#new D20 season later this week

[alowqualitychild]

Every time a Dropout show premieres

[thisisnotthenerd]

in light of the new d20 season (burrow's end!!), i have updated the spreadsheet & will be updating it as class info comes out. by god i gave myself homework to do.

anyways, here's the updates:

brennan is now at 18/20 seasons, playing in 4, three of which were aabria's sidequests. i'm glad he got a break from gming for a bit. now he's just a wee stoat for a while.

siobhan, joining ally and zac with 9 total seasons! it's so fun to see her in the sidequests--i can't wait to see where she goes with this one. i'm also just giggling at the fact that in some of the clips she just has a leaf in her hair. just sticking out the top.

aabria, still at the top of the guest list now with 6 seasons under her belt, gming 3 of those. now, since we've been told that the next ih season will likely by starting late Q4/early Q1, murph will be up to eight. however, if they stick to a similar sidequest schedule and he doesn't join, aabria may well overtake him next year. she's already very close.

erika, up to 5 seasons now! she's back again folks! i'm excited to see if he sticks to the magic or if he takes a dip into martial this season. as noted previously they've had 2 druids, an emo disney princess mage, and a shadow sorcerer vampire before; where will they go from here?

izzy, joining the three cree ranks, with rekha shankar and matt mercer. they've put her 1) in the plothound seat next to aabria, 2) next to erika, and 3) across from brennan. oh boy get ready people. she's back.

and joining the dome for the first time we have jasper william cartwright and rashawn nadine scott! after the schedule was posted for this week i knew it was likely they were teasing rashawn for this season, but i could not have predicted jasper! from the trailer it seems they're both following the trend of intense makeup & hair--very fun to see.

class updates will come later--see you all on october 4th for the premiere of burrow's end!

[pikmininaplane]

Hello dear mutual LB lanuel Bals third of its name, i do not know a SINGLE thing abt d20 i only rbed because a mutual drew that and i thus extend the official invite to feel free to info dump to me abt it (PLEASE !!! only if u want ofc peeposhy) and also where should i start if i were to try to get into it (asking for me)

thank u and have a great ballsy day <33 uwu

Oh em gee it’s Moo Peng my beloved tumblr dot com mutual haiii ^w^ And thank you SO much for giving me an opportunity to talk about this >:D This might get long tho

D20, aka Dimension 20, is a RPG (mostly D&D) show that you can watch on Dropout (smaller American streaming service, but it has really good content <3), though some seasons are on Youtube!

There are 21 seasons in total so far, but each one is its own campaign (well, except for the 3-4 sequel seasons), which means you can absolutely jump right into a later season and still get what’s going on :] Also the seasons range from 20 episodes to 4, so you don’t always need to find the emotional resolve to sit through 20 2-hours long episodes lol

The fanart you reblogged is of Ayda, a character from Fantasy High, which is basically the poster child of D20 – it was the first season, and it later got two sequel seasons, Sophomore Year (which is the exact one Ayda is from) and Junior Year, the most recent season, as well as two spin-off seasons with locations/characters from its world (Pirates of Leviathan and The Seven (it’s kinda funny actually because I know you’re a PJO fan and, well, I often see posts about it in that season’s tag because of the name X))) Mostly it’s about a bunch of teenagers in a fantasy 80s-esque high school trying to solve mysteries and going on adventures!

Fantasy High is not my personal favorite, however – the medal of honor goes to A Court of Fey and Flowers and Mentopolis, respectively the "fey regency/romance" season and the "Inside Out but as a film noir" season <3 But there’s plenty I love!! There’s a space opera season, a "Game of Thrones but with food" season, a heist season, a furry murder mystery season, a fairytale horror season… the list goes on! It even featured a bunch of drag queens on a season :D

There’s only four seasons available on Youtube, unfortunately, but they’re all really good so here they are:

Fantasy High

I’ve mentioned it before, so I won’t elaborate, but I’ll add that it’s 17 episodes long!

Fantasy High: Sophomore Year

Also mentioned before, but I’ll add that this season was recorded live on Twitch so while it’s a lot of people’s favorite, it has occasional problems (especially audio-wise). 20 episodes long

Escape from the Bloodkeep

Lord of the Rings parody – the villain lords find themselves scrambling when not-Sauron suddenly dies and they’re forced to work together to bring him back :3c 6 episodes long, features Matt Mercer of Critical Role fame

The Unsleeping City

Urban fantasy, turns out there’s a whole magical side of New York that regular people can’t see, and a group of unlikely heroes band together to face the bad parts of that magical side >:3c 17 episodes long, there’s also a second season of it but it isn’t out on Youtube unfortunately :(

The next season, Never Stop Blowing Up, is coming out in like a week and a half, based on the trailer, it’s going to be a Jumanji-like 80s action movies parody and I am!! Very excited!! :D

[ah0yh0y]

tagged by @ribcagelikepiano for the get to know you game!! thx friend !!!!!

questions: last song you listened to, currently watching, currently reading, current obsession

last song: Come Hang Out by AJR off the top of my head by my tabs say Providence by Poor Mans Poison . Come Hang Out feels so nostalgic to me even if i only listened to it recently reminds me of a graduation song (it came out 5 yrs ago so it makes sense. I just really love Poor Mans Poison's vibes generally great fuel for daydream and also matches well with the feeling of revolution (and seeing everything collapse i guess.) (ish) mentally listening to Your Love is All I Need by Sami Yusuf tho at all times lately, probs because i have been trying to wean myself off listening to music for like the 50th time. (its slow going but IM GONNA TRY inshaallah ill be able to do it) (he also took the old nasheed music video off his channel? sad its so good)

currently watching: does d20 mentopolis count? only watched one ep but its good. i havent watched anything regularly besides like school vids for a bit. tried watching the dragon prince s5 when it came out but buffering (the video player i mean) and dissatisfaction at the pacing and characterization kinda stopped me. ill back on it at the end of the yr when everything is settled. if we are talking about podcasts started relistening to wolf 359 and keeping up with the greater gatsby (the latter has SUBLIME noir vibes as it is a noir i bloody love shipwreck's work it scratches that itch in my brain so well) . i may have seen spoilers for wolf 359 so i am anxiously waiting to see if i am proved wrong but im on s4 so its soon prepare for a barrage of reblogs for it. watched s4 of malory towers it was very nice i cant wait for s5 - the pantomime hopefully we get new members for the older years next season i miss the larger cast

currently reading: not much really. fanfic alot. i guess. caught up to the end of the To Make a Legend series on ao3 (pjo) and other fics for a couple of other fandoms (in one false move by Kalidium is really good if your into murder most unladylike - spoilers for A Spoonful of Murder though) also been reading barbie 2023 fanfic? was bored and started hunting for good ones (slim picking at the moments but if you want character study and grief and some bloody good writing def read something in me in you by telm_393 i cant explain it its that good) also reread My Memories Came Back in the Form of Someone Else by Lucy_Luna yes its that really good spiderverse fanfic do check it out

BESIDES THAT THO in terms of actual books. have the audiobook saved for The Valley and The Flood so gonna listen to that later. Have to read The Hate Race for class (not my fave but i need for analysis ive read it like 3 times but I STILL DONT REMEMBER ANYTHING) .

started rereading The Ballad Of Songbirds and Snakes a couple of weeks ago ahead of the movie coming out at the end of this year but never got the chance to finish it so ill have to get on that too.

also dracula ive been reading as well but more on that the next section.

current obsession: re:dracula is the first that comes to mind im so bloody invested in jonathan's wellbeing and his relationship wiht mina and the whole story its insane . i should read more older books its good . re;dracula DOES SUCH A GOOD JOB AT SUCKING YOU INTO THE STORY THE VOICE ACTORS REALLY MADE IT FOR ME i just cant with ti it makes me so bloody happy!! Renfield's voice actor is a standout for me everytime he's there i just have to pause and stare at a wall. also jonathan's actor as well hes SO GOOD i was geniunly worried about jonathan not sending me voicemails into my phone i was THAT endeared to him

besides that PLAY IT BY EAR the musical improv show by dropout is also a obsession of mine i cannot with their talent. the MUSIC so good i want to play it all the bloody time . i am in absolute awe in the performers ability to create a story and TIE IT ALL TOGHETER SO WELL like every piece of information is used whether you expect it or not . DN THE BAND OH GOD I DONT KNOW HOW THEY SO IT THE MUSIC IS SO FUN AND CREATIVE AND FITS THE MOOD AND MADE UP ON THE SPOT???!!! HOW I DONT KNOW (if u ask me who my favourite guest star is at the moment its ross byant hes an absolute delight whenever he is on a d20 show- the improvised shakespear episode blew my mind)

anway THIS SI LONGGGGGGGG soz

no pressure tags: @filmloser04 @mistichallow @charlies-a-thief

@literallymahir @quotidian-oblivion @monochrome-anomaly @suksiili @miseria-fortes-viros and anyone else that wants to join!!!! (you dont have to do a brain dump like me i always go overboard)

[captainsspnanon]

C2E59 - Perspective

Sorry for delay, I gave The Unsleeping City a go and had to finish it.  I personally prefer CR over D20, because I love the CR cast all RPing with each other, whereas in D20 it’s so heavily story focused, and RP seems to just be between PC and NPC, not PC and PC, but I’m going to give Fantasy High another shot, and then did get Dropout for some of the other campaigns.  All in all, I did enjoy it, and if you are someone who really wants more good story than lots of RP, I’d recommend D20.  (also a lot more comedy, just by the nature of the stories created and the settings leaning more into the absurd than the classic)

BUT BACK INTO CR, PLSKTHX

(and of course today’s a Thursday, so unless I finish this episode tonight, which is unlikely, I won’t finish it until after I watch the new one.)

