#it sucks more to realize youre experiencing the very same psychological issues explored in the Dumb Teenage Problem Musical (said fondly)

[selkiecoded]

liking stories about dumb teenagers is all fun and games until youre old enough to actually realize theyre being dumb teenagers

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E92 (Jan. 28, 2020)

This week’s guests are Laura Bailey and Marisha Ray!

Announcements: At 4 PM Pacific on February 4, season 2 of All Work No Play premieres! Pre-sale tickets for autographs and photo ops for C2E2 are available now via Epic Photo Ops! Lots of “super-secret but majorly exciting announcements” to come this week on the website!

Episode 92: Home Is Where the Heart Is

Stats for this episode: it has been 69 episodes, 6 levels, and 212 Exandrian days since the Nein last saw the reformed bandits. The Nein haven’t killed anyone since episode 86, a campaign 2 record (Laura: “I know, I’m aching!”). Jester cast her 50th Guidance spell this episode (on herself), and it’s been 50 Exandrian days since the Nein last partook of a bottle of Lionett wine together in Trostenwald.

On initial expectations vs. reality for their characters’ fathers: Laura: “I had no notion of what he was going to be. I literally wrote that he wooed my mom, that he wore lots of rings on his fingers, and that he went off to get his place ready to come meet him, and that was all.” She notes that she knew Jester was half-water genasi, but she wasn’t there the first time they met the Gentleman to ask any leading questions. Marisha: “I had this struggling panic for a while. I didn’t know how he was going to play him. There was a strong possibility in my head that my parents were great, and were just like, ‘We were trying so hard, we’re so sorry.’ It was pretty crazy the way he actually played it. And it did feel like, he sucks, yeah, okay, no.”

On Fjord’s heart-to-heart with Beau: “I felt like Beau and Fjord had good pirate-ship bonding time. It’s been a bit since Beau and Fjord checked in, so that was a cool Fjord-Beau moment that was nice to have, like, we’re still bros, it’s great.”

Jester just wanted to make Beau feel better, especially as she realized that she’d been a little oblivious in cheering about how great her dad was: “It was so crazy, the minute we got there and you reverted back to the initial Beau, the first Beau that we met, and then even further past that. It just killed Jester to see that.” Marisha notes that the moment when Jester pulled Beau aside, she was about to lose it: “I tried to work Beau in a direction of growth, and getting to a point where she’s not angry and snappy and just fucking lashing out at people. So Beau’s going to try to keep her cool, and then I was literally sucking in the air, and you were like, ‘Come here,’ and that was just enough to get the reset button and the calm. She’s not in a place to forgive her parents, but Jester talking about the poison of holding on to all of that was kind of what, I was like, okay. I can use this in that moment to not have to make it about forgiving my parents right now, or ever, but to be able to start to heal and separate from that and that past. And for Beau to forgive herself.” Laura, after the game, was worried that it came across as Jester trying to get Beau to forgive her dad, and Beau notes that not seeing even a fraction of the effort the Gentleman has put forward kind of wiped that possibility out.

Beau’s grown a lot since she was last home. “The Mighty Nein has helped Beau trust in other people around her and come out of her shell and learn how to control her outbursts and her blaming other people and her anger. That’s so far from the Beau that was in that house.” Marisha was actually startled at herself when Beau snapped at Nott over the horse. “It was immediately all those bad thoughts were coming back, so it felt like Beau was on the verge of reverting.” Laura: “Nothing makes you fucking regress to your childhood mannerisms and behaviors faster than going home.”

Jester believes that “love is stronger than anything else”. She knows her parents still love each other, so “any of those other crazy things, they can work through.”

On whether Beau’s dad is really worried about her: “I think he cares to the extent that anyone cares about anyone’s general safety. I think he’s concerned about himself first, and what he has, and then I think he’s concerned about Beau next, after that. But I don’t know, maybe I’m being incredibly harsh. But there is, to this point, that element of what’s the twist.” Laura notes that she got a really high insight check on Beau’s dad. “There’s a reason that I was like, maybe give him open ears” at that moment.

Cosplay of the Week: a very detailed Molly! (GalacticLeah, photo by Fricbergsean)

On potentially leaving the Lionetts destitute if they destroy the hag, Laura and Marisha say, in unison: “Fuck the Lionetts.” They note that they’ve got the resources to make sure T.J. will be fine, and that’s all that really matters.

Has Jester forgiven her father? “I don’t think Jester’s angry at him. She’s very empathetic. She’s very good at going, okay, I see it from your side. And I think she was afraid more that something bad had happened to him. Obviously, if he could have returned, he would have, because he loved her mother so much. So I don’t think she’s angry at him. I don’t think, necessarily, she doesn’t think he’s perfect, but she’s making the best of the situation. I think she’s just happy that he’s around. Make up for lost time.”

