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lucifer-kane · 3 years

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Hello! Do you have any podcast recs? I’m just getting into them and I know your really into them

Hm! I Have a few but it all depends on what you're into in general! Also anyone else who sees this feel free to add on because I know I don't listen to as many shows as other people I follow do.

The Penumbra Podcast: You follow Juno Steel, a brooding, sharp-witted private eye on mars, as he tangles with an elusive homme fatale, tracks dangerous artifacts of an ancient alien civilization, and faces his three greatest fears; heights, blood, and relationships. (This is one of my all time faves)

If you're into DnD I will always suggest The Adventure Zone. Starting off with Balance as it's finished and so very amazing, then I'd also suggest Amnesty (using MotW over DnD)

If you want a good dramady that's a short listen and one of my favorite shows, Red Valley is very very good. No one at Overhead Industries wants to talk about defunct research station Red Valley, and account man Warren Godby is out of his depth. When he meets Gordon Porlock, a disgruntled archivist with a bag of tapes from the station's last known occupant, they will begin a journey to the limits of experimental science, confront horror and trauma front the past, present and future, and try to remember the level select chat from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Take a seat in a battered 1998 Vauxhall Astra, turn on the tape deck, and find out what really happened at Red Valley

For Horror, The Magnus Archives is a classic, Archive 81 is another but if you venture into that one come back to me, I can give you a google doc of warnings because man is it long. The Sheridan Tapes is another favorite (A horror writer disappears and a detective is set with figuring out what happened)

Malevolent is one I adore so much currently; It follows an investigator as he unravels the mysterious circumstances that have befallen him. It heavily features the horrors of Lovecraft and is just sooooo damn good.

My favorite Drama is Directive, a quick listen and deals with a man living alone for 20 years, taking care of sleeping passengers on a ship to a new planet. Had me crying on the floor

Wooden Overcoats: Rival funeral directors dealing with each other, one miserable, one ~impossibly perfect~. It's a hell of a show and I adore it

Now for my number one rec, one that everyone knows me for. Kane and Feels. Paranormal Investigators. If you want more information on KaF, I've written up a whole post for it specifically, and I direct you to that (please listen to KaF it's my world)

Also an update to that KaF post, there's now 11 episodes rather than 9!

Sorry the formatting and styling of this post is weird I couldn’t pick a way to write this up so. Enjoy the chaotic way this is laid out,

#podcasts #recs #long post #if you want more info on any of these hmu!#i shockingly don't listen to as many as i want bc listening to podcasts is hard #but i certainly don't shut up about a lot of them

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young-bev · 4 years

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An essay abt Fabian Aramais Seacaster

This is the essay that i wrote for my greek myth class. The assignment was to find a contemporary example of Hubris and Nemesis.Understand that some story elements are simplified and glossed over bc this was only supposed to be three pages and i wrote five. Idk like one person on tumblr wanted to see it and a few ppl on twitter as well. So enjoy??

In recent years there has been a rise in popularity in TableTop Role Playing Games (RPG), this is due to shows like Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, Not Another DnD Podcast and Dimension 20. These shows have amassed large followings and have even gone and performed live around the world. Viewed as a collaborative storytelling medium, using dice to define the success of one's actions, it is only reasonable to wonder if the traditional storytelling devices seen in classic mythology translates into this medium. Examining the plot to Dimension 20 Fantasy High a clear example of hubris comes to mind. This hubris is shown by a Player Character (PC) named Fabian Aramais Seacaster in the second season of Fantasy High. To understand the significance of the hubris and Nemesis, one must understand Fabian’s personality in the context of this show and how that relates to the situation he was placed in. Understanding Fabian as a character will also allow the viewer to understand how cruel Nemesis was to him. Nemesis’ cruelty can also be examined as a part of games mechanics and reflected in the relations between Dungeon Master and Player.

