#podcast that gives you psychic damage

[pisscreant]

what if Harry and Kim made a podcast. how fucking wild would that get. two batshit guys with nice voices having the most incoherent conversations that you could imagine

[toerrishumansodontbeone]

Uhoh.....hes going to Latvia....im scared.

[mxjackparker]

If you, like me, are someone that developed brainworms due to BBC Sherlock many years ago and who received permanent psychic damage from it, I really recommend the Sherlock & Co. podcast that's currently coming out.

It has a canonically autistic Sherlock, where his being autistic is consistently acknowledged (with discussion of things like sensory issues and masking!) and it goes through all the old Sherlock Holmes stories in a modern way that's really fun!

I've found it genuinely soothing and I think other BBC Sherlock haters should give it a shot!

[blysse-and-blunder]

 in lieu of a commonplace book

10pm sunday, jan 29, 2023

your gentle blogger has entered her next decade of life, thank you to @dying-suffering-french-stalkers and @redstar-winterorbit for the good birthday wishes last week!

reading not a ton if i'm honest, i've been deluged with gift books and library loans while at the same time crashing back into the semester, and the overall effect has been, uh, to freeze my recreational reading a bit. stuck trying to finish things like my audiobook of through the whispering door and ebook of maybe you should talk to somebody (have i talked about this one? it's a memoir of a therapist and reading it is like reading an episode of the gossip podcast, but i can also tell it's giving me occasional useful ideas and perspective on things to think about or ask for in therapy. but i can only take so much of it at once). the gift book i'm most into right now it lindsey ellis' axiom's end, which is a first-contact, aliens are real and the government has been hiding them scifi-- it's quick and readable, lindsey does a great job for a first novel, and i'm loving the alternate-history flavor of it being set in the Bush era and the southern california details i actually appreciate now. also the way the aliens are described, i love the design of them. beautiful and terrifying. but i haven't made progress in a few days.

through the whispering door is perplexing me right now, in that the gentle romance has developed pleasingly (predictably), but there's been a lot of talk about the main character 'having changed' and 'not being the same as he was when he arrived' and i can't actually. point to why or where that happened. this is part of the problem with me and audiobooks, i think, because i don't care enough to go back and re-listen to the parts where i tuned out.... there's been a new heightening of the stakes now that there's a time-limit, and i always like the flavor of an eldritch stag character.

EDIT: finished the monster baru cormorant, still recovering, immediately checked the third one out of the library though the psychic damage this series does to me without warning (dear seth: i'm taking away the word 'clotted' from your lexicon for a bit. also ‘lobotomy’.) is hard to rectify with how smart and good some of the new narrative details are. the introduction of ‘trim’ and its associated reliance on / trust in other people, to a story where the main character's stated weakness is thinking about things from others' perspectives? or anticipating others' reactions? chef's kiss. and the navy full of rugged, determined, salt-weathered women is just very good to me, personally. aminata my incredibly violent beloved. the end of this book was- devastating. not in the same way as the last one: this time i have the kind of fascinated-horrified-sickened-fixated feeling that i get about horror stuff sometimes, and i’d say body horror is what i expect from book three.

watching i got unlucky with weather-based flight cancellations last week, and spending a night in a random detroit hotel room created a great opportunity to check out my university's criterion collection access. for some reason i decided that this was the right moment to experience wong kar wai's in the mood for love (2000), which i have since finished in slightly calmer circumstances. despite knowing that tony leung and maggie cheung were both active in the 90s i somehow totally thought that this movie was like. actually a historic film and not a period piece? probably because of how much the visuals / how it’s shot and colored / the overall design feels so classic, feels like old school film in the best possible way. having now read the wikipedia page for this film i can tell i missed a lot of the actual plot, or rather, thought that there was more experimental / nonlinear story-telling going on than there might actually have been-- but that’s okay, it just means i’ll have to watch it again.

listening i don’t remember when this song first popped up in my spot ify, possibly on a discover weekly playlist a while ago? but it landed for me last week, somehow brand new and meaningful as i was contemplating the musical direction of my next playlist. listening to it with better headphones revealed lots of nice layers, depth and harmony, i like that bass throb under the chorus, it’s produced well and rewards paying attention to the extra stuff-- the contrary motion of the background vocal line in the opening to the chorus is nice.

something something i will get up regardless. currently repeating to myself, all you gotta do now is walk.

playing had the pleasure of hanging out with my Dnd friends on my birthday last week and playing a whole new style of game with them! Y introduced us to gloom, which is very Edward Gorey-core and therefore was delightful, and got our game-design nerds all excited about the cards themselves, and then K skunked us all at anomia. the adrenaline in this one is addictive? it is somehow so fun and yet so infuriating, and I have yet to regret suggesting it to a group or party.

making cleaned my room finally (somewhat) and have a stack of mail to send and cards to answer, now with the help of the beautiful fountain pen my roommates gave me for my birthday! It’s one of these, and while I can try to promise not to become a fountain pen nerd, time will tell…

working on this award letter for a prof is somehow the hardest thing to just fucking finish. I think because I want it to be better than just okay, and am worried that it’ll counteract its own message if it’s not? But also—I have palaeography homework now! and the abstract of a talk to finish, and that talk + associated chapter to outline! not to mention finishing reading and commenting on a friend’s chapters! taking it slow last week was nice and probably needed, but fuck.

[peregrineroad]

🦄, ☕️ and 💌, for the meme!

🦄 - You are gifted a mythical creature as a familiar: what creature are you choosing?

I love dragons first and best, although a griffin would also be tremendous. I don't know what I would do with either! I'm afraid of heights, so flying is probably out, and I don't have any enemies I currently wish to destroy. I guess I could send them to protests that for health reasons I can't go to myself. Imagine an angry dragon holding up a sign! 'Down with this sort of thing.' 'No more ballads at Eurovision'.

☕️ - Plan a tea party! What will you be serving and who are you choosing as guests?

Hmm, I don't drink tea, so I would personally be drinking hot chocolate, but I would be delighted to provide fancy teas for other people! Also lots of baked goods to snack on. Cupcakes and shortbread and cream horns and so on. I don't know what goes with tea, I've just been watching a lot of celebrity bake-off recently. As for who to invite...the obvious answer is friends in other countries I'll never get to meet in person irl, assuming this is the magical sort of tea party which exists across time and space. Alternatively I might invite notorious wits and notorious jackasses to the party and then not show up myself, just record them talking/engaging in combat and turn it into a wildly lucrative podcast series.

💌 - Have you ever, or would you ever, give(n) someone a handwritten love letter?

I'm thirty one and have never been in love or even had a serious crush on an actual living human I know personally, so I feel like there's a possibility I might be aro, or something along those lines? But I am also horribly shy and very private and may just never have had a wide enough pool of friends to develop those feelings for someone compatible. If I did, I think a handwritten love letter would be a lovely thought. Unfortunately my handwriting is rubbish. My paramour would take psychic damage.

