#the setups and payoffs

[yoru-kage]

Benoit Blanc is utterly delightful pass it on

[bonefall]

Heyyyy since there's talk of the Breezepelt Attacking Poppyfrost scene going around, I just wanna remind people that he explicitly does that because he was groomed by the Dark Forest. Jayfeather points it out on the page that Breezepelt's stated motivation doesn't make sense, because it's not actually a rational idea Breezy-P came up with. It's then shown that actual factual evil demons are exploiting the anger he has from being a victim of child abuse, to indoctrinate and manipulate him into radical violence

I wrote a little essay about this with citations and stuff. It wasn't "for no reason," and anyone who tries to use the scene as "evidence" of Breezepelt being Secretly Evil to justify the abuse he underwent as a kid either didn't read it, has bad reading comprehension skills, or is cherrypicking on purpose.

Crowfeather emotionally and physically abused his child, Breezepelt was socially alienated by WindClan as a result, which leads to this moment. That is what is on the page.

[demonic-mnemonic]

The Ineffable fandom right now

[centaurianthropology]

Why C3E51 worked so well (a DM’s perspective)

I have seen a lot of absolutely bananas critiques of C3E51 (thankfully not nearly as many around here, far more on Reddit, which I should not have visited).   And the ongoing theme of those critiques is that Matt should not have imperiled former PCs, and if he brought them in should have either done lengthy side-bars with those characters or let them win the fight against Ludinis and have a chance to take him out themselves, since they’re ‘god tier’ or ‘high level’ and that makes ‘logical sense’.  What these critiques really boil down to, IMO, are people who were really invested in the former campaigns upset that their faves didn’t get to do cool things, treating it more like a TV show than a game.  But even as a TV show, that would have been disappointing from a narrative perspective.  Because even in a TV show, this is a sequel spin-off show, starring new characters.  The story is about THEM.  And more importantly, the game is about the players and about telling their story.

So let’s break this down from a DM perspective.  How do you build a Kobiashi Maru situation for your characters?  For those of you who aren’t familiar, the Kobiashi Maru is a Star Trek term for a scenario designed from the jump to be unwinnable (Kirk beat it by creativity, but later admitted that he missed the point of it).  In Star Trek this was done to test what a future officer would do if faced with certain failure.  In a D&D game it’s a little more complicated.  Part of it is to set up the BBEG, put their plan in motion, and set the stage for the next leg of the game.  But it’s also to give your players, who are clearly into it, a darkest-hour scenario.  Not every player group is going to be into facing down the Kobiashi Maru, and it’s clear from the aforementioned critiques that a lot of them are on Reddit.  Power-gamers who always want to win are not going to enjoy this sort of storytelling, but players who are really into RP and working through difficult times and failures will eat this stuff up.  And this is absolutely the sort of table playing on Critical Role.  There is a level of trust there that can only be built after years of working together, and this was finally the moment when Matt could pay off years of planning and campaign-spanning set-up.

Matt carefully plotted the structure of this episode out to give maximum agency and impact to a party of dramatically under-leveled characters.  And they knew going in they were under-leveled.  This wasn’t a surprise, but a potential suicide run by people who knew they weren’t the heroes they needed to be, but were the only heroes in the right place at the right time to try anything.  So they came up with as good a plan as they could, and executed it fairly well, all things considered.  

They knew they couldn’t take on Ludinus directly (and this was a great way to demonstrate exactly how much he had planned and how long, to bring in elements from C2, hints we’ve had for years about Ludinis, only to reveal it went deeper than any of the characters could have imagined), so Matt gave them some winnable objectives.  This is a great way to keep the characters invested in an unwinnable scenario: the ultimate outcome may be beyond the characters, barring some insane genius or incredible rolls, but they can still help.  They can do something that will have a tangible impact on events and hinder the baddies enough to give them another chance at a rematch and a way to stop the apocalypse when they’re higher level.  So Matt gave them the batteries: take out as many as you can.  While this would not stop the ritual, I suspect that the more they took out the more Ludinis would have to drain his own power to make the key work, and the longer the process would take.  Knocking out the feywild key, as well as multiple power sources turned what would have been an instantaneous event if they had done nothing into a more drawn-out affair which, I suspect, could be stopped or even reversed.  It gave them a window to come back and demand a rematch.

