Hi! I made a funky drawing of a possum screaming and then stuck it on a t-shirt!
If you want to buy it here's the link!

Hi! I made a funky drawing of a possum screaming and then stuck it on a t-shirt!
If you want to buy it here's the link!
I want to talk about how Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves is an excellent use of meta humor applied seamlessly to a story without ever breaking immersion.
Mild spoilers. I'll keep it vague so nothing will be spoiled if you choose to read on
This movie integrates many things that someone familiar with D&D would recognize from the narrative structure of a campaign.
There are some things in particular that demonstrate this particularly well
At one point, the party is joined temporarily by the character Xenk. But he really feels like he'd be an NPC party member controlled by the GM rather than a player. So when the other characters banter and quip, this character doesn't really join in or get their jokes cuz he simply wouldn't have the agency to. More examples of this would be how he's much more capable than the others, but he doesn't overshadow them. He provides aid if it's desperately needed, and will sometimes bail rhe party out of situations they can't manage on their own, just like how a GM should utilize an NPC companion. He even has a quote that perfectly reflects this. "I've given you the tools. Now you have to be the ones to use them". There's even a more direct joke about his NPC behavior. When he leaves the story, he walks off in a random direction, going straight forward, even stepping over obstacles and terrain unnecessarily. This all amounts to him feeling like a very clear GM controlled NPC, however he is presented in a way that still makes him feel entirely faithfull to his own world and does not break immersion
Other ways the movie plays around with the GM campaign structure would be the approach to backstory. The only time a character outright explains what their backstory is, in full, directly to us, is at the very start, to give context for the story going forward, as the character even puts it himself. Backstory later in the movie is told to us whenever it's relevant. Characters will toss in another fact or two about themselves in situations where mentioning a past experience would fit in. Much like how players usually prefer to build their characters.
And one of my favorite instances of being meta about D&D campaign structures comes in the second act.
the characters are faced with a complex and dangerous obstacle. The GM's stand in, xenk, explains the method of progressing through this obstacle correctly. But in true D&D fashion, the party immediately does it wrong and now the campaign has been derailed and the GM's setup squandered. So now they straight up don't have a way forward in the narrative. Logically, it should end there. But that'd be a shit campaign, so the GM would naturally bend the rules to get things back on track. So after the party fails the obstacle, one of them goes; "Hang on, that stick we've had with us the entire time isn't a stick after all! It's actually a magic staff that solves our EXACT predicament at this EXACT time". That is such a clear cut meta joke about GM's having to get things back on track cuz players are all chaotic evil. Is it a plot contrivance? Absolutely. One of the biggest ever. But it's what D&D is built on
there was something really jim henson-esque and campy about how some of the non-human races were portrayed in the new dnd movie that i really enjoyed. they could’ve easily gone the shitty cgi route or just not shown those races up close at all, but no, they said you want a bird man? we’re gonna get you a bird man
The D&D movie is actually good! They really leaned into the humor.
Also, I can’t wait to see gif sets where dice numbers are superimposed over every action the characters take. There were some definite nat 1s in this movie.
I love that the abbreviation of the dungeons and dragons movie is dnd hat. I need seven more movies with abbreviations that make common items. Dnd socks. Dnd fork. Dnd cup. Dnd lizard. Let's make it ridiculous as possible.
I am happy to report that the D&D movie is:
1. Fun
2. Funny
3. Well-written, with an actual *plot*
4. Well-acted
5. Pretty; both the sets and CGI are believable, if not 100% realistic, which works fine with the tone of the movie
6. Clearly created by people who actually enjoy the genre
I liked the part of Dungeons and Dragons when they were in the Dungeon and there was a dragon
Holga obviously liked being married and wants to wife up another halfling (I’m right here and 5’3” queen) but I 100% believe were that to happen she would not move out of Edgin’s home. Instead her weird little husband would just move in and edgin would start making the mildest of protests until he realizes that her man cooks and makes a mean roast
Even beyond “X Corp” just sounding like nonsense, it’s such a villainous corporation name. Like “X Corp” is what you’d call a blatantly and cartoonishly evil corporation in a PS2 game. “X Corp” sounds like it sells obviously and dangerously defective products, not by incompetence but by actual malice for customers, in an early Ratchet and Clank game.
