#while talking about dnd | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thepringlesofblood · 3 months

Text

An Attempt at Explaining Bulbian Church Theology

so I watched ACOC a year or two ago, and I watched TRW as it came out, and now I’m going back and re-watching ACOC with that context in mind, and I have many questions.

a few disclaimers

this shit rules. it’s wild how much thought and effort Brennan & Matt put into Bulbian theology and the history and inner workings of the church. at no point am I implying anything to the contrary. this is “tf, guys? (affectionate)” not “tf, guys? (derogatory)”

the order of things is fucked up bc prequel, and bc Matt necessarily did a bunch of it w/out Brennan bc he was a PC. some things have the simple Doylist explanation of “Brennan didn’t think they were ever coming back to that bit” or “it’s a metric fuckload of lore written several years before Matt came onto the project, of course some things are going to contradict.” I know and agree with these reasons. I am coming at this from as Watsonian a perspective as I can - trying to find in-world reasons for things rather than real-life reasons - because I think it’s a fun thought exercise.

at no point am I talking shit about either Brennan or Matt. ik people have a lot of feelings about Matt’s DMing in TRW, but I think he did great, and he added some fascinating new lore about the theology of Calorum which I am eager to sink my teeth into. he seems like a cool dude, he and Brennan wrote some extremely cool lore, and that’s all I’ll say about that.

so. let’s get crack-a-lackin’

Let’s define our terms.

we got our two Big Terms from ACOC - the Prophidian Heresy and the Ramsian Doctrine. The Prophidian Heresy is the only one to re-appear in TRW, as the Prophidian Theodicy. this is bc it was not declared to be heresy (aka fake/against the church’s beliefs) yet, so it was just another theory within the church

we’ve got about four big factions, very unequal in power:

Belizabeth Brassica (& the church under her rule)

the Sanctis Putris

the Archbishop Camille Colliflour (aka the Avatar of Deus Pa’Zuul)

The Few Good Individuals in The Church*

we’re mostly talking about Brassica and Sanctis Putris.

*Saint Citrina, local churches in Candia, certain Bulbians in the Dairy Islands, individual churches here and there across the continent that are mentioned as rejecting the Ramsian Doctrine in ACOC.

The Prophidian Heresy/Theodicy

What it says:

The Hungry One is just as powerful as The Bulb

Reasoning:

this is an attempt to explain the questions of “if the Bulb is good and all-powerful, why are there bad things in the world? If the Bulb is more powerful than the Hungry One, why hasn’t it beat the shit out of him yet, if it is truly a force for good?”

What it means in the world:

this is a part of Brassica’s plot to start the apocalypse, but is not the most important thing for her.

It is however important for the beliefs of the Sanctis Putris, who fight to keep the Hungry One at bay.

Questions/observations:

In ACOC Ep.13, when Brennan first mentions the Sanctis Putris, he describes them as “an order of the Church that did not subscribe to the Prophidian Heresy at all. It looks like they are not about the Ramsian Doctrine and causing the apocalypse.”

I think this is a mixing up of words, and that he meant to say “the Ramsian Doctrine” both times, since the Sanctis Putris is against the Ramsian Doctrine. at this point in the campaign the two beliefs have gotten kind of conflated bc they’re both part of the big Brassica Apocalypse Plot.

the in-world explanation could be that after the war the Sanctis Putris pivoted to a different belief - perhaps that the Hungry One is more powerful than the Bulb. very interesting...

in TRW ep 3 Colliflour says “We know the clarity of the Prophidian Theodicy and the terrible shadow that grows outside of the Bulb's light”

so we do know that before the war at least the Sanctis Putris were into it.

The Ramsian Doctrine

What it says:

The Hungry One cannot be destroyed and the final salvation of all souls cannot occur until the Hungry One devours the world

Some souls are healthy and delicious, but some are unhealthy and garbage - Junk Food (Candians)

The Junk Food souls prevent the Hungry One from devouring the world because it wants a “healthy meal”

Reasoning:

in order to work towards this prized final salvation of all souls and destruction of the Hungry One, one must first work towards the apocalypse. Junk Food must be eradicated from the world for that to happen - whether by conversion to the Bulbian faith* or by death.

