Midknight Phoenix

Detect Evil and Good

Occtis not seeing the Sundered Houses themselves as an issue is something that's been borne out by what we've seen from him in the whole campaign so far. He is, even of the noble PCs, the one who is the most comfortable with throwing his family name around in order to try and get what he wants, as seen during the fight on Hacvallen Brücke. His request that Julien let go of Thimble's wings back when the three met outside Hal's house was framed as an order. When talking to the other PCs he, in spite of his family outcasting and murdering him, still refers to Seremai as one of his vassal houses. There's an assuredness he has about his place in the general social order that makes it clear he's never really thought to question it, this power and station is simply his birthright and he's going to use it. There's also the broader concept of the fact that people are less likely to question the legitimacy of systems they benefit from, and Occtis has benefited a great deal from the social order of the Sundered Houses being what it is, as the power and wealth they hoard is something he as a member of the in-group has access to. And he clearly sees the fact that he does have access to it as simply the natural order of things, it's always been this way and much like the people-cages he's never thought to question it because it's always been that way. Compare that to characters like Murray and Azune who've known poverty and long felt the boot of the Sundered Houses on the collective necks of the common people, and thus are far more aware of where the entire system is unjust.

Anyway I was bitching about how hard it is to come up with feasible planets in Star Wars because sometimes you need a new planet from scratch and sometimes you need to know more about a planet than the 'has jungles, is probably a moon technically' than Wookieepedia will give you, and they're like 'oh yeah I can do something about that'.

So they've written (in Matlab but they swear it will run as a .exe as well and I may be conscripted to embed it as a web tool at some point) a star system generator.

You input what you know about the planet (ecosystem, population, sun colour, does it have liquid water, does it have a moon or moons, is it a moon or moons, temperature averages, atmosphere, you get me) and it will give you the... everything else about the star system, in obedience to real-universe physics. And if you input nothing you get a randomly generated star system.

And I’m like oh I know people who will be into this with a vengeance, and they're not on Tumblr, so this is me seeing who exactly would be keen on, and I cannot stress this enough, a real-physics comprehensive star system generator.

I think it's a great choice for Occtis to do this for a few reasons. As someone who has little patience for fandom woobification and no interest in being nice to a character just because bad things happened to them, as they are pretend and have no feelings to be hurt, it does make my life in fandom a little easier if neither Occtis nor Julien can reasonably be treated as "perfect guy who is sad and had bad things happen to him and did nothing wrong in his life ever." The second is that I think the power dynamics of the Sundered Houses on both a broad political level and an individual level are incredibly important to the story being told, and showing them is a good thing. On some level, the point of Gaya Seremai being fired doesn't work if Occtis isn't like this. I also think that while Occtis had one time hoped his family would let him, as he said, fade into obscurity, the fact that he was killed specifically for being a Tachonis makes it feel very fitting and natural that he is, in fact, a Tachonis.

So, I’m awkward with actual humans. It’s not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it’s not them; it’s me. I know I’m a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes both of us nervous, which makes me even more nervous. Also, if I’m not in the armor then it’s because I’m wounded and one of my organic parts may fall off and plop on the floor at any moment and no one wants to see that.

Hear me out.

(This is a pitch under Tumblr's "yes-and" Creative Commons spirit. If you like it, you're free to create it, in any medium, including for material compensation, without compensating me. In this spirit of generosity, if you choose to do so, I would appreciate but will not require credit for the setup.)

Her name is Leah, she's fifteen, and her sister survived the fire. Leah didn't exactly "survive"--she had a lucky escape because she was at home that day with a terrible cough and trouble breathing. Her best friend died.

Over the series of Leah's books we hear her express worry that she has similar symptoms to her mother before said mother's death, eventually leading to her getting diagnosed with byssinosis. As a Jewish immigrant* she struggles to find employment after the fire and finally becomes a domestic servant, but still struggles with both physical (byssinosis) and mental (PTSD) disabilities. In later books we hear about the beginning of The Great War and how her American family copes with knowing her German-Jewish uncle has enlisted to fight.

Her books focus on themes of labor rights for women and children, assimilation versus identity in the face of discrimination, and disability. Of particular note is that Leah's disabilities were not treatable in 1911 (byssinosis still isn't), and she'll have to deal with these issues more or less on her own.

Also her holiday book should be Purim instead of Chanukkah, because Purim celebrates Queen Esther and goyische children could really stand to learn a Jewish holiday that isn't Chanukkah yet again.

New campaign fanart >:3 I wanted to draw these two as soon as their character art came out… even if that meant drawing chainmail and a glass sword :’) it was totally worth it

Talison’s and Ashley’s characters as always, do not disappoint. I’m like, partially ashamed to say that the whole reason I got into crit role in the first place was because I kept seeing fanart for Nott and also because I thought yasha and Molly were really pretty. And I’d say that’s continued with all of their characters throughout the campaigns :’)

and bolaire laughed when thjazi was killed. at first i thought it was nervous or morbid laughter, but now i’m thinking he laughed out of relief.

bolaire could absolutely be an unreliable narrator. but i think he believes what he’s saying.

Face-off

Part 3 - Cheng Xiaoshi & Lu Guang

Page 7 - 8

Page 5 - 6 < . > page 9 - 10

Because here's the thing: do we actually know that the Stone of Nightsong functions as advertised, continuing to ferry elf souls to their designated afterlife with all of the Shapers dead and their death realms untethered? I think we can presume it functioned while Sylandri was still alive and first made it after the celestial was killed. But what about after she died and her realm of death became untethered? It feels like a hard one to check between trying to communicate with departed souls and how it's unlikely that elves die with great/common frequency given the whole immortality thing.

But if the Stone of Nightsong does still work as advertised, then it's the blueprint. A functional celestial psychopomp without the feral monster problem. And since it was made from the corpse of the elven psychopomp, it's potentially replicable with the other psychopomps corpses.

Which would be why Thjazi got hands on Olbalad's coffin: to study it and try to find a way to convert what's left of Olbalad into an artifact similar to the Stone of Nightsong. Given he needs to figure out what's going on with Olbalad first, Thjazi sent the coffin to Bolaire: a professional on old magics and artifacts with resources to do a deeper study. And Thjazi's got at least Murray at the Penteveral for experimental magics. And even Occtis for experimental death magics.

Which brings us to the Tachonis. They're gaining power from the glut of souls overflowing the Tenebral Reaches. If the psychopomps become functional again, that extra power is going to diminish and go away as the renewed psychopomps clear their backlog. The clearing of souls will also allow the Gates of Faerie to reopen as the overflow of death no longer threatens to destroy them.

If the Tachonis got wind of Thjazi's goal there, they had to do something about him or lose the power they've been gaining.