no mercy, only frogs

squirrel • 22 • they/them critical role liveblog on thursdays • spoilers are tagged until tuesday

[squirrel-stowaway]

jester: I was thinking when we get the zadash and see the gentleman, I could make myself look like my mom!

everyone else: 👁️👄👁️

[squirrel-stowaway]

the hadestown proshot was very very good but the odyssey next door was so loud that we could hear loud rumbling and it kept distracting us 😭

[revvethasmythh]

i think the most offensive thing sam ever said to tal was that he's too normal and not like a real goth person

[soleaspfeiffer]

If it's true what they say, I'll be on my way

[gorgynei]

god i love hadestown so much and this recording is next level. oh my god. oh my GOD.

[mightyneinrewatch]

Episode 78: Between the Lines

The Mighty Nein return to Zadash, where lore and knowledge await those that know where to look...

[frogmood]

500 years from now there’s gonna be some film historian who’s entire career is built off of searching for a copy of goncharov

[rainstormyday]

and they're never gonna find it cuz they fucking took it off poob

[utilitycaster]

I keep trying to make this post and I keep providing a ton of examples and never getting to the point so: the thing is, re: Taliesin's line on Tale Gate about facts being more transient than story, he has a point in terms of how stories occupy the imagination and how they can be incredibly effective in spurring people to action - indeed, we see this in-world with KoTher'ai, and in Thjazi telling Hal that maybe all he has is a story. Stories do endure within the mind of most people in a particular way that facts, especially unconnected facts, do not.

But I think that's the problem. Bolaire, as a museum curator, should be trying to provide the facts about a war that has, despite being within living memory for the longer-lived peoples and even a few older orcs, very much become a thing of story. Indeed, we can tie a lot of the complacency of the Revolutionary Council to the fact that the people of Araman and especially Dol-Makjar have been semi-resting on their laurels for 70 years because they have this narrative of revolution constantly around them when the truth is the power vacuum is rapidly filling with the Sundered Houses. The term "Sundered Houses" is itself a narrative, that of people who lost their homes to the Barrowdells, except that's not really the truth either, because now they all have multiple estates and immense power. At this point, these terms have passed into the realm of story and even propaganda.

At the same time, Bolaire as one of the Panto is about telling a story and making the story true, which is something directly in conflict with museum curation, which should be about showing the truth behind the story. And then, in his personal life, Bolaire is dedicated to this idea of truth-telling about Thjazi and stripping away that mythology. And all of this contradiction and hypocrisy would be really, really interesting if any of it was actually being explored in the slightest, but it's not.

More generally I am very much on the record for being skeptical of higher concept characters not because I think it's a bad thing, but because they are very hard to pull off, and I don't think it's happening here. If you show up to the table and say "hey I'm a human fighter" then there's plenty you can do with your character but you haven't set up any specific hoops to jump through; you have a great deal of freedom in terms of how you proceed. If you show up to the table with a high concept, you need to be prepared to execute that concept.

All of this is to say there's a reason why people have so many reservations about this character and it's because even a fairly generous and reparative reading of Taliesin's commentary on Tale Gate when placed up against how he's actually playing Bolaire leaves much to be desired.

[r0bee]

If no one in the fandom got me my very loyal mutual who has no idea what I'm talking about does!!!

[captainofthetidesbreath]

since the post I just reblogged about this Tale Gate is making me think about these comments all over again, it remains that this is a crazy insane thing to say earnestly and unironically in this era of post-truth politics

[darikbelochka]

Wanted to sketch Murray’s room)

[sunny-artz]

DododoododoDONUTS!

[burr-ell]

I caught up with the Schemers' Tale Gate a little bit ago, and Taliesin said something there that stood out to me, in response to Liam discussing Hal's use of the theatre to portray the history of the Rungjani. His commentary is...not great, and I think it also lies at the heart of the issue with the way Taliesin is handling Bolaire's view of Thjazi:

"I can retort with history is a snapshot of the present, and history is made by storytellers. Facts come and go; stories are what lasts. [...] It only takes one good diary to change our perspective on a whole situation that happened a hundred years ago. [...] I was literally thinking of a diary that was found during the San Francisco earthquake that actually, like—we find these things and suddenly we realize that a whole bunch of people were full of shit."

Yeah, I don't need a doctorate in history to know this sucks. One single primary source may be all it takes to convince a subset of people that actually a historical figure was incompetent or terrible, but that does not mean that perception is accurate. One lone diary isn't a study of history in any meaningful sense; it's a record of one person's experience, and that alone is not historiography. Caring more about story than about facts is not a good thing—one of those things is pretend and the other has an actual impact on real people's lives. This is incredibly self-congratulatory; it has nothing substantive to do with this entirely separate discipline; it's frankly pretty bad storytelling anyway; and it would furthermore make most actual academics grind their teeth at the kindest.

But it also sheds some light on why Taliesin, out of game, insists that Thjazi can't possibly be working for a happy ending that is inclusive of the PCs and that he actually planned for half the PCs to die and that everyone who likes him is a "schmuck". He truly believes that if only everyone could just read Bolaire's diary, they'd all agree Thjazi was full of shit. He truly believes that he alone has the game-changing knowledge, and everyone else is too willfully blind to try to look for it.

I don't think that's particularly nuanced. I think it's just inverted Great Man Theory. Considering I learned better in my APUSH classes, I think calling that sophomoric is an insult to high school sophomores.

[number1mongrel]

"You hear that? They're saying The Odyssey doesn't even have nobody!"

"They've got nobody in the Odyssey?"

"No I'm saying they don't got nobody."

"Nobody's there?"

"Nobody's not there!"

"So everyone's there?"

"Everybody but nobody!"

[woodwool]

worst part of being an adult is how often youre forced to nag. you Have to be annoying or youre never getting anything done. which is unfortunate considering how common it is to teach kids to never nag and be annoying ever

[woodwool]

a professional i am paying money doesnt show up w zero communication and IM the one who has to feel guilty for having to call him and ask whats going on. because when i was a little kid i would get yelled at for nagging. joke world

[writeouswriter]

Completely personal preference but gonna be real with you, vampires and werewolves and stuff like that just don't hit the same for me without the angst, the guilt, the terror, like what's the point, "oh but what if he was just a puppy," yeah yeah, that's nice, I don't care, what if their very being was tearing them apart from the inside, what if the hunger never stops clawing and clawing and clawing even if you have it under control for the moment, not to say there's not exceptions or variations, those who've come to terms with or revel in their nature or etc., different opportunities for silliness or softness for sure, but to strip *all* manner of horror or discomfort from the lore, it's like wow, where is the appeal, the flavour, I hope you're hungry FOR NOTHING, just like your "vampire" apparently

[seleandreia]