*it’s at least implied by Calroy’s letter to Brassica in ep. 13 that since he “renounced his pagan ways” and wants to be re-baptized in the Bulbian faith, he gets to live. whether this is true or not we do not find out.

What it means in the world:

This is the excuse Brassica needs to invade and destroy Candia and its magic. Fun fact: she was actually planning to launch a crusade on the Meatlands too before she got got.

Meat isn’t junk food (i don’t think??), so it’s clear that what she’s really after is destroying the rest of Calorum’s ability to access magic - making it so they have to go through the church to get “miracles” rather than using the magic of the deities in their homelands. that’s not Ramsian, it’s just Brassica being power-hungry and mean.

In regards to the Sanctis Putris, they believe they are preventing the apocalypse by bringing rot and mold into the world. they don’t want the Hungry One to devour the world, and since they believe the Hungry One is as powerful as the Bulb, they want to work to bring mold and rot into the world themselves, to give the Bulb a leg up on the opposition, so to speak.

so, the idea that the Hungry One could devour the world, and that that would be a sort of apocalypse, is shared between Brassica and the Sanctis Putris. the difference is, Brassica wants that to happen so the Bulb can finally defeat the Hungry One, and the Sanctis Putris does not want that to happen, so they bring mold and rot into the world so the Hungry One can’t devour it.

Questions/observations:

So while it sounds kind of like the Sanctis Putris are buying into the last tenant of the Ramsian Doctrine - that the Hungry One will only eat a “healthy meal” - they’re not buying into the rest of it, because their definition of “healthy” is different from the one outlined in the rest of the Ramsian Doctrine. The Sanctis Putris don’t seem to care about “Junk Food”, just rot & mold.

TRW ep. 3 Colliflour: “Through prosperity and peace, Calorum becomes ripe and pliable. It becomes the perfect meal to forever roil and burn within its belly. The hidden scripture, the Festered Tome, it holds the truth that will save us all. The Hungry One will not eat that which is spoiled...Only through death can the lands be stained and unclean. Only through rot can the world be saved and endure under the Great Bulb's light”

the Sanctis Putris depend on conflict vs peace and rot vs growth across the whole of Calorum, while the Ramsian Doctrine depends upon specific people (Candians) being eradicated

in ACOC ep. 13 Brennan says this “The correspondence between the Archbishop Oliver Onionpatch and the Sanctus Putris saying the Sanctus Putris has located the home and high temple of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, and have found the Ice Cream Temple. The date they give, they say that their expedition should arrive there the morning of Harvest Dawn the seventh”

onion boy is a Brassica lackey - a Ramsian. swapping letters with the Sanctis Putris, famously anti-Ramsian. ???

my question is this - why are the Sanctis Putris running errands for Brassica if they have fundamentally opposing beliefs? why are they sending out an expedition on the orders of someone trying to start an apocalypse that they’re trying to prevent?

3 potential reasons

blackmail - Brassica says “I am the head of the Church, this is what’s happening, put up or shut up. Do what I want or I eradicate you”

quid pro quo - a favor for a favor, Brassica is giving them something in exchange for them doing this for her

common enemy

it serves the Sanctis Putris to have the Church be more powerful since a lot of their people are in the Church, and of course it serves Brassica to empower the Church. Killing the Sugar Plum Fairy is one way to do that.

im uncertain though, as the Sanctis Putris has people from all over the place, and potentially at least one Candian who is against it.

although, if the Sanctis Putris intend to split with Brassica, if may also not serve them to have the Church be more powerful.

Compare/contrasting Brassica v Sanctis Putris

Both beliefs are Prophidian, since for the Hungry One to eat everything it would need to be at least equal in power to the Bulb (both groups believe in the Bulb’s inherent goodness, and that if it had the power it would stop the Hungry One from doing this).

Both see themselves as helping the Bulb overpower the Hungry One, Brassica by causing the Apocalypse and the Sanctis Putris by preventing it.

Both identify an aspect of the world that is preventing the Hungry One from devouring it. Brassica points to “junk food”, while the Sanctis Putris points to mold and rot.

I saw a post a while back that positioned the two terms as Belizabeth Brassica’s beliefs vs the beliefs of the Sanctis Putris. This is not the case.

