#PORTER ON THE BRAIN

[brainrotcharacters]

Porter's physical touch tendencies where he touches noses with Treasure in the middle of kissing them/yapping onto their lips

[8pxl]

look at the sky, you're still here~ buy a wallpaper or leave a tip | bluesky | insta | my merch shop

[cheetyuwu]

[minilev]

[solarbunzzz]

Esta va pa los hispanohablantes nomás /j

Drawing the keyframes gang as pictures I have in my phone jasvkd

[ahhrenata]

had to get this out of the system. Death Stranding got its grip on me (so has Norman Reedus 😅)

[m0cktails]

[guillotine-drop]

Gage is definitely contender for the funniest Fallout 4 companion because he’s such a sad little kind of ugly loser of a man, who basically everyone in Nuka-World either hates or just dismisses every time he opens his mouth, and who will spill his guts to you at the first opportunity just to tell you about how shitty and sad his life is

“Yeah I think I’ll just be the guy behind the Overboss pulling the strings” shut the fuck up you’re my pet now boy. Put the collar and maid dress on

[madgirlmuahaha]

Ok mad props to Brennan. Just. Mad props.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from channeling my mediocre writing skills into a longfic, it’s that when you start a story, especially an elaborate one where you’re crafting the world as you go and figuring out the kinks along the way, you don’t have to have everything completely sorted 100% of the way on day 1. You just have to leave enough details and loose ends to do something interesting with later.

And boy is the “something interesting” in episode 17 of Junior Year INTERESTING.

I don’t think Ankarna existed back in the first episodes of Freshman Year (though I also don’t want to underestimate the depth of BLeeM’s initial world building, lol) . I don’t know if it was canon in that moment that Jace and Porter were in the middle of their own conspiracy running tangent to the whole Kalvaxus thing. And honestly, it doesn’t really matter to me. Because he knew that they had been singled out for suspicious behavior, and set up just enough details in Freshman and Sophomore year to circle back to once he figured out exactly what kind of conspiracy they would be involved in.

It’s just the kind of writing that really gets to me. It’s like a Chekov’s gun that is definitely placed on the mantle with the intent to use it later, but the actual relevance and context isn’t decided upon by the writer until much, much later. You don’t know the joke yet but you have a perfect punchline.

[starstruckodysseys]

diversity win! the staff members manipulating children for the past three years and trying to overthrow if not murder the principal are in a homoerotic relationship!

[graevelabyss]

You know what genuinely kept me up until 1am last night about FH: Junior Year, the Bad Kids could have been facing such worse enemies if Porter actually thought about who would be best in Kipperlily’s place.

My mind goes directly to Ragh or Hargis, both very powerful kids who were in pretty bad situations. Ragh was wrapped up with the Harvest Men and in denial about his sexuality. Wait I forgot, Porter did try and mess with Ragh with his silly "Barbarian healing", would Porter have tried some shit if the Bad Kids hadn't taken Ragh on Summer break with them? I’m thankful every day the Bad Kids took him in. Hargis in turn also could have dodged a bullet by meeting the Bad Kids. Like a shy theatre nerd that struggles socially with his passion, who is a Goliath fighter no less is a recipe for (not necessarily hate-filled) but a rage-filled disaster. That beige aura really did good for him I think.

AND WHAT ABOUT YELL. Danielle would have been in so much trouble if she didn’t find the Maidens. A socially ostracised girl that can’t find a permanent adventuring party because of her beliefs and actions gets tricked into using her druidic powers to spread the rage-star powder all across Elmville. I am shaking Porter’s shoulders violently rn, BRO. A DRUID. YOU SKIPPED ON A DRUID FOR YOUR EVIL PLAN OML.

Zayn also could have been bad news if Porter got his shit together faster for a similar reason. He. Is. A. Necromancer. A necromancer. And probably one of the most vulnerable people from season 1, just one discussion with Daybreak and it’s a sealed deal but noooo. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t want any of the students to be brainwashed or even be in the position to willingly take the rage, but man, Porter is just ridiculous.

Holy shit. And what about Zelda. A character so powerful I think that’s one of the reason Brennan played her in The Seven. Her rage is literally divine, Porter could have done something with that, made his own brand of divine rage and offered it to her and others. She was even taking personal lessons from him because her rage was too destructive for normal class.

When the hell did he come up with this plan.

I mean I know it would have been a while ago because of the whole thing with Kalina but I think my point still stands when I say, Porter, my guy, disrespectfully, you could have done so much better than Kipperlily Copperkettle.

[dawnofiight]

Porter @ Vincent

[erial-c]

vincent, sam, and porter in "the vampire boys have it out"

[pealingpetals]

totally normal things happening in the far haven woods

[tommytomatoe]

these are my top five redacted asmr listener quotes

number 5 will shock you 😯 !!

