#aabria why would you do this to us

[thatqueerbat]

we're

so

f u c k i n g

B A C K

[sparring-spirals]

Still emotional about Fy'ra Rai and Opal, actually. Thought dump time bc i. dont have the energy to cut this down effectively.

Because at that point in the episode, Opal is doomed. Not in the fun little "oh things are getting worse ;)" kind of way we'd been experiencing leading up to the fight, or even IN the fight. At that point in the fight, Cyrus is dead. Dorian and Dariax have their minds twisted, bodies clambering away from the fight. Morrighan has felt, firsthand, just how far gone Opal is, holes in her mind, her friend broken. The heartbreaking sentence of. "You can always come back." understands that she is gone already. She's lost already. Opal has forgotten Ted. Opal has forgotten herself.

So at that point in the fight, we know Opal is doomed. Us as the audience, the cast, the characters. Aabria is running through each of the other crownkeepers and it is more of a goodbye than a round of combat. Defying the Spider Queen invites death, with zero hesitation- Cyrus's body as physical evidence of that. The terms were very clearly set: You leave Opal, you let her be lost. Or you die. (Leaving Opal anyway).

and Fy'ra Rai then. Grasps the crown, understands intimately that she can break it off and it will kill Opal. (I will free you, if you want me to. We would lose you but you would not be taken). And asks, what do you want me to do. What do you want.

and Opal says, I want you to leave. (I want you to live.) and Fy'ra Rai functionally says. No. Sorry. That's not one of the options.

If you wanted to go. I will do that (your blood on my hands). If you want me to stay, I will. But I'm not going to leave you.

There was the point where Fy'ra Rai broke into the communication and I felt my insides sink because. Look. Lets be real, Aabria had already demonstrated the stakes here. The gesture would not be rewarded for the gesture alone. The Spider Queen's terms were: You leave Opal. Or you die.

And Fy'ra Rai said: no.

I don't think I'm overstepping to assume that if Fy'ra Rai had failed the intimidation check, she would have died. This entire thing hits me so hard because I think Anjali knew that too. I think Fy'ra Rai knew that too. Yes, Fy'ra Rai convinced a Betrayer God to negotiate. She carved a third option out of a non-negotiable situation. She knew what would happen if she failed and did it anyway, with no fear, no regret, no waver in her resolve. She had lost enough sisters. She wasn't going to lose anymore, no matter the personal cost. That's part of why it succeeded, I'm sure, but.

Just. Fuck me. The amount of resolve. The amount of love. The amount of conviction. "I am. A protector." You know your friend- your sister- is doomed. So no more negotiating away from that. You step to her side and you grasp her hand and say- doom me with her.

And in some, sideways way, this saves you both, at least for a little while.

Because this story is a tragedy. This ending is a sad one. We know this already. But think about- Opal, under Lolth's bidding, alone in the dark. Think about Fy'ra Rai, alive, intimately aware that she had failed to protect yet another sister.

And think about what we got, instead: the two of them, in deep darkness, danger encroaching- holding hands. Someone they love at their side. A champion. And her champion.

This is still a sad story. But it's not the same one. Fy'ra Rai stared down a Betrayer God and made her change her mind. She stared down a Betrayer God, and her love and conviction changed the nature of the story. It shouldn't have been able to. But she did.

Fy'ra Rai chose to doom 2 people instead of one, and the sheer strength of her love and will managed to save them both, at least for a little while. Isn't it funny how that works? Isn't it devastating? Isn't it. fucking incredible?

[amis127]

(ok but what if I just wrote a public letter of love and deep appreciation to @quiddie for sharing her art and magic with us?? For leaving viewers with a recipe to create their own magic? For showing us what deconstruction and rebuilding looks like that feels honest to the inevitability of the cycles of life? With the acknowledgement that we are imperfect and will fuck up and maybe blow up an arm that didn't need healing [aka: destroying something before fully understanding it, as explored in other ways this season]?

And what if I cried while typing it because as an artist, writer and grown ass Black woman who has been through therapy a few times, I know exactly why someone would be compelled to tell a story like this right now in these "unprecedented" times?)

Ok I'm feeling too sincere to continue this bit.

Aabria, you're the only reason I started watching D20. I barely understood what D&D was 8 months ago and was just fine with using my new Dropout subscription for Game Changer episodes. But I saw a clip of that roundtable with you, Brennan and Matt, said "Oh hey a Black girl!" and decided to check it out.

Idk much about being an online presence (yet!) but I know a whole lot about being a Black woman in a new space doing innovative artistic work. I know exactly what that comes with and can only imagine what it must feel like on a public stage like this. I know the frustrations and fears that come with such work.

And that's why I want to thank you for the resolve to tell this story anyway.

Message received and deeply, deeply appreciated,

Jasmine 🫶🏾✨

[lilu-the-almighty]

I know we all think the blue is radiation. And that is an extremely strong theory and I will not be surprised at all if that is it. But idk it might be my science brain but I don't quite think that is right. Like sure radiation does some of the things mentioned in the story so far, but it mainly effects generationally (if it doesn't just kill you outright). And this whole "lightning" thing seems very strange if the answer is radiation. If it WAS radiation, I feel like Aabria would be leaning into it's effects on the kids?

