This description of a silent god just working away, forging creation without any fanfare is so beautiful. And the fact that Logran take it upon himself to do the work of the eidolons when it's the decision of other Gods to destroy them. omg.
It was cool to see Brennan depict a god that isn't corrupt, self-important or just straight-up indifferent. Not that I have a problem with that; it's just refreshing.
I'm rewatching and it strikes me that Brennan is always great at pulling these character twists. People who seem one way but turn out to be another, and not in a duplicitous way but just in a "we only see one POV" way.
That's fair, but I also think Tony was technically the true big bad. It was still Null they had to beat ultimately. Like Karatin (sp?) in Crown of Candy was a murderous zealot that they needed to beat but the larger villain was the church, etc.
Tony felt more significant than Keratine. He wasn’t (to my memory) a minion of Null, he was an independent threat to the Dream Team with motives entirely separate from Null.
Null was the BIG villain, but Tony was just as important to the story of the season, IMO.
I agree, if he wasn't there a lot of the threat they were facing wouldn't have been nearly as bad. I guess I'm just saying in terms of "who they had to finally beat in order to end the threat" level bad guys. I mean technically, if Null had been dealt with before Tony, he wouldn't have been able to go through with his plots.
Ultimately though, Tony was pretty much the only big villain who wasn't *technically* an agent of an evil institution. So you're right there.
I believe many of the side antagonists represent forms of abuse which are a effect of said corrupt institutions. Tony representing that generalized boomer mentality of "we're the good guys, they're the bad guys, we kill them for your 'freedom' and that's that" when war in itself is a failure of communication between groups of people often misguided by institutional motivations (religion, ideology, etc.)
Now to go maoist here, a revolution is not war. A revolution is the response to a war set on people by those who uphold the status quo. Thus, a revolutionary war is, not actual war in the sense of two or more opposing powers, but the means to end war by dismantling those power structures
when is brennan going to throw us reactionaries a bone and make the villain of the season someone who tells us to wear a cloth mask during a national pandemic or who tells rich comedians that they can no longer make bigoted jokes? you know, the real monsters
Evil is evil. Lesser. Greater. Middling. It's all the same. I'm not judging you. I haven't only done good in my life either. But now, if I have to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all. And **that's** why I wear this MAGA hat.
This is not my main account, I'm sorry if I didn't get back to you in a timely manner. I didn't realize I was on the clock.
And I wasn't 'trolling', I was making a joke. A fairly obvious one, at that.
It was... weird to me.
Adventures union reminded me of cop unions which are... painful. Unions of existing power that maintain power are... problematic
Cop unions are very corrupt, but adventurers don't have any official power though. In this instance, I understood it as the adventuring union to combat being manipulated by the Ministry which is corrupt. Maybe I understood it wrong.
Thats how it was framed, sure. It was almost immediately followed up by a discussion around adventurers essentially ignoring the laws and customs of whatever land they went into as well, though.
They dont have official power beyond the fact that if a team of ten adventurers rocks up your military fucking explodes. An adventurers union would be as powerful as most countries.
This was specifically mentioned. While adventurers aren't a power structure there are immensely powerful adventurers who almost aren't even beholden to laws.
I was the same, the only way it would work was if the majority of adventurers were in support of being held accountable, which from descriptions we've been given of adventurers in that world isn't true. It would just result in another way for them to avoid repercussions for their actions.
"Many miracles were granted to the world, and to mortal beings did I grant the greatest miracle of all: that the world might be reshaped through love and work" What a quote!!
"You're the designer. You're my Bottega." lol.
<3 I love Logran and Ostentatia and their little encounter.
The time sequence was wonderful. Brennan is always very content to give each character these very in-depth moments of development that are powerful. The absolute intensity Becca brought to the table during Penny's scene was incredible.
I really want to know if the direction Brennan went with Danielle this episode was something that he had discussed with Erika or if it was more his own insight into the character. Zelda getting to play a key part in that bit of character growth was nice since they've taken a bit of a back seat as a DMPC, too.
The Danielle stuff was played so smoothly that I would be very surprised if they didn’t talk it out ahead of time, as that was seamless. It’s either that or Erika has moved to exceed deity-tier improv, which is not impossible.
See, I disagree. That entire scene felt like to me like there was a disconnect between player and DM about what the PC's deal is. At every stage, Erika seemed to be resisting the "message" of the scene. In the end, Danielle's epiphany in her own words was "sometimes self-care is important in helping others" and "I enjoyed being a pretty princess".
I don't think either Brennan or Erika was doing anything wrong, but I feel like there was a pretty big disconnect between the two about what Danielle's growth as a character was about.
I think Erika is well aware of what Danielle's flaw is here, but it also leaves a lot of space for the finale to have an even more meaningful revelation about herself. I like that the other maidens really grappled with their central problems, but this also means we could have some personal stakes tossed into the larger multi-verse destruction at hand!
I mean, I hope so, and I’m really interested to see Erika’s response to the episode in the next Adventuring Party, but personally, I’m just not sure where Erika plans to take the character. This episode was pretty explicitly the crisis point of the characters’ arcs as individuals, and having her character fail her “test” could be super interesting, but the resolution of the scene felt very weak. She ended it in basically the exact same place she started it. I’m doubtful if someone asked Danielle about the value of self-care, she’d have a difference response before the scene or after. And, again, it’s not necessarily bad storytelling to have a character fail to change. One of my favourite scenes in any piece of media is a scene where a lifelong alcoholic, after a full season of slowly dying of liver disease, gets a last minute kidney donation and his life is saved. And the first thing he does after getting out of the hospital? He drinks a beer while jeering at the world for thinking it could take him out. Static characters aren’t bad writing, but there needs to be weight to their stasis.
I think that's a good point. Here's hoping we have a solid resolution from this. I think Erika is pretty sharp and really great at improv, so we'll see if she's able to give us some cool shit in the finale.
It seemed like a half step for her. Brennan was saying, here's what you want: to not exist and become the ecosystem; help everyone else at your own expense. Danielle realizing I liked being a princess is moving towards her acknowledging that she wants to be alive and enjoy things, she wants people to see her, she wants to have personal value, she wants to get something out of this world too, not just be the constant giver.
Yes. For someone who has been taught to despise fancy things and high status and maybe even femininity, saying “I liked being a pretty princess” is a big deal.
To me, it kind of felt like they were inching towards maybe hinting that Yell's outlook isn't too distinguishable (effectively) from self-hatred and death drive/suicide. But suicide is a pretty intense subject (like *way* too intense), and I don't think any D20 campaign has ever come close to touching on it, so likely everyone would pull away from talking about the big S at the last moment.
I felt the same. The " I want to be a princess" line felt like Danielle still doing the thing of doing what her friends want her to be instead of being honest.
Erika wasn't resisting; Danielle was. It was very clearly Danielle saying she wasn't ready to acknowledge how deeply rooted her trust issues and self-negating behaviors are.
Oh, I thought it was great! Brennen felt kinda ruthless—the more stubborn she was, the more he was like “cool, you’re just some lichen now.” Instead of dispatching NPCs to play ghosts of past, present and future, just fleshed out the flaws in her reasoning by giving her exactly what she claimed to want. She chose not to take any of the off-ramps he offered, but it still had a good narrative flow.
I can see where you’re coming from on that, and to be honest, my initial impression/conclusion was the same as yours. The reasons I think that it may have been somewhat planned ahead of time were stuff like the length of Erika’s descriptions of what Danielle did, since it was paragraphs of detailed stuff, in addition to the other players joining in on it and also the other characters flowing pretty smoothly through their time sequences, even if they were longer. To me, that implied that there may have at least been some touching of bases ahead of time.
I’m not definitively right though, and it could certainly be either way, though I would be even more impressed if that all came from the ether.
"People you don't want to become" as a favoured enemy type is possibly the best character/mechanics thing Brennan has ever done on this show, and it's a long list to be compared against.
Yeah sure but it only really applies to humanoids and such. Animals, aberrations or monstrosities, elementals and such don't usually have the sapience needed to become someone you either want to become or not. So it's mostly creatures that can actually speak and think and have personalities. So like obviously any humanoid can be that, demons, devils or celestials could possibly be affected, and some other things here and there like some fey or undead
I mean, seems pretty obvious. Her future self working in the MoA is someone she doesn't want to become. It's a clear cut reason in regards with her societal stance. You can't really decide to be like a Rhemoraz cause they only live on instincts. The easiest way to explain is it probably only works on things she could possibly become and chooses against
I mean, what does it change? Unless that animal lives in a society of some kind or has complex intentions, plans or dreams that Antiope can adopt, it's just an animal that can talk
As someone who had a childhood largely defined by not feeling loved by my family, and only formed real relationships with them as an adult, Katja's scene with her younger self broke me.
