D20 - Blog Posts

There's not an answer at the back of the book

In the middle of episode 2 of Dimension 20's The Seven, Jawbone's speech to Penny hit quite close to home for me.

As someone who was a high-achieving student, I currently feel so overwhelmed facing the reality of the sheer volume of choices I have to make for myself in the adult world. Up to this point, I "could always just try harder to keep every single plate spinning."

And now, suddenly, not only are there too many things to successfully balance at the same time, but there's no objectively right answer on what I should be doing with my life.

~

I am continually blown away by Brennan - both his incredible depth of understanding of the nuance of human experience and his ability to capture that deep truth, pull it out, and articulate it so profoundly within these beautiful story moments.

Jawbone is not trying to give Penny empty reassurances that "everything will be okay if she follows her heart." It is out of his desire for her wellbeing that he, in truth and love, gently but firmly conveys the difficult reality of stepping into adulthood.

And by cutting through the fluff and grasping straight at the heart of the issue, Brennan drilled in to exactly how I've been feeling lately. In that moment, I felt both a deep discomfort to the vulnerability of feeling so seen and exposed, and also a great warmth and assurance to feeling so seen and understood by someone expressing a true depth of care along with their depth of insight.

~

In conclusion, D&D rules.

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You have a real bond with these friends. That matters. Yes things change over time, but also, you can hold on to things that matter to you.

What I see, if I can, be honest with you, is a little bit of anxiety, maybe like, in your life you've never had to choose, because you could always just try harder to keep every single plate spinning. And maybe, as you approach adulthood, something is coming that might actually mean that something gets dropped.

...

Flawless grades, [you] keep a lot of things in the air, I think there might be, a part of you that is feeling anxiety, again, not just around the social aspect of all of this but the fact that, for the first time, you're starting to see that in adult life you're not on the rails anymore. We structure the lives of kids to have an amount of brass rings where you can grab them all. Year after year, there's grades and there's finals and there's all these things, and as you approach adulthood, all of a sudden, you're not on a ride, you're in the amusement park, and it's closing. Eventually. And you gotta decide what rides you wanna go on and what brass rings you wanna get, 'cause you, Penny I need you to hear me here, you're not gonna be able to get them all.

...

Again, mostly it's - you know what you gotta do. And the hard thing is this, Penny. Stuff that's coming, no one's gonna give you a grade on most of it. Your friend group? You have to decide the right thing to do, and there's not, an answer at the back of the book. It's just gonna be what, you, want.

Brennan: Make a religion check for me

Ally:

Sources: Fantasy High Sophomore year, ep 17 and ep 20

Same Energy

Sources: Fantasy High S1E16 & The Unsleeping City S1E17

gotta honor the c(l)ock(work)

god i hope russell finds out that they are trans from becoming a femme fatale GOD I NEED THAT

the transgender experience of getting isekai'ed

this season is already so gender that i need there to be more PUMP IT INTO MY BRAIN GIVE ME HOT TRANS WOMEN

I see peoples belief that Aguefort "loves The Seven, couldn't care less about most other parties (including The Rat Grinders), and actively dislikes The Bad Kids" and raise you:

He loves and respects The Seven in the closest way Arthur Aguefort is physically capable of approaching towards a sensible mentor figure (which is still not very much)

He is neutral towards most other parties

AND he loves The Bad Kids except he is doing so in the way that an absolutely unhinged friend of your parents who calls himself your uncle cares for you (he is sleeping off a hangover on your couch, eating all your snacks, and engaging you in psychological warfare but also he has some wild stories to tell you while taking you into the woods and teaching you how to throw knives (if you promise not to narc on him to your parents))

something underrated about ayda aguefort in terms of autism rep is that she has a +3 to charisma. everyone who meets her agrees that she's cool as hell

can't believe jace was condemned to hell/prison because people think he's banging porter

i've been pretty distracted by all the sapphics this season so maybe someone pointed this out and i didn't see it but - jace was murdered and brought back under porter's control with a rage star, he was never evil at all as far as we know. but even before brennan said jace and porter are a 'duo' people have been shipping him with porter, so everyone just accepted that he was evil because yeah he's banging the evil guy. the bad kids burn a couple of him alive, one of them is arrested (and then also burned i think?) and his only crime was choosing to come back to life to worship a rage god which yeah after getting murdered by your coworker i think that's fair. he didn't know porter would control him because ankarna didn't know that porter was controlling anything, he was on that devil's honey.

