#d20 meta

[canonicallyanxious]

[neverafter episode 9 spoilers]

everything about ylfa's flashback scene made me feel fucking insane. the wolf is death and the ending of stories. the wolf ate ylfa's grandmother because it was time for her story to end. but for whatever reason it's not time for ylfa's end. for whatever reason the wolf wanted ylfa to live. the wolf ate the grandmother so that she could die, and ylfa ate the wolf so that she could live. the wolf wanted ylfa to live, and at the deepest core of herself she wants to live too. i'm scratching at the WALLS. LIKE "i met death and death wants me to live" EMILY SAID IT SO CASUALLY BUT LOWKEY THAT'S THE RAWEST SHIT I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE!

also though you need to eat to live and the consumption of stories to stay alive beyond the end of your own story... i am Thinking...

#sarah.txt #dimension 20 #neverafter #neverafter spoilers #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #idk why eating/consumption as a theme has been making me feel so unhinged lately but they really got me with this one #god there was so much shit that happened in this episode that was METAL AS HELL #if i let myself talk about it i just won't go to bed tonight and like i'm sleepy skfnskdjfnsd but holy shit. #but also like... this consensual consumption in ylfa's story #like. the wolf let ylfa eat him. the wolf WANTED ylfa to eat him. #versus the stepmother erasing 'or perhaps consuming' her own story and everything inside of her trying to claw its way out. phew. #consumption gave them both power but in such different ways! godDAMN! #d20 meta #story meta

[essektheylyss]

Conrad and Justin really are so sweet and heartwarming, but there is something that makes me lose my mind about them being friends in particular.

Given Mark Bition having such an influence in the city, with Mayor Logic being elected because, you know, it just made sense, and just Elias Hodge's general career path and interests, Justin could've been running with the big dogs. People who are ambitious and rational, particularly those funneled into siloed scientific development jobs for those traits, often justify their actions extensively. Progress, the momentum of civilizations, the greater good, economic upswing—these are all justifications for scientific and technological development that work well on the people doing the work as much as they do on those funding it. It is a simple story to tell.

But Justin isn't with those people. He's with Conrad, the stunted conscience that has been neglected and ignored out of pain and fear and anxiety for years. He's been encouraging Conrad to act, to speak up, to push through those fears to make a change, and after all of those years, he is still Conrad's best friend.

Even when Conrad thought he had been wrong, Justin didn't. Which means Elias Hodge knew all along that his conscience was right.

#dimension 20 #d20 spoilers #mentopolis #i can't believe I'm gonna cry over sentient personifications of BRAIN FUNCTIONS. BRENNAN GODDAMN YOU. #jk I'm really crying over the concept of humans HUMANS ARE GOOD ACTUALLY. HUMANS ARE GOOD. #conrad schintz #justin fication #d20 meta

[mysunfreckle]

I adore that rather than just "a version of Puss in Boots", Zac's characters turns out to be the archetype of the trickster cat.

The fox arguing that he should be the one to go instgead of the Cat makes perfect sense, because between a fox and a rabbit a cat is the less obvious choice for a trickster.

And there are version of what most people know as Puss in Boots where instead of a cat it's a fox (like versions from Hungary, Italy, Finland and Mongolia) and whenever a fox shows up in a fairy tale they are usually either a bit more deceitful or a bit more agressive. And when the fox shows up in fables they are always big trouble. I'd love to run into a full Reynard the Fox in the Neverafter, I'm sure Brennan would make him absolutely terrifying...

Whereas the Rabbit (usually Brother Rabbit) tends to be more of a sweet talker and a quick liar than a wielder of violence. Although his tricks can definitely end up with others getting badly hurt

Also I'm very touched there was a reference to Nanzi/Anansi the spider, I hope his web is useful to Pib

#d20 neverafter #neverafter #neverafter spoilers #dimension20 #dimension 20 #d20 meta #freckle folklore fretting

