#emily axford can do no wrong

[t-hirstreview]

[i-upset-to-dead-65]

I don't think we as a fandom are talking enough about how Fig is straight up using psychological warfare on Ruben. Like incepting a fake Manic pixie dream girl into his dreams is borderline psychotic.

[innerspacequeer]

I’m convinced Porter is just Brennan’s self insert for loving Emily and the whole vibe she brings to the table.

[chirp-featherfowl]

putting my hat in the ring of rat grinders fancasts

KIPPERLILLY COPPERKETTLE: ok, he might be a little less known because he hasn't been on any d20 sidequests, but i know a lot of you watch naddpod + he was on collegehumor, so i'm thinking brian murphy. i know he's a "cool dm" and all that, but he CAN pull off that type-a bitch personality.

BUDDY DAWN: ALLY BEARDSLEY DEFINITELY. who better to play the disillusioned religious child than the disillusioned religious adult?? and they are so fucking funny man. i'm not sure they've played D&D before though

IVY EMBRA: this one's fucking me up. am i crazy to suggest lou wilson? i might be crazy to suggest lou wilson. but i mean look at his previous characters on d20 sidequests and tell me hes not capable of playing incredibly charismatic, hot fighters.

OISIN HAKINVAR: siobhan thompson is calling out my name from the abyss. i think she can def pull off "hot and smart and lame also".

MARY ANN SKUTTLE: hear me out --- zac oyama. his dry humor?? the comedic timing?? think of what he can DO with mary ann.

RUBEN HOPCLAP: emily axford!!! listen how ruben was in the season proper was SO funny, i think emily can make him even fucking crazier than he was. she's so good at escalating bits AND committing to them.

i know it's a little out of left field, but i'm also thinking about guest dms. don't get me wrong, i LOVE mercer, but i really really want brennan lee mulligan to guest dm the rat grinders' season. i didn't realize it until now but he already has so much chemistry with this cast. i think they would do fucking awesome.

[utilitycaster]

@rowzeoli replied to your post “Do you think part of the D20 journalistic bias...”:

I rarely go on tumblr so sorry if you see me spamming your posts tonight, but I really enjoy your perspective and thoughts! I think I'm the journalist you're referencing in regards to the Fantasy High Junior Year article and unfortunately 1) journalists only get access to interview subjects at very specific junctions (usually press day before the series goes out or halfway through) 2) most publications are honestly Going Through It and cutting freelance rates and just not paying to cover AP

​So I'll be totally honest - I post on Tumblr because I assume it is far more unlikely to be seen and so I can vent freely (hence the fairly harsh tone of the criticism in the original post), but I guess this is a chance to clarify. I don't expect anything to change, nor do I expect you to respond; indeed, I wouldn't blame you if you block me after this. But if readership is down (and who knows? maybe it's not and I'm the outlier), this may be illuminating.

The issue with your specific article - which I brought up relatively tangential to the larger point of "at this point I think Polygon's AP/TTRPG coverage is a waste of time to read" isn't really that it's only an early look at the series; and because Fantasy High Junior Year is at this time ongoing, it's honestly entirely valid that there hasn't been a follow-up. It's, well, the "surface-level and factually wrong" issue.

Dimension 20 was by no means the pioneer of remote recording as you claim in your article; that had long been the default of smaller recorded AP shows well before pandemic lockdown for the simple reason that if you're not a media company the overhead is very low - no need to have a dedicated space or even cameras beyond decent laptops. Burrow's End's puppetry? Critical Role's Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace did shadow puppets in 2019. They had diagetic audio on the main campaign as early as 2016. I don't even like Kollok, but that's had complex set design since 2019. Meanwhile premise of the article is yet another rehash of Polygon's "Dimension 20 is CHANGING THE GAME" constant drumbeat, while your actual pull quotes from Brennan Lee Mulligan are him musing that this is simply an entry in an ancient tradition of storytelling and isn't, in fact, terribly novel. The interview fails utterly to back up your point and indeed contradicts it; I get that the timeline was probably tight but this is outright incorrect in multiple places and your argument isn't just unsupported; it's outright dismissed by the very person you claim is proving it. If the premise came before the interview, it needed to be reworked afterwards, and if it came after the interview…I'm not sure what to say, really.

