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juushikaThe death of Tumblr is not quite so total as the death of LiveJournal, but it did make me wonder: what of my original content would I actually miss if it were to disappear entirely, and so should probably be backed up at a site I trust? And the answer is mostly: the liveblogs of Critical Role and Homestuck which were originally things I shouted into Teja's IM window and which preserve some very strong reactions. So I'll be doing some crossposting of content which will probably clog up feeds & which are likely of little interest to anyone, but it would be a shame to forever void this enthused yelling into the void. Ergo:
Critical Role Campaign One, episodes 0 to uhhhh ~20 I'd guess?
Critical Role episodes where a player is missing are interesting because they reveal things about me that I didn’t know, for example:
I enjoyed the ensemble as Scanlan almost more than I enjoy Scanlan, because the exaggerated recreation of his personality was almost more true to form than his actual personality
& I have missed no one as much as Travis Willingham (Grog) being absent from episode 7. I didn’t even know I loved Grog! objectively he’s not even that complex, hasn’t yet added a ton to the dynamic, he’s not a character type or class I care about. But I think it was the ooze fight that sold me, that “do the thing which is in character even if it’s stupid,” both in fighting at melee range and in dropping out of rage to football carry Pike out of danger, esp. followed up by “Grog in a candy shop” in the torture room. Both player and character are so big and enthused and adorable and I want them to never be gone from my life.
One of my top five favorite fantasy tropes is the literal presence of the divine; see: my Dishonored and Dragon Age feels*. It still has that measure of the numinous and transcendent which is so evocative, but is more accessible, evidenced, feels less like a self-delusion,** so it has objective value as well as projected value. It fulfills everything I always wanted from religion. (I would give anything for a list of stories where this is a significant theme, just fyi.)
So Pike’s relationship with Sarenrae (in 1x15) punches me right in the feels and has been the first really emotionally-evocative almost-tearing-up feeling of profundity I’ve had with this show.
** This is purely a commentary on my own faith! absolutely not anyone else’s. I respect basically everyone’s beliefs but my own, which I’ve never been able to believe.
What if, says Critical Role, what if we took Pike’s faith and made it a part of her reason for being absent from the group? what if it were a profoundly emotional moment for the cast as well? I bet we could push past “emotionally-evocative almost-tearing-up” into actual tears if we did that!!
(the way they delivered it + Laura’s call not to announce it ahead of time were both flawless and I am in love with how it was all handled, that something so bittersweet is canonically so bittersweet and therefore also such fulfilling storytelling, I just)
My kingdom for the ability to care about any real-world religion half so much as I care about most video game religions.
In my lifelong attempts at faith, I’m constantly foiled by the fact that I don’t see evidence of the divine. All the study and prayer and spellcasting failed to cause significant change; a lot of my flirtations with faith ended because something (moving to another country, a depressive episode) halted my practice, and I discovered that nothing changed except that I had more free time.
But in video games: bam here are some magical powers—do you believe in gods now? Why, yes, I suppose I do. The relationship between evidenced magic and religious faith is so compelling, and I envy it immensely—not just as reward but as proof and justification.
In Dishonored, Corvo doesn’t come to the Outsider as a believer. Instead, the Outsider comes to him, driven, Hannibal-like, “I was curious what would happen”: he selects interesting people, people at monumental crossroads, and gives them the power to pick a path. Corvo becomes faithful by default, as a response to proof already provided, because visiting shrines and collecting holy relics gives him the power he needs to realize his goals—in the small-term rearranging of power, in the longterm effect on Emily.
I have similar longings for the magic in Dragon Age. (The religious aspects of Inquisition are fascinating: magic’s existence makes the boundaries of “miracle” fuzzy: is the sole survivor of a magical cataclysm blessed by a god that no living person has seen? are they aided by purely mortal magic? or is it a combination of the two? Does the difference truly matter—it has vast political ramifications, but those can be controlled. Maybe faith is what we make it, when magic exists but the gods are inaccessible.) Ditto, Skyrim. (Prayers to the various gods grant obvious, measurable boons; you hunt an aspect of the Daedric god of the hunt—but magic is also small healing spells, learned by relative nobodies from instruction books: it is both daily and divine. Religion is such a debate that peoples go to war, and yet churches go unrecognized in their cities, and still shrines are erected on hidden hills. And the wandering adventurer may engage in all or none of that, but they regardless use some magic to patch up after a battle.)