[finnickodaiir]

brief lore dump pt 2 :)

-idk if you've reached the podcast episodes with felony steve yet but I'll explain it anyway, basically in their pre-fame days awsten had this alter ego soundcloud rapper persona called lil kidz bop, he made another one during....2017? called felony steve who is bisexual and tries to steal cheese from a jewelry store and is some supernatural being and has a big dick, he even released a mixtape under felony steve called money mountain vol 2 (don't listen to it. unless you want psychic damage) but then he had to take it down because...

-record label conflict. yes this gives me deja vu to taylor sorry. their first label equal vision records was well. let's justr say. not great. messed up release dates, made him take down the felony steve mixtape because it didn't go through them first, when they jumped labels after entertainment they didn't let them have the rights to cluster double dare and entertainment which is why they recorded the two medleys of double dare and entertainment. but guess, what evr was Not happy about them rerecording them and took them off spotify and apparently sued them for it as well. after that they haven't been able to stay on one label for more than one album which is probably a good thing why they went independent, they're still on good terms with hopeless records though (fandom era label)

-have you found their demo album that awsten dropped because people won a game yet you really should

[poetryasreligion]

HEARTBREAK

The first time I reached for stories as conscious scripture was after the end of my first relationship, freshman year of college. The rupture was so intense and all-consuming that I left school for six months. During this period I scrambled for every possible spiritual antidote to the ache that would not leave my chest: I tried meditating and attending Catholic mass, saw a questionable psychic twice, started manifesting on full and new moons, spent $50 on a moss agate crystal necklace. (I also developed an eating disorder that left me hospitalized a year later, but that's a whole other chapter.)

The only lasting salvation for me was stories—songs, poems, movies, long form literature, internet miscellany. Scroll down and you'll find a list of the most important ones.

While I read them, I gave myself permission to live in the words completely. To rest in the soft crook of someone else's life experience that could parallel my own at any serendipitous moment. I'd collect these storytellers' sage reflections like a frenzied squirrel gathers and hoards acorns, repeating quotes like “time heals all wounds” (someone forever ago) and “how empty of me to be so full of you” (Jody Yeary) and "sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them" (Richard Siken) until their words turned into my mantras, sacred texts. Something to latch onto while my world eroded.

I once heard that to love is to be changed. Through heartbreak, I want to give us permission to hold onto all of those changes, really feel the weight and texture and temperature of them in our hands. It's painful and it's proof that something real and worthwhile occurred. I give us permission to lean into the ache of another person's absence and fill it with our own words—write a letter we'll never send (at least not now), talk to our friends or the mirror or the sky, document it all for ourselves or maybe someone else who will need a warm jumble of words to wrap themselves up in one day. I give us permission to hold on and accept that some kinds of love we never quite "get over" (and so what if it makes us soft? Isn’t the softness what makes us human? For the record: it’s been 3 years and I still wake up with things to tell you.)

On Sand (pg. 15) by Caroline Cappelletti (poem // time and loss)

The Fist by Derek Walcott (poem // letting go)

The Long and Short of It (hybrid poem/essay // rumination, to be changed)

Excerpt: I’ve been rereading your story. I think it’s about me in a way that might not be flattering, but that’s okay. We dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up. Anyway: story received, story included. You looked at me long enough to see something mysterioso under all the gruff and bluster. Thanks. Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.

The Weight of It All (podcast episode // immediate aftermath of a breakup, moments of great comedic relief too)

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksburg (short story collection // love in all its forms)

The Unsent Project (website // browse unsent messages and submit your own -- beautiful and cathartic)

Good Riddance by Gracie Abrams (album // woodsy breakup rumination from all angles)

History of A Feeling by Madi Diaz (album // parting in its entirety)

Crushing by Julia Jacklin (album // a cpmplete relationship arc)

Playlist by me about being broken up with (compiled over 3yrs!)

How'd you get away? Cause oh, good heavens, we abided by the night But there are darker things than the absence of light And they still creak through our halls

I would build a city out of you and me There would be crime, but still a local grocery If you'd stay

Maggie Rogers, "Blood Ballet" (on playlist)

Playlist by me about being the one to call it off

Playlist by me about reaching for closure and forgiveness

(Bonus: Here and here are poems I've written about my own breakup experiences.)

[thenightlymirror]

This couple in this story on this podcast, it feels like they’ve perfectly compartmentalized every fault in their relationship into this haunting. It’s so effective. They talk about each other with perfect love, unfailingly. But when they talk about these haunting episodes, they clearly have had very miserable lives and fight a LOT. But it’s always the poltergeist’s fault.

There was this family in an earlier story, well, a few poltergeist families, where clearly they are projecting their anxieties onto the house. They’ll be like, Dad or Mom was full-on in the throws of addiction and was constantly taking it out on us in violent abusive ways, as was my boyfriend and my peers at the time, and there were some really bad vibes in the house. Total mystery!

I know the feeling! My main take away right now is that: people have very interesting relationships to their dwellings. A house is never just a house. Its insides are your insides. Time is allotted to rooms. It’s basement is your basement. Its liminal spaces are your liminal spaces.

Almost every one of these stories is told as a sleep event. If I insisted that every strange night of sleep I had was a haunting of some kind, I’d be pretty psychic. There are certain experiences that guests on the show will describe, and for me it’s like, Yes, I know exactly how this feels. And I wonder, there must be certain kinds of events that are basically on the seizure spectrum, that have a certain epileptic affect I recognize, but not necessarily every supernatural event would have that same affect. There are all the artifacts of dreaming one might experience, jumps in time, forgetting, stories with vague endings or that involve “coming-to”. And the ubiquitous sleep paralysis stories, which, account for a surprising amount of supernatural experiences.

As I might have wondered here a few times, to what extent could some of these hauntings and all the lifestyle changes that occur with them be explained by long-term viral infections? Like, what if Epstein-Barr or flu varieties or some viruses we don’t even know about were giving people low key neurological damage? You barely get sick, but you get tired, deep feelings of dread, sleep disturbances, paranoia, hallucinations. I often think, ah, there’s some kind of mold in these houses. But the weirdness of Long Covid makes me wonder if other things could do that.

If a person could have a somewhat objective distance to contemplate the strangeness of dreams, especially lucid dreams and how artificial any feeling of verisimilitude really is, I think a lot of supernatural experiences could be recognized in that light. If you have enough deja vu and seemingly clairvoyant dreams, you realize, we just have no authority at all on the causality of our thoughts or recognizing the order of things. When I think about how many times I was dreaming about something that was happening shortly after I awoke, it’s clear what “I” experience is in no clear linear order.