This isn't your article, and I'm putting it here to illustrate that this has been a pattern for Polygon's AP coverage specifically. This article about Worlds Beyond Number is perhaps my favorite example of "this is not serious journalism:" Rusty Quill Gaming, The Adventure Zone, Friends at the Table, and NADDPod are all theater of the mind long-running podcasts (RQG's campaign lasted a whopping 7 years of real time) and that's just off the top of my head; the idea of a long-running edited audio podcast being novel is laughable. RQG and TAZ both started at level 1; I'm not personally familiar with Friends at the Table. I don't actually think starting at level 1 vs. 2 is terribly important in storytelling in the first place other than that a few D&D classes pick their subclass at L2 and that choice can be narratively relevant, which it was in TAZ; however, some classes pick a subclass at L3 so you can still achieve this with a level 2 start (as Critical Role's second campaign does). Both Emily Axford of NADDPod and Griffin McElroy of TAZ have long been composing their own music and RQG is heavily sound designed. These are not obscure pulls, either; these are some of the more well-known names in the space.

At this point, Polygon AP/TTRPG articles - by multiple different writers - simply feel like madlibs: "(actual play show) is groundbreaking in its (thing that other shows have been doing for 5+ years); I especially liked (visual effect) and (incorrect understanding of TTRPG mechanics)."

The people I allude to in the post you responded to as having egregiously uncharitable and sanctimonious takes on Daggerheart (within, again, hours of its publication) are a frequent Polygon contributor and a Rascal editor and they further my mistrust of those publications: There is this constant insistence that everything they like be "groundbreaking" and "innovating" and they will claim this even when it's demonstrably not the case, as the above examples note. As Mulligan says in your article "it’s important to keep new artists with new experiences and backgrounds flowing in," and yet by focusing intensely on high production values (difficult for smaller indie upstarts to have) and by incorrectly claiming that a well-established media company within the space like D20 invented a number of things it flat out did not, this journalism is actively, if unintentionally, working against that goal. As I put it elsewhere, Polygon's bizarre pedestaling of Dimension 20 and simultaneous putdowns of Critical Role (which turn into wild contortions when D20 mainstays like Mulligan or Aabria Iyengar collaborate with CR; for that matter others besides me have observed that Polygon acts like Spenser Starke is two different people, the genius who created Alice is Missing and the knuckle-dragging moron who put out Candela Obscura and Daggerheart) coupled with the obsession with production values over story has the whiff of claiming they're the champion of the little guy for sticking it to the 700 lb gorilla in the space and then focusing on 500 lb gorillas while making it impossible for smaller monkeys to compete because most brand new shows without the name recognition of someone like Mulligan involved can't exactly hire Rick Perry to do their models or Taylor Moore to do sound design.

I suppose a good way to put this, since I've run into this in many spaces, not just AP/TTRPG or even journalism, is that bias on its own in a subjective medium isn't inherently bad; but if something is so nakedly biased against something I love, I will, naturally, turn to it with a far more critical eye, and if its arguments are not ironclad I'm going to start noticing every structural issue in every argument and every tiny mistake. Sure, as a fan of Critical Role, and as someone who feels that Kollok was nigh-unwatchable and that Burrow's End was promising in parts but deeply flawed, I disagreed with Polygon's nonstop mud-slinging towards the former and glowing, verging on fawning reviews of the latter two. But that's not entirely damning on its own; I do get that not everyone will like Critical Role and that some people will love Kollok or Burrow's End for valid reasons. What's damning is the journalism itself is riddled with factual errors and the analysis is so weak that to call the arguments a flimsy house of cards would be generous. The opposite is also true; if Polygon's lead editor were out here repeatedly misspelling the name of one of the main characters in Worlds Beyond Number (note: this has since been corrected) but the articles had compelling arguments, even ones I disagreed with, I'd be far more forgiving, but as is? It's offering me absolutely nothing: it's poorly researched, it's poorly structured, it's poorly written, it's poorly copy-edited, and it shits on things I like seemingly just for clicks. I'm done giving clicks.

I am deeply sympathetic to the pressures facing digital journalism and media and the arts in general; as someone who is fortunate enough not to personally face those pressures and has the income to be a patron, I would love to help in my small way (and I do, at least, financially support a number of the AP shows I love). But the quality of some of this journalism is truly so bad that I can't bring myself to support the institutions putting it out; it's "dead dove do not eat" until such time as someone whose analysis and opinions I do trust cites them (or, perhaps, until there is a sea change of lead editorship). I know that this won't help the crunch, and may make it worse, but I just can't because the quality is so poor. I don't have a good solution to how to write about something that takes a lot of time to watch and process and about which the articles pay very little in return, but the current strategy of bouncing between uninformed provocateur and utter sycophant depending on the show and creators; of drooling over such surface features as shiny production and falsely claiming everything is "groundbreaking" while getting the most basic facts wrong has driven me away.