I care so much about these faiths. Evidence of the otherworldly knits faith into daily life until they’re extricable. I know all sorts of real people engage in all sorts of faith in the same way—but it’s never been evidenced or knit, for me. (Perhaps because I lack faith.) I want mundane miracles, blinking and healing spells and perhaps a visit from what may be a divine avatar; something so I know it’s real, because in these made-up worlds, oh, it seems so much more real.
It feels weird to talk about the social elements of Critical Role, to talk about actors rather than characters, because there is that dividing line and, despite how this game originated, they are effectively performers giving us a product; we as viewers are not actually in their living room, and we do not know these people and can’t presume. That said, I have hella social anxiety issues and am super sensitive to ~bad socialization vibes~, so I did the logical obsessive thing and read a lot about Orion Acaba’s eventual departure and the speculation around it, partially so I could be forewarned about stuff that might bother me, partially in an attempt to alleviate concerns which were already bothering me.
It sort of worked? I suppose it validated some of what I was feeling, as others had picked up on the same; it helped contextualize things, even if the context is just conjecture. It hasn’t made those unsettling vibes go away even a little; if anything, I just see everyone contributing to them now, with no singular person to scapegoat.
I suppose it’s not unlike embarrassment-by-proxy or frustration-by-proxy, except it’s social anxiety-by-proxy, a sort of free-floating reminder that, hey, remember why everyone is terrifying? it’s because all socialization is complex and potentially hurtful! yes, even really positive forms of socialization. just thought you’d want to know, self!
These concerns almost made me stop watching. If the Trial of the Take arc is any indication, things will be easier for me after Acaba leaves—not because I want him gone, I’m pretty neutral both on him and on Tiberius’s charming buffoonery, but because I won’t be confronted with undercurrents that make me anxious.
It feels weird to write about this, both because I respect the dividing creator/person line in things like this and yet here I am crossing it, and because I’m admitting I am anxious to the point of non-functional human being who can’t even watch D&D show for fun, but whatever, it’s behind a cut, we can all pretend it doesn’t exist.
Critical Role Campaign One, episodes 0 to uhhhh ~20 I'd guess?
Critical Role episodes where a player is missing are interesting because they reveal things about me that I didn’t know, for example:
I enjoyed the ensemble as Scanlan almost more than I enjoy Scanlan, because the exaggerated recreation of his personality was almost more true to form than his actual personality
& I have missed no one as much as Travis Willingham (Grog) being absent from episode 7. I didn’t even know I loved Grog! objectively he’s not even that complex, hasn’t yet added a ton to the dynamic, he’s not a character type or class I care about. But I think it was the ooze fight that sold me, that “do the thing which is in character even if it’s stupid,” both in fighting at melee range and in dropping out of rage to football carry Pike out of danger, esp. followed up by “Grog in a candy shop” in the torture room. Both player and character are so big and enthused and adorable and I want them to never be gone from my life.
One of my top five favorite fantasy tropes is the literal presence of the divine; see: my Dishonored and Dragon Age feels*. It still has that measure of the numinous and transcendent which is so evocative, but is more accessible, evidenced, feels less like a self-delusion,** so it has objective value as well as projected value. It fulfills everything I always wanted from religion. (I would give anything for a list of stories where this is a significant theme, just fyi.)
So Pike’s relationship with Sarenrae (in 1x15) punches me right in the feels and has been the first really emotionally-evocative almost-tearing-up feeling of profundity I’ve had with this show.
** This is purely a commentary on my own faith! absolutely not anyone else’s. I respect basically everyone’s beliefs but my own, which I’ve never been able to believe.
What if, says Critical Role, what if we took Pike’s faith and made it a part of her reason for being absent from the group? what if it were a profoundly emotional moment for the cast as well? I bet we could push past “emotionally-evocative almost-tearing-up” into actual tears if we did that!!