" , . " - freelancer

2. " ! !" - angel

3. " ? . . " - treasure

4. " ! ? " - lovely

" . ." - darlin'

5. " , . . ?

. !" - sweetheart

there were SO many to pick from but these top five quotes definitely stuck with me. i still can’t get over sweetheart saying all that during the summit. if you have a favorite iconic listener quote feel free to share it below!

[jq37]

FH Junior Year Post-Season Thoughts

With another season of Fantasy High in the books and my recaps all finished, I wanted to do an overview of my thoughts on the season as a whole. Even though I feel generally positive about my experience with the season, there are a few things I think maybe could have been done differently narratively or mechanically. This isn't to criticize the way the season went down or to backseat DM/Play. More my combined ten years of college for textual analysis and storytelling bleeding through, haha. 

I first want to start with the things I thought worked really well.

Fantasy High has "High" right in its title but, in past seasons (and especially Sophomore Year), not as much time as you'd think was spent actually at school and even if it was spent at school, there wasn't much time spent in class or engaging with the realities of being a student. This season really dug into the academic consequences of skipping your classes all the time and the realities of needing to do a ton of extra stuff to try for a scholarship and I think that was a refreshing thing to highlight for a change. Being more scared at flunking out than the dragon that's trying to eat you feels very emotionally resonant. Real "High School Is Killing Me" vibes for anyone who's a fan of NPMD. 

Even though Fantasy High is a show that has some deep emotional beats and strong character arcs, it's first and foremost a comedy show. From the jump, everyone was generating bit after bit that had me cracking up as usual. "Little girly dog collar" is one of the funniest combinations of words I can think of. I think it was Siobhan who said that this was the goofy season and, having seen it, I'd have to agree with her. It never failed to make me laugh and it was always a highlight of my week.  The cast just has great table chemistry that I love to watch no matter what they're doing. 

Watching some of these high level combat encounters is as close as I'll get to understanding people watching sports. Even though combat is generally my least fave part of D&D, I think the cast really killed it this season with how cleverly they played and Brennan came up with some really great combat encounters. Special shout outs to Baron's Game and The Last Stand for their unique mechanics.  

This is going to be one that's on the other list as well because my feelings are mixed, but I genuinely do like the downtime mechanic and how it forces hard choices. I think it's an interesting way to connect a mechanic to the story and cultivate stressful atmosphere for the season.

I have problems with the execution but I love the Rat Grinders in concept. I think as early as season 1 I was hoping that we'd meet a party that was like the Bizarro Bad Kids and the idea of a party that's farming XP instead of going on crazy adventures is a strong concept. Likewise, I think a character that's jealous because of your "cool" (read: tragic) backstory is also a fun trait for an unhinged antagonist in this kind of setting.

This is me absolutely showing my bias but I adored the Abernant Sisters content this season. I dunno if Siobhan specifically asked Brennan to not put her on a bus with the other beloved NPCs or what but I'm so glad she stuck around and we got the development we did. It was almost entirely ancillary to the plot but there was this clear pattern of Aelwyn getting softer and sweeter towards Adaine over the course of the season, from the guarded, "Enjoy the nemesis ward," to, full I love you's and, "I'd take them to get you." It was way more focus than I expected considering that Aelwyn completed the bulk of her arc last season and a lot of the time, a redemption arc basically ends after the big gesture (in this case, Aelwyn taking a magic blast for Adaine in Sophomore Year). So the fact that we got to see all of these sweet moments of them reestablishing their relationship outside of do or die moments was such a pleasant surprise. Again, I fully admit I am extremely biased, but this was my top wishlist item and the season overdelivered so there's a baseline happy I'm always gonna be with Junior Year. 

OK, so moving on to things I things I think could have been tweaked.

Even though I liked the downtime system and the pressures it created, it also squeezed out the chance for more casual PC to NPC interactions that would usually be more common because they were semi-locked behind the relationship track and there wasn't an obvious benefit to roll for Relationships (as opposed to something like Academics which was crucial for not flunking out). Making the mechanical benefit more clear would have helped that (even if it meant Brennan didn't get his reveal--which he ended up just telling them anyway so might as well do it early). The other thing is that the consequence of a rage token was so bad that of course they spent all season avoiding getting one. Things might have gone differently if the consequences had been a bit more obscured, like in Neverafter. And it could have been a nice parallel to the Rat Grinders to take this unknown resource that makes things easier for you but is also having this negative effect. Then it could be like dang we did the same thing they did unknowingly. 