The Ramsian Doctrine [in its totality] is exclusive to Brassica, yes, but the Prophidian Heresy does not encompass the totality of the beliefs of the Sanctis Putris. It just says that the Hungry One is as powerful as the Bulb. the rest of their shit is their own.

the Sanctis Putris do subscribe the last tenant of the Ramsian Doctrine (that the Hungry One wants a healthy meal), but interpret “healthy” as meaning something else, so I wouldn’t say their beliefs are Ramsian overall, even if one idea overlaps.

plus, Brassica also needs the Prophidian Heresy to exist, since it offers a reason for why the Bulb doesn’t just come down and make everything better - it can’t, since it and the Hungry One are equal in power.

now where the fuck does Deus Pa’Zuul fall into this?

Brennan described the feeling of discovering Deus Pa’Zuul as “eldritch horror” and frankly I agree. A lot of the genre of eldritch horror revolves around the unknown, and specifically the unknowable, so as a result we the audience know very little about it.

What we do know

it’s a garbage disposal, and all the implications that carries, included but not limited to

the place you dispose of rotten food

the physical description - blades, tearing, ripping, whirring

it is a force of pure destruction. the things it destroys are erased from existence. there is no eternity in the Hungry One’s stomach, no salvation in the light of the Bulb, you just end.

it can interact with the world of Calorum through visions and impart magic like the Bulb and the Hungry One do, but does so very, very rarely.

The only two Calorans we know of that it ever contacted directly were Colliflour and Raphaniel.

the rest of the Sanctis Putris had no clue that this was where their leader was taking them - Gemelli straight up fights it.

Speculations

while Colliflour certainly seems to think it fits into the main cosmology of the universe, it feels very clear, to me at least, that it does not.

the Hungry One and the Bulb have next to no physical manifestations in the world of Calorum the way Deus Pa’Zuul does.

sure, a spell might sound like a stomach rumble or emit holy light, but no one ever turns into a lightbulb.

The closest thing is that the Bulb is the Sun, but it remains untouchable and unknowable (until some crazy ass pepper shaker makes a spaceship or something).

the physicality of it makes me feel like it’s a smaller, though no less deadly, force than the Bulb and Hungry One.

there’s also the specificity - we’ve seen the magic of Bulb and Hungry One alike do a million different things. Deus Pa’Zuul’s magic seems less flexible - we only really hear it described or emphasized when Raphaniel casts a more destructive spell, like Shatter, and of course in the finale when it took over Colliflour’s body and the room around them.

(this is also probably bc TRW was a way shorter campaign and thus had much less opportunity to show off new fun ways for it to wreck shop)

The Bulb and the Hungry One are balanced - creation and destruction, light and dark. Deus Pa’Zuul feels like an extraplanar monster. I’d say “demon” but that implies that it’s working for the Hungry One, as he’s the Caloran equivalent of the Devil.

but then again, is that incorrect? in-world, it certainly feels separate from Bulb and Hungry One alike. but if we think about the implications of real-life garbage disposals...people are the ones that operate and control them. if the Hungry One is a person, he would be the one controlling what (and who) the disposal grinds up.

Finally, we have the Few Good Individuals in the Church.

Saint Citrina, in the limited scenes we have from her,

encourages Amethar to follow his heart and not divorce Catherine Ghee if he loves her.

creates a holy relic that forces you to tell the truth

has an argument with Archmage Lazuli about the goings-on with the Order of the Spinning Star

Queen Pamelia says in TRW ep. 1 - “Citrina and myself and many others have taken quite lovingly to the Book of Leaves. We just are careful with which sects of the church wish to impose disparate law and rule upon how we worship.”

later we see her sort of disagreeing with her mom as she is steered away from Raphaniel though, and we don’t really know what’s in the Book of Leaves, except that Saint Citrina enchanted it to force truth-telling at some point before her death.

is “useful” to Calroy and his conspirators until Brassica orders her killed. So, one can assume she was anti-Ramsian in some way.

We know that Primsy and most Dairy Islanders are Bulbian, but don’t get much of their specific beliefs.