Then we have the high-level PC allies, and how to play with those sorts of characters without pulling focus from the PCs.  Matt handled this very well, by having the players roll for their former PCs, taking the specifics of their actions out of his hands and letting the dice of the former players decide.  He also revealed that Keyleth’s involvement, and baiting Vax with Otohan’s permadeath poison, was key to Ludinis’ ritual, which was why she couldn’t just dive in and clean everything up.  But again, because of this story, it ties less back to Keyleth and more back to Orym.  That was the point of the attack on Zephrah, to get her attention by getting her to look into who did it and then coming to get some payback, but the little guy on the ground has always been caught in the middle.  Orym has been Ludinis’ unwitting pawn from the off, his family’s deaths merely a means to an end, and that is vicious and amazing set-up for character growth for him.  

Beau and Caleb had to be there by the logic of the story.  It didn’t make sense that Caleb would sit out a world-ending event orchestrated by a Cerberus Assembly member after spending years trying to take them down.  Beau would obviously go with him.  It also made sense that they would be the only two there, because they were scouting when Ryn got taken down, and after that were trying to keep a low profile.  Shit accelerated too fast for them to call in reinforcements.

Which is the in-story reason for them to be there, but isolated and vulnerable, making them useful allies and wildcards (who likely could have been more useful if ultimately failing as well, but failed early thanks to Liam and Marisha’s rolls).  But they were still outmatched.  I have no idea what the challenge rating of Otohan, Leliana, and Ludinis are, but we know Otohan was considered ‘beatable’ back in Bassuras.  That indicates she’s the lowest CR, particularly with the glowing weak-spot on her back.  But she can still wreck a level-20 PC if she gets the jump on her, which she did.  And that meant that she remained a massive threat.  Caleb and Beau were playing it smart, keeping to the shadows, but still got caught by Leliana.  Between dice rolls, careful planning, and some great enemy design, Matt really set up a team that could take on high-level players and win.  And he made it clear that Ludinis did not leave this to chance.  He has the best people he could muster after 1000 years of planning.  Nothing short of a miracle could have truly stopped them.

Which is why we cut back to Bells Hells.  Because ultimately this particular story isn’t about Keyleth or Vax or Caleb or Beau or any other former PCs.  This is about the current party being caught up in events much larger than them and having to rise to the occasion.  This is the story of the schmucks sent in to take out the batteries, but who have personal beef with the big bads.  Ludinis orchestrated the plan to attack Zephrah to bait Keyleth and draw out Vax, and Otohan carried it out.  And he used Orym as a pawn throughout all of it.  This makes taking them down, but especially taking Otohan down, the cornerstone of Orym’s personal quest.  Letting an NPC take her down would be taking away a critical part of his motivation and goals, which is an absolute no-no for a DM.  NEVER bring in a god-tier NPC and take away player agency or story beats.  Especially never have them resolve important player goals and backstory events!  Every NPC, even the powerful ones, are there to support the story the players are telling.  So of course Keyleth wasn’t going to take out Otohan.  Of course she wasn’t going to stop the ritual.  Beau and Caleb might have been able to do something more if Liam and Marisha hadn’t rolled so badly for them, but ultimately, they had to get caught or fail in another way.  

For the sake of gameplay, Bell’s Hells had to be the only functional team.  They had to be the ants that were beneath Ludinis’ notice long enough to really accomplish something.  And as much as it feels like they failed, they had minor victories: Laudna and Ashton took out more batteries, making Ludinis drain his own power to kick off the apocalypse.  They only failed to take out Otohan’s backpack by 2 HP, which showed them that she was an achievable goal in the future.  If they had rolled a little better, they probably could have taken her out entirely, which would have felt like a big accomplishment for them.  Imogen made her mother pause in her assault before doubling down.  This leaves open very interesting future beats for their interactions.  Can she ultimately redeem her mother or would she have to take her out?  Every step that Matt set up in this episode, from the reveals about Ludinis’ plans and Orym’s past, to Imogen’s interactions with her mother, to Chetney and likely Ashton finding themselves staring down their own backstories after the party split, was focused on this party, on getting them ready to step out of low-level play and advance.

And that’s the point of E51.  It’s not a climax of the story, but the ultimate set-up.  It’s putting all the pieces onto the board in a way that all the characters can now recognize.  Yes, unless the players came up with something genius, the apocalypse was going to kick off, but their actions slowed everything down to a place where it could be combatted.  Yes, the god-tier former PCs were always going to get neutered, because this is Bells Hells’ story, and you cannot have NPCs fix PC problems.  They might have been able to do a little more before this happened, but the dice rolled.

