#faltermoth

[utilitycaster]

Would LOVE that essay on combat in dnd because full agree. But not even just for people watching live play, like, combat is an essential feature of dnd as a game system and it endlessly frustrates me when i see dms be like “yeah combat is just too complicated and no fun so i dont do it in my game :)!” Like i guess thats your right, but any non-caster class is gonna be miserable in your game. I saw a video recently talking about how dnd has kind of become the default ttrpg and is marketed as the perfect system for everyone and any style of play which is just. So not true. Combat in dnd is equally as integral as roleplay is and theres really no argument otherwise. Very valid if you hate dnd combat, it sure isnt for everyone, but in that case maybe play a different ttrpg where the characters arent constructed around combat abilities, i promise you’ll have more fun.

So this is one of those things that touches on maybe 99% of my feelings on Experiencing Fiction in general and actual play in particular; I apologize in advance for the length and digressions within this response.

Here are the reasons I have seen or I surmise why people don’t like D&D combat, either in actual play or in home games:

It can get crunchy and involves a lot of rules

There are long stretches in which individuals do not necessarily act (not exclusive to combat but I think this is a factor)

It contains violence

There is a potential for character death

Now, it’s fine if you aren’t interested in D&D-style combat, for whatever reason, when you play ttrpgs. It’s just that this is a core feature of D&D. As you say, this is what the martial classes are structured around - and, frankly, no small number of casting classes/subclasses as well. By avoiding it when you play D&D, you’re avoiding the bulk of the game, and there are plenty of ttrpgs that permit open RP that aren’t combat focused that would probably fit your needs better (eg: PbtA and Savage Worlds are both generic systems that can support a heroic fantasy like D&D without the emphasis on combat skills). I happen to love and prefer D&D, but that is specifically because I love combat, and yeah, there are other games and people should seek out those games if they don’t like combat.

When it comes to D&D actual play though…skipping combat is just straight-up stupid. And to be clear I mean fully skipping it and not watching it at all; while this is piggybacking off my post about spoilers, it’s fine if you are the sort of person who needs to know how combat ends in order to enjoy it! That’s just a personal preference that I respect even if I don’t share it.

D&D combat isn’t just an inherent part of the game; it’s an inherent part of the story. The idea of D&D being split into combat and RP is a false dichotomy. There is RP and crucial story within combat scenes, and you simply do not achieve the same effects by reading an after-the-fact summary. To use examples from Critical Role, consider one of the most famous RP moments from Campaign 1, when Scanlan uses his 9th level counterspell in the Vecna fight. The weight of that moment derives from mechanics and from the fact that it is in the midst of combat and well into a climatic final battle. Or for lighter examples, there’s a ton of Beau/Yasha and Fjord/Jester mid-combat flirting running through much of Campaign 2 that informs those relationships. Molly’s death? Caleb going into a fugue state when he kills humanoids with fire? Yasha destroying Obann? Fjord dying mid-deep scion fight? Those are all moments that have deep character weight and meaning that are within the context of combat, and you cannot divorce them from that context and hope to retain the same effect.

This is what dovetails into a larger discussion of Experiencing Fiction which is a (in my opinion) worrying tendency among some people to truly believe that you can cut up media into the palatable bits and pieces and push all of what you see as icky vegetables to the side of your plate. I fucking hate this. I think it’s what drives a lot of things including a distaste for combat. This is how you get, for example, people who dislike combat because Violence And Death Bad, which, do I think that in the real world violence is most often a thing to be avoided? Do I think that in the real world death is heartbreaking? Yes, but this is fiction. There’s that great Brennan Lee Mulligan quote about how TTRPGs like D&D allow people who usually must be conflict-avoidant in real life to let out their anger and frustration in a place where it is safe and harmless, and I believe that whole-heartedly. I want stories about death because I want to know I'm not alone in how I feel about death. I want stories in which people can express their rage in ways both healthy and unhealthy, because big same. (I also think it’s absolutely not coincidental that people who believe they are ‘protecting’ people by circumscribing what is acceptable in fiction tend to be strongly associated with either bigoted, violent policies in real life, or harassment and doxxing online; maybe enjoy a fucked up movie, as John Waters once said, and you'll calm down.)