There is the scene in the Abbey of the Shimmering Cream with Saccharina, where we basically just learn that that abbey (and potentially area in general) is extremely anti-magic and terrible. We don’t get anything about their feelings vis-a-vis the Ramsian Doctrine though.

Primsy opposes the Ramsian Doctrine & Brassica in general once she hears about it though, so one can assume that she and the people around her don’t prioritize or agree with that in their worship.

We know Caramelinda is Bulbian, and she married Archmage Lazuli, so presumably she does not have the same issues with her use of “pagan” magic as Saint Citrina may have.

Other than that we don’t have a lot on her religious beliefs, except that she wasn’t super stoked about Saccharina as Queen, but I think that was less because of her magic and more because of how violently anti-Bulbian and generally chaotic Saccharina is.

When Brassica’s whole Ramsian Doctrine plan gets set into motion, she gets a whole bunch of letters from churches across the continent that are like “um no??? please don’t cause the apocalypse??”, mostly from Candians (who we can assume are generally anti-Ramsian because they don’t want to die) but also from all the other countries.

So. There we go. Lmk if there’s any inconsistencies or anything ^v^

#dnd #d20 #dimension 20 #d20 spoilers #dimension 20 spoilers #trw spoilers #trw #the ravening war #the ravening war spoilers #acoc spoilers #acoc #original post #theology #cw: religion #cw: religious themes #i'm having a neurodivergent 'i need to talk about this or i will die' episode #so here yall go #I lowkey forgot this post was in my drafts #or it would’ve been out while TRW was actually going on lol.

25 notes · View notes

wall-e-gorl · 11 months

Text

hellooooo ive made a uc fankid oc <3 more about her under the cut, so that this post isnt a mile long <3

her name is Dyllin, because i had to, and shes SO cute. Shes got a little lopsided grin, and one dimple, and the cutest smattering of freckles on her nose right where her fur starts to turn pink. Both Rian and Atty are trans, so they raised her gender neutrally until she could tell them who she was herself (thus atty using they for her in that one art), and when she was about 3 she said she was a girl and now she wears all the pretty flowy dresses she can get her hands on (uncle foq supplies many of them)!

in the art above shes: 14, 16 (colored in), 19? (lines), ambiguous age younger than 3, 5?, and also 5. I think that ill mainly draw her as a little kid or around 14, cause those ages are where more interesting dynamics happen with people. Lots of funny kiddy moments, and growing into your own person moments. Which! is what im about in fankids! beyond just drawing a cute kid and having fun with design (which im also all about but just to give an explaination for why im drawing her at those ages). I dont think i want to go into adult ages for her yet, cause for the moment its about her being a fankid for me.

She takes after Chet and mostly Foq much more in personality than either of her actual parents, so shes a very carefree happy-go-lucky kid. To Rian's absolute horror (see below, for their rage at finding out), Foq flounces his way into being a archfey and becomes her warlock patron when shes a little kid, but its alright Aunt Scenda is her cleric deity so shes got a balance for his chaos! (she doesnt balance shit but it does make rian not kill foq over the pact so! whatever works!)

#my art #unprepared casters #off the rails #if you dont want to see her block this tag ->#dyllin wright #(no judgement if you do obvs)#anyway. ive been holding onto her since on the rocks part 2. before we knew they both made it #i made her and then went aw fuck i made a fankid (whoops) for characters that may or may not make it (whoops!)#SO ive been holding onto her for a while cause i was like. doubting myself if i should keep her officially cause while fankids are normal-#for me to make. they arent like usual content for dnd shows i think? it feels a lot more personal and i had a whole debate with myself for-#a WHILE. and it quickly morphed into a debate on whether i should POST her cause i uhh didnt stop drawing her? as you can see?#eventually decided that i would test the waters (talked with friends privately about it and also posted a more like usual oc with kor)#it all went well so i figured id wait til a between arcs week and then post her. and here we are!#we miiight have a post mortem still coming for 12 idr buuuut i want to show her now i think #aaaaaannnnnd POST

84 notes · View notes

sesamenom · 16 days

Note

alright you’ve been extremely extremely kind and indulgent to me about my oc and i cannot possibly thank you enough <333333 so MY turn now to ask YOU about YOURS. please tell me about maglor’s distant granddaughter who is also your bbeg?? .w. or about the chatty hobbits i would very VERY much love to hear about both!!!