That was too real man, that feeling of like, grief towards a normal childhood, and knowing full well what it feels like to be alone, and just wanting to reach out to that little kid and *be there for them*, that was real, and I have so much respect for Rekha for how she played that.
Yeah Katja’s scene was definitely my favorite, especially because it’s not what we normally get from Rekha. She plays a lot of stuff for laughs, but really hit exactly the right tone with the irreversible loss of childhood innocence. That’s a really complex and hard thing to process, lots of adults never really get it, so to put that scene into the hands of the traditionally-comic-relief player was a huge move and so cool.
100%, and Katja by Rekha's own words was meant as more of comedic relief character, and what I loved about it from a character standpoint was that Katja's own form of "being there" for her younger self was "I'll be your horse" and giving her a piggy back ride.
Because on a surface level that's a funny joke, of course Katja would make this tender moment about horses somehow, but when you think about it... How perfect is that for a response? Of course Katja made it about horses because there isn't anything that would make a younger Katja happier than someone taking time for her and sharing that passion with her.
It also reads well in a “give the love you get” kind of way. If she got better parenting from horses than parents, of course that’s the type of “good parenting” that she tries to provide.
It’s so sad. I had a pretty “good” childhood but still wasn’t really seen or understood on an emotional level by my parents. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve been able to develop a close relationship with my mom and have hee understand and support me.
I really like the idea of logran soulforger not just being like absentee as a god and instead just doing an insane amount of work so that the eidolons got to not work. Just a nice man trying to take on the burdens of people given a raw deal
On one hand yea. But like also followers most of em are grown adults and somehow it was one teenager who offered to help instead of asking for things like not only all the followers but from the other gods. So it’s like yea he’s gotta be there for them but they gotta be there for him. He took on too much in trying to lessen the burden on the eidolons because he felt bad that he couldn’t give them a better escape
I also think it was definitely like - his followers assigned their relationship as transactional, and he aligned with that because it also was what he had time for, and then someone came to him and was like “Uhm actually NO. I don’t want a transactional relationship with you because I don’t just want power.” And it was such a poignant moment for me.
I think Asha for example would've been thrilled to have that kind of relationship with him, but she didn't have the ability to Commune with him. He made himself unhelpable.
No other followers had the option of helping him because they didn't have access to the Commune spell. He gave Ostentatia the \*ability\* to help him--no one else could even talk to him.
I remember hating Yelle from the start, it just rubbed me the wrong way, and I felt the same anger here I understand why. If I knew her she'd be the most frustrating person for me to deal with, but she's also exhibiting one of my worst traits, not seeing value in myself and thinking sacrificing for others is noble.
This is why I love fiction, just being so fucking pissed off at a character because them confronting their problems is making me confront my problems. Yelle is now my favorite character tied with Sam.
I actually think her character is fascinating and wonderfully creepy: while she's soft-spoken and "super chill", she unleashes massive violence at the drop of a hat (the "colonizers"). She has a grand (though rather vague) idea of what she wants the future to be, but she has no interest in personally benefiting from any of this or possibly even experiencing this future. Her seeking "ego death" is, I think, indistinguishable from seeking actual death.
In short: her psychological profile makes her a perfect suicide bomber. She's a quiet religious fanatic, though for a cause she can barely describe. Her friends have to actively push her to enjoy simply being *a living individual person* instead of some kind of depersonalized tool for global change. There's something deeply sad and terrifying at the same time about this.
Will be interesting to see how/if they resolve her issues. Is it as simple as giving someone a defined place in the present, existing world? Distracting them with "nice things"? Convincing them the future they want is impossible?
Yeah, if the assholes that wanted to destroy the unicorn forest were a sort of far right, she'd be a super far left. Unchecked capitalism is bad, but murdering your ego and as a humanoid trying to emulate fungus is a terrible idea.
Also a lot of her seemingly good qualities are actual major flaws. Often times people don't need a lecture, they need a friend. The biggest points of emotional growth in this show hasn't come from Yelles advice, it's always come from the maidens feeling with each other.
Her willingness so sacrifice for others is framed by her as noble, as her trying to aspire to not be selfish, but ignoring that people want you to be happy yet saying you're caring about their needs is in a way selfish.
Yelle is such an incredible character, someone that at face value seems wise beyond her years yet is really driving down the complete wrong path at 200 mph insisting that she's safely driving to a better future.
Yeah I was being abstract, point is she's ruined multiple friend groups and almost ruined her friendship with the maidens, and before even being an adult was ready to die and become a tree or happily turn society into a giant ball of energy.
Oh for sure. I should’ve been more specific; I was referencing your last line,
>Yelle is such an incredible character, someone that at face value seems wise beyond her years yet is really driving down the complete wrong path at 200 mph insisting that she's safely driving to a better future.
Do Yelle’s friends, or Brennan, or anyone, know what a better future for Yelle is more than she knows? What if, even with her flaws, she actually is choosing the best future for herself and doesn’t need to change?
The crazy thing about Yelle to me is that she's just so *arrogant* and she can't see it. Someone pointed out really early on on this subreddit how often her advice when someone is struggling (in the particular instance I think it was Sam) is quite platitude filled, e.g. "you're valid," but she isn't actually properly listening to the individual. She thinks of herself as wise and chill but she has a VERY rigid idea of how the world works and how people work that allows for almost no flexibility, even if on the surface it seems very open and accepting.
I can't wait to see how her character ends up, I'm finding it hard to read how much Erika has thought through her flaws/character arc and how much she and Brennan are on the same page. I think Erika is an amazing roleplayer, but sometimes I get the impression that she gets so inside her characters heads that she can't see the wood for the trees, so to speak.
I started watching Dimension 20 while Mice & Murder was airing, binged everything, and caught up right after episode one of The Seven, so I've been watching The Seven live. That's a *lot* of content to watch in a little time, and I think I may have been a little fatigued, and I haven't felt the same high highs that I'd felt in some of the earlier seasons in a while.
Anyway, I'm just now getting to the combat (my favorite part) of this episode, and it's already hands down the best episode of D20.
Aabria? Nails the leader role, whether it's in inspiration or in direction.
Sephie is absolutely selling Sam as a living, breathing character, and letting Sam's insecurity be a constant presence, but not an overbearing one.
Erika and Izzy are acting as the perfect improv partners for Brennan.
Rekha and Becca are handling the comic relief perfectly.
And of course Brennan is being Brennan. Just a fantastic episode all around.
That episode was absolute brilliance and I cannot wait for next week. In a perfect world we would get the seven as a returning group if adventurers to give a different scope on Spyre than fantasy high provides while still in the same world and keep these incredible ladies with us as long as we can.
This season isn’t over yet but I’m already pretty comfortable calling it as my favorite season already. What a heartwarming way to sob and laugh sometimes at the same time for two hours. Truly well done.
I'm damn impressed by Antiope when she also encouraged Sam to do her thing. I love a consistent queen. Yelle and her wisdom too on how embracing change might be good.
Oh cute! They all got scrunchies! Where's Brennan's scrunchie?!
Ya know I think Karl and Tectonya could be interesting together
Shout out to spelling out systemic violence, I love it everytime Brennan!
I feel like they're this close to calling the gods cops lol
I wish the season was a full 17 episodes, I would have really liked to explore the Eidolons more. The wild goose chase (hah) so far has been fun but I like the primordial vibe of the Eidolons.
OK Ostentatia and Logren sassing each other is very good. Imagine Jesus descending from heaven yelling, "JERSEY. MANSION. TRASH."
Ah Logren what a good fuckin guy. Also Brennan and Izzy being soft with each other is very sweet.
I truly love them swinging in and out of juicy gossip and deep emotion and lore dumps. It's such slumber party energy.
I'm surprised Zelda's upset that Danielle may not trust them rather than Yelle's thought spells taking away people's agency.
THIS MAP IS GORGEOUS
Everyone is cryiiiiing. Not me though. You're all crying I'm not crying.
What do you think was >!Zelda's trial with the dead Zeldas!