For ease of understanding, I will first explain the context in which Fantasy High takes place. In the introduction to the show, the Dungeon Master (DM) Brennan Lee Mulligan explains that: “Now we can answer the age-old question of; What if John Hughes ran a tabletop RPG game?” The show follows a group of heroes who call themselves the Bad Kids as they attend the Aguefort Adventuring Academy: the world’s premier training ground for would-be Heroes. It is the first episode of the show that Fabian is introduced. He is a half-elven fighter raised by infamous pirate Bill Seacaster and Hallariel Seacaster. Played by Lou Wilson, Fabian is: “Everything [Lou Wilson] wanted to be in high school; rich and hot.” as he stated in an episode of Fantasy High: Extra Credit. It is here in Fabian’s very first scene that the viewer is given a key insight into Fabian’s hubris. While talking to his father before the first day of school, Bill Seacaster says to Fabian; “You’re my son, you’re a direct reflection of me! You and your glory is the same as mine and my glory! That’s how we relate to each other!” (Mulligan, S1 E1). This statement is important because it will directly play into many of the choices Fabian makes in the following episodes. In the very same interaction, Fabian is gifted by his father an Auguefort Owlbears letterman jacket, as Fabian hopes to make it onto the team with the tryouts happening later that day. The jacket becomes a great symbol for both Fabian’s hubris and identity as he does not initially make the team but still decides to wear the jacket to school nearly every day. As hubris is defined as someone viewing themselves as either above or below their true social rank. hubris is also seen as acting out of an overblown sense of importance. In a society where a social ladder is clear, Jocks and cheerleaders ‘rule the school’ and the nerds find themselves at the bottom, wearing a letterman jacket for a team that you are not a part of is very much believing yourself above your true position on the social ladder.

While the jacket is a minor display of hubris in the first season as Fabian does eventually find his way onto the Owlbears, it is not until Fantasy High: Sophomore Year that Fabian’s hubris is met with Nemesis. In sophomore year, the Bad Kids find themselves on a quest to retrieve the crown of the Nightmare King. Their journey leads them to the pirate city of Leviathan. Here the city is made up of ships roped and assembled together, it floats in the Celestine Sea. On their first night in Leviathan, Fabian separates himself from the party and heads off, now pensive as this city reminds him of Bill Seacaster. On his own, he meets members of his father’s cult. Warlocks who have given patronage to Bill Seacaster as he is now causing chaos as a devil in the nine hells after dying at the end of freshman year. Initially, these pirates praise and celebrate Fabian as he is their patron’s son. They believe Fabian their saviour. Their reaction changes, however, when they ask Fabian to describe how he defeated Bill Seacaster in combat. These warlocks believe Fabian to have killed his father in a grand and epic battle. Although, in actuality, Fabian killed his father in an act of mercy after their home was attacked by mercenaries. Fabian tries to explain this to these pirates and they immediately become frantic and fearful of the lack of potency and power of their patron. They believed Fabian a powerful enough swordsman to defeat Bill Seacaster, thus powerful enough to defeat one of Bill’s long standing rivals, a man named James Wicklaw (Mulligan, S2 E5). With a hurt pride and desperate to prove himself, Fabian declares: “I am perfectly capable of leading an army, Alright? I am my father’s son through and through. And I am as good as he is...” (Mulligan, S2 E5). It is here with wounded pride that Fabian sets out to prove himself in the eyes of his father’s cult. He leads them in an attack against James Wicklaw. Fabian’s hubris here comes from overcompensating for his hurt pride. He goes above his social standing, believing himself powerful enough to defeat Wicklaw on his own. This is however not true, as Dungeons & Dragons is a game where antagonists have challenge ratings and players gain levels in certain abilities. It is up to the Dungeon Master to balance encounters and choose antagonists appropriately. James Wicklaw was a Mind Flayer, listed in the Monster Manual as a level 7 challenge rating. Fabian at the time was a level 8 Fighter (Perkins, p.222). While this seems balanced, Fabian was immediately grappled and stunned, leaving him unable to do anything but watch, while Wicklaw and his crew slaughtered the 20 followers he had brought into battle. Nemesis comes to Fabian by removing his sense of identity. As Chungledown Bim, one of the warlocks says to Fabian before dying; “Ye ain’t no pirate and Bill would spit in your eye…I’m gonna shit in your mouth” (Mulligan, S2 E5). Ultimately these words would affect Fabian so much that they will come to haunt him in later episodes. Punishment in Dungeons & Dragons does play out differently then it does in classic Mythology. Where the gods of the pantheon are near impossible to reason with and are cruel and unforgiving in their punishments, the ones in control of the world of D&D are you and your friends. A good DM is on the side of their players but it is their job to react as the world in which their players find themselves. In this situation, Lou Wilson made a series of dangerous and reckless decisions as Fabian but these decisions were exactly the decisions that Fabian would make. He is prideful, he is overconfident, he is selfish and ultimately insecure when his pride is threatened. By losing his sense of identity, Lou and Brennan made the decision away from the table to push Fabian’s punishment past simply a character choice and into the mechanics of the game. At the table, we see Fabian shed his father’s eyepatch and sword along with his letterman jacket. These items are obvious symbols of Fabian’s sense of self. It isn’t until a later episode that the viewer sees the true effect that losing his identity has on Fabian. He suffers from exhaustion and pneumonia in the following episode and seems to have fallen into a depressive state. In episode 8, the Bad Kids go to face Wicklaw again, this time together as a team. It is here that the viewers and the other players learn that Lou and Brennan decided to remove all classes and feats Fabian had taken throughout the campaign. This leaves him with a single attack. Talking about this decision in the Fireside Chat, Brennan and Lou said: “[Lou Wilson]: A lot of it is a relationship and trust between you and your DM; in that your DM sees you make that choice, the less strategic choice…and meets you in the middle...It was so much more fun because...Brennan rewarded my choices with the reality and groundedness they deserve...’[Brennan Lee Mulligan]: ‘I think there comes a moment when playing D&D, where you can say: ‘I can really blow it and tell a better story’...I need to honor the danger Lou has put himself in and I need to put consequences here and I just can’t be vindictive.” This quote highlights the main difference with how hubris is treated in this media. Nemesis and the other Greek gods do not care, as characters, if their punishments are juste. They are particularly vindictive and often do not care if you die because of your hubris. Athena did not care about the importance of storytelling when cursing Arachne for boasting of her weaving skills, she simply cared that Arachne be punished for her hubris (Buxton, p.80). In opposition to this, a Dungeon Master and their players are more similar to the poets composing the myths. They make choices while considering the narrative, they enforce nemesis in a way that adds to the narrative. Using Nemesis allows the DM to enforce consequences onto the players allowing their decisions to feel more significant and raise the stakes. However, because of teamwork between player and DM, Nemesis will be much more forgiving to a Player Character then a Non-Player Character (NPC) or those showing hubris in myths. In conclusion, hubris and Nemesis still find their place in the world of RPGS. Fabian Aramais Seacaster is a clear example of this. He boasts of his abilities, believes himself a captain, when in actuality he is at his best when working in a team. Nemesis removes his sense of identity and confidence, forcing him to face his enemies without the skills he had honed in the past few years. She forced Fabian to realize that his true strength comes from the bonds he has with his friends and not borrowed from another's reputation. Nemesis forced Fabian to face his insecurities for which he was overcompensating, playing a key part in the larger elements of Fabian’s journey to becoming his ‘own darling man-boy’.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 fantasy high #dimension 20 live #dimension 20 spoilers #this is the second school project ive done about fantasy high #fabian aramais seacaster #Fantasy high #Lou Wilson #brennan lee mulligan #an essay

