Anti-theocracy

So I kind of blew through the rest of TAZ, including all the freely available live shows except the one that posted today (but not the two Flophouse episodes). I am probably not sucked in enough to shell out the five bucks a month to get at the bonus content -- paying for one D&D show seems to be my limit -- but who knows. From Crystal Kingdom right through the end, the story and characters grabbed me in their teeth and refused to let me go, and I found it one of my more satisfying listening experiences in awhile.

I have a lot to say, but most all of it is spoilers. I am VERY glad that I was not at all spoiled for the main story arc, because watching it all unfold for the players as well as myself was a huge aspect of my enjoyment. So putting a spoiler cut here.

( Spoilers through the finale. )

It'll be interesting to see how things change when they start playing their new games next month. I expect that I'll enjoy whatever the Critical Role gang gets up to next, in large part because I've already seen them do other things with their various one-shots, so I feel confident that my attachment is as much to the players (and especially the DM) as to the specific team of Vox Machina. I haven't gotten the opportunity to know the McElroys quite as well yet, so I'm not sure whether the changes will take with me, especially if someone else is GMing. But I'll certainly stick with it, at least for now. I look forward to discovering what direction the boys go.

There's a lot of fandom cross-pollination between Critical Role and The Adventure Zone, which makes a lot of sense -- they're both story-focused Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, a family of nerds playing their beloved games and sharing them with an audience -- but despite my love for CR, I'd been a bit reluctant to dive in to TAZ. But then I learned that the current campaign would be wrapping up soon (I understand it's recently done so), and I decided to give it a shot. I'd been listening to it every now and again as I had time, but it didn't suck me in as completely as Critical Role did... and then I reached The Eleventh Hour, which is the fifth main story arc. I'd noticed the GM's storytelling and the players' character work improving over time, but everything took a serious level up in the previous arc (The Crystal Kingdom), and early in The Eleventh Hour everything solidified, pulling me into the story to the point that I'm now dying to know what happens next.

It used to be that I never wrote fic for a canon that I hadn't finished, but anyone who knows me and my relationship kinks (specifically, separation and reunion) will probably not be surprised that I was taken by the urge to write about one particular scene. ( Cut for spoilers. )

I'm sure this moment has been ficced a thousand times, but I learned my lesson about looking for fic when I'm behind on a canon from Dragon Age. ;) So for now I'll just present my own quick take on the scene; maybe once I've finished the Balance storyline I'll revisit it with the full knowledge of anything relevant that happens later. Note, I'm still early in the arc that follows Eleventh Hour (The Suffering Game; I've only listened to the first episode) so please no spoilers for anything later in comments.

Title: Magnus Knows
Fandom: The Aventure Zone
Rating: All audiences
Wordcount: 735
Characters: Magnus, the Chalice, Magnus/Julia
Spoilers: Yes, through Ep. 48 (The Eleventh Hour, Chapter 8)
Notes: See above :)

( Magnus knows. )