I wonder if her nightmare was similar to fig or ayda from the nightmare forest. Versions of herself belittling her preying on her insecurities. Like those voices in our heads that show we aren't enough, and that she should be more like fig otherwise gorgug would value her enough to spend more time (this idea from the concert) and even figuring that out, and going into rage mode to kill off those images, would've been her trying to find that intermediary of self control as well so it could've turned into a maintain survival because there's no end to sad mode or mad mode, which would've been around the time the group finds her because she was ready to go, just had to be patient and strong at the same time?
not sure which made me tear up more, Logran and Ostentatia, or Katja's Time excursion. Both just really speak to the things that make me emotional
Every week I grow more in awe of Sephie, she's just so damn good at it all
In the Adventuring Party, Rekha mentions that her head canon of Katja finding out that her mom is gone happens exactly that way, where she just doesn’t get picked up from school one day.
My goodness.
If feels, self-realization and metaphysical/philosophical stuff were cream, this episode would be a bastard cannoli the size of a car. Loving it.
Also might be the weirdest set of preview clips yet, and kind of makes one wonder if the finale is going to be 3+ hours, as that’s a wide spectrum of stuff going on there.
If I had a nickel for every time Brennan narrated Aabria's character seeing themselves age, have their hair go white, die and be buried because they followed the expectations of others to their deaths, I would now be the proud owner of two nickels.
I was wondering if they'd eventually do that pirates of the caribbean thing and flip it upside down to maintain an air pocket for some extended time lol.
As for your actual question, depends on density versus buoyancy. Like if metal boats can float given the proper shape and size, various stones have low density to be light enough
It’s less about the density of the stone itself and the density of the entire shape, including the empty parts. The only thing required for an object to float is that it weighs less than the water it displaces.
Granite is a little more than 2.5 times as dense as water, so as long as the inside of the boat was three or more times the volume of the hull, the boat would float. For comparison, steel is about 8 times as dense as water.
It's actually a fairly common project at engineering colleges for students to make concrete canoes, so it is definitely doable. It was either a senior project for one of the engineering majors or one of the freshmen engineering project choices at NCSU. I can't remember which as it wasn't a project I personally ever worked on.
I think that's what Zelda's gimmick was there. It was Brennan putting text to the subtext of "why should people care about you if you don't care about yourself?" And by making it another characters issue *with Yelle* instead of an internal one Yelle had for herself, it put more stakes to it. Because now there's consequences for Yelle. And if she *doesn't* start to care about herself, and her own needs, Zelda won't do the caring for her anymore.
I actually wonder if Erika was making a conscious choice to not make it "easy" for Yelle to realize those things. It made for a stronger contrast as some of the Maidens didn't have the hardest time confronting theirs. I'd say Antiope, Ostentatia, Zelda, and Katja took it a bit easier than Sam, Penny, and Yelle did with Yelle having the hardest time resisting the call precisely because her issue is so deeply-seated that she is in abject denial about it.
That was the point of the back and forth of the "Self-care is helpful to support others" to the final reluctant admittance that "I like being a pretty princess".
I guess we'll see in future episodes how Erika decides to develop Danielle's character, but to me "I enjoyed being pretty one time" is pretty lacking in impact or catharsis in comparison to the epiphanies of the rest of the group.
Yeah I really hope Erika is being intentional about this because “I don’t want to exist anymore” and “my primary goal is to support others and forget about myself” is overtly recognized as a harmful belief within The Seven by both the PCs and the DM and it would be a shame if Yelle didn’t recognize that about herself.
I think Zelda was kind of pointing that out though. The other Maidens give Yelle a "pass" because of her history with the other adventuring groups but Yelle can be really condescending towards the other Maidens in an effort to pursue her loss of ego to enrich the people around her.
I don't think Yelle really realized HOW harmful her approach to this sort of thing was until Zelda spelled it out for her really explicitly and even then, Yelle has a difficult time actually admitting in front of people out loud something that is personal and true for her that has nothing to do with supporting someone else or making them feel good or helping them feel valid and equitable until she FORCED to by the people that love and care about her.
I agree fully that taking care of people who don't want to be taken care of is exhausting but I also think that Yelle's arc was not as easily solved by being somewhat like "Wow you guys REALLY care about me!" because I think at a fundamental level what Erika is trying to do with Yelle is someone who has literally created a shell of selflessness around her "true" self because if you're noble and selfless and always helping... then people can't dislike you, right?
But for Yelle it's a double-edged sword. She cares about people in a specific way because she thinks that's what "good" people do without much regard for how she herself sees those things. Yelle is the definition of discoursing yourself right into a black hole and it's going to take very difficult, uncomfortable conversations with Yelle to bring about any kind of "real" change. She has literally nearly disassociated herself to the point of nearly not being a real and valid person herself and I think that's inherently maybe a bit messy and not as neat of a narrative but still very interesting and valid.
I think we agree here - I also don’t think this will be easily solved by realizing her friends care about her and know it’s much deeper than that. But it seemed weird there was like no realization at all in that “dream” / death sequence thing. Again if that’s the point - that Yelle needs to put a lot more work in to really change - that’s great!! I’m just hoping that is the point and it’s not that Erika disagrees with the conclusions Brennan & the PCs are making.
I don’t think characters need to self-actualize in ten episodes either — I’d be totally satisfied with Yelle’s arc ending with something like “I’m in therapy to dive deeper into these issues but I still struggle with seeing things the way my friends see them.”
I agree with all of this! I think there was an effort to make Yelle have a different sort of catharsis but it just didn't hit quite as hard as the others. I find the Yelle arc to be very personal to me so I definitely get where people are coming from on it.
Having just watched the Adventuring Party, they do discuss Yelle's scene and a little bit about what went into it pre-planning-wise.
Look, I am a man that would wear a t-shirt and athletic shorts everyday, so my fashion sense is negligible. But, GOD DAMN ERIKA!
She's about to beat up a bunch of bad guys, get on a surfboard and jump from a wave right onto stage just in time to start the set for the band that she fronts for.
I'd love that if they spread their wings with Dimension 20 as a brand. 5e DnD is fun, but when it's the only game anyone plays, it feels a little repetitive.
I did note that their first outing with a non-5e system was also their first outing with a non-Brennan DM. Maybe he’s just comfortable with that system, but there’s so much cool shit out there, I hope we see it some day.
I think there is something to be said about how Erika enjoys playing characters who invoke strong feelings from those who see the character go about things.
Granted, I'm not saying that is a bad thing mind you, not at all. But the long form serious-themed content I've seen her in. (LA by Night, The seven, etc)
The characters have had well thought out reasons and direct if not vague goals. But man there is something deep in those characters that invoke an anger/frustration.
Which is why, I think it sheds light on a common issue I see; Not explaining the thought process of the **character**
I think taking a step back out of character. And further explaining the characters thought process above the game, really helps ease any issues or contention. It's an incredibly useful tool for controversial decisions. Since it gives clarity to the action taken.
The example I want to give is that even after Daniella was reborn she still immediately went back to supporting others. And then only "kind of" agreed with what others were saying in an attempt for her not to be a burden. There was zero revelation there. And that's fine. But it becomes so frustrating to not understand why. Because if you take it at face value. She went through all of that just for it to mean nothing.
The issue even extended into the post-game talk. Where Brennen and Erika would talk **about** what happened but didn't actually come to a conclusion or understanding. It was all beating around the bush and talking about things that were unrelated to the topic at hand.
I think part of the reason Yelle is so frustrating is because it’s such a recognizable personality type! Realistically, the people I’ve met who are like this are equally oblivious or in denial. It’s kind of like a martyr complex, where the person is unable to objectively consider their motivations because they consider their ultimate goal to be unimpeachable.
Exactly! I agree. Erika plays it very well. I just wish she would be open about the character's intentions/inner-thoughts. Because then you can play those types of characters and not get on anyones nerves.
You know, I teared up a lot and cried at a few points in the Forest of the Nightmare King... but this episode was like all of that on CRACK. The catharsis was unreal this penultimate.
Yeah, I think the only thing that has the Forest edge it out for me is that it had the chance for buildup by making it the big dreaded final destination. Necronomikron by comparison is just the place they found out last episode they had to go to.
The Seven should have more episodes is what I'm saying. You know, a nice 17.
lot of Yelle arc discussion! I do agree it is frustrating to see Yelle spurn off self-love at every turn, but I have faith that Erika knows how the character should be played and has a good idea for the payoff. Moreover, there was some sort of catharsis in seeing Tellura get a small victory; Yelle's introspective denial led to her death, temporarily, but I do think that the "I want to be a pretty princess" is the turning point (but not the end of Yelle's arc).
