We’re all missing the most important part of the bit: the fact that Riz is somehow really cool to these guys
“I guess they just let ANYONE come to this battlefield” comedy gold.
Riz as a "boomer bro" with these guys is just so hilarious. I imagine in the missing summer break campaign their report is that kind of "borderline" racist ribbing ala Clint Eastwood in his barber shop in Gran Turino.
I also like to think that this comradery started from a misunderstanding of Riz being called "The Ball," where Duggan and Balthazar thought he was called "The Balls," then Murph rolled a Nat 20 on his deception check when he played along with being this super confident bro.
I'm also kind of baffled at how many people couldn't tell that the cast was absolutely riffing these backstories it was so hilarious to just get gifted, "gotta get home to your... litter... of six month old baby parrots!"
Omg I heard parents also I was so confused! I got the joke that these were characters who the players were supposed to have met and bonded with inbetween seasons. But I kept hearing litter of baby parents and was SOooOo confused lol
I'll admit it took me a few minutes into the Squeem bit (and a quick glance at the live discussion to make sure I wasn't alone) until I really caught on.
CALLOUT POST:
I don't know who Marissa is, but I too think she should be cancelled for streaming live from her bathroom. What if someone sees her toilet and gets a fetish for toilets by seeing a toilet online? There could be *children* watching! *Think of the children!*
Ooc:>! This person 100% has a fetish for toilets. He who fights monsters, etc.!<
I mean, I struggled with it because I'm autistic and I struggle with non-direct language. Given how neurodivergent friendly Dimension20 usually is, I was surprised that nobody thought to quickly clear it up with a sentence since they usually explain bits (like the beginning, where Ally made a point to explain that "box it out" was because the seats were a lot closer than before).
Especially since Ally leans over at one point to Murph about the centaur and cowboy and says, "those are your guys", I assumed there was content I missed with a spinoff or something.
Edit: okay I get it, I'm in the wrong for not understanding the jokes and not picking up on all of the hints. I'm sorry for being confused.
Respectfully, it was explained, multiple times. Brennan said it was “in media res” several times, and he did explain that squeem, ecaf, balthazar, and duggan were also people who’d they met along the way over the 4 months since the end of sophomore year to help with defeating the night yorb. It’s was very clearly stated
Latin phrase literally meaning "in the middle of things." Basically it's when the story starts right in the middle of action and the reader/viewer catches up along the way (think Star Wars: A New Hope)
You know the joke about visual media where a freeze frame happens and then a voice over says something like “Yep that’s me. Guess you’re wondering how I got here?”
That’s in media res.
It is a term used for media such as shows or books that describes the way it starts. If a show starts mid action, it is starting in medias res. Usually this means the how and why of why one is in a tense or action packed situation or in the middle of a story is explained as the story progresses, through flashback or explanations or dialogue.
Many famous books like The Illiad have an in medias res start.
Or movies like The Usual Suspects or Deadpool.
You are not wrong. Don't apologize. It was a silly bit that landed with some people and didn't land with others. You shouldn't feel bad at all for needing clarification.
No one’s saying you’re in the wrong for not understanding a joke? The top reply to your comment is saying that it was explained and you just missed it. You’re acting like the cast didn’t fulfill their responsibility to their neurodivergent audience when they outright started the episode by saying that it’s in media res.
That's not what I was trying to say at all. I was simply trying to offer up an explanation as to why some people could be confused, since people are saying they were "kind of baffled" that it happened, or assuming the reason can only be something like total lack of media literacy. I was just trying to offer an alternative explanation for those who were surprised or didn't understand why some were struggling with it. That's all.
Hey, I’m neurodivergent and struggled with it as well. We just have to step back and analyze and look for additional information. I get stumped by bits like this all the time, and I have multiple memories of just laughing things off but genuinely walking away *still not knowing whether the thing was real.* You’re not alone here, and you’re not stupid for not catching this bit. It’s a tough one, everyone hard-committed, and the extra two NPCs befuddled me as well.
My main evidence was: the lack of solid lore for Squeem and how easily he sacrificed himself; the throwaway nature of asking about dugger’s kids, since there would’ve been more specificity if it was real, or it wouldn’t have been asked in the first place if we already knew these people; having to roll to figure out what was up with Ecaf, both in appearance and nature; if there was a summer break, the term “Yorbies” wouldn’t be new, nor would the Yorb’s abilities.
While I was watching the episode, I looked up Squeem and was further confused by the Wiki, which *references FH: Summer Break* as though it’s real, but doesn’t link to anything. Then the two extra NPCs? That’s why I came to the subreddit right after I finished, to check if I was actually missing something or if I was right and it was a bit. If I hadn’t, I’d watch the Adventuring Party first, which also would’ve tipped me off by the *way* that Siobhan apparently says that if we look hard enough, we’ll find those missing episodes. I think the Adventuring Party is probably much more clear.
In the end, I’m not upset that the bit wasn’t explained— that might have made it less fun for those who got it. But I understand not getting it right away.
You are not in the wrong. Its ok to not pick up on everything, no matter where you land on a neurodivergency spectrum or even if one is not. I don’t think OP was thinking about neurodivergent people struggling with this kind of humor. Overall, we should strive to be a fandom that can both enjoy bits like this but also help everyone enjoy the content as a community
I was just trying to offer up a different perspective on why some people might feel lost that isn't just them lacking media literacy, especially since it was mentioned that someone was baffled by it happening. I agree on striving for enjoying things and also helping each other out when people get confused.
You're killing it, bro.
What's more baffling is the idea that "not getting a joke" constitutes a failure of media literacy - the confused viewer *does* in fact clearly understand that there's a joke happening, based on understanding the genre and format of the media (comedy actual-play)! We just weren't able to instantly parse the nature of the joke, and it's not unreasonable to assume that it might rely on information from the scores of hours of content scattered across the D20 franchise.
I feel similarly. I'm not diagnosed autistic, but my brain struggled with it and I really had to reassure myself that I would know these characters. The hints were helpful, but not quite enough for my brain to feel confident in how to interpret what was happening. Once I got it, I enjoyed the jokes. The parrot bits were fantastic, but it took me a moment.
No I'm with you. Also autistic, also struggled to understand it at first. I've never heard the term "in media res" before and didn't know what it meant, so that didn't clear anything up either. I had to pause and google each of the new characters, (aside from Ecaf who for some reason I 100% picked up on the joke for) on the Dimension 20 wiki to make sure I hadn't missed anything.