….FUCK matt looks hot

nooooooooooo top camera is lower quality :(

(it is now several days after starting! XD  My focus is SHOT right now, I keep jumping from one thing to another to another.  PLUS I’m really wanting to start my Leverage rewatch, and then there’s this, and then there’s giving Fantasy High another go [on the third episode now] and then just all the cooking videos that I watch, not including actually reading and doing shit……...my brain needs to calm down!)

Let’s see how far I can get today before my brain nopes out.

YASHA CHARGING FORWARDS!!!!  (not at ALL influenced by Travis getting super hype in the corner, no sir)

Oh hey!  Is this the first Dwarven Forge sponsor for combat section?

“this will be a trick I learned from Brennan” re: the blue tack.  I had NO CLUE who Brennan was the first time I heard this, so this is super cool! Escape from the Bloodkeep looks like it aired on Dropout around Feb 2019, and this episode is from April 2019, so only a relative few months between (even including that I don’t know when the D20 stuff was actually filmed, because I think? that they have the entire season filmed before posting?)

Travis is SO EXCITED that the Charm Monster worked.  And for good reason!  This definitely was a big turning point of the encounter!  Actually, I wonder how the entire section of these few episodes would have gone had the Nein just killed the giants.  Never find out about their home, never find out about the rift machine, never get the scrap of fabric for scrying……. Unless Matt was going to have the giants start talking during the combat regardless to try to stop it from being one-sided, this is a case where a whole chunk of the campaign could have turned out very differently.

Yasha succeeded on a wisdom saving throw????  what is this out of character nonsense??!!! oh wait, it was for Hold Person.  Alright, proceed.

Yeah, Cat’s Ire! I want to see the cat claw mini next to the Bigby’s Hand mini from C1.  For whatever reason, it always feels to me like the cat claw is smaller, despite knowing that it’s big enough for Caleb to ride it in the cathedral fight.  I’m assuming this is just due to the perspective with the minis.

I actually got a decent chunk into the fight before I noped out from focus issues, but just didn’t have much to say because, yanno, combat.

A week later, let’s keep going!

POLYMORPH LET’S GOOOOOO!!!  Yes, I will likely be this excited every time someone casts Polymorph.  It was THE spell of this campaign, had incredible use both in and out of combat, and ranged for serious to humorous as needed. (Runner up iconic spells for C2?  Sending, Bless/Bane, and Spiritual Weapon are the three that come to mind)

A wild Foster appears!  Foster uses Refill Drinks!  It’s super effective!

Travis, while he gets all the credit he deserves for being an amazing RPer, does NOT get enough credit for his physical portrayals.  He mostly sits outside of his PC while at the table, but when he DOES do it, it’s fucking fantastic.  The ‘UH UH UH, DOWN’ head waggle and heavily downturned mouth??  Completely in character, and completely hysterical.  I love Fjord so much

Okay, the giant telling Caduceus that they were attacked by creatures with wings and long faces?  Ominous and also exciting.  Hearing it again now knowing what the creatures look like??  Absurd and humorous.  It’s SUCH an ugly mini, omg, it’s forever tainted my reaction to it.  And to be fair, it’s a strong creature with some terrifying abilities!  But it’s so GOOFY LOOKING.

“watched his life wither” it’s so cool to see how much Matt actually tells the group ahead of time, but because they don’t have the knowledge of what’s to come, even though he shares it all, it’s in such a way that they can’t predict.  He did the same with the information with the Beacon, and I’m sure much more that I’ve forgotten.

WAIT WHAT what is this shit with Soorna’s brother being killed by the creatures and then being undead? and possessed or shit I DON’T REMEMBER THIS AT ALL

I really appreciate how in C2, pretty much every PC aside from Yasha all had multiple instances of them taking the lead and handling big conversations.  If it’s more serious/analytical, usually Beau or Caleb take the lead. More demanding or bluster or submission?  Fjord (with a wonderful show of flipping between his dynamics).  Humorous or unexpectedly influential?  Jester and Nott.  And while part of it is just Ashley not having the opportunity to, it also makes sense that Yasha mostly sat back and let the others do the talking.  There’s no one set leader, no one style of voice, no one player who made sure to play the face.  After I’d finished watching and watching C1 (so therefore having the opportunity to forget a whole lot of C2), my remembrance was of Caleb, Beau, and Jester being the big talkers. This rewatch is really letting me appreciate Fjord, Nott, and Caduceus’ contributions even more.  They don’t have just ‘one off’ moments, nor do they just have their ‘big’ moments.  All are a steady contribution throughout the campaign.  (and, no hate here, but honestly?  I’m glad we didn’t have Molly throughout, because I really am unable to imagine his conversations and how he may handle things – especially considering Tal wanted to play him as fairly static in terms of character growth, so imagining early!Molly with his harshness and abrasiveness, unsoftened in the way Beau and Caleb are, is just jarring in my mind)

Oh, investigation checks.  I kinda feel bad that Beau got a 25 but basically just found junk, where Fjord got a 26 and got the humiliation material.  I know that technically they were searching different areas, but it’s just one of those things that feels a little bad.  I’d have thought that maybe it required the nat20, but Matt specifically asked “for a total of?”, implying that it did have a specific DC.

Jester pestering Caleb while he’s casting Comprehend Languages definitely gives me twinnie vibes, but also in a completely different way.  Full props to Laura and Liam – the three dynamics that they’ve presented in each of the campaigns is so different but feels so true.  I’m still early on in C3 (episode 30 airs tonight…..episode 29 is the one that I mentioned earlier XD) that they haven’t fully established how they will work in this one, but I’m SO looking forwards to it, SO SO SO MUCH.  Or even finding out if in C3 they end up having a very MINIMAL dynamic – like how Caleb and Caduceus, despite having a few good conversations, had much more of a minimal dynamic than the other C2 friendships.  It’s early enough in C3 that I don’t know! And what’s already been established can change!

Re: moorbounders “if they get killed, I’m going to kill you” “no you won’t, you love me” can I just mention how much I love Laura and Travis’s relationship with how they portray it when they’re streaming?  It’s so fucking adorable

I am pretty sure that I haven’t forgotten a moment, so I am gonna say FIRST INSTANCE OF YASHA EATING BUGS (yes spiders count as bugs shut up).  You can tell that she had this in her mind early on, Matt was describing the flesh and she was sitting there smiling and nodding while the other players/PCs were getting grossed out expressions.  She had the rat to eat before, but this is a step further.  (side note, yes I’m aware that insects are eaten in non-US cultures.  But I admit that it’s a hellova NOPE for me, especially with my phobia of bugs crawling inside my body).  I wonder how much of this was improv-ed in the moment and how much of it was something she’d already determined for Yasha’s backstory.

IT’S BEEN A WHILE!!!!!!!!!!!  First appearance!!!!!  I’m shocked that so many of them jumped on it instantly.  It made me think that it must have happened earlier, but I can’t find any earlier instance of it.

Sam making good use of travel time to have a conversation with Caleb about Nott’s feelings, and it’s so good.  It might not get touched on in depth at this point, but it brings up basically all of her worries.  Is she a bad person for immediately going out on an adventure again?  For WANTING to go out on the adventure again?  Will Yeza like who she is now?  He’s accepted her skin for the moment, but what about her mind?  Does SHE want to go back to being who she was?  So quickly laying out everything there, for an emotional journey that will take the rest of the campaign for her to go through.  And Caleb!  Being so supportive of her and her choices, but also fully reassuring her that Yeza will support her, disagreeing when she thinks it’s just for now.  Also – let’s give fucking full credit to Liam Oberon in this moment.  They’ve already had the Nott/Veth conversation when Nott first shared her story.  But then they also all understood the switch to Veth while Yeza was around.  And now, Caleb takes a moment to clarify even further ‘what would you like me to call you when we are not with Yeza’ and it’s BEAUTIFUL.  This is just a small aspect of it, but it’s a moment where a viewer can really take this and use it in their own lives for people that they may know, to ensure the comfort of those who struggle with their identity or how they present it.

HENRY CAMEO!

