE?! "I'm a former General, not some... Opera floozy!" TELL ME you don't hear Laura Bailey saying that! And then she rolls a Natural 20 on performance and EVERYONE looses their shit! Her Runic ability is the target of MANY close saves. Also, the way Locke and Celes' interactions happen, she'd be perfect opposite Taliesin. The chat on the bridge in Albrook? HEARTSTOPPING. The attempted suicide? You KNOW Matt would call the sesion there!

* Travis as Sabin Figaro: This one was obvious. Monk/Barb that gets mistaken for a bear, and acts like an absolute teddy bear around Terra? Yes. Gods above, YES. "You think a tiny thing like the end of the world was going to be enough to keep me down?" You heard Grog too, right? The moments would be worth MILLIONS. The Opera house and Travis going "Why is everyone singing?" and then getting more and more into it! Him holding up the house for Celes! "MISTER THOU"... But best of all, and probably the single most famous Sabin moment EVER, The Phantom Train:

Matt: The train tracks suddenly lurch to the side. Even after this long and hard-fought battle it seems *chukles* it seems this train isn't letting you get away with your lives. That brings us to you, Travis! Travis, on his 5000 IQ shit: I grapple the train.

Entire Table: ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?!?!

Matt: No way in hell are you gonna- You know what? Roll for it. *Picks up dice for the Train* Taliesin: He's dead. He's so fucking dea-

Travis: NATURAL 20.

Entire Table: *Silent disbelief, everyone looks at Matt*.

Matt: *Also in disbelief* ...Rolled a 1.

Entire Table: *Inintelligeble gasping and hyperventilating*

Travis: I'm going to use my last Blitz as Meteor Strike and suplex the Train!

Matt: *Looking at the sheet, knowing damn well what's about to happen* Go ahead and roll for damage...

Travis: *Rolls for damage*

Matt: *Braces for impact* How do you wanna do this?

Entire Table and the Internet: *EXPLODES*

The Fanart keeps coming, even YEARS after the Campaign is done...

* Liam as Setzer Gabbiani: Since he's LITERALY "Mister Steal Your Girl", I think Liam would be PERFECT. Just imagine him getting set up as this suave and smooth rougue who wanted to kidnap a beautiful singer and then gets Laura instead! (Which isn't entirely wrong...) IMAGINE his expresions and his dissapearing under the table laughing as the others barely climb aboard The Blackjack. THE ENTIRE PARTY giving him shit for a low roll on a Wisdom Check (the double-headed coin) and him segwaying that into joining the party, only to find out that he actually knew all along... Priceless. The total and undistilled heartbreak as his ship falls apart, him trying to reach out for Terra and everyone falling on different places. And then meeting Celes a year later and doing the whole Daryll story... Liam would be the one to steal the audience every time he takes the spotlight! Though he would be a little like Percy in the sense that he doesn't get much to do until his arc happens.

"Money, Money, Money!" every time he throws coins to attack, the loaded dice (in character, not at the table?) and the card throws would make him so stylish in a D&D setting I'll be surprised if somebody hasn't done it already.

* Ashley as Relm Arrowny: She takes forever to join because of her constantly being away for filming, but once she's here? HOO BOY, does the fun keep coming! Her paintings coming alive and helping them fight? Her giving Sam shit for Edgar's love life? "Fuddy-Duddy!" becoming A Thing? All of those moments would be hilarious... But probably her most notorious moment comes when they find her a year later, serving a posessed brush, telling her to paint, paint, paint under the Magic House... "Keep painting until I'm complete..." The party snaps her out of it before she finishes the greatest painting she's ever done, her Magnum Opus, and then the painting coming alive prematurely in order to force her to finish... To give her form. And then the Lakshmi boss fight happens... Matt: And with the last of her strength gone, the banshee-like apparition dissipates into mist, and before any of you can react, Relm's magic brush begins to glow, like it had when you first came in here. The glow slowly creeps off the hairs and darts! Off towards the mistified form of it's mistress, enveloping itself into a thicc layer on top of the mist, swirling around... and around and around.

Ashley: Oh god, now what?

Matt: The colors dissipate, and Lakshmi unleashes a terrible wail! *DM monster noises* As it is now joined with this colorful cloud... And it compresses, smaller and smaller... And more solid until it's not mist anymore.

Marisha: *Gets it* ¡WAIT A MINUTE!

Travis: *Exited* ¡OH SHIT, HOLD ON!

Matt: The fog dissipates... And the calm returns to Relm's senses. Ashley you are now holding an innert, ordinary paint brush. However! Floating in the air, you see a crystal with a small glowing core, the particular essence of Life embeded in the middle, Terra you *points at Marisha* feel this and recognize it instantly, as it falls to the ground, and bounces a couple times... A brand new shard of Magicite.

Party: *FERAL LOOTING*

"Lakshmi" becomes the most PAINFUL fanart to make, and it's ALWAYS the one that's valued the most among the fandom.

The rest of the Party (Strago, Umaro, Mog, Cyan, Gau and GoGo) can be the guests that come over every once in a while (I particualrly see Wil Wheaton as Strago Magus, Mary McGlynn as GoGo and Will Friedle as Clyde "Shadow" Arrowny) with Shadow coming and going with the excuse that "His contract is up" (and let's face it, after surviving/witnessing the Phantom Train? My contract would be up too...) and coming back whenever his schedule/the plot allows. Eventually, everyone comes together for one last session and the battle with God Kefka. Setting their affairs in order, the reveal of who Shadow really is during a lone chat with Strago shakes the Critters to their core. Everything makes sense! Why Interceptor went straight to Relm when they met... Why his nightmares kept showing a village of magic users, yet they never mention Shadow in Thamasa! The group is RATTLED and wether or not he survives at the end becomes a HEATED argument between everyone at the table. Only Strago knows the truth...

The sendoff on The Falcon with everyone saying goodbye and seeing what the World will bring next is regarded as one of the most emotional scenes in "Critical Role" history... But the most completely DESTRUCTIVE force in this entire cast is Matt Mercer as Kefka Palazzo:

The personality... the narrative... The absolute slime in his voice when he poisons Doma. When he kills Leo and brings forth the Light of Judgement. Matt definitely has his moments playing Ultros. He's fun! And Emperor Ghestal was more of a political "Darth Sidious" villain. But Kefka? OH, LORD. NOBODY was ready for Kefka. "Enjoy the barbicue!" gets memed to no end, while also sending a horrible shiver down people's spine whenever somebody brings it up. Truly, the villain to end all villains. I can see it happen so vividly... If anybody wants to talk about this more, PLEASE hit me up! This just feels too good! Until off course the party moves on to their next Campaign in the setting for "Final Fantasy 5" but that's a whole OTHER can of worms!