[camillahex]

god i am thinking soooo hard about how lucy and kipperlily were the closest to each other compared to with the rest of the rat grinders like. kipperlily's rage courting/being courted by ankarna, the sister goddess to ravina who was lucy's cleric diety. how we now know the way to truly convert to ankarna is to die and be resurrected in worship of her. lucy's goddess is ruvina, goddess of sorrow, and sorrow and grief are so often covered up by rage because it's easier to feel angry than hurt. i'm thinking ruvina may have protected lucy in some way during whatever happened in the mountains of chaos last year because she absolutely would have known her sister's presence - corrupted as it may be - and influence on lucy's party members, and either prevented lucy from dying in the first place or brought her back herself to keep lucy from her sister's grasp. but because of oblivati mori she wouldn't have been able to tell lucy who it was that resurrected her friends, brought them back a little different, a little more angry. and because lucy's closest friend and party leader is kipperlily, she agrees to the conversion request, because this new diety is the one that brought her friends back, even though ruben is now writing more songs about rage and hate, and ivy's jokes have dropped the pretense of friendly ribbing and are now just mean, and something in kipperlily has gone hard and flat and unyielding, they're still her friends, right? but then kipperlily says she needs to die too, and be resurrected by this nameless diety for the conversion to truly take.

and maybe lucy hesitantly says yes - despite (likely) intense warnings from ruvina - and lets her friends kill her, but then can't go with this new goddess; maybe in death she understands the scope of what her friends are trying to do and refuses ankarna's call, or maybe ruvina refuses to let her sister corrupt her kind-hearted, sorrowful, hopeful cleric (don't sisters just fucking always know where to hit you so it hurts the most; and after a millennia of being dead wouldn't it just burn that your own sister is getting in the way of your resurrection; their fight is what causes the destruction of the forest where lucy's body was found - a battle of giants)

or maybe lucy - steadfast in her conviction to ruvina - says no to kipperlily's plan and withdraws her conversion request, and then watches as kipperlily - blinded by rage, ankarna whispering in her head of vengeance and retribution - gives the order to kill her anyways because she'll either end up coming back on their side or being unable to spill their secrets, and besides, she's already thinking of a potential new cleric they can try again with (helioic of course, because that guy's a fucking loser and wouldn't notice the corruption of his followers if they set his stupid robes on fire)

either way, lucy's dead now, and ruvina has lost a cleric, and ankarna has her resurrection all lined up

#fhjy #fantasy high junior year #fantasy high #dimension 20 #c.hex posting #sorry kipperlily being closest to lucy - anger tempered by sorrow - and then likely going on and killing her fucking got to me okay #d20 meta #meta #kipperlily copperkettle #lucy frostblade #ankarna #ruvina

[thisisnotthenerd]

d20 finale thoughts.

for being the ‘horror season’, the intrepid heroes really go all in on the comedy in neverafter. i was laughing through the finale, in between some high stakes roles, npc and pc deaths, and wave after wave of enemies.

now that i think about it, this finale just shows how much the intrepid heroes have really tightened up their strategy as players, to the point that they can pull really crazy bits in the midst of battle and still hit a victory at the end of the day. for every ih season, they’ve had to step up the final battle to make it something that’s conceivably a challenge to the players

like in fhfy, they had some quips in the final battle, and a clutch beardsley roll to kick off the final ep, but it’s all battle focus. more individual attacks, and just trying to keep everyone alive pre-aguefort intervention. they had a few smaller enemies to deal with, but the primary issue was kalvaxus.

with tuc, it’s a similar scenario, but they have more options in terms of calling allies and a more complex environment. the individual appeals from the american dream, as well as the continuation of their fight with robert moses make this a more involved combat than fhfy. they were more confident coming in.

with acoc, the balance between troop mechanics and individual combat was the new challenge--the gimmick of the battlefield being the one they had previously fled from, as well as the task of getting rid of the leaders as well as the general troops added a new dimension to the ih final combats. edit: the intra-party tension added to this battle in particular; saccharina & ruby really defined the end of the campaign.

once they hit fhsy, battles became longer and carried out over more than just the two finale episodes. with theater of the mind, brennan could give them a longer sequence of individual and group combat. it starts with the nightmare forest individual fear scenes, layers on the need to rescue their attacking/trapped allies, as well as the continuity of the lore going on throughout the battle. i would say this style of battle, with multiple waves to exhaust the intrepid heroes, set a precedent for future combats.

with tuc II, the longer battle sequence continued, but more condensed. tony simos @ gramercy took 1 and a half episodes to get through, and so did null at the dragon’s hoard. again, each battle had layered mechanics e.g. having to stop the umbral engine overload and then having to birth the dragon. this style of battle aligns with what we saw in previous final combats, and has just the funniest instance of a divine intervention that i’ve seen.

