#mum Brennan?

[glassrooibos]

Look I can’t draw stoats ok IM SORRY OK I still love them

[jedi-starbird]

Obi-Wan: *getting upset cause he got an answer wrong in the quiz at the back of his animal book*

Qui-Gon: Calm down Obi-Wan! It's not a test!

Obi-Wan, on the verge of tears: You don't understand! I want it to be a test!

[melancholyghoul]

Brennan in the ravening war episode 3 adventuring party: I owe both of you [points at lou and zac] an apology

YEAH BRENNAN FEEL THE ABSOLUTE DREAD AND DEJECTION WE ALL FELT WATCHING A CROWN OF CANDY

YOU KNOW HOW WE FELT NOW

'I'm having fun backflipping on this carriage top'

'No you feel a crossbow bolt shoot through your neck for 18 points of damage'

'I'm fully dead- what the fuck-'

[princessdarth-vader]

genuinely forgive me for spiralling abt this thing i just made up but the concept of rolling on the relationship track potentially giving people a stress token is making me want to see riz snap all the more. i think it would be so appropriate to the whole like "the moment he slows down he will break" thing for him to finish these huge challenges and successfully pass all of his classes for the year with flying colours and have a chance to take a breath and use that to try and, for the first time in months, reach out to his mother.

and then it just all comes crashing down and he takes a rage token and fights with sklonda and logically he knows that this rage isn't helping but he's so angry at this system that forces him to work himself to death and sklonda is just. there in the moment; a face for him to yell at. and even if it's not fair he can't control his anger. in the moment he suddenly feels much closer to kipperlilly than he ever has. who sees what she considers an unfair system, and is pissed at the people who enforce it and benefit from it.

idk obviously there are larger plans for the rage tokens as a whole (tying into ankarna, probably pushing them closer to like, being this corrupted being) but it would make so much sense for riz, after everything else has fizzled down, to just crash into a wall and break.

[lolliepops-rox]

Angela Montenegro and Temperance 'Bones' Brennan from Bones (2005) are moirails!

[olauivers]

brennan and his mum on the last adventuring party of "D20: A STARSTRUCK ODYSSEY" was so cute?? I almost cried

[house-of-ivy]

i know we were all sad lou couldn't play amethar bc plot amour but omg was it worth it to get lou playing a DELI SANDWICH LORD say to MANTA RAY JACK "who tf r u??" in a tent with his other PC and his sister.

[longfurbybitchboi]

Brennan's mum characters are the best mum characters in media, change my mind

I think about Sklonda finding out about the tattoos all the time. Just. Brennan’s face, voice, words, intonation… so perfectly mom

if there's one thing about brennan lee mulligan, it's that he is way better at (and fond of) playing an exasperated mom than you'd think (unless you know how much time he's spent working at summer camps)

[bog-owl-riel]

no one talks enough about how insane brennan was for casually dropping at the END of fhsy that a previous incarnation of ayda was a parental figure to garthy o’brien (“my mum’s name was ayda aguefort, too”) while also saying at the beginning that garthy is a sort of parental figure to ayda in this current incarnation…

and then having garthy struggle with that was such a good move bcus imagine your mom dies and is reborn the same person but with NONE of the memories you made together and then you spend your adult life without your mom but at the same time raising her as your own child… THAT’S SO UPSETTING 😭

[islandoforder]

a mum as a paladin is so good, brennan just going “bless on my kids and myself” the second the background music gets spooky, using divine sense to find his kids is just. so good.

[lux-et-astra]

um why am i fucking CRYING at mismag

brennan had so many bangers with evan this episode!!! jesus christ!!! i'm half an hour in!!!!!!!!!!! he wants to be a dog cause people keep dogs!! he wants a treehouse with themed rooms!!! he wanted jammer's mum to adopt him!!!! and then "i dream of making that space for you" fucking hell i'm in tears

[talenlee]

Lessons Lee Mulligan

I want to be better at running tabletop games.

I’m not bad at it, by the way. I haven’t had to contend with players giving me complaints any time in the past… maybe fifteen years. The games I run generally receive praise and players show up because they want to play them. I am currently on a break from running a game though you know watch this space, but I still think of myself as a storyteller, a game runner, and it is with that in mind I have been gritting my teeth in frustration at how good Brennan Lee Mulligan is at it.

I don’t have any malice for the guy. I admit, I had a wildly incorrect read on him as a person when I first started watching him. Somewhere along the way he mentioned that he’d never had alcohol or drugs, and I immediately started to edge him towards the ‘formon or exvangelical’ basket. Then in the Starstruck Oddysey campaign he mentions his mother’s name and his godfather’s name and I realise that actually he’s basically indie comics royalty, and that was quite a thing to realise.

Quite frankly, finding out how his mum feels about him and what she did for him as a child makes me feel very distressed because it seems so impossibly nice and good in ways that disorient me. It’s like watching Bluey, I can’t understand a world where a dad is that nice to his kids.