This is not even broaching the peculiarities of shared memories. A group of friends, or a family, remembers through stories. I remember my own life through stories. They are so malleable. As I get older, my most potent emotional memories are so played out, they’ve been replaced with vague corruptions of tertiary events I can’t even be sure ever took place. Granted, I’ve had a very traumatic life. And I talk about it a lot more than most people. There’s bound to be some displacement.

More to the point, there is a whole range of experiences which are really just relatively common exotic retreats of the mind. And people just aren’t very good at self-reflecting about things like how it feels to listen to a song, or the slightest sadness or mortal seriousness, or depression and trauma, which is not to difficult to come by in this life. But it’s taken me so much to be able to have some kind of idiosyncratic vocabulary to talk about dreams or ecstatic or transcendent experiences, to be able to talk about entering and exiting a dream, or the sometimes arbitrary signification of profundity or truth in certain experiences. The most powerful experiences you can have as a person, are exactly what they are, and can also be examined skeptically. Those feeling are just little glands squeezing out their final juices to convince you of something. Something “ineffable”. Either it’s ineffable because its content is in fact nil, despite the fact we always have some deity in our arsenal to take credit, or the content is the division between that excited state and everyday life.

One opinion that still annoys me is the particular angle of this argument that “You can’t just believe that this is all there is.” As in, we should take it for granted that everyday life is nothing but a hell of work and consumption, small talk and anxiously averting authentic communication, because of course that’s all the natural world could allow. No, we must also have spirits. Without noticing all that argument forecloses. Yes, everyday life is horrifying. Change that and then show me ghosts.

[thrythlind]

This is the second post.

First Post

Third Post

Continuing with this game with Alpha's play and power phase.

For a card play, I have Alpha do a Furious Slash which causes her to Discover 1 Aspect, which is Bloodcurdling How

Now that there are two Aspects, she hits two targets with her card. The Hunter Drone and Ambuscade himself.

And then I choose to deal some damage with her Prowl innate power.

Ambuscade is starting to show some wear and tear and that drone is gone.

One thing to note, if at any time Alpha has 3 or more Aspects, then she starts dealing chip damage to the lowest HP target on the field. This could be good when there's a lot of minions or devices. But I'm keeping good control of Ambuscade, and I'm cautious about things that harm my team mates (I'm less cautious about hurting myself, as you'd see if I had chosen to field Fanatic.

But, all of Alpha's aspects do useful things like damage, card draw, and recon at the start of each of her turns. So it is tempting to play a lot, but I'll hold off until I know how to control them.

So, in the older edition, Master of Magic allowed you to heal whenever you cast a spell. This one instead lets you discard from your hand whenever you're forced to discard from the top of your deck.

Why is that useful? Controlling the number that's on top of the trash.

See that the Phial of Exomna there has a 2 and Master of Magic has a three. Suppose that you were casting a spell that dealt damage to you and you pulled a 3 or 4, you could instead discard something from your hand with a 1 or 2. Or if you were trying to damage the enemy, you'd want that higher number.

In any case, Nightmist is now in a bit more control of her magic.

Case in point, she uses her Innate power Incantation to cast Essence Transfer and the card discarded was Mistform with a 1.

Using Master of Magic, she instead pulls Tendrils of Talontus and discards that to use its 3 for her spell.

She then drains Ambuscade of 3 health and uses it to heal Alpha 3 points.

So, Harpy's flocks demand her attention, which is simulated by her need to discard 2 cards for each Flock in play at the start of her round. If she doesn't do this, the Flock gets angry and disperses, causing her to suffer psychic feedback.

I've noticed that a lot of Harpy's cards alleviate this by giving her lots of Card draw, such as this "Reservoir of Power" here. (Re: the art. At one point, Harpy had a dalliance with Countess Bathory and considered going vampire, but stopped short of killing someone, she'd killed people as The Matriarch and has no wish for a repeat of that, so she knows the techniques, but isn't a full vampire.)

Side Note, this is something I love about the game. They have a deep, deep lore including both the world the heroes live in and the fictional publishing company that created their comics. They have whole bits of lore about what the company and writers were thinking for each of the story arcs.

So while there aren't real comics around, only the Letters podcast discussions, the art, and the quotes... the lore is surprisingly deep and a real love-letter to comics in general.

In any case, Harpy has played her Reservoirs and also used her innate power "Seeking Order" to attack Ambuscade. Now that his armor's gone, she and her birds can start to go to work.

Now we come to Expatriette and it's time to put her tactical skills to work with "Backup Plan"

She decides to Discover a Gun for the first line and pulls up her signature "Pride and Prejudice" - these used to be two cards in the prior edition and as much as I appreciate the streamlined gameplay (new Expat is so much more efficient than prior Expat), I miss the matching art from those two cards in the past.

See below.

Back to this edition.

For the Second Line, Expat chooses to let Wraith deal 3 damage, this is upped to 4 damage because of her Smoke Bombs.

A second hero can regain HP and she chooses that to be Harpy.

A third hero, she chooses herself, recovers an item and she brings her Shock Rounds back from the trash.

That's all the card play, so now she moves to power and decides to use Modified SMG because it gives her a chance to draw an extra card.

Note that I'm turning them to the side to indicate which I power I use, that's not normally a thing in this game though.

Next, the environment plays the Edifice of Respite, which... doesn't really do anything for now. There's no Ongoings in the Environment area, this Relic hasn't moved areas, so this isn't affecting matters. But I can definitely see issues where this could be either a boon or a bane.

Now, Ambuscade does his start of turn damage and draws a One-Shot, causing him to switch to his cloaked form.The One-Shot itself causes him to attack the 4 highest HP people: Harpy, Nightmist, Alpha, and Expatriette.

He then does the Cloaked form's end of turn damage to the character with the lowest HP. This is Expat.

There's also fewer than 5 devices in play, so he Discovers a device.

This is Auto Stims, which has an End Phase effect.

Note that it is STILL End Phase, so even though it was just played, it now takes effect. (End Phase for villains and heroes can get very harrowing for this reason).

Auto-Stims heals him and causes him to reveal the top card. This is Unavoidable Explosive, which is a One-Shot, which kicks him out of Cloaked state and damages Wraith.

Also, the Bloodless Reliquary moved to Expat's area.

Now it's Wraith's turn.

Wraith uses Leverage again.... and brings her Smoke Bombs back into her hand.

Ta Da!

Apparently I played Combat Prowess the round prior... I can't remember the specifics... sigh (the flaws that happen when you try to report by memory and photos instead of live)

In any case, that must have reduced the explosive to 0 allowing her to play a card due to Combat Prowess, which would have to have been Stun Bolt.

Then Smoke Bombs were destroyed at the start of her turn and she used Leverage to bring it back.

Then her Power Phase came around, and she used Utility Belt to put the Smoke Bombs back out and then used Stun Bolt to both deal 2 damage and reduce the damage Ambuscade does by 1.