And maybe she IS doing that. maybe that is what her plan is with Viola's kids. Cause if that is true oh boy guys that is going to FUCK ME UP.

And again this is DND, not a lab report, many of the effects of "the blue" very well may just be for storytelling purposes and I am the last person who is going to dog-pile anyone for stretching reality for a good story. Honestly that would be so cool if this is radiation and that is what she is doing.

But if you held a gun to my head at This Point, October 18 2023, right after I finished watching episode 3, I would say that it is not radiation. Or at the very least not JUST radiation. I think it is something different. I think this big laboratory(?) was a sight for some government experiment and the blue is something of its own. Some horrifying chemical weapon, or new way to harness radiation, or even something that effects stoats directly. Some experiment using stoats as test subjects that went horribly wrong.

Maybe THAT is why the guy in the hazmat suit was reaching specifically for Thorn. Maybe he was trying to clear any of the escaped stoats from the facility? Maybe they had orders to cull every stoat population in the area in hopes to stop the spread of whatever was on those test subjects? Maybe the test subjects are the stoats who are in the "human warren" now.

I am fully just stream of consciousness word vomiting right now, but this campaign is so fucking good. I am on the edge of my seat waiting for next Wednesday.

[gluzzo]

Brennan Lee Mulligan during the fireside chat for The Wizard, The Witch, and The Wild One - Episode 9

[Image ID:

Screenshots of excerpts from the transcript of the Worlds Beyond Number podcast’s fireside chat on The Wizard, The Witch, and The Wild One - Episode 9.

Brennan Lee Mulligan: And, to me, that describes so many heartbreaking situations, where something deep and true does come, like- the number one belief I have, in terms of like, whatever my secular morality is— is that there's a weird attitude in some parts of our culture, that like, impulses are sinful, and morality is like a structure?

Aabria Iyengar: YES!

Brennan Lee Mulligan: And that bullshit. Moral impulses are incredibly real. Nobody needs to explain what's wrong with-think of the first age you are, where someone's mean to another kid, or an animal, and something in you goes, "Wrong!!" And that's primal.

[…]

Brennan Lee Mulligan: And like it's-it's brutal! It's very Imperial. It's like this oppressive weight, from a very smart opponent, who is convincing themselves. Like, the reason the arguments have that urgency, is that Suvi is also self-indoctrinating, and it's part of that thing that comes back up. And I think the big, sinister part of, of….. The idea of principle. Like, what, in principle, is different from a demon being bound in a circle of salt, and what you saw happening to Naram out under the derrick. This is-I don't have time to explain this in this talk back. I have issues with the philosophic concept of principle, point blank.

[…]

Brennan Lee Mulligan: Yes. And I think that the idea of principle, from-especially to a wizard, who is all about organization, taxonomy, patterns, and systems-principle is this idea that, maybe is built on sand, right?

Aabria lyengar: Yeah.

Brennan Lee Mulligan: When we think about "what are your principles," we use it as a synonym for being a good person. "Are you principled?" But the idea of principle being like, maxims, axioms, "What are some rules that I can ALWAYS follow?" And speaking of them, like, if you go back to Aristotle's Golden Mean, maybe living by principles produces bizarre, immoral edge cases.

[…]

Brennan Lee Mulligan: So it's this idea of, like-but it's unexamined by Suvi in that moment, and the reason it's unexamined, is because I think it's one of the main tools of the indoctrination of the Empire. What have you already accepted? Right? I see this in ethical discourse all the time, which is why whataboutism is so powerful, in modern philosophical discourse, is people go like, "Okay. You've made a moral point. You've made a call to action. You've said, 'we need to do something to make the world better.' So what I'm going to do is find some other moral failing of yours, hold it up in front of you and say, 'but you did this bad thing like this,' or this other situation occurred that was similar to this, where you did not act. So wouldn't you in fact, be a hypocrite by acting or not acting in a similar way this time?'''

Brennan Lee Mulligan: Which sounds, when you see it in the world, like sound moral reasoning, and it's garbage.

Taylor Moore: [Laughs]

Brennan Lee Mulligan: Because it's basically saying, like, "Instead of helping, why don't you be consistent?" And it's like-

[…]

Brennan Lee Mulligan: It's like stupid. What the fuck is the point of consistency? Like principle as a measurement of consistency, and the Fox's whole deal would be like, "Yeah, yesterday I did something bad and today I'm going to do something good because I want to." That's all.

Erika Ishii: Yeah.

Brennan Lee Mulligan: And someone would be like, "You're a hypocrite." And he'd be like, "Okay! I'm gonna get some fish slurry."

End ID.]

