#dimension 20 essay

[ankh-morporkianpostalworker]

The Rise of Dimension 20: The Changing Face of Roleplay

I remember when I first heard about Dimension 20 in 2019. I had subscribed to Dropout to watch Um, Actually and I saw D20 being pushed on the platform. I sat down and watched the first episode, then the second. In two days I had finished the first season.

I had never seen anything like it. I had tried NADDPOD and CR and bounced off both (I'd eventually fall head over heels for the former, and gain a solid respect for the latter), but I fell in love with the Bad Kids, the Intrepid Heroes, the world of Elmville, and the style of Brennan Lee Mulligan.

Later, I would learn that the first season of Fantasy High was seen by most in the community as a sort of novelty, the last death-rattle of a dying company. It was cool and new, sure, but it was also a flash in the pan.

Escape From the Bloodkeep proved the naysayers wrong. It proved that Brennan was as much the source of the fun as the Intrepid Heroes, and it showed us something that set him apart from the pack - Brennan was constantly pushing himself to be better. Out of the starting gate, he proved a technical proficiency on par with Matt Mercer, the reigning king, but for Brennan, that wasn't enough. He wasn't facing off with Matt, he was facing off with himself, and he needed to be better.

The Unsleeping City continued this trend. It was another setting the DND actual play community wasn't used to - the real world. The characters were fresh, new, more nuanced than the children they played in Fantasy High. They were up to the challenge, with the same drive as Brennan. Brennan and Ally redefined how the Wild Magic Sorcerer was played, Lou Wilson brought an abandoned Unearthed Arcana to the forefront, and the pair played, perhaps, their best roles to date.

Tiny Heist showed that Brennan could bend 5e to be something it wasn't meant to be - a heist simulator.

Then came A Crown of Candy. Some hold this season to be Brennan's magnum opus and the best performances the Intrepid Heroes have ever given. The combat was quick, dirty, tactical, the characters textured and nuanced. Our heroes had to get out of impossible situations, both in roleplay and combat. Death was a very real possibility. And this season was what sealed Brennan as a real rival for Matt, and was when "I only have Dropout for D20" stopped being a joke and started being a reality. Brennan had hit his stride.

The sidequests and seasons two from this point don't really prove my point, but they're good. Brennan didn't do a couple of them, though.

Then we get to Starstruck. Set in a world his mother had created, it obviously meant a lot to Brennan, and so he strived to outdo everything he'd done up to this point. It was funnier, more moving, the combat more tactical than anything he'd done before. He included space combat, and the cast once again rose to the occasion, portraying those cast out and cast aside by the corporatocracy that was the Starstruck universe, forming a touching bond. It was as if he had peaked.

And then came Neverafter, and with that, Brennan became king. It was horrific, scary, brutal. Combat wasn't fun or interesting, it was intense and nail-biting. The party dropped in their first combat encounter. Children were brutally murdered. They were up against eldritch horrors in perverse retellings of fairy tales. The humor was there, sure, but it was twisted, dark, more about relieving stress than being funny. And again, the cast excelled.

And all because Brennan wasn't trying to outdo Matt or Griffin or Brian, but himself. Each season, he wanted to be better than he had ever been before, pushing his technical abilities, his storytelling abilities, to the max. And the world of actual play shows improved as well. Matt stepped up his game, as did the other big dogs. Brennan redefined the game.

Or I could just be a massive fanboy who's reading way too far into things. Either/or.

[let-me-sleep-or-die]

and if I said that Cassandra and Gallicaea’s relationship was a dark parallel of Adaine and Aelwyns… what then fantasy high fans what then

[longfurbybitchboi]

Misfits and Magic is a show that explores young people encountering and pushing back against a system that neither serves or represents them.

This provides a channel for it's audience to model the protaganist's behaviour - to begin to question the narrative and world building of harry potter. To realise and deconstruct the systems of oppression that have been built into the franchise (which they, like the students of Gowpenny, took at face value, due to childhood naivety and a lack of outside knowledge)

TLDR: MisMag not only critiques JKR + HP but also invites it's audience to deconstruct what they internalised from their exposure to the source material.