[paladinbaby]

the hunter & the rabbit

robot rebellion, emily axford / true blue, boy genius / the wee free men, terry pratchett / the house on the cerulean sea, tj klune / i worried, mary oliver / @curseworm / wild geese, mary oliver / @romanceyourdemons / lucy dacus on her song christine / why be happy when you could be normal, jeanette winterson

[Image Description: Ten images of text, mostly black on a white background except the last which is a photo of a book page in low light. The images alternate being one or two to a row.

1: “we can run, we can run, we can run / and it’ll be a race, just you and me / cause they can’t keep up with their metal feet / we can hide, we can hide, we can hide / and you can build a fire in a cave / and i can conjure shadows for a play

cause i am not afraid to die / long as you’re here by my side”

2: “Because it doesn’t matter anymore / Who won the fight? / I don’t know, we’re not keeping score / And it feels good to be known so well”

3: “He said it was better to belong where you don’t belong that not to belong where you used to belong, remembering when you used to belong there.”

4: “When something is broken, you can put it back together. It may not fit quite the same, or work like it did once before, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer useful.”

5: “Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, / can I do better?”

6: “im extremely devout but nobody can figure out what im worshipping”

7: “You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves. / Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile the world goes on.”

8: “i love when a character has something terrible happen to them and as a result they can only see themself as, essentially if not literally, a ghost. and so that means they only can (and have to) do what ghosts do, ie get revenge and then cease to exist. easy as that. but then halfway through this ghost vengeance they realise hey actually i might still be a human person. with human needs. that’s incredibly inconvenient, considering how much i’ve invested in this whole ghost thing”

9: “She was dating this guy who at the time was just not treating her right, and I played her the song. I was like, ‘I just want you to hear this once. I’ll put it away, but you should know that I would not support you if you get married. I don’t think this is the best you could do.’ She took it to heart, but she didn’t actually break up with the guy. They’re still together and he’s changed and I don’t feel that way anymore. I feel they’re in better place, but at the time it felt very urgent to me that she get out of that situation.”

10: “I was hurt. / It is never too late to learn to love. / But it is frightening.” End ID.]

[the-s1lly-corner]

Hi! Could you do a one where gangle and/or ragatha feels sad so the reader tried to help them feel better by singing them songs and hugging them or so? If it would be okay smiles

Reader cheering ragatha and gangle up with singing!

Me thinks I'll answer this request and maybe one more than work on art stuff, then maybe go to bed !! I must go to the store in the morning !

Bonus, I assigned songs !

RAGATHA:

The song you sing to Ragatha is:

One big bed - Emily Axford!

Sometimes, when Ragatha is having a hard day she tends to busy her hands with sewing and knitting... however sometimes her little mini projects can go wrong thanks to her sour mood. I think she would appreciate any efforts you make to cheer her up... I think she would sway a little, just barely as you're singing to her. Sometimes after a bad day you just need to lay down... and that's what you guys end up doing.. perhaps the song helped convince her to come to bed.. who knows..

You guys just

Hold each other. Her hand lightly tangled into your hair, playing with it while she left her body go numb against the mattress... you guys stay like that until morning ... legs tangled with each other, too

You continue to hum the song for her, rather than singing after completing the song the first time

GANGLE:

The song you sing to Gangle is:

Rises the Moon - Liana Flores!

While Ragatha becomes quiet and steps away to try to do her own thing, Gangle cries. Or on very bad days they just. Stay still. Too scared to move out of fear that something will happen and they'll just. Fall apart. Emotionally and/or physically... maybe both, she fears..

Please hold her in your arms. Protect her, even, while you sing. I think she would slink her body around yours, wrapping around you.. not tightly, but firm enough that no one can peel her off of you.. and just let's you carry her to her room. You let her cry it out, when the tears inevitably come, and you wipe them away while you continue to hold and rock her back and forth... she falls asleep like that, eventually

[sparring-spirals]

i want to ask your thoughts about ylfa from neverafter because eeeeee some many thoughts and i love your meta

thank you! :D i am Also full of Neverafter thoughts, and ESPECIALLY Ylfa thoughts, albeit with minimal time to ruminate on them, much less write meta. We're nearly at the next ep being released so I'm just going to toss some half marinated angstier thoughts at you for now rather than delay it another week! My apologies in advance for haphazardness!

tldr bc it got a little long: ylfa and rage and fear and preteen girls and that self sacrificial streak and monsters and princesses and. idk. its not super coherent ok.

In a rough order:

- God, I love Emily Axford's commitment to playing her characters as like...unflinchingly true to what she says they are. This IS an awkward preteen girl with all of that aching sincerity and hunger and rage and kindness and growing discomfort and also just. Tooth-aching awkwardness. Perfect.