(the way they delivered it + Laura’s call not to announce it ahead of time were both flawless and I am in love with how it was all handled, that something so bittersweet is canonically so bittersweet and therefore also such fulfilling storytelling, I just)
My kingdom for the ability to care about any real-world religion half so much as I care about most video game religions.
In my lifelong attempts at faith, I’m constantly foiled by the fact that I don’t see evidence of the divine. All the study and prayer and spellcasting failed to cause significant change; a lot of my flirtations with faith ended because something (moving to another country, a depressive episode) halted my practice, and I discovered that nothing changed except that I had more free time.
But in video games: bam here are some magical powers—do you believe in gods now? Why, yes, I suppose I do. The relationship between evidenced magic and religious faith is so compelling, and I envy it immensely—not just as reward but as proof and justification.
In Dishonored, Corvo doesn’t come to the Outsider as a believer. Instead, the Outsider comes to him, driven, Hannibal-like, “I was curious what would happen”: he selects interesting people, people at monumental crossroads, and gives them the power to pick a path. Corvo becomes faithful by default, as a response to proof already provided, because visiting shrines and collecting holy relics gives him the power he needs to realize his goals—in the small-term rearranging of power, in the longterm effect on Emily.
I have similar longings for the magic in Dragon Age. (The religious aspects of Inquisition are fascinating: magic’s existence makes the boundaries of “miracle” fuzzy: is the sole survivor of a magical cataclysm blessed by a god that no living person has seen? are they aided by purely mortal magic? or is it a combination of the two? Does the difference truly matter—it has vast political ramifications, but those can be controlled. Maybe faith is what we make it, when magic exists but the gods are inaccessible.) Ditto, Skyrim. (Prayers to the various gods grant obvious, measurable boons; you hunt an aspect of the Daedric god of the hunt—but magic is also small healing spells, learned by relative nobodies from instruction books: it is both daily and divine. Religion is such a debate that peoples go to war, and yet churches go unrecognized in their cities, and still shrines are erected on hidden hills. And the wandering adventurer may engage in all or none of that, but they regardless use some magic to patch up after a battle.)
I care so much about these faiths. Evidence of the otherworldly knits faith into daily life until they’re extricable. I know all sorts of real people engage in all sorts of faith in the same way—but it’s never been evidenced or knit, for me. (Perhaps because I lack faith.) I want mundane miracles, blinking and healing spells and perhaps a visit from what may be a divine avatar; something so I know it’s real, because in these made-up worlds, oh, it seems so much more real.
It feels weird to talk about the social elements of Critical Role, to talk about actors rather than characters, because there is that dividing line and, despite how this game originated, they are effectively performers giving us a product; we as viewers are not actually in their living room, and we do not know these people and can’t presume. That said, I have hella social anxiety issues and am super sensitive to ~bad socialization vibes~, so I did the logical obsessive thing and read a lot about Orion Acaba’s eventual departure and the speculation around it, partially so I could be forewarned about stuff that might bother me, partially in an attempt to alleviate concerns which were already bothering me.
It sort of worked? I suppose it validated some of what I was feeling, as others had picked up on the same; it helped contextualize things, even if the context is just conjecture. It hasn’t made those unsettling vibes go away even a little; if anything, I just see everyone contributing to them now, with no singular person to scapegoat.
I suppose it’s not unlike embarrassment-by-proxy or frustration-by-proxy, except it’s social anxiety-by-proxy, a sort of free-floating reminder that, hey, remember why everyone is terrifying? it’s because all socialization is complex and potentially hurtful! yes, even really positive forms of socialization. just thought you’d want to know, self!
These concerns almost made me stop watching. If the Trial of the Take arc is any indication, things will be easier for me after Acaba leaves—not because I want him gone, I’m pretty neutral both on him and on Tiberius’s charming buffoonery, but because I won’t be confronted with undercurrents that make me anxious.
It feels weird to write about this, both because I respect the dividing creator/person line in things like this and yet here I am crossing it, and because I’m admitting I am anxious to the point of non-functional human being who can’t even watch D&D show for fun, but whatever, it’s behind a cut, we can all pretend it doesn’t exist.