I respect the brand coherence hustle but the new google authenticator logo 100% looks like a butthole
The Dungeons and Dragons movie pulls off a meandering plot because and only because it is a DnD campaign in movie format, and legitimately feels like the writers approached every plot point with a d20 and a well-thought-out alignment chart.
And it is DELIGHTFUL.
Recently, I watched a little video about how people make elevator buttons. Whereas I had assumed they were punched out of giant machines in huge quantities, they are actually machined to precision and then buffed to an attractive, jewel-like shine by a team of expensive, slow-working, perfectionist artisans. This came as a surprise to me, but then I thought about it medium-hard. Have I ever bought an elevator?
To investigate, I did my best imitation of a building, and called up the elevator-ordering people. I made sure to specify a bunch of bonkers configurations, and then sent them the results of a Google image search for “letter of credit.” Then I waited.
It seemed that I had picked a good elevator manufacturer, because it didn’t arrive right away. In fact, after a couple days of expectantly waiting by my front door, no elevator arrived. Not even a greasy technician, sent to take measurements of my shaft. Eventually, I had to go out and get groceries, and I forgot about the whole thing. That is, until a couple of months later, when my elevator arrived.
The first indication that it had arrived was that the neighbour’s dog, who is clinically diagnosed as being terrified of large geometric solids, started to lose his shit. I stepped outside, just to make sure he hadn’t accidentally triggered on my Lincoln Town Car again, and then I saw it in the driveway. A giant Amazon Prime box. With the help of a ladder and a lot of box cutting, I soon had the elevator out of the shipping container. It was a glorious thing: perfect, unmarked stainless steel. Gleaming, flawless buttons. A whole bunch of fancy wires, all labelled for easy maintenance. Nobody had even peed in it yet.
There was only one problem. I had ordered what I thought was a full elevator, but it was actually only an elevator car. I didn’t have any of the rope and computers and motors that are meant to drive it around. What I had, in fact, was a lot closer to a useless box. That didn’t stop me, though. There’s something else I had: the frame to a 1989 Chevrolet Blazer.
Soon, my elevator car was mobile once again. The buttons even lit up, although at night time they flickered a little bit if I was trying to run them with the sealed beams. I will be the first to admit that my sideways-elevator is not perfect. For one thing, it’s really hard to see out of. And it keeps dinging every time I blow a stop sign. It’s still the prettiest thing I’ve got, and, more importantly, the repo men don’t expect to see the elevator they came to seize do a wheelie and then crush their rental beneath 36-inch mud-terrain tires.
I love Edgin and Holga’s gorgeous snarky loyal platonic coparenting partnership with every fiber of my being, and it FUCKS ME UP that Holga is SO loyal to Ed — even when Simon and Doric are (understandably) furious about his plan messing him, Holga’s response is to try to make him feel better — and never once seems to expect the same in return.
One of the very first choices we see Ed make is to run away when Holga’s trapped, and as far as we know he isn’t secretive about it (as evidenced by the fact that it’s included in his opening speech while stealing the Red Wizards’ gold isn’t) but she never holds it against him.
And when he chooses to revive her (which for the audience is a pretty foregone conclusion), she’s SO SURPRISED.
Like, here’s a woman who was abandoned by her tribe because she fell in love with an outsider but who didn’t stop mourning them, who was abandoned by her husband because she couldn’t get over her tribe but who didn’t stop loving him, who met some drunk loser in a bar and decided “welp guess I gotta adopt you AND your kid.” She just loves and loves and loves and can’t conceive of that being reciprocated in any long-term way and I just! Love her! So much!
microwave mimic that just eats the food instead of cooking it
tags written by microwave mimic. "oh just reach in the moment the food is 1 second from ready. yeah your whole arm."
love how the tumblr part of the DnD: Honor Among Thieves fandom automatically made Xedgin canon like
it's magical