Okay first of all, Laura doing sad!Jester destroys me every single fucking time omg. Secondly, I’m actually not quite sure where she was leaving the possibility of the RP going.  I’m a bit disappointed that Travis didn’t engage with it.  While the moment ended up being silly kinda flirty kinda teasy, it feels like there was something big under the surface that got missed.  And because of my shitty memory, I can’t remember if it comes up again later or not!  (to be fair, Laura could have just been RPing Jester as low from being poisoned the night before, but let me read into things)

I appreciate Travis noping out as Matt is describing all the spiders that they’re seeing.  At this EXACT MOMENT, there is a decent sized spider RIGHT ABOVE my bed where the wall meets the ceiling.  It’s too high up for me to kill it, even if I stand on the bed.  As long as it STAYS there, or moves somewhere else, I’m...well, not fine, but ignoring it.  (I had to sleep with it there last night T.T) but if it comes down the wall?  It diiies.

...I just realized that everyone is individually mic-ed.  When did this happen????  I thought they had mics above them?  They’ve certainly hit them enough times.  Maybe because Ashley is back so they’re not seated properly under them?  Or maybe they’ve had the individual mics for a while and I’ve just completely failed to notice?  *starts checking things*  oh, they didn’t have them before break.  I’m guessing it’s for the kickstarter celebration after the show then, and they just decided to get it done during the break to reduce the amount of time they needed to get set up.

I still have mixed feelings with Frumpkin exploring everything ahead of time.  It’s great that the map gets cleared and the party has a vague idea of what they’re heading in to, but it takes the agency away from other players to discover it on their own.  I don’t remember how much Vax did this as well, I think it was frequently?  Or at least at the beginning.  Just glad that Orym doesn’t do it.  Yet.  It’s different when it’s different players doing it each time, but when it’s the same player each time, in multiple campaigns?  I’d hope that Liam checked in with the other players to make sure that they were cool with it.  It’s hard to argue with, because tactically it makes absolute sense to send Frumpkin, but that doesn’t always translate to fun.

Oh good, this was only a quick little exploration.  And once again the ‘does Frumpkin have darkvision’ question.  Matt should have just given Caleb a magic collar or something that let him have darkvision as a cat only. Dumbest 5e ruling.

Beau boosted with Holy Weapon is SO fucking badass, I wish it happened more often.  I actually only remember it one other time….CR stats has it a total of 8 times.  Episodes 59, 60, 69, 82, 95,105, 133, 139.

I….forgot about all these con saves.  Fuck we is in trouble

I hear a lot online about how Matt pulls his punches once Molly died.  Except Fjord nearly straight up died during this combat from having his hit point max reduced to 0 (thanks Cad for canceling the crit!), being targeted as an unconscious creature while an aggressive target was in range but ignored.  I disagree with this statement fully, for what it’s worth.  I also don’t get the argument of people who are desperate to see the party fall and PCs constantly die.  I get that it happened a lot in C1, but you know what also happened in C1?  The players got tired of it.  They talk about it in one of the Talks (have no clue which one, whether it was at the end of C1 or during C2) but they were resurrectioned out because of how emotionally taxing it was, especially to keep having it happen.  So much of the ‘waaaah’ online is that the people thing Matt is being too gentle.  IF he is (which I don’t agree with), then it’s likely something he decided after talking with the players.  Considering they shared their feelings online through Talks, it’s VERY likely that they would have talked with Matt and explained how they felt and what they would like going forwards.  And there is nothing wrong with having a more or less deadly game!  But this is where there’s a lot of preference that it taken from the point of the viewer basically ignoring what is likely preference on the parts of the players.

I forgot that the NPC got the kill!!  I guess ‘cause it wasn’t as hyped up for the “How Do I Want To Do This” moment with Obann – Matt even still says the normal HDYWTDT.

LOL Liam is never going to let anyone forget what happened with Kynan.  STILL SALTY.

I don’t think I’m going to watch their kickstarter wrapup.  I watched it the first time, and I’d rather go to the Talks, or jump back into Fantasy High (still not vibing with this one as much as I did for The Unsleeping City, but they do two of it so I feel like I have to)

@suicidallyreckless

[operationslipperypuppet]

for the d20 ask game - 5, 12, and 20? :)

5 - favorite quote

because it's the only thing that i can think of right now, i'll say "only thing that could take us out was a trip to the zoo" from barry. it lives in my head, i think about it once a week minimum. i would say that there are definitely other favorite quotes of mine that i will be able to think of later.

12 - campaign you'd like another season of

i did just answer this, but i'll give another one instead of just referring to that. bloodkeep. i love them. it's so chaotic. it was also the second d20 campaign i watched and it's so much fun. plus as a leiland/markus stan i need more interactions with them.

20 - recommend some d20 mutuals

this is hard and i'm going to forget people but off the top of my head:

@hi-intrepid-heroes

@queen-caramilflinda

@figsbass

@chungledown-bimothy

if you are a mutual of mine and we haven't talked feel free i like making new friends

thanks for the ask!

d20 ask game - asks

[supercantaloupe]

hello! would you be willing to talk about the flaws in d20? what did you mean by structural/cultural flaws?

sure. disclaimer up front that these are just my own opinions and that i don't want them being taken as fact or being taken up with the creators of d20 directly by anyone on my behalf.

i found that the longer d20 went on/the more seasons they produce that the structure and (some of) the content get less and less appealing to me. content wise this is really very subjective; for example i'm not interested in dating sim-type stories, so Shriek Week was never going to be my thing. but even seasons with premises/gimmicks that i like on paper (like anthro characters in Mice & Murder and space sci fi in Starstruck Odyssey) i found to lose my attention as they went on. love the concepts, but the execution was lacking a little bit for me.

but i think my issues with the show structurally are my larger criticisms, and i don't think my personal taste issues with the content are entirely divorced from the structural elements. anyway, what initially hooked me to d20 with fantasy high is the fact that, unlike any other actual play show i'd come across at that point, it had several structural elements in place that grabbed my attention and held it: 1. the episodes were relatively short (between 1-2 hours); 2. the seasons were relatively short (18 episodes or fewer); and 3. the visual aspects of sets and minis were engaging and helped sort out the action but were not NECESSARY to following along. i don't have the free time or attention span to get invested in an audio-only 100-episode campaign where every episode is like 4 hours long; d20's earliest seasons were very attractive to me for this reason (plus the inventive-for-the-actual-play-genre settings and plots, but this is one thing at least that i do not think d20 has faltered in with its later seasons. the creativity and originality is still great in this regard).

so it became an issue for me, starting around Crown of Candy, when episodes started creeping longer and longer. and then seasons crept longer and longer, like The Seven (sidequests used to be an easily digestible 6 episodes and i liked that). even worse than episodes consistently being over 2.5 hours long i think was that episodes were not a consistent length: the last two episodes of Starstruck Odyssey are under 1.5 and over 3 hours respectively. i understand that a lot of this has to do with the loose and unscripted nature of the storytelling medium, and the cast/editors don't want to break up the flow of the show in inconvenient places. but from my perspective as a viewer, it's kind of exhausting not knowing week to week how much time and energy in advance i'm going to need to dedicate to a new episode of my favorite dnd show to relax and rewind. i'm someone who just does not have the patience to dedicate to anything that long without forewarning, nor do i have the schedule to accommodate that without advanced budgeting of my time and workload. and since one of d20's existing strengths imo is its serialized weekly episode release (increasingly rare in this age of streaming and bingewatching), part of the fun of d20 is watching the brand new episode when it drops every week and reacting to it with everyone else doing the same thing at the same time. when a 3 hour episode drops on a wedesnday night and i have too much shit to do to watch it, and thus i have to wait til the weekend or later to catch up, i can see exactly what i'm missing out on when i watch all my friends on discord or tumblr or whatever watching and reacting to it without me.

i also really miss the structure of the rp-battle-rp-battle episode format, particularly for the mainquest seasons. i think this was an even bigger loss for the show due to covid than the physical minis and sets (which i missed, certainly, during the pandemic seasons, but i think they worked around their absence well enough that it didn't bother me). i'm sure also the more freeform nature of Sophomore Year contributed to this change too but since that was the only full season thus far that was ACTUALLY improvised live to an audience as opposed to being completely shot and edited prior to release, i don't hold it to the same standards of scrutiny as i do the other seasons. anyway, i once again think it comes down largely to a predictability thing for me: you knew, when there was such a pattern to the episodes, exactly what you were getting into in any given week, whether it'd be battle or roleplay. moreover, you knew that each episode was going to wrap itself up in a satisfying way (not necessarily a complete way, but in a satisfying way) that prepped for the next week's episode, which also promised to have a different tone and goal. that variety was important to me, and the predictability. battles and roleplay both get exhausting and difficult to follow (or worse, boring) after too long without the other to break it up. i miss the structure of this pattern (i think started to depart from this format with TUC2 iirc, which is also the first season i watched as it was airing and got the feeling that it was becoming a bit of a slog to watch all the way through).