This idea that you can cut up media and only consume what you like is also what I think is behind some of the really ill-considered and overly granular timestamped content warnings I’ve mentioned previously. It is fine if there are things you don’t want to watch or which will be upsetting or even triggering to watch! It’s fine if you as an individual don’t like violence! But I think there’s a problem when people believe they are entitled to be able to watch whatever they want and have it mold to their exact wants and needs (and that it’s a failing if it doesn’t), rather than taking on the responsibility of seeking out media that already fits the bill. Actual Play D&D will nearly always have violent encounters. If this will be an issue this is not for you. It is not gatekeeping to say “you can come through this gate, but the gate is in fact here for your specifically requested protection"; and yet people think that instead, gates should be placed around everything else. So (to give an example) this is why the warnings for D20’s Neverafter strike me as a symptom of this larger problem - if you have discomfort with violence towards animals and children, that’s fine, but you are watching a D&D horror series in which over half the player characters are either animals or children. This is not something where you can skip a few seconds of a flashing gif that might be a migraine or seizure trigger, or a case where an exceptionally rough scene of gaslighting can be read instead of watched; this is inherent to the show, and if this is not for you, you need to go elsewhere.

To give one last example, I was looking for fanart for Worlds Beyond Number, and came across a picture of Suvi with a caption of “Suvi but without the imperialism” and like…Aabria has said in interviews that this engagement with the empire is extremely deliberate; that Suvi is intended to be tied into the political structures of this world as an intentional contrast with Eursulon’s status as an outsider and Ame’s role at the smaller, community level. Suvi without imperialism is not identifiable as the same character and it throws the entire story off-kilter; she is of this empire and that is the fucking point. Any story worth telling is not just items thrown haphazardly into a bowl; they are combined and mixed. Someone is giving you a plate of brownies and you are acting like it’s physically possible to take out the cocoa powder without fucking the end result, and buddy, it’s not.

(Truly, I was not joking when I said this is like, the load-bearing pillar of most of my complaints about fiction consumption patterns in general. This is about how people will deny the flaws in characters even though any reasonably intelligent ten-year-old, and I know because I fucking was one once, understands that person vs. themself is one of the core conflicts and overcoming one’s flaws is in many cases the entire story and if you start out perfect there is nothing to be said. Like…I think a lot of people genuinely just want to watch a nonstop Monterey Bay Otter Cam of their sufficiently sanitized, focus-group-tested blorbos baking cookies together, and are affronted when people with the tiniest sliver of empathy and/or curiosity want a story with plot and character growth, which in turn require conflict.)

Anyway. I think the takeaways here are that there’s this awful entitlement people have in which they think that they can simply consume anything and it is the failure of that media if it doesn’t cater specifically to them, rather than a failure of them to seek out that which they would enjoy (and I could go on this rant indefinitely; it is truly the most constant theme among Takes I Think Are Dumb); and also I really want to bake something right now, given my choices of metaphor. Combat is part of D&D as a game and as a storytelling medium, and it is incumbent upon people who do not like combat to find something that doesn’t have D&D combat, rather than try to pull out the vital organs of the story.

[messyjester]

Cheeky bastard

Tiefling belongs to @faltermoth

[harrowianthe]

#MILVES#does she count as a monsterfucker then?#would you call a human a humanfucker?#critical role

some very good philosphical questions @faltermoth i elaborated via paint:

i don't think it answers your question but i had fun

by far the funniest thing about laudna is that she's a monster who's also a monsterfucker, it's like some sarah paulson situation where she's a milf into other milves

[uhohitsdorian]

Commission for @faltermoth of their lovely boy Calypso! He has such a gentle vibe, I can’t wait to get to know him better

[Image: a lineless digital drawing with sharp pixel edges of Calypso, a tiefling druid. He’s sat cross-legged, pouring green tea from a teapot painted with pastoral hills and goats into matching teacups. He has brown skin, tall, curved horns, and long, pale blue hair in a ponytail, with matching tufts all along his tail, which is curled in a circle around him. He has plants in his pockets, a crystal on a cord around his neck, small, round glasses, and a gentle smile. End ID.]

[electronicneutrino]

She could almost feel the fingers running through her hair.

The benefit of her new weapon is that there's no blood on her hands. Sitting a hundred meters away, lining up the shot — her target didn't even know what hit him before he collapsed, dead. A hundred meters away, Percy's hands trembled and nearly dropped her perfected invention.