- Emily Axford has Such A Big Brain for the way that this little Red is a barbarian, is a werewolf that she doesn't want to be. Little preteen girls with a rage that rips the world apart, the rage only matched by their bone deep fear of it.

- Red says over and over: I really appreciate a strong authority figure. I appreciate having some rules enforced. I like having guidance on what to do next. And I just. Augh. Of course! Of course. Shes a kid. She's a kid. She's not quite a kid anymore. She is outside of a house, hulking and dangerous and her skin and body different, and she is pleading in a voice distorted by something she is scared of, asking her mom to open the door, please. She's her kid. She's scared.

- Red is scared- Red was scared of the wolf, of what happened after straying, but in front of that house- by the time we meet her- Red is not quite scared of the wolf. She is scared of herself. She is scared of the damage she can do, the damage she brings. She is scared of monsters, but mostly the ones in the mirror.

- Red says: Women are either princesses, or monsters. And she's not a princess.

- (I love this refrain, this detail from her so much, there's SO MANY LAYERS to it. Like yes Rosamund and herself, yes Emily's comment during AP about werewolves as a puberty story and others perceiving. Its also about binaries and falling short of a bar and monstrous failure and "i think there's something wrong in me that others don't have, something fundamentally flawed-" and- god its fucking good. This could have its own meta.)

- Red is- wildly self sacrificial, and from tactics POV, like great! Barbarian tank! but also. Like. Fuck! This is a little girl. Far from home, with all of that unsureness and shyness and regret and something deeper that makes her keep. Putting herself out first. Everything she says to Mother Goose about: I think Rosamund is the key, so I'll protect her. I think you and your book might be the trick. I'll put myself in front of you. I create a bottleneck and stare down a sea of furniture to give my companions their shot. I breathe through the pain and let the girl fade and the beast take over.

- Red just wants an authority figure and some assurance. She just wants friends, she wants companionship and understanding, she wants to keep the people around her safe from the danger in her, she wants something to strive for.

- Red is at a fork between an easier story and a harder one and says. I want the easy story. I want soft endings and cookies and kindness. I don't want this hardship.

- Of course she doesn't. She's a kid.

- She's human.

- Red follows her grandmother down the harder path, eager for a guiding figure. She is tricked, maybe. But at the end of it- hearing about greater stories, about Mother Goose needing her help- she looks the hardship in the eye, and chooses to keep going.

- She comes back more wolf, less girl, this time. Stars in her eyes when she talks to Rosamund (a princess! In all the ways that matter.). Apologies for the claws and the flaws.

- Ylfa turns herself into forms that best serves the people around her, and apologizes profusely for it, and eagerly accepts guidance and correction. Ylfa says some girls are not meant to be princesses, best make the most of being a monster.

- "You royals keep beasts at your side! I will fight alongside you proudly."

- A bunch of cowards and the bravest little girl in the world. the bravest little girl, nothing to lose. the bravest little girl, scared to the bone and apologetic and furious and monstrous.

- "I'm thinking that- Survival doesn't feel inspiring, but I guess protecting does."

[thepringlesofblood]

Casting My Opinions Into The Void: d20′s Neverafter ep 1+2

this is the first d20 campaign im going to be following live and i am excited enough to do a lil post each week or so about it. mostly bc recycling and adapting and retelling and retranslating old stories that “everyone knows” is my whole shit. like i got a degree in the study of ancient greek and roman civilization (classics). my whole thing is reading old myths and plays that “everyone knows” how they go and seeing what each author/translator brings to the table.

anyway i watched episodes 1 n 2 and i am excited and my observations are below

(like if you were really into the Sisters Grimm series as a kid and are similarly excited for this lol the modernized fairytale characters in that series are literally called “Everafters” and its because it’s really good shorthand for the audience. i see you brennan i see you)

normally ppl who do the whole ‘dark/horror/thriller fairytale’ thing fuck it up bc they think it’s about the shock value, or about seeing how nasty you can get with it, so I usually avoid them, but after bingewatching a kadrillion d20 campaigns, I trust brennan to do it right. you have to find the core value/crux of what is horrifying about the story and tease it out, and play with the symbolism and icons of the original story to reflect that. and brennan fuckin delivered.

ep 1

folks, give a hand to the people who put detailed yet non-spoilery content warnings in the description. tbh dropout shows are setting the standard for sensitivity and inclusion in media. it’s so lovely to see a show w content warnings or pronouns put up onscreen and it just not be addressed. i am forever spoiled for any other kind of media tbh

at some point in the past, brennan found out he could make a really good realistic choking/gagging noise, and he has used it in every campaign since.