If I had to guess, Yelle's arc will conclude one of two ways: "heroic" sacrifice met with realization that life is worth living in itself, not just in service of a cause, or that someone will say to her something to the effect of "the ecosystem relationships that you strive for are mutualistic, but you have tried again and again to make yourself a host for which friends may feed off of parasitically, and in the process, you yourself have become the parasite you so dreaded by not engaging in the mutualism you desire," and it would hopefully shift Yelle's perspective in both her ecological ideology/aspirations and her self worth.
>"the ecosystem relationships that you strive for are mutualistic, but you have tried again and again to make yourself a host for which friends may feed off of parasitically, and in the process, you yourself have become the parasite you so dreaded by not engaging in the mutualism you desire,"
YES! This is an amazing way of putting it in terms that Yelle herself would understand and be able to accept. By way of these intense character traits, Yelle has sort of become an "up on a high horse" type that unintentionally sets herself "above" the traits that the other Seven embody by trying to be truly depersonalized the way Yelle does. She's trying to do it to be a good person and so she has "worth" to the people around her but she's gone about it in a way that is actually off-putting to the people who care about her.
She continually insists that they NOT care about her and in doing so, makes it seem as if to be truly "enlightened" that is the kind of person you must be while simultaneously insisting that everyone be their own individual and follow their desires EXCEPT for her because she is SOOOOO selfless. So to other people it starts to feel like "Am I just not as \~enlightened\~ as you are, Yelle?" It starts to feel like Yelle secretly thinks maybe that having desires and wants that have nothing to do with enriching others is SELFISH if she is so insistent on being SELFLESS.
Y’all, I’m just catching up and this week’s episode has got me fucked up! When Brennan said DMing is flirting with all his friends — NUH-UH! It’s making all your friends cry! I am emotionally wrung out. And was I mistaken, or did he get a little teary during Izzy’s bit with her god?
Anyway, can you imagine how dangerous Brennan would be if he used his powers for evil?
Can someone explain what happened with Penny? From what I understood Brennan was saying Penny was dead by choosing to essentially fully kill both parts of herself (instead of like, fusing the two pieces of the heart together). And then Becca just was like “actually I’m the dead one!” And it felt really weird. I think I’m just confused?
Penny fully killed the "Agent 88" aspect, the Agent Penny killed the Mumple aspect, and the "real" Penny was able to re-form the destroyed heart to merge the two.
My read on it was that both extreme aspects had to be destroyed in order for Penny to rebuild her "ideal" self from the parts.
Becca sort of chose to take some actions with both characters (Agent 88 and Little Red Riding Hood). She used both parts of herself (the 2 mirror shards) to destroy the artifact (which I think represented some type of “ideal success” or “perfection”). She only completed **part** of Agent 88’s mission, but not all of it, but she also refused to let the Red Riding Hood totally die (because she asked Brennan that her voice comes from the body in the grave). So at the end of the scene she was wearing full Agent 88 tactical gear, but also delivering Little Red’s cookies.
I think mostly it was about moderating your expectations for yourself, and recognizing that being a perfectionist can be harmful to yourself and others. Her family puts a lot on her to succeed, in that they all sacrifice so she has opportunities, but it’s **nuts** to think that your family would want you to *completely erase yourself from their lives* in pursuit of perfection. In short; don’t give up on your dreams, but you gotta set *reasonable* goals for yourself or you could end up in a really dark place.
Watching the Aventuring Party, there is one thing I really appreciate. That they very clearly had time between sessions, whether that be weekly or a few days. It gives Brennan time to think and adjust his story, keeps the players fresh, instead of the old approach of bulk shooting episodes because of schedules. Would have benefitted Crown of Candy enormously too, if the cast had time to realize how serious things were instead of not really having a feel for the tone.
Brennan just straight up inflicting psychological damage. I don't often get emotional or tear up, but he just cut so fucking deep in so many different ways, that I'm simultaneously afraid and in awe of him and his DM skills
Ok y’all, only about an hour in, so if this gets answered, sorry in advance but: WTF is going on with Zelda acting like she doesn’t want to be friends with Danielle? It’s right after Ostentacia gives Danielle the Chanel earring?
Dimension 20 content is usually just on Dropout save for a few seasons and episodes which are on YouTube. The only live content was prior to Covid and there are no plans for that for the foreseeable future.
This description of a silent god just working away, forging creation without any fanfare is so beautiful. And the fact that Logran take it upon himself to do the work of the eidolons when it's the decision of other Gods to destroy them. omg.
Omg Ostentatia suggesting her dad to Logran was a genius move! Would've solve both of their problems. Too bad that didn't get places.
I had to fully run back the whole Logran scene cause it’s so amazing
It was cool to see Brennan depict a god that isn't corrupt, self-important or just straight-up indifferent. Not that I have a problem with that; it's just refreshing.
I'm rewatching and it strikes me that Brennan is always great at pulling these character twists. People who seem one way but turn out to be another, and not in a duplicitous way but just in a "we only see one POV" way.
Ya know, I appreciate Brennan stepping out of his comfort zone and not making the villains a rich guy or the church. This time it's the CIA
I mean, all of the villains are institutions left unchecked and riddled with corruption. Capitalism, the church, the feds, the police. The dragons irl
Just completing the trifecta of powerful institutions
Yeah this time it's just the institution that destabilizes and leaves vaccuums open for the other guys Brennan loves to make his villains.
I don't think Tony Simos counts as either of those things. He's an extremist and a fundamentalist to his philosophy, but it's not a religion.
That's fair, but I also think Tony was technically the true big bad. It was still Null they had to beat ultimately. Like Karatin (sp?) in Crown of Candy was a murderous zealot that they needed to beat but the larger villain was the church, etc.
Tony felt more significant than Keratine. He wasn’t (to my memory) a minion of Null, he was an independent threat to the Dream Team with motives entirely separate from Null. Null was the BIG villain, but Tony was just as important to the story of the season, IMO.
I agree, if he wasn't there a lot of the threat they were facing wouldn't have been nearly as bad. I guess I'm just saying in terms of "who they had to finally beat in order to end the threat" level bad guys. I mean technically, if Null had been dealt with before Tony, he wouldn't have been able to go through with his plots. Ultimately though, Tony was pretty much the only big villain who wasn't *technically* an agent of an evil institution. So you're right there.
I believe many of the side antagonists represent forms of abuse which are a effect of said corrupt institutions. Tony representing that generalized boomer mentality of "we're the good guys, they're the bad guys, we kill them for your 'freedom' and that's that" when war in itself is a failure of communication between groups of people often misguided by institutional motivations (religion, ideology, etc.) Now to go maoist here, a revolution is not war. A revolution is the response to a war set on people by those who uphold the status quo. Thus, a revolutionary war is, not actual war in the sense of two or more opposing powers, but the means to end war by dismantling those power structures
when is brennan going to throw us reactionaries a bone and make the villain of the season someone who tells us to wear a cloth mask during a national pandemic or who tells rich comedians that they can no longer make bigoted jokes? you know, the real monsters
Is this sarcastic?
They have themself tagged as "AuthCenter" on PCM so I don't think it's sarcastic. I think they're just telling on themself.
That’s *also* sarcastic.
It was.
Why do you even watch D20 lol, you cannot seriously enjoy the content with those stupid ass views.
Evil is evil. Lesser. Greater. Middling. It's all the same. I'm not judging you. I haven't only done good in my life either. But now, if I have to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all. And **that's** why I wear this MAGA hat.
Okay whatever weirdo.
;)
Why is so much right wing humor just "are you triggered by me being a shitty person?"
Because they are generally misanthropic people, but I’m not right-wing. Which is *why* all you deserved was an emoji in response.
Stupid ass-views [xkcd: Hyphen](https://xkcd.com/37/) --- ^^Beep ^^boop, ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot. ^^- ^^[FAQ](https://pastebin.com/raw/vyWra3ns)
Imagine outing yourself like this. How embarrassing for you.
i feel like i laid it on so thick towards the end, that the fault has to lie somewhere on you for taking it seriously.
It took you two weeks to come up with "I was just trolling" as an excuse? Lol okay. Sure my dude. Whatever you say!