Brian asks about how different it is to be supportive of each other and exploring backstories in this campaign versus with the last campaign’s more archetypal characters. Marisha: “It feels like the campaign has been very muddy and not black-and-white. The same for every person’s individual backstory issues.” She notes that there’s a lot more ambiguity. Laura: “Vex wasn’t empathetic. She was sympathetic sometimes, but sometimes when Keyleth was going through something, Vex was like, come on, get your shit together.” Brian notes just how different everyone’s characters are this time around. “It’s awesome!”

Laura notes that TJ ran up to Beau and called her sister, which means that they’ve been talking about her consistently for him to recognize her. “So there is a level there.” Marisha notes that Beau has very mixed feelings about her mom, too. “She’d never offer support, or want to challenge Thoreau.” So now she’s wondering if her mom has been quietly talking her up to TJ, or if it’s both of them. 

Fan Art of the week: Beau and TJ! (by ItsMalenyLopez)

Jester’s perspective on the Gentleman’s partners: “You can sleep with people, but don’t form a fucking relationship with them. That’s the difference.”

Marisha, on working with difficult topics on the show: “The audience goes away in the moment. Yes, it’s hard, yes, it’s cathartic, and yes, it’s something on a whole other level. It’s why roleplaying games are so fucking awesome, because they allow you to do that.” Marisha notes that she has a great relationship with her own parents, but getting to explore is interesting. “It’s hard to describe.” Laura: “There’s a safety there, to be able to dive into these places.” Marisha: “With all of these issues, these issues are skinned, but the root of them are often very relatable issues that everyone goes through. So there is a certain amount of catharsis to that. So while I personally had a good relationship with my parents, I’m accustomed to feeling shut out, feeling misunderstood, going through psychological abuse, all of those things. And, of course, everyone knows someone who has probably experienced those things first-hand, so you can get a sense of understanding in some ways, but there’s layers of everything that you’re doing that can totally think back to things that were from your life.” Laura: “I think that RPGs are so great for just humanity in general, because it really makes you see things from another person’s perspective.” Marisha: “It takes time. I don’t recommend anybody try to do something like this out of the gate with your first game.” Laura: “No, I mean, we’ve been playing this game together as a family now for eight years. And we’re just now getting to stuff like this. All that time of building trust and being able to know, okay, if I go to these levels, I’m going to have the support of the people around me.” Marisha: “The whole thing is a trust fall.”

Jester’s opinion on the M9′s worry about the Traveler’s cultishness? “Well-meaning but paranoid.” Before leaving the Lavish Chateau, she barely told anyone about the Traveler, and they all just accepted him as her imaginary friend. “She knows he’s godly. She knows how powerful he is. There is a little bit of ‘Oh, that’s weird,’ seeing how other gods deal with their... constituents?” Laura notes that she has absolutely no idea what Traveler-Con is going to be like.

Beau has always been aware that her tattoo has the jade/tarot connections with her father as well. “That’s why Beau was so salty with Molly when he was trying to tell fortunes from the beginning. It’s all layered. Didn’t intend for it, but jade just happened to be the one that boosts wisdom.”

Marisha and Laura both note that defeating more traditional enemies can be easily resolved in a way that can be used to block out the things that are really bothering you. Family issues, on the other hand, usually don’t have a simple resolution.

[rhub4rb]

Miraculous thoughts

I’ve been in a thinking mood lately about MLB, it’s creators, and it’s characters, so uh, I guess you could call this a bit of a thought dump as a whole. It will be somewhat categorized according to what I’m talking about, so strap in!

Lila

So there are mixed feelings in the Ladybug fandom regarding Lila, her lies, and her character. Personally, and this will probably not become a shock to those who read my content, I’m not a fan of her. I don’t think her lies are good or realistic, I don’t think she’s all that likable, but that’s just me.

Now, I’ve seen some people saying that her lies are realistic, which I really don’t get?

From personal experience, if someone like Lila really were to exist, the class should have been skeptical.

I’m from around the same age range as the characters in MLB, and have personal experience with a “Lila.” She claimed to have her collarbone broken and never having healed for years when it’s convenient for her, she’s claimed to have heart cancer.

Everyone in my class and their mother knew the girl was lying, even without her sister telling us that what “Lila” was saying was bs.

Lila’s lies aren’t realistic, and I don’t think it’s fair that the class needs to be majorly dumbed down for it all to work.

I don’t need the class to be convinced that Lila is lying, but just one of them being skeptical would have been nice.

