#they way that they’re mostly vax quotes

[shorthaltsjester]

honestly as someone who has been in various fandoms for a long time now and who also watched campaigns 1 and 2 without really getting into cr fandom it isn’t Shocking but it is annoying how often people will look at the stories that cr tells and make absolute claims about the goodness of characters (goodness here meaning Moral goodness, not I Like This character and think it’s well made goodness, which is a separate post entirely). particularly regarding the gods and pc parents. and honestly like, typically in fandom i get annoyed by people bending over backwards to woobify characters who are active in their choice to be unkind and generally horrible but in the cr fandom it’s tended to be the opposite where like. a character is just. a human being (in the sense of being Average not in the sense of Fantasy Races) and huge swaths of the fandom act like that’s the most unforgivable thing someone can be. and maybe it is, but one of the most powerful things about fiction is that it tends to encourage people to expand their empathy and exercise their ability to forgive. because fictional characters, no matter how much people like to project onto them, tend not to cause anyone harm, so it’s easier to learn how to forgive and accept things you don’t understand without also villainizing them.

this is mostly prompted by the recent 4sd and the fact that matt’s response to what’s up with the dawnfather was a very insistent “He’s not bad!” and also seeing the online reaction to the mention that the matron would punish vax for saving keyleth that has taken the as usual completely bonkers tune that the raven queen (Who When Met With A Brother Asking A God To Kill Him In Favour Of His Sister, Gave Him A Job, and Later Extended His Natural Life To Help Protect The World And Have More Time With His Family And Allowed Him To Visit His Sister On Her Wedding Day) is a horrible evil abusive bitch of a god. like. can we grow up? can we understand the world and fiction that represents the multitudes of experiences found in it in shades of grey? is that too much to ask (i know it is).

but also specifically the like Extremely Adamant way that both matt and laura were like no no no no relvin isn’t Horirble he’s average. he’s not good he’s just. he’s A father, not a good or bad one. and on the surface it’s hilarious that they’re both so like. enthused to point out that he’s Average because typically when people respond to a claim of a characters badness with the level of immediacy they both did it’s a rebuttal of “no, this character is good actually.” but it was just to affirm that relvin did harm imogen, but not because there’s some aspect of his character that is inherently cruel or especially Bad. and like. yeah actually. yeah you should react like that to a claim that this average person who Has hurt someone, the way that nearly every single person has hurt someone in a way they cannot repair, with immediacy to say this person is a Person and thus imperfect and capable of great harm, but that isn’t some all encompassing judgment on their morality or capability to also do good or be fine.

anyway this is kinda just a rant post but also is just me saying i’m very grateful that when surrounded by a fandom that tends to paint characters as Good or Bad and even while using a game that can encourage that with its alignment system, cr has always told stories that see goodness as a persistent choice that might sometimes falter and that can be chosen even after a lifetime of Badness. i can’t remember exactly what the quote was so forgive me if it’s incorrect but when jester is talking to caleb after he claims he’s not a very good person and she says “good people do bad things sometimes. even bad people do good things.” that’s it! that’s one of the most consistent themes across campaigns. and yet.

[psychicdamaged]

lines from vox machina that took me out instantly and still live rent-free in my head

"Percival. Sweet Percival."

"your sister lives, Percival"

"do not go far from me"

"Do you think this is what mother saw before she died?"

"It’s going to be all right. Pike is here, it’s going to be all right, it’s going to be all right. Gil?"

"take me instead you raven bitch"

"You are a good person and I have always seen that. Please see it, please. Oh god, my heart is breaking."

"I do not work in wood. I am not brave enough for that. There is a comfort in iron, a promise of safety, a second chance if mistakes are made. But a city is more a forest than a sword. No, it needs more tending than that. Perhaps a city is like a garden, then."

"sometimes breaking is making, even iron can start again, and there are many things that move through fire and find themselves much better for it afterward."

"I love you. If I can find you, I will. If not, stay alive."

I hear the voice of my mother in the morning. “Fuck you.”

"but if he's gone forever I won't be the same"

"I was gonna ask you what your mother’s name is." / "It was Juniper." / "I’m sorry I didn’t know that."

"Well that's just it. I'm a really good liar."

"all we found of her was her leg" / "that means she's still alive"

I think back to Percy's workshop in Greyskull Keep. And I say "I love you too."

"I have a feeling she's pulling our fate strings, anyway. ...mine's connected to yours. Where you go, I go."

"I am here because I have completed my Aramente, and I have come for my blessing." / "Yes, you have. I just wanted to hear it from your lips."

"You look like mother right now. You do."

"And I thought that was it. I had ruined it. But before dawn, she came back, she unrolled her bedding, and she went to sleep, and woke up the next morning and said "what's for breakfast, Dad?"

"Promise me you'll come back with me, no matter what." / "I promise."

Vax is watching, frozen.

"Where's Vax?"

"I thought you died. I watched you die." ... "It's a trick. It's a trick of the feywild."

He's physical. He's cold. But he's there.

"Look. Look at me. Just remember. Whatever happens, remember me. That's all that's important."

"I remember. (softer) I remember. See? It's all up here. So whatever happens, keep me there. All right?"

"She'll probably outlast you, but while you're around, keep her company for me?"

"What if there comes a day when I don't even recognize the name Vox Machina anymore?"

"And you- you're not going anywhere."

"Is that my girl? Is that my baby girl?"

I grab Kaylie by the face and I say to her: "Goodbye."

"Bless. Shaun! It was an honor knowing you."

"Forever and ever and always." I steal what I assume is my last kiss.

I'm going to use a bonus action to look over my shoulder and see everyone that I know. I'm going to see my sister and her husband. I'm going to see the woman that I love. I'm going to see Grog. I'm going to see Arkhan. I'm going to see my friend Scanlan.

You all take a moment to imagine what you've lost, what you've gained. Everything has led to this moment. And in the quiet and the stillness, you hear a new sound. It's thousands and thousands of distant voices cheering from the city of Vasselheim below. Of wyvern and eagle riders above you. But a small example of the hundreds of thousands of lives you may have saved.

I walk to step in between. / In between the two of them? / Yes.

"I'm not ready." / "You're ready for your people." / " Not without you."

"I'm going to go visit my mother, and I'll see all of you again."

"Thank you for trying." / "I wish I could have done more." / "You did everything"

"I never had a greater friend than you."

"I feel like she's taking part of me away." / "I will bring it with me to remind me of you."

"I don't know how to live."

I use the druid cantrip Druidcraft and grow snowdrops out from where I stand, out to all of my family. Out to where they stand. "S.H.I.T.s, thank you. How lucky I have been to have had all of you. How lucky, indeed. Thank you."

In the darkness of her cloak, you see a brief light, and it's brighter for you. As you walk forward, you see reaching from the light the dark hair, the fair skin, and the wide smile of your mother, Elaina. As she greets you, she says, “I'm so proud.”

"I still count you as my sister." / "As I count you as mine. Going to have to look out for each other now." / "Yes."

"I think I really miss my family."

"I think we're all broken, Percy." / "I'm so tired of hurting people."

"The brightest and the darkest. To Vax."

"I think the most free I've ever been is with you."

"I think we should rebuild the families that we've lost." / "There's so many names."

"I don't have to appreciate this. Especially not after what I've seen. But I do." / "You need to." / "Only because of what I've seen."

[your-turn-to-role]

percy character traits that aren't "intelligent asshole" or "edgy demon possessed"

major abandonment issues (they all have them, but percy especially, kid lost his whole family, he clings to his new one with everything he has and takes it as a very personal betrayal if anyone tries to detach themselves from that or leave in any way)

LIKES to DO NICE THINGS for PEOPLE (we all know about him flirting with vex via 500 presents, but he's the same platonically as well, gifts and acts of service is percy's love language and he is very affectionate when you're keeping an eye out for it)

weirdly insightful about the rest of his party. i don't know what his actual insight score is, but percy reads people very well when they're familiar with him, and often ends up acting as translator between one person (particularly keyleth or grog) and the rest of the group.

the concept of legacy is reeeaaaallly important to him. no one else in the group really gets it, but everything percy does is out of a sense of duty to his home, to his people, and to the future of his city and this lineage (as well as doing justice to what his ancestors would have wanted). very much sees himself as a small part in a very large puzzle as far as whitestone and the de rolos are concerned. at his most suicidal moments (and he has a couple, he's just in general not doing okay), one of the main things he has to stop him is the fact that his city needs him, and that comes before anything else (at least before anything percy wants, it may not come before vex or cassandra)

that said, is honestly terrified of the idea of being handed power in any meaningful way. in contrast to most characters of his general archetype, trusts nearly everyone far more than he trusts himself, and spent a long time running away from responsibility mostly out of fear of what he would do with it.

has a very healthy view of what a leader should be (i believe frederick and johanna de rolo were probably very well respected, kind, and honorable rulers just by looking at the virtues instilled in their kids), but despite knowing how to be a good leader, percy believes he's too cruel to ever lead responsibly

(whether he's right or not, who's to say. he does have those vindictive tendencies, and to quote taliesin from one of the live talks machinas, "percy's never gonna stop pretending he doesn't have anger issues", but he's also very self aware of his faults, and has been constantly working to correct them. also the fact that he doesn't want to lead for fear of doing wrong by his people is a sign he can at least be trusted to care)

(vex) (vax) (keyleth)

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role Highlights C2E35 (September 25,2018)

Tonight’s guests are Marisha Ray and Liam O’Brien!

Announcements:

The NYC live show is one week from this Thursday (October 4)! Tickets are available now, and an NYCC badge is not needed to attend. There is much speculation over what on earth Sam’s going to wear this time around.

Travis’ episode of Between the Sheets is available for CR Twitch subscribers now and will go up on CR’s YouTube channel tomorrow! Marisha: “He’s like the big brother to us all.” Laura Bailey’s up next!

All Work No Play premieres (returns) this Friday night at 7PM Pacific at twitch.tv/criticalrole!