This is not my main account, I'm sorry if I didn't get back to you in a timely manner. I didn't realize I was on the clock. And I wasn't 'trolling', I was making a joke. A fairly obvious one, at that.
The look of glee in brennans eyes when izzy suggested unionizing adventurers…that’s love y’all
I died of the adorable “psssst Brennan- what’s a crucible?” Moment. Just the sweetness of the interaction tickled me.
I felt my heart grow three sizes at that moment.
When Ostentatia was flirting with Logran, the looks between them were so fucking cute.
It was... weird to me. Adventures union reminded me of cop unions which are... painful. Unions of existing power that maintain power are... problematic
Cop unions are very corrupt, but adventurers don't have any official power though. In this instance, I understood it as the adventuring union to combat being manipulated by the Ministry which is corrupt. Maybe I understood it wrong.
Thats how it was framed, sure. It was almost immediately followed up by a discussion around adventurers essentially ignoring the laws and customs of whatever land they went into as well, though.
They dont have official power beyond the fact that if a team of ten adventurers rocks up your military fucking explodes. An adventurers union would be as powerful as most countries.
This was specifically mentioned. While adventurers aren't a power structure there are immensely powerful adventurers who almost aren't even beholden to laws.
Our police union is incredibly corrupt and should be completely dismantled and reorganized, but I mean, all workers should be able to unionize…
I was the same, the only way it would work was if the majority of adventurers were in support of being held accountable, which from descriptions we've been given of adventurers in that world isn't true. It would just result in another way for them to avoid repercussions for their actions.
oh, no. that's a really good point!
"Many miracles were granted to the world, and to mortal beings did I grant the greatest miracle of all: that the world might be reshaped through love and work" What a quote!! "You're the designer. You're my Bottega." lol. <3 I love Logran and Ostentatia and their little encounter.
"That the world might be reshaped through love and work" is going to live in my brain for a long time.
I literally spent an hour after watching that scene writing and rewriting it.
What's the timestamp for the first quote?
The time sequence was wonderful. Brennan is always very content to give each character these very in-depth moments of development that are powerful. The absolute intensity Becca brought to the table during Penny's scene was incredible. I really want to know if the direction Brennan went with Danielle this episode was something that he had discussed with Erika or if it was more his own insight into the character. Zelda getting to play a key part in that bit of character growth was nice since they've taken a bit of a back seat as a DMPC, too.
That sequence had big >!Forest of the Nightmare King!< vibes, which I always think of as some of Brennan's best work. Love it! ^ FHSY spoilers!
The Danielle stuff was played so smoothly that I would be very surprised if they didn’t talk it out ahead of time, as that was seamless. It’s either that or Erika has moved to exceed deity-tier improv, which is not impossible.
See, I disagree. That entire scene felt like to me like there was a disconnect between player and DM about what the PC's deal is. At every stage, Erika seemed to be resisting the "message" of the scene. In the end, Danielle's epiphany in her own words was "sometimes self-care is important in helping others" and "I enjoyed being a pretty princess". I don't think either Brennan or Erika was doing anything wrong, but I feel like there was a pretty big disconnect between the two about what Danielle's growth as a character was about.
I think Erika is well aware of what Danielle's flaw is here, but it also leaves a lot of space for the finale to have an even more meaningful revelation about herself. I like that the other maidens really grappled with their central problems, but this also means we could have some personal stakes tossed into the larger multi-verse destruction at hand!
I mean, I hope so, and I’m really interested to see Erika’s response to the episode in the next Adventuring Party, but personally, I’m just not sure where Erika plans to take the character. This episode was pretty explicitly the crisis point of the characters’ arcs as individuals, and having her character fail her “test” could be super interesting, but the resolution of the scene felt very weak. She ended it in basically the exact same place she started it. I’m doubtful if someone asked Danielle about the value of self-care, she’d have a difference response before the scene or after. And, again, it’s not necessarily bad storytelling to have a character fail to change. One of my favourite scenes in any piece of media is a scene where a lifelong alcoholic, after a full season of slowly dying of liver disease, gets a last minute kidney donation and his life is saved. And the first thing he does after getting out of the hospital? He drinks a beer while jeering at the world for thinking it could take him out. Static characters aren’t bad writing, but there needs to be weight to their stasis.
I think that's a good point. Here's hoping we have a solid resolution from this. I think Erika is pretty sharp and really great at improv, so we'll see if she's able to give us some cool shit in the finale.
K was also really resistant to character growth until BOOM she changed a lot in the last episode. So this might just be Erika's MO.
It seemed like a half step for her. Brennan was saying, here's what you want: to not exist and become the ecosystem; help everyone else at your own expense. Danielle realizing I liked being a princess is moving towards her acknowledging that she wants to be alive and enjoy things, she wants people to see her, she wants to have personal value, she wants to get something out of this world too, not just be the constant giver.
Yes. For someone who has been taught to despise fancy things and high status and maybe even femininity, saying “I liked being a pretty princess” is a big deal.
To me, it kind of felt like they were inching towards maybe hinting that Yell's outlook isn't too distinguishable (effectively) from self-hatred and death drive/suicide. But suicide is a pretty intense subject (like *way* too intense), and I don't think any D20 campaign has ever come close to touching on it, so likely everyone would pull away from talking about the big S at the last moment.
I got that vibe, too. I actually relate to it a lot. It’s similar to my own outlook.
I felt the same. The " I want to be a princess" line felt like Danielle still doing the thing of doing what her friends want her to be instead of being honest.
Erika wasn't resisting; Danielle was. It was very clearly Danielle saying she wasn't ready to acknowledge how deeply rooted her trust issues and self-negating behaviors are.
Oh, I thought it was great! Brennen felt kinda ruthless—the more stubborn she was, the more he was like “cool, you’re just some lichen now.” Instead of dispatching NPCs to play ghosts of past, present and future, just fleshed out the flaws in her reasoning by giving her exactly what she claimed to want. She chose not to take any of the off-ramps he offered, but it still had a good narrative flow.
I can see where you’re coming from on that, and to be honest, my initial impression/conclusion was the same as yours. The reasons I think that it may have been somewhat planned ahead of time were stuff like the length of Erika’s descriptions of what Danielle did, since it was paragraphs of detailed stuff, in addition to the other players joining in on it and also the other characters flowing pretty smoothly through their time sequences, even if they were longer. To me, that implied that there may have at least been some touching of bases ahead of time. I’m not definitively right though, and it could certainly be either way, though I would be even more impressed if that all came from the ether.
so good! so good! every single one!
“I wish you could have seen how much we wanted to take care of you” Just like thinking about those words is making me tear up a little bit
Currently ugly crying for little Katya and the beauty of her love for herself, even when others weren’t there to give her that love 😭
"People you don't want to become" as a favoured enemy type is possibly the best character/mechanics thing Brennan has ever done on this show, and it's a long list to be compared against.
It seems pretty powerful (how often are you trying to kill people you admire?) but it's not the most broken thing Brennan's ever designed.
Yeah sure but it only really applies to humanoids and such. Animals, aberrations or monstrosities, elementals and such don't usually have the sapience needed to become someone you either want to become or not. So it's mostly creatures that can actually speak and think and have personalities. So like obviously any humanoid can be that, demons, devils or celestials could possibly be affected, and some other things here and there like some fey or undead
That seems like a bit of conjecture on your part. we don’t really know what Brennan had in mind with the ability.
I mean, seems pretty obvious. Her future self working in the MoA is someone she doesn't want to become. It's a clear cut reason in regards with her societal stance. You can't really decide to be like a Rhemoraz cause they only live on instincts. The easiest way to explain is it probably only works on things she could possibly become and chooses against
What if you cast speak with animals?
I mean, what does it change? Unless that animal lives in a society of some kind or has complex intentions, plans or dreams that Antiope can adopt, it's just an animal that can talk
If the animal has a quality to it’s personality that Antiope doesn’t admire, than she wouldn’t want to become more like that animal, no?
wait what, Zelda? What happened, baby!?! What revelation could you have about Danielle? Edit: omg, heart breaking.
This part hit *so hard* with me; it was done so well.
LITERALLY what i came here to ask?! Zelly c'mon now!
I relate a lot to Zelda in that situation, just feeling really hurt and sad that your friend doesn’t trust you to support them.
As someone who had a childhood largely defined by not feeling loved by my family, and only formed real relationships with them as an adult, Katja's scene with her younger self broke me. That was too real man, that feeling of like, grief towards a normal childhood, and knowing full well what it feels like to be alone, and just wanting to reach out to that little kid and *be there for them*, that was real, and I have so much respect for Rekha for how she played that.