[heliza24]

Being a physically disabled Dimension 20 fan breaks my heart sometimes

I’ve been thinking about this since last Wednesday’s episode when we finally got a real scene with Lydia, one of the few physically disabled characters in the entire canon of the show. It was nice, but it was really just a lore dump. An excuse for exposition. A moment for Kristen to look good by expending sympathy/pity. (I’m a little frustrated about how that interaction went down. Extending the help action was nice but patronizingly touching the neck of a full-ass adult without consent was not. It was weird and not something she would have done to a nondisabled character).

I have watched almost all of D20 (still missing a couple of seasons) and as far as I know here’s where our list of canon physically disabled characters stand: Lydia Barkrock, Jan de la Vega (who feels pretty problematic to me, maybe more on that in a later post), one of the Dwarven statues in the temple in The Seven (who is not given the dignity of being brought to life like Asha), and Pete’s coworker in TUC2 who is in exactly one episode and is so unimportant I have forgotten his name. I guess you could make an argument that Gunny is disabled, but I don't feel that Lou or Brennan really talk about him or play him through that lens. So in terms of canon physically disabled PCs-- that leaves us with 0.

We do a bit better with neurodivergent characters and characters with mental health problems; Ayda (my beloved) is very well developed and Adaine is a PC. There have been some openly neurodivergent players, like Omar and Surena, whose characters also read ND to me. But that isn’t labeled or discussed in canon, so it's hard for me to know where to class that. I am going to focus the rest of this post on physical disabilities, since that is my area of lived experience. If another fan wants to write about their perspective of neurodivergence rep in the show, I would love to hear that, and will happily amplify.

There has never been a character with a sensory disability or a limb difference or a chronic illness (not a fantasy one, a real one) on Dimension 20. The only NPCs we have are nondescript, similar wheelchair users. And there has never been a physically disabled player at the table. On the flagship show of Dropout, a company founded on diversity and inclusion. It feels extremely pointed to me.

In fact as far as I can tell there has only been one (1) physically disabled performer on any of Dropout’s shows. (Shout out to Brett, you were great on Dirty Laundry.) Obviously I haven’t seen every episode of everything they have produced. If I have missed someone, please do let me know in the comments/reblogs. But it’s a problem. And Sam Reich even agreed with this criticism when I asked him directly about.

I do really hope they’re working on it, as Sam says. But why has it taken so long?

Dimension 20 has had trans and nonbinary and queer players. It has had players of many different races. I’m not saying that the diversity here is perfect; there should always be more POC in the dome, more queer people. We should keep pushing for that. (And we should also push for performers at the intersections of these identities!) But we’ve seen the ways this diversity has expanded and improved the different seasons, because diverse players create sensitively drawn, diverse player characters. They add details to their PC’s experiences that make them feel rich and alive. I’m thinking about each of Ally’s PC’s incredible capital G gender and Aabria “all my characters (even the stoats) are Black” and how excellent they all are. D20 would not be the show it is without this input.

And yet. And yet.

There are 1,000 interesting and complicated themes to explore around disability. Dealing with access. Dealing with ableism. Dealing with compassion and community care. Dealing with none of it and just being a cool fantasy or sci fi character that happens to be disabled. We don’t get any of it.

I watch my favorite show and I see myself in the ace rep and the female characters. But I don’t see all of me. I see a silent but ever present message: you aren’t quite welcome here.

I have this fantasy that I play in my brain sometimes that someday I’ll get to talk to Brennan in person, like maybe if I buy a VIP ticket and risk Covid to go to a live show or we run into each other on the street or something. I am able to look him in the eye and articulate why he NEEDS to include a physically disabled player in an upcoming season. I reference the ways he’s talked about inclusion and writing diversely on Adventuring Party. Maybe I hand him a handwritten letter, or hell, a printout of this post. And because he really cares about diversity and his shows and his fans he would listen to me, and cast a physically disabled performer in the next season.

But I think that might be giving that nondisabled man (whose work I adore, who I respect so much) too much credit. Because he’s had Jennifer Kretchmer, a physically disabled actual play performer, on adventuring academy to talk about access in gaming. He’s hired disability consultants. He knows about physically disabled people, enough to give us shoutouts as inconsequential npcs. And he still hasn’t thought to include us at the table. In over 20 seasons. None of that other stuff matters if we aren't given a seat at the story telling table, and the agency to craft our own narratives equal to other participants in the game.

When Lydia was telling her story in the last episode, I kept wishing for a prequel, where she is more than a plot delivery device and a kind but unimportant parent. I want to know about her adventures with her adventuring party. I want to see a talented, wheelchair-using actor play out the scene when she decides to put the gem in her chest. I want to hear about what happened after. I want to know how she survived. I want it so badly it hurts.

I am in the process of trying to find new indie actual plays that feature more disabled talent. I am learning how to GM myself so I can tell these kinds of stories. But it’s not the same as being a fan of something. Sometimes I don’t want to have to make my own representation. Sometimes I just want to turn on my favorite tv show, the one that I have cosplayed from and written metas about and loved whole heartedly, and see myself included.

If you’re another disabled or neurodivergent fan I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. If you’re not, I’d love for you to reblog this. I would love for the absence of physical disability in this show to be a topic of fandom conversation, at the very least.

