#(it's fun trivia not a gamechanger)

[ckret2]

I had just finished the first chapter of the Axolotl arc in WAIGLZ and reading the second.

Is he technically being a ghost ever going to come up past this arc to the other chapters in WAIGLZ later on?

Like,

"It was not like y o u were the one who viciously murdered me! I am mean technically your gruncles did not even kill a "living" being in the first place, according to s o m e people,

Bill shook his head, fanning away trillion year old resentment

-"you really think it was my first roadio? P l e a s e . So, try not beat yourself up about it kid, ok?"

Mabel looked up and stared at Bill.

"Wha- Huh??" Mabel said dumbfounded.

It would be crazy coolio to see it mentioned in the main fic.

Until I read your fic I never even thought about Bill being a spirit once, and now I feel rather silly wondering how he lived so long outside of his dimension :,)

Please have a truly wonderful day + happy holidays! ^ ^

Toodaloo!

I'm sure eventually it'll be mentioned again (I mean, for one thing, eventually we're gonna see the massacre) but probably not like that.

Like, Bill technically-being-a-ghost isn't some big secret or a major plot twist, and it doesn't fundamentally rewrite the rules around him and what he does. It's just what we see him do throughout canon.

He's a non-physical entity ("a being of pure energy!") that's apparently self-sustaining without needing sleep or food and impervious to injury and illness ("with no weakness!")

He's usually invisible to normal (living) people. He can possess people. He can move inanimate objects even though he can't physically interact with them. He can haunt dreams.

When he has the opportunity to make himself a body, he doesn't turn into something physical; his physical form is separate from him, and he can freely separate from it any time he wants.

This is mind-body dualism. Generally, mind-body dualism is a framework people use to express the idea that the spirit/soul is a separate entity from the body. The thing that's killed in Stan's mind is the spirit; the statue left behind is the body.

Meaning, before he had that body, he was spirit.

When he separates Dipper's spirit from his body in the exact same way Bill separates from his own body, he says, "Without a vessel to possess, you're basically a ghost!"

Bill usually doesn't have a vessel to possess.

Ergo: Bill's basically a ghost and he said so himself.

I haven't listed anything we didn't learn from Sock Opera and Weirdmageddon.

The ONLY question is "well BEFORE he was an energy being, did he have a physical body?" Whether he was born an energy being or became one later is in the realm of headcanon; and I suppose it's a matter of opinion if an energy being counts as a ghost if it's 100% identical to ghosts in every way except that it didn't previously have a physical body. You could argue that his eagerness to get a physical body the second he could implies he used to have one or was meant to have one, but that's speculation.

In every other way, he meets the criteria for a ghost the same way that tomatoes meet the criteria for berries. But when someone tells you "tomatoes are berries," it doesn't teach you anything new about tomatoes. You already knew tomatoes have berry-like traits, you just assumed they were disqualified because they're too big or too unsweet or too vegetably, and now you know they aren't disqualified.

So like—putting that word on him doesn't change anything about Bill. You've learned nothing new. The characters around him would learn nothing new. It's not a plot twist or massive character revelation; it's just a background fact that gets mentioned when it's relevant.

[hypotheticalobjectshow]

hos fun facts edition 1

hi everyone!! welcome to the first edition of hos fun facts!! this will be a semi-weekly series where we post fun facts about hos, details you might have missed, and trivia about its development!

when we were still in development we had a character named drawer. they got scrapped because bee didn't think it would be easy to convey their shape in the 2d medium. they had a knob as a nose

tire's car in part 1 is a blue 2006 toyota prius. this is because i (saracha) drive a blue 2006 toyota prius

most of the characters came from a random object generator website. the only exceptions to this are cd, compass, tire, and bingo!

hos's birthday is november 5 2022! bee first thought it up on that date, but after a week or so we pretty much forgot about it for two years. in late 2024 i (saracha) randomly remembered it and the rest is history :)

hos has TEN MILLION sources of inspiration. some include: one, the good place, the digital circus, ride the cyclone, nevermore (webtoon), and gamechanger. as far as the visuals go, madoka magica and ENA are big inspos.