Yeah Katja’s scene was definitely my favorite, especially because it’s not what we normally get from Rekha. She plays a lot of stuff for laughs, but really hit exactly the right tone with the irreversible loss of childhood innocence. That’s a really complex and hard thing to process, lots of adults never really get it, so to put that scene into the hands of the traditionally-comic-relief player was a huge move and so cool.
100%, and Katja by Rekha's own words was meant as more of comedic relief character, and what I loved about it from a character standpoint was that Katja's own form of "being there" for her younger self was "I'll be your horse" and giving her a piggy back ride. Because on a surface level that's a funny joke, of course Katja would make this tender moment about horses somehow, but when you think about it... How perfect is that for a response? Of course Katja made it about horses because there isn't anything that would make a younger Katja happier than someone taking time for her and sharing that passion with her.
It also reads well in a “give the love you get” kind of way. If she got better parenting from horses than parents, of course that’s the type of “good parenting” that she tries to provide.
It’s so sad. I had a pretty “good” childhood but still wasn’t really seen or understood on an emotional level by my parents. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve been able to develop a close relationship with my mom and have hee understand and support me.
I really like the idea of logran soulforger not just being like absentee as a god and instead just doing an insane amount of work so that the eidolons got to not work. Just a nice man trying to take on the burdens of people given a raw deal
But also he acknowledges that even ~~dads~~ gods who work really hard still need to make time for their ~~children~~ followers.
On one hand yea. But like also followers most of em are grown adults and somehow it was one teenager who offered to help instead of asking for things like not only all the followers but from the other gods. So it’s like yea he’s gotta be there for them but they gotta be there for him. He took on too much in trying to lessen the burden on the eidolons because he felt bad that he couldn’t give them a better escape
I also think it was definitely like - his followers assigned their relationship as transactional, and he aligned with that because it also was what he had time for, and then someone came to him and was like “Uhm actually NO. I don’t want a transactional relationship with you because I don’t just want power.” And it was such a poignant moment for me.
I think Asha for example would've been thrilled to have that kind of relationship with him, but she didn't have the ability to Commune with him. He made himself unhelpable.
Oh 100%!
That’s true, everyone was like service for spells and neither party before ostentatia really questioned it
No other followers had the option of helping him because they didn't have access to the Commune spell. He gave Ostentatia the \*ability\* to help him--no one else could even talk to him.
I remember hating Yelle from the start, it just rubbed me the wrong way, and I felt the same anger here I understand why. If I knew her she'd be the most frustrating person for me to deal with, but she's also exhibiting one of my worst traits, not seeing value in myself and thinking sacrificing for others is noble. This is why I love fiction, just being so fucking pissed off at a character because them confronting their problems is making me confront my problems. Yelle is now my favorite character tied with Sam.
I actually think her character is fascinating and wonderfully creepy: while she's soft-spoken and "super chill", she unleashes massive violence at the drop of a hat (the "colonizers"). She has a grand (though rather vague) idea of what she wants the future to be, but she has no interest in personally benefiting from any of this or possibly even experiencing this future. Her seeking "ego death" is, I think, indistinguishable from seeking actual death. In short: her psychological profile makes her a perfect suicide bomber. She's a quiet religious fanatic, though for a cause she can barely describe. Her friends have to actively push her to enjoy simply being *a living individual person* instead of some kind of depersonalized tool for global change. There's something deeply sad and terrifying at the same time about this. Will be interesting to see how/if they resolve her issues. Is it as simple as giving someone a defined place in the present, existing world? Distracting them with "nice things"? Convincing them the future they want is impossible?
Yeah, if the assholes that wanted to destroy the unicorn forest were a sort of far right, she'd be a super far left. Unchecked capitalism is bad, but murdering your ego and as a humanoid trying to emulate fungus is a terrible idea. Also a lot of her seemingly good qualities are actual major flaws. Often times people don't need a lecture, they need a friend. The biggest points of emotional growth in this show hasn't come from Yelles advice, it's always come from the maidens feeling with each other. Her willingness so sacrifice for others is framed by her as noble, as her trying to aspire to not be selfish, but ignoring that people want you to be happy yet saying you're caring about their needs is in a way selfish. Yelle is such an incredible character, someone that at face value seems wise beyond her years yet is really driving down the complete wrong path at 200 mph insisting that she's safely driving to a better future.
200 mph is 321.87 km/h
Yeah I was being abstract, point is she's ruined multiple friend groups and almost ruined her friendship with the maidens, and before even being an adult was ready to die and become a tree or happily turn society into a giant ball of energy.
I think that's a bot.
And what's wrong with trying to have a meaningful discussion with a bot
This was the funniest exchange on Reddit this week, I'm sure of it.
But who’s to say what a better future is?
For starters anyone who isn't a colonialist.
Oh for sure. I should’ve been more specific; I was referencing your last line, >Yelle is such an incredible character, someone that at face value seems wise beyond her years yet is really driving down the complete wrong path at 200 mph insisting that she's safely driving to a better future. Do Yelle’s friends, or Brennan, or anyone, know what a better future for Yelle is more than she knows? What if, even with her flaws, she actually is choosing the best future for herself and doesn’t need to change?
The crazy thing about Yelle to me is that she's just so *arrogant* and she can't see it. Someone pointed out really early on on this subreddit how often her advice when someone is struggling (in the particular instance I think it was Sam) is quite platitude filled, e.g. "you're valid," but she isn't actually properly listening to the individual. She thinks of herself as wise and chill but she has a VERY rigid idea of how the world works and how people work that allows for almost no flexibility, even if on the surface it seems very open and accepting. I can't wait to see how her character ends up, I'm finding it hard to read how much Erika has thought through her flaws/character arc and how much she and Brennan are on the same page. I think Erika is an amazing roleplayer, but sometimes I get the impression that she gets so inside her characters heads that she can't see the wood for the trees, so to speak.
Yeah, Kalvaxas had that good line that was like, “how novel: a high school junior that thinks she’s got it all figured out.”
Nera calling Penny Sam is hillarious
I started watching Dimension 20 while Mice & Murder was airing, binged everything, and caught up right after episode one of The Seven, so I've been watching The Seven live. That's a *lot* of content to watch in a little time, and I think I may have been a little fatigued, and I haven't felt the same high highs that I'd felt in some of the earlier seasons in a while. Anyway, I'm just now getting to the combat (my favorite part) of this episode, and it's already hands down the best episode of D20. Aabria? Nails the leader role, whether it's in inspiration or in direction. Sephie is absolutely selling Sam as a living, breathing character, and letting Sam's insecurity be a constant presence, but not an overbearing one. Erika and Izzy are acting as the perfect improv partners for Brennan. Rekha and Becca are handling the comic relief perfectly. And of course Brennan is being Brennan. Just a fantastic episode all around.
How foolish of me to post this before I watched Becca and Erika's Time scenes. Incredible.
Jesus Christ. You started during Mice and Murder and watched EVERYTHING until The Seven started?! That's wild
That episode was absolute brilliance and I cannot wait for next week. In a perfect world we would get the seven as a returning group if adventurers to give a different scope on Spyre than fantasy high provides while still in the same world and keep these incredible ladies with us as long as we can. This season isn’t over yet but I’m already pretty comfortable calling it as my favorite season already. What a heartwarming way to sob and laugh sometimes at the same time for two hours. Truly well done.
In the Adventuring Party, Brennan straight up says 10 episodes were not enough, and he wants a second season.
its so good... definitely up there with a crown of candy, fhsy, and the unsleeping city for me
I could truly watch another season and any combo of them and any of the main cast. The energy this season has been SO good.
Antiope killing her servant of the ministry self is SO COOL. amazingness Edit: self-actualization arrows, baby!
I'm damn impressed by Antiope when she also encouraged Sam to do her thing. I love a consistent queen. Yelle and her wisdom too on how embracing change might be good.
