Nico on Friends at the Table Themes
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2021-03-09T02:04:47+00:00
Nico Westbrook
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talks about their experience as a queer Black trans person in the TTRPG and actual play podcast spaces, their relation to the cast of Friends at the Table, and how they see queerness touching all aspects of Friends at the Table.
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2021-03-18T21:45:08+00:00
Nico writes articles on Black and brown players in TTRPG space and runs the actual play podcast Hostile Pod. They discuss how Friends at the Table is situated in broader TTRPG and actual play podcast discussions around inbuilt racism and sexism, and critique podcasts like Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, Godsfall, and Dimension 20 for their shortcomings in representation and how the shows are run. Nico shares the themes that kept them listening to Friends at the Table, describes their sense of the Friends at the Table fan community and talks about their interactions with and respect for the tablefriends. The interview concludes with a discussion of how queerness in Friends at the Table touches all aspects of the narrative and the show, and how the other media that Friends at the Table fans are fans of indicates what draws people to Friends at the Table in the first place.
Transcript: On Friends at the Table ThemesNico: All these races are canonical like evil races, whatever, they tend to be cannon fodder, but they like, have like an actual place in the world and they're real people with real stories and lives in the world of Hieron. So that's already, already like miles ahead of whatever. They have a lot of heavy features of minorities, like not just like people of color and but also like queer people, trans people. They’re, they're trying to put, like they're trying to showcase disability in the show more, to varying degrees of success. I know a lot of fans, especially fans with disabilities are very critical of that, as they should be, because we can hold them to a standard to do better as well, like there's—nobody's perfect and there's always room for improvement. Um.
I don't know, I think Friends at the Table is kind of started with a leg up and have gotten better over the years and have listened to their fans, which is another thing, like they listen? Which is important. And they are aware of what they need to be doing and try to implement that. They don't always succeed, but they do try, which I appreciate the attempts, even if sometimes the attempts fall very flat. Which is funny that they have like such a hard time with disability for a show where people like lose limbs all the time.
Um, it also has like some really interesting aspects of like body horror and just… bodies in relation to what that means to exist, how having a body and what kind of body you have interacts with the world. There's like, there's like, xeno-type aliens, but also not just aliens but um creatures as well, like they have oni and these things called “weavers,” which are like tree stretchy body horror creatures which are really cool and there's like you know, like the, the Branched in their newest season called Partizan which are post-human, transhuman existences that are more sensations and experiences than what we would consider a humanoid experience. Like there's all sorts of stuff that I think is actually really cool, because it really gets into the idea of like gender and a body and… labor and all these things, and what they, what they mean, what they mean to not just the individual, but the world at large and how it's built.
There's a whole planet where the planet would not be accessible by human standards, or the kingdom would not be accessible by human standards, because it's populated entirely by robots and AI. Which is really interesting because like you think about, okay, they don't have bodies in the way that we have bodies, so their needs for access are completely different. And they're kind of a little anti-human because they're like, “We don't want to have to build like stairs and ramps because, like we don't need them, we don't need stairs, what the fuck is a stair for?” (Nico laughs)
Finch: You just plug in!
Nico: Right, which I think is a fun look at what these things mean and what they are. Gender also very good in Friends at the Table, tablefriend gender. (Nico laughs)Transcript: On Relating to the CastFinch: There's an interesting sort of—you're talking both about how the tablefriends are very intentional about like, “We are not your friends, we are producers have a podcast,” and yet I think part of the reason that the show draws so many queer and trans fans is because they see themselves in the people that do the show, and they want to watch queer and trans people, like, make art and make shows, and like want to consume that. So the question I have then it's like, how do you relate to the cast members? With the acknowledgement that, like that's not—
Nico: Yeah.
Finch: (overlapping) –it's a boundary that should be there.
Nico: Mm hmm. So it's actually been really cool to see, like, first of all, Austin Walker is a—not, not just black but he's biracial, he's a biracial queer man, like he's biracial queer man. He has a background where like, we're not—like obviously he's lived a very different life than I have, but like being also like, I’m also like a fat black queer man—or, not man, but like man with quotation marks around it—who is biracial. My dad's Black, my mom is white. He has a similar like… I don't want to, I hate saying “similar” because it's like we're not similar at all, but like. It, it's a dynamic, it's a, it's—there's a certain dynamic to it.
And he does a lot about games and tabletop RPGs. I also do that. Like there's like, kind of like, “See, if he can do it, I can do it” type thing, where it's just nice to like, see someone like me, or with a familiar background to me, also do the things that I like to do. Like this kind of like, “Oh yeah, like, see? There's space, you can do it” type thing. Which also I mean it also like actively colors how he sees the world. Which is nice, because then I get to see things that I also think portrayed in the game that I would like to listen to. Because how often do you get that? Not super often. And then there's also, like, you've got Sylvia and Jack on there, who also are trans, non-binary. Jack uses they/them pronouns, Sylvi uses she/her, things like that, like it's really cool to have trans people like making up a big portion of a show. Ali is also a queer—Ali and Janine are queer women.
