VINES TRIED TO EAT MY DICK (The MacElroys Play D&D)

there were tiny bits of new material, tiny hints of present tense stuff and introduction of a new character

 

i'm not finished with ep 31 yet, but

Spoiler

the Cool-Ice reveal was everything i was hoping for. i suspected yeti, but OMG A HARP SEAL. that's so much better! no wonder Jake is such an adorable treasure. i love him even more.

 

Spoiler: EP 33

Yeah I fucking ship Agent Stern & Barclay, come at me fuckers

 

Spoiler: not quite spoilers

I did not see that pairing coming but you know what, I’m into it

 

Spoiler: Amnesty finale

Tired: Dani/Aubrey
Wired: Barclay / Stern
Inspired: Duck / Minerva

Jokes aside, a solid ending. Epilogue was great. Big ole smile at our big ole man coming back for one last thing. Not as powerful a story overall for me, but

"This is computers ain't it" has come full circle bc not only was it ALIENS it was COMPUTERS.

This season really could've been stronger but that's what happens when you play a fun game and railroad less. Tbh it's still good, even if I wasn't a super fan.

 

Spoiler: no specific finale spoilers, general Amnesty thoughts

honestly Amnesty was, to me, a much more powerful storytelling experience than Balance ever was. and i loved Balance! but Balance had a clear feeling of playing in someone else's sandbox, even though Griffin did a lot of work to make it his own, and the stakes just felt... much lower, most of the time. even though there was universe-ending stuff afoot. the fact that it wasn't a big deal for Tres Horny Boys to murder whoever got in their way made the NPCs feel less real, less important. meanwhile, in Amnesty, all the NPCs felt so much more real. everyone had ties to other people. "Pigeon Wilson, eh? you Jackie's girl?" in the very first episode sold me, i think. suddenly i care WAY more about Pigeon, because Pigeon has a mom and Duck knows her mom and the whole community feels a lot more real and vibrant. when the stakes are more localized like that, it makes each and every risk they take feel WAY bigger and more important.

i think they made a really smart choice, using West Virginia as their homebrew setting, because it made all the boys much more willing to ad lib relationships and stuff like that. the lack of rails on the story did leave a lot more loose ends untied than Balance, but i didn't think that was to the detriment of the story. overall i honestly was way more invested from minute 1 in Amnesty than i ever got in Balance.

also Justin from downtown in the last 15 minutes, bringing me a ship i never even pondered but am instantly into, god damn.

 

Spoiler: New season extremely minor spoilers

invisible cat invisible cat!!

 

Hello I am loving Graduation but the

Spoiler

crab noises are very bad

 

so is anyone listening to the new season? I am fucking loving the worldbuilding game, it is my exact cup of tea. we haven't even technically gotten into the story and I'm already so invested in this community and the characters. I can't wait to see the various founders cameo or get mentioned by the characters in the actual story :D

Spoiler: spoilers

I think the giant wave at the start of autumn and the sallow sickness were an act of whatever divine being brought them all there. the wave killed a lot of people but landed the Crystal Ascension exactly where it needed to be, in a spot that the builders maybe wouldn't have been able to find on their own with their limited ability to see and navigate and move things around underwater. the sallow also killed people but the survivors seem to be showing signs of mutating into fish people, which if it's actually the case will definitely be useful underwater. both of those seem like the kind of thing that a godlike being who wants the community to survive but isn't really worried about the survival or comfort of individual people would do.

 

you know, I feel like not enough people take into account the fact that Killian's job was to murder her coworkers in their characterization of her

like she's gotta have a real cold side for the Director to trust her to do that

 

the fact that taako and merle got a 1 and a 2 respectively on their arcana checks on Lup's corpse and umbrella is just *chef's kiss*