i appreciate the ‘scare off the meek early’ approach of it all.

th. the briars. the concept. the dead princes - UGH good backstory yall

i very much like the idea of becoming a ranger out of necessity, and because plants obey you on account of that whole feeding-on-your-blood thing

puss in boots using ‘pib’ as a nickname instead. of ‘puss’ or ‘boots’ - inspired

also zac is using his ‘smart little shit’ voice like he did w lapin and i am v excited.

look ill say it - the little red hen did nothing wrong and thats on that. i read that one when i was very little, it was on electric company or sesame st or between the lions, and i’ve always liked it.

so......anyone see how mother goose’s husband has the last name hubbard? like old mother hubbard lol

also there really is a Jack in so many stories, i’m glad we’re addressing this. little shit gets up to so much trouble

it feels like I have seen so many tired rewritings of little red riding hood, even though I can’t think of any off the top of my head. it’s usually a sort of surface-deep ‘girl power!’ situation. i’ve never seen one like this. i LOVE it. it was terrifying. the fact that we all just sort of accept ‘barbarian’ as a normal dnd class is kind of wild tbh, i like exploring that rage and its source.

Ep 2

saying the actual nursery rhyme in the context of being the nursery rhyme is so powerful. i fully didn’t understand what was happening to nat king cole (v powerful) until he was gone.

also, herr drosselmeyer - fantastic get. you have to talk about the sugar plum fairy at some point and they already went in hard on her in acoc so i love that they were like you know what, it’s weird uncle time.

(context: herr drosselmeyer is clara’s eccentric uncle with a bunch of automatons and he gives her the nutcracker)

also every production ive seen has his drip immaculate. 

my gender is this man’s cloak

Murph is the fucking ball again

“Please tell me how you’re a monster too so I don’t feel so alone” - Jesus Christ Emily Axford

Almost getting distracted by a bird instead of picking up v obvious plot hooks: pt 2

cinderella.......dude

Brennan really looked at K’s finale scene from mismag and went “how DID the mice get lithium?”

The POV of the mice - simplifying it makes it sound ridiculous, but if you really dig into the idea of the mice as sentient beings it’s horrifying.

Dude the symbolism…stepmother eating her kids bc they were always either a tool or an obstacle to her, of course they would be a sacrifice to her hunger for power.

i’ve always liked endings that have the stepsisters reconciling w cinderella bc in the end they were also victims of abuse and it wasn’t the same or the same degree of abuse as cinderella but they were still constantly on thin ice

can you tell that i rewatched d20 live recently and sobbed at adaine and aelwyn’s ending?

Cinderella stabbing the fairy godmother with the broken heel of the shoe that symbolizes both the ending she was meant for and the life that she was forced into. Turning that into glass armor. dude.

The pumpkin carriage rotting bc the fairy godmother is trying to make the happily ever after stay exactly how it is forever but nature decays and time passes and she can’t acknowledge that without realizing both that her role is in the story is over and not only does cinderella not need her anymore, cinderella doesn’t want her anymore, and maybe never wanted her in the first place. 

When puss in boots was asked what he wanted in life and he just said ‘to be comfortable’ #relatable like I know all this is gonna end with him realizing the value of love and friendship over material goods and I 100% agree with that but i feel like this goal or some variation of it are v common today and not often addressed in stories like this

Pinocchio swearing - 10/10. Also how the fuck is Lou doing a Pinocchio voice that perfectly straddles the line between hilarious and annoying. It’s ridiculous enough to always be funny, but sustainable and varied enough that it doesn’t grate on you.

i think we’re getting into “all the princesses in all the stories are all sisters” territory and i for one am THRILLED

"mirror, mirror.......leaned up against the wall”

we learn in this adventuring party that the OG concept for lou’s pinocchio is that he snapped off his nose so he would be able to lie, which is AMAZING. i fully did not put that together.

i am v excited for this battle, and v terrified.

[thistlespringsummer]

Kaity Watches Spring Break! I Believe in You! (part two)

putting things beneath the read more this time because... because!

♡ okay, I forgot to start this draft earlier, so I'm already like an hour and a half in

♡ woo go Aelwyn!!!

♡ tracker!!!! tracker!!!!

♡ "wow that's hot what's going on" lovely priorities here as always

♡ please give me more gorgug & ayda friendship moments !!!! I need them!!!

♡ HANGMAN!!!

