I Found A Soft Quietude Come Over Me. Here I Am, Sitting At A Little Oak Table Where In Old Times Possibly

i'm sorry i wiggled your skinny boyfriend like a sheet of metal. weeop womp weeoop womp weeeoop womp

I am forever grateful for the balanced way Harrow’s psychosis is displayed. She is a rational person. She is able to evaluate data as sharply as anyone else. Maybe even more sharply than anyone else. She just isn’t sure if the data she is evaluating is all accurate. She reads as someone who has long since adjusted to this self-doubt about reality, and possibly as someone who’s intelligence was honed specifically by the process of needing to run every observation through rationality checks. It makes her weird, socially, but it also makes her very good at processing and deduction.

Watching Utena I really like how in every episode Utena's like. Anthy can you please just cheat on me I don't have time to duel I need to pass my 8th grade geometry test

orpheus looked back

me individually reviewing the lyrics for every single song on a character playlist nobody else will ever hear for an oc approximately 3 people know about

Peter Nureyev wears exclusively floral patterned button up shirts for the entirety of S3 on the Carte Blanche but nobody ever mentions it because there are more pressing matters at hand

each house gets one rendering style the economy is dire

So I rewatched the entire dinner scene instead of sleeping, and here’s my hot take: I don’t care about Trent. He’s an asshole abuser, so I will eat up others’ probably far more insightful meta on THAT topic.

No, I want to talk about Astrid, Eodwulf, and Caleb.

That scene didn’t go at all like I expected it to. I think I, and everyone else, were expecting the mind games, the subtle threats, the manipulation…

But I wasn’t expecting half of it to be directed towards Astrid and Eodwulf.

In those previous encounters, we kind of got what we thought the two of them would be – confident, duty bound, convicted, a certain sense that they were where they wanted to be, that they knew their environment and had some control. Astrid came from a place of slightly patronising pity for Caleb. Eodwulf didn’t bother talking to the Nein overly.

So we all sat here and made jokes about Caleb’s evil ex-friends, donning their scariest wizard robes and staring stonily down the table for the evening. That’s what we expected. People who didn’t hesitate. People who, though abused and brainwashed, were committed to the cause, were perpetuating the cycle.

That is not what we got.

They start that way. Annoyed at the Nein’s antics. Stern. Supposedly full of conviction. But there was no righteousness, and they got more and more nervous as the night went on.

Astrid and Eodwulf were afraid. Astrid was not one step away from coldly offing Trent and taking his place. She was leaning away from him, begging Caleb to stop provoking Trent, stop calling attention to her. Eodwulf was reluctant to talk, was worried about how Caleb would react, froze up as soon as things started getting confrontational.

Every moment of their interactions at that table screamed ABUSE. 

I’m sure our previous assumptions are true. I’m sure they kill, torture, and do worse for the Empire. I’m sure they defend it at every point, have parroted lines they refuse to let go of. It’s possible that they mean it.

But those weren’t powerful mages who’d grown up to shoulder the horrors of their youth as just and right without another thought. Those were beaten dogs.

On top of that, those were beaten dogs who know they’re not allowed to think for themselves. Every time Caleb asked Astrid a difficult question – every single time – she would look over at Ikithon nervously, steel herself, and then mimic him almost exactly.

I didn’t realise until rewatching the scene, but her speech pattern varies GREATLY between speaking in a manner I believe to be honest, and speaking about dicey topics like the Empire, her duty, their actions, and so on. When addressing more vulnerable topics, Astrid spoke softly and looked like this:

Whenever she had to speak about something that she clearly felt she was on thin ice with? She lowered her voice, evened it out, and changed her cadence to match Ikithon’s perfectly, the only difference being that her voice is slightly higher pitched. It’s so close I sometimes had trouble telling if Caleb was talking to Ikithon or to her.

Astrid straight up told Caleb that whoever is her superior is right, and she and Eodwulf will do as that superior says. Nothing more. No moral judgements of her own. Eodwulf, for his part, never directly defended his actions or their jobs. Whenever he was pressed, he looked to Astrid. Who, in turn, would look to Trent.

