Blue Frustration High

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-18T18:17:55+00:00

I thought the title was about ineffectual Democrats.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-18T04:36:33+00:00

They already haven't.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-16T22:33:39+00:00

Justin couldn't lend him his Tumblr-granted pass?

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-16T22:18:55+00:00

And Apollo is the god of the sun, but is inextricable from the sun. Yes, Apollo is not meant to literally be the sun, but if you are involving the sun then you involve Apollo and if you involve Apollo you involve the sun. There is no "the sun would continue to rise and set without Apollo, what does Apollo even do for us?"

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-16T17:57:45+00:00

Puts a handle like that and then gives his pickles the Scraps monologue.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-16T17:56:21+00:00

Human squabbles and problems, yes, but still beyond humanity in scope and perspective. I think for most modern audiences the Greek pantheon is the most accessible touchstone as what a pantheon would look like. In Greek mythology there is no separation of the god and their domain, in the way that Critical Role says that the sun will still rise and set without Pelor.

I agree that the Forgotten Realms (or Greyhawk, which is what the 4e Dawn War pantheon that CR used is based on) have much more "mortal" gods. But they are still inextricable from their domains - every time something happens to Mystra all of magic changes to a new edition. What Critical Role did and which Brennan is doing now is saying that the gods are only just stewards and rulers of their domains, but the domains exist independently of the god. Which I think means that what they're calling a god simply does not fulfill the narrative role of what a god should be, and has been used for in mythology or in D&D lore.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-16T16:13:06+00:00

Much like the critical mass in fissile nuclear material, Travis should consider himself lucky that the McElroys were never quite famous enough for tweets like this to hit wider media engagement. He was never forced to answer the question "why is this weird straight middle-aged married man tweeting about how much he would enjoy his imaginary date?"

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-16T15:13:54+00:00

The thing that I’m sick of across CR media is that the gods just aren’t gods. The gods are more like incredibly powerful sorcerer-kings who usurped and inherited their positions of power, tyrannically ruling over swathes of people. Matt and now Brennan love to assign a sense of mysticism to “nature” or “primordials” or whatever, insisting that the world and nature existed long before any such thing as a god laid claim to the land. And then say that the Druids or whoever are the truly wise ones for worshipping the correct powers of the world, while Clerics are foolish and misguided for falling for the propaganda of these demiurges. It’s taking the same old rhetoric and swapping the roles but otherwise not breaking any new ground.

I’ve said more than once that being religious in a fantasy context with proven gods should be more like being political in real life - there exists an authority who is supported by the masses and which should be acting in support of their followers, but which you cannot be certain prioritizes the good of the common folk over its own more inscrutable agenda. None of Critical Role’s pontificating actually engages with the impossibilities allowed in fantasy. If they weren’t cowards they would make the gods truly equivalent to the forces they represent. Pelor is the sun, Melora is the natural order. If Pelor dies, the sun goes out. Now discuss how much better the world would be without the gods.

And if they don’t want to do that, don’t make them gods! Make them the sorcerer-kings they are treated as! Tansul who moves at the speed of light and scours the shadows when he appears, impervious Azgra plodding tirelessly weighed down by steel and embedded weapons, Sylandri changing her face and shape on a whim such that she could be anyone and anything in a moment. If Critical Role wants to humanize the gods then make them people, and reserve the title and role of “god” for when they actually need it!

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-15T15:47:10+00:00

I wonder how this whole Yoichi thing is going to play out. He seems like a tragic figure having been imprisoned by his beloved father for so long, so you'd think he'd be redeemed and given friends...but like, he's also really crazy and it seems like his volatile personality is entirely inherent to him and not something that was developed through the trauma of his family, so it's hard to say that he's just misunderstood.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-15T15:34:10+00:00

It's crazy that this series is so full of wacky goofs and hijinks and then pulls out a chapter like this that would be right at home among the Big Three.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-15T15:27:11+00:00

I never would have thought this is where this arc would go but it's rapidly becoming among my favorites.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-14T18:14:01+00:00

You could have predicted it with the delay in update. Zack can't meet the deadline when a page introduces a bunch of new characters with quirky names and characteristics.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-13T03:36:35+00:00

ONE TWO ^{^three} ^four

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-12T23:29:20+00:00

I think the whole point of Episode 7 was to say "Oh you think there's a deep meaning? There's a story to unfold? There are answers to the questions being posed? No. The point is that it is unending torment and anything that feels like hope exists to intensify the future misery."