[jq37]

I'm like genuinely interested as someone who thinks a lot about the craft of critique and fandoms the ways in which the current Rat Grinders discourse shows why you can't really apply the same lens you use to critique a pre written story vs an improvised actual play show by a bunch of comedians who are first and foremost concerned with committing to the bit. Like Porter's a great example of this, he went from a nothingburher to secretly evil with a whole lore and backstory!

In the same vein the Rat Grinders probably could have turned out to be not as culpable in all of this had the Bad Kids really tried to bond with them, but instead they focused on other things with the way downtime was structured! And because they did that they could pass the Last Stand, and are safe from Porter's rage thing! Like legitimately I really liked the mechanics of downtime this season, it just also came at the cost of developing the Rat Grinders!

(Though to be entirely fair, the BKs did try to engage with Oisin, Ivy, and Ruben and then Oisin launched the house, Ivy was racist, and Ruben still attacked Wanda so)

I think it's really fascinating from a storytelling/game design perspective! The downside is the Discourse is so tiring

Yeah it's interesting. I covered some of this in other asks so I'm gonna hit on the stuff I haven't yet.

If you're telling a story that is based partially on user input, it's not entirely fair to be like, "This subplot was underdeveloped" if the reason for that was that the players didn't make choices to facilitate that development. When DM's push hard for the players to care about things they're not interested in, they get hit with railroading accusations.

And even outside of the player choices, there are also the rolls. A BIG part of D&D is the randomness of the dice. Even if the players care about something, it doesn't mean they'll get it. I'll mention again that Kristen tried to roll Insight on Buddy before the final fight and got a Nat 1. What is she supposed to do? Roll again until she gets a good read on him? That's not how that works. If the dice aren't cooperating, there's not much you can do. And you can make sure your big story beats don't rely on dice but at the end of the day they *will* shape your story in ways you can't control.

Another key thing about the medium, as you pointed out, is things can change on the fly. The confluence of high rolls and serious interest can change things that were behind the screen canon in an instant. In Burrow's End, Aabria planned for Bennet to have a family but as soon as Tula/Brennan expressed interest in romancing him, she Thanos snapped that family out of existence. I don't know how much Brennan wanted the Rat Grinders to be recruitable but even if he'd planned them all to just be foils and evil and nothing else, I can totally see him flipping one if they'd really wanted to and it would have made for a good story beat.

Anyway, yeah! Interesting stuff to think about. Even though D20 often feels like a TV show, it's important to remember that it's a different beast in many ways.

[musicalcastingideas]

Dropout Does The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

So my theory about overlap of Dropout and Team Starkid seems to be accurate, and people seemed to like my Dropout does Nerdy Prudes Must Die post, so I'm back for another. Same method and criteria as my previous post, you can go see that if you want to know what they are. Also, I have previously done a similar list with Internet Personalities that included a handful of Dropout people, but I'm gonna try to make this one different.

Also spoilers for potentially anything in the Hatchetfield verse

Paul: Ross Bryant

Ross is a great straight man (in the comedy sense, I don't know his sexuality) while being very funny in his own right, and I think, while Paul has a lot of his own funny moments, it's very important that his character is also the more normal guy reacting to the madness around him. Also, he would slay the Jekyll and Hyde homage that is Let it Out.

Emma : Siobhan Thompson

I think one of the essential parts of Emma's character is an underlying exhaustion with the world, and that is very Adaine Abernant and Ruby Rocks, so I think Siobhan would embody that very well.

Charlotte: Vic Michaelis

I don't think I've ever heard them do a transatlantic accent before, but I just have this gut feeling they'd be so good at it.

Ted: Ify Nwadiwe

While I do genuinely think Ify would be great in the part, if I'm being fully honest, this casting is because I (despite my better judgment) find Ted Spankoffski hot, so casting arguably the hottest man in Dropout in this part makes me seem less damaged for being attracted to the self-proclaimed sleazeball. Also him and Vic seem like they would be great playing off each other.

Bill: Brian "Murph" Murphy

He just has "refuses to drink during the apocalypse so he can be the DD" energy.

Mr Davidson: Brian David Gilbert

Since I'm splitting up all the parts, this basically turns Mr Davidson into a Princess Track where the actor just shows up, sings about desire and being choked while he jerks off, but laments how he can never achieve his dreams, and then pretty much leaves, and I don't know why, but that seems right up BDG's alley.

Melissa: Lisa Gilroy

Lisa Gilroy seems nice, but also kinda scares me, and those are the correct vibes for Melissa (#heymelissacore)

Sam: Jacob Wysoki

My only concern about this casting is that he'd go SO HARD in You Tied Up My Heart that he would keep breaking the handcuffs and/or chair, but that's fine, it would be worth it.

Nora: Katie Marovitch

The "Decaf?" parts of Cup of Roasted Coffee already sounds a bit like her TBH.

Zoey: Rehka Shankar

I feel like Zoey is such an underrated, funny side character in the show (I know she's a very small part, but like every line she has is a banger) and I feel like Rehka is a very underrated performer, so this is a good match.