[emilys-axford]

i know i talk about it all the time bc it’s one of my favourite lines from fantasy high but sandra lynn saying to fig “everything you’re going through is something that i get i was just like you” in light of her (most likely) being groomed by bobby dawn, with figs ill-advised interactions with older men in freshman year….. ya i’m thinking about it

[rooolt]

guy whos sooooo normal abt the Mountains of Chaos fantasyhigh. Like, the fact that Brennan establishes it as this classic adventure location full of monsters and dungeons for learning adventurers to explore and gain xp, and it’s also the site of kalvaxus’ lair and the temple of the earth defiant its a very fantastical place. BUT, it’s also the place where riz’s grandparents immigrated from, and it’s the place where the cultures worshipping gods like ruvina and ankarna originated from, and the fact that solace literally has a border patrol for the mountains of chaos that the Applebees are literally apart of. It’s something about these fantastical elements that are so often focused on by the people in solace, so completely glossing over the people and cultures that live there and originate from there. I’m so regular about it and I think about it a normal amount

[autoraton]

a gorgug before junior year!

[allthecastlesonclouds]

hi something something bad kids all magic users now something something everyone learning how to save each other something something they've all got friendship bracelets and they're gonna make it through this year if it KILLS them

[applebees4prez]

i refuse to believe kipperlilly would have a crush on riz. it would actually be much funnier if she had internalized homophobia and chose him as her crush and started hyperfixating on it but started getting really mad about the fact that she actually liked kristen and not him so she started hating both of them which led to a hatred for all of the bad kids and that spread throughout her party.

[cant-say-tomorrow-day]

next essay I write is gonna be an analysis of FHJY and how Kipperlilly's viewpoint and perception parallels what students are taught to value and emphasize when it comes to the college admissions process and writing college essays (aka trauma is a golden ticket)

[jackklinemybeloved]

kipperlilly is suuuch an apt villain for a season that takes place during a junior year of high school. she’s basically the smart privileged kid who’s mad she doesn’t have any interesting trauma to write about in her college essay.

[underwaterbanshee]

I'm just going to say it.

I love how unbalanced the first half of the final battle turned out to be simply because it highlights how important a tool failure is to becoming a full person able to contribute meaningfully to the team.

The Rat Grinders have level twenty abilities but no practical experience using them because they haven't failed in any of their adventuring. Jace or Porter has taken the danger away from the onset of every encounter and just given them the experience and so they don't know how to work the battlefield.

It isn't even about the number of times the Bad Kids have died and come back or tripped over their own feet. Fabian and Fig both got separated from group and had really bad things happen to them during Sophomore Year that resulted in encounters where they were out of spells, abilities, strength, you name it, and had to problem solve creatively until they could get out of really dangerous situations.

I'm not going to list the miracles of Saint Kristen Chilis Applebees because this post would just never end but her miracles were always the result of something failing and her seeking a creative solution.

Riz might not get caught swiping student files now but he was caught sneaking around Hell and compromised a Celestial Undercover Op by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Gorgug has been told he'll never be smart enough his entire life. How many times did he fail with his tech checks in Freshman and Sophomore year before he got to reroll his intelligence stat block?

Adaine, who became elven oracle at fourteen, who had panic attacks all through Freshman year until someone told her she wasn't her anxiety and had a mental illness that could be medicated.

Failure is important because it teaches us how to solve problems and to take that away from children--teenagers especially--who are in the cusp of adulthood, will have consequences.

And in a world where teenagers are the ones going on adventures and saving the world--those consequences are terrifying.

So much of this season (inside and out) has been about fair, unfair, and what exactly do children owe the world that takes advantage of them and at what point do teenagers become complicit in the harm they are perpetuating. I don't think there is a perfect, nuanced answer that will satisfy everyone.

But I do think, we need to let our teenagers fail, and that somewhere, between the Bad Kids and the Rat Grinders, there is a way to do it so the world doesn't end because Arthur Auegfort decided not to return on the second day of school.

[ankh-morporkianpostalworker]

Pete Conlan and the Rejection of Toxicity

To call Pete "the Plug" Conlan's relationship with his...girlfriend? toxic is an understatement. She very openly attempts to use him at multiple points in the story, most notably her shitty art show at the first season's halfway point. Her reaction to him calling her out on her bullshit makes it clear that this is the kind of thing she assumes he's okay with based on past experiences and her control over him as he very obviously doesn't have anyone to care for him at the series' start, having lost his family due to his gender identity and not having anyone who cares about him outside of being a source of illicit drugs.