host is an acronym

[canonicallyanxious]

hi! saw your last anon and sorry if this is annoying, but just wanted to ask u a question. i don’t know anything about d20 (assuming it’s like a d&d game) but i did watch all the free game changer episodes on yt and i’m lowkey obsessed and want more. is d20 the same kind of vibe, assuming it’s the same people? for someone who isn’t and has never played d&d would you reccommend starting d20? i kinda don’t want to pay for dropout, so maybe i’ll start with that :) have a nice day!

not an annoying question don't worry!! in fact i feel like i have to apologize in turn because i already know i'm going to be incapable of being normal about answering this question lol but me being verbose as hell on main, what else is new, etc. etc.

Re: whether d20 has a similar vibe to game changer -

so i'd say you're right in that d20 involves many of the people that are featured on game changer since they're both produced by collegehumor/dropout. as you might know Brennan Lee Mulligan who appears pretty often on game changer is the main DM for d20, and since d20 is an anthology show the casts rotate out every season but one of the most frequently recurring casts incudes Zac Oyama, Ally Beardsley, and Lou Wilson who are also pretty frequent guests of game changer [the others were also involved with Collegehumor at some point, can't remember if they've been on gc tho]. collegehumor folks sometimes appear in other seasons as well - for example rekha shenkar and lily du have been in multiple d20 seasons, jess ross and mike trapp have also featured, and there's even one season that's oops all collegehumor folks called Mice and Murder which is basically holmesian style turn of the century murder mystery but everyone is an anthropomorphized animal [dropout exclusive but the first ep is on the d20 yt channel]. so if you vibe with the humor and the personalities of the people who feature a lot on game changer, it's likely you will vibe with the humor and tone of d20 too!

that said, given that game changer is styled after a traditional competitive game show and d20 is an actual play show where people play tabletop rpgs together they are very different in the sense of genre. d20, while largely improvised [which believe me is a fact that will probably be hard to believe when watching it but is entirely true], is very much a collaborative storytelling effort between the people involved and makes very concerted efforts to present a tight and cohesive narrative through their seasons. so d20 is great if you like fictional narratives and fun and colorful characters, but if you want more traditionally unscripted content like gamechanger i recommend checking out:

dirty laundry [which is actually a spin-off of a gamechanger episode; hosted by Lily Du, first ep available on the CH yt channel]

make some noise [unfortunately i think right now all the make some noise eps are also dropout exclusive, here i have linked to the trailer, but it is another spinoff based on this honestly iconic game changer ep wherein Josh Ruben, Brennan Lee Mulligan, and Zac Oyama make weird sounds at each other and it's the funniest thing in the world]

Um, Actually [nerdy trivia game show hosted by Mike Trapp]

Rank Room [fyi it's an older show and they don't make it anymore but i still think it's a fun watch; hosted by Katie Marovich]

[do u see what i mean. i thought this first question would be a short answer skdfjnsdkjfnsdns so uh deep apologies for what will come after this bc i have THOUGHTS about your second question]

Re: would i recommend d20 for someone who has no experience with d&d -

short answer: yes absolutely 100%.

long answer: why do i so enthusiastically recommend d20 for people who have never played dnd? because i am a people who has never played dnd and d20 is one of my favorite shows ever! tbh i do think i am kind of biased as d20 is really the only actual play show i've ever been able to get into and i'm sure there are plenty of other shows out there that work for other people [if you're a podcast person for example you have tons of good options, i however am Not] but there are a number of reasons why I personally enjoy d20 as an actual play show:

I often struggle with other actual play shows because of how long and meandering they are. I think this is more of a personal preference thing because even when reading/watching more traditional forms of media i always tend to prefer tighter narratives with a clear ending in mind [e.g a 3 season show with a good finale is more compelling to me than an ongoing 10 season show with no ending in sight] but because d20 is an anthology show and each season is more or less a self-contained story aside from the few sequels i find it much easier to keep my attention on the episodes. to be sure the eps are still quite long, most ranging from 1.5-2 hours, but brennan + the other dms they feature on d20 do a really good job of keeping the pace moving while still giving the players freedom to explore the world and make their own narrative choices [which i think is one big appeal actual play shows has over other forms of media, the improvised and collaborative nature of the storytelling versus something that's already been fully scripted beforehand].