Greenpeace Girl: Persephone Valentine

Making up the Save the Sea Turtles campaign is such a Sam Nightengale move, and also she would eat up Lah Dee Dah Dah Day.

Alice: Surena Marie

She's got a bit of a baby face (I thought she was like 25) and I think she would handle the change from Alice to Hivemind Alice really well.

Deb: Emily Axford

I'm definitely not just casting this because I want Emily to be my protective and caring girlfriend...

Professor Hidgens: Josh Ruben

I don't have an explanation for this one, this is vibes alone.

General MacNamara: Brennan Lee Mulligan

"Wear a Watch" and a song highlighting how the hivemind is essentially fascist and using the military to destroy any resistance to their regime is so Brennan core.

Homeless Man: Ally Beardlsey

I just feel like this is the part they'd want.

Dan Reynolds: Lou Wilson

Icons play Icons.

Donna: Aabria Iyengar

Icons play Icons

Hard Cuts:

Jacob Wysoki as Ted

Mike Trapp as Paul

Emily Axford as Emma

Jess Ross as Charlotte

Lily Du as Zoey

Grant O'Brien as Professor Hidgens

Grant O'Brien as Ted

Ally Beardlsey as Ted

[heartub]

my ideal bit-based d20 season would be as follows

the dm: brennan lee mulligan (this is crucial due to the required party to real life table dynamic)

the pcs:

emily axford: elf sorcerer

lou wilson: tiefling warlock

brian murphy: some fucked up little druid guy

siobhan thompson: fae wizard

aabria iyengar: human wizard

zac oyama: human fighter

trust me on this

the setting is modern fantasy where all the pcs work for the same magic company but they start to notice that things are a little bit

funky

so they all band together to investigate. siobhan & lou have the most power in the company of the party, but it's importsnt to note that siobhan is slightly less competent that aabria.

this drives aabria bananas ofc, so we get silly moments very akin to "anyone can cast fireball," she's always complaining to whoever will listen so it's silly fun time

murph & emily are both interns, emily was given the position via nepotism so she feels perfectly comfortable doing shenanigans to get to the bottom of this. murph did not get here via nepotism so he's sweating the whole time about how emily will 100% get them fired

lou is having the time of his life he's working with a bunch of goofy guys and he gets to finally climb the corporate ladder like he deserves to after all these years, he's there to stir the pot a little while everyone else is going buck wild

you might be wondering why is zac oyama a human fighter? this is because a) he's the underpaid and exasperated head of security. the mages are so convinced that nothing but magic can stop them, but he knows better. b) so aabria can look at him like he's a camera from the office and be like look at all these non-human freaks. and c) to bring a little bit of colin provolone's just a guy energy to the table

the party at some point experiences goofy infighting so it becomes a silly argument where the sides are aabria & emily and siobhan & murph over the morality and effectiveness of magic use and they spend a good 10-15 minutes trying to get lou and zac to pick a side. they do not.

most of the campaign is just silly bickering

the bbeg is of course, capitalism

[dimension20npcofalltime]

Round Four (Semi-Final) - Bracket One [Dimension 20 NPC of All Time Sidequest Edition]

Lukas vs Doug Meat

Propaganda under the cut (May contain Major spoilers for Burrow's End and Never Stop Blowing Up)

Lukas - He/Him

Campaign: Burrow's End

Who is he?

Lukas is a child stoat that is being educated in The Last Bastion of the Light's daycare.

Why is he the NPC of All Time?

A perfect little boy without whom the campaign would have been very different. Started off as comedic relief and added depth to Lila and Jaysohn, but ended up creating an incredibly emotional moment in the final battle of the campaign. Also, I love Aabria's voice for him and he deserves the world.

Showed up, followed the party immediately with no questions, had a funny voice, got addicted to mint, completely useless. THE MOST NPC ENERGY of all time

He brings so much fun to the twins’ side of the story. it’s clear that aabria just like, forgot that they’d cleared his nose with the mint when she started him with the stuffy voice again, and then everyone just went with it.

Doug Meat - He/Him

Campaign: Never Stop Blowing Up

Who is he?

Doug Meatskin(previously Doug Meat) is one of Kingskin's goons.

Why is he the NPC of All Time?

I’m sure he’s been submitted already but seriously he is the best character. he is the mvp he is the goat he is the second president of the usa in the eighties like how there was two popes one time.

The "party adopts a random background mook so they're a character now" of all time

He loves his mob boss boss. He's co president of these unites states of America. La familia.

That's my fucking president right there <3

It's GOTTA be Doug. The loyalty, the emotion, the love for the people he trusts. And his name is DOUG MEAT

He’s buff, he’s emotional, he has unknown depth and vague feelings for his drug lord boss.