@critrolestats for this episode:

It has been 61 days since the party found the Cloven Crystal, and 45 days since they first learned of Marius LePual. (The party’s been together about 87 days total.)

Beau has avoided 126 points of damage by using Deflect Missiles.

Caleb’s top speed in this episode of 120 feet is still a quarter the speed of a hasted and flying Vax: 480 feet. Liam points out that he mostly used the speed last campaign to rush at problems. This campaign, it’s more for rushing away from problems.

On being pirates: Liam: “It feels pretty good.” Marisha: “No regrets.” Especially for the Empire kids, this isn’t their country, and the repercussions may not feel as pressing. Also, Liam gets shamed for his lack of knowledge about maritime law. As you do.

Beau’s thoughts on Fjord’s abilities? “Some people have daddy issues and some people vomit up water and see visions.” She tries not to judge people on their shitty days, because she thinks that her own good days are worse than their bad ones. That self-deprecation comes from guilt, and also that her whole outlook is that she’s a bit of an asshole, but she assumes that everyone she meets will hate her anyway, so she might as well take control of the ways in which they consider her to be an asshole.

Caleb is taken by the coincidence of Yasha continuing to pop up; it’s not distrust or anything, it’s just surprise that this keeps happening.

Caleb feels fine about how they treated Algar, because they were doing what was needed to take care of one of their own. Marisha talks a bit about how cathartic fantasy violence like that can be when it’s just amped-up versions of the “no, fuck you!” responses that you might say to someone in that situation in real life. Liam: “I think we put our cards on the table with the DM to be like, yeah, this is who we are. They’re a very different group. They have the potential to make good things happen, but it’s nobody’s goal.” Marisha: “So much is revealed in those moments of impulse.” Liam: “Also, just personally speaking, as someone whose character is not trying to be a hero but is trying to get things done, keeping the group happy and making the group work well together... Selfish motivations, and if good things can happen along the way, awesome. He’s such a hypocrite. He’s done worse things than Algar. But he wants Jester to be happy, and useful. And happy.”

Caleb doesn’t see himself as doing anything wrong in casting Suggestion on Nott (he saw it as doing something good for his friend, unlocking that for her). Liam points out again that this is more of his hypocrisy; he hasn’t connected his own experiences under influential magic with what he did to Nott. “He knows that he’s awful, but he doesn’t think that every single aspect of his life back then was awful.” He emphasizes how quickly things turned around for Caleb. “His life is ruined. He ruined it.”

Marisha on Beau’s impromptu disguise: “Tracy was such a fluke. I was being very transparent when I was talking to Fjord.” Beau knew that if she was just being herself, she’d mess everything up. She was drawing on the personalities of people she knew from school. “For her, it was, ‘Please don’t fuck this up by being yourself.’” It’s not about deception, it’s about wanting to not be a liability.

Gif of the Week: Marisha is... engaged.

Liam: “No decision to steal the ship was ever made. Things just vomited out, Jeff-Goldblum-chaos-theory style. The only reason Caleb got on that boat was because he saw his friends were in trouble, and then they were on the boat, and then a platoon of soldiers showed up, and then they were leaving on the boat.” Marisha: “When we were in the lobby during the break, we were like, ‘We’re going to grab Marius and bounce.’ That was the goal.”

They point out how frustrating it must’ve been for Travis to have gone from playing a character who delighted in chaos to being quite literally the only one who could steer the ship.

Everyone gets really giggly over the username “BeautifulBusinessBoy”. Brian: “Why do we keep doing this show?”

Beau definitely acted instinctively to catch the arrows, rather than letting them hit her to keep up the ruse. “It all went to shit when I caught that first arrow. Beau’s too obsessed with being the badass of her fantasies.”

Fanart of the Week: Caleb at ludicrous speed.

Before the fight broke out, Caleb was going to summon Frumpkin as a small owl of his own to scout out the ship. “But that moment is gone. Everything burned to the ground.”

Both Liam and Marisha were really worried that Caduceus was going to just leave the group. Taliesin definitely pointed out after the episode that it had been Caduceus’ no good very bad day and he was having doubts about sticking around with the Nein. Liam: “It’s a real big question mark what’s going to happen in the first twenty minutes of the game.” Marisha: “I think there’s going to be some discussions.”

Brian has some advice: don’t cast Fireball straight down when on a ship. That’s definitely not coming from personal experience in an encounter during his home game that definitely didn’t end with the ship sinking.

Brian points out that Beau’s adoption of Molly’s mantra of leaving things better than you find them has had a lot of butting-up of theory versus application. Marisha talks about how Beau never really got reconciliation for the conflicts she had with Molly, and it was the first time she ever had that kind of unfinished ending. Her immediate response was to try to be better like him, “but that doesn’t mean that’s easy, especially for someone like Beau.” 

Liam is intrigued, because Caleb’s opinion on Molly’s death was so different. “Caleb was not touched in the same way. It was an affirmation of what he knew was at risk. I don’t think Molly was the one he was closest to in the group. They had a good working rapport. He knew his personality and his life and a bit of his wants and hopes, and it’s a risk to get so close to people and then have them be killed alongside you. It’s a risk to care, because everybody’s a distraction for him. He needs them, he wants them around, all this conflicting information for him. To see Molly die is, ‘Yup. Yup.’” He’s getting a lot closer with Mighty Nein, but in his head, it’s just going to hurt more in the long run. “He sees it as a danger to himself and what he wants to care for people. I risk becoming a better person and trying to get on a different path from what I need to do, which is to stop the unforgivable. And fuck you all for taking my mind off of it. I really like you, but fuck you for taking my mind off it.” He’s got a lot of conflicting voices in his head right now.

Liam: “To the audience: we’re so sorry.” Brian: “Yeah, we really did good tonight.”

Talks Machina: Art Dad Chesty Times

Yes, that’s a direct quote from Brian.

Another out-of-context quote: Liam: “I’d high-five the statue of liberty.” Dani: “Solid.”

Marisha recommends the documentary Double Dare about women in stunts.

Things go a little off the rails, but this is After Dark, and where we’re going we don’t need rails. Break-up stories, strip clubs, tiger attacks. As you do.

Max did a lot of practicing for his Sam impression. Marisha was delighted that people thought they’d dubbed him.

Pirate names. Liam: “I am the Frump-king.” Marisha and Brian: “...okay.”

Majestic. 

Liam’s curious about how Jester and Fjord, being from the Menagerie Coast, are going to react to all this; for the Empire kids, this is a bit detached. Marisha: “I feel a little bad for Jester.” Liam points out that maybe her situation won’t be too different from how it was before, in terms of having to stay hidden.

Everyone ends with their best impression of Max’s I’m-so-done-with-this face.

[brydeswhale]

This recent thing with Ana Mardoll on Twitter is just yet another case of someone taking a tweet of the context of an entire thread and using it to fuel harassment of that person.

Like, I don’t follow Mardoll. I find most of his takes pretty cringe, altho I do occasionally think the dude makes some good points. We just don’t mesh with each other.

But a lot of people are saying stuff that just basically isn’t true.

For instance, Brandon Taylor wasn’t “cancelled”. He engaged in harassment while Mardoll had him blocked. He circumvented the block, took a screenshot out of context of an entire thread about writing with various disabilities that impede one’s ability to read, and sent people Mardoll’s way to harass him. That’s what he did.

Mardoll is also being accused of being anti-vax and trying to get a doctor fired.

Said doctor, one Ryan Marino, had earlier engaged in harassment against Mardoll by quoting, again, out of context, a tweet that was Mardoll talking about his OWN experience with taking Tylenol and how that had caused him some problems. This caused people to harass Mardoll and falsely accuse him of being anti vaccination.

Mardoll’s only response to this was to point out the problems Marino had caused him. Nothing more. He neither harassed the doctor nor directed anyone else to harass him.

Mardoll has been dealing with harassment over the past while, mostly from transphobic weirdos, probably because he had the nerve to tweet some criticism of a novel he found to be transphobic and bc he’s been outspoken on this subject and that of other bigotry in literature and to talk about his experience as a disabled person. I don’t pay a lot of attention to him, but that’s what seems to be going on.

But things seem to have escalated at this point, as another Twitter user has decided to use these and other factors to engage in a large scale harassment campaign. This person has taken pages right out of Stitch(of stitchmediamix)’s detractors and started their own anti campaign, and added a transphobic spin on it. They’re trying a grift, probably in part bc transphobia sell NFTs, but I don’t care to engage with someone so obviously vile and fixated.

Look, you don’t have to like Mardoll. I have my share of critique for the dude and I think he and I would really not get along IRL.

But at the end of the day you can not like someone and still not support harassment against them or spread lies about them.

[radramblog]

Who should I vote for in the WA state election?

Full disclosure, this is directly inspired by this article, by someone from my high school as part of a youth newspaper he was working on. Considering said newspaper hasn’t updated since, oh, 2017, I think it’s fine to step on a few toes.

According to the ABC there are 19 parties vying for votes in the 2021 Western Australia State Election, which is coming up on Saturday. Some of them are good, some of them are very very not. Let’s go through each!

Animal Justice Party

The Animal Justice Party is a single-platform party masquerading as a multi-platform party, and while they have bland but reasonable positions on common issues everything, and I mean everything, on their page circles back to animals. Mental Health? Animal therapy and volunteering are good for that! Foreign Policy? We only care about trophies and wildlife trade! Domestic Violence? Abusers kick puppies, not just spouses! You get the idea. They mean well, but I don’t think they’re even close to a top pick, especially considering some of their odder platforms (banning processed meat sales to minors like they’re cigarettes, sure ok).

Vote for them if you’re the epitome of the obnoxious vegan.