another thing i struggle with is how cumbersome dnd combat can be, personally i don't think it's the most accessible especially for people who have no ttrpg experience but d20's combat actually works pretty well for me because 1. they plan their combats before the season starts and especially in the earlier seasons of d20 they stuck pretty strictly to alternating between roleplay versus combat episodes so it's easier for me when i know kind of what to expect and 2. because they plan their combats in advance they are able to build INCREDIBLE custom battle sets with custom minis [shout out to Rick Perry!] and for me the visuals really help me keep my attention on the combat versus when combat is more theater of the mind [which to be clear does sometimes still happen in d20]. Tbh i still think combat can be a little clunky especially in the earlier seasons of d20 but i think the show has always gone to a lot of effort to create really creative and engaging combats for both the players and the audience and as it's gone on they've only gotten better at achieving this

in that vein i think the fact that d20 is 1. entirely filmed and 2. edited very well is VERY helpful for someone like me who has traditionally struggled with podcasts because the lack of visual context makes it hard to stay focused. as far as the editing goes i know some people prefer more of a livestream feel but just for me personally having the editing and the different camera angles and the sound cues and the music [d20 is really good at picking royalty free music for their soundtracks btw may i just say] gives me something more concrete to focus on and keeps it more visually interesting. and i do feel that they still make an effort to preserve the more natural/organic feel of ttrpgs by limiting their cuts story wise and focusing a lot on player reactions in the moment so for me it kind of hits the best of both worlds!

personally i think the choice for d20 to cast a lot of talented improv comedians is fucking inspired, especially when the show is so comedy-oriented. improv comedians are good at making bold choices on their feet, crafting rich characters while improvising their dialogue on the spot, and collaborating with each other, which are all skills that are very helpful for an actual play show context and everyone they cast on d20 is SO talented at all of these things. there are some players on d20 who also have little to no experience with dnd [notably Ally Beardsley has only ever officially played dnd on camera for d20; Rekha Shenkar and Mike Trapp in Escape From the Bloodkeep were also very new to dnd at the time] which on the one hand i think helps audience members like me who are inexperienced with dnd knowing some of the players are in the same boat but also they tend to make some of the wildest most out of the box choices as a result of being new to the game. so i think ultimately it's just a really fun combination and it's so much fun to watch in action!

and just a few more reasons why I consider d20 a favorite in a more general sense:

I mean Brennan Lee Mulligan as d20's main DM is a HUGE draw of d20 in my opinion. like if you were already a fan of him from game changer or other college humor content i think you will especially appreciate him in d20 because he is absolutely in his element here. actually last year i made a ppt for my friends about why i like d20 so much so here is a relevant excerpt:

i want to emphasize that d20 is a comedy-oriented show so tonally comedy is what it will prioritize. however i also want to emphasize that this does not mean it pulls any punches with the emotional depths it's able to reach. the themes and the worlds and the characters are SO rich and complex and compelling and I think i have experienced basically every human emotion and then some while watching this show. i also think it's incredibly character driven and does an amazing job of prioritizing character and relationship development and player agency, which is one of my favorite things to see in any kind of show!

and conceptually i just think it's so much fucking fun! it being an anthology show means there is something in here for everyone but i have enjoyed every season i have watched immensely [which is all of them except for one!] and have found it remarkably easy to become invested in every single one. you want to know what it would be like if dnd took place in a john hughes style teenage coming of age movie? or what if lord of the rings was about the bad guys but also it’s a workplace comedy? or how about an urban fantasy story set in modern day new york with a secret sixth borough hidden away in the world of dreams? you can have it all and more from d20! and this is just the seasons that are available on yt for FREE there are so many other cool and fun stories and worlds and dms to engage with!!!

tl;dr it's a good show and i like it very very much thank you for coming to my ted talk