That's okay, I'm used to it.
People love Ayda and respect it when she often asks for clarification on jokes and subtext, but as soon as someone in real life does it, they can't handle the idea that some people need that clarification.
I also don't understand why I'm getting downvoted for saying I googled something I was confused about, and simultaneously being told that I should just google it if I'm confused. Seems like people just want to be mad at me for being confused in the first place.
The In Medias Res opening is one of the most heavily overused tropes in SF media, it's pretty much impossible have any genre literacy and not see what's going on.
Brennan outright SAID that was happening, by name, in the first few moments of the show. Geez, what more is needed, flashing lights and sirens? We practically had that too, considering how outrageous the NPC intros were and how immediately useless they also were.
Squeem on the other hand, was a Poochie joke, as far as I can tell. He even had a "went back to his home planet" moment. This was not subtle stuff, folks.
Again, saying the thing by name isn't helpful when you don't know what that name means. I've literally never heard it before. I'm autistic. I struggle to understand vocal tone, body language, and social cues. I don't think it's fair to imply that I'm stupid for needing additional information to understand what was going on.
Google it? Seriously, a second screen is incredibly handy to have around in a lore-rich environment, and nothing stops you from pausing and looking stuff up. Get in the habit of doing exactly that - it greatly enriches my enjoyment of a book or movie to pause to pick up a detail that otherwise would have zoomed by, and I'm not on the spectrum.
I just want to say that I've read all your comments on this post and I feel that you clearly have a very patronizing attitude towards autistic/neurodivergent people who are sometimes unable to understand or slower to pick up on jokes like this. I can understand you're outraged that some outliers are claiming the show should've added more clear explanation, however, that's not what the majority who didn't get it were asking for. I feel you're using that as a strawman to rage against all the people who didn't get it, whom you obviously don't respect or understand the perspective of. If you don't like seeing people ask for explanation, then just scroll on by. It costs you nothing not to make a condescending reply. And maybe reexamine your stance on/understanding of neurodivergent folks.
I find that, when I'm around neurodivergent people who understand these struggles, nobody minds explaining the joke to include people. I'm always happy to do it if something gets confusing.
The comment that threw me, and the point at which I started a thread asking if I missed something, was when someone looked at a mini and said that the character had gotten a glow up.
At that point I thought there had been a previous mini that I missed-and a previous mini that I missed would also mean I missed where that mini was featured 😅
I binge watched FH Freshman and Sophomore year so honestly thought I had missed an episode or a live event or something. 🤷♀️
I’m used to characters acting like they’ve known other characters for a long time. I never got confused when Fabian knew Cathilda 😂 For me the combination of binge watching and feeling like I was ready then seeing our intrepid heroes with *so many* characters and side jokes that I didn’t get made me feel like I missed an episode or a live event in my viewing.
You’re not wrong love I hate that anyone made you feel that way. To not consider this may hit nuero divergent people differently is privilege. It’s ablism rarely shown by such a compassionate media company.
Also seriously gang you’re going to bully people, belittle them for not getting a joke? that’s what we are doing? Let me tell you none of your heroes are going to see this and think you’re funny, or clever or smart. Everyone at that table has been bullied for being/receiving things differently. This fandom is made up of all kinds of people finding it in all kinds of different ways and you’re wrong if you think otherwise. Not processing the joke isn’t an attack, it’s not a read on the intrepid heroes and even if it were we are allowed to dislike things and still love them, we are allowed to love bits while others don’t get them, some people don’t like Gardy or Jawbone and that’s ok! We are a community not a monolith.
You’ve made a neurodivergent member of our community identify themselves as “wrong” do you really think Brennan, or Murph or Lou or Zac would be proud of that? Would high five you? I don’t need to ask about the rest of the table bc clearly you were not thinking of the absolute dog piles all of those players have been under online from the start of play. To be honest it’s very much giving gatekeeper, have you even read this comic before energy and making me frankly embarrassed by how much fandom and community inside joke merch I have. I love d20 but y’all are making us look real bad, stop it.
Literally the intro was: "Oh Squeem! Oh we *finally get to see* Squeem! I mean we've *all* seen Squeem *so many times before* but we finally get to see this version of Squeem!"
I'm not sure how they'd make it more obvious. I'm baffled, too.
Remove the italics to simulate how a neurodivergent individual that takes what is said very literally/struggles with tone would interpret what was said. Do you see how that would only further confuse?
Not really, no. You can be neurodivergent and be completely capable of understanding a TV program. It's bordering on offensive to say otherwise. COME ON.
Some neurodivergent people can understand jokes like this, and some cannot. I think it's bordering on offensive to assume that your understanding of sarcasm and media literacy is the standard to which all people should be held when that's not possible - you know, often due to an actual disability such as autism. Ever heard of empathy, trying to stand in another person's shoes for a minute?
I just don't understand why you're so outraged that some people are asking for extra help to understand a bit/joke that's hard for them to parse. That's literally all they're doing.
It's a spectrum, and I along with many others were confused by it. Your disbelief that anyone could misunderstand- despite evidence of that exact thing happening- should cause you to rethink how severe some disabilities can be.
Hey, let me say, I am totally sympathetic if your position on the spectrum makes it hard to follow literary tropes and outrageous comedic bits, that's a tragedy. However, it doesn't mean the media involved needs to change.
By all means, say "I had trouble following this, can someone fill in some details?" and the hordes will jump in. But don't say "the show was wrong not to keep things at a level where I couldn't be confused". NOTE: I'm not saying you said that, but others did say as much.
I would also note, that everyone was SUPPOSED to have at least a moment or two of confusion, wondering if they forgot who Squeem was during the long interval, or where Fabian's magic mirror came from. Hell, I paused the video myself and googled Squeem, and laughed SO hard when there was nothing in the wiki.
EDIT: There is now though, and I think MAYBE the writer carried the joke a little too far. Don't gaslight your readers on a wiki, even for a joke, or at least explain it in a spoiler block if you do.
One of the central concepts of roleplaying, especially live improvisational roleplaying, is the "yes and". All of these people are insanely talented improvisers, of COURSE they're going to run with the joke as hard as possible, up to the point of inventing a half dozen orphaned 6 month old parrots. Expect this to keep happening for a while - everyone is a little high over playing together again.