And it’s honestly good for the PCs how things turned out.  They have a clear objective, but are split up.  This gives them great incentive to level up, explore character backstory, deal with their personal shit, get stronger, and then come back to kick the asses of all three of these villains (or possibly redeem one, we’ll see).  Their powerful allies are now temporarily side-lined.  Keyleth is badly hurt and will need time to recover.  Caleb is collared and will need time to get that removed.  Beau is likely up and moving now, but will need to safeguard Caleb for a while.

The Bells Hells are on their own.  The Darkest Hour has come, and it’s time for them to rise up and go from nobodies to heroes.  This is their true call to adventure.  And as a DM, it was so cool seeing how Matt set up all the pieces over the campaign, only to pay them out in such a satisfying and motivating way in this episode.

[areyoudoingthis]

"fishermen and pirates are nothing alike" is actually such a heartbreaking line because in his own silly way he's telling stede that he thinks they're incompatible now because they want entirely different things from life and he doesn't believe he's worth more to stede than piracy and glory so he'll just walk away first this time before stede has the chance to leave him again

[sleepywyrldbuilder]

AND HE SAVED HER MOTHER INSTEAD OF HIS WIFE!!!!!!!

[eddiezpaghetti]

This line is begging to be paralleled in a Byler way in Season 5. Not just "crazy together", but I mean stupid-on-the-nose paralleled. We're talking quoted exactly.

[thistuesdaynight]

Me, explaining to my dad that Dune 2 is a work of art and he needs to stop being a Star Wars elitist and go see it:

[souldagger]

GUYS i just started reading a lady for a duke by alexis hall and i'm gagged by how charming this book is 😭😭😭

[squeeb100]

The unbelievable fucking pacing of hazbin hotel

[mc-survivalist-steven]

I've been thinking and thinking. Call me a researcher or just a stranger. And something's been gnawing on my mind.

I didn't know Herobrines could reproduce let alone be female. There's an overabundance in males and females are a rarity from my observation. That is such an odd thing. Not to mention that Herobrines don't really- reproduce. Of course with exceptions, but the cases I know do it rather traditionally.

Your mother- (likely a brine all the same - as you describe yourself one too) Your mother produced children by spreading spores of some kind. Some parts of herself I guess. A power to mend into the elements and create another living being in such a way is baffling.

To get to the point and my actual question.

I've been pondering- spreading Herobrine offspring on such a wide scale (as you mentioned you had plenty of siblings) and seemingly not weakening herself if she could do that en mass. Maybe it's less of making more Brines from herself but something more akin to Brine-Spawns. (like vampire-spawns- a weaker kind of vampire sprung from a true one)

With that odd thought- you are the child of a Herobrine, but not a full brine yourself? Do you think that is kinda true?

Brines are such a rarity, your mother releasing tousands of offspring into the world and them being true Brines seems a little unreasonable.

Of course I may be mistaken as every elusive indivitual of a brine works different than the next. Maybe you and your "species" aren't actual brines by many a definition from each their own flaws.

Ah..... I've been talking a lot. What do you think about this whole- thing? Maybe you know more than I do. Probably.

[vamprisms]

THE SMALLER CANS TASTE BETTER

[derrickwildsun]

For all the talk about Tears of the Kingdom’s story being “nonexistent,” “poorly told,” and “thematically incoherent,” a new playthrough I started convinced me that, if anything, the game is actually VERY thematically coherent, and the opening and sky island tutorial set up everything that happens in the rest of the story all the way to the end.

The opening establishes Zelda as a scholar who wants to learn about ancient Hyrule. She finds herself in the ancient past where she goes native and meets and bonds with her ancestors and learns a lot from them as a result of them encouraging her desire to learn (unlike how Rhoam suppressed her curiosity).

We see statues of the Zonai, setting up the mystery of them, their technology, and Rauru and Mineru.

We see murals of the Imprisoning War, which we see play out in the memories. Later on, we uncover the last two murals revealing Zelda’s fate.

Ganondorf recognizes Link and Zelda when they encounter him, because the memories later reveal he met Zelda in the past and Rauru foretold him of Link’s coming.

The secret stone Zelda picks up sets up that plot point.

Link diving (and failing) to catch Zelda sets up the final dive where he succeeds.

You can see the Light Dragon hovering around the Temple of Time, where Rauru tells you Zelda is waiting, hinting at the dragon’s identity.

The statues of Rauru and Sonia in the first shrine you clear anticipates their relationship and ties in with the theme of people of different backgrounds coming together as one.