all of this is criticism, of course, pretty ironic considering that Sophomore Year is still probably my favorite season. but again, livestreamed. they still (mostly) kept their episode length consistent around 2-2.5 hours (finales notwithstanding lol), there was more internal variety within episodes (one 2.5 hour episode wasn't necessarily 2.5 hours straight of just rp or just battle), the gang got split up a lot more which allowed for more variety in storytelling within an episode or an arc, etc. and on top of it, i think that plotwise, they followed up Fantasy High extremely well, introducing/continuing/expanding lore without it feeling out-of-place or retcon-y. i think it having been made still mostly pre-pandemic before a lot of these changes i've been complaining about were fully implemented does link it more closely still with the style of the early seasons i liked so much, but regardless i think Sophomore Year does demonstrate that some of these traits that i don't like about newer seasons, on their own, are not bad. i just don't think they're implemented very well in recent seasons, or at least not well enough to hold my attention and excitement anymore. long episodes aren't inherently bad, but inconsistently long episodes are hard to work around in my life. a lack of a regular rp-battle episode pattern isn't inherently bad, but there needs to be more internal variety to each episode and a satisfying wrap-up to each episode (which may mean simply wrapping up each episode sooner, or it may not).

none of this is even to get into the execution of content in each season. obviously ymmv with personal taste for whether you like any given season's premise or plot beats or whatever, but i remember the many (valid) criticisms emerging surrounding unbalanced character focus and especially racial insensitivity (from the show and from the fans) with certain seasons like TUC2 and Misfits & Magic. not even to mention my own problems with the inclusion of judaism (or lack thereof)/antisemitism in the show, but i have to get to class soon, and don't have time to elaborate on that right now. this post is long enough already, and my issues with the structural elements of the show are just as strong as my criticisms of its representation issues or whatever, plus i think structural elements are easier to understand if you haven't watched every single season because they apply broadly to many seasons, while issues of representation or bad plot/character balance or whatever are only relevant to specific seasons.

[kalinaapologist]

oh do not even worry abt it!!! we are like perfect balance bc i consistently rewatch the big moments and endings for the closure in my heart until it all starts again!!!! everytime you leave it for later just know someone else is treasuring it in the same breath! <3

i hope u know i might hangout here when the new season arrives bc ur thoughts have been incredible i love ur input (even if i don’t get input for the last episode)

omfg please you are so sweet 😭😭 PLEASE i will be going absolutely fucking crazy when jr year comes out. i've only been into d20 for a bit and burrows end was the first thing i've watched live so i deadass don't know how im going to survive only an episode a WEEK😭

im so excited to enjoy it and consume it with everyone tho!!!!!!!!!

[retrokid616]

Critical Role Episode 50 pre-game

so here we are episode 50 so how do i feel knowing its the solstice well an old 80s movie said it best THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

and by that i mean holly shit please for the love of the dice gods there is not a TPK tonight anyway in other news matt's guest GM'ing a season D20 later this year.

so yeah

all that and more this week so until then see y'all in the live blogs tonight.

[dimension-20-every-introduction]

Everyone Introduced in Dimension 20′s Shriek Week episode 2

[asimovsideburns]

While I appreciate the speed with which college humor is putting out new episodes of dimension 20, I also feel like… I wish they would slow down? Is that a weird take?

Like, first of all, they’re consistently down to the wire with editing. The trailer for the newest season wasn’t finished in time, so they had to push it back and release just the title reveal portion instead. Adventuring Party episodes consistently come out without captions, which are them added later as soon as they’re completed. Editing on seasons happens as they’re airing at least some of the time, if I understand correctly.

So, just from a standpoint of “I don’t think it’s great for the crew to be always racing the deadline” I would be more than willing to wait a bit longer between seasons, or between episodes.

Second, the fact that they’re releasing 2+ hours of episode AND 1+ hour of talkback every single week is just. SO much content. Especially when I’m also trying to keep up with other shows in addition to like. Life. And the fact that they come out so fast means that if you fall behind, it feels impossible to catch up, at least for me. I’ve watched two episodes of A Crown of Candy, less than half an episode of Pirates of Leviathan, 5.5 episodes of TUC2, and the first episode of Mice and Murder comes out in two weeks. It’s going to release full length episodes every week. I don’t know if it’s going to have talkback episodes or not, and while I would absolutely love to see them I find myself hoping it doesn’t just because I feel so overwhelmed with content.

I can’t even keep up with the, for the amount of content, honestly frenetic pace of new releases, let alone watch/finish older seasons. People talk about doing rewatches and I think, how do they have the time?

Plus, I think that the show would benefit from 1) giving fans more time to theorize and discuss between episodes, 2) more time to process the finales and analyze seasons before new premieres, and 3) a bigger window for people to submit Adventuring Party questions. I mean, for that last one, Adventuring Party is sometimes recorded the night the episode goes up, or the next day, just so that there’s time to edit it. That’s not a lot of time to submit! If I don’t watch when it drops at 7pm eastern, without pausing, I feel like I’m not going to be able to get my question in before they record.

AND, all of that is not even considering the OTHER content that college humor produces! I know that d20 is the biggest draw but the fact that it’s so nonstop means that people who want to keep up with it naturally have less time to check out other shows like game changer or um, actually. There’s years of shows on dropout and I feel like I can’t take the time to give any of them a try if I want to even attempt to stay current with d20.

tl;dr: I think that college humor could benefit in a lot of ways by slowing down their release schedule.

[loreofthekidults]

fruit snacks & wonder bread | lee chan

focus: dino

words: 1.7k

genre: stranger things au / high school au / dnd au? / fall themes

description: More stranger things au for the beautiful fall season! This is a continuation/addition to the fic with Jeonghan from week one, but can be read independently. Just piling onto this svt x stranger things universe hoping things make sense. Anyways made it in the nick of time for week two of #caratrevival, whew! This week’s themes were Dino and the lyric « Here’s the baton, man ». Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

(Quick note, I went a bit ham with the dnd game at first because I miss playing, but I tried to edit the scene to be as simple as possible so hopefully it’s not too confusing for non-dnd players. To all dnd players, BSS are all bards and that’s canon.)

____________________

“Don’t forget to say your thank you-s and excuse me-s!” 

“Yup!”

“And remember to wash your hands and clean up after yourself!”

“Yup!”

“And also share your snacks with everyone!”

“I know, I know,” Dino swept an armful of fruit snacks off the kitchen counter into his backpack as his mother stood beside him with hands on her hips. “And I know, don’t be too mean to Seungkwan, yup, got to go now!” 

Dino rushed out of the kitchen to the back yard and tugged on the door handle to the shed. His bike was leaning against the wall in its usual dusty corner beside the rakes. After retrieving his bike, Dino hurriedly waved to his mother seeing him off through the parlor window. As he reached the line where the grass met the asphalt of the driveway, the garage door grumbled open to his test.

The dingy Ford Station Wagon thrummed to life and slowly backed out into the sunlight. The windows rolled down, and the scream of the electric guitar paired with the bass and snare heartbeat of Prince’s When Doves Cry flew out into the air. Dino’s older brother Jihoon glanced at him in passing as he reversed down the driveway. His friend Wonwoo sat in the passenger seat and nodded at Dino in greeting. 

“Where you headed?” Jihoon asked him nonchalantly while twisting around to see if he was going to hit any trees.

“To Seokmin’s. We’re starting up a new campaign.” Dino kept pace next to the car as it crawled down the driveway.

“You guys still play Dungeons and Dragons?” Wonwoo pushed his glasses up. Dino could feel the gentle mockery in Wonwoo’s piercing gaze. 

“Yeah, we do. What bingo session are you senior citizens off to join?” 

Jihoon snickered and shook a finger at his younger sibling. “What a smartass. Who’s DMing this time? Your campaign sucked last time, hope it’s not you again.”

“You have poor taste in adventure. And Seokmin is.”

“Good. Well have fun, then. Remind Soonyoung that we’re meeting later. And tell him not to be late again.”

“Where are you guys meeting?”

“He’ll know.”

“Come on. Tell me.” 

“Bye Channie.” Jihoon gave Dino a curt look before changing gears and turning onto the road. Dino bugged his eyes out at him in retribution. 

“See ya, Dino.” Wonwoo raised a hand in goodbye. 

They think they’re so cool. Dino smirked internally as the two drove away in the ugly wood-paneled car. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out his headphones, attached it to his walkman, and pressed play. The falsetto of Michael Jackson’s Beat It filled his ears. Hopping onto his bike, Dino pedaled furiously in the opposite direction.

Seokmin’s house, only a short 15 minute ride away, was located in a general northern direction from Dino’s home. In between were lengths of forest and hills, and driveways dotted here and there. The schools and hubs of Plediestown were on the other side of town, so this part of the woods was quiet, with only families and farms going about their lives like happy smurfs.