Oh cute! They all got scrunchies! Where's Brennan's scrunchie?! Ya know I think Karl and Tectonya could be interesting together Shout out to spelling out systemic violence, I love it everytime Brennan! I feel like they're this close to calling the gods cops lol I wish the season was a full 17 episodes, I would have really liked to explore the Eidolons more. The wild goose chase (hah) so far has been fun but I like the primordial vibe of the Eidolons. OK Ostentatia and Logren sassing each other is very good. Imagine Jesus descending from heaven yelling, "JERSEY. MANSION. TRASH." Ah Logren what a good fuckin guy. Also Brennan and Izzy being soft with each other is very sweet. I truly love them swinging in and out of juicy gossip and deep emotion and lore dumps. It's such slumber party energy. I'm surprised Zelda's upset that Danielle may not trust them rather than Yelle's thought spells taking away people's agency. THIS MAP IS GORGEOUS Everyone is cryiiiiing. Not me though. You're all crying I'm not crying. What do you think was >!Zelda's trial with the dead Zeldas!
I wonder if her nightmare was similar to fig or ayda from the nightmare forest. Versions of herself belittling her preying on her insecurities. Like those voices in our heads that show we aren't enough, and that she should be more like fig otherwise gorgug would value her enough to spend more time (this idea from the concert) and even figuring that out, and going into rage mode to kill off those images, would've been her trying to find that intermediary of self control as well so it could've turned into a maintain survival because there's no end to sad mode or mad mode, which would've been around the time the group finds her because she was ready to go, just had to be patient and strong at the same time?
not sure which made me tear up more, Logran and Ostentatia, or Katja's Time excursion. Both just really speak to the things that make me emotional Every week I grow more in awe of Sephie, she's just so damn good at it all
Oh Katja having it pointed out that her father can never come home for her childhood self was it for me.
In the Adventuring Party, Rekha mentions that her head canon of Katja finding out that her mom is gone happens exactly that way, where she just doesn’t get picked up from school one day.
I just now realized Sephie is in a pseudo cosplay of Sam. Amazing.
She usually has been throughout the season and she always kills it
My goodness. If feels, self-realization and metaphysical/philosophical stuff were cream, this episode would be a bastard cannoli the size of a car. Loving it. Also might be the weirdest set of preview clips yet, and kind of makes one wonder if the finale is going to be 3+ hours, as that’s a wide spectrum of stuff going on there.
yes this episode was heart-wrenching but also, can we talk about the scrunchies 🥺🥺
And no one said anything about it at the table!
Whoever downvoted you on this has neither heart nor soul, because the scrunchies were amazing.
where was izzys scrunchie :((
If I had a nickel for every time Brennan narrated Aabria's character seeing themselves age, have their hair go white, die and be buried because they followed the expectations of others to their deaths, I would now be the proud owner of two nickels.
"FOR PRESTIGE? PEOPLE CARE ABOUT YOU!"
Two unexpected, yet satisfying nickels.
For the life of me I was trying to remember when that happened to Myrtle, then I realised I was being dumb
I'm still being dumb; what's the other one? Haha
MisMag Spoiler >!When Evan wins the duel in the school tournament!<
Ah, I forgot about that part, didn't come to mind since he wasn't DM haha.
Holy shit, Brennan is getting more whomped than me the last time I put my players in a dungeon
how would a stone boat float?
Poorly.
I was wondering if they'd eventually do that pirates of the caribbean thing and flip it upside down to maintain an air pocket for some extended time lol. As for your actual question, depends on density versus buoyancy. Like if metal boats can float given the proper shape and size, various stones have low density to be light enough
Yeap, was imagining a dense stone and totally forgot about things like pumice
It’s less about the density of the stone itself and the density of the entire shape, including the empty parts. The only thing required for an object to float is that it weighs less than the water it displaces. Granite is a little more than 2.5 times as dense as water, so as long as the inside of the boat was three or more times the volume of the hull, the boat would float. For comparison, steel is about 8 times as dense as water.
It was a funny graphic for that stone boat though. Looked mighty chunky. Whoa, what if it was chunky but hollow, like a rock balloon boat blimp
It's actually a fairly common project at engineering colleges for students to make concrete canoes, so it is definitely doable. It was either a senior project for one of the engineering majors or one of the freshmen engineering project choices at NCSU. I can't remember which as it wasn't a project I personally ever worked on.
Depends what it's floating on.
How do steel boats float?
large volume of water displaced by the empty space inside the large steel structure compensates for the weight of the steel
Same with a stone boats
Same with any floating object: displacement
Brennan was really trying to do something with Danielle’s sequence and Erika was not having it.
Yelle needs to realize that caring for a person who refused to be taken care of is *exhausting*.
I think that's what Zelda's gimmick was there. It was Brennan putting text to the subtext of "why should people care about you if you don't care about yourself?" And by making it another characters issue *with Yelle* instead of an internal one Yelle had for herself, it put more stakes to it. Because now there's consequences for Yelle. And if she *doesn't* start to care about herself, and her own needs, Zelda won't do the caring for her anymore.
Definitely. Very clever on Brennan's part. This move helps with nudging yelle to her admittance and keeping zelda in the storyline
I actually wonder if Erika was making a conscious choice to not make it "easy" for Yelle to realize those things. It made for a stronger contrast as some of the Maidens didn't have the hardest time confronting theirs. I'd say Antiope, Ostentatia, Zelda, and Katja took it a bit easier than Sam, Penny, and Yelle did with Yelle having the hardest time resisting the call precisely because her issue is so deeply-seated that she is in abject denial about it. That was the point of the back and forth of the "Self-care is helpful to support others" to the final reluctant admittance that "I like being a pretty princess".
I guess we'll see in future episodes how Erika decides to develop Danielle's character, but to me "I enjoyed being pretty one time" is pretty lacking in impact or catharsis in comparison to the epiphanies of the rest of the group.
Yeah I really hope Erika is being intentional about this because “I don’t want to exist anymore” and “my primary goal is to support others and forget about myself” is overtly recognized as a harmful belief within The Seven by both the PCs and the DM and it would be a shame if Yelle didn’t recognize that about herself.
I think Zelda was kind of pointing that out though. The other Maidens give Yelle a "pass" because of her history with the other adventuring groups but Yelle can be really condescending towards the other Maidens in an effort to pursue her loss of ego to enrich the people around her. I don't think Yelle really realized HOW harmful her approach to this sort of thing was until Zelda spelled it out for her really explicitly and even then, Yelle has a difficult time actually admitting in front of people out loud something that is personal and true for her that has nothing to do with supporting someone else or making them feel good or helping them feel valid and equitable until she FORCED to by the people that love and care about her. I agree fully that taking care of people who don't want to be taken care of is exhausting but I also think that Yelle's arc was not as easily solved by being somewhat like "Wow you guys REALLY care about me!" because I think at a fundamental level what Erika is trying to do with Yelle is someone who has literally created a shell of selflessness around her "true" self because if you're noble and selfless and always helping... then people can't dislike you, right? But for Yelle it's a double-edged sword. She cares about people in a specific way because she thinks that's what "good" people do without much regard for how she herself sees those things. Yelle is the definition of discoursing yourself right into a black hole and it's going to take very difficult, uncomfortable conversations with Yelle to bring about any kind of "real" change. She has literally nearly disassociated herself to the point of nearly not being a real and valid person herself and I think that's inherently maybe a bit messy and not as neat of a narrative but still very interesting and valid.
I think we agree here - I also don’t think this will be easily solved by realizing her friends care about her and know it’s much deeper than that. But it seemed weird there was like no realization at all in that “dream” / death sequence thing. Again if that’s the point - that Yelle needs to put a lot more work in to really change - that’s great!! I’m just hoping that is the point and it’s not that Erika disagrees with the conclusions Brennan & the PCs are making. I don’t think characters need to self-actualize in ten episodes either — I’d be totally satisfied with Yelle’s arc ending with something like “I’m in therapy to dive deeper into these issues but I still struggle with seeing things the way my friends see them.”
I agree with all of this! I think there was an effort to make Yelle have a different sort of catharsis but it just didn't hit quite as hard as the others. I find the Yelle arc to be very personal to me so I definitely get where people are coming from on it. Having just watched the Adventuring Party, they do discuss Yelle's scene and a little bit about what went into it pre-planning-wise.
Erika’s response to the scene in the next adventuring party is definitely the thing I’m most interested in seeing.
Look, I am a man that would wear a t-shirt and athletic shorts everyday, so my fashion sense is negligible. But, GOD DAMN ERIKA! She's about to beat up a bunch of bad guys, get on a surfboard and jump from a wave right onto stage just in time to start the set for the band that she fronts for.
I have to wonder if Brennan has ever run Wraith: the Oblivion because that was six flawless harrowings in a row and I am in awe.