~ @nelyoslegalteam, reporting from main <3

(long post, sorry for the random people stumbling upon this lol)

so I'm the dm for the chatty hobbits campaign and essentially it's set in a beleriand-adjacent continent, but with a few extra races and stuff. of the founders of the original settlements, the king of elende (the elf kingdom) is Gil-galad's (invented for the campaign) twin brother Finellach/Finwain. originally he was inspired by the fact that gil galad has a ton of names but only uses ereinion/gil, so I just invented a new character and gave him half the names. I headcanon gil galad as maglor's son, so finwain is in universe maglor's son (left at the havens with gil bc his wife divorced him for kinslaying and his kingdom, being next door neighbors with morgoth, is far too dangerous for small children).

Anyways, his descendant Elinyel (also known as aramire or elinnor) is the current queen of Elende! she's an evil fire-themed bard who is extremely feanorian in all the worst ways - her actual kingdom prospered under her reign, but she just does not care about everyone else as long as she's protecting her people. There were some tensions with one of the major kingdoms to the north (conflict over unclaimed territory between the kingdoms and some tariff stuff), so instead of risking the other kingdom starting a war and hurting her people, she just preemptively invaded it and started burned all the border territories to the ground.

her actual coronation was pretty weird- so she's the second child, but her older sister was born in wartime and there's a general belief in elende that children of peacetime make better rulers, so Elinyel was chosen as her family's heir. her grandfather (the crown prince of his generation) died defending Elende in one of the major wars, but his younger brother and two young kids survived. there's a whole feud between their houses because the brother chose to retain the kingship even after the kids were old enough to take the throne. anyways, two generations later Elinyel killed her cousin Arendil (the previous king of Elende) over a dispute about the legitimacy of his house (and what she believed to be a dishonoring of her grandparents' sacrifice) and took the throne.

obviously she has many Issues. arendil also has two surviving kids who are now essentially trying to stop her from murdering all their neighbors in proactive defense of her people.

however, when she first ascended she recruited her friend group as her elite guard/vassals of the kingdom. (aka the other bosses in the storyline). so it escalated to a war between her forces and the children of arendil, which ultimately culminated in her beloved sister being killed by one of arendil's children. this in turn led to her having basically a massive mental breakdown and feeling like she failed to protect her loved ones (exacerbated by some of her other friends being killed in battles she led). a normal person might decide this is was kind of her fault for starting a war and putting her friends in charge of the army. instead she decided she needed to destroy everyone who could ever potentially pose a threat. which is, in her eyes, literally everyone on the continent (except for her kingdom, of course).

so now she is at war with absolutely everyone of all factions! She is also somehow winning by virtue of Song almost on the level of maglor himself, and ten (now six) also incredibly powerful friends. Anyways, she has decided that the best way to wipe out the continent (except her kingdom) and start fresh is to literally find an ancient lost stone that can break the Doors of Night, summon Morgoth himself, and start the Dagorath. obviously this will Not go well for anyone at all if she succeeds, but she is on a full-on rampage and genuinely believes she (plus friends) can protect her kingdom from Morgoth's army while he wipes out everyone else.

Here's some old art of her btw!

And some slightly more recent unfinished art of her and the Evil Friend Group from when they were younger:

and here's (L-R) her cousin who is the 3rd boss, Elinyel, and her sister from before the war!