Such a good champion-to-be of mine.

A flame flickered in her mind, and she felt warmth despite the chilly tavern room.

She knew what death did to a family. Despite the years, Percy still saw the way her parents would go quiet and somber as Raven's Ascent drew near. The sad smiles and reassurance to Percy and her siblings that no matter what, their mother and father would always love all their children and treasured each day with them — pain and fear thinly veiled by their heartfelt words. The loss had occured long before Percy was born, yet it has not faded.

Laid down in the bed on her side with eyes unfocused on her hands, she thought about the family of the man she had just killed.

Another unlucky family, caught in a bad situation by an uncaring world. Parents just like her parents, who didn't deserve the hurt yet the world decided to hurt them anyway. Same old story, she told herself.

I knew you could do it, I always had faith in you, Percy.

And how had she gotten so lucky as to be chosen? The sort of kindness that prompted The Archdutches to choose her — unambitious, unassuming, pointless Percy Smith — for her plans, she did not know where it came from but was more than grateful to accept it. A cold and uncaring universe held out its hand to her, and she would be a fool to continue freezing out alone.

She could almost feel the fingers running through her hair.

Her hair was let down, uncharacteristically. There was too much, too many thoughts and too many emotions. She shouldn't have but she had to. She wanted to but it was wrong. It was for the best but there was another way.

It didn't matter, the deed was done. The proof was in her pocket — one less bullet than she came here with. One less person that this town lived here with. The uncaring world had taken another innocent victim, leaving one more sad family and one more mission fulfilled. That was all that mattered, one more step towards the goal she — they — had spent the better part of two years working so hard towards.

You walk ever closer to my side with each act carried in my name to such perfection.

She could almost feel the fingers running through her hair, and closed her eyes in peace. Tonight she will dream of flames, and a better world shaped by her Archdutches' will.

Percy stands next to her patron's side once it finally comes to fruition.

[eluneu]

Palette meme of Lake for @faltermoth

In this house we love trans Lake

[utilitycaster]

Not really a weird question, but you talk a bit about DMing - I assume you play dnd as a player well? If so, do you have a favourite character you play? Can you tell us their story? :-)

I think my favorite character remains my most long-running one, a bard who had, completely independently (ie, this game started around the same time as C2) a backstory that was sort of a cross between aspects of Beau's and Jester's: basically, her father was a respected merchant and she fell in with some criminals and was caught, and while her father was a decent guy it wasn't a very large town and it was considered wise for her to leave. She did not know her mother; she was a half-elf and her elven mother had left when she was young. Ultimately the game didn't run its course and wasn't super backstory focused, so I didn't explore her backstory a ton, but she was a lot of fun to play.

I actually haven't gotten to play long-running that much; the only others who go beyond one or two shots are a wizard (game also fizzled out but i liked her a lot too) and a fighter (newish game so we're in early days but I will say...exciting to be a tank). Paladin is my go to for one-shots but I keep being in games where playing a paladin doesn't round out the party super well or I have ideas for something else.

[utilitycaster]

Didnt realize you were a long time listener of TAZ - ive found it to be very hit-or-miss personally, but id be interested to hear your opinions on each of the seasons (or just your favourite and why if thats too long an ask)

Sure! A brief opinion on each season with some notes on mini-arcs.

Balance: extremely strong story, but, I will admit, having met people who are longtime D&D players and not actual play fans, TAZ Balance is the example I think of, because I like both but MAN do they play fast and loose at times. I am already a "no, you gotta read the rulebook too" kind of person but for TAZ Balance it really is like "please forget basically everything that occurred on a mechanics level and just vibe with the narrative." Of the Balance arcs, Crystal Kingdom was my favorite at the time but I think I need to give the Eleventh Hour another listen at some point for timeloop reasons; it does culminate really well.

Amnesty: I binged Balance first but I think Amnesty served for some time as the strongest marriage of a good story and a rule set that supported it, plus a setting that the McElroys clearly understood and deeply loved. I still think it might be their strongest overall, and people who left it because it wasn't More Balance are weak and will not survive the winter.