imagine being brutally murdered out of the blue by your coworker, a nameless god offers to revive you if you'll worship her and then you come back to life only to realise it was the same fucking coworker who can now mind control you. and then you get murdered four more times and you stop being mind-controlled but no one wants to bring you back because they think you were fucking your murderer. the life of a twink.

thinking about how kipperlilly even knew who riz was or why he was important and - riz was spying on porter and jace when they were investigating the cafeteria to make sure they didn't try to cover it up. even if he didn't spot riz, porter then went to check on the bad kids of whom riz was missing. it wouldn't be suspicious at all for porter to look into the kid who randomly disappeared after the principal died, in fact very sensible to check for his guardian and address to make sure he gets home safe.

maybe he asks someone from his rogue class if she knows anything. mentions that goldenhoard seemed to be very interested about his dad. pretends he's just concerned about a kid with a tough home life witnessing a murder on his first day.

maybe in her little black-and-white mind that means he's getting special treatment. maybe that was what porter intended.

we need a kipperlilly special on the complicated women podcast - she willingly chose to be possessed, those are some complex ethical and philosophical ramifications. for the sake of the argument i'm assuming porter also has control over her since the shatter star is a part of her, because the morality of choosing to become evil is so interesting. did she think she was going to become a hero somehow, or did she accept that she would have to be a villain to have the power she wanted? she wanted to be better than the bad kids but she kept her moral superiority about fairness and the rules, so was she aware that she couldn't beat the bad kids by playing fair? was her anger always at her own inadequacy, at the fact that she could never excel in the same way they did without cheating? was she projecting the entire time?

it's so fucking funny how quickly the bad kids switch from Battle Mode. less than a minute ago you were burning/suffocating pawns alive in lava but initiative drops and suddenly it's all nooo ankarna you need to forgive people! violence is not the answer! and yet it took them a solid hour of roleplay to be okay with bringing back the rat grinders because they were so pissed lmao

is the big bad of senior year going to be a baby now??

kinda starting to feel like kittencone and kristen aren't going to make out? what's up with that???

adaine's denim jacket is a mental illness/trauma recovery staple, actually. she wears that jacket every goddamn day and it has fluffy pockets and probably mysterious stains and tears that are a reminder of the life she's lived. a tear from catching on one of gorgug's tin flowers that she wore like a corsage on prom night. a yoghurt stain from gilear that really was powerfully resistant to cleaning, as much as she tried. a pulled seam from kristen shoving her whole buff arm into a pocket to get ecaf out. an extravagant embroidery of her name sewn onto the inside of the collar by cathilda in fabian's calligraphy. an abjurative ward burned into the denim by aelwyn who never learned to sew. an eternally damp spot on the shoulder where boggy cuddles up still wet from the aquatic portion of his backpack. a missing chunk of wool taken by riz for 'analysis' that was really stuffed into a baggie and pinned on a conspiracy board. a tiny unicorn created from fig's illusion in the nightmare forest that seemed to stay real even after leaving the forest prancing about the inner world of the jacket. a pocket in the ethereal realm just so that ghostly edgar the rat can curl up in it without phasing through it. an 'in memoriam' patch sewn in to commemorate the jacket-world person who sacrificed his life to give her a wand of ray of frost in freshman year. a little uplifting message written in ballpoint pen on the inside of her cuff during class. a smattering of wolf hairs that persist no matter how hard she tries to brush them off and keep ending up in her mouth somehow, although she keeps politely quiet about the occasional grey she finds on her shoulders.