#asks #THANK YOU FOR THIS BTW #i only have 1 friend irl who plays dnd and is also not affiliated with the campaign #and they aren't a silm person #so i cannot talk w anyone irl about the Lore #one of the few kingdoms who could really oppose her is the magic one #bc max level wizards might as well be ainur and the monarch of the magic kingdom is Very Powerful #however. said monarch is also the twin sibling of one of elinyel's friends #(who is also an evil lich now and also maybe dating a diff friend who is an evil sorceror? not sure of details yet)#so the super powerful battlemage monarch is remaining Politically Neutral so they don't have to fight their literal evil twin #currently the party is level 6 and just defeated the very-weakened wraith of one of the friends #she was a druid but sort of decayed when she was corrupted and was kidnapping untrained/low level sorcs as servants to siphon power from #and also living in the Grove of Resurrection in order to stay intact #i forgot her dialogue while running the battle so while i looked through my docs i just had her say 'loading please wait' lol #also more chatty hobbit stuff #the grove is a huge grassy area with a walking tree in the middle #so the whole thing is constantly roaming aroudn #the wraith-druid had her castle built on it so she could have a moving castle that also heals her #the grassy part will resurrect any dead thing put on it #for the battle they had to drag her off the grass in order to kill her #technically shes been dead for some years but is surviving via constant contact w the grove #the hobbit (Shade) is from the Alder family who has historically been the guardians of the grove #he discovered he could talk to the tree in the middle and immediately started trying to figure out a way he could use the grove to #clone one of the party members #the tree does not approve of intentionally cutting off people's arms to see if it regenerates into a clone lol #oh! and they found anglachel in the grove. the dragonborn monk wants to keep it

12 notes · View notes

precious-little-bhaalbabe · 5 months

Text

Constantly thinking about the data miner who found cut content of the voice likes of companions learning Minthara was pregnant and everything about that

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #minthara #bg3 minthara #babblestar #reminds me of that bit I vaguely remember #from a naddpod short rest where Emily talked about how she considered that with Moonshine #cause it always interested her as having that NOT take a character out of the story #to still have them fighting and adventuring while dealing with pregnancy and motherhood #cause dnd is FULL of dads (there’s a whole damn podcast about it lmao) but not NEARLY any moms #and that’s what I would want for Minthara. for her to still be her but just have that Also There #she doesn’t become a stay at camp thing. she’s still as bloodthirsty and effective as ever #but she’s just also pregnant and dealing with that emotionally #and no bullshit with her getting beat up either like. no more than anyone else. do not make her weaker #do not make her have to be protected #make her the cunning and vicious Paladin she’s always been #but also do let us fix her in the way that like the team gets to convince her #NOT to parent in the typical drow fashion… drow are not.. GREAT mothers.. culturally #but through the power of communal rearing we can make lil minthy strong and loved #baldur's gate iii #baldur’s gate 3 #baldurs gate #bg3 cut content #bgiii #baldur’s gate iii #baldur’s gate minthara #baldurs gate minthara #baldur’s gate 3 minthara #baldurs gate 3 minthara

23 notes · View notes

bruqh · 1 month

Text

murph naddpod the man that you are

#naddpod #brian murphy #i just #he is just this guy who is like a huge nerd loves dnd and the rules and the mechanics and loves like strategy and gameplay #but he is also this creative genius but i feel like its soooo lowkey like no one is talking about it #but the fucking plot twists he throws at his players are so !!!!!!#the marabelle arc and then final twist and then the Final Twist IN the final twist!!!#like homeboy is throwing insane dynamic high stakes battles every other ep while simultaneously creating a ridiculous fucking story #that is always emotionally resonant with his players and their characters #go white boy go!#thats what happens when emily axford is your muse

18 notes · View notes

serpentoflolth · 3 months

Text

I love how Darian and Tristan hate their respective fathers. Nasir, Darian's father, abandoned him in a temple of Corellon in Evareska, after Amarille, the paladin's mother, died. While Kronos, Tristan's father, does not tolerate his son's extravagance, as well as has always desired him to be a soldier so as to follow in his father's footsteps, instead the Serpent of Lolth has always preferred intrigues and poisons, as well as sorcery.

Tristan loves to spread chaos, while Darian just had to accept Corellon and follow the path this God decided for him. While Tristan shows that he possesses a certain freedom despite being a male drow, Darian is chained to another male figure who happens to be the Father of the Elves, a deity to whom he feels tied, even if it was Nasir who led him to Corellon: an involuntary act of his cruel father.

The paladin accepts what Corellon offers him because he has no other choice. However, both Tristan and Darian have lives controlled by two deities: Lolth and Corellon. One is the antithesis of the other, just like Lolth and Corellon.