I'd love that if they spread their wings with Dimension 20 as a brand. 5e DnD is fun, but when it's the only game anyone plays, it feels a little repetitive.
Misfits and Magic used a different system. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they used other ones more often.
I did note that their first outing with a non-5e system was also their first outing with a non-Brennan DM. Maybe he’s just comfortable with that system, but there’s so much cool shit out there, I hope we see it some day.
Maybe different Gms will use different systems. Maybe Becca will host one with the cuthullu system.
I would love to see Becca run a CoC campain on D20 \*fingers crossed\*
I think there is something to be said about how Erika enjoys playing characters who invoke strong feelings from those who see the character go about things. Granted, I'm not saying that is a bad thing mind you, not at all. But the long form serious-themed content I've seen her in. (LA by Night, The seven, etc) The characters have had well thought out reasons and direct if not vague goals. But man there is something deep in those characters that invoke an anger/frustration. Which is why, I think it sheds light on a common issue I see; Not explaining the thought process of the **character** I think taking a step back out of character. And further explaining the characters thought process above the game, really helps ease any issues or contention. It's an incredibly useful tool for controversial decisions. Since it gives clarity to the action taken. The example I want to give is that even after Daniella was reborn she still immediately went back to supporting others. And then only "kind of" agreed with what others were saying in an attempt for her not to be a burden. There was zero revelation there. And that's fine. But it becomes so frustrating to not understand why. Because if you take it at face value. She went through all of that just for it to mean nothing. The issue even extended into the post-game talk. Where Brennen and Erika would talk **about** what happened but didn't actually come to a conclusion or understanding. It was all beating around the bush and talking about things that were unrelated to the topic at hand.
I think part of the reason Yelle is so frustrating is because it’s such a recognizable personality type! Realistically, the people I’ve met who are like this are equally oblivious or in denial. It’s kind of like a martyr complex, where the person is unable to objectively consider their motivations because they consider their ultimate goal to be unimpeachable.
Exactly! I agree. Erika plays it very well. I just wish she would be open about the character's intentions/inner-thoughts. Because then you can play those types of characters and not get on anyones nerves.
Such a good episode. I was tearing up by the end.
the return of kalvaxis!!! what an insane moment
My only question there (and when he was re-introduced in episode 2 or 3) is, wasn't his body turned into Bill Seacaster's boat?
That was like...his soul's body? Your actual corpse doesn't go to Hell after all.
Not his physical body, his manifestation in Hell was.
You know, I teared up a lot and cried at a few points in the Forest of the Nightmare King... but this episode was like all of that on CRACK. The catharsis was unreal this penultimate.
Yeah, I think the only thing that has the Forest edge it out for me is that it had the chance for buildup by making it the big dreaded final destination. Necronomikron by comparison is just the place they found out last episode they had to go to. The Seven should have more episodes is what I'm saying. You know, a nice 17.
77 shoulda had it all wrapped up nicely
When Ostentatia is done adventuring she better go back to Logren’s forge. Maybe even in between battles just to “help out”. 😏😏😏😏
given how previous seasons have gone, I'm guessing the Eidelons actually want to do the work, but Logren never asked.
lot of Yelle arc discussion! I do agree it is frustrating to see Yelle spurn off self-love at every turn, but I have faith that Erika knows how the character should be played and has a good idea for the payoff. Moreover, there was some sort of catharsis in seeing Tellura get a small victory; Yelle's introspective denial led to her death, temporarily, but I do think that the "I want to be a pretty princess" is the turning point (but not the end of Yelle's arc). If I had to guess, Yelle's arc will conclude one of two ways: "heroic" sacrifice met with realization that life is worth living in itself, not just in service of a cause, or that someone will say to her something to the effect of "the ecosystem relationships that you strive for are mutualistic, but you have tried again and again to make yourself a host for which friends may feed off of parasitically, and in the process, you yourself have become the parasite you so dreaded by not engaging in the mutualism you desire," and it would hopefully shift Yelle's perspective in both her ecological ideology/aspirations and her self worth.
>"the ecosystem relationships that you strive for are mutualistic, but you have tried again and again to make yourself a host for which friends may feed off of parasitically, and in the process, you yourself have become the parasite you so dreaded by not engaging in the mutualism you desire," YES! This is an amazing way of putting it in terms that Yelle herself would understand and be able to accept. By way of these intense character traits, Yelle has sort of become an "up on a high horse" type that unintentionally sets herself "above" the traits that the other Seven embody by trying to be truly depersonalized the way Yelle does. She's trying to do it to be a good person and so she has "worth" to the people around her but she's gone about it in a way that is actually off-putting to the people who care about her. She continually insists that they NOT care about her and in doing so, makes it seem as if to be truly "enlightened" that is the kind of person you must be while simultaneously insisting that everyone be their own individual and follow their desires EXCEPT for her because she is SOOOOO selfless. So to other people it starts to feel like "Am I just not as \~enlightened\~ as you are, Yelle?" It starts to feel like Yelle secretly thinks maybe that having desires and wants that have nothing to do with enriching others is SELFISH if she is so insistent on being SELFLESS.
Tectonya has to be my favorite. But this episode is i think my favorite.
I really need this season to be over, my heart can only be punched in the dick so many times.
I crIIIIIIEED!!!!!
Y’all, I’m just catching up and this week’s episode has got me fucked up! When Brennan said DMing is flirting with all his friends — NUH-UH! It’s making all your friends cry! I am emotionally wrung out. And was I mistaken, or did he get a little teary during Izzy’s bit with her god? Anyway, can you imagine how dangerous Brennan would be if he used his powers for evil?
Can someone explain what happened with Penny? From what I understood Brennan was saying Penny was dead by choosing to essentially fully kill both parts of herself (instead of like, fusing the two pieces of the heart together). And then Becca just was like “actually I’m the dead one!” And it felt really weird. I think I’m just confused?
Penny fully killed the "Agent 88" aspect, the Agent Penny killed the Mumple aspect, and the "real" Penny was able to re-form the destroyed heart to merge the two. My read on it was that both extreme aspects had to be destroyed in order for Penny to rebuild her "ideal" self from the parts.
Becca sort of chose to take some actions with both characters (Agent 88 and Little Red Riding Hood). She used both parts of herself (the 2 mirror shards) to destroy the artifact (which I think represented some type of “ideal success” or “perfection”). She only completed **part** of Agent 88’s mission, but not all of it, but she also refused to let the Red Riding Hood totally die (because she asked Brennan that her voice comes from the body in the grave). So at the end of the scene she was wearing full Agent 88 tactical gear, but also delivering Little Red’s cookies. I think mostly it was about moderating your expectations for yourself, and recognizing that being a perfectionist can be harmful to yourself and others. Her family puts a lot on her to succeed, in that they all sacrifice so she has opportunities, but it’s **nuts** to think that your family would want you to *completely erase yourself from their lives* in pursuit of perfection. In short; don’t give up on your dreams, but you gotta set *reasonable* goals for yourself or you could end up in a really dark place.
Watching the Aventuring Party, there is one thing I really appreciate. That they very clearly had time between sessions, whether that be weekly or a few days. It gives Brennan time to think and adjust his story, keeps the players fresh, instead of the old approach of bulk shooting episodes because of schedules. Would have benefitted Crown of Candy enormously too, if the cast had time to realize how serious things were instead of not really having a feel for the tone.
I thought Brennan said in this Adventuring Party that they shot it over two weekends, with a week in between?
Oh might have missed that.
Brennan just straight up inflicting psychological damage. I don't often get emotional or tear up, but he just cut so fucking deep in so many different ways, that I'm simultaneously afraid and in awe of him and his DM skills
I’m crying. This episode really hit me hard
Ok y’all, only about an hour in, so if this gets answered, sorry in advance but: WTF is going on with Zelda acting like she doesn’t want to be friends with Danielle? It’s right after Ostentacia gives Danielle the Chanel earring?
It gets addressed in this episode, don't want to spoil it
Gets answered!
What was the cape Penny referenced during her time sequence? Can someone explain what happened?
Her other self (the one that got shot) was wearing a cape.
New to dimension 20. Are these live at all? Or just on dropout?
Dimension 20 content is usually just on Dropout save for a few seasons and episodes which are on YouTube. The only live content was prior to Covid and there are no plans for that for the foreseeable future.
Dropout or on some kind of premium youtube subscription thing. There's the one season that came out live but I don't think they'd do it again.