Let me tell y’all something.. Zac Oyama maybe play characters with low intelligence scores, but he is SO good at pulling threads together and remembering information about the lore and making connections and figuring things out
Gorgug especially has been really great at making connections and asking the right questions. (That’s why the boy increased his intelligence score in sophomore year)
I’m wondering what the implication of the energy attacking Cassandra being the same thing as what Lydia is keeping in her chest? Do we actually know what it was Lydia was fighting with her adventuring party? Will we find out more? Does Lydia use her own rage to keep it subdued or is the energy created by rage (eg Cassandra’s anger at Kristen)?
kristen’s glowing success to persuade cassandra to not fight her followed by kristen’s failure after failure to genuinely save her… i feel CRAZY this episode was so good
In episode 5 of fhjy, I think the god that Kristen hears whispering to her after the fight is galakea, tracker's goddess.
We already know that she is the old cassandra's sister (from before the nightmare king) so it would make sense for galakea to think that version of cassandra was dead.
Also in saying 'i'll give you a god you deserve' she could be trying to protect and support both cassandra and tracker, as Kristen has been neglecting cassandra. As well as how she wasn't always very supportive of tracker's religion (nightmare forest vision when tracker went full werewolf)
Why did Kipperlilly kill Buddy after stealing his gems? Did she underestimate the Bad Kids so badly that she didn’t think Adaine or Kristen would have plane shift? Are they trying to frame the Bad Kids for murder (who have famously murdered several students and faculty) when she realized she wouldn’t be able to expel them via failed Last Stand?
It doesn’t make sense why killing Buddy is plan B? With an adult with as much authority as the proctor being able to claim the Bad Kids did not kill Buddy and abilities like zone of truth and truth potions and spells to read people’s memories, it’s not like the truth won’t come out eventually?
Is it a popularity grab? Frame Kirsten for Buddy’s death with just enough confusion to tank Kristen’s presidential campaign? But that goes back to the question why does Kipperlilly care about their campaign this much. Why is a school campaign worth killing over?
We’ve just seen so little of the Rat Grinders and with only 5 episodes left I want to learn so much more about them.
It feels quite cinematic of Ally to roll another fucking INCREDIBLE story 20, stand up and immediately like break a bunch of fucking things behind them, and then aggressively chug what I’m assuming is an energy drink as Murph dutifully covers the label to protect d20 from being liable.
brennan is so intentional about the things he lets slip about the ratgrinders that i refuse to believe ruben’s in space no one can feel you dying is about him being a bad boyfriend. it’s about lucy frostblade
heads up this is gonna be a very surface level assessment lol i hate making definitive statements if there's the slightest chance im wrong. oops! also none of this takes into account the devil’s honey, ruben’s dream, or ivy’s reaction to seeing “lucy”. (lyrics from FHJY ep3, Not All Who Wanda Are Lost)
Your boundaries slit my veins
this makes me think lucy really didn’t want to change her deity to ankarna, that she was pressured into it (still can't pinpoint a reason but probably has smth to do with the ratgrinders wanting a big bad to resurrect and fight). they fought about it and ruben got cut.
Your no thanks killed my family
in her defiance, and probably the fight and death that ensued, the high-5 heroes broke up. (raises an interesting point re: mollykiggins wanting to protect oisín. was she always like that or was it something that came up bc nothing must go wrong. she lucked out that the debacle with lucy happened after finals, but what if something happens within the year? the strength of the hero is the strength of the party. she needs to protect her party.)
And when you asked for space the space you made was outer space
lucy, lucy, lucy. principled, noble, 'she stuck to her guns' lucy. i think she asked out of the high-5 heroes and little miss overachiever was like you know too much that cannot happen i would rather you die. and in the fight, some portal or other was opened, allowing her allies or co-conspirators to do the unholy last rites. if you push a soul back past the point of raising, they can't rat you out! duh!