 Australian Christians

I mean, obviously I’m not religious, but I’m pretty sure these folks don’t speak for all Christians. They’re first on the list of whackjobs, anti-abortion and same-sex marriage, pro “sexual morality” (read: puritanism) and have out-of-context bible quotes on their statement of intents. Oh, sorry, statement of beliefs. Clicking on this webpage made my skin crawl- protip, if a person or party claims to support “family values” or “Christian ideals” 99 times out of 100 they’re just using it to justify bigotry.

Vote for them if you’d feel right at home in Cromwellian England.

 Daylight Savings Party

This one’s website was broken for me, so I couldn’t really get a hold of anything beyond the name and what was on their facebook page, which is pretty much just what their mission statement is- Western Australia but we have daylight savings time. Despite being ridiculously sunny all the time. But….but why though….

Vote for them if you enjoy changing your clocks twice a year, like a weirdo.

 The Great Australian Party

There are two really obvious jokes here screaming at me to be made. The GAP wants to make Australia great again, and despite the name it doesn’t involve jeans. These guys think taxes are bad but it would be good if they were instead handled by corporations, which is the most laughably stupid idea that itd be enough to bottom-vote them just on that- fortunately, their stance on firearms (we’ll get to it later) and immigration (withdrawing from UN treaties, seriously?) make it pretty clear they’re just a bunch of cunts. Their policy pages complain about political correctness and want to make fucking with a flag a crime like it is in the US, so the comparisons to a certain US party keep going.

Vote for them if you’re the proud owner of a red hat that your children will burn out of shame.

 Health Australia Party

The fact that these people have an entire page dedicated to going “no, we aren’t anti-vax, we just have a lot of concerns” answers any questions you could possibly have. They also advocate for “natural medicine” to be placed on equal footing with, you know, medicine, which is obviously not a great idea.

Also, that they spell it “anti-vacc” and that their policy list is in fucking Calibri bugs me to no end.

Vote for them if you’re on a lemon detox.

 Legalise Cannabis Western Australia

Take a guess. Take a wild fucking guess what single issue these guys are about. I don’t even have anything against this idea, their policies aren’t awful or anything, but it’s a heck of a hill to spend so much of your time on.

Vote for them if you’re high off your tits, I guess.

 Liberal Democrats

What is this, libertarians? I’ll be frank, most of their policies are rooted in economics stuff I don’t really understand, but they’re against COVID lockdowns. You know, despite how effective they’re shown to be around here since we don’t fuck them up (mostly).

These guys seem to be one of the bigger of the small parties but their website is super unhelpful so ???

Vote for them if… I dunno?

 Liberal Party

The first of the two major parties. They lost power in the last state election, and I couldn’t be more thankful- they’d been doing nothing but cock up for years at that point, and the premier was a fucking joke. Considering that their leader has apparently already conceded defeat, I suspect they aren’t looking to repeat the process.

The Liberals seem to be the default for a lot of people, thanks to their incalculable media bias and being one of the big two. I suppose if you’re reading this, you aren’t voting for them anyway.

Vote for them if your mum voted for them and you’re proud of that for some reason.

 Liberals for Climate

If you voted in the last election, you might remember a party called the Flux network, which was a party where their policy was just online voting for everything. This is, uh them again? But they seem more concerned about climate than last time.

Vote for them if you haven’t watched this video.

 No Mandatory Vaccination Party

…no. just no.

Antivaccination is an opinion that makes my skin crawl. The fucker that effectively started the movement, Andrew Wakefield, effectively did so for the money, and as such is indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths. The people who believe this shit know nothing of chemistry or medicine but hear a few buzzwords and do a google or two and think they’re the greatest geniuses of our time. They think they’re soooo fucking smart. Confident incorrectness can be funny at times, but not when such a huge issue is at stake.

Vote for them if you want me to call you out on twitter dot com.

 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation

Oh christ she’s still trying this shit? For reference, in the last election these xenophobic cunts were rightfully punted out of our state, despite massive campaigning, proving that we aren’t the bogan capital of the country quite as much. Their policy pages make me want to vomit, but who the fuck voting for One Nation reads the fucking policy page?

Pauline Hanson was a fish and chip shop owner who made a political party to get her xenophobic bullshit out on the national stage, and was arrested for election fraud, yet still is allowed to run a party for some reason. She’s switched the target of her ire from China to the Middle East to reflect modern bigotry better, but it’s the same old shit. The only good thing ever to come about her was the Pauline Pantsdown song, and she obviously wasn’t involved in that.

Vote for them if you’re interested in joining the Proud Boys.

 Shooters Fishers and Farmers

Oh and the hits just keep coming. Funnily enough I don’t have an issue with their fishery policy, but that’s not the main one, obviously. Australia has harsh gun control laws on account of a mass shooting back in 1997, and we’ve stayed that way for 23 years with, shockingly, no further mass shootings (that I’m aware of). You can disguise your policy by saying its for the sport all you want, but I’ve got no interest in bringing guns back to WA.

Vote for them if you think the NRA having massive political sway in the USA is a good thing.

 Socialist Alliance

Full disclosure, I consider myself a socialist, so I’m probably a little biased here. But yeah, these look like good policies. They want to remove the USA military presence in Australia which I am personally very for, they support royal commission into the big banks which should have been done a decade ago, and they want to lower the voting age to 16 which considering that the youth are generally more politically minded these days seems fair enough to me. I’m for it.

Vote for them if you would have voted for the Greens, and don’t know which to put higher.

 Sustainable Australia

Despite the name, the policy of this party is more concerned about population than climate, an issue I’m not sure is especially pronounced in this neck of the woods. I’d put them fairly middle of the road, seeing as they have some policies I’m for (no new coal mines or fracking) and some I’m very against (increased police funding, lowered immigration).

Vote for them if you too don’t know the common usage of the word Sustainable in modern times.

 The Greens

Why everything is alphabetical until this and the next one are beyond me. Regardless, I suspect you already know if you’re voting Greens, but bluntly: They’re basically the only ones with a real, functional plan about Climate Change. And considering that’s the biggest problem facing humanity at large right now (yes, including COVID), that’s a pretty solid claim.

Vote for them if THERE IS NO PLANET BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 The Nationals

The nationals end up in coalition with the Liberals basically all the fucking time so if you’d vote for the Libs you’ll vote for the Nats. They’re basically the liberals, but they pay lip service to caring about poor rural areas while continuing to suck big buisness’s cock like a kid with an icy-pole.

Vote for them if you’re a genuine country bumpkin.

 WA Labor

I’ll be frank, I don’t think there’s a single way Labor doesn’t win this election. Mark McGowan has developed a minor cult of personality, and they’ve handled the old COVID situation remarkably well. I don’t agree with everything they’ve done in the past 4 years, but their track record is certainly better than the Liberals. Still, they’re not going to be the top of my preference sheet.

Vote for them if you don’t know what small parties to preference first.

 WAxit party

I’ve admittedly entertained the idea of a Western Australian Secession, and provided it is handled well am not entirely against it. It does make me feel vaguely Texan, though, and that’s not a position I enjoy being in. This party wants to massively invest in defense so WA can protect itself from an invasion- one that will never, ever come, and I really don’t expect to eat those words. We don’t matter enough to target.

Vote for them if you think Brexit 2 sounds like a good idea.

 Western Australia Party

Look at this point I’m fucking sick of all these parties. They have Family Values on their policy list so I’m just taking that as a red enough flag not to vote for them.

Vote for them if you actually read their shit and were a fan of it.

 And that’s…everyone. Wait no not everyone hang on.

Independents

I must confess, I basically always forget to read about the independents prior to an election. This is going to be different in every district, so do your research- or just do what I do and stick them all smack bang in the middle between the parties I like and the parties I don’t like.

 Ok now that’s everyone. This took a long time and a lot out of me, so I hope you appreciate this shit. Hopefully you are now prepared for what may come on Saturday the 13th, and won’t be too disappointed when your minor party of choice doesn’t win the seat because everyone in your area votes Liberal for some fucking reason.

[clonerightsenthusiast]

My Vox Machina Fic Round-Up

So with the new campaign starting next week, I wanted to consolidate all the fics I've written for the Vox Machina campaign. Partly for ease of access and partly as a way to look back and remember all the good times. This campaign is what got me into writing fanfiction in the first place, and it's fun to see how I've grown in the past two years. For one, I branched out from having the POV always be Scanlan (though my bias towards Team Two Smalls One Tall + Vex is evident lol).

So, in chronological order (note they're all gen):

The Miracle Worker, 1.9k words

TMW is the ending of the fight with Ripley in episode 68, aka when Percy dies, except from Scanlan’s POV as he tries and fails to save him, and ruminates on other times in the past when he’s pulled some crazy stunt to save the other members of the party. Lots of angst. (Also, my very first fic! Inspired by this little incredible comic by @kindle-kin, who I suppose I owe my entire fic-writing career to lol.)

Schwarzenegger and DeVito, at it again!, 3k words

Just silliness. Grog and Scanlan, bored, messing around, failing pranks and finding ways to entertain themselves. Pure fluff. The title is a direct quote from Travis from some episode where he and Sam paired off to do something and I’m still not over it tbh.

Miles To Go, 3.6k words

Scanlan hurt/comfort. Scanlan hides a serious injury to keep attention on an injured Keyleth, and it goes poorly for him.

Wingman of an Angel, 2.5k words

More silliness. Pike comes out to Scanlan and he is determined to find her a girlfriend. Told from the POV of the rest of Vox Machina, who are witness to Scanlan’s odd behavior but don’t know why he’s acting so strange.

Game Face, 1.9k words

Just a character study, and angst. Takes place during episode 73, just before the meeting with Raishan and after his conversation with Jarrett about drugs. Scanlan reflects on his confusion and despair and how meeting Kaylie has changed his worldview and thrown him off his game.

Sing, 1.4k words

Remember when Scanlan summoned Yenk the Goristro, and instead of running away when it was about to gore him he cast Dominate Monster? Y’know, this iconic moment. This is that moment, from Scanlan’s POV, wrapped up neatly in my headcanons for how bard magic works.