in starstruck, they have talespire. they also have a lot of enemies, with their guns, trained on you. there were a few layers to this combat. again, the extension from a previous battle episode, the split between minis and ship combat, and of course, who could forget margaret encino, turning their enemies away with the power of emails and girlbossing her way into a campaign office. literally overwhelming odds that they managed to pull through including a 2 on the die from gnosis.

and now with neverafter, they had waves of powerful enemies, going from a siege to a tower defense from one episode to the next, the baba yaga, the ally persuasion mechanics, and the objective of holding concentration on bottle of ink that has hand(s), while either convincing or killing everyone else. the actual battle was not the hard part--as evidenced by the shenanigans they pulled off by the skin of their teeth. it was just the singular goal, and more rp than previous final combats. they also just crit. so much. no need for a beardsley crit when you’ve got siobhan one-shotting fairies and zac killing god and rolling an 18 that makes a new universe.

in short, as d20 has grown, so to have the intrepid heroes (+brennan). i’m excited to see where they go from here.

#dimension 20 #neverafter #dimension 20 meta #d20 meta #fantasy high #the unsleeping city #a crown of candy #a starstruck odyssey #tuc #tuc ii #acoc #aso #nva #fhfy #fhsy #d20 fhfy #d20 fhsy #d20 tuc #d20 tuc ii #d20 acoc #d20 neverafter #neverafter spoilers

[queenangst]

imagine if lou failed that charisma saving throw… in a different game, a helpless pinocchio could do nothing but watch the stepmother devour his father.

the fact that, until the reveal, he saw her as his mom?? his complicated, weird mom with a past (“all moms have pasts”)??? hurts. what gets me is that, between looking at the monster that ruined his happy ending and the entity holding his father hostage, he turned to the latter “in the childlike way that Pinocchio is young” because she was his maternal figure.

HE’S JUST A LITTLE BOY I CAN’T

i did have this thought during the episode though, what i'm worried is going to happen is now that pinocchio is presumably free from stepmother's control that she'll just devour or kill geppetto... since pinocchio is no longer useful to her, geppetto isn't useful to her either - since he's always been a tool to keep pinocchio compliant. and since someone brought it up to me, i think geppetto is still alive up to this point, considering it was his blood that boosted pinocchio's powers in episode 4, and she's had no reason to kill him... but now she may not have a reason to keep him alive.

and yeah every episode as we see more and more of pinocchio interacting with stepmother or talking about her my heart really breaks. imo i've been interpreting pinocchio as accepting of his situation because he knows he has to, bc stepmother is 'taking care' of geppetto. some people have said pinocchio is a bit naive or trusting towards stepmother, but i dont think so... i think he just knows his own position with her. you can really see it in e4 when they're talking post-death that... in my opinion, pinocchio is acutely aware of his position and how little power and agency he had at that point. and this episode, when he was talking to miss muffet - he described how it was all or nothing. all responsibility. that how he sees his own story is that he needed to (and was forced to) grow up and that he can't be a little kid and have fun. combined with the times of shadow and how it was so important that pinocchio needed to be able to lie, that he would break off his own nose... is just really awful and telling. and when stepmother gave him pinocchi-crow, partly as a familiar and partly so she could watch him, he admittedly hated it.

but also, he's never had a maternal figure before. he called her mom. he consistently downplayed and left out information about her to his friends (partly, i think, to protect them/to keep his business to himself with geppetto, and partly for her sake, too). i don't think pinocchio loves her, not the way he loves his father. but as he said, she's helped him and given him gifts. she has looked after him to an extent. obviously from the outside this is abuse and manipulation, and pinocchio is aware of some of that, but i think he does care for her in some way.

and ultimately he is a kid. he's just a boy. a boy on strings.

#pinocchio is one of those characters that like #yeah. #every time stepmother came up im just steadily more and more concerned #someone save giuseppe and get pinocchio out of here #asks #d20 #d20 neverafter #neverafter #neverafter spoilers #d20 pinocchio #child abuse #tw child abuse #EDIT - fixed name bc i think in d20 they use geppetto instead of giuseppe my bad #and added a few more words #d20 meta #ig

[noiselessbuck]

The Stepmother is the flesh-and-stories version of No Face right okok

No Face relies on the greed of others No Face lives and thrives in the world of the bathhouse and the carnival. Chihiro belongs to the human world and is a child who doesn't want what No Face assumes everyone wants, gold.

