#Throw the rat out

[st-hedge]

A sekiro sketch with a tiny ghostly dragon ????? Cuz I got thinking after that cny noodle doodle

[spellboundcrown]

are you truly accountable for your actions if you're merely a pawn?

[winn-wynn]

I still wonder how Percy reacted to finding out Scabbers was Peter Pettigrew

[backpackingspace]

Do we think odysseus started pranking Athena and her temples at some point? Because I do. He argued that it was good for sneaking and evading training. And you know what Athena couldn't argue that. Her chasing odysseus across the island was good training.

[dukeofthomas]

"Angry robin" "violent robin" "misbehaving robin" shut up and accept my alternative; spunky Robin. Determined and head strong, can out-stubborn the Batman, has a strong moral-backbone and does what he thinks is right regardless of what anybody else says, Robin. Jason who was sassy and quippy and made crude jokes with a smile on his face. Jason who hid in Bruce's cape and whispered gossip to him. Jason who, if Bruce refused him something, could keep bothering endlessly until Bruce caved. And also dramatic Jason. If Bruce tells him no, it becomes a whole theatrical show; a monologue, a narration, embellishments, and falling onto the floor in his grief upon the fact his cruel father has denied him once again.

(Jason who has suffered through abuse and homelessness and poverty and starvation, who is the Fight out of Fight or Flight, who's built up defenses and walls and when pushed and triggered responds with the thing that's always protected him; anger. He's sweet and kind and funny, and when he sees a pimp hitting a prostitute he gets furious and responds with violence.)

[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! 

[demontouched]

i really like that fantasy high isn't six* people entering brennan's world. it's seven people working to build and establish a world, and brennan was just the start. he had an idea, he shared it with friends, and said "join me, let's make this something beautiful together."

(*for the people who saw this before the typo fix, i'm sorry 😭 i didn't even realize. i'm very bad at typing.)

[rileys-battlecats]

If Birchspeckle knew about Wrentail's abusive actions towards Mudpaw, why didn't she do anything?

She didn’t know about it while it was happening, she only learned about it afterward when Starclan tried to warn her that Mudpaw was dangerous and that he’d killed Wrentail.

Living away from the rest of the clan, they’re very isolated and don’t see their clanmates very often at all. I’d say, before Wrentail’s death, they might’ve seen Mudpaw once or twice (if at all), and certainly not long enough to notice anything amiss.

She still doesn’t know the extent of the abuse that occurred, but she’s making some educated guesses based on 1) Mudpaw being an outsider, 2) Wrentail’s track record when it comes to outsiders, and 3) Mudpaw’s actions and current emotional state.

[bongwateriero]

i am something that you’ll never comprehend

I Would Die 4 U - Prince // Gerard Way (Atlanta, 2022, Mexico City, 2022)

[maybcnks]

idk i just feel like arthur "my favorite thing to do is fuck with time" aguefort will probably bring the rat grinders back after the whole rage thing is sorted and they'll get the Aelwyn, Zayn and Ragh "Reformed Villain Squad" treatment (to a lesser degree obviously because I don't really think there's any way to come back from the stuff in kiperlilly's file)

maybe it's gunna take the rat grinders getting their asses beat to realize that this wasn't the way to go about things and porter was the wrong person to align with.

but overall i think a combat episode where they try to go easy on the kids who have actively and publically announced how much they hate the bad kids would've been underwhelming. the rat grinders needed to see what they were up against especially since they don't have experience doing combat like this.

[mod2amaryllis]

who else haunted by an apology you never got the chance to make???? 🤪🤪🤪

[romeowho]

Look, I was shocked by the big reveal, but it wasn't as shocking as the end of the episode because we'd all already been talking about how porter might be evil, but none of us suspected oisin was only flirting with adaine as a means to an end

[kinokoshoujoart]

i’m calling an exterminator

[mrghostrat]

hiiiiiiii, i've been posting my rigging wips on twitter but the platform is making me sad and i wanna share more here anyway SO

i usually rig chibis, but have been working on a more detailed character for myself over the last few months. it's been bonkers learning how to rig hands (something i thought i'd never do) and then experimenting with NEW angles and movements all on my own!! i'm so heckin proud of it and can't wait to finish already

[oneluckygoose]

Ok, guys. A lot of people have their fan casts for a Rat Grinders spinoff series, but hear me out.

What if season whatever of Dimension 20 was with the intrepid heroes, but Brennan didn’t tell them what their characters were. They get into the dome, The background is the normal Fantasy High background. The DM screen is the normal Fantasy High DM screen. They all sit as if they would for their Fantasy High characters. Brennan does the introduction, everybody’s smiling everybody’s happy, then he starts with the first scene.

But Nobody has a character sheet nobody knows who they are. “Strange, how do you play if you don’t know who you are playing?” A sentiment throughout the six heroes. The scene moves on, and he does it through one of the players perspectives, and it becomes clearer and clearer, slowly, that that person is playing their Fancy High characters antithesis from the Rat Grinders. Brennan hands them a character sheet.

The scenes go on, each hero getting their own. The character sheets are handed out. Horror: screams are heard throughout the dome, yells and shouts for Brendan to do unspeakable things. All the players are befuddled. All the players are filled with wishes for revenge.

The Intrepid Heroes, beloved of the characters they play called The Bad Kids, now play what they hate the most.

They are the rat grinders.

[praetorqueenreyna]

You're telling me that Tamlin showed up and saved Feyre's raggedy traitor ass completely unprompted midway through ACOWAR and ppl still have the NERVE to say he is irredeemable???