♡ "so I'm going to ask a shenanigans question" followed almost immediately by "I'd like to channel Emily Axford" and "Secret Agent The Ball"

♡ fuck I got distracted messing with my theme

♡ okay, I have to go back to work now, I'll continue updating tonight!

♡ .... and we're back, baby!

♡ "last I saw, Adaine killed him, so..."

♡ what a fucking power move. I hated Aelwyn at the start of this season, and now I'm so fucking excited to see her and Adaine's relationship grow 🥰

♡ burn towns get money is just on repeat in my head. Not the whole song, just "burn towns, burn towns, burn towns get money"

♡ I love Ayda so much. <3

♡ no no no no no no no no no no NO!!!!!!!

♡ Fabian 'that is MY BEST FRIEND' Seacaster I love you

♡ can I swaddle the ball as a bonus action?

♡ that's resilience! omg Emily

♡ Aelwyn looks horrified- yes, and so do Gorgug and Fabian!

♡ no fuck Ragh! No no no!

♡ oh thank fucking gods

♡ oh good good yes

♡ that was banter omg

♡ woo gorthalax!

♡ give the bad guy our teddy

♡ this tree dude sucks

♡ hot riz is born. No.

♡ mirrors negate mirrors, classic literature

♡ kalina and the tree sounds like a really cool band name, honestly?

♡ how bout it was like a short rest? Omg Siobhan I love it

♡ okay, listen to this shenanigan

♡ what's all this math you're doing?

♡ NO GORTHALAX NO NO NO!

♡ Okay, this is a crazy thing to do in the middle of a battle. Love it.

♡ OH MY FUCKING GOD ALLY

♡ Saint Kristen Applebees is right

♡ oh. my. God. What the fuck oh my god oh my god what

♡ Holy fucking shit oh my god

♡ are my bones 600 years old for real

♡ oh. Oh my god. The storytelling genius that is Brennan Lee Mulligan. Oh my god.

♡ just a few points of light in all that darkness

♡ fucking ally oh my god this feels like a weird first date but I would follow you

♡ it's okay not to know, idk

♡ it's a real problem in archeology Brennan

♡ um, obviously.

♡ no, but for real though, I have it paused as I write this so I could find out I'm wrong in the next five minutes, but

♡ all the hellenic foreshadowing this season? If it wasn't supposed to be Cassandra, I followed Ally's thinking exactly

♡ which is slightly frightening to think about

♡ but yeah, absolutely that was obvious

♡ is Gilear restored to his pride armor oh my god

♡ awww gorgug so sweet

♡ a big bug gave me a riddle

♡ If we don't get an A I'm calling the cops

♡ is the most Adaine thing ever omg

♡ because my mum's name was Ayda Aguefort, too oh my fucking god Brennan why would you say something like that why

♡ chronomancy!

♡ jawbone 🥰

♡ you're easy to love. And anyone who couldn't figure it out was a real bozo.

♡ fucking break my heart why don't you

♡ okay fine I forgive you thanks to jawbone putting it back together for Ayda and I

♡ but I'm fucking sobbing over here

♡ oh my god Lou thank you for making me laugh Fabian is such a fucking dork and I love him

♡ if that's something you're interested in oh my gods brennan

♡ "tracker loves you so much" THEN WHY IS THERE SAD MUSIC PLAYING, BRENNAN?

♡ 😭😭😭

♡ ragh yes I love you

♡ riz

♡ as soon as you say nightyorb

♡ fuck. well, I knew it was coming

♡ fuck what is this music I know this music tomorrow is Wednesday on Wednesdays we listen to hobbit music oh I think this is lotr music!

♡ have you thought about what your junior year project might be?

Holy fucking shit I love this show and these nerds so fucking much. Thank you.

[chungledownresponsibly]

hi! I’ve never listened to naddpod before, is there a particular campaign that you think I should start with?

hi anon! that’s awesome you’re thinking about giving naddpod a try! my opinion differs a little than most so i’ll give you a little info on what i think the best options are so you can see what you vibe with most.

i think most people would probably say to start with the beginning of campaign 1 (it’s the most popular campaign) and i don’t think it’s a bad option because c1 is amazing, but it’s 100 episodes which is a fairly big commitment and while it’s fun from the jump i do think it takes them an arc or so for them to really hit their stride. the vibe is very classic dnd and they have quite a few guest players at various points over the course of the campaign (adam conover, nathan yaffe, siobhan thompson, brennan lee mulligan, and zac oyama).