while we don't know much about The Stepmother we know that she consumes characters from stories

No Face is made up of all who wanted gold from it and we can see each of their forms a little bit in No Face as it evolves and consumes but it is always in pitch blackness with the mask because it is still very much in the world of the bathhouse it's a changing shape but it doesn't have flesh or bones.

when The Stepmother eats Red's grandmother she doesn't swallow her whole. It is not about adding more beings to her form, as with No Face, but rather destroying a person. Same with the stepsisters who were eaten on the floor viscously. When a hand and arm reach out of The Stepmother's cheek we understand that the beings inside of her have some limited amount of agency

Whereas aside from a small scene where the frog talks to Chihiro via No Face's mouth for the most part all of the appendages and extra parts of No Face's form function together as one creature

When the arm reaches out and there is a bunch of gore described it is clear that The Stepmother is horrific by means of body horror but specifically, like with Little Miss Muffet's head it is a horror that is not integrated into the world of stories.

When the stepsisters cut off their heels that is horrific but is within the bounds of the story, when The Stepmother eats them that is outside the bounds especially because, as Siobhan points out, The Stepmother doted over the stepsisters in the story of Cinderella, and because of the way they are killed/eaten

when The Stepmother swallows the victim attempting escape she is clearly dominating but it's still evident that the things she seeks to destroy are trying to oppose her

Both protagonists "solve" their problems differently too: Chihiro gives No Face a dumpling that makes him spit back out everyone he consumed, while Pinocchio literally cuts off his string ties to The Stepmother. Chihiro is providing a solution which is within the magic and means of the world of the bathhouse and ultimately No Face joins her on the rest of her story- ultimately morally gray. Pinocchio on the other hand breaks the fabric of the story he lives using the sword of truth, falling into a similar words and papers filled voidspace as when Drosselmeyer disappeared.

#neverafter #the neverafter #dimension 20 #d20 meta #snake mumbles #someone please understand what im talking about

[midnightfox450]

The fact that Riz Gukgak (the boy who doesn't know how to take a break, who is deeply afraid of drifting apart from his friends, who "has a hard time connecting to his dearest friends unless he can feel useful") was the one who manifested a creature that forced The Bad Kids to work together again and robbed them of having a proper summer break is so poetic.

#Like the night yorb existing quite literally stems from a bit about his inability to relax on spring break #Plus the night yorb casting Elmville in eternal night. Riz is a chronic insomniac. I get it now #riz gukgak #dimension 20 #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #d20 #fh #fhjy #riz gukgak meta #dimension 20 meta #fantasy high meta #fhjy meta #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy spoilers

[heliza24]

kind of obsessed with the decision to start so fully in media res that the bad kids were not only down spell slots and hit points but also deeply emotionally exhausted from a summer full of unrewarded heroism and fully committed to new npcs. like what a good way to fully suck your audience back in and also honor the lapse of time irl and in story time. truly no one does exposition like D20, Brennan is never not smart about perfectly balancing world building, character background and plot hook. and since we know the characters and the world we could start this campaign fully *in* the plot right from the word go. and then instead of an inciting incident leading to a battle, or a break from the character's normal reality causing them to fight for the first time (ie the first season), the end of this battle is the inciting incident for the rest of the season. being in combat and saving the world *is* the normal reality for the bad kids. and this sets up FHJY as a campaign that can be focused on something other than that, because the story starts at the end of that normality, or when something in that normality shifts. (is the inciting incident Fig's new powers? or how this battle resolves? TBD! but I have a good feeling about it regardless). SO smart. because if we went from sophomore year straight to a campaign that was focused more around school and the normal experience of being a teen? it would feel weird. but this is the perfect set up.

#dimension 20 #d20 #d20 fhjy #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #my meta

[irisbaggins]

In rewatching the season, I'm noticing how clever Aabria and Brennan were in crafting Tula's story. How well thought out everything was.

Specifically, the bear. It's been mentioned so many times before, but with the context of the completed season, I cannot help but be in awe at the skilful storytelling at display here. The way in which the Blue is described to appear wrong only in reference to Tula and her heart, the way in which Tula talks about curiosity and and having experienced knowing someone who died because of it. Of how Aabria describes to Izzy how Tula looks when she heals the bear, of how Aabria specifically points out that Tula recognises the commonalities between herself and the bear. These breadcrumbs that mean little in the beginning, that tell everything at the end. It's amazing, stunning, masterful storytelling. I am in awe.