Graduation: ngl despite having purchased a book that is sort of a Magic Academia Book at a used bookstore last week and being a Fantasy High fan I feel like my tolerance for Magical Academia has really not been maintained. Like can we stop pastiching Harry Potter. Between Rowling being a rabid transphobe and me being tired of my nostalgia being strip-mined when it wasn't that deep anyway I just think we should start parodying literally anything else that was popular among children in the late 1990s/early 2000s. I did love The Firbolg though. It was fine, basically, but I suspect if it hadn't aired during the pandemic when I was taking like a 2 hour walk alone daily while also still driving a lot, if I'd have kept up.

Ethersea: I think the premise was great and to be totally honest I wish it had played out a little more slowly and for a longer time; I'm struggling to remember it because it felt rushed, even though I enjoyed it a lot at the time. I will say, The Quiet Year is not a good podcast-only system.

Steeplechase: Also extremely strong and very well done. In general I know that listenership dips when they do systems other than D&D but I happen to think those systems work better for them and they should say fuck the haters. Extremely good and I think Justin's approach to GMing was great; I still think about Shlabethany.

Vs. Dracula: I think it suits what Griffin wants to do namely "throw in everything" which is not a criticism, but I have found it a little harder to stick with. Like, it's fun, but it's a little insubstantial for me.

Mini-arcs: I recall not being terribly into Commitment in part because I think the Fate system is just. not great and hard to follow; the concept was cool. The Marvel season that Clinton GM-ed more recently was I think a better implementation. Dust is quite good and I'd like to see Travis work with that; also I loved Erika guesting in that. Also Dadlands is peak and I was at the second live show.

[utilitycaster]

I know the unpopular opinions meme finished ages ago, but id love to hear yours on Chetney, especially given the uthodurn arc. I suppose for more specific direction since thats quite a broad ask, what would you say is the fandom interpretation of Chetney’s character, and how does your opinion/interpretation of him differ and why?

Absolutely - and questions like this one are always welcome!

I was actually quite pleasantly surprised by the fandom response to Chetney this week, which was by and large positive. But with that in mind I think that honestly, it's hard to pin down a definitive fandom interpretation of Chetney's character! Some of this is probably the circles in which I engage and what people put in the main tag, but I think at this point people who felt he was comic relief or a shallow joke or "just couldn't get him!" have either quietly adjusted their expectations or have left the fandom, or have always been people only watching for one character and ignored him from the start.

So I think the thing that differs in my opinion, to be honest, is just that like....I've never reduced him to mere comic relief? Like, he's an extremely funny and ridiculous character, but he showed a great deal of emotional depth from early on; if you didn't pick that up from his rapid turnaround on Dorian it's pretty much impossible to miss in his quiet conversation in the Heartmoor or the way he takes FCG's also ridiculous backstory about Shithead completely in earnest. These two things, as I've mentioned many a time before, are not in conflict! I think Chetney definitely skews far more comedic than, say, Fjord; or obviously more so than other Bells Hells party members Imogen; but like, comedy, tragedy, and horror are all connected by the same tissue, separated only by timing, perspective, and expectation. We know Travis can do a ridiculous character with heavy plot beats as we've seen with Grog; we also know that sometimes the funniest jokes come from more serious characters (again, I think an underrated moment of hilarity in C2 was Caleb's early "you look like a nerd").

It's very narrow and not terribly smart to box characters into a tiny contained archetype with no room to spread out, and Travis is particularly good among the cast at creating characters who defy those boxes. Chetney is an old weirdo with a high voice who says truly preposterous things; he is also someone whose life took an unexpectedly sharp slide downward following an impulsive decision, and who then, improbably, found that what many would consider rock bottom was in fact one of the greatest things that ever happened to him. He's incredibly passionate about what he loves, and vocal about what he dislikes, and deceptively insightful, and has a strong sense of justice and a remarkably good sense of how far he can push people with his over-the-top bravado without wearing out his welcome. He's even (heavily implied to be) bisexual.

