Wife knife is rife

I'm just here to enjoy my shows and have a good time.

[vodkaisgay28]

This is very messy but god do I love that woman… guys I need more of her in the campaign rn

[captainofthetidesbreath]

paladins on Julien Davinos

4.03: The Snipping of Shears // 4.05: Branching Paths // 4.05: Branching Paths // 4.16: Visions of Shadow & Stone // 4.29: Opening Night // 4.30: Here in the Dark

[tarydarrington]

"Wicander, that one in five may be the end of your character's life."

[your-turn-to-role]

the entire discovery of thjazi in julien's shadow scene, because it's beautiful

[luckthebard]

I think the thing that’s starting to annoy me too about Taliesin’s approach to this campaign is like…he’s very clearly not trusting Brennan as the DM to be straight with him above table. Brennan is saying things, both above table during the game and in the cooldowns that are clear DM signaling of “this is what the story is and what the themes are” and his response is to slyly be like “hmmm cute but I don’t trust it, I have a bad feeling”.

And it’s like. At a certain point with D&D you have to trust that the DM isn’t tricking you about what story is being told. If you don’t, you’re going to be actively working against the collaborative storytelling.

[pretzelwicki]

... F U C K

They're so iconic, absolutely impeccable comedic timing on Julien's part

[johnanderton]

The banner flies, and the General who opposed Teor in undeath, in life permanently altered and ruined his relationship with his son because the honor of the house Davinos was divided between those who opposed the Falconer's Rebellion and a general who would be horrified to know that he had killed Teor Pridesire. You do not destroy Raimond Davinos. You free him.

[steakandvodka]

regardless of anything else, thjazi does actually have the right to be pissed about being attached to julien's shadow if only for the fact that the very first night the curse took effect he had to watch julien have a threesome.

[alliepretends]

Actually, I'm going to discourse about it. Sorry! And it's very much along the lines of what I said about Murray's doubts over Thjazi's intentions. Thjazi is dead. Yes, he's in Julien's shadow, but he's there as a haunting. He is literally and figuratively haunting the narrative! He is not going to grow and change (maybe a little in his relationship to Julien now, but that's it). It's not his purpose. He is and remains more symbol than character (and while there are avenues open to Brennan to turn him back into a character, I think most of those would be a mistake, because it would very much make Thjazi the main character of the story to bring him back in a significant way.) It is important for Thjazi to be a flawed man. To have been impulsive sometimes, and wrong sometimes, to have hurt people (both intentionally and unintentionally), for him to have used people, and for him to have not had empathy for those still attached to the ways of the shapers/the sundered houses. It's important not for the sake of making Thjazi the character more interesting (that's nice, but it actually isn't necessary to telling this story well), it's important because it complicates his legacy and makes him harder for our protagonist to reckon with. It makes the fact that they are following in his footsteps more complicated because they aren't just blindly following his example. There will be places they diverge from him, for better and for worse. It does not add anything to the story to make him villainous or abusive. It doesn't add anything to the story to say our archetypal freedom fighter actually did have a group of people that he viewed as less than human. That he was cruel to the point where it would actually horrify his family and friends and make them not want to honor his memory. Or make them think less of him. All that does is deflate him as a symbol. He stops being someone whose legacy is being carefully navigated and becomes someone whose haunting of the narrative is a simple inconvenience. He stops meaning freedom fighter to the audience, and starts meaning nothing to them.

Bolaire is a character in this story. He is a PC with the capacity to grow and change and respond to the world around him. In fact, that's kind of his whole job as a PC. It adds nothing to the story if Thjazi is secretly way worse than we thought. It does add something to the story if Bolaire is wrong/hypocritical about him. Because that's an arc! That's something that Bolaire can learn about himself and the world and grow and change in response to! That's the whole ballgame in terms of telling a story. If Bolaire is uncomplicatedly right about Thjazi's treatment of him, that severely damages a central symbolic pillar of the narrative (think about Hal calling up the Falcon's Cry at the end of Kother'ai, that moment matters because of how we think about Thjazi and his final words to the crowd). If he's largely wrong, we've got a character arc to explore!

[steakandvodka]

OOoooOOooohh I'm rewatching the Sundered Houses meeting and just registered that Primus said a "great degree of noble blood" needs to be spilled for the black candle to work. Given that we know there's at least one more of these candles in existence, wouldn't that be just sooooooo interesting to let the Einfasen know and potentially speed up their little "crush the skull" initiative???

[coffeeecatss]

Where Is Thjazi Fang?

[utilitycaster]

I don't want to harp on this a ton (ie, this will be my last post unless I get asks) but I do find any comparisons between Bolaire and Julien as the resident Thjazi-haters disingenuous because the thing is, Julien brings this up all the time, but as his core motivation is "destroy House Tachonis" and he is desperate for allies and knows it, it doesn't really matter as he is going to work with this group to the best of his ability. He might hate Thjazi, but he's going to scream "FUCK" and leave the theorizing to the nerds. Bolaire is set up to be someone who can gain access to lore and information and he really did not do that and he keeps trying to get others to join him and sulking when they don't despite there being objective evidence that Thjazi, while a huge dick to Bolaire specifically, was not ill-intentioned elsewhere (and despite a lot of these people grieving and making it pretty clear that no matter how Bolaire felt about Thjazi, Thjazi's work was in fact for the benefit of the world at large). Like, Julien understands that he is being a hater but that there's something larger going on. And more generally, most of Julien's actions have resulted in consequences that landed squarely on him, with the exception of leaving Teor (which is marginal anyway - like, again, that was a lot of bad rolls) whereas Bolaire's have deprived the group of useful information and almost certainly closed off certain avenues.