I mentioned this in my recap but I'll talk about it again. It is a little confusing to me that we did the Ankarna subplot right after we did the very similar Cassandra subplot. It took up so much time this season which I don't think is an issue in and of itself, it's just that we literally just went through some extremely similar beats last season. Why double up on this same storyline when there's so much new ground to cover? Or if we're going to raise a god, why not make it a different kind of god? One theory I had early on was that the Rat Grinders were trying to raise their own god to one-up the Bad Kids but instead of raising a chill, misunderstood Cass type, they accidentally raised a god who was erased for a good reason and got in over their heads. 

It's fun for there to be connections between seasons but sometimes it's like, OK that's a *lot* of coincidences. Like the god who your rivals is trying to raise *happens* to be the wife of your cleric's god and also *happens* to be the god of the fiend trapped in your friend's mom's chest and that fiend *happens* to be the relative on your bard's dad's side which is *also* the reason she is randomly cursed? That's a LOT of red string connecting plot points. As unhinged as Kipperlilly is about coveting Riz's backstory if I saw that go down I'd be like you have *got* to be kidding me.  

The mystery elements didn't feel like they clicked as well as they did in other seasons. I think that's partially because Porter's plan was so convoluted (seriously, I made another post about how haphazard his plan was) and had all these moving parts and we didn't get clear answers for a lot of mechanical things like how the rage crystals actually work and when they were implanted and stuff. You had stuff like Devil's Honey which I think is super cool as a thing that exists in the world but ended up being an element that just led the players down the wrong path and had a relatively small payoff (that Porter was using it to lie to Ankarna). I think it's plausible that a forgotten god would be willing to listen to anyone saying the right things without introducing this element. (As opposed to, for instance, Ambrosia which has a very clear connection to what's going on and is a solid clue that someone is flirting with aspirations of godhood.) 

The Porter reveal came so late in the season that even though it was a fun/challenging fight, there wasn't a lot of emotional weight behind killing him. It was basically just dunking on a teacher Fig has always hated who was also mean to Gorgug so screw him. Which, valid of course. But the Bad Kids were never going to react as strongly to Porter as they were to the Rat Grinders so putting Porter in the prime villain spot isn't necessarily what I would have done if I wanted the fight to be more than just a brawl--especially since we've done "School admin with student minions" already in S1. I don't mind the full circle callback but it would have been nice to pick something else for the sake of variety. We haven't had a child mastermind yet and I think Kipperlilly could have been a great candidate for that. My friend suggested that it would have been fun if Kipperlilly was trying to become a god instead of just being Porter's underling and I agree. "I'm not anyone's chosen one so I'll choose myself," is still within her established jealousy and Type A tendencies. If we want to keep Porter involved since that was Brennan's gift to Emily, maybe have it be that instead of Kipperlilly working for him, he's working for her. Like Artemis Fowl vibes! And the Rat Grinders can be varying levels of on board--from true believe to redeemable. I don't think Brennan planned for the Bad Kids to ever redeem her so might as well go full megalomaniacal mastermind with her and make her The Villain if she's not gonna be nuanced anyway. If My Little Pony can do it and send a literal child to Tartarus for pony treason (or whatever Cozy Glow did), Fantasy High can too. 

Continuing from the above, if we have the Porter fight in place of the Grix fight (a la Daybreak) and don't use Ankarna, that gives way more time for the Bad Kids to investigate the Rat Grinders throughout the season and it would mean that they would have their personalities developed a lot more. With the limited downtime, they Bad Kids didn't have a lot of time to spend on these kids who were just hating on them for no good reason (valid). But if you cleared their plate of the god hunt stuff, they'd have more time for this. And if they weren't all rage zombies to varying degrees, it would be easier to see them as characters. Besides Kipperlilly (and, funnily enough, Mary Ann) we don't really have a good read on what these kids are actually like. The little time we spent with them all season was kind of a wash if them breaking out of rage means their personalities got laundered too. Anyway, regardless of how their loyalties ended up shaking out, it would have been fun for them to be more than the minions that they were in canon. As funny as it is for them to just kinda be XP farming losers, they did have the potential to be more interesting in their own right if they weren't just Porter's minions. And again, we've done adults forcing or coercing children into being minions in Freshman and Sophomore Year already. Lemme see some self-created child maniacs! (Or, peer pressured child maniacs. That's cool too. The Lucy/Kipperlilly dynamic is way more interesting to me if it's like girl, I would take a bullet for you but I CANNOT walk this path with you any further in response to *I* will be a god and you can be *MY* champion.)

Anyway, those are my thoughts! Like I said, I have my points that I think could have been tightened, but overall an enjoyable season and I will be glued to my screen if they decide to close out with Senior Year!