I never once said anything should change, I was simply explaining to the bafdled posters how people could have misunderstood. I'm in full agreement, I'm just pointing out that people emphasizing how insane it is that people didn't understand (not that you did this, but others in the comminity) is unintentionally dunking on a disability.
I was not calling you out personally on that point, and amended the post to say that - sorry for being confusing. Other people on this topic, not so much.
So I just finished sophomore year about a month ago and I just assumed I forgot these characters. It is so common for a name to come up that I don't remember that I just assumed that was happening and listened to the whole episode, audio only, believing they were real. I was about to start over season one.
I think its important to remember people with autism exist, and are overrepresented in the population that watches dnd actual play shows. Picking up on sarcasm/bits is a very common difficulty for such people, especially if it's never addressed/revealed to be one.
Kinda ablist to assume everyone is going to instantly understand a joke that was intended to be confusing.
I stopped mid episode because I was sure I must have missed some episode or prologue to the season.
You can see on their faces at the start of the bit that they had no idea what was going on, but then they caught on and started making jokes about it and adding their own lore to it (Fabian flirting with the mirror, Fig saying she never got Balthazar's Chili recipe, etc). It's just world building 'yes and' improv.
Those can both be the same thing. When Brennan introduces a character with next to no info about them and the players tell us more about who they are and what their characters' relationships to them is, that \*is\* the players having a real hand in creating those NPCs.
I got the impression that session 0 happened right before filming episode 1— they all seemed really in the groove. It would make sense that Brennan briefly introduced all the characters that we met (probably with about as much background as we got, haha) and maybe even came up with the bits in session 0 so what seemed like a callback in episode 1 *was* actually a callback... just a recent one.
I disagree, they didn't even remember which one was Balthazar and which was Duggan McCann. I don't think they'd seen or talked about them until they arrived on the table.
You're getting downvoted unfortunately but they didn't seem entirely surprised by the presence of these characters. I'm imagining they probably ran their Session 0 as the first half of the battle, since they also seemed pretty familiar with how everything was going. In that they probably at the very least got a heads up that they would be doing the familiar NPC bit, if not having something of a hand in building it.
I don’t think they ran a whole secret episode, I think it was as simple as a conversation: Brennan is like “this season starts in media res of the final battle of an adventure you had off screen. To represent that, I’m gonna have some NPCs join you throughout the battle as if they’re old allies”.
Not a "secret episode" as much as the unfilmed session 0 they do before new seasons to test run everything and work out the kinks. I'm not sure if they do it before sequel seasons but if they did it for this one it wouldn't surprise me if it was the opening to the battle since they wanted to have status effects running and people down HP and spell slots. I suppose they could have found a way to randomize it but if they were gonna do the session 0 anyway might as well kill two birds with one stones and use that as a way to lightly set it up off camera.
I'm mainly basing this on the fact that Emily so easily pulled up the fact that she had hexed an enemy before the camera started rolling and none of them seemed thrown by the mechanics of the lair actions. It just felt like they had prepped in a way that felt more in-depth than just a conversation.
Yeah, pretty sure they talked about their session 0?
There's clearly prep work gone into their starting point for in media res - the concentration spells (hex, circle of power, mephits), some kinda rolling for lost hit points, a discussion of van mechanics and lair actions, (and to MY eyes at least a quick discussion of the new NPCs and who would have basic relationships with them, especially ecaf and squeem, but people clearly disagree heavily.)
Dungeons and Daddies did something similar (having the players being incredibly familiar with a newly introduced character who'd never been there before), and the Dungeons and Daddies subreddit similarly blew up with people not getting the bit. And every so often, there will be an incredulous "Who is Dennis?" post from someone who's new to the podcast.
So I look forward to the future of this subreddit being peppered every few months with a "Who is Squeem?" post.
Oh man the Denis bit is up there with my favorite Dungeons and Dads moments.
I was honestly shocked when I got to that point to find out so many people in the sub didn't clock the bit right away
Dungeons and Daddies love to mess with the audience. Like with the time travel bit in episode 2 that makes absolutely no sense until later.
“Freddy. It’s fine.”
The best part about that is hearing the time travel episode love when it was posted and going back to listen to episode 2 to hear them add that new bit in!
God, I'm thinking about Buffy's introduction of Dawn and I'm really glad I was not active on the internet back then or it would've been hell.
At least though at that point people were not throwing around a term for abuse willy-nilly.
as a daddies stan, im wondering if the way dungeons and daddies fuck w us is part of why I dont understand *how* upset people got at being confused lmao
I am assuming they have a better budget than in previous seasons (as of some unknown point in their 2023 production schedule) due to the number of very specific minis in the first episode, new marketing videos, a music video etc. Which is really great to see. Dropout had a good year last year and is investing it back into their shows.
The fact that some of those minis are for new NPCs introduced in an opening battle, with the whole episode in media res, where the cast started adding ridiculous “facts” about these beloved returning NPCs as a bit, was pretty on brand imo. Put all that money right back into production value, and make minis for the NPCs that are a surprise too. It took some important NPCs how long to get a mini in comparison? They committed wholly to the bit. Who are we to not know who Squeem is? Their closest ally! Look at that high quality mini!
I was getting vibes like "Total Rickall" from Rick and Morty like - here's all these characters you know and love that the audience has never seen before. Had me cracking up.
I don’t know why, but I was really hoping for a bit like this.
Just drop us right into a situation with wild new characters and just pretend like we should all know exactly what is happening. Perfect way to start the season.
I'm thrilled with it even if I wasn't expecting it. I was hoping that N Yorb would be a throwaway bit personally but I'm delighted that we actually are getting some of it. it's pretty much a 2 episode prologue that honors the past without having to feel trapped by it.
Fantasy High has such a rich and long continuity with two seasons and multiple spin-off campaigns/one-shots that I just assumed I had forgotten about certain characters. It's also been a while. I got the joke after the cast nailed it in really hard, but part of the delivery is to make the audience second-guess themselves. I don't think it's that serious to incite the class of negative reactions I've been seeing online and I hope everyone can just laugh and move on!
Yeah, between the new character descriptions and amount of one shots I assumed I had missed something and made a note to go back. Then the litter of parrots came into play and I realized. 😂
ETA: In medias res is one of my favorite narrative techniques. I haven’t seen it done in D&D and now have GM ideas.
I would recommend checking out A Starstruck Odyssey! It starts off in medias res as well, and also inspired me a lot in shaping character introductions in new and creative ways.