you are cassandra. in the middle of being possessed by the spirit of your vengeful, undead domain and feeling the world split apart with the festering carcass of your ex-lover being restored to grandeur only so she can be devoured completely, someone familiar approaches from the deck of a flying ship in active battle. your vision is warped, you're barely conscious, you don't know how it's possible that you're still alive, the figure blurs further and splits in two. one calls out to you, the same voice that has been reaching out for you all along, the same voice that called out your name the very first time and brought you to life. you ignore her. the other - clothes a little tighter, some subtle makeup, a pair of bicycle shorts patterned with a flag not known to this world. she opens her mouth - her teeth are horrible. 'blimey', she says, and you feel again. you feel something that crushes against your bones and shocks still your rotten heart. something cuts itself loose from your chest and escapes with a virulent tear of pain through your throat. lightning, bright and sharp, gushes from your screaming maw to its true purpose, and then she's gone. it's over. 'blimey', it whispers into the ethos, a memory as much as a promise to the tragedy of a dying star that may die forever. but you feel something else, you remember something or perhaps you are only now recognising it that nothing can be done. something else that lived in that void of space, you think. nothing more than a collection of cells yet, and still the weight pushes you to your knees. two lines on a stick, you reason, perhaps not even a choice to be made at all. surely not a life to be lived, you tell yourself as the memory of possibility dissolves and the void envelops the very space that baby might have occupied.

'blimey', the whispers consume what's left of your aching heart. 'blimey', you echo.

my dumb ass certain that ragh's dad was a sunstone

i may never recover from the tonal whiplash of lore dumping/important discoveries and straight british kristen white girl twerking by the voting booth.

trying to clear some stuff up with the rat grinders pls add stuff i miss:

oisin got buff over the summer, the same time he would have gotten a rage crystal

maryann is a barbarian with insane athletics and porter's been teaching her, he might have connected with the high five heroes through her in the first place

kipperlilly didn't want to be called the rat grinders because it gives away some of their secrets but ruben just wanted to fuck with her

the rats that lucy revived were either killed out of spite by the other rat grinders or they were just collateral when porter fought monsters

oisin only started missing ping pong balls after talking to adaine when she said she didn't remember him and talked about how rich she is, maybe because he felt justified then

buddy presumably thought they were actually restoring this goddess even though she was competing with sol and helped anyway

they all genuinely thought lucy was coming back so 'killing' her wasn't ever meant maliciously by the rat grinders

they could have had a suicide pact all planning to take the deal and come back and just lucy didn't follow through

so with the next cleric they didn't give him any warning so he would make a split-second decision to come back to life without necessarily knowing the consequences

we're really going to get a moment of truth next episode because when freshman year kristen died she went to heaven, but daybreak went to hell. freshman year kristen's only problem was trying to convert people, she was never bigoted or hurt anyone so of course she'd get into heaven. daybreak was a hardcore believer in helio but he was a bigot and a part of a cult plot to bring about the apocalypse, so of course he went to hell.

buddy has had some moments that make him seem evil/bigoted and if he was involved knowingly in the rat grinders plot then he'd be going to hell. helio might suck but he doesn't get to bring whoever he wants into heaven and even if he did he wouldn't bring buddy if he'd been plotting to revive ankarna. but if buddy is actually a good kid? if he had the same beliefs as freshman year kristen, if he thought helio loved everyone and didn't think religion was the basis of morality?

gorgug really turning into ragh with mary ann 👀

am i a total asshole for being kind of upset that they totally healed lydia? i know disabilities in fantasy are tough because there are spells that can fix everything but i get a bit sad imagining the new art of her without the gem standing up.