I also think, and here's where "oh shit we need to catch up on the entire campaign on the Bells Hells page on the wiki" is really benefiting me, people underestimate how quietly instrumental Chetney is in many of Bells Hells decisions. He was not just the person to clock Dusk, but also the person to broker the compromise; he served as one of the more levelheaded party members following the disastrous fight with Otohan; he's consistently been the one to ask Imogen to actually consider her relationship with her powers; he was the one who convinced Delilah that she needed them leading Delilah to give Laudna a moment; and it was ultimately his idea to fly the skyship into the key. As of this level, he literally is the brains of the operation, with a +3 INT modifier to Orym, Ashton, and Laudna's +1 (and Imogen's +0 and Fearne and FCG's -1's). He has an overblown public sense of pride, but is remarkably willing to set his ego aside when he is not the focus. And for all he loves being a werewolf, he also does take responsibility for the harm he has done without wallowing in guilt. (Not that exploring guilt isn't valid as well, but I think Chet's approach is an admirable trait).

To be honest I think anyone who's not on board with Chet is uncomfortable with those final notes. Either they're one of the stragglers still on their "but Grog had a 6 INT and despite having five entire years to get over this during which Travis has consistently played characters with at least a +2 to INT, I shall not change my perception" bullshit, or, more realistically, are uncomfortable with the fact that Chetney (and, on a meta level, Travis as a player) both without hesitation will take the lead when appropriate or needed, but also will step aside when the narrative is not about him with absolutely no ego or resentment. I think that last bit really throws people off, especially people of the 'if the show cannot be interpreted as secretly centering my blorbo at all times I'm going to go into my tantrum hole' persuasion.

[utilitycaster]

Im very very intrigued by your take on wisdom being the more arrogant stat. Is your thinking that wisdom is more ‘inherant’ while intelligence is typically earned? Please elaborate!!

Not quite about what's earned vs. inherent and more about where these types of arrogance draws the line.

In real life, while I’ve run into no small number of immensely arrogant academics, nothing will ever exceed the smugness of people who claim to be “empaths” while generally being insufferable black holes of energy and time. At least the academics are correct some of the time. Having good insight is all well and good but if instead of using that simply to inform your interactions with that person, you act like you know what’s best for them…that’s a level of arrogance that intellectual snobbery can never, in my mind, achieve.

To use the examples I gave - I think Percy is, to be clear, a hugely arrogant prick (honorific), and I think Keyleth is typically a more well-intentioned person than he. But I also think that Keyleth does, for example, tend to operate on a sense of legacy that presumes a thousand-plus year lifespan, and doesn’t really think through the fact that Percy is someone who’d be lucky to live a century and who has spent his entire adult life assuming he is the sole survivor of his family line. It’s not that Percy’s actions are good; but they are understandable, and he is coming from a very different place than Keyleth. And it’s Percy who’s able to point this out.

This is also true of Caduceus, who of the Mighty Nein has very little life experience, but does tend to assume he knows what’s best for people. He is, as I’ve discussed many times, a quietly deeply arrogant character. Many of his banger lines absolutely don’t land with the target - “rest well with your poor decisions” is hilarious but judgmental and completely misses Fjord’s objectives; his line to Trent flies so far from the mark he may as well not have said anything at all. He’s not wrong, per se…but he assumes everyone operates on the same principles he does.

I think while the flaw of intelligent characters is often to assume their knowledge surpasses that of other people, the flaw of wise characters is often to assume that their perspective is objectively the right one. And the thing is, an INT 20 wizard probably does know way more than other people, whereas a WIS 20 cleric probably doesn’t have a universal perspective. Wise characters often don’t know what they don’t know, and intelligent characters often do.

I should point out - in Worlds Beyond Number, this observation concerned a fey-influenced girl with anti-magic abilities who had a job with a weird and unpleasant hedge mage. Suvi, a wizard of the Citadel and essentially the adoptive daughter of someone important within the Empire, suggests she go to the Citadel for opportunities. Ame, a witch from a small town, opposes this in part because she (with a good insight check) realizes that the girl is not unhappy in her role, which Suvi does look down upon. The thing is…neither of them know what will be best for her! They both assume they’re right, and they’re both well-intentioned. But Ame fucks it up specifically by telling Suvi that she (Suvi) had opportunities this girl would not - which may or may not be true (it’s genuinely not made clear). Both Suvi and Ame make a ton of presumptions here, but Ame is the one who specifically assumes Suvi is wrong.