By the time she ambushes him, however, he's learned not only the worth of his duty as Vox Phantasma (a representative of and protector from the Dreaming) but also his worth as a person. He's proven himself a hero at this point during the fight in the subway, putting himself in great danger to rescue and protect Nod, and his friends have made amends for what they said about him behind his back. He has people who genuinely care.

He's also seen what he can be in Kingston Brown - someone with a community of people who love him. Pete, by Ally Beardsley's own admission, lives on a knife's edge. To quote William Gibson, "all his clocks were set for hustler's time, calibrated in risk and adrenaline". Nod actually encourages Pete to aspire to be like Kingston in regards to being part of a community.

So when Priya attempts to use Pete, it backfires and Pete is able to reject her toxicity because instead of being a nobody with no friends, no goals and no-term plans, he's a part of a community, supported by people who care, he has a purpose in life that helps people and he aspires to be someone he can be proud of. In short, he's grown past her and the allure of her toxic behavior.

This point is driven home by one of my favorite lines in the entirety of Dimension 20 - "Picasso is art, this is bullshit!" and the fact that that line, uttered by Kingston Brown, is how he overcomes her once and for all.

This support of Pete (the embodiment of Dreaming) by Kingston (the Waking) and vice verse is something I'll talk about in my next essay, so stay tuned for that, I guess.

[housesunstone]

Sandra Lynn is one of my favourite bad kid parents. Sandra Lynn also feels like she is the most real parent on so many levels. Sandra Lynn is complex and a lot like Fig tbh. We know that Sandra Lynn acts with her heart more often than not which is a trait that Fig clearly picked up on (I mean look at fig multiclassing this season).

But in knowing that and knowing about her past with her dropping out of school then returning to it, and with the stuff that went down with her former adventuring party it feels like Sandra Lynn is always running on the feeling of not being enough. And a mix of self sabotage and self doubt when things are going good and are good for her she runs and ‘ruins’ it out of the fear she will do it any ways. We know her and Gilear were a good couple and Sandra Lynn was happy with him at one point and when things get too comfortable after being hurt some people sabotage themselves. Hence the birth of Fig. And the Garthy thing (tho I can’t blame her Garthy is so good).

I think that same self doubt and self sabotage is the reason why her and figs relationship is so tense in season one. Figs horns coming in and how she is acting is a direct cause of Sandra Lynn’s fears of being not enough and turning into impulse. The way Fig treats her is also a huge fear of her failing yet again. As the season progresses we see Sandra Lynn and Fig repair their relationship and Fig and Sandra Lynn learn to respect each other a lot more.

This is also why I think her and Jawbone are one of the best NPC Parent relationships in Fantasy High. Both Jawbone and Sandra Lynn are both complex characters with complex and hard backstories. Jawbone says many times about what he used to do as a drug dealer and is healing from that and from those experiences he has he’s so relatable, and Sandra Lynn is trying to let her self be happy and know that she deserves it. Both have slip us but neither use it against each other and are very caring and loving towards each others growth.

Now for what prompted this is Sandra Lynn chugging a bottle of wine. She is such a relatable parent and one I wish I had. She knows she’s not the best parent, she knows she’s screwed up, and that she can be a bad mom at times but she is trying. She loves Fig with all her heart, and Fig may make choices but Sandra Lynn is going to show up for her daughter. She travelled with her teenage daughter and her 5 friends (plus Tracker and Ragh). She adopted Kristen, Adaine, Aelwyn and let them live with her and her new boyfriend. Plus Zayn, Ragh and Lydia.

Sandra Lynn may not be the chill and deeply loving Thistlesprings, or the put together Gukgak’s, or even the loving in their own way Seacaster’s. But Sandra Lynn would do anything for her daughter, and is such a realistic complex character it’s impossible not to have her as a fave.