That’s a pretty obvious sign of what’s going on, here.

The only times Eodwulf is startled into genuine reactions are when Trent drops the first real bombshell on Caleb, at which point he makes these faces:

And afterwards, when Caduceus parted with a scathing last word to Trent, wherein both he and Astrid looked like this:

Astrid tried to share her hair techniques with Jester. She smiled when the Nein joked about kidnapping her. Eodwulf liked the moniker they gave him. Eodwulf decided he liked Caduceus right after he’d told Trent no one would mourn him.

As soon as that dinner was over, Eodwulf pulled out alcohol, took a swig, passed it to Caleb, who took a swig, and then to Astrid, who took a swig. That quick and unhesitating exchange speaks of long experience. Long experience leaving Trent’s presence and immediately trying to get drunk.

It said a lot about the three of them, I think. That little moment, the ease of it, how normal it seemed, displays a genuine (at least at one point, and maybe still) camaraderie between them, and also a genuine unease in Trent’s presence, even after a decade and a half.

And that leads to the other thing I wasn’t expecting, but maybe should have. Caleb.

He’d hesitated from condemning Trent. This was the man he had spent most of the campaign running from, the man who had groomed him into killing his family, and yet he was reluctant to speak about violence, even though his friends half begged him to give the okay on it.

I think we were expecting Caleb to hunch his shoulders, to look away, to be eaten up by anxiety. And maybe he would have been shrinkingly cautious through the whole affair. Y’know, if Trent hadn’t said Caleb’s parents would have been okay with him burning them alive. If Astrid and Eodwulf hadn’t desperately tried to blend in with the furniture at every opportunity.

Caleb starts the dinner making these kind of faces:

But slowly, that changes. He stops doing his usual habit of avoiding eye contact and rubbing at his arms. He starts glowering when Trent tries to insist that Caleb’s parents’ deaths were a good thing, were what they wanted, would bring honour to the family he had eradicated, somehow. He likes it less when Trent claims credit for his escape. He really looks pissed when Astrid tries unconvincingly to argue that what they did was okay, obviously signalling her discomfort with the situation.

By the end of the night, Caleb looked Trent in the eye and said he dreamed of murdering him, brutally, with his bare hands. By the end of the night, Caleb had THIS look on his face as he stared at the man who’s haunted his every moment for as long as he’s been a lucid adult:

This Caleb? This is the Caleb who isn’t paralysed by his own guilt and fear. This is a Caleb who is very, very angry.

So regarding the dynamic between Astrid, Eodwulf, and Caleb? The script was, in the end, rather flipped. We went in expecting three wizards trying to manipulate an overwhelmed Caleb. Instead, we got one wizard crushing the souls of two others under his heel, with the only one currently outside his direct influence growing more and more furiously bold as the situation became evident.

The fact that Trent was his abuser was never going to bring Caleb to violence on its own. But Caleb called Astrid and Eodwulf “friends,” present tense, the day before he watched them sit, afraid of saying the wrong thing, through a dinner with their abuser. I don’t think he’s going to be so hesitant about violence towards Trent in the future.

They may have learned very little about Trent and his true intentions. It’s even possible that everything we saw of Eodwulf and Astrid is some elaborate fiction, though I don’t think so. But whatever else, it did one thing I’m not sure Trent wanted; it solidified a path forward for Caleb that he wouldn’t commit to before, and I don’t think it involves Trent surviving.

idk what it is about the mighty nein but the cast plays them so strategically.

like maybe it was the sandbox nature of c2 and the fact that they weren't getting legendary items as much as vox machina.

at level 20, they have:

higher hp (collectively. caleb is still squishy)

less combat indecision

more battlefield movement and ways of not grouping up.

a well planned collection of buffs. plus paladin aura for saves.

a good split of ranged and melee attacks, both martial and magic.

ways of incapacitation (beau)

movement/terrain control through spells and sentinel

ways of mitigating damage

better action economy

a collection of twos: 2 casters with counterspell, 2 martials with sentinel, 2 clerics that cover healing, 2 (technically 3) people with evasion, 2 hp tanks, etc.

the ability to come back from bad saves/good adversary saves.