Tell Your Story, 1k words

I love Mythcarver. It’s my favorite vestige. This is the moment Mythcarver Awakens, from the sword’s POV, with some of my own made up moments from its possible history thrown in.

The Masquerade Ball, 2.8k words

Written before the big fight, a canon AU in which they defeated both Thordak and Raishan in Emon. Vex talks to Scanlan redemption and moving forward. Mostly an examination of my favorite dynamic in the show, the Vex & Scanlan friendship.

the chill in your bones, 1.4k words

Angst. Angst angst angst. Scanlan’s death and resurrection in the fight against Raishan, from his POV.

Finders, Keepers; Losers, Weepers, 2.9k words

Character study with some angst thrown in, focused on Grog’s tendency towards possessiveness about the things he finds/likes--including his friends. The way he holds onto things, and the way he loses them anyways.

Of Bards and Bardbarians, 2.2k words

My own interpretation of how Scanlan found and hired Lionel, who is almost but not quite who he wants him to be.

Cerberus Was a Puppy Once, Too, 11.8k words

Ahhh this fic is my pride and joy, honestly. My love letter to Grog and Pike, and the relationship between them. It follows them from their childhood in Westruun through them growing up into the heroes they are today, as they grow into their destinies.

Heartbeat, 2k words

Aromantic Grog. That’s pretty much it. Born out of evening of bitterness but the response I got from fellow aro fans warms my heart to this day and gives this fic a special place in my heart.

Falling Stars, 3.9k words

More angst! Scanlan’s POV of him trying and failing to save Vax with his Wish, and dealing with the aftermath. With a side helping of more Vex & Scanlan brotp.

Focal Point, Or How Kaylie Became A Shorthalt, 15.5k words

Kaylie’s POV of the events of Westruun and Kymal during the Chroma Conclave arc, and how she came to change her mind about Scanlan. Kaylie is my favorite NPC in the whole show and this is my love letter to her, and was initially written as an attempt to shift the focus of the Kaylie & Scanlan relationship from its effect on Scanlan to its effect on Kaylie. This fic... this fic took me a year to write. (It took me a few months to write, and then sat in my drive for many more months before I decided to move my ass and finish it.) If any fic had to be my last piece for VM, I’m glad it was this one.

[thequeenofmyownscreen]

“Vox Machina ! FUCK SHIT UP !!”

Episodes 50 “Best Laid Plans” to 56 “Hope”.

Previous posts : the beginnings, episodes 22 to 32, episodes 33 to 36, episodes 37 to 42, episodes 43 to 49.

Well first let me start by saying that : I knew it !!! Craven Edge was bad since the beginning !!!! Grog’s death was sudden and unexpected : it’s at the beginning of an episode, when they’re resting after their discussion with the sphinx ; also, Travis rolls first a natural 20, before realizing that Grog was exhausted so he had disadvantage (that was the moment where I said to myself “oh no. Oh no. OH NO”). So he rerolled... A one. And Grog died. In the most awful way possible for him, not in the glory of battle or anything, just getting his soul sucked by an evil sword ! And how ironic that Ashley's back when Pike could have examined the evil sword, just to have Grog be murdered by this sword. Well, at least she was essential, casting Greater Restoration, seeing the real story of the sword and braking the link between it and Grog. On the plus side though, I was rewatching this scene later and Travis’ face is so funny :  he knows he made a HUGE MISTAKE, to quote some Arrested Development. Also, when everyone realized that it was Percy that gave the sword to Grog : Percy makes a looooooot of bad choices.

Twice now (on stream) someone has died and has been resurrected. I hope that this will not become a trend for Vox Machina... Because those scenes are so stressful. I know they're at level 13 and their enemies are powerful, but my heart can only takes so much stress.

The plan they made for infiltrating Westruun was... complicated. I like the trench idea (it worked so well !) and Scanlan proved that he make a pretty good distraction, but I think they made it too complicated. I mean, a triceratops worked last time, guys. No nead to be the head of a very dead goliath. Anyway, Scanlan broke his invisibility when he cast Thunderwave and became a distraction for sure : a tiny gnome in front of an army of goliaths. Then Grog chose to go in alone, because he learned that his strength is in his friends. His speech to provoke Kevdak in combat was spectacular ! Their one-on-one fight was not very fair, since Kevdak is bigger than Grog (thanks to the Titanstone Knuckles), and can rage too, and with his Blood axe he does necrotic damage, which is not halved. This battle really went up and down : first bad for Grog until he realized he couldn't win this and called Vox Machina for help, then good for Vox Machina but bad for Grog who continued to be pummeled by goliaths, then good for Grog because he was evacuated but bad for Vox Machina because they were taking a lot of hits and Kevdak healed and some hostages were killed, then AWESOME when Vex released Grog on Kevdak, and he killed him instantly.

...And then the goliaths wanted to take on Umbrasyl the next day. I was with Scanlan on this one : they have a unique chance ! But I also agree with Vax : they're going to be consequences for it, if they succeed, and they should prepare to react. And I thought convincing Zanror to just wait a little for the killing of the dragon was going to be difficult. But I guess the third of his herd leaving made him think about the idea of waiting just a little bit more. In the meantime, we saw  Pike's grandfather for the first time, and he is awesome. And what is going with Pike and Scanlan ? First Scanlan asked Wilhand for Pike’s hand in marriage (unknown to Pike). This was mostly played for laughs, but I thought he was genuine. Later, he asks Pike in marriage for real. At the beginning, his relationship with Pike was more like “she's not interested, but his advances are funny, to her and us viewers”. But this is becoming serious for him... But he didn't even say to her he’s becoming serious ! These two need to talk !! And not just like Pike saying “Maybe we should just sleep together and see what happens” (I lost it, everyone lost it). That did not help with the confusion at all.

The fight against Umbrasyl started well. Their plan was mostly good : the giant mousetrap and the goliaths hiding in trenches worked. The rest of the plan involves Vax convincing Scanlan to teleport into the dragon with the Rod of Immovability. I was like : is this a plan crazy enough to work ?... or just crazy ? No one in the group objects to this : we learn from a passing comment Liam made that the cast had exchanged texts and messages on the planning of the attack of the dragon, so that's why we didn't see in game the arguing between the characters. Otherwise, I was sure someone would have said that teleporting into the stomach of the dragon was a bad idea... The fight started going bad right at the moment where Scanlan teleported him and Little Vax™️ somewhere inside the dragon, but not in the same place ! Then on the second round, Umbrasyl, who knocked back the goliaths with his wings, managed to broke free of the chains. Matt certainly thought the Rod was big nuisance for the dragon, but it didn’t hold it forever (even if the Rod did 37 points of damage, in the end). The episode ends with the dragon fleeing, Scanlan and Vax still inside him, and Grog attached to it by a chain. And they had to wait 2 weeks to do the rest !! The second fight was as hard as the first, because the dragon and Vox Machina both rested, and the acid pools were dangerous. But there were some very good moves : Scanlan recast Bigby's Hand, and fingered the dragon again in the wound that he created earlier, Percy attacked 6 times in his round, with his sword and did I don't know exactly how many points of damage but well over 100 !

After the dragon is dead, time for some down time and repercussions. Also, lots of math to determine how much gold they could carry. The down episode was very fun : the twins and the boots, the discussions at the baths, the cannonball contest. Percy’s idea to leave the Vox Machina crest into the rock at the entrance of Umbrasyl’s cave with the words One down in Draconic and a dragon's tooth is ... brilliant, but there will be consequences. Just like Reginald’s death was the consequences of them talking to him (the scene where Vex announces to his daughter that he died is simple but powerful). And regarding the future of the town, I think they made the right choice with protecting Westruun but letting the citizens regroup and rebuilt. Kerr came to Kamal, and distributed money to buy resources and spreading the word that the town was regrouping. So soon people will come back and help.

Besides Grog, Keyleth was the character that had the most spotlight in these episodes. She has an interesting perspective as a druid, on faith and gods. This is not a world where you can be an atheist, because gods exist and manifest themselves. But you can be your own person, be distrustful or weary of their purposes like she is. She also revealed her other fears when she talked to Kerr outside the party, after they killed Umbrasyl. The conversation was about heroism, consequences, responsibility and choices. Keyleth fears the consequences of her and Vox Machina’s actions, and is terrified to be seen as a hero. And Kerr seems like a man that liked his past adventurous life, but one day realized what they were doing to the world, and stopped and decided to do “good otherwise”. It was just very emotional and a very good scene. Keyleth also shown her free-spirit attitude in the debate or whether Westruun citizens should stay in the town. And usually, I agree with her, but this time I think I’m with Percy “a town is a place for a community to exist” rather than Keyleth “a town is just a group of people”.

Quotes :

Grog, after dying from a totally evil sword : “Yo guys, update. That sword was totally evil”.

Grog : “I made my choice. This is my family. My old family left me to die.”

Vox Machina, returning the boy that was dead on hour ago, to his family : Keyleth : “We’re just glad he’s home safe.” Vex : “And not even slightly dead !” Keyleth : “Nope ! Not a scratch !” Pike : “He's fine, just nothing even happened.” Keyleth : “If he has weird dreams... Don’t worry about it. Children, you know !...”

“At dawn, we plan !” (Travis). Later, because everyone mocks him, he says : “Great conversations have been had at dawn, I’ll have you know. Treaties have been signed, and...stuff.”

Laura, as Scanlan went to find his daughter's tracks and brought Vax on, sarcastically : “Probably should’ve brought a ranger with you, I’m really good at tracking.”

SCANLAN IS ASKING PIKE IN MARRIAGE, with Vox Machina standing there. Vax : “Can I roll stealth and hide right now ?” Pike : “Can I roll stealth and hide right now ?”

Vax : “You remember that little talk we had about a week ago ?...When you told me how things were better now ? That was fucking insane. They are not better. Everything is terrible ! Our lives are terrible. They are way worse than they were six months ago, way worse. I was with all of you assholes a year ago, and two years ago, they’re way worse."