#text_loke #meta from loke #Burrow's End #Burrow's End Spoilers #Aabria Iyengar #Brennan Lee Mulligan #i am forever in awe tbh #also the way i gasped at several of brennan and aabria's lines this episode #i'll need to pull some quotes from that whenever i get on my computer #and i desperately need to write a fic about everything that happened from Tula's perspective #but that would be AFTER i finally manage to finish the little beast i'm working on about that Last Fight from Tula's pov #'cos BOY i have a feeling i will write a lot. just 600 words on the intro before 'kill them all'. so y'know. a wordy little thing... #anyway. i love burrow's end so much. i cannot stop thinking about it #Dimension 20 Spoilers #D20 Spoilers

[qaey]

it’s crazy how practically every time the bad kids split up it’s gorgug and fabian just kinda having a nice time with whoever they’re with and they go ‘i hope everyone else is doing as well as we are 🥰’ and it cuts to the other group and it’s just flames and screaming

#only when they split up in groups #when they’re alone it’s uh not as good #but anyway the light meta gaming is sooo funny constantly and always #fantasy high #fabian seacaster #dimension 20 #d20 #gorgug thistlespring #dropout #d20 fh #bad kids #the bad kids

[canonicallyanxious]

i'm stupid so i absolutely did not put together Conrad Schintz as "conscience" until i saw someone in the tag point this out but now that it's in my dumb brain i can't stop thinking about it. Alex's choice to portray Conrad as this softspoken never speaks up but still has to do Something boy who is kind and thoughtful to a fault. pitch perfect character choices!!! but also this tiny quiet boy somehow being pegged by the heads of the city as the BIGGEST DISTRACTION to the big guy's goals and ambitions!! and then his choice of the important article to pay attention to being the culmination of Elias' months and months of research - specifically for the goal of, as Conrad put it, getting it before the "big wigs" could get to it. WHAT is Elias Hodge DOING for Gobstopper Industries??????

#sarah.txt #dimension 20 #mentopolis #d20 spoilers #d20 meta #story meta #kind of????? this isn't really meta just me going WHAT is going on and being too dumb to figure it out skdnfskdfnsd #god these fucking world building choices though. #cortisol being the main hormone available legally and one of its functions is to regulate stress response. #the city is on strict pleasure/love lockdown until elias gets a raise. #his conscience is a tiny little boy who no one ever listens to but still somehow managed to shake up the whole city w one small choice. #logic is the mayor!!! ambition is the DA!!!!! #all of these small things that tell us SO MUCH about who elias hodge is as a person without ever even meeting the big guy!!!!!! #Brennan how much fucking WORK did you put into this world building i'm SCREAMING!!!!!

[essektheylyss]

Okay, I finished the Mentopolis premiere, and I think this is the first time I've ever left a premiere episode instantly obsessed with every single PC. They all took their concepts and went so balls to the wall with that concept that all of them are hysterical. Each character is such a stellar mashup of brain function and noir archetype that they can individually stand on their own right off the bat, and I'm delighted to see it.

I love noir for this reason—it leans so archetypical that you can have a lot of fun playing with it, because the foundation is very simple. This is the strength in general of really trope-heavy genres! But it also requires a lot of commitment to that basic archetype, and all of the players at this table really get it.

It also means that adding that twist of the secondary element (in this case, the internal workings of the brain) allows for a lot of the fun wordplay and irony that makes noir particularly strong. (Watching Trapp work out the pun every time Brennan says another name is an absolute joy because I'm doing the same thing from the other side of the screen.) I'm very excited for the rest of the season and this was such a strong start.

In conclusion: TROPES, TROPES, TROPES!

#as much as I love noir as a genre it can be hit or miss for me so I'm really glad this one is SO fucking strong #d20 meta #d20 spoilers #mentopolis #dimension 20 #I vaguely considered going through each character but like. what more do I need to say. they're so stark on their own lol

[mysunfreckle]

I’m very interested in the presence of the fairies in Neverafter…

Because the way the fairies are is one of the things that has been changed from the fairy tales D20 is working with. And I’m operating on the assumption that if it was worth changing it’s worth paying attention to

Rosamund's fairies:

Oddly enough we have not met any of Rosamun's fairies yet....probably. We've heard all four of them described in Brennan's opening narration, but no one got to interact with them. But Rosamund's story is the one that has been changed:

Grimm’s Briar Rose has twelve good fairies, not three, and the thirteenth is the wrathful one who was purposefully not invited because there were only twelve golden dishes. While she is called a fairy, she is described as clad in black, with a broomstick, so I’d forgive anyone who misidentified her as a witch.