Having more knowledge from the coffin and Archanade - actually finding out what Lady Cormoray wanted - would have both greatly assisted with risk assessment and probably set up some Sundered Houses plotting and Search For Artifacts threads that now need to come through other means. Everything going on with Termina is like, well, you could have looked at the coffin and not pissed off Lady Cormoray and you did both those things. I think having Bolaire in a large group that isn't so individually driven as the Schemers are will be really good, so again, if you're tired of my criticism too bad it's my blog but also it will probably be lessening. But any comparison with Julien really is a comparing Watsonian apples and Doylist oranges situation.

[no-atheists-in-fckstles]

Thjazi's proving his dangerously average WIS more and more with each reveal. I don't have Beacon, but some alleged cooldown moments are making me side-eye tf out of this man, however good his intentions.

Dragging Julien off his horse, and trying to get him deeper into the manor TWICE, were actions driven by pure emotion—not intelligence, and certainly not emotional intelligence. It seems like he has not seriously considered what Julien's death (and Alba's on top of it) would do to Aranessa's mental health at this point. Callowyn is dead, and...

...the doors to Faerie closing may have been the Cloak's fault to begin with. "The damage of our first attempt" sure is a mild way to put it.

Telling Hal about the paint without telling him about the Stone??! And you're saying WHAT could have happened at the play without it??! Dubious methods indeed.

He rubbed elbows with some shady factions, from the Lana Strossa to the Gallows Choir, seemingly without asking enough questions. Yeah dude, of course that 20-year-old coulda fought in the rebellion. The Choir recruits tweens.

This makes the story better, though. The main characters no longer feel like they facilitated a Good Consequences Boulder that Thjazi pushed downhill. They need a whole lot more than faith in him and his NPC allies to make good plans.

[steakandvodka]

okayokayokay there's still so much processing i need to do about everything that was dropped on us in those six hours, but holy fuck we were right about the shadow curse!!

i'm so so excited about what this means for julien's next arc, but for now i actually think what we learned about the curse tells us more about thjazi, because what do you mean he didn't realize julien saved his soul until he read that koral letter??? thjazi had some idea about the tachonis' enslaving souls in the underworld -- at the very least, he knew the underworld was extremely dangerous because of them. so i'm very curious about what his perception of the curse was before he read that letter.

and also... i was genuinely surprised to find out julien getting attacked by shadows in the endless night was thjazi. i thought that combat was more of a coincidence connected to the magic of tannesar, and maybe an attempt to throw the audience off the scent. it does make sense for thjazi's character to do that, but it also speaks to a lack of self-awareness. because, come on thjazi, you're going to attack julien because you don't like that he left aranessa's side??? does anyone else see the irony there??

anyway, i need to learn more about julien's background with thjazi in the next seekers arc! i thought i had a good idea of what their history looks like, but this has thrown me a little and i desperately want to learn more.

[utilitycaster]

I may make a longer post about this but like. I don't see the point of trying to blame Julien NOR argue that he made an optimal or mechanically wise decision. what is important that it was in character and decisive and interesting and most importantly, awesome.

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

it's a lot worse if Wicander was the "face of the Creed" but Zebani is the heir

this is taking eldest daughter expectations to the next fucking level

could you imagine? Zebani is the head of the family but people will effectively worship Wicander, and Zebani gets none of that recognition, none of those accolades, none of the flowers

it's always going to be Wicander Show while she plots and schemes and does all this hard work in the background, behind the scenes

because for whatever reason, Yanessa Halovar looked at her granddaughter Zebani and decided Zebani can't be the face

and here's where im like, have a speculative explanation as to why that is:

bc yknow i kinda wouldnt put it past Yanessa to set these two kids against each other? we cant have nice, loving sibling relationship. they might end up more loyal to each other than to her. so split them up, make zebani hate wicander, then zebani will make wicander hate her

or, you know, maybe it's just a case of Grandmummy plays favorites and for whatever reason, she adores her little Wiccy

or, zebani isn't an aasimar. if wiccy was doing spells pre-tattoo like lioran is apparently already doing, then yanessa knooooows her experiment paid off. if wiccy was anything like lioran pre-puberty, and already manifesting sorcerous abilities without filament aid, yanessa knew what she was working with

bc lioran explicitly knows that he has sorcerous abilities, not clerical. and even if he didnt know, his lack of tattoos paired with his arcane skills indicates that yanessa would know lioran is sorcerous.

so hey. maybe aetheon's boys bleed true. but his one girl did not.

many possibilities as to why zebani is not the Face, and every single one would still be a slap to her face if she was the heir but her brother was the Face

[hotlegsharker]

Actual footage of Primus Tachonis’s apology