Vax, to Keyleth : “I don’t know if it’s the food you made or the fact that we’re going to die tomorrow, but I want to kiss you.” (he kisses her). Vex : “Did you use your tongues ?”

Scanlan : “As we all know, intestines are my favored terrain.”

Grog : “Kerr, are you an honest man ?”. Kerr : “...I've been called an honest man”. Sam and Travis, simultaneously: “I insight check him !!”

Shale, to Umbrasyl : “Oh, shut up, you flying suitcase !”

Sam, after Matt got Vax and Vex's names wrong again : “When I die, I'm coming back as a character named Vix.”

The decoration of the baths inside the mansion, according Matt : “There’s a beautiful giant portrait of Scanlan, nude, sprawled over a rock, with a towel just gently placed on his knee.” Sam : “Not covering anything.” Matt : “No, no, it’s decorative.”

Pike, to Grog who is judging the cannonball contest : “Be fair. But vote for me.”

Scanlan's limerick to inspire Kerr for the work on his sheath : “Have you heard the legend of Shale/One eye, elderly, frail ?/To a black dragon, she told :/’You may be ancient, but I’m old !’/And somehow lived to tell the tale !”

Percy : “How long do you think I live ?” Keyleth : “Less than a hundred ? If you’re lucky.” Percy : “No. I am Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III. My ancestry dates back thousands of years and will continue for thousands more, unless Whitestone falls. I live as long as Whitestone lives.”

Things that are just really cool/funny :

Matt gave Travis the full card for Craven Edge, and Travis' reaction reading the truth was : “Oh. Fuck you !” 

Scanlan made a “in case I die” letter, to not open until his death, and gave that to Pike. He leaves and then she IMMEDIATELY read it. Sam was outraged, everyone was laughing, and Ashley made sad/funny faces the entire time she read it.

Scanlan and his daughter teaming up to put on a show of the head of Stonejaw Strongjaw speaking from the grave. 

Sam made a shirt using an image of himself as Scanlan in the new intro (and Ashley as Pike on his biceps). This man is unreal.

Scanlan’s Hold Person on Kevdak was CRUCIAL. It held him for at least 3 rounds, during which they cut off one hand and damaged his other arm. But the genius move goes to Vex for med-evacing Grog by putting him in the “Pokeball”. 

Patrick Rothfuss !! I am a huge fan of The Name of the Wind, so I was very excited and delighted when they mentioned he was a) a fan of Critical Role b) actually in the wings watching the show c) and then later ON THE SHOW. It’s just the best feeling when worlds collide in the most wonderful way.

Liam got Laura a real magic broom for their shared birthday.

A golem was found in Master Quall’s house, which they named Fassbender and did not return to his its owner.

They planned at dawn !

At the start of episode 54, they had technical problems to launch the intro, so the cast reenacts it brilliantly for a minute.

Scanlan teleported him and Vax “into the belly of the beast”. Well that was the plan anyway, but with his 14 intelligence check, Scanlan found himself in the stomach, separated from Vax who was also inside the dragon but somewhere else.

Scanlan escaped by fingering then fisting the wound of the dragon, using Bigby’s Hand. How very Scanlan. Everyone was laughing, and Matt : “I’m blushing, man.”

Keyleth dropped through the sky in her earth elemental form. And she decided to be even more badass by lighting her hands on fire, so she could be a meteorite.

Shale’s card says : “Wielding : Quarterstaff/Her wits.”

It's old magic.

Scanlan's second speech to his daughter Kaylie was almost as good as the first one. Dammit this gnome is good.

Meta :

​THE NEW INTRO IS SO COOL !! The clothes, the accessories, the music !!!  It's so on point !!! Favorite moments : Scanlan shooting lightning through is lower half, Vex's wink, the final shot where they rejoice. Also, they love their intro so much that they diffused it twice at the end of episode 50.

They also made “How do you want to do this ?” hoodie and I want one.

They now did two resurrection rituals, and both times, for the final roll, Matt took a photo of the result. Why ?

Ashley's got blue hair. It suits her well.

The townsquare battlemap is awesome ! Thanks to Marisha and Taliesin, we learn that Matt used the toothpicks he took from a sushi restaurant to figure the spikes of the ring.

They put the new intro on Facebook, and in one week got a million view, and freaked out. I want to reach out through my screen and say : “Guys. You are not ready for what comes in four years.”

Ashley, jokingly and a little sad that the damage done to Pike is not halved  : “I’m a barbarian too !” Knowing that her character in Campaign 2 is a barbarian, I wonder if Ashley got the idea of this class because of Grog. 

Sam is good at filling silences of whispers with ads for Lootcrate.

Matt is... a genius ?? Marisha asked a little out of nowhere what was the flower of Westruun, and Matt, without even a second of thinking, answered her : “The flower of Westruun would actually be the white iris, which grows around the western side of it.” (Taliesin : “You sick fuck. You’re amazing.”) How does he remember all those facts ??

Number of Vestiges of Divergence acquired : 3 (Vax wears the armor Deathwalker’s Ward, Scanlan wields the sword Mythcarver, Grog has the Titanstone Knuckles). Number of Vestiges still to be found : 5.

[mythcarved-archive-blog]

RULES.  repost , don’t  reblog  !    tag  10 TAGGED.   you know i’m a bitch who loves to steal memes. TAGGING. any of my crit role rp folks who want to do this

BASICS.

FULL  NAME : scanlan shorthalt NICKNAME :   scanman, shorty, the meat man, burt reynolds, kingslayer. AGE :   unknown ( somewhere between forty to one hundred years ) BIRTHDAY :  unknown LANGUAGE / S :  gnomish, common, marquesian. SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :  pansexual ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION :  biromantic RELATIONSHIP  STATUS :  single HOME  TOWN / AREA :  unknown CURRENT  HOME :  transient/ank’harel/whitestone/greyskull keep PROFESSION :  bard, tal’dorei high councilman, the meat man

PHYSICAL.

HAIR :  brown & kept long, usually tied back into a pony tail, save for the untamable cowlicks that stick up in front. he has some thick side burns too. EYES :  greyish/purple, large and bright (every time matt describes gnome eyes as beady i’m ready to FIGHT) FACE :  heart shaped / long. high cheek bones, defined jawline.  LIPS :  full but perpetually drawn back to reveal a toothy grin COMPLEXION :  he has very very very faint freckles but once he gets that marquesian tan they’re fairly prominent. BLEMISHES : aside from the cowlicks and scraggly facial hair, he is a vision of beauty. SCARS : deep grooves on the palms of both hands. several large and deep claw marks that reach from his torso to his stomach, courtesy of raishan. a small but plainly visible slash under his right eye. TATTOOS : a wide variety of nonsensical but sentimental tiny vintage tatts including but not limited to; a moustache on the inside his index finger, a sprig of juniper over his heart and a hand with it’s fingers crossed on the back of his neck. (he plans to get kaylie’s name tattoo’d in some gaudily fancy script eventually) HEIGHT : 3′5″ WEIGHT : roughly the weight of a small child, whatever that might be. BUILD : the definition of dad-bod. his stomach is pudgy and although there is definitely some muscle mass its still fairly flabby. if one looks hard enough theres some evidence of past malnutrition but most of it carries in his face. ALLERGIES : none. USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :  tied back and messy. USUAL  FACE  LOOK :  a perpetual grin that spells trouble and hides any characteristics deeper than ‘funny man and endless flirt’. USUAL  CLOTHING : extravagant and opulent. anything that gives away the fact that he’s got money and is maybe a little too self-preoccupied and it’s probably something purple or maroon. lots of ear piercings, six on each ear in fact. 

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S :  powerlessness, poverty, not being good enough, change, death/dying. ASPIRATION / S :  to be a good father / be a better person just in general POSITIVE  TRAITS : bold / charismatic / quick-witted / humorous / courageous NEGATIVE  TRAITS :  deceitful / salacious / reckless / arrogant / self-absorded MBTI :  esfp ZODIAC :  leo / scorpio i cant decide TEMPERAMENT :  sanguine / choleric (a healthy dose of both) SOUL  TYPE / S :   performer ANIMALS :  triceratops, dogs, rabbits. VICE  HABIT / S :  sexually careless, lies compulsively, theres also the drug habit... FAITH : until very recently, scanlan didn’t feel he had time for the gods. it was when he spent a year sorting himself out that he started to find some comfort in praying to sarenrae (the goddess of redemption). GHOSTS ? :  yes AFTERLIFE ? : no REINCARNATION ? : no ALIENS ? : yes POLITICAL  ALIGNMENT :  good people are good, bad people are bad. EDUCATION  LEVEL :  self taught, son.

FAMILY.

FATHER : vikol MOTHER : juniper SIBLINGS : none EXTENDED  FAMILY : kaylie shorthalt (daughter) NAME  MEANING / S :  ‘scandal’ or ‘contention’ HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? : none

FAVORITES.

DEITY : sarenrae (mostly because of pike’s affiliation) HOLIDAY :  winter’s crest MONTH :  pfft SEASON : summer PLACE : greyskull keep / ank’harel / emon WEATHER :  warm but not humid, definitely prefers dry heat. SOUNDS : flute music, tavern ambience, the sound of a campfire crackling, his mother’s voice, pike’s laughter. SCENT / S : roses, patchouli, cinnamon TASTE / S : sweet stuff ! FEEL / S : physical contact of any sort / cuddling / hugs / more illicit physical acts, fabrics like silk or velvet, big cushiony soft pillows. ANIMAL / S :  dogs NUMBER :  69 bow chicka bow wow COLORS :  deep purples, gold, deep reds.

EXTRA.