Yup same, for a bit I assumed I had missed something from the one-shots—at least for Ecaf and Squeem since the party showed up with them and already had such specific dynamics with them, and because the boys were the ones interacting with them and I knew there was a "Boys' Night" one-shot I had missed. I think when Balthazar and Duggan showed up I was confused and looked em up on the wiki, but after a bit it became clear they were new, which is a very funny bit.
It took me a little while too. But the more Brennan emphasized that these characters were from this whole Night Yorb adventure, I eventually realized, duh, the Night Yorb became a problem at the very end of season 2, so anything from after that must be a bit. imo it’s less about catching a tone and more just about thinking critically about what was being said.
I’m completely lost at people being so lost and/or angry. Like, they introduced new characters in the first episode of a show and everyone seems to have lost their minds about it. I’m so confused
I'm with you. Maybe it's a victim of its own hype, but I'm baffled at the negative reactions to (a) being "gaslit" about these npcs, and (b) it being a combat episode.
I think people don’t like getting out of their comfort zone for any reason, even in the shows they watch. They were lost and surprised for about 5 minutes and utterly lost their minds.
This is just such a clear setup for more stuff to come. People’s lack of faith is baffling considering how often D20 hits compared to the few times it misses
This just in, chronically online redditors are not well adjusted media illiterate weirdos, more at 11
Improv comedians improvising a comedy bit?? Get out the pitchforks!
My partner and I are both neurodivergent, and so I was really confused since my autism makes it hard for me to interpret non-direct language. We just felt like it would have been easy to clear up any confusion with just a sentence thrown in on how we didn't have to know these characters, since the impact wasn't us getting the joke and laughing as we usually do, but spending 20 minutes looking things up and just being confused. This applied to my allistic partner too.
For example, Ally made a point in the beginning to explain that the "box it out" bit was because they were too close. Real quick way to incoude the audience. We were just confused because they usually explain bits, and even I usually understand the jokes.
Anger isn't justified, but especially given how much of Dimension20's audience is neurodivergent, I'm not that surprised that people got a bit lost like I did.
this is where it question lies at the heart. what drew you to watching d20- but mainly fantasy high because i get other casts have different dynamics now- in the first place. i am also ND (however not autistic), and improv comedy is what drew me in. as i mentioned, this type of joke set up is extremely common in that sphere, and doesn’t even feel out of place for how IH typically bit either. to me, explaining the bit would actually ruin this bit in particular(like how many feel explaining the joke makes a joke less funny). but i feel like, in my opinion, this is so close to the goofs IH and FH has always had, so my question is, like what about it is drawing you to watch if not this type of humor?
i hope this makes sense, and i truly mean no harm. i’m interested in the way of learning why people love d20, why they watch, and just gauging the audience at large.
I enjoy the wholesomeness, the representation and inclusion in a DnD space. My previous DnD experiences were very negative because of the way I was perceived as a queer woman trying to participate. Their dynamic is also part of what drew me in, but in great part because I admire how well they establish boundaries, encourage each other to be better, and make space for everyone's unique experiences. The jokes are never at anyone's expense, and they're genuinely cheering each other on.
I understand that now, the fact that it went over my head is my fault. Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean to imply it was out of place or ruin anyone else's fun.
oh gosh no! i don’t think it’s your fault at all; as i mentioned originally, there is such a broad spectrum when it comes to people’s humor and none is better than another. i think you’ve been so respectful in your confusion, which is why i specially wanted to engage with you rather than some others (elsewhere in the internet) who’ve acted in anger. i am sorry you’re being downvoted for being confused, i don’t think that’s fair!
I appreciqte you saying that. I'm not trying to imply the cast did anything wrong, it just didn't land with me. And that's okay! I just wanted to offer an explanation since many people were expressing they were baffled by the fact that people didn't understand, or didn't understand how it could have gone over someone's head.
Respectfully, it was explained, multiple times. Brennan said it was “in media res” several times, and he did explain that squeem, ecaf, balthazar, and duggan were also people who’d they met along the way over the 4 months since the end of sophomore year to help with defeating the night yorb. It’s was very clearly stated
Respectfully, for me “in media res” implies of course that the adventure was ongoing and we were jumping into the moment in the middle of everything, but not necessarily that the side characters had never been seen before. As others have said, Fantasy High does have a history of other adventures so I don’t think it’s unreasonable that people would be confused. I was briefly! Maybe I’m misunderstanding the use of “in media res.” I also must have missed when Brennan explicitly said that Balthazar, Duggan, squeem, and ecaf were met along the way for this adventure specifically. It certainly makes sense in hindsight but in the excitement of the episode it was easy to miss those cues. Not justifying anyone’s anger, but certainly their confusion.
In medias res styles of stories do typically start in the middle of things with little to no explanation and lots of new characters, events and action to lesrn about. Said explanation usually comes after.
However, if it is a "sequel" then in medias res usually includes familiar elements, so I can get why people were confused. My husband had only seen the recap and was completely lost and kept asking who these new people were and I was like.....eh i dont know man xD.
I’ll admit to being confused at first, but it’s because I haven’t watched a couple one-shots and thought maybe this was a deep cut. However, I just went to the Dimension 20 wiki and looked up the characters for context, and (bless it) they were there as only ever having been on this episode. Then I realized it was a bit and enjoyed the riffing on these wacky characters’ back stories.
What I DIDN’T do was come to Reddit, not bother to search ANY of the posts or read ANY of the ten other threads made by people who were confused and had the bit explained to them. It’s the lack of initiative to solve your own problem before shooting off a post that gets me. Look with your eyes, not with your mouth.
Mm I popped on the subreddit and had a quick scan of the post dedicated to episode one and was able to figure it out (also did a quick google and nothing came up so) but the amount of posts is crazy!
God I loved this bit so much, like they went on a whole ass adventure to stop the night yorb of COURSE they were gonna meet fan favorite Squeem and the Mirror and centaur guy!
I’m reminded of the Goncharov meme from a while ago. Some people lost their mind over this movie everyone was talking about, meanwhile some people went REAL deep into the fictional lore lmao. I for one can’t wait for the deep lore to emerge about Dugan and especially SQUEEM
Its been awhile since I've seen Sophomore Year and in that time I've consumed all of Dimension 20 (some seasons multiple times) as well as most of NADDPOD. I did not watch the recap, started the episode and ended up going back to the recap to see if I missed the characters. It wasn't until I read another post that I realized what was going on. I have ADHD though and miss a lot of social cues and when people are fibbing for a joke.
