#hi cam i will bother you with my fanarts from now on are you okay with that? cool

[mishervellous]

hey have you read word of mouth by @liamgallaghers? no? [cocks water gun] go on i’ll wait

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E25 (July 10, 2018)

First show in the new studio! Ashley wasn’t nervous until Sam started talking about how nervous he was. There’s a lot of nervousness. Now with Dani Cam!

Tonight’s guests are Ashley Johnson and Sam Riegel!

Announcements: TM is headed to San Diego Comic Con again this year! On Tuesday, July 24 (the Tuesday after their Saturday panel), the panel will be broadcast in TM’s usual time slot. Wyrmwood giveaways are back starting this week, but will be hosted in the Critical Role Twitch chat moving forward. New shirt in the store (featuring Nott and Jester’s detective agency!).

@critrolestats​ for this episode:

Yasha is practically tied with Fjord for highest average damage dealt per episode (35.875 for Yasha, 36.040 for Fjord).

Nott maintains her lead for the most natural ones (23). Sam points out that he’s using the same dice as last campaign and suspects the proximity to the baby may have been a curse on his luck. Ashley: “I feel like he couldn’t possibly be a curse on anyone.” Sam: “No, he’s a demon child. Have you held up a mirror to the child to see if it has a reflection? That’s all I’m saying.”

It’s been 34 days since the Mighty Nein met in Trostenwald. Ashley points out that it’s starting to be a substantial number of days for everyone to have been spending all their time together.

Kiri was with the Mighty Nein for 11 days.

Nott’s new crossbow is a +1 hand crossbow. If Sam rolls a 20, it magically resets and fires another bolt immediately. If Sam rolls a 1, it tries to do that, fails, and shoots Nott instead. Because it’s a magical weapon, it will deal magic damage even if non-magical bolts are fired from it. Sam’s holding out for a cupholder.

“Beau is-- I think more of Beau and Yasha’s relationship, whatever that turns out to be, I like exploring that in the game.” Yasha “got a kick out of” Beau playing up her injuries and didn’t mind carrying her around. “She’ll help a girl out.”

The official name for Nott’s flask is The Flask of Perpetual Booze.

Heroism for the sake of being nice is definitely new from Nott’s perspective---she and Caleb have mainly just been fighting for survival until now. Money is not what drives Yasha, so getting into a fight is more motivating for her than any sort of reward. She was very affected by getting the couple out of prison, and especially by what followed with Kiri. “She’s trying to not let things affect her, but they do.” She’s averse to getting emotional, because then people are likely to see the cracks; it’s easier for her not to engage, but Kiri leaving affected her more than she was ready for. (Part of it was bleedthrough from Ashley and Marisha trying not to lose their composure during that scene.)

Nott was surprised that the Schusters accepted a good deed from her even knowing she was a goblin. “It maybe changed her impression of how ready or willing people are out there to accept a little gobby into their world.” Traveling with the Nein for so long and having their respect has “definitely expanded her opinion of the world and the people who live in it.” She’s never had that experience before. “So far, mainly people throw rocks at her.”

Gif of the Week: the many faces of Sam-as-Burt-Reynolds.

Sam’s eyes were watering and stinging all night because of the fake mustache. “By the end of the night, I was struggling to keep my eyes open.”

Brian: “I have good news. The fly that was buzzing around everywhere and bugging us is dead. It’s in my drink.”

It was a big relief to everyone that Kiri made it through her time with the Nein alive and okay, but it was still really sad to give her up. “As Sam Riegel, I’m really sad to see the character go, but in the game I kept looking for a way to find her a safe place.” They both feel pretty good about leaving her with the Schuster family. Sam points out that they know where she is, so they can come back and visit. Brian gives Matt well-deserved kudos for how lovable Kiri was right from her first appearance.

Because of Ashley’s schedule, she knew Matt had to plan something for Yasha’s disappearance, but he hinted to her that something would happen at the end of the night and that she’d know what to do. “He makes it feel organic and part of the story. I like that it’s the three of us going together on this journey.” She didn’t know beforehand what was going to happen (and still doesn’t know more than we do) so it was a very exciting scene to play out.

Sam and Ashley realize anyone could have volunteered for that last watch---they’re so impressed with how Matt set that up as their choice, even knowing he might’ve had to scramble to get the right combinations of players ready to go.