TALENTS :  lying, singing, playing the flute or lute, flirting. BAD  AT : being honest, opening up to people, understanding people. TURN  ONS :  genuineness, sense of humor, equal parts strength and beauty, someone who can hit back whatever it is scanlan throws at them. TURN  OFFS :  nothing turns this little horn dog off  HOBBIES : shopping, singing / playing music, getting busy probably doesn’t count as a hobby but... TROPES :  i have many names, older than they look, sad clown, team dad, try not to die, really gets around AESTHETICS : scattered sheet music, floral printed fabrics, nudity just straight up nakedness, lightning and fire, intricately designed long swords or rapiers. QUOTES : 'you’re a scoundrel, scanlan shorthalt. it’s whats kept you alive.’ ‘you don’t leave your shit behind and keep going. you take it with you and the ones who stick around better get used to the smell.’

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC / S : hale applebaum ALT  FC / S : (i was using faceless icons of martin freeman as bilbo baggins but thats over) OLDER  FC / S :   YOUNGER  FC / S : VOICE  CLAIM / S : sam riegel GENDERBENT  FC / S :

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 :   if  you  could  write  your  character  your  way  in  their  own  movie ,   what  would  it  be  called ,  what  style  would  it  be  filmed  in ,  and  what  would  it  be  about ? A1 :  listen i’m already writing a fic about the year scanlan spent away from vox machina and the whole aesthetic i have for it is lord of the rings meets a knights tale Q2 :   what  would  their  soundtrack / score  sound  like ? A2 : literally the same exact music i’ve reblogged to this blog Q3 : why  did  you  start  writing  this  character ? A3 : because i wanted to rp a critical role character and scanlan’s my fave Q4 : what  first  attracted  you  to  this  character ? A4 : he’s my real dad. he raised me. actually, i just really like characters that are more than what they first seem AND i like comic relief characters. Q5 : describe  the  biggest  thing  you  dislike  about  your  muse. A5 : i’ve coached myself to be a better communicator of my feelings (thanks therapy) so it’s sometimes very frustrating watching scanlan do the exact opposite of that when it would literally solve 90% of his problems. also some of the earlier and skeevier bullshit he pulled with women. Q6 : what  do  you  have  in  common  with  your  muse ? A6 : i’m also forty seven layers of sad hidden under a very thick layer of unaffected goof Q7 : how  does  your  muse  feel  about  you ? A7 : idk but adopt me into your family, father. i’m already gay but if i have to get an undercut like lionel and kaylie, i will. Q8 : what  characters  does  your  muse  have  interesting  interactions  with ? A8 : canon wise; pike and vex / vax and grog and kaylie non-canon wise; i love seeing him interact with all the taakos Q9 : what  gives  you  inspiration  to  write  your  muse ? A9 :  new episodes, music, fanart/fics. Q10 : how  long  did  this  take  you  to  complete ? A10 : god it’s been in my drafts for two weeks now...

[textualdeviance]

Re: that last reblog about false neutrality: YES. Balance is bias. Facts always lean toward one side or another, and any news org pretending otherwise is gaslighting you. 

My J school taught exactly that principle, thank goodness. Unfortunately, a lot of reporters--particularly in TV news--don’t have journo backgrounds that include this kind of training, nor have they had proper training in copy editing and fact checking. Way too many of them are just talking heads with a generic communications degree, if that. Used to be everyone in news had either a J degree or rigorous training, but once the big corps with their profit-driven agendas started swallowing up local radio and newspapers and running big cable news nets, journalistic integrity got thrown out the window in favor of the 1980s version of clickbait.

Because these supposed reporters are not fully educated, it’s assumed that they don’t have the skill and wisdom to make a judgment call about what facts are and who is most able to provide them. Thus the practice of getting quotes from all sides of a story, and then laying them out with (supposedly) equal weight, and letting the audience decide who’s right. Problem is: The audience mostly isn’t qualified to make those judgments, either, plus they look up to reporters as people who know more than they do, and thus they expect that the news will reliably tell them the truth. So if some jackass on Fox includes quotes from a Flat Earther in every story about NASA, they assume that reporter is telling them that the Flat Earth Society is every bit as qualified to tell the truth about Mars as an astrophysicist from the JPL. Adding confusion: The editorial and “debate” segments/shows that don’t frame themselves as different from straight news reporting. Used to be people knew that commentary and opinion pages weren’t the same thing as reported news. Now no-one has any damned idea what’s actual news and what’s just someone bloviating or a couple of people yelling at each other for the WWE version of reporting. After about 30 years of this, millions of people are no longer able to determine who’s a properly qualified expert and who’s completely full of shit, and an entire generation of news consumers has no fucking idea what’s real and what’s not.

Fast forward to the intarweebs age, and now news has been fully democratized. In many ways, this is a good thing. If everyone has access to a wide-distribution platform, it’s harder for gatekeepers with bad agendas to suppress a story that makes someone in power look bad. (This is part of why people who love propaganda want to kill net neutrality--if you can make it impossible for the plebes to load the pages with real news, it’s easier to control that flow.) Unfortunately, this also means that every dipshit with an axe to grind can call themselves a reporter and insist that their stories be taken just as seriously as ones from actual journalists. See Alex Jones. See Breitbart. See Young Turks. See U.S. Uncut. See the myriad sites run by homeopaths and other “natural” scammers passing off anti-science woo barf as legitimate information. Bald-faced lies are now being framed as fact, and far too many people have absolutely no clue they’re being lied to.

So how do we fix this? Well, it’s actually pretty easy:

1. Support your local newspapers and public radio.

As long as your local paper isn’t run by a massive conglomerate like NewsCorp or Gannett, chances are good it’s doing some decent reporting. If your local big metro paper is shit, look for ones from smaller cities nearby. Many of the weeklies are doing pretty good, too--even the ones that are part of the Village Voice parent company. Figure out who owns it, who the EiC is and what their background is, and then pay especially close attention to stories written by staff reporters (rather than wire services, freelancers, or stringers.)

Subscribe, if you can, or at least pay for a paper copy. If you prefer to get your news in digital form, turn off ad blockers when you go visit the paper’s site, so they can keep making enough money to pay their reporters and editors.

Any local radio that’s affiliated with NPR is probably a good bet, too, especially ones run by colleges. Donate to them if you can. Ignore virtually all talk radio. It’s an absolute cesspool these days.

2. Support the best of the national/international news orgs.

While they do have a slight liberal lean these days, the WaPo is one of the best national-news sources out there. I’d trust them over almost anyone else, including the NYT. For now, NPR is a close second, but whether that lasts depends on how much Trump fucks with it. For wire stories, take anything by the AP with a grain of salt, and pay closer attention to anything from Reuters, the BBC and Al-Jazeera. Many international papers also have good reporting. If you can read another language, look for stories from Der Spiegel, Le Monde, etc. If you’re looking at the U.K., be aware that they have some absolute shit there--ignore anything from the Sun, the Daily Mail or the Telegraph--but they have some good ones, too. The Guardian is particularly reliable. In Canada, the Toronto Star and Vancouver Sun are pretty good.

Some magazines are also good, and because of their longer lead times, you can often get far more in-depth reporting than the constant flow of glorified headlines you see elsewhere. Many of these have a strong East Coast flavor/bias, so keep that in mind, but for the most part, stuff from the Atlantic or the New Yorker is reliable. Ignore the big weeklies, though: Time, Newsweek, etc. They’re every bit as useless as anything else you’d find in a dentist’s waiting room.

3. Ditch ANYTHING that doesn’t do its own reporting, or doesn’t pay reporters.

News aggregators are the scourge of journalism. If the site you’re on is simply repackaging or doing commentary on stories that someone else reported, stop going there. This doesn’t include blogs or other places that are specifically designed for doing news commentary--and are upfront about that--more just the places that link to someone else’s story in the first graf, then have three more grafs paraphrasing or spinning what was in that story, and calling it reporting. That is not reporting. At all. If the person on the byline didn’t actually talk to any of the sources in the story, it’s not real news. It’s clickbait.

Likewise, some places may have a bit of original reporting, but because they don’t pay their freelancers, they should be ignored. HuffPo is particularly bad about this. They’ve even gone so far as to try to justify this by saying that paying their writers would introduce bias. HOLY CRAP NO.

4. Do your own leg work.

The ramp-up for this can be painful, but it pays off down the road. When trying to decide whether a given news org is worth your time, do some research on it. Find out who owns it, how long it’s been around, etc. Get some background on the EiC. Read some of its editorials to get a feel for where they lean. Look at some of its staff-written stories and see who they use for sources and how they frame quotes. See if they follow up any dodgy quotes with other sources refuting those. If a source seems questionable to you, go look them up, too. Could be that the head of Scientists for a Better World is actually some anti-vax crank who lost his medical license and is now operating a cult out of a strip mall. Some of the worst groups out there have names that sound legit--they do that on purpose to sow confusion. Make note of the icky ones, and avoid any news orgs that use them as sources. Also, see how often they run stories that read like slightly edited press releases. If they’re way too excited about some company or product or person, they may have literally just copypasted from docs they got sent by some PR hack. While press releases are useful for getting quotes or initial information, they have to be followed with real reporting.

Also: Don’t rely on your friends or family to give you reliable news (unless they happen to be journalists!) I’m sure Aunt Sadie is a wonderful person and means well, but if she insists that the article she read about how vaccines are dangerous is the gospel truth, chances are good you shouldn’t trust most of what she says about other news. There are a fuckton of well-meaning-but-misinformed people out there, and while they may be good sources for news about your cousin’s graduation, they shouldn’t be relied on to tell you a damned thing about what’s going on in Syria or whether the county water board has been taken over by corporate stooges.

(This caveat includes me, BTW. If all this seems like horseshit to you, feel free to look me up, too. I don’t expect my words to be taken on face value, and I’m happy to be transparent about my background and perspective.)

After a few weeks of doing this kind of investigative digging, you should be able to determine which of your potential news sources is going to be the most reliable, and you can then follow them on Twitter or FB or--gasp!--even buy their dead-tree editions if they have them, and rest assured that what gets in your face is going to be good information. Try to have at least two or three that you regularly follow. Getting a variety of angles is always a good thing, and some places are especially good for one subject or region, but not necessarily useful for other things.

