#But can't argue why

[limbolants-art]

And there were two

[ariadne-mouse]

Regarding the initial confrontation between Essek and Astrid, the tone of the situation, and what exactly Astrid's stance is right now, I have a couple of thoughts:

Astrid has presumably not joined Ludinus because she is currently hiding in a smut shop. She also presumably hasn't joined the Exandrian Accord because, again, she is currently hiding in a smut shop & the Accord is sending missions after her. Maybe she disagrees with Ludinus but feels she can't safely outright oppose him. We don't know yet! Provided she isn't rooting for Ludinus, it's very possible she could be enlisted to help (I hope this happens btw), but Astrid is first and foremost a survivor and ambitious achiever who has gotten to where she is now by working within the greater system, not against it, even when she disagrees with it. She remained a Volstrucker until Caleb and the M9 turned the tide against Ikithon, and she later took on the role of Archmage that Caleb refused, continuing her original trajectory ("race you to the top!"). She has a great deal of power now and we don't have much information about what she does with it. I am very curious, though, Astrid please tell us your secrets.

"Bren sends his regards" - we don't know if Caleb told Essek to say this, but whether or not he did, I do think it was meant to convey "this is all with Caleb's knowledge and direction", for whatever measure that means to Astrid, most likely "you are safe for the moment". The purpose of this encounter is to have a conversation instead of a fight. And Essek's intent in saying it does seem to be to disarm Astrid, but his presentation puts some layers and edges on it that are likely independent of whatever Caleb might be feeling on his end (other posts have summarized the juicy possible layers well so I won't cover all of that here).

More high level on Essek's angle: even if "Bren sends his regards" was meant to signal to Astrid that she is safe in this encounter, one of the very first things Essek does is declare Astrid as Trent Ikithon's "successor", which Astrid of course disagrees with ("I'm his usurper!") but nevertheless this is an insult and condemnation coming from Essek. The subtext reads to me like "I don't like you or agree with you and you're on thin fucking ice how I see it". Is she safe from physical harm? It seems so, for now. Is she safe from bitchy comments and thinly veiled judgement? Certainly not.

Notably, Astrid tried to bamf out after hearing "Bren sends his regards", so the mention of him or what that message would mean coming from Caleb is not enough to get her to play ball by itself. This is perfectly reasonable to be honest; shit's all fucked up now and Essek basically cornered her with a squad of unfamiliar adventurers. But her skittishness despite the "friendly" signal implies a great deal of tension in her position, and Essek's behavior shows tension on his part as well, separate from whatever Caleb might be feeling offscreen and the purpose of this little mission for the Accord. I am very eager to hear the conversation that comes next!

[worstloki]

there is a difference between being born to a throne, maliciously vying for a throne, stealing a throne, and having a throne thrust upon you when you are already in the midst of an identity crisis. And I fear Loki's place in the line of succession has people unable to differentiate between any of these

[dandy-dog]

Okay, so I just realised something and I'm not sure if it's me overthinking things but I feel like it raises an interesting question. When you go to the registration center, Rambley says that Ed's face isn't in the park's guest list:

Rambley directly after this asks if it's Ed's first time visiting Indigo Park. Which implies that the park stores a list of all of it's previous guests to some extent. However, Ed states throughout the game (both directly in the DMs with Laura shown in the game's opening and implied in the flavour text for the collectibles) that he's been to Indigo Park before. So if that's the case, why isn't Ed registered in the park's guest list anymore?

[jq37]

I'm like genuinely interested as someone who thinks a lot about the craft of critique and fandoms the ways in which the current Rat Grinders discourse shows why you can't really apply the same lens you use to critique a pre written story vs an improvised actual play show by a bunch of comedians who are first and foremost concerned with committing to the bit. Like Porter's a great example of this, he went from a nothingburher to secretly evil with a whole lore and backstory!

In the same vein the Rat Grinders probably could have turned out to be not as culpable in all of this had the Bad Kids really tried to bond with them, but instead they focused on other things with the way downtime was structured! And because they did that they could pass the Last Stand, and are safe from Porter's rage thing! Like legitimately I really liked the mechanics of downtime this season, it just also came at the cost of developing the Rat Grinders!

(Though to be entirely fair, the BKs did try to engage with Oisin, Ivy, and Ruben and then Oisin launched the house, Ivy was racist, and Ruben still attacked Wanda so)

I think it's really fascinating from a storytelling/game design perspective! The downside is the Discourse is so tiring

Yeah it's interesting. I covered some of this in other asks so I'm gonna hit on the stuff I haven't yet.

If you're telling a story that is based partially on user input, it's not entirely fair to be like, "This subplot was underdeveloped" if the reason for that was that the players didn't make choices to facilitate that development. When DM's push hard for the players to care about things they're not interested in, they get hit with railroading accusations.

And even outside of the player choices, there are also the rolls. A BIG part of D&D is the randomness of the dice. Even if the players care about something, it doesn't mean they'll get it. I'll mention again that Kristen tried to roll Insight on Buddy before the final fight and got a Nat 1. What is she supposed to do? Roll again until she gets a good read on him? That's not how that works. If the dice aren't cooperating, there's not much you can do. And you can make sure your big story beats don't rely on dice but at the end of the day they *will* shape your story in ways you can't control.