Still, Brennan Lee Mulligan is good at being a storyteller, dungeon master, game-master, whatever term you want to use, in a way that makes me want to take notes. Some of it is unuseful and unapplicable – I don’t have a custom mini maker on hand and can’t afford one and don’t even get to play on a physical tabletop any more. Some of it is the comical pointlessness of the system that he uses – watching D&D 5th edition involves needing to know almost nothing about the game, because all that really matters is if a number rolled is high or low, and he’s used it for murder mysteries and criminal heists just fine, because whatever else the system is doing, the focus on what the story demands is all it needs to make function.  Instead I want to focus on things Brennan does that I think I can use in my own games.

I suppose just in case, I’m going to talk about some minor details from a Dimension 20 campaign, Fantasy High that talk – obliquely – about spoilers for the first and last episodes. You might not want to read this if that’s a thing for you.

He’s Very Good At Actual Improv

Shock, horror, the guy who ran an improve school and has had years of playing around in improve performance with his friends he trusts is really good at it. The ability to build on what others are doing, enabling them in how they do it, and to trust them to not fuck up what you’re telling them, or the vibes you’re putting onto your

This isn’t a radical diagnosis of his storyteller abilities. Brennan’s job involves numerous other types of web show, including appearances on Game Changers and Make Some Noise which are both shows built out of improvisational comedy.

What can I extract from that though?

An immediate thought is that Brennan is careful with word choice and is extremely unselfconscious about others. Commonly in his dialogue you can hear the phrase you see that they say, which is obviously, when extracted, gibberish – at best it’s padding. It’s also, and this is important: fucking fine. People don’t make supercuts of him saying that, they make single big cuts of the thoughtfully constructed improvised monologues, which are delivered with the high dudgeon of a preacher. I think those are like lego constructions – he knows the pieces, he knows the structure to fill them out, and fills the spaces for them piece by piece.

General knowledge and presentation is useful for this skill. Be aware of a wide variety of ways people communicate, for example. It’s not like Brennan is a master of voices – you generally can tell you’re hearing Brennan say something when he voices an NPC – but the fact he has a swathe of different ways of talking, a bunch of Different Guys to dream up and get mad at – is a useful part of the skillset.

I don’t have players (at the moment) who are avidly into this kind of thing. But recognising the players as audience to experiences, and not players antsily waiting their own turn, is useful. I think Brennan treats solo interactions with players away from the group as if those interactions are interesting and fun for other players to watch, and part of that is, I think, built out of treating engagements as performances. They aren’t things to get out of the way, they’re the material players and people are there to watch.

He Does Put In The Work Ahead Of Time

I have a theory about the conclusion of the first Dimension 20 campaign. It’s not provable and I honestly don’t care to hear Brennan’s take on it, because it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. What matters is what it tells me about what’s possible.

For those of you unfamiliar, Fantasy High’s first campaign was centered in a magical high school for adventurers. It introduced the players to the character of Arthur Aguefort, a delightfully reckless wizard with preposterous power in the field of Chronomancy that seemingly is always one step ahead of whatever his silly actions indicate. In this same story, there’s a prophecy, keeping a dreadful villain contained, and that villain’s containment is breached at the very end of the story, and then there needs to be stuff around that prophecy. It’s a pretty good story, especially in the way that Arthur’s plan is seemingly derailed by the player characters dying in episode 2, and then he sacrifices his life to bring them back. At the end of the story, Arthur comes back to life, in a big dramatic moment that gives everyone a chance to refresh mid-fight with a boss that’s otherwise a bit beyond their abilities. Cool story, cool bit, and it all dovetailed with the prophecy, because of the specific character who died getting a miraculous natural 20 at the last moment.

Except.

I think that with the way the prophecy was worded, and with the secondary details and characters connected around them, it would be entirely possible to conclude the prophecy and defeat the baddie if any of the other characters had been the person to do it. The character who triggered this refresh didn’t have to be who it was, anyone could have done it and the explanation of the prophecy would work just fine, thanks to some homonyms. If I’m right, not only is this a cool mentalism trick that makes Brennan look psychic, but it’s also an example of the powerful advantages of being prepared ahead of time for a spreading network of possibilities.  

I don’t do as much prep work as I want to do. Or rather, more correctly, I don’t do as much prep work for my games as I want to have done when the time comes to run the game. The difference is pretty subtle, but it’s present. Part of it is, I think that prep feels both easy and boring, the deadliest mix of things for my kind of player mindset. When introducing players to locations I so rarely have lists of things like NPC names and random traits on hand for them to grab a stranger off the street to talk to, and keeping those characters distinct from one another is easier when I have those tools on hand. Having short descriptors of places, lists of street names, just the detritus that makes up a place, that would make life easier for me when trying to organise details and let me use a lot of anchoring details.

Making those lists, however, is pretty tedious!

What makes this even funnier in the context of the now is that really, ‘make me a list of descriptions of NPCs for a steampunk street in Vienna,’ is exactly the kind of thing that a large language model software system would be really good at but doing that runs the risk of generating characters that sound boring, and I’m not wild about the idea of engaging with those systems where I don’t have to.