In the prior edition Stun Bolt wasn't limited so you could have multiple in play. And it became possible to reduce enemy damages twice by shooting with both via the utility belt extra power use.

Can't do that now. But reducing enemy damage is still strong and Wraith has been consistently able to keep Smoke Bombs in play, meaning she's able to reduce damage by 2 in general and 4 to herself because of her Combat Prowess.

Now it's back to Alpha, and while Ambuscade doesn't have any Ongoings for her to break, she still is able to damage both Ambuscade and his Auto-Stims device.

Alpha has been able to consistently chip at Ambuscade. I would have liked to get her Lupine Senses into play to control his card plays a bit, but was unwilling to risk losing control and having her damage my team.

For Card Play, Choose to use Maintain Control for some card draw and to drop Bloodcurdling in the hopes of Discovering a copy of Lupine Senses (initially thought I'd be able to play it from my hand... nope).

Instead, I get Insatiable Hunger... which I initially didn't think was useful, but it starts digging up some very useful Ongoings.

Not doing much of her reporting stuff right now, sorry Alpha, still good job just keeping constant damage on.

On to, Nightmist, I choose to play Astral Premonition to look at the top of 4 decks... (sorry the second photo is fuzzy) I played the Astral that had the number 2 and the one with the number 4 is the one that fueled the spell. I believe this happened because of Master of Magic again, lots of control from that.

I look at Ambuscade, The Harpy, Alpha, and Expatriatte.

Then I place those back on their decks, choose to discard from one deck and play from another.

I choose to discard Run and Gun from Ambuscade so he doesn't get to activate his Cloak again.

Then I choose to play one of Harpy's cohorts (two special familiar ravens) giving her more card draw and some ability to heal players at the start of her round.

I also now know that Fatal Feast is on Alpha's deck (though the deck gets reshuffled before that matters) and Hollow Points are on the top of Expat's.

I then use her Incantation innate power to play a spell and go Mist Form.

Mist Form used to just stay out and give Nightmist extra draws and immunity to damage, but while she was in that form, she could neither use powers nor play cards. We sometimes would have her recharge in Mist Form and draw fire as either the highest or lowest HP character. We used to call it "Mist-Tanking"

Mist-Tanking is what I want her to do here. Ambuscade is currently targeting the highest HP character and that's her, so in this form, she will ignore all his damage.

At the start of Harpy's turn, Huginn heals Expat.

And then she discards two cards to keep the Starlings in play.

I then bring out Eldritch Training, which immediately let's her either draw two cards or destroy a Flock card.

She draws Lash of the Elements and Magical Bequest.

Huginn lets her play a card and though I forgot to take a photo, she plays Avian Aid and brings in Muginn as well as another Flock card.

But that photo with have to be at a new post.

This is the second post.

First Post

Third Post

[tallochar]

AAAAAAAAAH

ELVEN ORACLE ADAINE GOT IT RIGHT, THEY WERE WAITING FOR THREE MONTHS BEFORE SAYING!

THEY ARE GONNA GET A DOG FOR THE NEW BABY'S PROTECTION

THIS IS NOT A DRILL, FABIAN'S GONNA HAVE A HALF-SIBLING BY BLOOD, AND THE BABY IS ALREADY DOWN AS A NEMESIS BEFORE EVEN BEING BORN!!!!

THIS IS ALL I WANTED AND MORE!

AND CATHILDA IS BACKKKKK

(Too bad about that four check roll, Lou, but love how on brand it is for Fabian, perfect job on the die's part)

Aaawww Kristen is excited about doing well in school and Riz immediately switches back from tea to coffee and wants to be super involved too!

President Kristen and Vice-President Riz!!!

Tracker going multi-god and towards a new idea of a pantheon too!

OH MY GOD, GERTIE THE NEW SWORN-NEMESIS OF KRISTEN!

I AM HAVING SO MUCH FEELINGS FOR THE GORGUG&FIG FRIENDSHIP

THE BENCH!

THE BENCH!!!

FABIAN ASKING GORGUG FOR TIPS ABOUT SEX, THEIR FRIENDSHIP IS SO AMAZING I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!

ARTHUR AGUERFORT, DO NOT DARE BE NEXT YEARS BAD GUY, NOT EVEN AS A JOKE!

THE PODCAST MAKES A COMEBACK!

I AM ALL FLUTTERY HANDS OVER SANDRA LYNN AND FIG! AAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

LOU JUST TOOK PSYCHIC DAMAGE FROM FIG SAYING SHE WANTS TO BE NEAR WHEN THE BABY IS BORN, I AM D Y I N G

DROPOUTNIKS

Oh no oh no oh no OH NO AYDA AND FIG'S SOFTNESS AND SUPPORT AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF EACH OTHER, DON'T MAKE ME CRY AGAIN BRENNAN

OH WAIT

WAIT

IT WASN'T BUDDY DAWN HIGHTAILING OUT OF TOWN, IT WAS HIS FAMILY

BUDDY'S ONLY BACK *NOW*?

HOW LONG WAS THAT BANISHMENT SPELL?!

BUDDY CREATED HIS OWN GOD OF RAGE, BAKARATH?!

FUCKING KALINAAAAAA

KALINA TOOK BUDDY AWAY?!

WHAT

WHAT

WHAT

WHAT THE FUCK BRENNAN

HOW IS THIS THE ENDING

YOU BETTER FUCKING GIVE ME NEXT YEAR AS WELL

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

*ROCKS OUT TO THE OUTRO*

Spoilers for ragenarok part 2 under the cut

AND JACE FUCKING GOOOOESSSSSSSSS, THANK FUCK THE DICE STOPPED SPINNING

18D10 DAMAGEEEEEEE LETS GO!!!

AND THE MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND IS SO GOOD

117 DAMAAAAGEEEEE OH MY FUCKING GOD FUCK YEAH

96 HIT POINTS, SUCK IT JACEEEEE

100/10 JOB BY WHOEVER DID THE MINIATURE POSING IN POST PRODUCTION

NOT MAZEY, YOU ASSHOLE!!!

K2 WITIH THE BANISHING!

Goddamn fucking Porter

RIZRIZRIZRIZRIZ *bass thumping* WITH BLIND SIGHT AND THE READIED ACTION!

HOLD PERSON OVER THE LAVA *HOWLS*

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FAIL

FUCKING 4 YESSSSSSSSS

18D10 AGAINNNNNN

NON-CHARACTER ABILITY STRATEGYYYY

THAT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT GRINDERS FOR HP, THEY ARE PROPER ADVENTURERS WITH ALL THE EXPERIENCE THAT COMES WITH IT!!!!

106 DAMAGE FOR THE FUCKING WIN!

"A tiny pair of polished shoes running across igneous rock" FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME, BOO YAH!