Adrien

I have a hard time with Adrien. I don’t want to dislike him, I don’t want to think he’s a bad character, but the show makes it very difficult for me to do so.

Now don’t get me wrong, Adrien isn’t completely to blame, he’s very clearly experiencing abuse, so the way he sees right and wrong are probably skewered a bit because of it.

Now, coming from someone who has experienced both physical and psychological abuse before, it doesn’t excuse being a shitty person.

Does it explain certain parts of his behavior? Yes, absolutely, and if the writers had any clue about what they were doing, they would have explored the nuances of it all. But they don’t, and I don’t expect it to be covered or mentioned.

Back on topic, however. Adrien should still experience repercussions for his actions, even if he’s abused. A shitty person, who doesn’t know that they’re shitty, won’t stop being shitty unless you tell them what they’re doing is shitty.

I’ve been an awful person, done awful things, without even realizing what was wrong, until someone told me to stop. Adrien won’t get better, unless someone is going to call him out on his bad behavior.

Now, the whole harassment thing with Ladybug is honestly another post on its own, but it will all mainly boil down to, no means no, don’t push for something she clearly doesn’t want, do your job to protect Paris.

Alya

I don’t know how to feel about Alya half the time anymore. In the first season of the show, I thought she was great.

Now, I’m... not sure.

Do I think that a large part of the salt targeted towards her is justified? No, I don’t. Do I think it’s valid that these fans are this salty about her? Yes, yes I do.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Personally, I don’t think Alya is that great of a friend and she should really learn a thing or two about when to stop pushing things, but that’s just me.

Lately, a lot of discourse has been going around saying that salt targeted at Alya is racist.

I can see both sides of the argument, myself leaning more towards it not being racist, and that is with reason.

As a person of color, no, I don’t think it’s racist, though I can see the issue. For me, rather than being mad at the people who aren’t happy with the way Alya is at the show, and how they then end up writing her in fics, I’m mad at the creators and the writers of the show, who gives us Alya as one of the main POC characters.

I’d rather be mad at media, not just the show, for giving us so little good representation that characters like Alya are what we end up having to depend on. It’s not fair, and it should be better.

Regardless of where you are on the stance with Alya salt being racist, I think better representation is what we all want in the end.

Marinette

 Marinette isn’t perfect. To be honest, she’s kinda creepy.

It’s not okay.

Marinette has stalker-like tendencies.

It’s not okay.

Marinette is completely and utterly whitewashed.

It’s not fair.

Marinette, just like the three other characters I’ve written about in this post, has some awful character traits that should never have been deemed acceptable by the creators and the writers, yet here we are.

What’s the difference between Marinette and the other characters? The way she ultimately gets treated by the writers.

She is always at fault, sometimes to the point where you have to do mental acrobatics to see how she did something that caused an akuma.

She’s humiliated.

She’s been in some of the most cringy scenes in the entire show, to the point where I can’t even look at the screen because I’m so uncomfortable.

How is she supposed to be any kind of role model for kids?

Astruck

Yes, the reason why the show is so bad in the first place.

I think it’s been pretty accepted that Astruck sucks at his job and is sexist and all of that stuff, so I won’t linger on his for longer than to say

He should not have been allowed to make this show, and I honestly hope it gets canceled.

People say we shouldn’t compare MLB to a show like ATLA and I always have to ask: why?

Anyways, this was just something I wrote pretty quickly because I was stuck on a story, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and these were just mine.

Have a good day,

Rhu.

[zalrb]

i kinda get what that anon meant by it kinda being contradicting of you to ship bonnie and kai. kai may not be as bad as damon but he’s still an abusive piece of shit. why would you want bonnie w someone like that lol no sense

1. I read somewhere once that Tumblr has the psychological mindset of a 7 year old and I feel like I confront that daily simply because nuance doesn’t seem to be a concept that anons grasp. I don’t have to like one form of ship, I don’t have to stick to one kind of dynamic, the reasons I ship Bonkai are completely different from the reasons I ship Stelena and you know what, that’s OK.

2. Yes, Kai did shitty things because as a villain his role was to do shitty things, what I would ship of BK is a dark, non-redemptive dynamic. I have said this repeatedly. And I mean repeatedly. From a previous post:

…nor had I really seen a man approach Bonnie in this manner, there’s an instant intrigue on Kai’s part and it was a good contrast to Damon who spent his time constantly putting Bonnie down while with Kai “I just wanted to feel your hand on my chest” “Don’t listen to him Bonnie” like he was actively courting/seducing Bonnie and on the flipside of that, he saw her as a worthy opponent; he never underestimated her intelligence or her power, in fact he wanted to unleash it, he wanted her to realize just how much power she had whereas with opponents like Klaus, they’re constantly underestimating her and it was nice to see someone believe in Bonnie even if in a twisted sort of way. 

