VINES TRIED TO EAT MY DICK (The MacElroys Play D&D)

Ha! That'd be cute as hell, I love that.

 

Spoiler: TSG 6

SERIOUSLY YES. I worried for a second that Griffin was going to make Taako choose between who he tried to save, Magnus or Kravitz, but Taako just kind of had to LEAVE him there. Kravitz works alone and he doesn't have anyone like Magnus or Merle to save his ass. He's pretty durable (see also getting his ass kicked by Legion and getting up for a bit of poker and snark) but we don't know what's going on in the astral plain. Apparently nothing good.

 

Unrelated to the new episode....

I want them to update their official art! I know that it's probably better for them to have consistency, but my brain goes "aaaaaaaaaaa that's not how they look now" whenever I see it. (Not that I really use the art as basis for how I think they look, but it's Inaccurate and apparently that's just not acceptable for Saro's brain.)

 

Spoiler: suffering!

i think the implication was that lucretia stone cold traded cam for an exit door. which is awful but i completely agree with her: her work is way more important than one guy, or even an entire team. she's got to destroy the relics at any cost, at the cost of dozens of friends to save like... all of reality. and losing 20 years of a human lifespan would have made brutally clear how untenable her position was as a field agent. as head of the bureau, as coordinator of the whole effort, she NEEDS to keep going. and you lose a lot of confidence in your ability to beat the odds when you go from 30 to 50, or even 40 to 60. i just feel really bad for her, for making that choice, and all the other choices just like it.

 

Spoiler

I understood that that was the choice Lucretia made, I just don't get why the liches upheld their end of the bargain. Why did they let her go when they make it very clear that they have no inclination to let even their winners go, and also I think they were implying that everyone the director had ever contacted who had been in Wonderland and claimed to have won incredible prizes were actually corpses being piloted by one of the liches for the purposes of luring more victims. Why isn't Lucretia a meat puppet?

 

Spoiler: tsg spoilers

I mean, we don't really know that Lucretia ISN'T a meatpuppet. But the liches can't personally puppet every survivor who leaves Wonderland, even if there are very few who get that far. There are only two glamor elves to go around. I think Magnus may have been an instance where they decided to puppet him because if they didn't, he was going to keep breaking the game. Magnus is not the kind of dude they can pay or threaten (or both) until he goes home and shuts up about it, whereas Taako and Merle are.

 

Spoiler

Merle and Taako ain't going home! Their options were to get back in th game and generate suffering for the rest of their lives or die. "Magnus" gets to leave, to go tell people about the fabulous wealth and glory that awaits them in Wonderland. They talk for a tick about advertising, and how the animus bell is great for them because word of mouth is the best kind of advertising, and then they take Magnus, and then "Magnus" tells the other two to stay in Wonderland, and then Merle asks for prizes and freedom and Magnus says noooo, that's not what is happening now, because you don't win in wonderland and there are no prizes to bribe people with, jut the bell and the smoke.

 

Spoiler

and Lucretia mentioned that all her accounts of Wonderlands winners were "friend of a friend" kinda stuff, so nobody has to posses anybody for long. Drive a corpse home, wave a fakey fake bullshit prize around, jaw about how rad a time you had and how you're gonna run off and do some shit far away now that you've acquired your heart's desire, then dump the body in a lake and go back to liching.

 

Spoiler: The Suffering Game

Maybe the eternal suffering of Cam was considered a good enough compensation? Tres Horny Boys are still gunning for the Also Animus Bell, while Lucretia presumably just wanted out by then. Or maybe the Vogue Elves hadn't enough Elf to go around?

 

Spoiler: TSG 6

Just saw a theory that Kravitz is actually Keitz, the liches' dead brother. I would be one hundred percent here for that plot twist

 

Spoiler

the implication i got was that there were legitimately no survivors of Wonderland, and that everyone who went free was carting a lich around in their brainbox. Mostly because I can't see any reason why they would let anyone go free? Why bother being fair, why bother having elements not under their control, why bother saying "oh yeah, that's a fair trade" when they can just. have their cake and eat it too. Cam gets to spend the rest of his life in Wonderland knowing his companion consigned him to suffer, AND Lucretia goes back to her friends with tales of how lucrative her time in Wonderland was and how they all should give it a try. Why make a trade??