The way Ultrahand and Fuse combine different objects tie in the theme of connection. Individually, the parts you find aren’t of much use, but combined with other elements makes them stronger.

The Recall ability Zelda gives to Link becomes an integral part of the story and serves as his connection to Zelda for the rest of the game. Memory #8 elaborates on how it works, partly setting up the ending.

Rauru tells Link he’s just as Zelda said he was, hinting at the conversation in Memory #8.

By the time the next Zelda game comes out, a lot of the complaints about TOTK’s story are going to look very silly. There’s more than enough setup in the first few hours to make way for payoffs later on in the game.

[aucatgirl]

MHA 419 is genuinely one of my favorite chapters in the entire series. I’ve been losing my mind all morning..

[inkblackorchid]

So... about season 3 Aki.

Ok harsh contrast to my previous, excited post, but I did say I had more to yell about episode 75 and I need to get this off my chest anyway. Plus, I remember mentioning in a post that I need to talk about season 3 onward Aki anyhow, so might as well do that now! I am thinking Big Thoughts and I need to Scream.

Long, incoherent, unhinged rant incoming because I have 100 things to say and 100000 screenshots to post, but I am also tired and my brain is mush.

Can we please talk about all the jarringly unfulfilled setup the start of season 3 did for Aki? Because I'm starting to feel an urge to claw at the walls. I'm gonna go through this, piece by piece of damning evidence, because I need to vent my utter confusion and frustration somehow, I guess. Okay. So.

After giving us a bit of time to settle in after the timeskip into the pre-WRGP stretch of things, the itty-bitty portion of the story Aki occupies at this point starts off arguably strong. Yusei gets kidnapped, everyone's in a frenzy about it, but Aki's especially worried.

Then this. Funky new signer powers! Nobody's been able to do this before! I wonder if they're going to do something with that! (Spoiler: They're not.)

Then Aki "no sense of self-preservation" Izayoi gets herself in a bunch of danger trying to rescue Yusei and we get this:

Oh! Wow! Aki can control her powers now! (Which: how. Why did they never show us this. That alone could have made for a whole mini-arc. Why waste that????) That would give the writers so many cool opportunities to let her use them! I wonder if they're going to do something with that! (Spoiler: They're not.)

(Side note: I love this scene. I love it to death. They're both ride-or-die "who cares for my safety when yours is on the line" for each other and I love them.)

Of course, shenanigans then ensue, leading up to Sherry's marvellous introduction.

(Mwah. I blow her a little kiss.)

And it is at this point that Aki Has An Epiphany.

And to top it off, she gets some interesting interactions with Sherry, too!

So Aki resolves that she wants to become a turbo-duellist, too. And the thing is, this isn't a little one-off thing or something they never deliver on. They end up building this up for several episodes, bit by bit. First we get another mention of it at the pre-WRGP press thingy they all attend:

Then it's brought up again when Yusei accepts the first duel against Bruno/Antinomy:

(Also, side note again, but can I just mention that Aki also gets this moment the episode before:)

(Where she literally puts herself directly in harm's way in a public setting to protect people with her powers??? Like, I'm sorry, pinch me or something, but how does that not scream "badass good girl setup"???? HOW?)

So we get at least three episodes worth of buildup where Aki agonizes over becoming a turbo duellist to understand what her friends (but especially Yusei) are feeling when they duel like that, and then they finally deliver on it and episode 75 has her getting her license. And it's fantastic. Seriously. That episode is golden. Not just because it delivers on this promise, not just because it has a really cute moment between Aki and Yusei in it (regardless of how you read their relationship dynamic), and not just because it (as per my last post) showcases how much the rest of Team 5Ds cares about Aki (by literally building a runner for her and accompanying her to her exam and don't even get me started on Jack beating up those jerks trying to make her crash unprompted) but because it gives us just that smidgen more detail about Aki's character, too. Because the thing is, at first, she majorly sucks at driving.

And not only is this realistic to a degree (learning to drive is hard, regardless of what you're learning to drive), it's also great, because you know what Aki's response to it is?

She keeps going. She doesn't let it get her down, she gets back up and tries again. (And from a writing standpoint, this is lovely because that stubbornness is great in situations like this, but you could easily turn it into a weakness in a different scenario if you wanted to.)

And not only does Aki learn driving the hard way here, she also finds herself confronted with jerks who don't want her to succeed,

(Ruka, sweetie, I love you.)

and she makes an absolute rookie mistake during her exam by trying to play a speed spell when she doesn't have the necessary speed counters.