DOUG MEAT!! he is a lover he is a fighter he has ideas for how to improve a criminal gang!! most loveable NPC of NSBU he is gorgeous and wonderful!! he just wants to hold someone's hand :((

It's Doug Meat, man

DOUG MEATTTTTTTTTTTTT

He stapled a mask to his face just to remove it within five minutes of talking

I just love him so much <3 (you do not have to use this I just don’t really know what to say sorry)

[dropoutconfessions]

Multiple people have now said "Hey, when you said trans men are called confused instead of perverts that felt like you were dismissing the experiences of trans men". How many people have to say that before you say "sorry, that wasn't my intention".

We need to listen to trans women and their experiences. But so often people in this debate keep ignoring trans men or TME people who are pointing out how certain facts are twisted. The experiences of all TME get lumped together, and when trans men point out that non binary people don't represent them, they're ignored.

We get it, you're highlighting the lack of TMA. But ask yourself why separating trans men from TME non binary people would be hurting that argument if you consider these two distinct groups of people. If it doesn't hurt the argument, why not do it?

When someone points out a Black woman might have blocked a white woman for non-transphobic reasons, and that black TMA people are being minimised, it's "I haven't seen anything *I* consider racist".

Nobody in this debate seems willing to consider other people's experiences as valid and it's so frustrating.

I am not obligated to apologize for a misinterpretation of my words. When I make a claim, about a single scenario, in response to a person, who was discussing a different post describing a single scenario, it should be expected that I am not talking about every single instance in the world. That was literally just me, discussing the existence of transmisogyny. I have already apologized time and time again for a million different things for the fact I have difficulties expressing my thoughts with the correct words, I really shouldn't have to copy and paste it every time people assume everything I say and do is malicious.

But if I have to, I'll reiterate: I was not talking about every single instance where transmascs experience transphobia. I was just talking about how transfems are more likely to be punished more severely for not passing. That is not to say transmascs are not punished the exact same way. But just based on statistics alone, transfems are more likely to be victims of violence than other queer identities.

The only reason I do not seperate TMEs by identity is the same reason we do not separate cis people by identity when discussing trans issues. Like, do you specifically point out how cis women and cis men have different life experiences every single time you talk about transphobia? No. You also don't do that for cis white people and cis POCs. If I was supposed to list every identity and group and compare their privileges every time I mentioned anything about my own privileges and lack of privileges, we'd never get anything done.

I am aware, that trans men and enbies are different and do not represent each other to the same extent as they represent themselves. This conversation started because transfems asked for representation for themselves. Every fucking day I read another post about a trans man who doesn't believe in transmisogyny saying it's not his job to uplift trans women, it's not his job to protect us. Why's it ours to speak for him? We look through history why is always the transfem of color throwing the first brick? We spoke for ourselves for once, and everyone demanded we speak for transmascs too. And I fucking did. But I never see that shit reciprocated on a widespread level. Why?

I'd also like to add, yeah, TMEs aren't all the same. But like, Ally Beardsley got top surgery and is on T, I'm certain trans men have a bit in common with them than I do, yk? Like yeah, we need more trans men. But I'm not even asking for trans women, literally just more transfems would help.

As for the blocking of plaidos, I scrolled through her blog, she never @ aabria a single time as far as I could tell. In the recent posts at time, she hadn't discussed race. So here are the possibilities:

Aabria scrolled through more of plaidos's blog, found some racist shit, and blocked her, while completely ignoring plaidos's and other transfem's requests for more transfem representation on dropout

Aabria has been blocking accounts that were particularly vocal about the requests for transfem representation on dropout including plaidos

Someone told Aabria that people were being anti-dropout or racist or vile in some way and she started blocking based on that

Aabria has legal reasons as a creator on Dropout to not interact with these requests

At the moment, I am hoping it's 3 or 4 because I like Aabria and I love her work. But until someone sends me like a single post of plaidos that actually shows she said anything racist I'm not going to believe it at face value. You're like the 5th person to say it and each and every time I ask for a link to a post and I get nothing. And telling me to check a tag on a blog isn't enough, y'all know this website's search function is borderline useless.

If you read like, any plaidos post, she constantly brings up that POC TMA voices are being ignored because everyone keeps assuming that white transfems are the only ones complaining.

I need this to be clear because this might be the most important part of what I have to say. I am completely considering trans masc voices to be valid. All of your experiences are valid and I do believe they happened. But on a systemic level, transfems do have worse experiences. Because this is a discussion about institutional transmisogyny. And while I know for a fact these things happened, if you tell me a story about a white guy being arrested, that doesn't change the fact that our justice system is systematically racist. The same goes for transphobic violence. Based on the actual statistics, transfems experience it more often. Once again, for the nth time, that doesn't mean transmascs don't get hate crimed. Transfems are victims of it more often.