my personal recommendation is to start with campaign 2, eldermourne, but i’m very biased because i’m an eldermourne girlie. it has a gothic fairy tale aesthetic and it’s only 42 episodes so it’s a little less of a commitment if that matters to you. i was personally hooked on eldermourne from episode 1 and thought it had a stronger start than c1 but not everyone feels that way, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I would start here if the aesthetic particularly appeals you or if you want to start with a shorter but still full length campaign. since it’s shorter they only had one guest, lou wilson, but he plays for an entire arc and it’s a particularly amazing one!

i’ll also throw out a wild card suggestion (courtesy of @vethbrenatto, she brought it up in a conversation we had a while back about where to start naddpod) that you could also start with the mavrus chronicles (also known as hot boy summer). it’s a 7 episode mini campaign dmed by emily axford (as opposed to brian murphy, who dms most of the other campaigns) centered around the character zac oyama played when he guested on c1 and there are references to c1 but you don’t necessarily need to have listened to it to know what’s going on and i don’t believe there are any spoilers for c1 (although i could be wrong). it’s pure fun and gives you a sense of the humor of the show in a small package.

other people might have other opinions and they’re totally welcome to add them here! i hope this was helpful and that you enjoy naddpod if you end up giving it a try, i’d love to know if you do!

[acepalindrome]

I wish Critical Role would commission more music for their campaign. I mean yeah, the intro music and opening are original tracks, and there’s nothing wrong with the music Matt uses, but wouldn’t it be so fun if they had their own original battle music? And music for heartbreaking dramatic moments and tense scary moments and lively tavern music, all composed specifically to fit the feel of the campaign?

I’m not saying they have to go ham and hire a forty person choir to sing in celestial and infernal with dozens of live authentic medieval instruments, but Dark Dice did that, so it can be done. And I adore Emily Axford writing all the music for NADDPOD and singing a song for the end of each campaign that leaves me in tears. It just really adds something special when a campaign has their own music!

And Critical Role is already really cool with commissioning visual art and animation and promoting the people who make their stuff. I just wish they could do the same with music!

[senkovi]

Lazuli and her nieces

[ID: eight gifs of two scenes from dimension 20′s a crown of candy.

in the first scene, brennan lee mulligan narrates to emily axford as a young saccharina, “you see one of the shining plates up on the wall and you see a reflection and a dark, indigo-blue candian woman with kind eyes gazes at you out of the reflection. you don’t know her, but she says to you, ‘it’s alright, stay, believe... the world is dark and dangerous, but there are forces other than wickedness at work in this world.’” saccharina then asks, “is it wrong what i can do in my-” she is cut off as brennan as lazuli says, “no, it is not wrong, no matter who tells you that or how many times. it is not wrong.”

in the second scene, brennan is narrating to siobhan thompson as ruby, he says, “you reach out with a little bit of candian magic and grab the trapeze, and you see that the edges of your vision begin to turn like indigo and violet. it’s not inky black anymore. and you see a pair of eyes on the horizon. it’s like deep purple eyes flecked with turquoise. and you see they sort of smile at you. they sort of crease and wrinkle at the side.” lazuli then says, “you are gifted in the ways of the arcane... seems that my brother has made quite a family for himself.” end ID]

[explorerspack]

amos ~ human swashbuckler rogue

(in honor of elantris starts tonight* (*soon) have the playlist for the party member we invented to be dead and i then decided was my character’s best friend in the world.)

1. “Getting into Knives”, the Mountain Goats

behold, i stand at the door, and i knock, and then i knock twice, i’ve adjusted my focus, i’m getting into knives

2. “Me and My Friends Are Lonely”, Matt Maeson

i can’t open up to you, me and my friends are lonely, i don’t know what to do, i always figured i’d be the one to die alone

3. “Bottom of the River”, Delta Rae

and if you fall, hold my hand, ooh baby it’s a long way down to the bottom of the river

4. “I’m Sticking With You”, the Decemberists

but with you by my side i can do anything, when we swing we hang past right and wrong, i’d do anything for you, anything you want me to

5. “Seven”, Sleeping At Last

how nice it’d be if we could try everything? i’m serious, let’s make a list and just begin

6. “What’s Up Danger”, Blackway

‘cause i like high chances that i might lose, i like it all on the edge, just like you

7. “Epilogue: Dance Like The Devil’s Watching”, by Emily Axford

so let the devil do his worst, ‘cause i’m not afraid of his curse

8. “Dance While The Sky Crashes Down”, Jason Webley

when the stakes are high, best to play the clown, and we dance while the sky crashes down

9. “Achilles Come Down”, Gang of Youths

the self is not so weightless, nor whole and unbroken, remember the pact of our youth

10. “On the Nature of Daylight”, Max Richter

11. “Putting The Dog To Sleep”, the Antlers

you said “i can’t prove to you you’re not gonna die alone, but trust me to take you home, to clean up that blood all over your paws”

12. “1 John 4:16″, the Mountain Goats

and if the clouds are gathering, it’s just to point the way, to an afternoon i spent with you when it rained all day

13. “My Friends”, Oh Wonder

and oh, my friends, i am heavy, can i beat within your heart? can i bleed within your love?