The autumn air had chilled the air and shriveled leaves were sprinkled across the grounds. Another, more attentive person would have better appreciated the gradients of red, burgundy, pumpkin orange, and mustard yellow foliage of the forests around them. The neighborhood contained snapshots comparable to Bob Ross landscapes. But to Dino, this was nothing new to admire, it was just home. 

Like Nuest Court, where the houses of the cul-de-sac were clustered together at the bottom of a large hill with the massively old oak tree. It wasn’t just a scenic view, it was where all the kids in the neighborhood went sledding in the winter and played manhunt amongst the fireflies until the summer sun disappeared. 

Dino zoomed past the hill, the oak tree standing majestically as ever. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the movement of a figure strolling under the tree.

Is that Minki?? What was he doing here? 

Dino blinked furiously. It had been years since the boys of Nuest Court had left town together to follow their dreams in the city. If one of them had returned home, it would have been the buzz of the town. Turning his head, Dino squinted at the lean figure . He had shoulder length black hair, loose-fitting white shirt, thin—honk. HONK.

Whoa. 

Dino screeched to a halt and twisted his bike sharply towards the curb. A car drove around Dino, and he saw Seungcheol giving him a happy wave in his sky-blue marching band uniform through the driver’s window. Even with the windows closed, Dino could hear the guy giggle his ridiculous giggle as he passed.

Dino turned his gaze back towards the oak tree atop the Nuest Court hill, but the figure was no longer there. 

Oh well. Dino merely shrugged and went along his way. He’d hear about any new visitors sooner or later in this small town. 

By the time Dino was pedaling up the driveway to Seokmin’s house, he had all but forgotten about the possible Minki appearance. The garage door rose as he neared the house, and Jeonghan appeared, donning the same ridiculous blue uniform as Seungcheol. Dino threw his bike onto the grass beside their perennial bushes and rushed into the garage, swinging his backpack at Jeonghan.

“Hey Jeonghan. Nice outfit.”

The older boy dodged his attack and called after him, but Dino was already two steps in the house and purposely ignoring him—he hated being babied by Jeonghan. The warmth of the house tickled his cheeks, and he lightly plodded down the familiar stairs into the even toastier basement. 

“Eyy Dino!” Hoshi yelled, jumping up from his chair. Vernon raised a hand in greeting. Mingyu and Seungkwan were in the midst of an argument over who’s dice were prettier, so Dino plopped down next to Seokmin, who gave him his trademark sunshine smile and high-fived him.

It wasn’t long before the group huddled seriously around the small table and quickly descended into the magical realm of Seokmin’s imagination.

“The party leaves the inn well stuffed and equipped with shiny new weapons.” Seokmin’s eyes widened dramatically as he narrated the story and built the world up around them. “You all head towards the edge of the forest where the old wizard said the gate to the Noir dimension is located. There is no sign of any life, but there is a stream of gurgling water and trees lined the shoreline. In the shadows of the woods, three—”

“Can I attack the stream?” Hoshi interrupted. 

“Why in the world do you want to attack the stream, Soonyoung? It’s not going to do anything,” Seungkwan rolled his eyes and sighed in frustration. 

Hoshi stood with one foot on his stool, his chest puffed out, and his imaginary sword in his right hand pointed towards the ceiling. “Because I can!” he laughed mightily.

Mingyu groaned and swiped his hand through his hair impatiently. “We’re not even going to get to start the quest today,” he muttered. 

Vernon smiled and shook his head, used to Hoshi’s goofy antics. Seokmin laughed heartily, clearly enjoying this turn of events. 

“Ok! Roll to attack!” Seokmin declared.

Hoshi took his d20 and dropped it into the center of the table. “Oyyyy, Nat 20!!!”

“You successfully attack the river!” Seokmin screamed. “Hoshi slices at the water, and you can hear a soft gurgling sound eerily similar to the word ‘ouch’.” Hoshi religiously followed the words of the Dungeon Master and mimed poking his sword at an imaginary river.

Mingyu doubled over cackling and managed to fall off his chair. Vernon was shaking Seungkwan’s shoulder in glee as they both guffawed incredulously.

“What a waste of a nat 20!” Dino exclaimed, but he was struggling to breath from his own shrieks of laughter, too. 

Seokmin suddenly slammed his hand on the table, startling everyone into silence. His face grew serious and he looked at everyone with a sinister glare. “Little did you know, the water began to shine and part. A glowing ring with a dark center appeared out of the water and a freezing wind blew out of the circle. Roll for investigation check.”

They each rolled in turn and Hoshi—and only Hoshi—failed the check.

“Alright,” Seokmin rubbed his hands together mischievously. “Everyone but Soonyoung realizes this is a portal to another world. You know, probably the portal you guys were looking for. Soonyoung, on the other hand, thinks it’s a really cool blow dryer and sticks his face through the glowing portal.”

“What do you see in there, Soonyoung?” Dino asked, only half serious. 

“I don’t know. It’s really dark, hahaha.” 

“Do we have a torch or something?” Mingyu asked.

“I got one. Here’s the baton, man,” Vernon pretends to hand Hoshi the imaginary light source. 

“Suddenly, you hear a terrifying ROAR!!!” Seokmin howled at the top of his lungs. Seungkwan hugged Dino in fright.

“And with that, Soonyoung is pulled into the other dimension and the portal closes.” Seokmin sits back down and smiles sweetly at the party, waiting for them to react. They all just stared back at him in shock.

“Dude!” Hoshi broke the silence. “Am I dead?”

“Nope!” Seokmin stated simply and chuckled a bit embarrassedly. “I just didn’t plan for you guys to discover the portal this early, so I needed to get you guys back on track first.”

“But I’m stuck in the other dimension now? Separated from the party???” Hoshi squished his cheeks in despair. 

“Don’t worry. You’re fine.” Seokmin laughed and patted his friend’s back reassuringly. “You guys wanna take a quick snack break?”

“Yes please.” Mingyu stood up immediately. Dino peeled Seungkwan off of him and poured his hoard of fruit snacks onto the table. 

Hoshi slumped into the sofa dejectedly. “Guess I’ll just sit here and watch you guys play then.”

“Oh right, Soonyoung!” Dino called out as he climbed the stairs to get some more food. “Jihoon said to not forget to meet him and Wonwoo for something. He didn’t tell me where, though. Just make sure to be very late.”

Dino reached the top of the stairs and turned towards the kitchen.

What the—”HEY!” Dino shouted. The rest of the boys clambered up the stairs and peered into the doorway behind him. 

An unfamiliar boy stood beside the counter stuffing his face with wonder bread and the leftover chili. He was dressed in a wrinkled white hospital gown that reached mid-thigh and thin pajama pants with dirt smudges all over. His long jet-black hair hung limply, and as he reached his hand out to grab another piece of bread, the kitchen light shined down onto his thin forearm. Along the inside of his wrist, the inky numbers stood out against his pale skin: 008.

Dino gasped.

“You’re the Minki impersonator!”

[end-of-pizza]

Weird anime night ~Please teacher

Okay guys, I know I’ve been out of this whole anime discussing thing for a bit. Been in my own little world of building gundam models, watching ASMR videos and doing my tech support job, also got into buying stocks….the quarantine has been weird. I haven’t really left the house save to go to meijers to get groceries for 4 months now……kinda starting to lose touch with reality. To try and ground myself I have been revisiting things from when I was a teenager, rewatching old tv shows, reading old books….started with gundam 08th ms team, and Red Mars, and lo and behold I fell back in love with my old flame…ROMANCE ANIMES

long time readers of weird anime night will know that this is a thing that happens to me off and on. Highschool romance shows just vibe with me in a real way, I have been dating the same girl since I was 13, and I am 29 now, and we live together, so learning how to love while learning what love is, and learning about girls while also learning how to love one girl, man romance anime have that shit in spades….and it makes me feel really nostalgic, for things like first kisses, sneaking out after hours, being nervous with someone you will later be intimate with. I love it man, that shit DOES. IT. FOR. ME

so while revisiting my favorite romance anime of all time, Suzuka, I remembered about one I hadn’t watched since 2006, Please Teacher.

AND DUDES

THIS SHOWS FUCKING WEIRD

I remember it being pretty run of the mill, comedy romance story about a kid who bangs his teacher…..and like, yea on the surface that is what it is, but like…..spesh if you incorporate the second season into it, its sort of about ALL love….even some kinda eh….troubling kinds of love, like in season 2 a dude straight up wants to plow is like……kid sister, and that is…..well fucking disgusting, I know its like a THING in japan to want to bone your parents and siblings, because well……some sort of mass mental delusions or something…..but like, its there….its gross as fuck but its there….

The rest of the show is fun though, still pretty problematic, I guess it was less gross to me when I was 16, but as a 29 year old….yea a teacher wanting to bone her 15 year old student is pretty gosh darn awful......I mean she’s also like...an Alien.....but he’s still 15 years old and she is a dang adult

heres the wiki plot summary of season 1, warning spoilers ahead.