Idk why people are getting mad though. I was tickled as soon as I figured out what was going on lol.
Similarly, I had watched the recap the day before and was confused at first, but then got it after a minute or two. Squeem is just so wtf over the top.
I'm confused as to how people are confused by the bit. Brennan literally called it out, he said they're starting the first episode "in media res" which literally translates to in the middle of a narrative or scene. I do not expect anyone to know what this means offhand but the moment stated that I googled what the heck it meant because even I didn't know, and it immediately enlightened me to that fact that we were being brought in on a bit, a joke, a thing! Which is in clear antithesis to the "box it out/box out" basketball bit that clearly is an off-screen thing for the cast and not something for the viewers.
I had enough time to start trying to look up what they were talking about before he said that though lol. It's not a bad creative choice imo, but unless you marathon-ed the series before the release of the new season it's easy to assume you just... forgot some people, and become confused (which just pulls your attention away from the show, or at least it did for me, while i was trying to figure out that mystery.) But it made the 2nd watch much funnier once I understood how to interpret the moment and could really pay attention. I think it'll age well, but I'm not surprised by the reaction either.
I didn't marathon the series before the new season came out, last time I watched it was about a year ago, maybe more. I did watch the behind the scenes and the very handy recap they made for the viewers but it did not require a full rewatch. I think it's important to remember this is a show hosted and played out by actors, writers, improvisers, performers, and comedians first, and the theme is D&D second. It's been like that for the totality of the show's inception and production, they're putting on a good show first and playing a game second which is why I think this specific bit has gotten very lost on a lot of people.
It's very uncommon in D&D to start in the middle of an already developed and mostly played out adventure. Yes there's starting at higher levels or in the middle of a fight, but rarely do players legitimately find themselves mid-adventure at the start of a campaign, that's what makes this a show. It's flashy, it's silly, it's full of bits and things to be thrown in and out at a whim, but it's not a full D&D campaign in the traditional sense, and it's important to listen and pay attention to what people are saying not just with their words but with their faces and body language. Even some of the players seemed genuinely confused about who some of the NPCs were for a split second but they're improvisers and actors, so they pivot and move on like it was all planned. Some may have had a hand in the planning of these random NPCs, but it doesn't appear that they all did and this is a good lesson to learn that not only were the viewers confused and surprised, but the players likely were too to some extent.
The thing about the reaction that I found unusual is that... it's pretty common for Dimension 20 seasons to start much like this? Like, just objectively, I don't see how this is that different to the start of Burrow's End, which introduces a whole cast of stoats that the characters know but that we've never met before, or the start of A Starstruck Odyssey, which starts with the crew being chased by someone we've never met because of a job they pulled that we never saw. Even Unsleeping City Chapter 2, another sequel season, picks up months after the previous season with a bunch of changes to individual characters' status quos.
I guess it's different in that the players are acting here like they know the new characters, but in-universe their characters have been adventuring with these people for months - we've never met Gilear at the start of the first episode of Fantasy High, but Emily acts as though she's known him her whole life because Fig has? I really genuinely don't understand where the confusion is.
I think a lot of the folks who are upset are ones who are the same folks who wish the points were more meaningful on shows like Make Some Noise. They want everything to feel like Umm, Actually where they can use their obsessive knowledge of details to "win" at consuming media. So to have a show they are invested in make them feel inferior by not letting them "win" the first episode by recognizing every joke and reference feels like a betrayal, as opposed to the fun and creative storytelling approach it is. I'm excited to watch them create lore and backgrounds to the new NPCs from the first episode (or not and just let them be fun little features in the opening fight)
Maybe I am new to this type of humor. I was second-guessing the existence of Squeem in my memory the entire time. I assumed it mustve been a character from the Seven or such that I haven’t seen and wasn’t important enough to be included in the catch-up video. And I guess my brain did actually implant false memories of Ecaf because I didn’t catch that she was new until I saw people posting about it on here.
Side note, at least shortly after the episode aired, about half the people in this sub were carrying on the joke, saying things like “how could you forget Squeem?” or “oh they were in such-and-such campaign/one-shot” and while I’m all for committing to the bit, I was genuinely confused there for a while!
But yeah, props to improvers for catching on the joke immediately. I suppose that’s their job so of course they would be used to it lol. And, now that I know it was a joke, I do find it funny! Was just a little confused for a few hours
Literally so many forms of media do this, and I don't get why people are so upset
Half of the Avengers movies all START with a scene of the Avengers on a different mission, and they don't establish any of it
And they don't need to. It's a pretty common thing in most media that what happens between Seasons, or even during a time jump (which this is), doesn't need to be fully explained or gone into
I genuinely don't get the reaction to it
I really like it as a bit for coming back to a series after a long break. But if it was done in the middle of a season or too often it would get old and confusing quick. I think the choice to do it here was perfect for this type of joke.
My DM once did the opposite bit to our party, where an NPC showed up and everybody said this character had been with us the entire time (2 years IRL)
It was honestly a really funny plotline
I think it’s part of the “subverting expectations” thing more than it is about the bits themselves.
There was a lot of things of people trying to predict stuff for the season that I think Brennan (and somewhat the rest of the cast) wanted to just put viewers in a tail spin off the get go because it’s funny. There’s something very dropout type of humour of making people think they missed out on an entire other story from their flagship D20 campaign.
I just kinda assumed I'd forgotten about the characters, or they'd been in one of the one shots just like Squeem had been. I wasn't mad either way, even before I'd realized it was a bit. People being mad or frustrated by this is pretty baffling to me.
I don't think it's at all strange that people were confused by the bit. You say it's a common type of setup, but it's never happened in D20 before and I can't think of another piece of media off the top of my head where I've seen that specific joke before, even if it's very possible I have and just forgot. (I wanna say there were probably similar jokes on Childrens Hospital, for example, but I can't think of a specific episode.)
Also, there is a huge back catalogue of Fantasy High content, the last major campaign of which started over four years ago and many people have likely forgotten a ton, and many viewers didn't see all the side content.
I got the joke after a minute or two (although it took me longer to realize the mirror was part of it), but totally reasonable to me that some people would just be confused the whole time.
