#d20 meta

like, just to break down their interactions solely from the episode where they meet (2x07):

Adaine: Oh yes, I have a piece of paper.

Ayda: Why, are you bragging? I have many slips of paper.

Adaine: It's a specific piece of paper with a letter from Garthy on it.

> speaks too vaguely, sees that ayda did not understand her meaning, and immediately clarifies with specific language, without being glib or making a joke out of ayda's response

Ayda: Do you give this as a gift or as a message?

Adaine: I give it as a message. I would never give you a gift, you've made it clear that you do not want one.

> heard ayda's clearly expressed opinion on gifts and took her at face value, once again without any hint of mockery

Ayda: I wish for no gifts.

Adaine: But if you would like to buy this message off of me, you're more than welcome to.

> reframes the offering of the message as a transaction to eliminate any concern ayda may have about putting herself in debt, something she'd just expressly communicated she did not desire to do

jump to:

Adaine: I can teach you a spell if you teach me a spell. Then the transaction is clear.

> says in no uncertain terms what the transaction is. she is communicating on ayda's terms.

jump to:

Adaine: We can hang out if you like.

Ayda: What?

Adaine: I don't have any wizard friends.

Ayda: Why? [...] Are you hard to be around?

Adaine: No, I, no? Are you hard to be around?

Ayda: Yes.

> you just know ayda is repeating back words she has been told.

Adaine: Oh, do you want a friend?

Ayda: (pauses, intense stare) Desperately.

> this entire exchange is spoken in clear words and without subtext. adaine says what she wants and why she wants it. she is not put off by ayda. she doesn't find ayda hard to be around, but she also doesn't say anything to give ayda something to argue against. on the heels of ayda saying she's hard to be around, adaine asks anyway, "do you want a friend?" which communicates (1) the answer to whether or not you're hard to be around does not in any way modify my desire to be your friend, but also (2) i don't want to force friendship on you so i will ask you a clearer question: do you want a friend?

Adaine: I'll be your friend. Would you like to hold my frog? It's not a gift.

> "i'll be your friend" = adaine clarifying the result of the preceding line of questioning. "do you want a friend" could be taken by ayda to mean that adaine will present her with some third party friend, and adaine puts that to rest: she will be the friend. also doesn't assume ayda will remember adaine's earlier words or generalize her earlier sentiment of never offering ayda an unwanted gift; this is a new situation and conversation so adaine simply repeats her promise

Ayda: What level spell is this?

Adaine: Oh, it's just Find Familiar, it's—

Ayda: How?

Adaine: I can teach you it. It'll cost you 50 gold per level.

Ayda: (laughs screechingly) Very good.

> friendship notwithstanding, adaine does not assume that the transaction of spells for money is negated, but suggests it in such a way that ayda laughs, potentially sensing that adaine has created an inside joke for them, and potentially not being on the inside of too many of those.

all of this is FIRST MEETING. and the difference between how the other bad kids interact with ayda vs how adaine interacts with her in this episode is so stark. when adaine learns that they're both divination wizards, she is genuinely delighted. she thinks ayda is cool from basically their first interaction. adaine doesn't have any wizard friends!! and she's respectful towards ayda and meets her where she's at without any hesitation or difficulty. day one ride or die.

something about gorgug's relationship to rage, something about riz's relationship to violence. something about uncanny dodge and relentless endurance. something about reckless attack, something about sneak attack. something about, i go into a rage. something about, i hide. something about taking the hits and something about avoiding them.

(something something; riz's motivation isn't justice, it's the truth. something something; gorgug's motivation isn't justice, it's his friends. something something; one of those things is about love. something something; one of those things is about hunger.)

something about gorgug going to hell when he dies. something about riz's dad working for heaven. something about mercy - riz can't give it, and gorgug's never known it. something about the fact that gorgug never sees kalina. something about how riz was born with her. something about how riz's greatest fear is all the bad shit catching up to him. something about how gorgug's greatest fear is that he isn't clever enough to be anything but brutal.

something about impulse and inhibition. something about cause and effect. riz tears himself open for the truth, gorgug is torn open for his friends. something about riz shaping the narrative with his bloody hands. something about gorgug - bloody, beaten - going willingly.

(something something; murph crits when riz is looking for something. something something; zac crits when gorgug is hitting something.)

something about being left behind. something about not fitting. something about sitting together in silence. something about gorgug's parents giving him a metal flower, something about riz's parents giving him a gun. something about, "you know what the kind thing to do with that gun would be." something about, "what do you do to something in your way?" / "you knock it down." something about manipulation, something about violence. something about being seen as a weapon, something about being wielded like one.

something about intersections! something about inversions! one kid who gets the shit kicked out of him by the plot, one kid who drags the plot around by its throat. it's the fact that gorgug is everything riz will never be - big and strong and powerful and good. it's how riz is everything that gorgug wishes he was - smart and savvy and violent and radiating. it's what they were taught to be versus what they are - a gentle giant, a strung-out rogue.