Please Teacher! is a story mainly revolving around a tight-knit group of friends in high school and how they cope with several life-changing events that are never too far off from intimate relationships. The main character is a boy named Kei Kusanagi who suffers from a very rare disease which causes a comatose state referred to as a "standstill" whenever he is under severe emotional distress.

Before the beginning of the story, Kei, at 15 years of age, had fallen into a "standstill" lasting three years after witnessing the suicide of his elder sister. After recovering, he quietly moved away from home in order to avoid social difficulty due to his long absence, and began living with his uncle, a medical doctor, and aunt. Due to the strange nature of how he came to live there, Kei wanted to keep the situation a secret from his new friends for fear of being ostracized as being too old to associate with them. After Kei had established himself in his new surroundings and had entered into a close group of mutually supportive friends, a Galactic Federation starship had entered Earth's atmosphere stealthily, approached Honshū Island and landed surreptitiously in Lake Kizaki.

The story begins with Kei suffering a minor 'standstill' while in the vicinity of the lake, witnessing several unexplainable phenomena happening there, and then watching as a beautiful half-human alien named Mizuho Kazami materialize beside the shore. Kazami was sent to observe planet Earth by a seemingly benevolent Galactic Federation in order to prevent humans from making developmental mistakes. Kei, upon observing the materialization, attempts to escape the pursuing Kazami. Kazami is under strict orders to prevent her true identity and mission from being discovered. During his attempt to escape, Kei falls into the lake. Kazami rescues Kei and, using information from his identification, is able to return him home in secret. The next day, Kazami has become Kei's new homeroom teacher and next-door neighbor.

During assisting her in moving in, Kei suffers another standstill, and while in a weakened state explains his predicament to the compassionate Mizuho, who ends up revealing her own origins and purpose on Earth. Several accidental activations of Mizuho's teleport technology (which were inadvertently caused by Kei) eventually place Kei and Mizuho in a couple of compromising situations in front of his uncle and aunt and his school's headmaster, but Kei protects Mizuho from charges for an inappropriate relationship between student and teacher by impulsively stating that they are married, resulting in an actual civil marriage that later blossoms into genuine affection for each other. The headmaster relents, partly because he, too, had married a former student younger than himself and can understand their situation personally. Both are allowed to stay so long as they do not reveal their status to the other students, and do not engage in any public displays of affection.

 The remainder of the series concerns the budding intimate relationships between the close friends, one of whom (Koishi Herikawa) is romantically interested in Kei, and another (Ichigo Morino) who has suffered even greater loss of time from the same disease as he has; the problems of having to maintain the secrecy of the marriage; an interfering parent and sibling visiting from the Galaxy Federation; and Kei learning to overcome the ever-present threat of another lengthy 'standstill' stealing more of his life, particularly as he has fallen deeply in love with Mizuho and desperately wants to remain with her.

Eventually Kei falls into another major "standstill" and in order to bring him out of it, Mizuho has to use her technology which is against the law. As a result, her status on Earth is revoked, she is banned from the planet and all memory of her is erased from everyone's, including Kei's, minds. With the help of her mother and sister she sneaks back and is devastated to learn that Kei, who she is deeply in love with, has no memory of her. While helping her move back in, Kei reveals that his memory has returned and the two express their love for each other and get married again.

 I am rewatching it, its nostalgic, not as nostalgic as Suzuka or School Rumble, which are my number 1 and also number 1 favorite romance anime. But it’s also not as problematic as like, Rumbling Hearts or School days.

I am happy to have this tumblr back in my life, it’s helping with the depression, I think that’s why I started it in the first place….the American Education System was surprisingly good at both causing depression and training me to help people cope with depression.

I love you guys, I will start doing one of these every week, and I really am thinking about doing a sort of short podcast on all the series I have done thus far, like a 30 minute episode or so discussing the stories, rating them etc. I really like the idea of doing a podcast, just takes a long time to make em, I’ve been trying to do a D20 or Cyberpunk real play podcast for like 2 years now, and still just in the editing process of it.

blah blah blah, TLDR

this shows weird, fun and heart warming at times, but it is about a teacher who fucks her student, and like YES she is half alien.....but…..she is also a pedophile, that didn’t really stick with me when I was 16, but it does now….so it is harder to watch then I remember.

6.5/10

~Hoover ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

please teacher update

maybe I wasnt watching the show closely enough but I guess he isnt 15? I got the impression he was like early highschool, but watched some more tonight and I guess hes 18 during the course of the show.....so she isnt a pedophile, but she is boning her student, and she is a space alien so there are still some not good implications there power dynamics wise.....but lets just say maybe I was too hard on Please Teacher 7.5/10

[puwumats]

hey for the ask meme: fig faeth, bill seacaster & owlbears!

bill seacaster: what is the most chaotic impulsive thing you have ever done?

okay so for context, i live in australia. over here, we only really have two sections of education: primary and high schools. high school starts at year 7, so you have a bunch of fresh faced 12 year olds running around getting ignored by the 18 year olds right? so to curb the "confusion of starting a new school" and to "garner new friendships", my high school would send the year 7s off on a week-long camp about 3 weeks into the school year.

now that we've got the context out of the way, when i was 12, i was... so much worse than i am right now. maybe it was the undiagnosed adhd, maybe it was the social isolation of my peers in primary school - who knows. so little old me went to this camp and first night there, i had a bright idea. why don't i sneak into everyone's shoe cupboards and hide them underneath one of the buildings? without thinking it through in the slightest, i got to work and completely cleaned out every shoe locker of every girl that came on the trip, completely (or so i thought) undetected. i was feeling the adrenaline rush of sneaking around, and not a single brain cell was currently in my brain.

life was good.

then, it came time to hide them. now, i didnt really have an appropriate bag to hold that amount of shoes (i was using my own suitcase to transport them), and even though i was already actively stealing their shoes, i was still thinking just enough that i didn't want them to get dirty - because that would be a step too far apparently. so, i tried hiding them behind a bush that was like, 2 metres (6ft) away from the main path and ran back inside.

anyway, tl;dr- the teachers obviously found them the minute they walked out of the camp houses and apparently i hadnt been as stealthy as i thought i was, and someone saw me

lets just say i didn't make any friends until much, much later in the year after this.

owl bears: what is something you hope to see in future seasons of fantasy high?

honestly? the d20 team have done so amazingly with the series that i don't really have anything in addition to the stuff already there! maybe more screen time for garthy? OH and some scenes on what that sklonda/gortholax relationship is like

i've done the fig ask already, but i think ill put these all under the same tag so y'all can see them!! thank you so much for the asks @theinfaethable!!

[jq37]

Have you done breakdowns of the last few episodes yet? If not 👀

**spoilers for a new york wedding**

Prologue: I had a partially free day today (as in the day I started writing this which is now two days ago) so I decided to swing by Central Park and check out the Bethesda Fountain where I saw both a proposal and a man on a segway with a live snake around his neck so, yeah, New York is just Like That.

"Here's a possibly magic crown. Why don't we ask the butt stuff guy about that?"

The face Brennan makes when Emily says, "I used to do colonics at the salon," is great. Like, "We are two minutes into this ep, your sentence isn't even complete, and I already can't handle it."

So they get out of the sewers and Bethesda Fountain has been attacked (which is a shame just aesthetically because, having now seen it in person, it's a really pretty fountain). Em is devastated and explains that the fountain is like a Important magical symbol of good change and a source of divine purification magic.

Another side note about the fountain: There are these little cherub figures around it in additional to the Angel. I wonder if those are sentient too. Also-also, the promenade across from the fountain has these cool murals of the seasons. My point is, there's a lot of fodder for possible lore just in that small area of the park.

Misty finds ashes by the fountain (concerning) and wipes it on Kugrash's fur (rude).  

I love that Emily thought Pete was pouring one out (one being one bag of cocaine).

"Sophie, your magic is that you're a wonderful person and you jump really good."

"The Bread Wedding"

Kudos to Brennan for all the wide range of crazy voices he had to do in this ep. Don Confetti. The Golem. Perry the Pigeon. That can't be easy on the throat.

Sophie is fully ready to fistfight Don Confetti over their last names which is wild for a lot of reasons we're not gonna get into.

So Brennan has everyone roll a Wis save and everyone did OK except I think Ricky. Brennan never explains why he had them roll that. Concerning. I'm wondering now if it was something that would have needed a nat 20 to save from it or something where the people who saved didn't realized they saved from it and the people who didn't are just ticking time bombs or sleeper agents or something else awful.

Pete is such a dangerous friend to be around when you're emotionally compromised. His solution to everything is drugs.

"It's an off-white!" --Misty upon being called out for wearing white to a wedding.

Brennan has Perry go on a wild 39 second monologue about relationships that Pete interrupts by stuffing drugs down his gullet--see again my previous bullet about Pete.