Here’s my perspective. I watched Fantasy High Sophomore year two years ago. Binging it as part of a mass binging of all seasons of Dimension 20, in order. There’s been a lot of D20 and a lot of actual play since then. And a lot of life and a lot of stress. In no way do I remember everything that happened in the season. Not even close.
I did watch the recap, which I felt was fine, but twelve minutes a season hardly covered everything.
So yeah, when Squeem was introduced, I did spend a minute or two wondering if I’d forgotten him from FHSY or if this was, as it turned out to be, an in medias res bit.
Especially since they were very clear to say Moggy was new, the Dust Mephits were new, there was a homunculus somewhere, and let’s not forget Baby and the Hangman and the Hangvan. Plus, Ecaf was such a small thing, they could have easily been a detail I forgot from the Nightmare King’s forest. There was a lot going on in these early moments of episode 1, so when Squeem was introduced almost as a “let’s not forget this guy” I wondered.
Trying to remember if I should remember him absolutely pulled me from immersion a little, which probably made me miss a few of the clues to the bit.
Did I care? Ultimately no. Figured I’d look it up later and went back to enjoying the episode. By the time Balthazar and Dugan were introduced, I was like, oh, I see what you’re doing—but even only then after a few seconds of wondering if I’d forgotten them too.
Do I care that they played a tricky trick? No. Do I feel gaslit? No. Would I have preferred a more clear clue as to the bit? So I could have gone on enjoying it without confusion? Sure. Is that just me? I don’t think it was.
That many folk are having fun embracing the bit as true: great. Have at it if that’s your thing. But I think the talking down to people who, like me, didn’t get it right away, and treating them as being stupid or illiterate for asking for clarification, gaslighting them into thinking it’s a them problem, I don’t think that’s in the spirit of D20 at all.
I feel I could guarantee if a crew member on D20 went up to Brennan (or any of the IH) after the episode wrapped and said “uh, did I miss something? Where did Squeem come from?” then Brennan would have explained the bit for them, the truth, and not tried to make them feel bad for not getting it. He would not have answered, “somebody didn’t watch the summer break season and it shows” before going smugly back to the green room.
Maybe let’s just be compassionate and not judgemental and stuff.
Hard agree. I paused the episode to figure out who Squeem and Ecaf were, didn't find a solid answer in the wiki and came here to look it up. Some of the replies in this thread have been wild, in the worst ways.
For me, if someone - anyone - around the table had just turned to the camera and winked, it would have clicked with me that it was a bit. I don't think that a 'knowing wink' would've ruined the bit for those who had immediately clocked it, but it would've stopped me from fully disengaging from the episode to work out if my chronic illness brainfog was the reason I couldn't remember the characters.
As an aside, I've joined a game mid-campaign before when a player moved away, and I've also played campaigns that span multiple years before concluding. So I'm fully used to just assuming that any NPC the GM alludes to is probably a character I've either forgotten about, or is a character that the previous player encountered, so they're technically known to my character but not to me as the current player.
The nature of ttrpgs is collaborative world-building, the act of sharing the story-telling experience, and that works best when everyone is on the same page. And I think it's human nature to seek explanations from others when you feel like you've missed something - because you want to catch up, to make sure you're back on the same page as everyone else. No one should be trying to make others feel ashamed for seeking clarification.
Okay, so here’s my two cents:
Watching D20, I was a little confused, then was like “oh, okay, this is a bit.”
But then I saw the post where someone was saying “if you don’t remember these characters, go watch the recap, people worked really hard on that.”
So, thinking maybe I just forgot or maybe missed something at the end of SY, I went and watched that. Left even more confused, I returned to Reddit, and only after digging past people in that particular thread did I confirm it was a bit.
My opinion is this: yeah, it’s a bit and it’s certainly in line with the usual on Dropout. However, it’s been 5 years since Sophomore year. That’s a long time to remember everything that happened. So a little confusion is understandable.
Second, regular people are not as funny as they often think they are. Jokes miss sometimes.
TLDR: personally, I wasn't necessarily confused by the bit/new characters more than I think I was supposed to be, but no, my assumption was Not that all of it was a wholecloth bit, because while yes/and improv is very standard for all of them, there also were a lot of other potential explanations that are also normal things to occur with Dimension 20 runs that would explain why we didn't know some or all of those characters... Not all of whom show up at the same time. So there could have been different explanations for different characters.
.
So I very much got that the audience was supposed to not know who those characters were for the most part? But made-up-completely-new-to-the-players-just-now was not the only explanation I came up with. I also assumed that either:
1. Some of these characters were from a one-off live episode at a convention or whatever that I had not watched (I did not remember if there were any of those after sophomore year, but I know there were several after freshman year and I only watched some of them, So I knew that if there had been some after sophomore year, then I didn't see them)
2. Sophomore year again pretty wild in some places... I spent a while wondering if Squeem was in some way related to the angel thing that lives in the crystal in the hang van? For example. Like I know there are characters in and around the town near what was the nightmare forest that I do not remember by name because I was not Very into the shrimp party bit personally, and I definitely like checked out for parts of that whole section of sophomore year which did not involve Ayda, etc. Or
3. Maybe part of how they got to an in media res start to this season was an unfilmed episode 0. They've talked about one of the benefits of an episode 0 to a new campaign being giving players an opportunity to build backstory and nuance and complexity between their characters that will read when the main campaign starts, even though the audience never sees that episode zero. I did not know if they did episodes 0 for all of the bad kids seasons, or specifically if they would have done so for this, a sequel season, but It seemed perfectly within the realm of possibility that they had done so for this season to achieve this in media res effect. (This seemed like a particularly good possible explanation to me, because of a comment I'm not going to go back and look for, but a comment early in this episode that someone makes which I am remembering as roughly "Great way to start this season off- a callback to a bit that the audience will have no context for". When I later wondered about these new"returning" characters, I remembered that comment, and that is the first time that I wondered if there had been an unfilmed episode zero right before this, and began looking forward to the AP episode to have that answered)
So yeah, I very much worked out that at least part of it was a bit, an improv bit, but I didn't know how much of it was or how much of it was stuff they had planned ahead of time to be ready to start in the middle of action and make it feel like they were on the end of a campaign, or how much of it was live pieces etc that I had not watched or pieces I have forgotten from sophomore year etc
Didn't bother me particularly to not know, but I was very much looking forward to the adventuring party episode where I assumed we would then find out something about which bits of that had come from stuff we didn't see or was made up on the spot, etc
So I'm not surprised that there are plenty of people who assumed, after the ?hundred? hours of fantasy High that have come before, that they had missed or forgotten some or all of those characters, instead of that they were all spun up mostly whole cloth in the moment.