This also happens to tie into another common thing about WBN: While for narrative reasons I do expect the Empire to be a deeply flawed and well, imperial thing, I’ve already seen so much that’s just people knee-jerk hearing “empire” and losing any sense of nuance and analysis. It’s simply not possible yet to have any meaningful discussion of the actual flaws in the specific society in question. We’ve really only seen Suvi, who is, I should note, arrogant, but also at most 20 years old and a wizard prodigy who was orphaned at the age of six by parents who died for the Empire, and that should be taken into account. Which kind of gets back to the main point! A lot of people who I think would consider themselves insightful and empathetic tend to also go off gut feelings instead of actually exploring the reality of a scenario.

[utilitycaster]

Who's your favourite of the main 3 in Midst so far and why?

(Appologies if youve already answered this somewhere and i missed it)

While I do love them all very much for different reasons and this was a close call, my favorite has got to be Lark. I like when characters are blunt and impatient and uninterested in how people see them without actually being assholes or unkind per se. I also like when people but especially women (and especially women who aren't young ingenues) are depicted as being blisteringly competent in specific things and truly a mess in others, not in a rom-com-esque "oh my god I'm such a good lawyer but I'm so clumsy" way but in a much more real and far less cute way. Also her divination powers are extremely fun.

[utilitycaster]

I know this is a broad question, but do you have any thoughts/metas youd like to share on the Honour Among Thieves movie that you havnt already? Any unpopular opinions? I personally thought they did brilliantly with adapting RAW to a more structured linear story that made it easy to follow and also make sense within the world and story, especially for those unfamiliar with the crunchy mechanics. If not, then feel free to ignore!

I'll probably say some more stuff eventually; the reason I can write so much CR meta so quickly is that at this point I'm pretty fluent with the characters and I spend a significant amount of time like, cross-checking the transcript each week, but for anything else chances are it needs to bounce around in my head for some amount of time.

I guess I said this before I saw it in response to an earlier question, but I'll double down now that I have: I did not think they should have had explicit actual play cameos/references nor required any mechanics knowledge (which they did not!) I fully agree with the intentions the movie had: to use a fantasy lexicon and story structure that's immediately recognizable to people who are familiar with D&D (and even more so to those familiar with Forgotten Realms), but is completely accessible to some random person who just wants to watch a fantasy movie. I had a great time as an adult who's been playing D&D for some time, but I think I would have had a great time if I'd seen this exact movie as a teen nerd with no experience with TTRPGs whatsoever. Like...wanting CR cast cameos or more obvious D&D mechanics references feels like wanting a gold star for "getting" it and like, man, can't you just have fun for a bit? Get some concession snacks and enjoy yourself.

It's sort of comparable to TLOVM. In D&D 5e as played, we understand that Keyleth, Pike, Vex, and Scanlan all have access to healing capabilities (and that it's good to have overlap within the party). In a show with far, far less time than the luxurious hundreds of hours of actual play and the visible gears and wires of mechanics, you simplify and have the characters specialize. What's important is that you tell a good story that feels like the stories that come about through playing D&D, not that you adhere to mechanics precisely.

My only other major opinion at this time is that if you are playing around with the idea this is a D&D game (and to be clear I'm totally for that as fanon, I just think it should never be established in the film), Xenk is 100% an NPC who briefly travels with the party, not a drop-in PC, although to be fair paladins are just kind of Like That.

[utilitycaster]

Re: Wizard Stupid

As you outline it, i definitely believe its a thing. However, id like to object that Ludinus exhibits it in earnest. Absolutely its what he projects (ie. the absurdity of hating clerics for being gifted magic while working alongside SORCERERS), but i think he projects it knowingly and deliberately, which disqualifies him from Wizard Stupid.

Basically im denying the adage “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately attributed to stupidity”. Id LOVE your thoughts on this but its my belief that Ludinus is weaponizing populist talking points against what are basically ignorant common folk and traumatized people as a shield to hide his greater true desire to become god emperor of Exandria. Especially keeping in mind that us as the audience have a vaster knowledge of the Exandrian pantheon and its inner workings than a regular commoner who’s worked a farm all their life and just wants to make enough money for a meal. If right-wingers get away with this kind of shit all the time, i certainly believe Ludinus does, too.

