Mythic or Mystic

[myceliyolk]

reminder that "allies welcome" was once secret code for "those not out yet can still participate without putting themselves at risk", and for those who aren't out yet to comfortably exist in these spaces you have to let allies exist in those spaces too.

[meeks-peaks]

this is also important for queer people who don't know anyone else there. let them bring their friend, even if the friend is cishet. many would rather not go at all, rather than go somewhere alone.

[thesealfriend]

It is always better to let respectful cishets into our spaces than to try and police who is queer enough to be allowed.

[afniel]

Some of y'all really need to get comfortable fast with the idea that a healthy community generally contains peripheral members who aren't themselves in the community demographic, but are still socially part of that community.

Also, like, I realize this is currently Unpopular Opinion Material, but it honestly should be a freezing cold take: you can absolutely be cishet AND queer. Those aren't mutually exclusive things. Queerness works on so many more axes than just sexual orientation and birth-assigned gender congruency.

[wagyubeefs]

“the fandom has decided - ” “everyone agrees that - ” “we all know that this is the only right way to - ”

[dorothygale]

pop health science is so annoying bc it'll be like "did you know? eating strawberries will give you mega cancer" and you're like pfft whatever begone influencer. but sometimes then you'll see a reasonably credible article like "Study Shows Possible Link Between Strawberries and Mega Cancer" and you're not usually the type to follow that kind of thing religiously but idk maybe you should consider not eating strawberries? but then there's another article saying "Strawberry/Mega Cancer Study Debunked" and it turns out the original study had a sample size of 3 and was funded by Big Blueberry, and strawberries may have a small connection to mega cancer but only if you are genetically predisposed to mega cancer and eat 50 strawberries every day. so you return to your strawberry eating life. but whenever you eat strawberries in public someone tells you about the mega cancer.

[susandsnell]

feminist killjoy hours again, what the actual fuck is “weird girl literature” and how often do we acquiesce to the latest degrading gendered advertising campaigns

[susandsnell]

Women did not fucking pioneer horror, thriller, and science fiction as we know it for publishing to infantilize it into a high school phase

[susandsnell]

is Stephen king “weird boy literature”? Or does he get to be an adult horror novelist?

[alliepretends]

Actually, I have one more thought about Hal and building community I want to try to hash out. Less about his relationship to it as a theme and more about how the theme informs his characterization. Particularly, the flawed premises he operated under at the beginning of the campaign. I don't think this is a "greatest strength, also greatest flaw" kind of thing, because all indications are that he's mostly moved on from this way of thinking by the end of Convergence, but I do find it fascinating.

Basically, I think a lot about the connection between these three moments: Yanessa at Thjazi's execution

Hal bribing the guard

Thaisha's blessing to Azgra

Hal is not someone who has ever seems to have doubted the justice of Thjazi's cause. He does not need to be convinced that the Sundered Houses are bad news. What he does doubt is that they should be the ones to fight. And he emphasizes two things when framing his choice against Thjazi's. First, that he's choosing the Rungjani, specifically Dol-Makjar, specifically his children, but the Rungjani. Second, that they have served their time already. That for them, war should be a thing of the past. Now, I've talked in the past about what a radical and important choice it is for an Orc in Araman to reject war conceptually. Which is true. But I think this idea that war ought to be behind them, that they, as individuals and as a culture, have earned peace, interlocks with this idea of building community in a fascinating way.

I don't want to make his motives sound purely altruistic because I don't think that's true. I think Hal's trauma from the War of Axe and Vine made him deeply fear violence on a personal level. But I do think his dream of reclaiming the Round was always bigger than himself. And it's chasing the Round that caused Hal to make moral compromises. He hasn't just rejected fighting against the Sundered Houses, he has ingratiated himself with them. Teaching Wick elocution, schmoozing with them to get funding and access to land that they shouldn't even hold. I've talked in the past about him throwing his political connections around while unabashedly bribing a guard. He has done this all in service of reclaiming the Hallowed Round and building a space for orcs to gather as a community and explore their history. (Kother'ai was a play he was planning to put on long before it became a comment on Thjazi's execution). Prior to the campaign, when choosing between security and freedom, Hal has chosen security. When choosing between security and morality, Hal has chosen security. But it is a choice he's made with experience convincing him that you cannot build things that last in war.

That in order for a community ravaged by centuries of war to grow, peace was something it needed. He believed, perhaps rightly, that giving his people a place to "figure out who they are and who they will be," required peace. And he has been willing to sacrifice a lot to maintain that peace. But peace also tends to be in the service those who have power. And compromising to maintain it will only ever make those already in power stronger

[alliepretends]

How Hal builds community feels hugely important to his role in the larger party (and why I was very resistant to theories about him leaving Dol-Makjar during Convergence). We've seen him do it in three major ways: providing art for people to experience together (I actually think it's hugely important that he's a playwright, actor, and musician, not a painter or novelist, I know that's basically a given for bard as a class, but also, he specifically makes art intended to be experienced in groups), providing comfort to people in emotional distress, and providing spaces for people to gather. (We also know he does some politicking, but we haven't really seen that in action beyond glimpses yet. Fingers crossed for the next schemers arc.)

Those last two, but especially providing spaces to gather, is what I really want to talk about. Hal is the maintainer of home and hearth. He stays home and raises the children while his brother and lover go to seek a better world. And he is the safe resting place they return to when they can. Pre-campaign, this is true for Thjazi,

for Thaisha,

for Azune (at least in the past),

presumably for Alogar, and to a certain extent for Thimble (she says this about Hal's house in episode 3) .