Sophie notices that a lot of the pixies recognize her which pm confirms her brother is In This which, to use the word of the day again, *Concerning*.

Emily having Sophie get really emotional but also struggling to keep the laughter out of her face is always super funny to watch.

So Pete finds a table of vampires. Brennan spends a couple of minutes describing them before he gets to it outright but it's pretty immediately clear they're vamps. Well, vamps plus a suspicious older guy and a girl (Melissa) who seems to be playing Renfield to the vamps. Getting high so they can drink her blood and get high. Pete brilliantly confirms this by getting the suspicious guy (Rob, as far as we know) to go off on Politics and then deep mind-reading the girl. That's one of the most clever RP things I've seen a player do. Pete also sees that Rob is hanging out with the vamps but he doesn't seem to be one.

Pete fails his wild magic check but nothing happened that we know of. A lot of stuff on the wild magic table is situational though (like the reincarnate spell from Bloodkeep with the potion Sohkbarr drank).

Rob implies he knows what happened with Pete's dad. Pete goes into a tailspin, as if he isn't constantly in one.

Everyone dancing so they can talk in public instead of just, like, having a sidebar. Just that entire sequence is peak comedy.

Ricky, the good boy, is dancing with his pigeon date while everyone else is mystery solving (or, in Soph's case, crying in a closet or something).

Rob is supposedly in finance. Last time there was a character involved in finance/banking in D20 it was the whole KVX fiasco in FH.

"Did I use up my favor? I could have had anything in the world."

Sophie upon seeing anything young woman in any kind of situation immediately springs into action, ready to drag them out by any means necessary. I love her.

Robert works at a hedge fund and Kug recognizes him. Brennan explains how he knows him in a very vague way which the rest of the table clocks instantly. Murph asks if Rob knows Gabriela. He does. Who the hell is Gabriela, Misty and I wonder.

Emily goes galaxy brain and theorizes that the bad guys are laundering souls which is equal parts bonkers and brilliant. The camera unhelpfully *doesn't* cut back to Brennan so I can attempt to read his DM poker face. I am reminded of Emily wondering if [redacted] was in the sword in a recent ep of Naddpod and Murph just deciding that they were on the spot because it was cooler than what he had planned. I know you can't win at DnD but I think Emily is winning at DnD.

I mentioned this in passing I think last recap, but Pete's magic is really interesting to me because Pete doesn't know what his character sheet looks like and he's not someone like Kingston or Ricky who's been doing their thing for a while and knows that they can do and what the things he can do are called. So Ally has to get a little creative about activating abilities (like True Strike in this ep) without being too meta, if that makes sense.

Kug knows Rob from a while ago (from the 80's he later says) but he doesn't seem to have aged. The group is thinking vampire, but he wasn't drinking blood in the memory Pete saw. Suspicious. Put a pin in that with everything else on my conspiracy board.

Misty: Eyyyy Macarena!

Kug kisses the pigeon. Sure.

Misty/Siobhan also does a clever thing and suggests taking a selfie with the vamp table in the background to see who shows up. Only Melissa and Rob do, so they're not vamps for sure.

So they go back to Kingston's place and he, Pete, and Sophie cook for everyone which has basically nothing really to do with the plot but I think it was a nice character beat for them.

Kingston and Misty fought a mummy on Long Island back in the day. As you do. Sidenote, when I was in Central Park today (two days ago), I passed by a big-ass obelisk that apparently exists and that I am *certain* Brennan has lore for, even if it doesn't come up.

Misty, a very wealthy Broadway star: If you pay for the Metropolitan Museum, you're a Goddamn fool.

Sophie had not put together that Misty is a fairy before now and I was like ??? for a second but, actually, with the info she has, that's not necessarily the conclusion she would draw. She could just be a really short lady with magic. It's been that kind of week.

Kingston presses Kug on how he knows Rob and Kug reluctantly confesses that HE USED TO BE A GUY. Zac blindly guesses that he was a stockbroker which is ALSO CORRECT.

"movie horse breeder" is such a specific job to pull out of thin air.

Siobhan, making a choice: Let me tell you about my good friend, John Wilkes Booth.

Brennan's total break of composure when Zac/Ricky says, "I wasn't always a firefighter." Zac lowkey has the best comic timing of everyone on the squad. He's just really understated about it.

Anyway, there are levels to this. How long has Kug been a rat??? I feel like it must have been a while because of all the weird ass stuff that he does. Also, he excuses a lot of his behaviors due to being a rat considering he's actually a rat-MAN, emphasis on the man. The stock broker thing surprised me more considering that Kug is introduced doing some pretty altruistic, non-stockbroker-y things. Did Kug piss off a homeless witch and get Beauty and the Beast-ed? He never actually answered the question about how he knows Rob since everyone got sidetracked by the fact that he used to be a whole-ass HUMAN MAN. Did Rob curse him for less moral lesson reasons? What's going on here????

Esther and Ale have been researching. The grey baby is apparently named Nod, just like the place, and it (it specifically, not him or her) like the ruler of there.

There's this whole group bit Brennan, Ally, and Siobahn do about how you can take the L train really far and then catch a shuttle bus that can only be seen by the pure of heart to get to Nod and it's really funny but how funny would it be if they actually tried to do it in a dire moment and also Ricky could do it for sure send tweet.

Kingston is trying so-so hard to keep everyone on task all episode. Bless him.

Kug asks Esther about her mom, which surprises her. He says they used to be friends (Did *SHE* curse him????). Esther says she hasn't seen her in a long time, since she was 5 or 6. Of course, it's easy to want to connect this to the Gabriela he was asking about earlier but we'll see about that. I think I saw some people speculating that he's Esther's dad which I'm even more skeptical about considering what we learn later but wouldn't that be wild?

Ricky decides to shoot his shot with Esther. His brain is full of love, determination, civic responsibility, and absolutely nothing else, bless his golden retriever heart.

Brennan as Esther drops the best stealth joke (though, it has a very high likelihood of crossing from joke to plot point) in D20 so far with the Imperial Axiom/Sinatra's Law explanation. It was a full, "Wait. What? Oh!" Big gold star for Brennan for that one. I had to take a second and recover from that when I heard it the first time.  Beyond the joke, it also seems like a likely hook for the eventual Big Bad of the campaign. First NY, then the world, you know?

The fact that the highways go against the grain of magic leylines of NY in this world is such a good detail and it makes a lot of sense intuitively.

Zac breaks Brennan again with the, "Traffic's really bad," comment.

Please let Ricky's big dumb puppy self win over Esther. "It's really hard for me." Riiiickyyyy.

So Kingston goes to see Willy, the Williamsburg golem about Lazarus from the Bible (New Testament). Aren't golems de facto Jewish? I think. I am correct. However, as much as Willy doesn't know about the New Testament, he *does* know about the Statue of Liberty which is convenient because--shoutout to the people who figured it out in advance--Lazarus is not Lazarus from the Bible. It's Emma Lazarus who wrote the poem on the Statue of Liberty. This of course means that I need to do a close read of that poem at some point but not today baby because I need more information before I start going full Pepe Silvia. Sidenote: What a great place for Kingston to be when figuring out that info. Close enough that Willy can just point out the statue. It's cinematic. Fantastic.

(Also, I made a post about the fact that Siobahn just knew Emma's name off the top of her head, but when it cut to the other side of the table, Emily's eyes got all big too).

Emily gets a nat20 which RUINS her plans because she runs into Isabella aka the woman her husband left her for. They have an adult Means Girls stand-off where Sophie finds out they're getting married (or at least having a ceremony bc Dale didn't send her divorce papers yet). Big ups to Emily for staying in character and ditching all the sleuthing she was going to do because there is no way Sophie would be stable enough for that to be her top priority at the moment (even though I really wanted her to do all that stuff!)

Also, I'm looking forward to watching Sophie rip her to shreds when she inevitably turns out to be a succubus/demon/fiend/whatever. Honestly, she can just barfight her and I'd be satisfied.  

So Misty goes home and finds a present waiting for her. It's a big ass mirror. Correction. It's a big ass mirror that Titania immediately uses to angry Skype her. Yikes.

It seems like her shoes of Titania are literally that, stolen from Titania (love that Titania was barefoot in her character art btw). I know they let her cast a certain spell in an earlier episode but I'm wondering why she stole them. Maybe they helped her cross over from Faerie (which happened ~400 years ago we ind out)?

Titania is pissed that Misty is stealing "glamour" that should be hers (via playing her in the new show). Glamour in the fairy sense is like a disguise. Glamour in the DnD sense is a fey-based bard option (which is the class I'm guessing Titania will be if they have to fight her). Curious to get a deeper explanation on that later.  

Misty is able to cover back up the mirror but she breaks a hip in the process because of Titania's mojo and has to call Kingston. I already said this but I love their relationship.