I would disagree with a few things here; but to address the first point, Wizard Stupid really is just "I think the consequences of my actions will not come back to me, and indeed haven't necessarily thought them through at all", which I believe absolutely applies to Ludinus. While we don't know for sure that teleportation is broken, or that he's fucked the ley network and therefore arcane magic, those are both pretty likely. He activated a machine that had taken damage with his own life force. He also did hire Astrid, who is heavily implied to have been feeding intel to Caleb and would therefore be indirectly responsible for quite a lot of that damage. He stiffed Ira's bill; reneging on a contract with a fey even other fey think is kind of a wildcard? That's Wizard Stupid. I'd also note: never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity is much more about assuming that the person who cut you off in traffic is a fucking idiot who wasn't paying attention, not that they have it out for you and want you to crash. It doesn't mean people can't be both malicious and stupid, and we do know Ludinus is, canonically, evil. I am not denying his malice; I'm saying he's also, in some areas, very, very stupid.

In general though, I don't think a comparison to populism is apt. Ludinus and the Vanguard expressly aren't going around doing massive, active recruiting among common people who are, or perceive themselves to be, disenfranchised. Tuldus is actually the exception to what we've seen; the majority of Vanguard members we've encountered have been Ruidusborn. This is a cult recruiting vulnerable people. If it were truly populist, why is it not commonly known among the population? Why recruit Lilliana and not Relvin, who is similarly a regular commoner who's worked on a farm all his life? Why hasn't anyone in the party, many of whom have been living on the fringes of society, heard of it before now? Why are their only allies other tiny obscure cults and a crawler gang? Why are they killing what appears to be random travelers? The Paragon's Call members are honestly pretty apathetic, and the Malleus Key plan wasn't a recruiting tactic when Bells Hells encountered them; I think it's a case of "boss says we're killing god and they're paying well, so, sure, I don't care as long as I get overtime." Killing the gods is not a talking point being used to rally the masses; it's not populism and it's frankly not even popular. All things considered, the group at the Tishtan site is pitifully small.

I will also admit, and this applies here but to a few other posts as well, that I don't find a framing of Mortals vs. the Gods under any kind of real-world political structure to really work for me. The premise is in fact that the gods don't function like mortals, so even if killing the gods were a popular sentiment, which again, it is not, I don't know if it would map well to populism.

Now, I do agree that Ludinus is being deliberately manipulative and hypocritical. With that said this also doesn't rule out stupid for him (nor for real-life politicians). I do, in fact, think that no shortage of right-wing populists believe a decent amount of their own bullshit. Like...generally, a lot of fascists are very effective at amassing short term power, and they don't believe all the bullshit they say but use it to manipulate the population, and we obviously don't want that either, because it does not take terribly long to do a massive amount of harm; but they do often fuck up the long term planning. Eventually, you eliminate everyone you've been scapegoating and you still haven't built a utopia so you either need to, as Ashton said, get down to like 5 people at which point society collapses; or someone else shows up and you now become the target of the population's ire. Basically this is all to say you can be both stupid (and specifically Wizard Stupid, which is about ignoring immediate and possibly lethal consequences, often though not always in the service of pursuing knowledge or a greater vision) and manipulative, ie, Ludinus is not in fact disqualified from Wizard Stupid simply because he also deliberately misleads some people.

I also don't think Ludinus wants to become god-emperor and haven't seen any evidence he does - it's a theory, but I don't agree with it and believe he genuinely is mostly focused on just killing the gods. But, frankly, if he did wish to be god-emperor? Doing so by allying with powerful sorcerers whose powers are believed to come from Predathos? Of whom we know he - one of the most powerful archmages in the world - is jealous? And assuming he'll keep that position? With all the potential fuck-ups to magic? Also, specifically pissing off druids, who might actually (along with paladins) be the group most able to withstand what may go down if Predathos is unleashed given that their magic comes neither from the gods nor is arcane? Now that's Wizard Stupid.

[utilitycaster]

Extremely cathartic to hear these whiners get blasted on twitter by the creators of their supposed favourite show. I know for a fact theyre the same weirdos ive seen making statements like “the CR fandom is toxic and bad and theyre going to bring all their toxicity into our fandom, which has no toxicity and everyone is kind and nice to eachother and nothing problematic has ever happened here, unlike bad and evil critical role!!!”