"VERY GOOD ON PAPER BUT NO PRACTICAL APPLICATION" OH MY GOD RIZZZZ THAT WAS SAVAGE!!!!

[dawsonscreekwasalwaysbad]

funniest parts of inside job pt 2

mommy likey drinky

“santa is fake! but student debt is real!” “you had to learn sometime, brayden”

“this is gonna be the most globally damaging midlife crisis since elon musk” oh that is APT

“ok boomer”

“are you poland? because that german guy straight-up owned you”

reagan saying that alex jones “looks like an orangutan fucked a fire hydrant”

“i’m the only one left who will listen to me!”

spending the whole episode confused on why oprah is back and then seeing her yell “i’m not the first oprah!”

“our missions do feel suspiciously like b-stories”

“why is my wallet on a metal leash? where would it be trying to go?”

lights being mothman’s kryptonite is a very obvious joke but it still works every time

KEANU FUCKING REEVES

“MOTHERFUCKER!” “well, he is fucking reagan’s mother, so yes. motherfucker.”

*takes out a lotus* “i don’t put these in my pocket. they grow there spontaneously.”

“i’m feeling drained from staring meaningfully into the distance”

“after dating so many billionaires, his millionaire lifestyle keeps me grounded”

the pussy posse being amazed and confounded by brett’s respect women juice

the real reason leonardo dicaprio only dates women under 25

“someone on the internet found out margot robbie is cgi” FINALLY SOMEONE WHO AGREES WITH ME

reagan accidentally imitating owen wilson

“when i’m done with you, men will look at you the way they look at me: briefly!”

gigi’s reaction to her make-under: “i wanna cyberbully myself!”

tamiko’s reaction to rand turning into a literal manchild: “way to turn subtext into text, rand”

myc’s absolutely SAVAGE comebacks at the constitution heist

“how would the founding fathers feel about this?” “probably the same way your father feels about you”

“ok, give me the word and i’ll blow the hell out of this thing” “said your ex-wife to brett’s dick”

“aliens? a woman being in charge of a team? nobody’s gonna believe this!”

“it’s a psychic union where everyone thinks the same and acts the same like fucking marvel fans” HGFHJGSDHKJHSJGH

“the last time i saw a white guy that generic, he was on a don’t walk sign!”

“fresh dirt is brought to you by blue apron. do you only care about the environment when it’s super convenient?”

INCEL STEVE

“how did he get that hoodie?”

“WE’VE BEEN FUCKED BY THE POPE!” “for the love of god, CONTEXT!”

saying “when in rome” is half the reason people come to rome

the gay dog weddings

“i now pronounce you two very good boys!”

“that’s me in the corner, losing my religion.”

reagan offending the italians (again)

“oh man, if god is real, i’m fucked”

“in the name of the father the son and the HOLY SHIT”

in a vow to make air travel as inconvenient as possible, the third wright brother invented sharing an armrest

“i deserve to be punished. i still quote borat sometimes”

“look! a woman’s ankle!”

*takes one look at hell* “those flamin’ hot cheetos commercials really nailed it.”

“i love cable news. it’s like watching the apocalypse in slow motion.”

gigi describing brett as “the comic sans of people”

andre reminding us how old millennials are now

“destroying your brother’s political legacy. what are you, a bush?”

the ayn rand tattoo

brett accidentally unionizing and legalizing sex work

“the solution just seemed so obvious”

“because faking your own death worked so well last time, reagan. redundant much?”

“maybe all conspiracies are real!” “oh, that’s not good.”

brett’s lil brett puppet

lil brett dying

lil brett going absolutely batshit crazy during the entire end credits of that episode

“you look like a white girl at burning man!”

the coughing and face-touching station

“the only way you’re associated with the number 300 is in pounds.” “you calling me fat?” “explicitly!”

“i literally have no idea what you’re going to say next!” “vagina egg.”

“i feel like we have the same interests. wanna start a podcast?” “no! this is like a siren song for straight white men!”

reagan once used cheetos as croutons

*route 96 turns into route 69* “haha, nice”

the fact that andre is just the original text of the “one fear” meme

“fun for ages six to six and a half!”

berenstain bears originally being berenstein makes SO MUCH SENSE

“and finally the rich white underdogs became the rich white ruling class. an inspirational story”

jr refusing to put his shirt back on

brett gives a tinfoil hat to the shazaam poster and it WORKS

“turns out i wasn’t pregnant, i just had way too much del taco” “i’ve been there”

“you said something nice, but it felt mean!”

mothman’s alternate timeline was a reverse of the fly

andre is canonically into tentacle hentai

lampshading the plot holes

“me? in charge of a whole workforce, like santa?”

“how many oscars is meryl streep supposed to have? three seems kinda low”

andre, just having shoved nixon back into his grave, now covered in blood and holding a shovel: “i don’t wanna talk about it”

air bud!!

“i could beat a dog in chess! probably.” same, brett, same

[copperbadge]

Just reread the bit about Michealis's countdownbefore he bemoans his lack of grandchildren and I'm curious if Eddi and Gregory are planning to have kids, whether by adoption, surrogacy, or Eddie leaving some monstrous concoction on a window sill and attracting a lovable street urchin they they take in?

Totally cool if you have no thoughts, I just thought of the whole window sill street urchin and so had to ask.

Lord, I hadn't even considered the "booby trapped pastry to catch an urchin" method of parenthood, Eddie probably likes that one best.

I've got in mind a story about it, which involves them asking Eddie's sister to be their surrogate; the child would be hers and Gregory's, but that way there's a blood connection to Eddie, which could be important for a number of legal reasons and very important when one of your dads is a celebrity and the other one is literally a king.

But I think also there's...it feels like there's a gap in popular culture surrounding adoption and its "legitimacy" and more importantly the joy that can come of it. I know people who have adopted and people who are adopted and the psychic damage both subsets take from stuff like the Thor movie jokes about "He's adopted" is pretty real. In Infinite Jes, Lachlan's story about adopting his daughter is based in a real life adoption story that a real life podcaster has told that was deeply touching and emotional. Which is why it was important for me to both have Lachlan say she's adopted and to have his partner's mother love her no differently than she would a biological grandchild.

And so I haven't taken the idea of adoption off the table, particularly adoption of older children who get drastically diminishing returns once they leave infancy. Especially since Gregory was raised in the legacy of "You have to want to be a king" -- it's lovely to have children whatever they want to do with their lives, but adopting a smart older kid who's interested in and good at politics, who might want to follow in the family business, and who also needs love and care from people who desperately do want to be parents, is a smart move all around.

I do also have a subplot in mind where the media keeps insisting that Gregory's going to adopt Noah and make him the next king, and Michaelis is irritated but Noah thinks it's hugely funny.

"Gregory's going to adopt me," Noah announced at breakfast the next morning when Michaelis walked in. "I'm going to become the royal heir and be super fancy. I'll go to some really good ivy league school after all and give up all this podcasting nonsense." 