And then when Kai merged with Luke and was able to feel … I had my issues with it because I have an issue with TVD turning their antagonists into sappy, woe-is-me, I-had-a-hard-life characters, there always seems to be a need to stamp them with some sort of redemptive quality and I found Kai so refreshing because he had none of that but when he did feel, he was preoccupied with Bonnie. He was preoccupied with wanting to see her, wanting to get her to forgive him, wanting her to give him another chance, wanting her to see that he changed, he couldn’t stop thinking about her and that never happened before.

Bonnie has never really been anyone’s first choice — not even Jeremy, he chose Anna over Bonnie (”Why are you thinking about me when you’re calling her?” “I didn’t know that I was! I guess I never stop thinking about you”) and Anna had decided to let him go in 3x07 and that’s how he was able to move on because she forced him to — to the point that Kai risked dying so Jeremy could go back to the nineties to leave a clue for her, he played more of an instrumental part in her return than Elena did. (And to add to this even with BE, Enzo had to put her down and pine after Lily who had to die before he even looked at Bonnie). Bonkai is a relationship that is actually about Bonnie

The second reason why I ship Bonkai is because of the potential of what number 1 offers. I write Bonkai fanfiction and my fanfiction is grounded in the fact that Bonnie and Kai would not be a healthy relationship because I mean I don’t have any delusions about their dynamic: she killed him, he terrorized her, they manipulated each other and yet throughout these dangerous, bloody fights these two had, there was still this tension between them.

And I never thought TVD portrayed consuming relationships properly, never portrayed a I-hate-you-so-much-and-yet-I’m-obsessed-with-you-this-sucks-but-it-can’t-ever-stop relationship properly and I felt like that could be Bonkai. A scenario in which Bonnie is so resentful and angry and hurt that her friends did a terrible job in rescuing her, which makes her think about all of the things she’s done and given up for the people around her that sort of shifts her perspective of them so that when she gets back from the 90s, she’s not the same person she was before. She can’t connect to the people she had so many times previously sacrificed for, she’s numb and she’s completely disengaged and doesn’t feel anything but not a part of this world except for when she thinks about Kai or sees Kai because she’s overcome with rage at what he’s done to her, she’s overcome with hate, these violent emotions that are almost terrifying to experience but make her feel alive because she’s feeling something but when she’s confronted with him that same sexual tension is still there, which disgusts her but which is so intense that it can’t be ignored and which she is perversely grateful for because it’s something else she can feel. While on the other hand, Kai is battling having emotions surrounding Bonnie at all, conflicted and torn up with all of these feelings he never asked for or wanted but can’t get rid of and that are as overpowering as Bonnie’s savage sexual attraction to him and it all cumulates into a consuming, intense and yes, toxic relationship. Because Bonkai to me isn’t a great redemptive romance, Kai actually isn’t boyfriend material but instead of being JP about it and being a hypocrite about it (because how the hell is Damon boyfriend material either) I would play with that  — what happens when a man who isn’t boyfriend material is in this relationship with a woman he has such strong, dangerous feelings for while that woman has equally dangerous feelings about him and actually hates him but can’t stop herself from being in some sort of relationship with him? Because that’s the thing about consuming and toxic relationships, they can be unhealthy and they can be passionate and they can be excellent vehicles for character exploration (Spuffy is a very good example of this) and I think it would be so interesting to explore Bonnie through this lens. Because a) as I’ve said before, TVD never really explores a woman feeling something dangerous, feeling something dark and feeling something they can’t stand but actually can’t help feeling for a dangerous and morally repulsive man, instead what they have is a woman feeling romantic, gooey feelings for the wrong man and that’s what makes it “dark” the fact that the man is dangerous, the feelings themselves are not, which is why when Elena says “missing Bonnie makes me sad, missing Damon makes me dangerous” her feelings aren’t actually dangerous, what she feels isn’t actually dark, what she feels is just supposed to be regular emotions times ten that she does something supposedly crazy but with Bonnie I would make Kai bring out her more impulsive and darker emotions, which he already did in the prison world considering that Bonnie had never actually killed anyone before meeting Kai and I would have that connect to her magic, see how experiencing such intense and savage emotions that scare her for a man she hates affects her abilities as a witch, who she is as a witch, what she does as a witch; I mean the possibilities of that are endless. 

3. I realize people can’t wrap their heads around knowing a ship would be problematic but understanding the paths that it could take these two characters on and shipping it for those problematic qualities. There’s an inherent desire to excuse and defend.