#ep 89

[meadowsofmay]

i enjoy a great deal how likable and helpful, forthcoming in a way and genuine — an amount that a man of his position can allow himself — ludinus is on his first proper appearance. if not for caleb's knowledge and warning and m9 seeing ludinus in felderwin, you could totally see how one might trust an individual like him. especially given the stark contrast of trent's proper apparence is, him coming onto caleb like a predator, speaking and moving like a snake — immediately off-putting, provoking a knee-jerk reaction to punch his kneecaps out. it all gives you a reason to think, to stop for a moment, maybe second-guess your judgement that is based on the words of the playing characters. i just love how matt creates his characters and builds the world beyond what pcs see, how it gives room for questions and thoughts because it does not revolve around the party but the party is playing an active part in the world and knows tragically little of what's happening behind the scenes.

[hatake]

they're so boyfriends it's stupid

and also:

[skizz-that-man]

in the latest imp and skizz podcast they make a side comment about wanting to move (in the somewhat far future). and without even further talking about it, it's immediately clear that's it's something they would do together. man. two friends who can't even imagine not living close to each other

[hoarding-stories]

...I have been reintroduced to how terrifying "Who's a Good Boy?" is

[ryuichifuwa]

shoutout to these kids for standing right next to someone they consider a friend and doing nothing while he screams in pain for 5 minutes.

[what-breaks-my-heart]

Kang Se Ran being giddy after having sex with Wang Ji Hoon the night before is hilarious because she is about to find out that the person who hit and ran her daughter was Wang Ji Hoon.

Can't wait to see her reaction.

[offbookkeeping]

zach making references to the song Mack the Knife makes me SO happy as someone who's incredibly nerdy about jazz. it's very funny that the context is a group of wolves that run a theater company lmao

[blazernot]

Well John just lost a hand and now my ears hurt

[rbdbrainworms]

the absolute GALL of bitchass nico demanding lupita explain to him why shes talking to another guy . UR LITERALLY ENGAGED

[ytarchive]

Ep 89

[middimidoris]

The amount of scenes tonight that were screenshot worthy... I can't get over this episode.

[meadowsofmay]

i will never stop thinking about caleb spending eleven years in vergesson sanatorium and five years on the run. he was a teenager when he broke, losing his most formative years to the tutelage of a madman, no community or sense of connection to the world, and then locked away for most of his fucking twenties in a state of catatonia. he didn't have any more proper social experience, not even talking about community anymore, he didn't have a chance to properly grow and mature like a person in his twenties would. he just... skipped from seventeen to twenty eight.

no proper maturing, no chance to process whatever trauma he was subjected to, all those eleven years he was just nothing, still shocked and paralyzed 'till a cleric woman cleared his mind. and then there was rage. this rage led him to kill, even if in order to run away. his stages of processing and dealing with trauma and guilt are rather emotional, seem to be not thought out enough and at the same time he thought about what happened too much. he understands everything and nothing at the same time.

his mourning for his parents is fresh.

his mourning for his, and astrid's and eadwulf's, childhood is still fresh.

he didn't have time to grieve before. and now he grieves constantly because five years is not enough to come to terms with the cruelty he was subjected to. because after sixteen years there are still volstruckers born and he searches for hope in them, hope for redemption and sees none and his process of reaching atonement begins all over again.

because all these sixteen years astrid and eadwulf lived, conscious and growing and maturing and yet, still those whom bren failed to become. and they had time, so much time to think, to wonder — to come to terms with, to become numb, to learn how to live with all this guilt and to convince themselves that it was for greater good. they had time to build walls and create masks, because they had to, because they might break like bren if they hadn't.

i know blumendrei two episodes and a comic book and they are already so special to me.

[astralleywright]

it was great to have Matt really emphasize a point he's made before last night-that the history of Exandria (including that contained within the official books) is not a neutral, untouched retelling of events but a narrative written by the victors.

one of the many thoroughlines of Campaign 3 has been the power of knowledge; of who has it and who doesn't, and how the powerful employ it for their own ends. the most obvious example is surely the Weave Mind, whose staggering control over what its subjects know on both a macro (erasing entire histories, making Ruidians see the dreams of Exandrians) and micro (being able to enter their minds at any time) level compromises much of what we learned of Ruidis during our first trip there. but similar behavior is reflected all across Exandria, by the Weave Mind's enemies as much as it's allies.

like the Weave Mind, Vasselheim also erased massive parts of Exandrian history-the death of two gods by Predathos, and the subsequent creation of Ruidis as a prison- from the world. Both they and the Ruby Vanguard hunted down members of the Grim Verity and the Omen Archive for discovering this information, and for conducting research about Ruidis and Ruidisborn. the Vanguard infiltrated and actively recruited from that research as well, even, as seen in the case of Liliana.

Liliana, who left her home and her family in the first place to find answers about her powers and her nightmares-and thus, her pain-that she would never have a chance of learning in Gelvaan. in fact, many Ruidisborn we meet seem to find their way to the Vanguard because they want answers, or belonging; this reveals the harm done by Vasselheim's repression of knowledge. by trying to keep the truth of Ruidis out of "the wrong hands", they helped create the conditions, the lack of access of answers, the suspicion and ostracization of Ruidisborn, that have let their worst enemies thrive.

there's a problem with accessability to education across all of Exandria, really. public libraries seem to be largely nonexistent, especially with regards to higher level knowledge. even the incredibly benevolent Cobalt Soul restricts access to the wealth of information it has, and for many of the same reasons Vasselheim obscured information regarding Predathos; they don't want that knowledge being abused by the wrong person. but determined practically, "the wrong hands" tend to be those who don't already have power and access. the very first scene of the campaign is Imogen being denied entry from a university library, all but explicitly because of her lower class status and lack of connections with the upper echelon of Jrusar. if Imogen hadn't been able to get in, or if she had been found by members of the Ruby Vanguard before the Grim Verity, who knows where she'd be right now? what she'd believe, even if she had doubts about the Vanguard's methods? (would she even know the full breadth of their methods? or would they keep that from her, too?)

and on the other hand: surely the head of the Cerberus Assembly wouldn't be restricted from almost any library, right? especially not after a trade or a bribe or a spell or two?

[c-kiddo]

things jester did in very quick succession:

scry on kiri who was eating bread

get hungry and eat bread also

message the plank king for fun (mouth still full of bread)

message beau’s dad (singing him a little creepy song included)

message the inevitable end twice to ask to be friends

draw a picture of beau's dad melting into a puddle

[skrunksthatwunk]

kuwabara suffering during ep 89 for 10 minutes gay thumbnail + alt that was too complicated for the youtube

[minzbins]

WOOBIN CRAVITY PARK, EP.89