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gayspock · 6 years

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i see u reblogging bright sessions and penumbra stuff a lot but ive never heard of them, are they dnd podcasts? either of them got gays?

they arent dnd podcasts (like they’re written with actual scripts and acted out, rather than people playing) but OH BUDDY they ABSOLUTELY have gays

the bright sessions has several canonically gay characters. caleb and adam are both boyfriends (their relationship is probably shown the most - and theyre both absolutely adorable and understanding of each other). mark (who doesnt come in until some time later) is also stated to be bisexual. there’s a new character (rose) who hasnt come in until very recently, and hasnt had many episodes yet, but she’s also gay and has a girlfriend. then, chloe’s also openly ace & pan.

as for penumbra... jesus fucking christ, okay so

so there’s?? different independent stories in penumbra. BUT!! basically:

in the second citadel story: sir damien is bi. he’s also a scalie, but that’s besides the point. (the man literally... fell in love with a lizard monster. like i dont mean this in a whole “oh im reading into this dynamic” but he is very literally conflicted because he has a fiance but ALSO wants to fuck a lizard, whos supposed to be his rival) and lord arum is ALSO gay (aka the lizard in question). there’s also sir caroline, and she’s a lesbian and an ICONIC one at that (this week in: she literally writes a letter to the queen, in which she talks about a great fling she had the night before with a woman).

as for juno steel... okay, i cant even begin with this one. basically its set in the future and all gender and sexuality goes out the fucking window. juno steel himself is bisexual and genderqueer and to quote my fave tumblr post on the subject: he falls in love like other people fall down stairs. absolutely tragic. he’s also in love with peter nureyev who, yeah, is also gay. his secretary rita is also bi and- oKAY, CAN I JUST??? EVERYONE IS GAY AND BI AND VERY RARELY CIS. like im just gonna come out and say it. there’s a lot of characters, and... jesus, most of them are gay. off the top of my head, alessandra strong is bi; valles vickey will NOT shut up about her wife, and it’s fantastic; the prince of mars is gay; and man out of the whole series i can only think of like... one possibly straight person. a lot of characters are nb and trans too. like??? juno for one (as in... the literal protagonist, which? nb protag is like me cryin on the floor). there’s also the Mayor (Mx Pereyra) and the Piranha and several other NB characters.

LASTLY UH!!! those are the two main stories but there’s also a short story about two lesbians (one of whom is genderqueer, too) bandits which is very good

#anon #egg yells back

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