"You can do better than Ivy League," Michaelis said, playing into the joke, and also recognizing when Noah was honing his impression of him. "Gregory went to the Sorbonne. And from there to the London School of Economics."

"A whole school of economics? I've had nightmares like that," Noah said. 

"It is a real place full of extremely serious people," Michaelis said.

IDK, I'm still thinking about it. There's plenty of time yet, at least in my world. (Michaelis is tapping his watch.)

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

if u dont mind asking, how do you identify streaming websites to use? there's this one show where a few episodes r practically unfindable to me. how do u find what you once thought was nearly unfindable? (like the josh series haha)

Funny you should ask that right now, as I have just tried stepping away from that and fucking hell I hate it. Listening to Mark Watson on a podcast recently made me decide I want to hear his radio stuff, and I downloaded his Address to the Nation and Mark Watson Talks a Bit About Life shows easily, but while looking for the first of those, Mark Watson Makes the World Substantially Better, I saw it was available as an audiobook on Audible. And figured I do try to pay for things when paying for them directly is an option, so I should do that here. So I bought it on Audible on my laptop, download it there, but I want to hear it from my phone. Sign in on my phone, find that my account on my phone doesn't have it. Sign out and sign back in using the same email address and password that I used when I bought the thing on my computer, it still gives me different library that doesn't have it. Try to manually take the file on my computer, transfer it to my phone with a cable, and open it with the Audible app. Doesn't work. Look up options for turning the aax file into an mp3 so I could play it with my normal music player, and they're all either more expensive than just buying the book again from my phone, or they're incredibly complicated. Everything I try just leads to something telling me to sign up for an Audible membership for a bunch of money per week or linking me back to Amazon. Every moment of it is not just frustrating but also depressing, looking at how Amazon is connected to everything and our world is nothing but pushing people into signing up for regularly payments to big corporations to get media curated by those corporations, making me have trouble remembering why I thought paying money to Amazon was the more ethical option and this is dealing me more psychic damage the more I try to figure it out. Jesus Christ I hate it.

Okay. Anyway. Sorry about that, I realize you were not looking for that rant with your question; your message just happened to come in after I'd spent 90 minutes losing my mind over this to no avail and remembering why I just download things directly. Finding things that are hard to find is often just a matter of persistence, having a list of streaming sites and going through them. You can find a lot of others by just searching the first name. Like if one version of [streaming site] doesn't have it, search the name of the site and you'll get a page full of results with slightly different versions of it, that all have slightly different collections. Options tend to get sketchier as you go down the page. That's mainly the strategy I use - I start from a few main sites, and if it's not there I start looking for their other versions.

I'll avoid mentioning the sites by name, but this is a really good place to start if anyone doesn't know how to find them. There's lots of useful stuff in that link, and from all of those options you can find similar ones. You can also Google "alternatives to [site]" and you'll get long lists and can try all the options on those lists. That's how I finally found the show Josh - it was about the 15th version of one site that had it.

As a general rule, adblockers are pretty much mandatory for this sort of thing, and a VPN is a generally good idea for added security. Some of the sites can be sketchy, but none are as soul-destroying as trying to navigate a system in which Amazon will not let you have access to a file you've paid for, and even if I do figure it out I'll only have the file in a special format that can only be played in their special app that's full of ads pushing a monthly membership on me, and I hate the state of the world. I just want to listen to Mark Watson and his friends say nice things in 2008.

[cadomoisspokenfor]

Legion Rewatch Notes,

Chapter 8:

The Revolution

Aw man, how unfortunate what’s happened to Clark. I feel soooooooo bad. I mean he was just humble div 3 agent, doing his job, gaslighting marginalized individuals, participating in a genocide. How cruel of those bad bad mutants to injure him so badly. He was only actively about to kill David. What could he possibly have done to deserve any of this?

In other words, the Clark propaganda is not working on me this time. At all.

Maybe don’t participate in a genocide? Idk :/

I normally hate when people type in the passive aggressive way I have been for the past few paragraphs, but goddamn, Clark deserves it.

He’s not quite as damaged... but he’s kind’ve like old David here, from the over-medicated living with Amy timeline. Again, not quite as damaged as that though.

Clark considers mutants a “threat to democracy.” 🙄 “Moral panic” I guess?

“The second I walk outta this room, i’m going to war.” There’s that word again. Clark could just... not, and they’d probably have more time to figure out how to safely eradicate Farouk. But because he doesn’t and David busies himself with peace treaties, Farouk escapes and continues to be a problem for the next year. Clark has a family. A husband and child who love him to death. And he chooses war over them. This pattern will repeat in other character. Technically this isn’t even the start of it.

Suit change, new cane, same Clark. This really doesn’t change anything, does it? He could go through the rest of the series in the suit he wore before and it wouldn’t make difference. The valiant hero dressing for an expected victory over their long time (relatively) rival, only to be stopped immediately by an unforeseen development. This pattern will repeat... tragically.

Considering Farouk!David woulda just dusted them, it’s probably nice for his friends to see the real him is much less violent. He just stacks em like a Jenga Tower, no need for anything more.

Also, Wilhelm scream from one of the soldiers.

He’s also talking strangely. In an almost too calm voice. Measured. He talks like this a few other times, but I think those times have sadder context. Maybe they reflect on this moment. He talks like how he talked when Farouk was mind-melded with him, but his intentions aren’t evil this time around. I guess this is just his “fully in control” voice.

Clark’s literally shaking where he stands.

The zoom in to Clark’s blind eye is reminiscent to previous zoom in’s to Walter’s foggy eye. I guess Clark has taken on the role of Walter, artificially. Makes sense since he’s now the main D3 representative/antagonist like Walter was before.

“I don’t care if you save me, or the world, if you don’t save yourself.” David will eventually choose himself over the world, and Syd. And Syd will hunt him for it. Goes to show how much things change in s2.

“You know the most dangerous thing about schizophrenia?”

“You’re not-“

“The most dangerous thing is believing... you don’t have it! That’s the trick, the mind killer, your disease convinces you you don’t have it. So, for example, one day in the hospital you meet a girl and she has some friends, and they tell you you’re not sick. You have superpowers. And more than anything you wanna believe it because that means you’re not crazy! That means you can fall in love and live happily ever after. But you know if you believe it, if you surrender to the hope and you’re wrong, then... you’re never coming back.”

“I’m here. I’m real. The power is real. You gotta accept it, otherwise we can’t move on.”

“I was in Clockworks for six years. Drugged, doing nothing. Contributing nothing. And now, finally I can be useful! I can help! Don’t you get it? I am so sick of myself. This only works if it’s not about me.”

“David...”