Ali is also fat, super cool to see. Art is also really cool, like, how often do you have people being like openly Jewish on a podcast and having that like color life? And also he just loves his wife, which I just think is like great. And then Dre is also really cool… queer, queer man, living his best life, he did psych—he was getting his psych degree as the show was going on and actually when I met him at Gencon I was like, “You are so cool because you also made me think, if Dre can get through the fucking psych program, I can do that too.” He laughed, he thought it was hilarious.
Finch: Aww!
Nico: Cause I’m like, “Hello fellow psych major! This can suck sometimes!” And he was like “yes!” So it's just like stuff like that we're seeing myself represented, both on screen and by people makes me think that like, “Oh yeah, don't forget, the world is not just made up of like singular groups, like the Critical Role cast or the McElroys, like there's other people doing these things.”Transcript: On Queerness in Friends at the TableFinch: Anyway, the question that I am really interested in, that I’ve been reading a lot, that I’ve I’m curious to hear just if you have any thoughts on it is like, where do you see queerness in Friends at the Table?
Nico: Yeah, so I mean there's like a really obvious answer of like, oh yeah like, look how many like, queer relationships there are, but also you see it in the way that they talk about relationships to people. Like it is so inherently built into the societies they build, the relationships they have with people, the way that their friendships work and stuff like that.
Like, um, like there's a whole joke about “getting a dog badge” that is like. Just like it's like a joke, or just like a very in-fandom, very—honestly small thing but it's just like a—like, oh yeah like, “haha, they’re, they’re boyfriends, they may, they may have or not done the thing of getting the dog badge.” But like it's like... the characters, the fashion, the way that people talk about bodies and relate to each other, like there's such a very like trans aspect to bodies and like body horror and stuff like that. Like, okay, like, how do we... how, like—because there's such an idea with trans people of like deconstructing bodies and ourselves, and like what is a body in relation to a person and stuff like that, like that's kind of like inherently queer and trans, like, it just is, it just is! Um.
Finch: Hell yeah.
Nico: Like you see like the friendships that people have and like. Non... like the, like the, the relationships between men in the game is nontoxic. Like, even though we joke like, “Oh yeah, you see an NPC and you're like I’m going to tap that,” like it's literally just like, not toxic. Like there can be bad people and bad relationships and whatever, but it's not like inherently, “Oh we're two macho men, so this is how the relationship is going to be.” Like, there's a very—it's not abrasive, like I find myself sitting here listening to the story never just kind of wincing, waiting, like I’m never on edge waiting to hear where they're going to say in regards to like, am I going to get hate-crimed by a podcast today?
Finch: It's a real concern!
Nico: Right, like, have—like there's also a lot of, looking at like mental health and things like that, like how does depression and cancer and chronic health issues and stuff like that, how does that relate to the world as well? Like, you know, you've got like Alyosha and Samol who were both like chronically ill, Samol was dying, like literally he was an allegory for cancer, stuff like that, which is interesting to look at as well. There was Grand Magnificent who literally I think I remember that I wanted to tell this story, like there was a whole new the character, who literally was going through depression, who was like, “Oh yeah, haha, I’m worthless,” like all this stuff, and literally it was so, like it hit too close to home, and I had to turn off the podcast because it triggered me while I was at work and I had to turn on something else. And I talked about it at therapy and that was really hard to explain. (Finch laughs)
Finch: Yeah, I’ve been there... One clarification I had though is, you started, when you were talking about relationships on the show and how relationships get talked about and bodies and how they relate to each other, you kept saying, like, how “they” talk about relationships. Is that the characters or the players?
Nico: The players, so the players—like I mean obviously the characters as well, like what is through the players comes through the characters but like. There was specifically like in Winter in Hieron when they went through the rhizome—not, not the rhizome, that, the strata and lamina, they were like, “What is your lack?” And Adaire was like a true connection and there was something inherently, like, there's just something so lonely… and… like, maybe I just read into it too much, but like there's something about like kind of like the way you can feel the inability to connect when you have trauma and mental illness and are queer. This—how hard it is for you to connect with other people. Because on one level, you're like, “Okay, well, I’ve never had a real connection before due to trauma and other things, on the other hand, is it predatory for me to like this person? Like, am I wrong for liking this person, am I, taking advantage of our friendship?” Things like, things like that that kind of read into it.
Or like, there's like—like I said there's not like this inherent toxic masculinity between the men on the show, like the men characters on the show and also like you know the friends, like they are soft with each other. And like, I don't know how to say it, but like, like, they’re soft, like they’re soft with each other. Like it's just like checking in with your friends, seeing how they're, doing stuff like that, like. It's not the way you normally see things portrayed, both by people and by characters, like, there's like, you know?
Listen to the full interview with Nico here.
Read the full interview transcript here.