things that make me sad this week

golsum has -3 to charisma despite being a realtor because he's a flesh construct so he looks scary and people don't like him

no matter how nice he is all flesh constructs have a charisma score of 5

he's banished because of his charisma score and then the teens that did it laugh about how uncharismatic he is for a realtor

everyone encountered in the house is a monstrous race - ghost, vampire, frankenstein, werewolf - instead of just making monstrous versions of npcs they took the ones that already sort of fit and took away their personalities

fabian came to alone in adaine's room surrounded by her blood

brennan said not to touch the items and i think fig full-on ate some of that cottage cheese

cassandra was trying to send them home to mordred manor in elmville and messed up

kalina was around when cassandra got married meaning ankarna had shared custody and everyone knows lesbian exes that own a cat together are more committed to co-parenting than most actual parents

kristen heard a wolf howl somewhere in the house and she probably assumed it was tracker, remembering when she turned in the nightmare forest

baron knows that riz fears his friends finding out that he's aroace and they keep teasing him about dating baron so when baron says they're mistreating him he's actually kind of right

and riz tries his best to explain the situation while not giving too much away because if he doesn't then baron will explain the situation in his own words

fig doesn't live in the piano bubble anymore

i'd just like everyone to know that when fabian gifted adaine a worm in a box it did not occur to me once that it was a literal worm until it started talking. i had no doubt in my mind that it was a fuzzy blue worm on a string in a gold box that she was going to wear like an earpiece/hearing aid.

IS SOMETHING EATING DEAD GODS???

this whole scene was so gerard talking to elody-coded you have no idea

Hey. Hey since when did you have permission to tell your mom about my horribly embarrassing curse?!

updating this with CAN I USE THOSE DIAMONDS FOR CLASS WHEN REFERRING TO YOLANDA BADGOOD'S PRESSURISED DEAD BODY

Brennan: If someone leaves the party or dies, the party becomes pass/fail which is not an option for you. You need to succeed profoundly.

Everyone Else: Oh god, what if someone dies?

Siobhan: If we kill one of the Rat Grinders, they don't get to go to college.

arthur created grix to be a perfectly lawful, responsible principal should aguefort be under investigation. arthur had a legal failsafe in case the feds came around. and he fucking shoots kids with nets and awakens sex robots to attack them-

does anyone remember who in the bad kids told the others about what they saw in the nightmare forest? i think fabian did and i'm almost certain riz didn't but they keep (accidentally?) triggering each others' forest traumas and it seems like A Thing.

fabian flirted with a mirror right next to riz and everyone teased him about kalina being his girlfriend, riz suggested gorgug answer the riddle for all of them under threat of being killed and eaten by a big animal, fig created a sexy rat for when fabian was talking to spot. is this anything.

ik it would fuck so much shit up probably, but if they faked wanda's death next to lucy and yolanda's bodies they might actually have convinced ruben to change sides...

the wind is cold and that is why for each other we light the campfire is beautiful.

and it has to be said that lucy was a frost genasi. it's a homebrew race, but logically it would make sense for her to be vulnerable to fire damage. lighting a campfire to melt away the cold could kill her - and i think it's very telling that she specified that we light the bonfires for each other. the rest of her party needed protection from the cold and she was the cold, maybe.

i CANNOT stress ENOUGH that BRENNAN DIDN'T ACTUALLY MAKE THEM ROLL. THIS JUST HAPPENED

kay, ok, one sec, so, haha, kristen applebees, presumably still in Every Woman cosplay — bootcut wranglers gripping her 270lb-leg-press-PB watermelon-crushing thighs, yellow sensible button up reeking of all dairy ever, each finger CHOKED in rings for no reason — and having donned a cowboy hat filled with like 2 gallons of salsa that is intermittently fed from like a sagging midwest trough, calls steel-orb Littledoggy Girlcollar “milady”, reveals that her 3rd god HAS INDEED died, and then attempts to *SPIDER-MAN* A WEB with NO MAGIC after RUBBING SAID SALSA ON HER FACE, catalyzing the most BUCKWILD 5-PLAYER SQUAD LIFT featuring but not limited to fireworks, a 9-foot tall spider, and YEETING kristen TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SCHOOL.

i… *wet cough*, haha, wow! *passes, and not the kind that gets you extra spells*