Thank you for staying sane about this btw, it's refreshing to see someone who disagrees with me not telling me I'm a monster or that I should delete my blog and die. /gen

[chiakery]

There's new version of the intro so here's new translation (my screenshots are mostly shit so I can't make a lot out of them, if anyone manages to take better ones, please feel free to send them my way and I'll try my best to translate more!!):

A - We've got "Ilościowa" in bold (tr. quantitative) B - handwritten part is hard to decipher but i think the first word is "klosze" (tr. shade, as in lampshade), underneath it is "nazwa" (tr. name) and underneath that is "miejsce przechowania" (tr. storage point). C - this one's interesting. We've got "Przychód" on the left side (tr. revenue) and on the right we have "Rozchód" and "Zużycie" (tr. expenditure and wear, as in how much something was used) Additionally, a moment later than I took this screenshot, the down left corner of the card becomes visible and you can make out words "Rodzaj i numer dowodu". While you can translate "dowód" as evidence, the translation that makes the most sense here would be "The type and number of the ID".

Here's the second one (that's actually connected to the third one): A - for some reason it's funny as hell to me that they took care to barely show us any other text but here we are, with a perfectly visible word "Wałek" (tr. roller) lol I mean, they probably meant is as "arbour", the kind you'd use in a lathe, but still. B - "Decyzja kier. wydz." is short for "decyzja kierownika wydziału" (tr. head of department's decision) and "Orzeczenie DKT" (tr. DKT's opinion) but it's more like ruling than someone's view on something. No idea what DKT is supposed to stand for. C - written sideways and partially obscured "Karta" (tr. card) with the second word completely covered and underneath that once again "nazwa" (tr. name). But we get to see more details in the next shot that shows the same card from a different angle!!

A - now we can see that the full phrase is "Karta zwrotu" (tr. return card). How do we know it's the same one as previously? Simple, once again we've got "Orzeczenie DKT" in B.

Unfortunatelly I couldn't make any other words on this one or the next one - they were just too blurry.

Hope some of you found it interesting! Oh, and what the fuck is up with the change in the eyes when Aabria's name is shown? Why did they change them??

(Sidenote: for a moment when i heard about 12 symbols and what they were supposed to mean I thought it was "Idź do światła", but that would translate only to "Go towards the light")

[briarsartblog]

TLDR I'm pretty happy with this. I will probably do a background then make more. Thanks

So I'm bit further along in colouring, I'm really happy with how the shading on the frills went and I think the fox turned out great!

I had to pave over the hair which was sad but it was the only way I could figure to make it work for me (I had to cheat a bit and use acrylic to cover the parts of the old hair with the hat in the background) The hair still needs a little work, I'll probably have to cheat harder and use more acrylic to lighten parts of it and use the current black as shadow so fast becoming less of a watercolour project and more a multimedia experience but that's alright every project is good practice for the next project (Suvi probably, I would like to do all the PC's and probably Sir Curran for Brennan, also I want to do one for Taylor maybe and I'm leaning towards the Ace of Wands bartender and I don't know why)

Also I would like to do a background for this but it will take some planning

P.S. I won't do one of these every time because it would get old real fast, but thanks everyone who liked the last Ame picture I'll try not to get self conscious about the attention, I'm coming back from 15 years of not doing art due to some not great experiences and it really meant the world to me that even a hand full of people enjoyed this. Shout out to Aabria if she see's this, I don't know if it was just a fluke she liked the last one or if she would bother reading this wordy mess but I strive to be even half the DM you are in my home game.

Lots of love all Briar

[flurry-of-beaus-pop-pop]

Regarding the current discourse in the Critical Role fandom about the current storyline occurring in Campaign 3, I just want to address some of the main arguments I’ve seen...

Argument 1: The “gods are bad and should be destroyed” view is tiring and overdone and just attacks religion.

First of all, if you have the expectation that Critical Role should start paying attention to what all other popular shows do that stream their D&D Campaigns, then you may need to re-examine your expectations. 

Why do I say this? Because in regards to Critical Role, Campaign 1 was very heavy on worshipping the deities and Campaign 2 was very heavy on worshipping the deities. Like, I never watched Campaign 1, but in Campaign 2, I can’t remember a single point where someone questioned the purposes/importance of the deities, even when they themselves, didn’t believe. 

Campaign 3 is the first campaign where the majority of the party don’t have some sort of religious connection, so to say that the “gods are bad and should be destroyed” argument is overdone, is simply ludicrous because this is quite literally the first time it HAS been done on Critical Role. 

Argument 2: This entire storyline is ridiculous because it’s obvious that Predathos destroying the Gods/Goddesses would be bad and there’s no argument one could make as to why it would be good. 

Here’s the thing. To us? It’s obviously clear that releasing Predathos and allowing him to destroy all the gods/goddesses would be horrific and a tremendous mistake. Hell, I’m sure that to Travis, Marisha, Sam, Ashley, Laura, Liam, Taliesin, Christian, Aabria, Utkarsh, Emily, and Aimee, the idea of releasing Predathos to destroy the deities is a bad idea. But that’s because we have literally all of the background information on what the deities do and how instrumental they are into how everything works. 

The characters that are present in this campaign? They aren’t us, and they aren’t the players that are playing them. 

The decisions that are being made in this campaign are being made based on what the characters know not what the players know or the audience knows. And unfortunately, most of the players in the campaign don’t have any sort of connection to the deities and therefore, don’t have any sort of framework for why destroying the deities would be bad. They’re operating based on the information that they are given, and what they can deduce. 