So... that’s a lot. David believes being crazy means he’s not allowed to fall in love, or be happy. He said the same sentiment to Amy before Clockworks. This whole season and this episode especially push David into his full “I’m not insane, I won’t believe you if you tell me otherwise” mindset. At the very least that’s the stakes we’re playing with. If David fully gives into the hope, even for a moment, he believes there’s no possibility for recovery. No possibility for love or happiness. Why even try after that? It’s life or death for him. “If the choice is between life and death, I choose life.”

I know this is all already known and talked about and circulated 100’s of times over in various fan circles, but it’s probably the most important line for David’s character (the speech, not the Farouk quote). It’s very ableist, yes, but at least in the moment it’s coming from someone who’s just being too hard on themselves, and not ya know, being actively validated by the show.

2 episodes ago David talked about being worried about an “invincible” feeling. The dangers of mania.

We also know from that episode that David is more at peace in a calm, responsibilityless setting (with Syd) than he is out in the real world. David’s gonna take on a ton of responsibility, some of it’s gonna draw him away from Syd. At multiple moments throughout the show David has known his own mental health better than any of the others, and even warned them about potentially dangerous slopes he could fall down without their help. Despite this, David is pushed further down a path he tells them is dangerous and is still blamed for what happens in the end. I feel like Oliver’s line from ep4 is relevant here again, “We are the root of all our problems. Our anger, our confusion, our fear of things we don’t understand.” Everyone wants David to be something other than... David. A hero, a god, there projected image of a perfect partner. Not just... David.

Man, the more I realize about David’s self-awareness in s1 the madder I am at Syd for saying all that ableist stuff to him in s2 as if he wasn’t already down on himself 24/7. “It never occurred to you that you’re the problem not the solution?” It’s occurred to him like 5 times by now and has been shut down by you at least 3 of those times. I don’t understand.

What’s strange is... to my recollection David doesn’t believe he’s invincible at the end of s2. Or that he’s not sick.

“Saint David.”

“I’m not saying that. I make mistakes.”

“Say you’re gonna let them kill me if I don’t let them turn me into something different. Something easy. Something clean.” He sounds sinister here, but it is an indication that he knows he’s not perfect. In fact it sounds like he’s trying to appeal to Chap 1 Syd’s mentality. Your disorder is what “makes you you.”

So what’s the message here?

“We can’t just kill people. Or is that who we are now?”

“That’s who they are.”

The justification for killing here is that they’ll kill them if they don’t. Div 3 will kill Summerland if Summerland doesn’t kill Div 3, is what I meant. David has a similar justification for killing Shadow King in s2. Well, he has a LOT of justifications for it, but that’s one of them. Syd doesn’t hear it then either. She does attempt to kill David herself though. I don’t quite understand where the line is.

“He was gonna kill you, twice.”

“With that kind of thinking wars would never end.”

So... he shoulda just talked to The Shadow King when they were both powerless? Talking is what ultimately ends their fight in s3... hmm...

Cary is more humane to their POW than Melanie and Ptonomy are.

The show doesn’t necessarily say it was Cary’s fault for leaving Kerry. Either way though, Kerry needs some space.

Melanie calls David a “world breaker” and outright says now that he knows that’s what he is, div 3 doesn’t stand a chance. I suppose... knowing that... is why they so readily team with Farouk. They stood no chance otherwise. Even then, at least hide him away till after the intervention.

David’s floating meditation pose is seen more in s2 and A LOT more in s3.

He puts the onus of ending the war on Div 3. As if to say, “If things get violent again, it’ll be on you, not us.”

People keep talking about “gods” “waking up” and “realizing they don’t have to listen to us/them anymore.”

When Clark says it David’s first response is, “Isn’t that the history of the world?” But it’s a red herring (or something else) cause he follows it up with, “People of different nations, different languages, learning to live together?”

Clark is afraid if mutants gain power they won’t show humans mercy or equality. This is a common belief among fascist. The “they’ll treat us like we treat them” argument. Only it’s rarely self-aware, and it isn’t here either. Clark genuinely believes he’s not doing anything wrong. It’s all somehow in “self defense.”

Ah, so Farouk and Syd are connected psychically. He entered her mind whenever she entered David’s. He psychically affects her at multiple points throughout the series.

Syd here is convinced to help The Shadow King by The Shadow King. And while he’s wearing a mask at that. Yeah yeah, this pattern will repeat. But still, Syd gives in relatively quickly here. Perhaps she just... doesn’t fully trust Summerlands capabilities? They are legitimately trying to get rid of Farouk, but Farouk has proven time and time again how dangerous he is. Or maybe the “unmake soup” thing is just that convincing to Syd.

Clark’s still standoffish, but he’s slowly becoming more cooperative.

Syd rolled a 4 on that hero speech. She needed at least a 7.

I legitimately NEVER noticed before that Syd secretly turns on the lab camera feed for Clark to watch. They weren’t trying to show him that.

David gets a chance to look back at his whole life and recontextualize everything.

David straight up halts Farouk’s theme. If Clockworks Podcast is right and he can hear that whenever Farouk shows up, this would be evidence of it. Alternatively, he was halting Farouk, and the music halting was for the audience. A fun subversion of expectations.

David describes him and Farouk as, “The Sun and Moon.”

Division 3 sees it. The monster they saw on infrared. Clearly a separate entity from David Haller. Clearly of a different disposition than David Haller as David Haller has acted very differently and non-hostile compared to when they saw him roaming those HQ halls. The monster and David are not the same. They see who their real enemy is now.

It seems evident there was no chance of David beating Farouk on his own here. I wonder why? Was it true? Is Farouk just too ingrained in his mind? Cary said he was like a, “Computer virus. Learning his systems, bypassing his defenses.” Maybe Syd remembered that, and that’s why she believed Farouk. Cause Cary had already said something similar before.

Clark could've escaped, but he stayed, then tried to help fight Farouk.

I feel really sad Oliver got possessed. It never occurred to me before he could even tell Melanie he remembered her. Melanie’ll just go on thinking he never remembered her for a year.

And thus it’s established. There are “good mutants” and there are “bad mutants.”

No one checks on Ptonomy :(

The Lenny that’s talking to Oliver here is still just Farouk.

Did the orb go back as far as it could? Or was this time specifically chosen? If it was chosen, it was probably because it’s very soon after Farouk had been expelled from David’s head, and before the big race for his body starts.

[grocerystoredean]

PLEASE talk about kfam spn

your can of worms monsieur. under the cut.

(warnings for attempted suicide and the show has a plotline involving gaslighting, plus this, that i’m writing, has spoilers for major plot twists. if you’re for some reason listening to a podcast that will likely never be finished and has been on hiatus for nearly two years, maybe don’t click) 

For the uninitiated, King Falls AM is a podcast starring Sammy Stevens, new in town radio host, and Ben Arnold, his producer. King Falls is a small mountain town that doubles as a hub for the supernatural, with werewolves, rainbow lights abducting people, Abe Lincoln's ghost in the library, and perdition wood. Sammy and Ben have the cynic/believer dynamic as they deal with the misadventures of the town, it’s solid. 