(Sidenote, I meant to mention this earlier, but I think whiffs of the undead came up a couple of times in this ep which makes me wonder if the mummy situation Kingston mentioned is going to come back).

"Please, use any one of the guestrooms."

I FORGOT ABOUT KUG'S STUFF AT THE END

Ugh, this ep is an emotional roller coaster

"Wherever you are Rat Jesus, know that I love you. From Wally." What a good boy. 

Everyone reacting to Murph's reaction to Wally before they Find Out is like, an experience. It's like that airpods meme.

OK, I'm not going to go through a whole play by play because nothing I could say would be better than watching the scene but I guess Murph/Bren decided in for a penny, in for a pound because we find out via a conversation between Wally and his businessman brother David that he is Kug's SON. HIS SON. S O N.

Wally is convinced that their dad wouldn't have just left them. David thinks Wally is being naive. I want to die.

Everyone around the table except maybe Ally is so visibly upset at this new information and Ally goes, "FUCK!" at the end so you know we all express emotions in different ways.

God, it's so sad! And I'm not gonna say, "I knew it!" because I didn't. I super didn't. But when Wally was introduced (man that scene hits differently now) I remember thinking, this is such an oddly specific NPC. Like, you know when you're playing a game and the stuff you can click is slightly better rendered and you can kind of tell what you should focus on and what's background art? That's how he felt.

Anyway, again, I'm sad. (GMYeah!.gif)

Watching *OVER* you Murph. OVER you. That's how you make it not creepy!

Meanwhile, Pete lets a bunch of bug monsters out of his dream into real New York City which, tbh, I'm not surprised. This seems like the kind of thing that would happen. Pete is exactly the worst kind of person to be the dream avatar in terms of being responsible.

I love that Siobhan is like, “I have a broken hip” as if all but one of them don’t have literal magic powers. That’s a very fixable problem compared to other stuff they’ve dealt with that day alone. 

Anyway next time, a wasp centaur (thanks, I hate it) and a nat 20! See you then.

[theleaderdotinfo-blog]

Euronics Darts Results Thursday 5th April. has been published at http://www.theleader.info/2018/04/08/euronics-darts-results-thursday-5th-april/

New Post has been published on http://www.theleader.info/2018/04/08/euronics-darts-results-thursday-5th-april/

Euronics Darts Results Thursday 5th April.

Ladies Singles Competition Results: - Semi-finalists: Hennie Oortwijn (Hen’s Teeth), Debbie Wright (Pint Depot Queens) Runner up: Pat Schofield (Junction Jaguars) Winner: Michelle ‘Mummy’ Lane (Porter House Bees) Quarter Finals: A hard match started us off with Patty Poo Schofield (last year’s champ) facing the winner from the previous season, Yvonne Rouffignac.  Brilliant darts from both ladies showed why they had both held the title in previous years. Pat’s lowest score before her two-dart out (S8-D4) was 53! She meant business and threw 68, 60, 66, 70, 81, 84, 66 in the first leg whilst Yvonne held up her own with 60, 66, 60.  In the 2nd leg, both ladies were scoring well again, Roofie with 85, 60, 75, 62 but Pat just edged it again with 90, 70, 140 and checked out on D11.  It was all over in a flash! Up next was Jaguar Simone (81) verses Hen’s Teeth Henni.  Henni scored well (88, 81,91 -D3) to give her a 1 leg advantage and then took the 2nd leg 89, 57, 59 D4 to Simone’s 114, 73. Then it was the turn of their royal highnesses Queen Debbie Wright v Marie Cummins, unlucky to get drawn against each other, even though it assured that a Queen would reach the semi’s.  Debbie took the first leg 78, 77, 64 and D7 with Marie countering with a score of 98.  Marie opened the 2nd leg with a massive score of 140 and went on to win it on D2.  In the decider leg, she scored 66, 81 but QD had an answer to that with 74, 60, 77, 70 and D10. The final game of the quarters was between Sonya Cooper and Michelle Lane.  Again great scoring from both ladies Sonya;- 60 x2, 81, 100 in the 1st leg and a 75 in the second and Michelle popping in 82, 73, 60 D9 then 85, 121 D1 to secure her place in the Semi’s. Semi-finals:  Patty Poo showed cool, calm determination all the way through her match against Henni.  She won the first leg with 66, 85 x2, D2 but then lost the 2nd to Henni who clocked up 85, 67 and D20 out.  No great scoring in the third leg but a truly awesome finish from Poo T20-D18 took her ahead of her opponent again.  In the final leg of the match, Henni scored an impressive 119 but Poo just kept on finding the treble 20 (78, 100, 73) and finished on D7 to see her through to the finals. Debbie and Michelle both deserved to get through to the finals but obviously there could only be one winner.  They were both on form, Debbie with scores of 65 x2, 98 in the first leg and 95, 124, 71 in the second and Mummy Lane’s 64, 60, D12 took leg one.  She scored 81, 96, 70 and a two-darter S16-D20 to give her the 2nd and 87, 100, D5 to see her into the finals. Finals: It looked to be going Pat’s way when she won the first leg 81, 66 D1 but Shellie Lane wasn’t rolling over to let her take the next.  With darts flying left, right and centre at the speed of a Gatling gun, she took leg two, 58, 62, 94 D4. A pair of 71’s and D12 got her the 3rd leg to Pat’s 85, 83.  Starting to get a little rattle, Pat rallied with 140, 85 in leg 4 but Michelle was unstoppable now with 65, 60, 81, 90, 105 and D3.  Tasting victory, Michelle won the last leg and the tournament in fine style with 85, 70, 100, D5 despite a trio of 80+’s from the Poomeister. Thank you to all the volunteer chalkers and to the Tavern for the scrummy chilly, rice and chips for the players and a good turn-out of supporters from all the players’ teams. Men’s Singles Competition Results: Semi-finalists:- Lee Maiden (Junction Jackals); John Lane (Porter House Bees) Runner up: - John Eyre (Hub Hyenas) Winner: Graham Solomon (Tavern) [caption id="attachment_19660" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Men’s Singles winner, Graham Solomons and Runner-up, John Eyre[/caption] This week saw the 2018 men’s singles competition take place at Chemie’s Lounge in Villamartin - a great venue much appreciated by players and spectators alike. Unfortunately, only 5 of the qualifiers were available on the night and perhaps the league needs to think of a way of making up the numbers in such circumstances. The competition was as fierce as ever with some good, steady scoring and some outstanding finishing. John Eyre (The Hub) and Chris Montes (las Rosas) were first to the oche in a preliminary play off to reduce the numbers to 4 semi-finalists. John won without really engaging top gear although his finishing was spot on. Chris had a couple of chances but just couldn’t take them So we were quickly on to the first of the semis – best of five, 501 legs - where Lee maiden (The Junction) faced reigning champ Graham Solomon (The Tavern). The match got off to a good start with Graham posting a 140 and Lee hitting some steady 60’s and 80’s. However, it was Graham’s finishing that took him into a 2 – 0. Lee needed to hit back and hit back he did in spectacular fashion. An early 123 took him into the lead and a little later with 182 to score he only needed 4 darts to finish – T20, T20, T10 for 150 and D16 next go. Unfortunately for Lee he couldn’t maintain that form and Graham took the fourth leg to progress to the final. In the other Semi, John Eyre took on John Lane (Porterhouse B’s). Again the scoring was not spectacular and John Eyre took a close first leg on double 1. The next two legs were notable mainly for two three dart finishes by John Eyre – leg 2 saw him hit T18 to leave 16, single 8 and D4 finished the job – in leg 3 he needed 111 – T20 ,19 , D16 – match over 3- 0. The final was best of 7 legs and John Eyre was quickly at it again – having taken the first leg with D20 he then posted a 140 and polished off 68 – 20, 16, D16 – leaving Graham a bit shell shocked.  The man from the Tavern wasn’t fazed and proceeded to take the next two legs with some solid play. So we were nicely poised and all to play for. Leg 5 got off to a good start for Graham with a 140 that took him into the lead but John was having none of it – he produced yet another 3 dart finish – 114 this time – 20, T18, D20. Two legs left and Graham need them both – John only 1.  Neither player seemed to be able to up his game for the final push although John hit 125 and 140 to keep the pressure on. Both of them had several chances at a double in what was a nervy ending but It was Graham who took both legs to retain his title.                                                          Report by Phil de Lacy   Team KO Competition Draws for semi-final matches on 19th April: Team KO Cup:                                                                   Auxiliary KO Cup: Jackals v Hub Hyenas playing at Angels bar         Las Rosas v Hen’s Teeth playing at El Capitan El Capitan v Wee Rockers playing at Las Rosas    PD Queens v Porters playing at Amigos Bar   Presentation Night: The presentation night will be at Las Ramblas Golf Club on Thursday 17th May.  Captains will have been sent a reservation form for their team and guests.  Same format as last year with blind team KO competition, raffle, buffet, DJ and of course, presentation of the trophies!