Can you hear me screaming
yeah ruben it's kind of embarrassing. everyone at the bus stop is staring at you and now none of them are gonna mob you for autographs
crossing my fingers for ruben on the complicated women podcast next ep!!! i need to know what happened to this made up group of high-schoolers like i need my next breath. like a normal person. see u at basrar's! <333
ok so I haven't gone through all the tags yet but how we feelin' about my brand new theory that the voice that ominously said "It was not yours to take" to Fig was Gilear trapped in the armor of Pride??? talking about how she shouldn't have taken on his curse, and he is the one who should bear it so she doesn't have to??? (and maybe it was even hers originally, manifesting with her tiefling powers, and he chose to take it on in her place and became a huge loser? to protect her? but I digress.)
y'know, since none of us believe the Gilear that went on vaycay with Hallariel is really Gilear, bc that motherfucker (pun absolutely intended) would never leave town for a whole year, on purpose, without saying goodbye to Fig first?
and four months is plenty of time for enough shenanigans to trap Gilear in a suit of armor in Hell while a shape shifter takes his place? (perhaps a bonding trip with Gorthalax?)
Heres the first side of the Junior Year Riz Playlist and the explanations down below, Spoilers for Episodes 1-10 in FHJY
Genres: Alternative, Anti Folk, Math Rock, Punk
1. Photosynthesis, They Might Be Giants
Photosynthesis does not involve a camera
Or a synthesizer
Although that's interesting, too
Photosynthesis is how plants take in light
From the sun and turn it into energy
It's actually a thing on which most life depends
Here on the planet Earth
GOD so when I'm not making these playlists I'm and environmental educator and when Brian was like "we're the photosythe-KIDS!" i nearly lost it. Gotta let this little nerdy kid have at least one nerd song as a treat to me
2. Dissonance, AJJ
My feet planted in different realities
I've been doing lots of parallel planning and asking
Does morals exist anymore?
Wondering if society's all broken down yet
I should probably know
I should probably know
I should probably grow some more plants in the window
I should probably try
I should probably try
I should probably try to find a cure for this dissonance
One of the things I relate to Riz about the most is the way in which he is so hungry for explanation and, specifically problem solving. When they get dropped right back into normal teen life after having just saved the world and "cracked the case", Riz had to really switch into school mode fast (with the whole paying for college thing)
3. Stress, Jim's Big Ego
I'm addicted to stress
That's the way that I get things done
If I'm not under pressure then I sleep too long
And I hang around like a bum
I think I'm going nowhere, and that makes me nervous
Everybody's out to get me, but I feel all right
Obsessed with the way that, if Brennan didn't let Riz take on the stress of other people in the party, he would literally be so normal about the downtime system. God help him and his nervous system.
4. Travelers Insurance, Their/They're/There
After all that we've done,
You still skipped out on the beat of a different drum.
Blurring the lines between failure and fortune
it's getting at Riz supporting so many people in his party, taking on their stress, organizing their extracurriculars, and literally tutoring them on subjects he doesn't know about. And they're definitely trying to keep everything under control, but sometimes it feels like when they mess up or make bad choices, it's Riz who has to take the L
5. Pitch Black, Heart Attack Man
Rock bottom smile bares its rotting teeth again
Acts like there's nothing wrong and they're still my closest friend
Romanticize the fondest memories and good times
And hope that I forget the rest
Rock bottom's grinning as it's creeping up again
Dust off the depths and make me wish that I was dead again
Hold out your hand to me
Take me to a place in hell where
Having self-esteem seems selfish and unhealthy
God the way that in Ep. 10 after Riz had that talk with his mom about everything he was just so despondent the rest of the episode about everything that was happening, and actually thinking about the toll his friendships were taking on him 💀
6. An Antidote for Strychnine, The Mountain Goats
Dig down amongst my calculations
Check my maps
Up there on the surface
Everybody's gettin' ready for the bloodbath
Stem the tide, stem the tide
They're calling down for reinforcements
Tryin' to find
An antidote for strychnine
Tryin' to find
An antidote for strychnine
This has always and forever been such a Riz song for me and I feel like it really fits the tone of Riz looking into the soil, into lucy's death, into eventually the loam farm, reluctantly telling his mom about it. The moment when he thinks that something like what happened to Yolanda could happen to his mother and he gets really serious about it. AHHHHHH Something something isolation, something something taking on dangerous tasks by yourself just to protect the ones you love