And feel free to disagree, but I think this is also great. Because honestly? While driving a really damned fast motorcycle that I'm not super used to yet, and being expected to make solid tactical judgements in an overcomplicated card game—the rules of which are slightly different when you're playing it on a motorcycle—at the same time, I would likely also mess up like that and accidentally try to make an illegal play. But the thing is, the episode rewards her for sticking it out anyway by letting her pull off a really complicated driving manoeuvre to save herself from her envious turbo-duelling-license colleagues' cheap tricks, and by letting her score a really nice win from a tight spot, much like any of the boys would have in her position.

(Take that, you jerks. Dumbasses only get blurry screenshots.)

So Aki gets her license and is welcomed by the team as a fresh turbo duellist. Hooray!

(I love them all so, so much, help me.)

And we also get this:

Wouldn't you know it! Sherry's been watching Aki get her license with interest! And she seems to be mighty pleased with the result!

So. After all that, I don't think you could blame anyone (it's me, I'm anyone) for getting really excited about what Aki's gonna get up to from this point outward. Aki can control her powers now! And she got her turbo duelling license! And we've got a new, enigmatic side character who seems like she could have super interesting interactions with and play off Aki! I wonder what they're gonna do with all that.

*deep breath*

Sigh.

Seeing as I already know this show like the palm of my hand, I kind of dreaded getting past this episode because I know exactly what happens to Aki from this point out: Nothing. A whole lot of nothing. Okay, well, no. See, I went back and checked all the episodes I have left, just to make sure, just in case I forgot something (very likely when you've already watched the show three times, I know).

From here on out, during the entire pre-WRGP, WRGP, and Ark Cradle arc, Aki gets exactly three things to do:

She uses her shiny new turbo duelling license to fill in for Crow at the Team Unicorn match because he got injured. Which, on paper, is a perfect way to let her have the spotlight for a moment. Except, the only thing she gets that spotlight for is to last a hot four turns in the duel before losing spectacularly to Andre and literally never turbo duelling again for the rest of the show. (Like, yes. The moment where she summons Stardust Dragon is chefs kiss and legendary. But in light of the surrounding circumstances, it feels like a consolation prize to make up for the ensuing character trainwreck.)

Since Crow is technically still injured when they're meant to go up against Team Catastrophe, Aki trains to fill in for him there again. Except! They intentionally make her crash right before the duel, putting her in a short-term coma! And as the icing on the cake, when she wakes up, it also turns out she lost the powers she was only just able to control for absolutely. no. reason. None. They never bother explaining it, they don't even try to hint at why they might have vanished. (I have my own theories for why they had to let her powers vanish and they all start and end with the words "we couldn't be bothered to figure out how to write this character".)

At the very end of the show, the very end, after temporarily fridging Sherry, too, they dig both girls back up in order to let them participate in a three-way final boss duel with Crow. (Which is a fantastic duel, I love it to pieces. Genuinely.) You could argue that they tried to cash in on all the intrigue they set up between Aki and Sherry here, but—come on. At the end of the show? Seriously? Oh, and did I mention that for some reason, Aki's powers mysteriously reappear after this duel? For no reason? Again?

I just. It does not compute. They went as far as doing all this setup, letting Aki get the hang of her powers, letting her get her license, making her part of Team 5Ds, even giving us a new character that seemed like the perfect fit to let her bounce off of—and then, like some sort of kafkaesque reverse-miracle, they somehow managed to take a sharp left into "whoops, don't care about this character" and nearly wasted the entirety of that setup in one fell swoop. If it weren't for that finale saving at least a smidgen of it, I'd be holding a torch and a pitchfork over here. (Hell, I might, even knowing that Aki's final duel in the show is kickass.)

Please tell me if this is just me (15 years after the show released, I know, leave me alone), but this feels like they were literally loading Chekov's gun directly within view of the audience, only to later procede to toss the damned thing into the sea instead of firing it.

Okay. Okay, I think I'm done. For anyone who actually bothered with the whole post, first of all, thank you for your attention, secondly, sorry, but this does, indeed, still bother me ten years after I first found this show, so I had to get it out or it would have eaten at me forever. God damn it.

Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to writing fics where Aki actually gets something to do right this second. If anyone's interested in giving a fic series where Aki gets a separate character arc that tries to stay mostly canon-compliant after the defeat of the dark signers a go, you can find my stuff here.

[scribble-dee-vee]

Do u guys procrastinate writing specific scenes bc u know they will absolutely wreck u

(Bc I do and lord help me finishing the second half of this book 🙃)