like even when they didn't make the most optimal decisions, they still were at a point that their prior planning prevented a lot of damage and potential issues. the heroes' feast and mind blank carried.

more thoughts under the cut

on the ranged thing: vox machina has more martial range, but less magic range. percy and vex are optimized for that, but if anyone whacks on vex she's squishy.

bells hells has magic range, but not martial range. i think chet has a shortbow now, but other than that it's melee (and orym's air blades) or bust. if they're out of range they're dashing in (or using boots).

maybe its a me thing. but i find mighty nein combat the easiest to watch of the three groups, followed by vox machina and then bells hells. and i'm a noted combat enjoyer.

little more of a rant:

it feels like they get stuck in indecision so much in c3. i think it's the caster split between parties; as i see it, travis and liam process and plan out their turns the quickest, then taliesin and laura, then sam, marisha, and ashley.

sidenote: the clerics in any given campaign flip back and forth between fast turns of mostly healing and slower turns of other stuff. i would say in terms of speed as clerics it goes: taliesin, laura, ashley, sam.

with the mighty nein, the process is optimized:

liam, taliesin, and laura as the primary casters, with liam for utility, buffs, and dps, taliesin covering healing and buffs/debuffs, and laura doing secondary healing, dps, and general battlefield chaos.

travis and sam in the mixed martial area, with veth covering big damage ranged hits as well as utility magic, and fjord covering quick teleports, disparate hits with eldritch blast, and some melee with smites & hexblade, also tanking with hp.

marisha and ashley as full martial, with marisha getting info, inflicting stun to grant advantage, and serving as a dex/ac tank, while ashley covers big damage, and serves as a con/hp tank.

their turns generally proceed at similar paces, unless there's a significant misunderstanding in play, and they have time for strategy and unconventional solutions in the mix. the faster players are playing longer turns as casters, but generally come in with their spells planned. liam fired off a time stop with 5 rounds and got through it in a little longer than a normal turn.

with vox machina, it's a mix.

travis and taliesin are full martial, but have action surges and thus sometimes take longer. percy also takes longer for gun reasons.

liam and laura fill the mixed martial area, but they're pretty efficient as a rogue duo.

ashley, marisha, and sam fill out the casters, but as they are with vm, they have higher efficiency.

pike is focused on healing, buffing, and tanking

keyleth has spells but spends a lot of time in wildshape. her spells also tend to run over rounds, so there's progressive damage.

scanlan has a standard progression as a lore bard, with a leveled spell per turn, bardic inspiration bonuses, and his reactions are his clutch moves. also his longer turns get filled up with improv singing, so it doesn't feel like combat indecision.

whereas with bells hells, it's not as optimized.

liam and travis are full martial, so even given shenanigans and descriptions, their turns go quicker. they're tanks, but the enemies move away from them after getting hit 6 times a turn/by blood curses unless there's maneuvering in place.

robbie is in the mixed martials as a swords bard, but as a full caster and one of the healers now, he's been more on the casting side in recent memory

taliesin takes longer in c3 due to the path of fundamental chaos and the adjustments he has to make with each rage. he tanks, but ashton has so much nonsense going on that you never know what's going to happen with them.

sam is now in the mixed martial area and has faster turns, but started the campaign as a full caster and thus had longer turns. fcg also had action economy issues as part of their subclass and by virtue of sam not wanting to play a cleric like the other clerics, so it took awhile.

the witches all have long turns, but in order as far as i recall it usually goes laura, marisha, ashley, in terms of the amount of time. with two sorcerers and a damage focused druid/rogue, they hit a lot of combat indecision. they specialized so much that if they hit a point where they run out of the standard options, it just drags on. lots of spell attacks and saving throws, and quicken spells, and familiars (gun monkey, bone rat, and shadow dog) and form changes, and on and on.

it means that combat runs long because they take awhile to decide on what they're doing and then longer to adapt to changes on the battlefield. they also have limited options for range, standard movement for the most part, the witches are all pretty squishy, and when they're up against enemies with easy transport around the field, they get hit hard, because the tanks can't be everywhere.

bell's hells just gets beat up more.