#rogue.txt #I adore to talk about my ocs #and these two are truly dear to me #Darian has been one of the first dnd characters I often use during dnd campaigns #while Tristan is my evil drow who acts like a trickster during certain campaigns above all the ones I create #I love them!!!#and you cannot imagine how they're helping me with my depression and other mental problems I have #as well as being the clear demonstration that I can't stand my father #but that's another story #oc: darian #oc: tristan

10 notes · View notes

churchandstateofbeing · 2 months

Text

anyone who ever loved unsleeping city ever NEEDS to listen to rainbow connection from the fucking. muppet movie (trust me) and new york i love you but you’re bringing me down by LCD Soundsystem (this one works best if you’ve seen chapter 2 but it works well w just season 1)

sometimes i turn on one of these two songs to just Think about unsleeping city because as someone who was also born and raised in a massive city that i love with my whole heart and soul it just makes me so full of emotion and i recommend this experience wholeheartedly. my thoughts and feelings about my city are so complicated and the unsleeping city is genuinely the only piece of media ive ever seen that really Got it. cities can feel so heartless and massive but also so magical and fantastic and full of life and hope. possibilities. big cities are about dreams and people and communities, but that means that they can’t stop themselves from changing, for better or for worse. ricky and iga and alejandro and the immigrant experience, the joy and beauty and family and community that a city can be for those who dare to dream. when puck tells misty to remember who her people are, he doesn’t understand that fairy was never hers, that the city is where she feels safe and free and alive. kingston’s elderly mother making him breakfast each morning and sneaking tupperwares into his pockets. it is a beautiful thing.

and sometimes you have to watch that beautiful this killing itself so slow as things and people change, watching the places you love close and the people in power steal them away from under you, when the city feels hostile and too big and lonely. kingston and iga walking around as the new york that they love feels like it’s getting stolen out from underneath them, as stores close or family becomes distant, being confused and hurt and sad as what they remember becomes fainter and the people around them forget what it once was. kingston being willing to kill pete if it means the city will be safe, leaving liz behind, choosing new york over the individual people around him ten times out of ten because it isn’t even a question; the betrayal he feels when epona attacks him in the subway. cody throwing ninja stars at billboards and yelling at construction workers because his mall is going to be destroyed and that’s his world. pete scrolling through his phone with a slice of pizza. sofia doing anything she can to invite people over or avoid going home, because her home is empty. sofia failing to fight the angels to get her husband back because he needs to watch the deer, cutting off her family because they’ve betrayed her so deeply. kugrash reading the letter in david’s office. cities really are easy to hate sometimes, because not every person and community is kind or good or noble, but there’s an illogical and impossible loyalty you feel even when it feels like the buildings will fall down and crush you, covered in this sick oppressive system on a hallowed holy ground, artificial and dirty and so big it’ll swallow you whole. and sometimes you have to accept that things are how they are, but you know that somewhere in here is the ability to fight and change and grow and be together and support one another- pete and nod at the diner and the museum, kingston opening his apartment so pete can get back on his feet, pete saving priya from the burning building and forgiving kingston on the train, ricky refusing to be anything but a good person even when things suck; kugrash traveling around nod on wally’s shoulders and saying it’s okay that you don’t forgive me and driving with esther to see her mother in the park and eating the bagel because even though he was horrible before he wants to be better and he believes he can be; everyone giving their spells to help alejandro catch the train and save nod; saving santa and willy and em and the art show guests and the bodega customers and la gran gata not because they have to but because they can. and while there are never easy solutions, justice can be served and your dreams can become reality- pete taking control of his reality, making his body and his magic his own; rowan talking to the american dream, you are my love and my only true love; sofia at the empire state building- there really is something up there if you go up to look for it, there are people who will fight with you, it is what it is and it is what it could be- the city is almost impossible to love if you aren’t aware that it loves you back, and it does, it does, it does.

#dimension 20 #d20 #the unsleeping city #tried to keep it light on the season 2 content since i’m not everyone has watched it but you could get it just having watched s1 #ok so this started as a music rec thing and somehow became a whole ass essay about the unsleeping city and cities and what cities can be #and while im not from nyc i am from an american city that’s just as big and famous and just as full of heartache and love and people #so tuc and its characters resonated with me so deeply and i need to talk about it i am insane i need help #sometimes a dnd campaign starring improv comedians can be so personal

8 notes · View notes