I also believe theyre the same people who:

-misgender ashton when most optically convenient for them (ie he did something they didnt like)

-did the whole “ghelvan is an allegory for queerness” thing or whatever that was

-crying about imogen no glasses

Because the common denominator of these takes (besides being dumb) is that the person making them has to have a lack of empathetic understanding that other people have different experiences from you, in combination with lacking the understanding that actually, its okay if someone doesn’t agree with you. Like, its okay to not be in control of every narrative or microscopic detail around you.

So obviously I'm with you on "these people just hate CR for nebulous reasons which like, they can, but then just skip the season" and "an inability to accept other people have different takes on canon than you do says concerning things about your empathy, especially if all your fanon has characters conveniently matching your exact demographics" but I do want to point out that the people bashing Matt over fanlore are explicitly not CR fans. I think you addressed that too so maybe you're trying to say that it's like, the same broad attitude shared by these two groups of people? Which is true in some cases but not others.

I think that misgendering Ashton is not anger at canon. It's just transphobia; it's people thinking it's appropriate to be transphobic if a character is "bad". They misgender Ashton when he has a conversation with Laudna that fails to strike the appropriate tone of "fawning, yet sufficiently distant."

For glasses...I think a lot of the defense of glasses fell into this category of "no you cannot criticize our fanlore, for it is pure" but for what it's worth, joking aside? I haven't seen anyone complain about the lack of glasses in the new art (though I haven't been in the tag much today). I've seen people continue to draw Imogen with glasses, but like, I want to be clear: it's their right to do it. It's my right to say "I don't like this" but like, they can do it, and I'm only going to break out the mockery when it turns into "no you don't get it we're NORMALIZING wearing glasses, which is why we only ever draw one very specific style of glasses on one specific character".

And for Gelvaan as a metaphor for queerness...I think that one genuinely just came from someone seeing the real parallels of many a personal experience with homophobia (it is a small southern town! People do look at Imogen strangely!) and just either not having a strong enough grasp of the lore or being so quick to project their own experience they forgot to think through the implications to realize "oh wait, people look sideways at Imogen because she nearly killed a couple people; perhaps 'having psychic powers is kind of like being gay' is, as Taliesin's ALA panel speech indicates, a broken metaphor."

But it is true that (aside from Ashton) these do largely share a theme of people not being able to tolerate disagreement with their own interpretations, either from canon or other fans.

[utilitycaster]

🔥vax (i love and appreciate your opinions and willingness to share them and how counter they are to what i normally see. Ty for your work)

Thank you!

I feel I've said most of my Vax thoughts before but the main one is that Vax's devotion to the Raven Queen, while perhaps not what he originally intended, was ultimately willing. He did not accidentally become a paladin, and he chose the ending he got, namely, to be brought back briefly to kill Vecna and then permanently and irrevocably die. Anyone that tries to paint him as trapped by the evil Raven Queen or diminishes his death or tries to say that he can come back the way he was as a half-elf rogue misses the point of his story so hard they may as well not have watched it.

[utilitycaster]

Am i allowed two questions? Unpopular opinion: i think people who say “like what you like! Dont yuck someone else’s yum!” About media stuff specifically are boring as fuck and id probably hate talking to them about my media takes. Theres a virtue to being able to effectively criticize media, ESPECIALLY if that media is your favourite. I cant count the number of times ive passively picked out flaws to discuss in a show someone’s having me watch and they spin it on me with the classic “how would YOU like it if i picked apart your fav?” I would enjoy that very much actually, please do, i crave the discussion. This is kind of a broad statement but it fully applied to CR fans and metas just as much as anything else.

Hard agree with the caveat that saying you don't like something directly AT the person talking about how they like it if you don't know them is a dick move. Like, if I'm talking about how much I like something about Fearne and someone in the tags is like "i don't like her" then it's like why the fuck are you reblogging this, this isn't for you. But if I say "I don't care for this plot point" on my own damn blog I'm not stopping people from enjoying anything. Or rather, if you can be stopped from liking something because a complete and utter stranger on the internet has pointed out its flaws, then maybe you didn't really like it, or you're too dependent on getting approval from people who are absolutely not thinking about you.

Basically: don't get into an argument with someone who hasn't invited it or get hardcore against something in a main tag for fans of it, because that's obnoxious, but criticism on your own blog is always fine and if people get mad at it that's their problem.