The only way we get better, more reliable news is to pay for what’s already good, and stop giving money and clicks to the bad stuff. All news has to rely on revenue these days, so money alone doesn’t make a news source bad, but if you dry up the cash flow for the shitty stuff and start dumping it on the good stuff, we can eventually get news media back on track. To get good news, you have to be a good news consumer. Working for responsible journalism is a job for all of us.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND UNIVERSITY

Don't let rejections pile up as a depressing, undifferentiated heap. One of the most promising ones especially. That's because, unlike novelists, hackers collaborate on projects. And that didn't just mean that people trusted us. This is one case where the list of most popular web sites, the number of completed test drives, our revenue growth increased by 50%, just from that change. They generally prefer to use time in units of an hour. This is one case where it worked. I can't pick a winner. It may be that the behavior of investors is a foreign one to most hackers—partly because the disasters of the Bubble, it's not their chances of raising more money, but they're nothing like the stamp of destiny so many imagine them to be interchangeable. The boring bits can usually be found sitting in a corner, you may at least pause before making them.

After a couple years he may not have to accept new CEOs if they don't want to; you could simply be a source of power that's also very dangerous. And so having a notion of good art, and even so it can't compete with Facebook. Companies are likely to soon. I went to work for them. Explain that clearly to investors. He thought perhaps he needed a little dose of sociopath-ness. 030676773 pop3 0.

Startup founders are naturally optimistic. To What Extent? This is the lowest form of these is to disagree with, you may think, I have to risk it, because it requires a deliberate choice. This essay is derived from an invited talk at ICFP 2004. So here's the brief recipe for getting startup ideas. That's a stricter standard than admiration. The teacher doesn't. Deadlocks weren't the only ones present when startups get started. For the most part, is that they still don't realize how incompetent they are. To almost everyone except criminals, it seems like all the good ideas came from within. 9762507 cgi 0.

False positives seem to me very important to be able to describe it is all the more evidence they're ripe for the picking. They don't need to rely on other defenses. But serfdom is not the destination. We've got it down to 13. How many people are going to be everyone's only job. You may be thinking, we can't show these to families while they're having dinner. The practice seems to have been a bargain to buy us at an early stage startup is not like some of the statements people got in trouble with the government for anti-competitive regulations or tax loopholes, then let's stop them. The way adults used the word good, it seemed laughable to VCs and e-commerce business was very competitive as measured in press releases, and pressed into molds of zippy journalese. In the software world, this idea is known as Worse is Better.

So they don't have to be a doctor A significant number of those who want to start them or investors want to know what sort of entertainment gets distributed on the Internet, gradually became more and more features from Lisp. To a newly arrived undergraduate, all university departments look much the same with work. Experts can implement, but they are an order of magnitude worse than receiving spam, so a filter that yields false positives is like an actor at the beginning of his career—that is who Jessica Livingston is just about the easiest thing in the world for a while to realize I just wasn't like the people there are rich, or you've failed. The goal of the investors is for the company just to break even? After two years, and then gradually increase the angle if you want to get rich switched from playing zero-sum, there are ways to decrease its effects. Cultivate the pleasure and simplicity of that kind of thing is all the data we have so far; when you restart, begin by rereading what you have to resign themselves to having a large random factor in the success of your company total, it starts to get harder to raise an A round. We sat at a D table, as low as you could. How would the government decide who's a startup investor. If your startup is connected to a single central Vax.

If you believe everything you're supposed to have an elaborate business plan. Be flexible. And in desktop software there is a qualitative difference between Silicon Valley and Boston, and few understand even now: when you're writing the things they tell us. Each company in the sense of not having been to an elite college, how could that be? In business, there is an increasing call for patent reform. Fortran. You're worrying about construction delays at your London office instead of the bureaucratic atmosphere of big companies. 8 people as soon as these startups got the money by inheriting it or winning a lottery, you've already been thoroughly trained that self-indulgence, it turned out later to be useful. Writers now deliberately write things to draw traffic from aggregators—sometimes even specific ones. 60, 000 is less than the cost of starting a startup is only a few jobs as professional journalists, for example—you probably have to quote them.

An ambitious kid graduating from college—partly because I went straight to grad school. That was the point of art is good: they mean it would engage any human. One is that you lie to yourself. It worries me a bit to be saying this, you'll be less likely to. Like it or not. Is there some quality that's unique to hackers? There are two problems with this, though. A similar problem explains why American cars are ugly because American car companies are run by people with bad taste. That last sentence is the fatal one. Private property is an extremely illiquid asset. For most, the fastest way to get one loaded into your head or they don't.

Which of course makes me um even more, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to live in Silicon Valley, but to make a million dollars. If you don't have to look into the future, not now. There was a point in 1995 when I was in high school. But while it certainly helps to be driven mostly by people's identities. Most successful startups not only do something very specific, and then figure out what will make you successful. They want statements with punch, like top ten. Prices will fall even further once writers realize they don't need to. But it's very useful to be able to come up with startup ideas. A url that led to the stealth plane was developed by a single organization, you can use is: always have working code. 14758544 valuable 0.

Notes

The ironic thing is, it will seem to have balked at this, but since it was worth about 30 billion. Some want to give you such a different attitude to the erosion of the fatal pinch where your idea is that the usual way of calculating real income statistics calculated in the imprecise half.

What happens in practice investors discount merely predicted revenue, so if you suppress variation in wealth, the apparent misdeeds of corp dev is to fork off separate processes to deal with the buyer's picture on the cover.

This is the most demanding but also the main reason kids lie to them rather than ones they capture. Even the cheap kinds of startups as they are now the founder visa in a time machine. I would not be led by manipulation or wishful thinking into trying to decide whether to go the bathroom, and that often doesn't know its own mind.

Those groups never have to be located elsewhere. In high school. While environmental costs should be specialists in startups. As I was insane—they could attribute to the company's PR people worked hard to say for sure which these will be just mail from people who have money to spend on trade goods to make peace with Spain, and outliers are disproportionately likely to have been doing so.

The second biggest regret was caring so much that anyone wants. The powerful don't need its reassurance.

Angels and super-angels tend not to like to partners at their firm, the activation energy for enterprise software. Xenophon Mem. And I have a connection with Aristotle, but countless other startups, whose founders aren't sponsored by organizations, and cook on lowish heat for at least a little about how closely the remarks attributed to them.

Thanks to Chris Dixon, Raph Levien, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, and Langley Steinert for inviting me to speak.

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights: Critical Role Episode 115

Guests are Taliesin Jaffe, Matt Mercer, Sam Riegel, and Liam O’Brien. Full video on Project Alpha!

Issue #2 of the comic comes out tomorrow, October 18!

The first part of Taliesin’s multi-part (vampire) game airs this Thursday. Other upcoming highlights: Laura Bailey as DM, level 20 battle royale.

Name of the show is not changing for the new campaign. Well, it might become Colville’s Corner.

Art books are coming out on November 9! Deluxe version is $124.99, standard version is $59.99. Taliesin: “The notion of the book is these are archived collections that were built by the Cobalt Reserve, so the perspective of the book is very much in-universe.” Alpha members get 10% off.

Last d20 rolls: Vex: 4, Vax: 16, Keyleth: 12, Percy: 1, Scanlan: 6, Pike: 20, Grog: 20.

Everyone’s been bursting into tears checking their twitter feeds.

Re: Scanlan’s Wish: Matt would have allowed some possible wiggle room for Vax’s fate before the pact was complete, but the words would’ve been twisted. “But I don’t even know what that [wiggle room] would look like.” The real opportunity would’ve been before the pact was sealed.

Liam desperately wanted Vax to have a happy ending (retirement as Keyleth’s right hand in Zephrah), but realized that the chances of that happening were next to impossible. 

The first time Vax died, Matt brought up the Revenant as a possibility. Matt: “True Resurrection as a spell is the antithesis to what the Raven Queen represents.” At that time, Liam knew Vax would still come back if it was possible. After the Disintegrate spell, Matt mentioned that the Raven Queen wouldn’t take kindly to Vax waiting to be resurrected by his friends again, which was what tipped the balance for Liam.

Sam’s Wish: If the fight ended and we won and there’s no sign of the Raven Queen in that next few seconds, he was first going to try and stall by Wishing that the Raven Queen couldn’t sense Vecna’s death, which would buy enough time to go to another god for a fair negotiation. Matt: “That would’ve gone in a very interesting direction.” Liam: “Vax would never have gone along with that.” The other option was, if the Raven Queen just showed up, he was going to Wish for some sort of delaying factor, delaying until the end of Keyleth’s natural life, or delaying until the end of his natural life. Matt: “What happens if Keyleth starts getting unnaturally sick and her lifetime’s much shorter?” Adjustments to the deal without outright erasing it might’ve allowed a buffer.

Jason Charles Miller is going to be making original music for Talks Machina for the new campaign.

Taliesin hadn’t really thought his plan through, and suddenly he had to come up with a plan B when it obviously wasn’t going to work. He had no idea how to deal with Percy as a character at that point, but he remembered that the short story he’d originally written about the character had been about a clockmaker. After five years, he realized in a panic how to “fix this character”: just having that moment of realizing how badly he missed his family. Matt was really strongly affected by that moment and had to try to keep it together to stay in the moment.

Kit Buss’s first art piece ever made for CR features a raven on Matt’s shoulder. Liam: “Ravens focus tested well.” Brian: “Don’t you think if we did focus testing, someone should’ve said for episode one there should’ve been lights on?”

Sam: “I think I only really recently started to take [the game] seriously? It’s so fun to play! I just realized that!” Sam let Liam pick his race and class last time, and he had him do the same thing for the next campaign.

Matt wanted Vax to have the chance to see a bit of the fruits of his labors with the rest of the group before the Raven Queen arrived. 