Perrault’s The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods has seven fairies, with the eighth being the old, forgotten fairy who is accidentally not invited.

The change to three (plus one) fairies could just be because three is a more manageable number and also with very good fairy tale pedigree, or it could be because of Disney. But the "four great fairies of the kingdom (of Reverie)" might also be significant in some other way. One for beauty, one for grace, one for...?

Gerard's fairy:

Grimm’s Cinderella (Aschputtel) has no fairies, but Perrault’s Cinderella (Cendrillon) has the famous fairy godmother. Who, interestingly, is only helpful. She does not punish. But here she is also the fairy that transformed the Frog-Prince:

In the Grimm translation D20 shared The Frog-Prince the enchantment was laid by “a spiteful fairy”, but in many English translations it is a “wicked witch” and that is the word used in the 1857 edition of the Grimms’ fairy tales (in the 1812 edition there is no explanation for how the transformation happened).

The fairy tale also does not state that the Prince was transformed as a punishment. This sounds more like the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast, where the beast is transformed by a fairy to punish his pride, whereas in the most well known version of that fairy tale (de Beaumont’s), the fairy transforms him simply because she is “wicked”. Of course Gerard’s story would not work without it being a punishment and it makes for a much more interesting narrative, but it does muddle the waters between Good Fairy and Wicked Fairy. It’s suddenly a matter of perspective.

Pinochio's fairies:

We haven’t met Pinocchio’s good Fairy yet (if she is good in Neverafter), but we have seen the evil fairy who turned him back into a puppet when he lied about his fathers name (something that probably saved his father’s life). Now I wonder: is this the same Evil Fairy that cursed Rosamund?

I’ve seen it suggested that this evil fairy and the Stepmother are the same person, but that seems odd, considering the Stepmother claims she cares for Pinocchio and his father. Sure she’s probably lying, but if she was that fairy Pinocchio wouldn’t be fooled and it seems he is, even if he’s also afraid of her. I still think his Stepmother is also Cinderella and Snow White’s Stepmother, so in that case she might be a Wicked Witch. She is also Pinocchio's patron, which might make her a fairy, but she calls the Fairy Godmother a "little fairy", which sounds like she's at least not the same type of fairy as she is.

If this Pinocchio’s good Fairy is like the one in his book, she is the Fairy with the Azure Hair (I struggle with her, because Pinocchio is not a folk- or fairy tale, but she is famous). She is described first adopting Pinocchio as her little brother, but later as she grows up (she was already) becomes his mother. She protects him, seems to be the reason his nose starts growing when he lies, and turns him human in the end when he has learned to be kind and obedient. So whether she's seen as good or bad in this universe is anyone's guess.

So, we've met two fairies in game and both of them seem to be bad, but perhaps weren't always intended to be so.

Because right now it sounds like Cinderella rebelled against the narrative her Fairy Godmother tried to force her into, but… maybe there’s something more afoot. The Fairy Godmother did insist “we are trying to help”, so maybe we’ll meet the other fairies after all...

#more of my ranting about fairy tale sources #neverafter #d20 neverafter #d20 meta #dimension 20 #dimension20 #sunfreckle's scribbles #long post #freckle folklore fretting

[ourstoatmeansdeath]

I've seen a few posts from people who think Henry was being shitty to Gorgug or setting Gorgug up to fail by allowing him to do 3 years of the artificer track at once. But I have a lot of experience in STEM, and I think Henry was being incredibly kind in a very engineering-coded way.

I did an undergrad degree in engineering and have been in STEM spaces for more than 10 years. And the STEM way of being an asshole is much more like what Porter did. So many people who don't look like they fit the stereotype of who belongs in STEM have been explicitly told to leave. Like, I was at a conference last year where a presenter asked all the people in the room who had been told to change their major to raise their hands. And there were lots of us with raised hands. (This was in a diversity equity and inclusion session, so a lot of non-traditional looking people for engineering.) If Henry wanted to be an asshole he would tell Gorgug to leave, or that the curriculum was "rigorous" and half-orcs can't usually hack it, etc. But he didn't!