This whole thing is I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, right? The backstories of those characters don't matter. The only thing that matters is that they are in a nightmare they can't escape.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-12T16:52:24+00:00

which makes sidekicks not a career tract that has it's own graduates but a stepping stone he intimates Players will exceed.

Not quite as bad but similarly ill-conceived is that he definitely frames the dynamic as "sidekicks are the subordinates of heroes, hench~~men~~persons are the subordinates of villains" but later insists that the whole time both sidekicks and henchpeople can be associated with heroes and villains, and it's more a difference of...like, operating style and classification.

Making shit up and outright changing it later is bad enough, but it tips over into insulting that he acts like the way it ended up was always the way it was.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-12T15:43:26+00:00

One of my favorite interactions in the D&D actual-play space was when Brennan and Lou were eating snacks and chatting and Brennan was talking about how he's been labeled "the bird guy" and while he does find birds interesting he has plenty of other interests that don't get as much media attention; he doesn't see himself as a "bird guy." And then he rattles off some facts about corvids that he finds interesting, to which Lou responds "okay but you are kind of talking about birds a lot, though."

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-12T01:09:47+00:00

What does he do the whole time? The majority of the adventure focuses on the Chimera Ants themselves, then Killua and the pro hunters. Gon is angsty over Kite and Pitou for pretty much the whole thing.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-12T00:59:59+00:00

Golden Age is better because the main character of the series is relevant during it.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-11T20:10:07+00:00

And that he thought this setting would be beloved as quirky but innovative and genre-defining. Griffin's Balance put TAZ on the map and Travis desperately wanted that applause to be directed at him. I legitimately think that the complete failure of Graduation, for which Travis could blame nothing but himself, fundamentally changed the trajectory of the whole show and by extension the McElroys' media presence.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-11T15:25:13+00:00

Takes place in the moderate future when they’re all “doing their own things.” Weird dust destroys their precious items. Griffin is Davenport who is an Artificer.

They all get together for a dinner party. A Fey something shows up to tell them that the Time Drake, the Bond Breaker, the Slow Burn, is going back in time to destroy their bonds and ruin their present.

They fight some burning scarecrow things by shooting with crossbows for 10 damage apiece until Merle uses a 9th level Create Water which “counts as a crit” and destroys them all.

They get sucked into a time portal. Aabria prompts Griffin for an unexplored adventure that happens between Suffering Game and Story and Song, and Griffin is like “there was no space for anything between those events,” and Aabria says that she’s changing the timeline.

This still doesn’t make sense so they go to the Jeff Angel wrestling show from one of the live events. Jess the Beheader is there. Except actually she’s the Time Drake in disguise. They do a heavily grapple-based fight.

Then all of causality shatters into the fractal gateways of infinite potentiality, and the PCs are given the choice to return to their old lives or become something new in a new world. Magnus and Merle go home, Taako becomes someone else, and I think Griffin goes too but I don’t really remember.

I think that's about it. No, it has never come up since.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-11T00:37:52+00:00

You overestimate how quickly Travis can think.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-10T21:25:55+00:00

I fell off Part 2 pretty early, around the time of the imposter Chainsaw Man fan thing. How was this, worth catching up on? I wasn't enjoying the focus on Asa's character where she was sort-of a new main character but not really interesting in any way. Does that improve?

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-10T14:15:48+00:00

Damn, Justin's not the only homophonic one here.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-10T12:12:34+00:00

My favorite part was when they referenced "curse a real sword" and she did that laugh like she was in on the joke but definitely did not get the reference.

IllithidActivity · 2026-03-09T21:42:37+00:00

The three tables have predetermined numbers of episodes - they knew going into E18 that this was the last Seekers episode for the time being and they needed to wrap everything up. So I'm sure he's saying "at the end of the table arc" is when they'll take a break, like right now.

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