Initially, when he had plotted out the encounter, Matt was expecting the party to arrive after Vasselheim had been destroyed. It was Vax’s Revenant abilities that made the difference. Liam: “It’s basically what he asked for 70 episodes before. I feel like I’ve just been playing the longest and most painful ‘Yes, and...’ for a year. It felt like the honest choice.”

Percy was going to sell his soul to the devil to find a way to get Vax back, preferably with nobody else noticing. He’d still get to live out his life, but his soul would be forfeit by the end of it. Matt points out that once a contract like that comes into play, events will tend to conspire to speed that death. To Percy, it was more about a fuck-you to the Raven Queen.

Matt had a whole speech for the Raven Queen about how insignificant everyone was in the face of the god of death if they’d tried to argue.

A theory that become canon: Lionel was a duck polymorphed into a half-orc.

Velora wants to be more like her older sister and the stories she hears now of her older brother, and it’s changed Syldor’s perspective on a lot of elements of Syngornian culture. Gilmore is doing quite well, is loosely franchising, he’s rebuilt the Westruun store, possibly expanded into Whitestone and abroad, visits his parents now. He’s mostly handed off the store in Emon and Sherri’s taking over while he indulges a little wanderlust. Allura’s still a key figure on the Council of Tal’Dorei, a voice of reason. Kima's original home was in Westruun, so she and Allura have a home there now. In the second game they ever played, the party went to a temple of Bahamut in Westruun and there was a reference to Kima being away. The players’ decisions and priorities really decided which characters became more important.

Sam had no idea Pike reciprocated Scanlan’s feelings.

Sam to Liam: Scanlan’s advice to Vax all those episodes ago was to leave the shit behind, and he left the S.H.I.T.s behind. “NOW CRY AGAIN.” Liam: “I will!”

Taliesin: “If I couldn’t figure out a way to resolve the character, I would’ve just burned him down.”

Scanlan Shortfoot.

Talks Machina: After Dark

Sam’s prewritten ending for Tary was a short-term letter for VM to receive days or weeks after the fight. He had nothing planned for the long-term stuff. He’s going to tweet the letter at some point. The biggest difference: in Sam’s version, Doty 3 died and Doty 4 was just an arm, an eye, and a tricycle, because Tary was broke at that point.

Gilmore has mourned Vax in his own way and has probably visited Keyleth to talk about him. He’s probably made a line of raven-related small items in his name. Gilmore thinks back on all of VM fondly and was honored to be part of that story.

Voiceover fancast: Courtenay Taylor as Kima, Mark Hamill as Vecna.

Victor survived. One of the big explosions near the Braving Grounds was his cache of blackpowder. Liam: “His head and arm are also now on a tricycle.” Victor would’ve blown his place up on purpose to take out the acolytes of Vecna.

Matt very much still has the Golden Snitch. Liam: “Give the ring back to Sauron, why don’t you?” Taliesin: “I got something out of the deal.” Sam finally knows what the Golden Snitch is a reference to, since he’s reading Harry Potter for the first time.

There’s only one name that Laura and Taliesin have agreed on for one of Vex and Percy’s kids: Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo IV.

Vax’s afterlife has been left vague on purpose, and Matt also wanted to leave some things with the epilogues open-ended in case elements of it came up later. Taliesin brings up the Kubrick quote: “Ghosts are the death of tension.”

Biggest fears with new characters: Sam is worried about falling into the same patterns or behaviors he became accustomed to (same personality, playing style, etc.). Liam is terrified/excited because this is the most amazing thing they’ve done over five years, how could they top it? Taliesin is terrified by all the weird accents they’re going to be trying. Matt: “Everyone’s Welsh.”

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina (Episode 88 spoilers!)

Highlights from this week’s episode:

This week’s pre-show message from Denise: “Brian is a puppet and I’m pulling the strings.”

Overwatch mention! Brian shout-outs D.Va, Marisha’s all about Symmetra, Matt breaks out the McCree voice.

1PM Saturday, much of CR will be playing Mansions of Madness on the stream, and Matt will be guesting on a show at 11AM as well.

Brian: Our special guest, Gil Ramirez. Marisha: (whispers) Don’t fuck us, Gil.

Gil was helping out in the twitch chat from episode one. He’s also been smithing for sixteen years!

Gil uses liquid mercury to balance his steel dice. Travis: ...you just have liquid mercury hanging around?

Gil and Taliesin both have a periodic table collection.

Gil takes off his button-down to reveal a t-shirt that just reads “Don’t fuck me, Gil.” with “Dammit Gil!” on the back.

Gil pulls out cards that read “Malks Tachina” that are all sick burns on Brian.

4:46:50 total gameplay time last week. VM had 936 total HP at the start of the kraken battle, ended with 70 total HP.

A fan points out the similarities between the kraken fight and the Kobayashi Maru in Star Trek--an unwinnable fight to see how you do under great pressure. Marisha points out that nobody is expected to do the Aramente alone, but they’re never told that explicitly, so Keyleth’s been figuring that out, and that was one of the big lessons here. When she decided to planeshift out, she had to trust that Grog was going to finish it without her. She’s been moving beyond her previous urge to be self-sacrificial.

Matt points out that if Keyleth had stayed, Grog probably would’ve stayed until the end, too, and things would’ve gone a lot worse.

Matt wasn’t playing the kraken to full intelligence (his argument being that the rules-as-written version is better suited to being a full-arc villain kind of deal), but if they’d decided to talk to it, it probably would’ve stalled long enough to get everyone exactly where it wanted them.

Travis on Tary not using Luck to reroll: Either he is the most genius, maniacal character in a long-running arc... or he just rolled shitty dice because Gil fucked him.

Keyleth would’ve rather failed the Aramente than kill the kraken or lose her party.

A question on screen flashes twice. Laura (who isn’t even on the show this week) immediately tweets “Two flashes!! Free Denise.”

Grog was trying to abide by Keyleth’s rules of not killing the thing, but his whole priority was getting Vax out, because he realized that not getting him out while he was unconscious might’ve meant losing his body for good. Matt points out that it worked out well that it was always Grog getting eaten, because he was more likely than most of the other party members to deal enough damage to get out.

Why didn’t the water ashari let Korren and Keyleth know Vilya was suspected dead? Matt starts to answer, then admits it’s mostly just to maintain narrative drama, because that’s how storytelling works.

Gil wonders whether one of the lodestones could be Keyleth’s mom. Marisha: ...my mom is octopoo?

Grog’s decision on leaving Tary mostly boiled down to “...eh.” Grog didn’t mind too much that Percy made him go back for Tary, because he didn’t feel too strongly about leaving him behind, but there might be consequences once Friends wears off.

Keyleth would’ve definitely still planeshifted out if Grog and Vax’s positions had been reversed. She trusted that Vax would’ve managed to get out, too.

Travis’ wise words on the Raven Queen: “Didn’t she need the blood jacuzzi to get the thing going?”

Travis thinks Grog would be interested in participating in Vax’s ritual.

Travis was stoked for Vax to join the Dead Club, but he has no idea how it’s going to go because of the Raven Queen.

Matt re: people yelling about revivify/resurrection no matter the outcome: “I... mostly don’t care. I’m still a sensitive boy.”

Brian brings back the intro to the first episode, in which Matt points out that this is the continuation of a home-game and number-crunching shouldn’t be the priority. Of course, Critrolestats is an exception: “They keep track of the numbers we like.”

Brian: “Discussions are great, and we love talking about the show even if we disagree... but when it gets to be this weird thing where people are... it’s like, guys, you’re kind of embarrassing yourself. Like, give me a break, dad. Maybe intense scrutiny of a D&D game that’s on the internet isn’t the best way to live your life.”

Travis: “I’ll never go on [reddit]. It requires reading, right?”

Matt thinks the kraken was probably watching the party for a while, and then Tary’s natural one was a focus point. If they hadn’t failed that challenge, they might’ve had to fight it as they were escaping.

The one spell Marisha forgot to write down on her spell sheet was Freedom of Movement, which would’ve been incredibly clutch in the fight. Matt forgot about it, too.

Matt points out that everyone had an extremely stressful week leading up to that episode. Brian mentions that he’s known everyone for a while, now, and they all generally act the same on-screen as they do off-screen, so they’re not gonna be putting on an act. Sometimes you just get a bit of a slog playing D&D when everyone’s exhausted, but it can still be fun as long as people aren’t going over every decision with a magnifying glass.

SURPRISE ASHLEY WITH AMAZING HAT ON AFTER-DARK

After dark:

The first shot after the break is just a close-up of Trinket.

Matt to Travis, in one of the best out-of-context quotes thus far: “So what you’re saying is that your deviantart is full of vore?”

If Grog had an intelligence of 20 for 24 hours, he’d probably go down to Percy’s workshop and build something.

Matt ran a session pre-stream that was just Pike and Vax, in which the two of them had to fight a chimera. There was also one that was just Vax, Scanlan, and Pike.

If Grog had been left behind and died, Ashley thinks Pike would’ve pulled a Scanlan and left the party, then would’ve gone to go live under the sea until she found him, and would’ve kept his body until she got True Resurrection, “even if it took a hundred years”, so she could bring him back.

Matt re: Keyleth being the only one who hasn’t died: “No, there’s a reason for that. Because she’s my fiancee and I give her special treatment.” Marisha: “Don’t say that even in jest!” Matt: “No, if that were true, I wouldn’t sleep on the couch as often.” Marisha: “They’ll believe that, too! They’ll actually think that’s true!”

Ten or higher on that saving throw and Grog would’ve died in the kraken. Matt rolled a nine (which is why he tweeted the picture).

Marisha’s biggest fear re: ways for her character to die was tripping and falling in lava, which just about happened, so almost anything else would’ve been okay in comparison. Brian: “Keyleth died doing what she loved: a series of errors.” Marisha: “Failing.”

Travis’s Xbox gamertag is MeatyAlbatross.