Conclusion

If you’re like me, an older millennial who’s never succeeded at much of meaning, and you see cool people doing things around you that you think ‘oh wow I’d love to be doing that,’ you don’t have to let it fester in you and make you sad. You can take their examples and use them as guideposts for how you can do the things you want to do. Engineering someone else’s success is impossible, but you can at the very least recognise what it is about how they work that excites you.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[earth-to-lottie]

I’ve given myself more time to read Onyx Storm as I wanted to savour it, so I’ve just finished it. I need to discuss so spoilers below the cut

WHAT THE FUCK

WHAT THE FUCK

as is true RY style I knew I’d be sobbing by the end over the characters and the foul cliffhanger and I wasn’t inaccurate in my assessment

How in the ever loving FUCK am I supposed to get on with life as normal with that ending????????

what happened during those 12 hours besides the obvious????? Violet for sure knew she was protecting whatever was left over of Xaden’s soul by marrying him (I think horcrux style she’s gatekeeping it either in the ring or in her own soul)

But we KNOW she won’t leave well enough alone and will move heaven and earth to find him

Did Sgaeyl go with Xaden? Is Garrick Xaden’s new venin brother? (He was reaching burnout and we know he’ll do anything to protect Xaden) or was it BODHI and that’s why X had to marry V asap to keep his family on the throne? Cuir was severely wounded so would bodhi have had to turn to survive/save Cuir/Xaden? The family betrayal RY mentioned is SCARING ME.

Panchek was the fuckin traitor??? Or was I reading too frantically to fully take in that situation?

I really REALLY hope this is a Dorian situation where all hope is lost but he can fight his way back… I’m not sure I’ll recover from any other outcome

Andarna had me crying at least 6 different times my littlest love

Xaden’s mum? And finding out he has 2 brothers? Well fuck me if that wasn’t a kick in the teeth???????

Dain is definitely redeeming himself, he’s growing on me I can’t lie

AARIC???? That’s all I have to say

Almost loosing Garrick was tipping me over the EDGE. LEAVE MY ANGEL BOY ALONE!! AND WHILE IM ON THE SUBJECT LEAVE MY BABY BODHI ALONE TOO!!!

Imogen’s chapter broke my heart into a million pieces. “We made it a good one” excuse me??????

MIRA???????!!!!! And Brennan and Violets bonding throughout this book is healing my sibling trauma bit by bit, but MIRA???

Also the slight revelations about Violets origins? And why her hair is the way it is?? I need answers more than I need oxygen I swear

Yes the banter and the spice was top tier as always (Ridoc my boy came through with the humour and the absolute bad assery) but my heart and soul are a little bit shredded and while I respect RYs need for a break I simply have to know what happens😭 I’m currently writing my own novel so I’m torn between fully understanding how much it’s taken out of her to release these books but my lord I won’t settle til this series is complete

I mean fr I’m never reading an incomplete series again, I cannot keep putting myself through this😭😭😭😭😭

[came-to-laugh-but-cried]

Okay now I need to get some of my thoughts out there:

Beware, Onyx Storm spoilers!

1. Best part - Tairn and Ridoc carried this book, every sentence from them was gold

2. Andarna leaving - I was not prepared and I was devastated, but it felt like my tears were all for nothing when she appeared again at the end? I thought she’ll be back next book some time (and I feel that timing wise it would have been better)

3. Xadens mum - I expected more but I’m okay with it

4. Brennan - he was way too calm when he told Violet he knows about Xaden (remember how Mira or Ridoc reacted?) so I’m even more convinced that Naolin turned venin and Brennan felt that heartbreak and that’s why he was so calm but devastated for Violet

5. The Isles - I like the faster pace but I didn’t like that it felt like the same procedure every time ‚ok this isle worships this god, in order to talk to the people in charge we need to pass their test‘ on.every.single.isle.

6. That ending …. I am so confused. I don’t mind cliffhangers but there are way to many open questions and my biggest one is WHERE IS SGAEYL??

[rainecreatesstuff]

I am a lesbian and as such the only man I’ve ever been attracted to is Brennan Lee Mulligan playing tired bad ass mums

[ratsdontmurder]

yk what’s really interesting about the whole rage subplot in fhsy: The Bad Kids are getting angrier.

Like we can sort of gather that the students of aguefprt are getting angrier, like even if we don’t know exactly what’s going on with the whole rage crystals and stuff, like clearly something is happening. But it’s fascinating seeing it manifest unconsciously in the bad kids. Like Adaine is so angry about ol 4 dogs as well as how shitting the wizard classes are for poorer students (so fair of her). Gorgug of course has dealt with his rage in a massive way. Riz not generally angry but did get genuinely angry at the min max of it all. Kristen is also being confronted with not only a direct foil to herself but also someone exterting power over her brother.

And like rage doesn’t necessarily have to manifest in anger like anger and depression is side by side and like Fabian is so sad and so stressed and like should be angry at his mum for ignoring him like to me that’s what Brennan is trying to get out of him.

Like Rage as an idea is oddly unifying for them all as well as their deep love for each other