Now, it is becoming true for the whole party. There's a post I reblogged back somewhere about how interesting it is to have a male character fill this role: the one left waiting in hope, ready to provide comfort and a space to rest. Which is true. But it's also just an interesting role to have a PC play in general. D&D is a game geared toward traveling adventure. Yes, you can quite successfully play a whole game in one city, but it was created with the idea of adventurers going out exploring. And yet Hal has historically been, and so far remains, not an adventurer on a quest but a safe harbor for everyone to land in. The Schemers have deliberately not operated out of Hal's home for security reasons, but as soon as the Seekers and Soldiers returned, Hal's home is where everyone went. And now, it is where Teor and Cyd's bodies lay, despite them being people Hal only knew in passing. The Hallowed Round is a space Hal has provided for the free people of Dol-Makjar to gather and find community and inspiration in. Hal's House is a place he is providing for the people fighting to keep Dol-Makjar free to gather and discuss the future and lick their wounds. And providing these spaces, he is building community on both a grand and small scale. It doesn't matter that he barely knows Julien or Kattigan. They both know that they can enter Hal's home freely and safely after their missions because it is the space this community gathers. And Hal, even as he has been forced to join the fight, is also still keeping the home fire burning for everyone to rest around.

And I do actually think this is critical to the story CR4 is telling. Not just a fun idea Liam has decided to explore with his character. CR4 is not a story of found family. Found family might happen because of the nature of D&D parties and playing with your friends, but it is a story about resisting tyranny. And one of the most basic, fundamental aspects of resisting tyranny is building resilient (and non-isolationist) communities. It doesn't actually matter if Thimble and Julien ever like each other. It does matter that they can and do share a community and a purpose. And Hal, by virtue of providing a space for said community to gather, is doing a ton of the work necessary to make that possible

[porcelain-dollbones]

it really is kind of interesting how attached people are to the idea of the improvised line and the genuine reaction in film. nearly every single famous moment or line has some sort of claim floating around that it wasn't in the script and was either made up on the spot by an actor or was sprung as a surprise on the actors to get their 'real' reaction. you know, sometimes people do come up with good lines in advance and write them down, and sometimes people can pretend to be have a convincing emotional response on screen

[squishy-gumble]

also important to note that a lot of the 'improvised' lines that people talk about are things that might not be in the script, that the actors cone up with while shooting, but still discuss and figure out with the director before shooting the final takes. genuinely improvised lines without any prior knowledge are pretty rare. i think instances when the people involved in making a film collaborate to make changes to a script are really cool, and the fetishisation of the 'genuine reaction' and 'improvised line' also cheapen this form of 'improvisation' i.e. collaboration and flexibility among artists

[scattergoriesofevil]

Thimble knows who and what Thjazi was better than anyone. She didn’t know the details of his half of their operation, by design, but she ran half of it. She was his partner in crime, full stop. When Thjazi was betrayed by an old ally, Thimble immediately went to find him, stabbed him in the eye, and slit his throat.

Laura Bailey has been extremely clear from the beginning, when she told us “Thimble is a stone cold killer.” I’d argue Thimble is a ruthless adversary with vast criminal expertise who only a fool would cross, but in no scenario is she a “good” protagonist unaware of the general nature of what her “morally gray” partner was getting up to. Thjazi’s business was her business. Thjazi was a pretty complicated hero, and so is she.

[kiwimintlime]

Hal and Thaisha are not divorced. I definitely thought so at the start of the campaign, but by the time we get the end of the Conference, it's clear to me that they aren't. for one thing, they were never married so in a literal sense they can't be divorced. but more to the spirit of what people mean when they call them divorced, I personally don't believe Hal and Thaisha's romantic relationship ever ended. she still has a designated room at his house despite having a family home in the same city. they still canonically sleep together. and throughout the Convergence we can see how deeply they still love each other, through words and actions. I can understand why people assume they're divorced/broken up. their relationship decidedly functions very differently from what is average and conventional. if I had to put specific terms to it, I'd call it a long-distance open relationship. but that feels rather clinical and like an attempt to shove it into an easily understood digestible box, which seems silly to do considering they're a completely different species with a completely different culture from a completely different world. whatever the case, I love the two of them and what they share for its unique view of what romance can look like. and I'm excited to see how their relationship develops, as well as their individual relationships with other characters

[apricops]

as part of their ongoing boycott, Canada will no longer provide the US with totally real long-distance girlfriends who definitely exist

[charliecornwalls]

“thimble doesn’t know what kind of man thjazi really was.” Hate to break it to you guys but thimble is also a morally grey character.

[pansy2025]

anyway. stop making your entire personality being mean. it’s boring

[pansy2025]

i’m so tired of it. oh you’re jaded? oh you’re casually cruel? oh you think it’s funny? you think you’re better than everybody else? snooze! why don’t you go get a real personality

[escuerzoresucitado]

[red-twist]

I feel like the audience of the first moving picture

[berdymane]

[calllynx]

Op turned off reblogs but I MUST

[sandinmybed]

something i find frustrating about Life lately is how people just absolutely refuse to experience any discomfort. and i dont mean this in the boomer "wah kids have it too easy theyre all pushovers and pussies" way, but i mean people will go crazy over anything thats not totally 100% sanitised and comfortable and pure and whatever the fuck. a show has a sex scene and you dont like it? people used to just look away for a second and maybe cringe. now it's a whole thinkpiece. people would rather ghost their friends or let issues fester rather than ever address an issue in their relationship with them. they wont let their friends vent in case it makes them uncomfortable. like can you just buck the fuck up and let things be a bit awkward sometimes? it wont kill you.

[quintley]

Complex video game moral choices