Caramelinda watched Saccharina declare a crusade, that she would drive the church from the land with zero nuance. NOT work to get the corruption out of the church, just obliterate it completely, like the church tried to do to magic. Saccharina's people sacked Port Syrup resulting in the death of Sir Morris Brie. She already clearly stated her intentions to go on a conquering rampage through all the lands wiping out the church. Caramelinda literally watched them throw a book burning party. Caramelinda's position is NOT paranoia. This is GoT Candyland. She is pragmatic and intelligent and made a rational, logical decision based on all the information available to her.

I love the message about vulnerability and family they were going for, I'm just sad Brennan fell into the trap of a less nuance take than I expect from him in this particular instance. Many things can be true at the same time.

Is it morally the right thing to do to risk the future of your nation on the hope that one person can change? To take a chance when what you are gambling with does not belong to you? Annabelle Cheddar said it best; She didn't know whether one person's freedom/happiness is worth the weight of a nation's prosperity, but the responsibility for what she did AND what she didn't do are both hers and she has to account for it.

Just one problem: I'm not much for social media, and having consumed all the MisMag season 2 content I can find, I still can't find anything that confirms what all six of the little creature symbols should be. So I figured I'd farm the question out to the internet, and see if anyone saw/heard something I missed. So: the index cards.

The warm half of our color wheel, as depicted by the Gowcentric Orrery, is straightforward. The symbols appear on Tabby in direct coordination with their names when the Pilot Program visits Galamanis, the Qohlye, and Weugan in episodes 2, 3, and 6. They also all look reasonably recognizable as their animals (I'd say the Qohlye the least, and Weugan the most, but there's still a winged goat, a lizard, and a dog in the shapes). So that was easy. The problem is, unless I missed something, we're not shown the other three island/creatures in as straightforward a way.

Across different episodes, we do see symbols that clearly represent Tabby, the knotted symbol for magic's rules, and, of course, Tabby's enemies to lovers best friends relationship with Jammer, but because they're recognizable, I discounted them from my research. But, in episode 4 (on Seegenpelater) we do see three other symbols, which are never formally explained on the show, appearing when the Pilot Program are conversing with text-Tabby. Without finding anything to confirm or deny it, I've assumed that these three other symbols are in fact the cool side of our color wheel, breaking Tabby's pictogram language into the six basic magic principals he was made to coordinate. Which leaves the problem of working out which symbol is which of our favorite little magic guys.

With limited understanding, the only clues I really could think to go off of were the general shape of the symbol, and the word they appear before on Tabby's tablet when he's doing his magic-eight-ball routine. I'm almost 100% certain the above symbol is Seegenpelater's. I'd say this looks about as close to a two-headed camel as the warm side of the wheel looks to their animals. It also was accompanied by the word "doubtful" on Tabby's screen, which I do think corresponds reasonably to Seegenpelater being the basis of illusory/enchantment magic (ie, magic that casts reality in doubt). That would make it the blue wedge, opposite Galamanis, and leaves us with purple (Miskoro) and green (Tadershecourt).

This is where I hit the snag. I don't think either of these especially resembles our boy Tad. I could honestly see an argument for either depicting an antlered creature. My best guess is that the one on the left is Miskoro and the one on the right is Tad: I'd say the left looks to me like a winged guy with a tail, and the right does have a vague skull shape to it. We also see both of these symbols used twice. The left symbol accompanies the phrase "likely," while the right is joined with "ask later." I don't find that particularly helpful, since both phrases to me could be associated with Miskoro's transformation magic, but given that Tad's is a magic of curtailing/lessening, I'd be more inclined to give him the latter (also, I think it looks like a power button, and it's fun to think about Tad's symbol literally being a kind of off switch).

Assuming I'm correct, and that these symbols do all correspond to the orrery (as opposed to us just not seeing some symbols because it didn't come up during gameplay), that would make our full, official Gowcentric Orrery look something like this (apologies for the quick, shitty sketch):

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

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

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

and by "safer" i mean "turn your brain off and enjoy" despite d20 being significantly more political than cr up until this most recent cr campaign, which is all about the distribution of power, how it corrupts, can be used to oppress, and that it should be questioned even if the one in power is "good".

which is funny because a huge complaint about the previous cr campaign is that it did the whole "the system doesn’t actually need to be changed! it just needs a nice leader in charge! modify the system from the inside! benevolent dictatorship!" moral at the end (whether or not it actually did is up to your interpretation), and in showing how that line of thought is flawed it has made for a spectacular story that's made a lot of similarly center-left people in the fandom super uncomfortable.

but back to brennan a lot of people like to downplay d20 as a goofy silly joke actual play to "defend" it which undercuts the messaging of a lot of the stories. yes, it uses a lot of 'yes, and?'! yes, it breaks the fourth wall constantly! but using that as a shield is not helping your case that it’s the more 'progressive' actual play series. you can’t say that a deeper reading of the campaigns is stupid because it's improv and then turn around and talk about how brennan is a decolonialist philosopher.