Another key thing about the medium, as you pointed out, is things can change on the fly. The confluence of high rolls and serious interest can change things that were behind the screen canon in an instant. In Burrow's End, Aabria planned for Bennet to have a family but as soon as Tula/Brennan expressed interest in romancing him, she Thanos snapped that family out of existence. I don't know how much Brennan wanted the Rat Grinders to be recruitable but even if he'd planned them all to just be foils and evil and nothing else, I can totally see him flipping one if they'd really wanted to and it would have made for a good story beat.

Anyway, yeah! Interesting stuff to think about. Even though D20 often feels like a TV show, it's important to remember that it's a different beast in many ways.

[travalerray]

honestly never having watched CQL beyond the part where WN gets randomly possessed (???) at Biling Lake is pretty funny because I hear the most random of things about it later. what do you mean there's a conversation between Lan XICHEN and Wei Wuxian where LXC is all "Wei-gongzi pls come back to Gusu so that my didi can chill" in his previous life and Wei Wuxian wipes off Jiang Cheng's tears in the Guanyin Temple. How did the XiYao meeting end up as a sexually charged gift exchange. What do you mean they had Lan Yi and Baoshan Sanren as tragic lesbians. What is a Yin Iron. Why does half the cast know demonic cultivation. Why is Wen Qing getting dramatically threatened to spy in the Cloud Recesses. WHO MADE LAN WANGJI THE CHIEF CULTIVATOR

[strangertheories]

non-lgbt neurotypicals after a successful day of telling neurodivergent queer people that their headcanons are secretly ableist and anti-lgbtq

[mokeonn]

Before I go to sleep I leave you all with this piece of advice: sometimes you don't actually have to answer big political questions, sometimes you can just say "I am not smart enough to know that, I just know the small things I do to help." Like you can often times completely avoid making a fool of yourself if you just say you don't know.

[dapiando]

what I want to know is, now that the villain can create a portal into camp whenever, are we planning on just skipping books 2 and 4 entirely, Richard?

Ik it's an easy thing to forget (esp if you haven't read the books in a while, cause why would you? you're just writing a whole show based on them who cares abt knowing what happens), but the entire plot of those books is finding a way into camp. They poison the tree to weaken the barrier and they use the labyrinth door to get in regardless of the barrier, so ??

[fromtheseventhhell]

It takes two seconds for every "Sansa never bullied Arya, they just had a normal sibling relationship" post to devolve into "but if there was someone to blame, it would be Arya because she was soooo mean and calls everything Sansa does stupid". The only reason the "Stark sisters 4ever" hags want them to get along is because they're desperately hoping Sansa's behavior toward Arya isn't ever addressed so they can keep pretending she's a perfect angel who can do no wrong; they won't even try to pretend it's about anything else.

[mishkakagehishka]

But honestly i do judge people who use chatgpt for their college work. Literally if you chose to study something, why would you use ai for your work. If you chose something you want to study, doesn't it feel like a waste to not do your own research and work for essays and the like.

[lunarharp]

"Found out" set in kind of a made-up chapter where the girls are in trouble, or something.

[beedreamscape]

VERY LONG POST EXPLORING C3 AND WHY SO MANY PEOPLE MIGHT NOT LIKE IT/MY PERSONAL GRIPES WITH IT.

I ended up exploring a bit of that Reddit community of critical role fans (not the main one) where they basically gather together and commiserate how much they hate C3. It's frustrating to read because at some point you can tell they make no effort to engage positively with the campaign and have a penchant for hating anything about it.

But, from the perspective of someone with very little emotional connection to the past campaigns, I kinda get why C3 feels so different and, in my opinion, it's all about personal stakes for the characters.

As writers, we constantly hear that we must give the characters something personal to care about so that the reader may care about the plot - yeah city-destroying laser beam is a big stake, but if main character's loved one will be used as a sacrifice to the aliens to activate the laser beam unless they do something, the tension doubles.

And with a shallow look over the arcs of the past campaigns, especially the fans' favourites, a pattern I find is of those with heavy personal stakes:

People often point the Briarwoods arc as a favourite. It's not just about bringing down the powerful Briarwoods, it's about avenging Percy's family and bringing his beloved Whitestone back to its past glory, all mixed with the fighting of personal demons.

We also got Vax'ildans overarching arc with the Raven Queen and Scanlan's with Kaylie and his self-worth/discovery in the party.

In campaign three, the struggle of Fjord getting over Uk'otoa's influence and turning to the Wildmother, rediscovering himself. Bright Queen's Favor with freeing Yuza, uncovering Nott's past, grappling with their preconceptions of the empire and the dynasty, and meeting Essek. Losing then Recovering Yasha from Obann. Traveler Con.

This post about the first third of the C2 comparing it to C1 explains quite well how M9 is driven by the party's personal stakes over any obligation to any institution.