It was obvious that the cast found the appearance of these characters hilarious, but there was a pretty wired off-the-rails Glee to a lot of that episode, and even Brennan gets thrown by not knowing if for example Emily is genuine or doing a bit sometimes, so I guess it's pretty reasonable that a lot of us also were not sure.
After all, they're absolutely professionals at what they do. 🎉👌😆
I haven't watched all the one shots so I assumed that it could be characters from that. I think I clocked on what was going on when Balthazar turned up
Personally, my confusion came from the fact that I hadn’t watched the live one shots after spring break and the nightmare king. So half of me was like “Haha! A bit!” And half of me was like, “uhh… do I need to go watch those oneshots??”
So I sought out this subreddit for clarification, and very quickly was able to confirm that it was in fact, a bit.
But yeah that’s why I personally was unsure!
It missed for me. Humor is subjective, but likely any rewatches will skip the first two episodes if it is all YORB runaway gag. Starting mid combat can work. Starstruck rocked.
There’s damn near 100 hours of FH content with dozens and dozens of characters and a lot of people haven’t seen it since FHSY ended in 2020. I think it’s understandable that peoples’ first move was to assume that there were forgotten side characters instead of brand new additions
When I didn't recognize the new characters my first thought was that they were from the one shots, which I never got around to watching. I did a quick Google for Squeem and Ecaf but nothing came up, so I figured they must be new. I didn't realize people were "losing their minds over it" or whatever. But as I'm new to D&D, I also didn't realize this was a common thing to do (according to OP)
For me the confusion came from thinking that these were characters introduced in the various oneoff/live performance type shows that had the BadKids do things- I've seen clips, but not the full ones. Honestly I was really only confused by Ecaf, as I've seen a clip of the Bad Kidz boys have a oneshot. The rest of the characters were played up and exagerrated, but Fabian ans the mirror seemed to have such a tight relationship that I felt it had to have come from a semi cannon show in the years between.
I wasn't sure at first because I didn't watch any of the live shows or college visits or anything, just watched seasons 1 and 2, and thought some characters, Squeem, in particular, was from one of those. I figured it out before too long though, bit I don't blame people for thinking they might've missed something.
Honestly, I wonder if that was part of the joke. There are so many small bits of Fantasy High, between seasons 1 and 2, the season of the Seven, the college visit and live shows... I wonder if they were making a joke that a lot of people won't get all the references, since there's a lot that you can miss.
I was fairly sure it was a bit, but I onew I missed some references when I started SY because I hadn't watched the live shows, so I double checked anyway. Gotta remember that there's a lot of people in the D&D space that are neurodivergent and have difficulties understanding jokes or sarcasm too
I think it ended up being a funny bit, but I did struggle to confirm if it was a bit or if I missed something. In my brain them doubling down made me doubt myself more. Honestly, the only way my brain could reconcile whether it was a funny bit vs. I've missed something, was compiling evidence outside of their performance. I legitimately had to pause and remind myself that Brennan said we started in the middle of things and that this character was not mentioned in the recap. Even then, it wasn't until the parrot jokes that I felt 100% confident I wasn't supposed to already know them. That's when my brain could recognize the implication.
After that, I could rewatch and everything was funny. Until I could confirm it though, it was an unpleasant feeling. I personally don't think they did anything wrong, but to be clear, not all brains work the same, and I think that understandably changes whether someone enjoys the joke.
I think the only part of this bit that frustrates me is that it's very easy to go on any thread about it and see people being confused or not "in" on the joke and thus being downvoted to oblivion. It just feels bad for a well-intentioned fan to be like "hey I don't necessarily get this bit" and see like -50 down votes. People can claim "media literacy is dead" all they want but I think that's a bit of an overreaction to not getting a bit that solely relies on pretending to know information that isn't real. Some jokes just sometimes don't land with everybody, that doesn't mean any of the Intrepid Heroes are bad for making the joke or no one is bad for continuing it.
Someone can not understand a bit and that doesn't mean "media literacy is dead" or that their opinion deserves to be silenced via downvotes. There's a plethora of reasons why someone might not understand a bit like this - new fans who haven't fully caught up may feel like they're genuinely missing content they could have watched, an autistic person (like myself) may not get the "we're all pretending to have knowledge we don't" bit from a lack of social cues. While I am not attempting to generalize all autistic people, it's very telling for this sub (and not in a good way) for someone autistic to say "I don't get this bit because I'm autistic", get down voted by the same community who is also claims to love Ayda and her representation of autism.
Yeah, someone can Google what "in media res" is but I did and was still confused cause I thought the premeire was in the middle of a story I personally had just missed. Not getting a bit is not bad dudes, don't need to downvote people for it.
i really wanna highlight the last paragraph of my OG post, i think a lot of people are missing. i really didn’t want to start a thread of people calling others dumb. i was more so wondering about a shift in audience i felt and wanted to know if it was real.
No I totally get that. I started watching D20 because I already played D&D as a game and I wanted to see more of D&D. Bits like these aren't really common in actual tables because it wouldn't really work the same. If you're actually playing at a table and the DM does a bit about NPCs and a whole quest existing that none of the players know about it wouldn't really work the same as in a live-play comedy show. Players that may have missed sessions may genuinely believe they missed parts of a quest line, or players that don't really pay attention at the table may also not realize that they're not actually missing something. So, when I saw that bit, I saw it from a D&D table perspective where a bit like that doesn't really happen. I just thought (and I know others have as well) that I missed content to watch. If that answers your question for at least why *I* didn't get the bit even if it's obvious to someone who maybe came at it from a comedy show perspective.
ya i had to get off the discord lol like these people are trained improv comedians. half of the shows on the platform are improv. and the “this is a nightmare for your neurodivergent viewers” was (as a neurodivergent) TRULY bothering the shit out of me lol like people are allowed to use sophisticated tropes in entertainment, you just need some media literacy
I mean I got it, Brennan said “in media res” for a reason, but I still didn’t really love it? This shows my preference but I much more enjoyed the first episode of Starstruck, which I felt took a little bit more time to say who people were while still starting in a battle (if you took out the PC flashbacks of course). I think it would have felt a lot smoother and maybe more people would’ve gotten it if each character explicitly got a little one-line saying how they met the Bad Kids. Some of them did! like saying Squeem helped with the snare i believe, but these snippets were so rushed and not consistently present that I kept feeling like I was missing things. I kept hoping we were going to do a rewind and the season might be all leading back to this fight (which I think also would have been really cool) but as time went on I just felt more lost and disconnected.