[etanunu]

Saw your recent post regarding your mental health. Stay strong!! I believe you can get through this!

Anyway, here's a headcanon ask: do you have any headcanons about each PCs' mbti type/16 personality type? I'm mostly asking for fantasy high and TUC but you can add other characters too!

Thank you so much! Honestly I’ve been near tears for a few days now and all these nice asks coming into my inbox are making me feel so much better. It’s just nice to feel a little connected with people this way. I’m really grateful.

You know, I’ve never been a big mbti type person. I haven’t seen much of it since 2015 so I had to go search for a chart to answer this so take this with a grain of salt 😅 I decided to do just two series with the core cast (since you asked) and one with guests. Fantasy High (the most popular series), the Unsleeping City, and Escape from the Bloodkeep (the most slept on series).

ISTJ the Inspector - Riz, Iga “Anastasia”

ENFP the Champion - Fabian, Fig, Pete “the Plug” Conlan babeyyy, Sofia Bicicleta (Emily Axford is two for two so far), Misty Moore*/Rowan Berry

ENFJ the Teacher - Kristen, Efink, Maggie

INFJ the Counselor - Gorgug, Leiland/Kraz-Thun (my personal underrated fave)

INFP the Healer - Cody “Night Angel/whatever cool names you guys want” Walsh

ISTP the Craftsperson - Adaine, Kugrash

ISFP the Composer - Sokhbarr, Ricky Matsui

ISFJ the Protector - Lilith

ESFP the Performer - Markus St. Vincent, Mindy Moore*

ESTJ the Supervisor - Kingston Brown

*Misty was the one I went back and forth on the most. She seemed a bit more cynical and “it is what is” than Rowan who seemed to be more of a dreamer. But I may be wrong 🤷🏽‍♀️

Thanks for this ask! It was really fun and a cool distraction to have this Monday. What do you think? Do you have different thoughts on any of these? I’d love to hear how your headcanons compare.

[utilitycaster]

The chaotic player thread has been really interesting for me, because while I wouldn't call myself one I've been described as getting pretty chaotic in some campaigns I've been in. But my trick is that when I wanna do something wild, even if I know the dm very well, I absolutely shoot them a quick private message to ask first, and if it directly drags in another player, them as well. The rest of the table still gets the feeling of something random happening, but I 100% always do it with the plot and world in mind. I've made some moves that were pretty wild many times, but I only do that with dms I have an established relationship with AND have been checked in with. This obviously wasn't what you and the original anon were discussing, but I wanted to throw in my two cents as someone who's often been labeled as chaotic in case there are people reading who feel discouraged from being wacky! Dms often love big moves as long as they've been given tools and prior knowledge in my experience, and will often give you more opportunities to go hog wild or redirect your creativity if what your first thought is would impact the game negatively. Dms! Are! Your friend!

Hey anon,

So the original anon's definition is relevant here: "self-described 'chaotic' players (who seem to really only see their GMs as opponents to be bested and to ignore their story)" is the exact phrasing they used, and that's what I've been talking about specifically.

People getting called "chaotic" by others is a very different beast. I personally try to avoid it because it's used so much as to be meaningless. Sometimes it's a compliment, sometimes it's an insult, and often it's wrong. A lot of the time people just use it to mean something silly (eg: the Hilda Hilda scene with Emily Axford) or something cleverly unexpected (Jester and the cupcake) or something that's literally just "playing D&D correctly by interacting with your environment instead of trying to optimize everything" (Fjord touching the red button).

It depends on the exact situation, and also if your GM appreciates this then I don't want to fuck things up for them, and I do agree that if it involves other players you should make them aware - but I actually think you're being very cautious here! If you are genuinely taking the story and world and vibe into account, and you're just making a particularly bold and unconventional choice, unless it's likely to require drastically more prep on the GM's part, I think that's something a GM should be able to manage and roll with. And for what it's worth, they're a player too - an unexpected lateral thinking solution at the table in real time can be a pleasure for them the same way it is for everyone else.

The thing about good GMs is that they are your friend and your opponent. In most games, especially D&D, they want to get right up to the brink of beating you and they also really want you to pull out a win, too.