Not only personal stakes that build the value of the campaign, but places that grow as their own: Whitestone, Emon, Zephrah, Xhorhas, the Menagerie Coast, Zedash, etc.

That's what's missing from Campaign 3: anchors and personal stakes.

Bells Hells doesn't really care about anything! We're entrenched in the Ruidus plot ever since we learned what ruidusborn means in the beginning of the campaign and yet, what does that mean to them? It was the subject of Imogen's dreams and afflictions but what else? The main victims of it will be the gods, but they repeatedly state how much they don't care for the gods and are in doubt if losing them would be bad anyway.

In a certain perspective, I don't blame them - the plot has grown so massive and subjective, while they haven't - they're still level 10 nobodies against a god-eating moon-shaped monster and the insanely powerful guy that wants to free it.

Bells Hells doesn't care for the places they walk through! Only two members of the party are actually from Marquet! Imogen and Dorian. And both are running from their past! so they don't even want to be there! Ashton hates everything about it and all the others have no reason to cling to it.

Jrusar was such a great city with great dynamics that were only half explored and they don't seem to care to return to it even though so much goes unexplored. Yios meant nothing nor did Heartmoor or the Taloned Highlands (and its apparently juicy political intrigues nobody cared to explore) and barely a mention of Ank'harel or the Silken Squall.

WHY do we keep going back to Taldorei???

Marquet as a whole goes mostly unexplored and underused in the campaign and it's so upseting.

Bells Hells have nothing to lose! They hold no personal stakes to the plot, most of them don't have families and those that do feel like something so distant and impersonal, no place or city they love or feel connected to, the only thing they owned (the very valuable skyship rip) they destroyed with barely any consideration. Their morals feel like the only thing at stake and even that feels already lost.

C3 is pulling too much from past campaigns. From the moment they first contacted the VM people, it felt like a mistake, and every appearance since has felt so much like fan service (especially bc specific fan favourites are the recurring appearances, no variety). The time spent in Whitestone, the connections to Delilah, everything with Keyleth, etc.

This last one, in particular, contributes to that group of NPCs feeling, always revolving around some other character struggle - who cares what is going on with Bells Hells when Vax's trapped in an orb and Keyleth is half dying, and Caleb is in an anti-magic collar, and Trent is probably loose, and this character and that character...

We haven't spent proper time with C3-exclusive NPCs excluding Nana Morri since episode 50! No Lord Eshteross or Xandis or Ira or Jiana Hexum or the Green Seekers or Milo. It was so special to me having Dancer and Imahara Joe around even if briefly.

And Lord Eshteross death left such a huge gap in the dynamics of the party with the world. I think it was premature, especially because the thirst to avenge him (which I suppose was meant to fuel their hate and intention to kill Otohan) lasted so little and from there on out began the heavy and meta-gamey (and personally, OOC) relying on VM characters.

The ticking clock on the apogee solstice strained much of the campaign and brought this looming fear of 'if we don't take care of it nobody will so we can't waste time', therefore the alternative paths and personal arcs fell to the sidelines in favor of the elephant in the room, so it felt like several episodes of dragging towards this event, then the peak of ep 50-51, to re-start the drag of post moon beam.

Guest PCs are a whole other can of worms I'm not ready to explore also bc it entails a lot, but it's a shared sentiment that people miss Dorian and what he brought to the table.

On a personal view, the Hellcath Valley was my favorite arc. Bassuras felt so tactile and real and gritty, we had a clear objective of infiltrating the Paragon's Call and retrieving Armand Treshi, Deathwish Run, the mystery of Dusk unveiling into Yu, Fearne's parents encounter, Ira, Imahara Joe and reveals about Dancer and D., first FCG nervous attack, Otohan battle and Laudna's death. SO MUCH.

Special mentions to everything Jrusar and Shade Creepers, Heartmoor and the Museum, Savalirwood, and the time spent on the Silver Sun.

I miss these small-scale objectives, I miss the C3 NPCs, I miss Marquet, I miss turning our eyes to these character tensions and exploration, I miss the one-on-one talks, the unity they shared in those dire moments.

I can't wait to leave the Predathos plot and all the repetitive discussions within it behind.

This doesn't cover everything (interpersonal relationships are a whole other spectrum of discussion) but a few things I feel puts an obstacle towards people liking this campaign when comparing the past ones.

[fivewholeminutes]

Obligatory eyes like fire moth fanart: ✔️

My, those photos look terrible on desktop. Anyways! I don't like it in terms of "fanart for this specific lyrics part", i don't think it shows what i wanted it to represent, but i have grown to like it as a funky fluffy moth pal that's chilling over my desk now, so yeah.

Btw, it has legs. One of them keeps falling off.

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[lord-squiggletits]

"IDW Megatron got a redemption arc and Starscream didn't it's so unfair--"

Do not slander Metalhawk, Bumblebee, and Windblade's hard work trying to fix this man they didn't work for half the continuity (and in 2/3 of their cases) literally die and come back as zombies/ghosts for y'all to be out there saying no one helped Starscream get redeemed and have friends and be a better person