As far as the liches themselves seem to understand, their power in Wonderland is pretty limitless. They don't really seem scared at all, even when the boys manage to somehow break their game by winning without winning. They don't even question that, and that's. Weird. I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts here.

this thought doesn't follow- I wonder how much of the stuff they can do relies on people consenting. Like, there's no reason that the suffering game has to be a game. If someone refuses to play, no big deal, we can just wring suffering out of you, take your eyes, your legs, your memories, whatever. Unless they can't? I dunno. I guess most of the ways they shape the game might just be their own personal preference. wow i cannot brain

 

Spoiler

I've always thought the way they lead the participants on, encourage them, praise them for how well they're doing and continually remind them of how they're getting closer to their goal, is particularly sadistic. Maybe the suffering is more potent if it's endured at least somewhat willingly? Or maybe they just have more fun doing it like that. They did say they'd been around for a loooong long time, probably at least a thousand years - that's plenty of time to get bored with garden-variety torture.

or! maybe it's some condition of using the Animus Bell? They did make it sound like they'd acquired the bell relatively recently. It could have some sort of restriction where the victim has to be willing. And everyone does enter into Wonderland and all its risks willingly.

 

So, I just caught up and am currently dying over the most recent arc and desperately want to draw every scene until my hands fall off. This is such a good fucking podcast you guys I don't even know what to do with myself.

But now that I'm caught up I'm even more annoyed with

Spoiler: Eleventh Hour Spoilers

The fact that tumblr has been shitting on Sazed from the moment we learned about him, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of the fact that Merle abandoned his family completely. Like, if y'all (tumblr yall) are going to get up in arms over a character we know lit nothing about, then why not get super duper pissed off about a PC we know really well turning out to be kind of terrible??

jk i know why

In better news though the tweet Griffin made before the newest ep went up is so fucking hilarious now that I've listened to it all. The fact that he's not even specific about which particular action fucked up his plans makes it even better.

 

We already knew every PC was kinda terrible! Taako and Magnums were graverobbing in the first arc and Merle once told a charmed Tom Bodett to stand in front of a moving train and seriously expected to be obeyed. And all three grown ass men are prone to bullying a nebulously aged boy detective. I don't even particularly understand why being a deadbeat dad strikes you as the terrible amoral thing people should be mad about when there is. Just so much bad that these boys like to partake in.

 

@tinyhydra Oh, no, I don't think that's what people should be like, mad about exactly! I'm just a teeny bit exasperated about how tumblr treats the badness of the PCs, to the point where before I'd even started the podcast I'd thought they were all like...Genuine Soft Good Boys instead of the shitheads they actually are. This complaint is fully because I knew alll about Sazed before I listened at all but lit never heard or saw anything about Merle's family, which just kind of bothers me considering we actually know more about them.

The THBs are terrible, awful people and I genuinely wish that was like, actually explored in the greater fandom more than it is. And......I hope my explanation made sense??

 

I meant "should" as in "mad at this is correct moral signaling for the folks who like to do that kinda shit" not as in "this is what Gemini really believes". If that makes sense? Sorry.

And, yeah, I think it's mostly just that abuse is the kinda thing Tumblr peeps get twisted up over, while the graverobbing and shit is just funny abstract nonsense. People find OT really easy to take the bad shit the boys do as just silly funny shit that means nothing, maybe because their genuine emotional moments have all been them being kind or heroic or giving a shit about someone else's health and wellbeing. If the tone of the show ever took one of their moments of cruelty as something other than a joke, people might see that a lil bit different. If that makes sense.

 

Ahh, yeah no worries! That does make sense.

Yyyyyeah that is pretty true. It is probably pretty tough to see most of their goofs as serious shit even when it is Pretty Serious, because they're just goofy as hell. Compared to like, crit role where 9/10 most things are pretty straightlaced and serious. Plus, tbh, not being a part of the actual game and just kinda watching makes it like...different to playing, too.

boy howdy, dnd

 

im not caught up yet so i wont read anything above me but i just finished petals to the metal and god, i thought this was supposed to be goofs not heart crushing feels YnY

also forever rip barry bluejeans you will be missed

 

still not looking at above posts, i think im gonna make a liveblog post now. will edit this post with continued commentary, but probably not every episode?

Spoiler: crystal kingdom chap 2

ohhh the singing crystal thing is fucking ethereal as shit, im gonna like this story arent i

 

CAUSE OF DEATH: GRIFFIN MCELROY TWEETING OMINOUS SHIT ABOUT TOMORROWS EP


horrified vibrating