[sea-buns]

Never did I expect myself to be mourning the absence of english essays and writing exams and theatre class critiques. Do you understand how fucking amazing of a grade I could get on an analysis of trauma in Critical Role? On Lou Wilson and Emily Axford's finesse in portraying the heavy expectations and double standards placed on children? On Ylfa Snorgelsson's relationship to death? On the journey of a man's relationship to violence? On an analysis of grief in Dimension 20? On the pitfalls of youth? On the dynamic between humanity and religion? On the journey of self-discovery and acceptance? On love in all its forms? On the nature of choice? On everything Brennan Lee Mulligan has to say about capitalism? On the tragedy of im/mortality? On Gerard and Elody's divorce? On the unfeeling and aimless happenstance of the universe? On the role of fate and destiny? I'm not saying it would be easy. I'm saying can you imagine how fucking cool it would have been to turn in 5 pages about a dnd show, feeling good about it?

[ducksbeloved]

lol i wonder if lucy came up with the "high 5 heroes" party name

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

K but the fact that Kristen is just a regular human being. Just a standard, average person in a land filled with mystical beings and magic spilling from every crack, nook and cranny.

And here's Kristen Applebees, the first born child of typical suburban parents, born into a religious neighborhood where everyone goes to church every Sunday and prays every night and everyone has a white picket fence with a perfect manicured lawn and not-so-subtly shuns those who are in anyway different from them.

Was Kristen not chosen by her God, by Helio himself, because of her perfect average parents with their perfect average house in their perfect average neighborhood?

Kristen wasn't rich, she didn't have a powerful bloodline, her parents weren't important, there was no prophecy foretelling her birth. No, Kristen was an attainable goal. Kristen was a good example for the youth, an example of what could be achieved if you just played along and played your part.

Kristen was destined to be the perfect picture of a devoted follower of Helio. She was the poster child, born smack dab in the center of Helio's flock, surrounded on all sides by followers and moulded into the perfect unquestioning chosen one since birth.

But by choosing Kristen, by marking her as property of a God, Helio gave Kristen power. Power over him, power over good and evil, the divine and infernal. Because Kristen is promised to Helio, because she was chosen by him and prophesied to be his, Kristen wields the power to start the end of days and crumble nations with a snap of her fingers. Should she want to, Kristen could destroy the world by simply not doing that, by not ending up in Helio's afterlife to live for eternity by his side, by proving a God wrong.

And it's with this power, this leverage that Kristen holds over Helio's neck like the sword of Damocles, that Kristen is able to free herself from his grasp. It's slow, at first. Joining a 'risky' school, meeting people outside of the religion, questioning elders, researching history and religions. And she doesn't understand how much power she has, not at first, because the power she possesses isn't magic, but a divine promise and unspoken rules that govern a world that she was never supposed to know.

But despite not having magic, despite being chosen for her averageness, despite being trained to be naive and blinded to the realities of the world, Kristen is overpowered as, if you'll excuse the pun, hell.

Helio creates divine religious scholars to protect her when she doubts and strays from him. Helio creates an entire new deity and religion for Kristen, allowing her to think that YES! (and, later, YES?) is it's own separate power from his and he does all of this, not out of generosity or love, but because he needs to keep Kristen alive. Kristen cannot die before she rejoins Helio's flock or the divine promise will break and Helio would be fucked.

So Helio gave her power under the pretense of it being from elsewhere, solely so that he could keep Kristen alive until he changed her mind.

And then! And then Kristen dies! And is revived. And she's Saint Kristen Applebees now (but the Saint of who?) and Helio has fully given up on her and turned his back on her (but his prophecy cannot be unspoken and he cannot be proven wrong so does he really? Can he really?) and Kristen finds a new God, a broken God and Kristen chooses her.

Kristen names her, creates her, Cassandra the Goddess of Doubt and Night, and Kristen finally has her religion, a source of power that doesn't stem from Helio, she's finally escaped his grasp.

And yet.

And yet, Helio still spoke his prophecy, still chose Kristen and she will always have that power over him.

And yet, in his own foolish shortsighted attempt to keep Kristen within his grasp, Helio still created a deity for her, a separate divine entity that chose her as well.

And yet, Kristen is still the undying, the follower of Night and Doubt, Saint Applebees, Creator of Cassandra.

With no real magic to speak of, with nothing special in her bloodline, with no real talents or money to her name, the perfect picture of normalcy in every way, Kristen has managed to twist the divine sphere around her little pinky finger. She has so much power and she has so little awareness of it.

And also she's going to be President, bitch.