Unfortunately, that might mean that when push comes to shove, they may make the decision to allow Predathos to be released because someone presents them with information that makes that decision make the most sense. 

Argument 3: Critical Role obviously has an agenda with this storyline because Laudna, Bor’Dor, Prism, Deni$e, Orym, and Ashton just blindly agreeing to help this group of villagers makes no sense

Except it does make sense. And if you were paying attention, they explained why it made sense. 

Right now, Laudna, Orym, and Ashton’s main goal is to get back to their friends and stop whatever is happening with Ludinous. 

In order to do that, they need to know where their friends are. How can they find out where their friends are? By using the scrying well and in order to use the scrying well, they had to help. 

As was pointed out, whether they helped or not, this coup was going to happen and so they might as well, especially since it was very clear that the presence of these individuals from the temple were not a positive presence. Plus if they participated, they could have some semblance of control over what happened. 

Honestly? I’m excited for this storyline. It’s not offering a fresh perspective that hasn’t been present in these campaigns (as mentioned before C1 and C2 were very heavily Pro-Deities), but it’s offering a very realistic depiction of the variety of moral dilemmas that arise when something VERY BAD is possibly about to happen and the lengths that you’ll go to in order to stop that bad thing from happening, sometimes to the point of doing things that you wouldn’t otherwise do. 

I’m excited to see where this goes, and even more excited to see what happens when the two parties reunite, especially if this second group ends up going down the road of “the gods should be destroyed” since Team Wildemount landed on doing whatever they could to stop Ludinous. It would be super interesting to see what happens if the party is truly split on a big decision like this because for the most part, they’ve always agreed, at least on the major stuff

[utilitycaster]

Big D20 and ACOC fan here. The "they won't get the rich lore" argument just also feels so ridiculous from a technical standpoint? Like, CR fans watch long ass episodes, the campaigns for it span over a hundred episodes lmao. I'm pretty sure they're actually primed for lore retention and are fairly used to intricate plot points. I personally can't wait to see Matt take this on and bring in more viewers.

Right! Like...firstly, fans of Critical Role, or Matt, do tend to be massive fucking nerds, and CR in particular is pretty heavy on lore so assuming the worst of them is pretty dumb. Secondly, as I said, there's very few resources for this lore other than watching (requires a subscription) or reading the transcripts of the episodes - and I want to be clear, I don't blame the D20 wiki editors, who have as far as I know been minding their own business - but the people hyping up the rich lore have done nothing to bring that canon to potential new fans, instead just tsk-tsk-ing and saying "you wouldn't get it." Thirdly, I'm going to take a wild guess and say again that Matt and Brennan have gone through the lore together and are going to set the stage adequately for new viewers.

Which is the big thing that I think the people attempting to say "you wouldn't get it unless you've continuously been in the fandom specifically for ACOC for three straight years" are fully missing (and which your ask here does take into account appropriately). Dropout needs subscribers. That is their business model, and D20 is one of the shows that brings in the most new and continuous subscribers since many of the other shows, while great, are unscripted quiz-style shows and permit a more, well, drop in and out style of viewing.

The past few D20 seasons have not been pulling in the same viewership, and we can speculate why that is but it ultimately doesn't matter. They are specifically bringing in a popular and well-known DM, having a group of experienced roleplayers, and returning to this specific beloved setting on purpose to do so - both to mine the overlap in fandom between D20 and CR and perhaps expand it, reach out to fans of Aabria or Anjali, and perhaps bring back in people who watched A Crown of Candy but haven't kept up since. A lot of the discussion truly feels like it paints Matt as "asshole who wandered on set and seized control over my blorbos" and not "person who was very deliberately invited to DM this particular season and has the explicit blessing of Brennan, Sam Reich, and anyone else involved in the decision-making at D20." (I honestly don't know if the D20 powers that be are aware that there's a cohort of D20 fans who just passionately hate CR or Matt but the thing is, if I were a hypothetical executive who was, shall we say, plugged into the fansphere? I'd pick the setting of Calorum specifically so that we retain its passionate fandom, even if they don't like the DM, while also bringing in new fans. It would be the smart business decision, and also pretty funny.)

But also...look. I am certainly not above criticizing fan theories based on poor understanding of lore, or when people are like (smug voice) "well I'm a lore muncher so combat doesn't interest me", or when they respond to thoughtful meta with irrelevant projections. But if someone wants to watch Critical Role and make liveblog posts of "hell yeah, Fearne just stole that guy's watch, iconic" without going deep into the lore? That is absolutely just as valid a form of fandom as writing meta, or fic, or creating fan art, or cosplaying. The same goes for any other show. If you want to get into lore discussions and meta then yes, you should be relatively up on the lore, but if you just want to hang out and enjoy the show? You can show up to episode 1 absolutely cold and pick it up as you go along. It's fine, and anyone saying otherwise is an asshole who does not have good intentions.

[islandoforder]

aabria why would you make it change every time how many tags do you want or need me to use plz think of the tumblr tags