Now, before I get into plot. I’m going to outright say it, Sammy Stevens and Dean Winchester are the same character. Every non-hunting au of Dean just gives me one Sammy Stevens in my grubby little hands. I’m opening on a list of sammy actions that dean is capable of.

1. fistfighting a politician on a public stage 

2. mhm dad voice compilation

3. upon being asked “who is sammy stevens,” because he’s so repressed and secretive about his past, he doesn’t ever explain himself but is very hurt by the idea that people don’t trust him

4. growing his hair out and eventually ends up with a manbun. It’s so terrible to think about looking at but post confession dean i know you have it in you sir. I just know it. 

5. hating cops (self explanatory)

6. inexplicable giddiness about santa and general enjoyment of the holidays

7. diner food appreciation

We are now entering spoiler and tw territory if you chose to click in against my advice. Sammy is just Dean post canon. If you follow his character arc you just get every Dean rescues Cas from the Empty fic I’ve read this year. Listen to me LISTEN. Love of man’s life is stolen from their home by a mysterious dark entity. Man gives up macho act to go search for him. Man gets so caught up in solving other people’s problems he doesn’t even say why he moved to town for nearly three years, even then only coming out because he was outed. Man attempts suicide via throwing himself into the void that took his lover. It is revealed that the dark entity can take the form of people it has, and mocks man with it. I love you baby please come home. Home is where the heart is and my heart is in the void with jack fucking wright. Like he was never even there like he was never mine. Tell me sobsicles didn’t write any of this. to remind sammy what he’s fighting for, they play an old speech of jack (his fiance) talking about the power of love. like okay cas-coded. 

I have changed no facts about the story. I would love to do a kfam au of spn but it literally already is one. I need to do 0 (zero) work. If you say the words “dean changed his name and moved to a small town calling himself sammy stevens” you’ve done it. That’s it. You’ve got your king falls au. Makes me insane. I can’t write kfamnatural because it’s already written. balls to the walls. anyway anon i hope you’re seeing this and having a nice day. i know i didn’t really say anything new but i sure had fun writing about it! maybe one day i’ll relisten to kfam to do psychic damage and then write destiel parallels because they really write themselves. 

[acepalindrome]

So Critical Role is on hiatus this week, and they’ll be taking another break over Christmas and New Years. Are you bored and needing another tabletop show to scratch that itch? Yes, there’s TAZ too, but they’re biweekly so you’ll still have off weeks. And everybody knows about Critical Role and TAZ. Don’t you want to try some of the lesser known but still very very good roleplaying shows?

I hope the answer is yes, because I’m gonna rec some of my favorites! Please feel free to reblog and add your favorites too! There are so many very good D&D/tabletop podcasts/web shows that get overlooked and a Critical Role hiatus is a great time to shine some light on those gems! And without further ado:

Not Another D&D Podcast: the campaign after the campaign! NADDPOD is set in a world that has already been saved by a team of legendary heroes...except maybe the legendary heroes didn’t do such a great job saving the world as we thought and fucked up quite a lot and left mountains of problems to be solved in their wake! NADDPOD has a great story and drama and heartbreak, but mostly it’s wildly hilarious. The Band of Boobs consists of Hardwon Surefoot (a human fighter raised by dwarves who left home for adventure and is used to be being a big fish in a small pond,) Beverly Toegold V (halfling paladin boyscout and Very Good Boy who’s trying to earn his merit badges) and Moonshine Cybin (wood elf druid, hillbilly and chaotic bi who flirts with every woman she meets. She has a possum companion named Pawpaw. I love Moonshine.)

Dungeons & Daddies (Not A BDSM Podcast): Four dads from our world gets transported into the Forgetten Realms on a quest to rescue their sons! This podcast is extremely goofy and if you thought the McElroys played Calvinball, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Dad jokes cause psychic damage, and there are a LOT of dad jokes. It’s 90% hilarious shenanigans and then 10% feelings (I cried about a character called Lizardboy Scales McStuffins.) The dads are Darryl Wilson (barbarian and stay at home coach dad, big softy on the inside,) Henry Oak(druid and mega crunchy hippie dad,) Glenn Close (bard and rock’n roll pot-smoking dad,) and Ron Stampler (rogue, emotionally detached stepfather and honestly probably a cryptid. What the fuck is Ron? We just don’t know.)

Dimension 20: Escape from the Bloodkeep: this is a fairly short webshow, just 6 episodes long, and I admit that I only checked it out because Matt Mercer and Erika Ishii were on it, but I absolutely loved it! Escape from the Bloodkeep follows the subordinates of the Lord of Shadows right before the great final battle of good vs evil that they were totally going to win...except a couple halflings threw some magic jewelry in a volcano and fucked everything up. It’s wildly funny as a LOTR parody but the evil villains end up becoming a found family at the end, because of course they do. The vile villains include Efink Murderdeath (elven grave cleric who turned evil to rebel against her dad,) Sokhbarr the Boglord (half orc ranger and basically the Steve Irwin of monsters,) Kraz-Thun AKA Leiland (anxious insecure Ringwraith warlock,) Lilith (queen of the spiders and wine mom to thousands of tiny spider kids,) Maggie (tiefling barbarian and daughter to the Lord of Evil) and Marcus St Vincent (human pirate who sided with evil to get rich.) Dimension 20 has some other shows like Fantasy High and The Unsleeping City that I’ve heard good things about, but I haven’t gotten around to watching them yet!

Rusty Quill Gaming: I’ve only just started this one but I love it already! It’s set in an alternate 19th century London that has magic and all the usual fantasy trappings, but also Lord Byron is there? It’s a lot of fun so far but I’ve been told that there’s a lot of pain coming and I’m very scared. The squad (at least where I’m at) includes: Sasha (socially awkward human rogue,) Hamid (halfling sorcerer and Fancy Lad,) Zolf (dwarf cleric, has a peg leg and possibly the owner of the team’s only brain cell) and Bertie (human fighter and loud, flashy buffoon.)

And it’s not a tabletop/roleplay podcast but I only got into Rusty Quill Gaming because of one of Rusty Quill’s other podcasts, The Magnus Archives, which I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s a horror series that follows the new head archivist at the Magnus Institute, which is an organization that documents all manner of supernatural and spooky shit. What happened to the last head archivist? It’s a ~mystery~. At first it seems like a bunch of stand alone stories but soon you start to realize that there are all these threads connecting everything and I can’t really say much more because a big part of the fun is seeing how the overarching story comes together. Also lots of LGBT+ characters. The main character is canon ace. Please listen to The Magnus Archives.

Hope you’ll give some of these a try, and again, feel free to add your own! Give some other shows some love!