Critical Role! D&D With Nerdy-Ass Voice Actors

Just experienced the most brutal, heartbreaking TPK of my life and the only thing making me feel better is Kima's "Better to die a fool for something than to live in regret of doing nothing"

on a lighter note, I present my crackship manifesto

Spoiler: PIKE/JARRETT

1. Both simultaneously idealized and underappreciated by the rest of the party
2. Know something of having Chaotic Neutral tendencies and struggling toward Lawful Good
3. Pike's mystery crush appears after she's spent a lot of time in Whitestone
4. They're both chill but in different ways and can ground each other as a result

a. Jarrett, in his moments of bafflement over the shenanigans Vox Machina gets up to and the horrible danger they're always in, the frightening stakes of the games they're playing that he can barely affect, finds Pike Trickfoot the Noble Fist of Sarenrae (the only reason half the party's still alive) weirdly reassuring
b. Pike, worried about living up to the expectations of her friends and her faith, is comforted by Jarrett's unfazed, easy loyalty​

5. Scanlan would lose his goddamn mind when he found out
6. Critical Role is always funniest when the universe punches Scanlan Shorthalt in the nuts

 

I just watched ep 80, having finally caught up to the available episodes! I was up until like 2am trying to finish it.

Spoiler: 80

- JFC that was a meatgrinder. They were so not prepared.
- I was genuinely shocked by the revelation of the eggs. Looking back it makes sense, but holy fuck.
- SCANLAN. FUCK. We finally find out what the letter said and suddenly Ashley's expression at the time makes sense. God. Sam, you magnificent bastard.
- "I lived as I died: hard."
- The sinking despair on the team's faces as they realized that they might all die.
- GILMORE. What a goddamn rockstar.
- Keyleth saying that her rage and thirst for vengeance brought them here. Because no. She didn't actually tell Vax to attack. They had a nebulous plan to kill Raishan after the Thordak battle, but Vax was the one who kicked off the fight based on her telling him not to let Raishan touch the body. This isn't just on her.
- Raishan getting away with eggs and Thordak's corpse was bad enough, but she knows about Whitestone and that's freaking terrifying.
- Keyleth faceplanting into the lava made me laugh my ass off, mostly because of Matt's face.

 

Spoiler: 68

• the mood shift whenever someone goes down gets me every time. I am well aware this is not THE END but try telling that to my heartrate.
• taliesin just clinging to marisha
• laura/vex: "I just scream"
  
• "ashley's texting quite a lot. in all caps."
• the sphere! the group kill! "percy's killing you right now"!!!
• in summation: I'm a good person, I don't deserve this

 

Spoiler: 68

Marisha's sobs had me crying too

 

Spoiler: 68

oh God, yeah. "I've developed an emotional connection here!" ;-;

 

Spoiler: 82

Stacked up against Raishan and whatever tricks she has up her sleeve in her lair (some of those green dragon lair actions are NASTY @_@), we have Vox Machina, Allura, Kima, and... Kerrick.
I'm a little worried about the level 7 paladin. Especially since the mentor figure dying in the fight against the nemesis is exactly the kind of move Rothfuss would be happy to pull, just to make Keyleth's arc more painful. ;_; He gets hit at all, he's fucked, hopefully he's got the sense to keep people in his aura and help Pike support from a distance.
I'm glad Allura and Kima get to fight a dragon side by side.
Also, where was the last place we saw corpses-as-architecture going on? Ziggarut, right? Anyone smell Vecna?

 

re-watching 69, and

Spoiler: 69 spoilers

I'm loving how much Vaxildad there was. At one point I thought Vax was going to throw Percy over his shoulder and drag him to bed, and then read the world's most exasperated version of "Go the Fuck to Sleep."

 

Spoiler: 83

WELL I GUESS I WAS COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING

 

Spoiler: can't remember episode number so: the one with "IT'S ALL I THINK ABOUT"

Hotis hired some of the Clasp in Kimel to go after Vox Machina, yeah?

not to mention.... whoever wanted someone who looked exactly like Vex for sinister purposes, back in 42...

Everyone's saying the next arc is Vecna and I absolutely wouldn't doubt it, but there's some unresolved shit going on with our favorite organized crime syndicate that I'm excited to see.

...shit, Vex is in Kimel right now, isn't she.

EDIT: Shit, Vex is alone in Kimel.

 

man i just. i would really like to have already listened to this. or i wish that amateur animatics were easier for people to do, because if there was animated critical role or SOMETHING to pay attention to while they're talking it'd make things so much easier.

(comics would also be good, though you'd lose the voices and the improv aspect, so. same thing with reading scripts, though no one's apparently transcribed any full episodes so that sucks too.)

 

Their reactions are often good enough to make it worth it. And the little things like Laura and Liam constantly leaning over each other's dice and sheets and commenting like actual siblings.

But yeah I feel you. I did a lot of listening while doing other work or grindy stuff in games, especially during combat, if that helps. The community's habit of posting timestamps for the best parts in the comments is a godsend too...once you get past the shitty comments about Marisha/Keyleth

I really have no idea how I've managed to watch so much though considering my own attention, focus and audio processing issues. I somehow went from taking days to watch one episode to being able to sit through an entire live episode after managing a very chatty 10 person group. No idea how im doing this though.

The Critical Role Reddit has various suggestions for going through it ranging from watch everything to learn the characters and jump in next live episode if any of that might work for you. There's also a wiki which has some episode summaries I think

Idk, I guess the biggest trick to getting through it all is to go at your own pace and in your own style and do what's fun for you. It's not like any of us on Kintsugi are gonna judge if you don't watch every minute, and we can answer questions and summarize if you just want to jump in or skim it.

Sorry I went on a ramble there XD

 

yyyyeah the reactions aren't really helpful, there. they're all sitting there and doing face stuff, it's not very useful to my brain. And I don't usually do a lot of work that works well with listening to podcasts, so that's not very good either...

 

idk it's like. the plot and characters sound exactly like the stuff I like. it's just it's a medium that i'm really bad at. so.

 

@KarrinBlue illustrious tumblr user eponymous rose has compiled transcripts through Episode 60, if that helps! http://eponymous-rose.tumblr.com/po...-remember-you-posted-a-list-of-transcripts-of

 

....that might, actually!

 

I didn't know this was a thing! I know CRtranscripts have been trying to make some but only have a few done

 

Looking at that again, some chunks are missing -- but it'll at least make it so you don't have to watch as much.

 

Spoiler: CRAVEN EDGE

...anagrams to VECNA GREED. \m/

 

WELL THAT WAS SOME SHIT

 

W.r.t. this weeks ep: I love Sam