Henry did the classic STEM thing of laying out all of the options, even the ones that aren't desirable. Since Porter won't sign the MCAT, the reasonable options are all gone. Henry mentioned that Gorgug doesn't need to be in school for artificing to be an artificer ("If artificing is something that brings you joy and brings happiness to your life, you don't need school. You can do that on your own.") Which is NOT something that STEM people do. I've never heard an engineering professor say that someone who does STEM stuff as a hobby can call themselves engineers. Henry is being absurdly kind by saying this.

When Gorgug says that he wants to do artificing in school, Henry gives the option to do all three years of school at once. [Note that Henry did not suggest this at first. Henry didn't offer it until Gorgug basically asked for a loophole.] This reminds me so much of all the STEM people who know a system really well and give you advice on how to navigate it. They note that their path isn't what the system was designed to do, but if you really want to do it you could do it this way. Which is exactly what Henry does. This also gives Gorgug the agency to decide for himself.

Henry also goes out of his way to say that the people who work hard are the ones he would bet on. This is also so nice as a STEM person! I can't tell you the number of professors I had who said that a specific problem shouldn't take long, or "if you're efficient you should be fine." I also had a professor who said some people can code and some people can't, and he didn't know how to help the people who don't have a natural aptitude for coding. Henry saying he thinks Gorgug can achieve this through hard work is super enlightened for a STEM instructor.

tl;dr Henry is incredibly enlightened for a STEM instructor. He tells Gorgug that Gorgug can still be an artificer without formal schooling, and then when Gorgug expresses a desire for the formal education he tells Gorgug the path. If Henry does a heel turn I will be emotionally devastated lol

#brennan please no henry heel turn i need this #yes i know his last name is hopclap IT COULD BE FINE #maybe henry has a bad relationship with reuben #dimension 20 #d20 #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fhjy #gorgug thistlespring #henry hopclap #porter cliffbreaker #fhjy spoilers #fantasy high junior year spoilers #STEM #STEM culture #engineering #engineering culture #fantasy high meta

[thisisnotthenerd]

neverafter finale thoughts

i liked where they went with this finale. high stakes battle that combined the rp elements we’ve been seeing throughout the narrative as well as significant villains and high-risk high reward scenarios. overall, a finale i will come back to and watch again because it’s just a hilarious and chaotic conclusion to the story.

here’s the thing. neverafter has been the ‘horror season’ since it got pitched. the underlying storylines all involve a lot of horrific things, some of which never get followed up on. what brennan did is give a group of six comedians/dnd players the backdrop of a dying, punishing world, and told them, find the comedy. find the absurd. find each other and make something of this cruel world that you do not have to be afraid of.

part of the appeal of horror is the catharsis, from the release of fear and all the deep emotions that bubble to the surface when faced with something deeply unknown. what they’ve done here is created a story about choosing to face the unknown on your own, without a guiding hand. for fairytales, that’s rejecting the authors and giving everyone a page and some ink with which to write their own stories. but it’s also choosing to face the horror of the world and say, i am deeply afraid, but i will not step down. i will not leave in fear--i will not live in fear.

the backdrop of horror really makes for some of the craziest bits and most funny things i’ve seen on dimension 20. take the battles: they faced some of the worst things the neverafter has to offer. but by the baron of bricks battle, they weren’t afraid enough to not do bits. the fairy godmother tpk and the spider battle had an element of fear from the pcs that went away with time. it got replaced with a sort of righteous anger that comes out often in dnd games, on the players’ end. for the pcs though, i would take that as them being more focused on the goal than the fear.

luck & tactics are also a huge part of this. rosamund and pib become devastatingly effective with luck and a little help from the others. they’re the sword, a (dead? dying?) princess and little trickster, sniping at their enemies. meanwhile, ylfa, gerard, and pinocchio run around, reviving allies, convincing enemies to turn, weakening the enemies they can’t convince, and being a shield for the squishier spellcasters. and at the center of it all, mother goose gathers the storytellers, gathers the power of story, and shreds the neverafter into the fodder for a happier new world, in which stories are more than the warped words in a library older than time.

and the big bad wolf gets a hat from the orange fairy, rosamund’s bird is a war veteran, gerard’s best friends are his ex-wife & his personal trainer, pib kills the manifestation of a god, pinocchio negotiates with both of his maternal figures, and mother goose throws a hat into the box of doom.

and they all lived happily.

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