Sam points out that they’re left with no obvious leader, there’s a lot of underconfidence with Caleb and Nott and a lot of overconfidence with the other two (”all misplaced”). No healer, one person with substantial magic, no tank. The clues basically consist of a bit of blood on the ground. “I don’t know how we’re going to find these people, and even if we found them, if the baddies were powerful enough to apprehend all three of them, I don’t know if we’d be strong enough to rescue them.”

Fanart of the Week: a gorgeous scene of Beau training.

Both Scanlan and Nott have “a visceral hate of goblinkind for different reasons.” Scanlan would kill one on sight. “Nott might ask them a few questions first, and then kill them.” She hasn’t come into contact with any goblins from outside her clan. “Maybe she’d have an open mind if she met a really cool goblin.”

“Yasha’s relationship with the Stormlord is still fairly new, so I think her connection with him and figuring out how to connect with him-- she’s still figuring that out, but I also think he probably knew she could take care of herself. She’s still figuring out what she’s supposed to do to reach in and connect with him.” It’s tied in with her backstory. “There’s a lot that she doesn’t understand about it.”

On Nott losing her detective partner: “They’re bad cop/bad cop. Without one of them, they’re just bad cop! How would that work?” Beau might be her first attempt at a new detective duo.

Ashley’s okay with the speed at which Yasha’s backstory is being revealed---in that basically none of her backstory has been revealed. “I would love to have revealed more while I was home, but her backstory is very sensitive and it’s not something she would be comfortable talking about.”

At one point, Sam was writing a pilot pitch for a CW-type show about “sexy minotaurs and centaurs in a high school.”

Stealing the gun wasn’t about messing with Taliesin; Sam has specific plans for the gun. “Let’s just say that Nott has a fascination with things and enjoys shiny things, but also enjoys chemical things, and it’s an interesting item to her and she has ideas of what she could try with it. It also helps that it bothers Taliesin. I’m not going to lie.”

The Stormlord is more of a protector figure than a distant, abstract figure to Yasha. “He definitely saved her from something. Before the Stormlord, she didn’t serve any gods. That was a foreign thing to her. I don’t think she knows what servitude means, yet, but she’s getting there.”

Nott felt like a protector and a keeper of Kiri. “Innocent little kid who needs to be protected and is also adorable!” She’s also very pleased to see Caleb coming out of his shell.

Ashley has confidence in the remaining four members of the Nein. “I think they’re going to be fine.” Sam: “Let’s be frank, Ashley’s been carrying us as a show for some time now, and losing her might sink the ship.”

There’s some speculation about why Matt keeps putting manacles into the narrative. Sam: “They might have some sort of a payoff later? Otherwise, he’s just kinky.”

Matt has said that he’ll figure out a way to bring Ashley in on Skype even if she’s the only one of the three available, but she also just wants let the narrative unfold naturally. They’ll see how it goes moving forward.

Unexpected Matt Key!

Talks Machina In The Dark:

Weirdest stuff found during the move? Sam found a bunch of rejected things he was going to paste to the side of his flask. “Some of them were clever. Some of them were not.” Brian: “Taliesin’s coffin that he sleeps in.” They all found a lot of dice lying around. Ashley’s Gil dice is still missing!

Sam does some squats. Brian: “Totally normal. It’s totally normal.”

Everyone’s really sad that Laura couldn’t be there for Jester’s goodbye with Kiri.

Yasha “100%” did not feel qualified to give Caleb advice. “Just anybody coming to her for advice about anything. Why are you asking me? What advice could I possibly give you?” Sam demands to know if she’s ever had a friend. “Yes, of course. She comes from a very rural area, and raised in a certain way that she was-- You gotta wait. It’ll make sense. There’s a lot of life that she hasn’t lived yet. She doesn’t have a lot of life experience.” She’s around Ashley’s age (or the equivalent for an aasimar).

Both Sam and Ashley think Kiri would be good as a rogue. Possibly a bard? Ashley: “Matt’ll come up with something great if we ever see her again.” Brian points out the potential for a kenku using mimicry for Vicious Mockery.

Votes go to Marisha’s Fjord voice over Taliesin’s Jester voice.

We delve into the disgusting depths of how gross Sam’s flask gets. “We need to get you a little brush.” “We do. I might get tetanus from this thing.”