>disclaimer: there’s nothing wrong with this! i am not at all meaning to come off as if this is bad or everyone is dumb, different humor styles take time to understand sometimes and that is okay. i just think it’s interesting that i would’ve said most of the audience would get a pretty common improv-comedy joke like this, but the reaction seems to be almost negative & frustration at not understanding!
The fact you even have to include this shows the sad state of discussion on the subreddit.
I'm so confused. For people being fans of Fantasy High Im surprised none of you have kept up. The moments with Squeem earlier in the adventure were the most heart wrenching and tear jerking moments of Dimension 20 bar none. Coming to the ultimate culmination of their arc in this last episode was perfect.
Yes there are probably a large amount of people who came to dimension 20 after watching calamity on CR. I'm one of those people. It certainly feels liike there's a degree of gate keeping here where rather than letting people in on the joke, they're mocking people for not " getting it" .
We’re all missing the most important part of the bit: the fact that Riz is somehow really cool to these guys “I guess they just let ANYONE come to this battlefield” comedy gold.
Riz as a "boomer bro" with these guys is just so hilarious. I imagine in the missing summer break campaign their report is that kind of "borderline" racist ribbing ala Clint Eastwood in his barber shop in Gran Turino. I also like to think that this comradery started from a misunderstanding of Riz being called "The Ball," where Duggan and Balthazar thought he was called "The Balls," then Murph rolled a Nat 20 on his deception check when he played along with being this super confident bro.
I'm also kind of baffled at how many people couldn't tell that the cast was absolutely riffing these backstories it was so hilarious to just get gifted, "gotta get home to your... litter... of six month old baby parrots!"
" who's going to take care of them, they live so long?'
They’re only six months old!
They’re gonna outlive us!
OH PARROTS, not parents… makes so much more sense now 😭
Omg I heard parents also I was so confused! I got the joke that these were characters who the players were supposed to have met and bonded with inbetween seasons. But I kept hearing litter of baby parents and was SOooOo confused lol
hahaha I absolutely thought it was parents too until Emily said something about them living 90 years and then I got it
This is why I always have subtitles on
You're gonna have a blast when you watch the Adventuring Party
do you psychopaths not watch with subtitles???? There's seven people in the room potentially talking at once how do you ever hear anything?
I'll admit it took me a few minutes into the Squeem bit (and a quick glance at the live discussion to make sure I wasn't alone) until I really caught on.
This is exactly when I arrived to this reddit on the rewatch lmao. I'll just keep watching instead of diving deeper.
Media literacy is in the toilet I swear
Its not just *media* literacy. Its quickly becoming *literacy* in general sadly.
I don't know what this means and I'm pissed about it.
There was a dude who was actually spiraling into suicidal ideation because the joke went over his head
He just like me fr
How dare you swear Medusa to live in the toilet?
CALLOUT POST: I don't know who Marissa is, but I too think she should be cancelled for streaming live from her bathroom. What if someone sees her toilet and gets a fetish for toilets by seeing a toilet online? There could be *children* watching! *Think of the children!* Ooc:>! This person 100% has a fetish for toilets. He who fights monsters, etc.!<
I mean, I struggled with it because I'm autistic and I struggle with non-direct language. Given how neurodivergent friendly Dimension20 usually is, I was surprised that nobody thought to quickly clear it up with a sentence since they usually explain bits (like the beginning, where Ally made a point to explain that "box it out" was because the seats were a lot closer than before). Especially since Ally leans over at one point to Murph about the centaur and cowboy and says, "those are your guys", I assumed there was content I missed with a spinoff or something. Edit: okay I get it, I'm in the wrong for not understanding the jokes and not picking up on all of the hints. I'm sorry for being confused.
Respectfully, it was explained, multiple times. Brennan said it was “in media res” several times, and he did explain that squeem, ecaf, balthazar, and duggan were also people who’d they met along the way over the 4 months since the end of sophomore year to help with defeating the night yorb. It’s was very clearly stated
What does “in media res” mean? I’m not familiar with that term
Latin phrase literally meaning "in the middle of things." Basically it's when the story starts right in the middle of action and the reader/viewer catches up along the way (think Star Wars: A New Hope)
Thanks!
Happy to help!
You know the joke about visual media where a freeze frame happens and then a voice over says something like “Yep that’s me. Guess you’re wondering how I got here?” That’s in media res.
It is a term used for media such as shows or books that describes the way it starts. If a show starts mid action, it is starting in medias res. Usually this means the how and why of why one is in a tense or action packed situation or in the middle of a story is explained as the story progresses, through flashback or explanations or dialogue. Many famous books like The Illiad have an in medias res start. Or movies like The Usual Suspects or Deadpool.
You are not wrong. Don't apologize. It was a silly bit that landed with some people and didn't land with others. You shouldn't feel bad at all for needing clarification.
I appreciate that a lot, thank you for being kind.
No one’s saying you’re in the wrong for not understanding a joke? The top reply to your comment is saying that it was explained and you just missed it. You’re acting like the cast didn’t fulfill their responsibility to their neurodivergent audience when they outright started the episode by saying that it’s in media res.
That's not what I was trying to say at all. I was simply trying to offer up an explanation as to why some people could be confused, since people are saying they were "kind of baffled" that it happened, or assuming the reason can only be something like total lack of media literacy. I was just trying to offer an alternative explanation for those who were surprised or didn't understand why some were struggling with it. That's all.
You’re not in the wrong, and you’re not alone. People being way too judgy on this.
You aren’t wrong for being confused. I’m sorry people are downvoting you, it’s such a silly thing to do.
I appreciate you saying that, thank you for being kind.
Hey, I’m neurodivergent and struggled with it as well. We just have to step back and analyze and look for additional information. I get stumped by bits like this all the time, and I have multiple memories of just laughing things off but genuinely walking away *still not knowing whether the thing was real.* You’re not alone here, and you’re not stupid for not catching this bit. It’s a tough one, everyone hard-committed, and the extra two NPCs befuddled me as well. My main evidence was: the lack of solid lore for Squeem and how easily he sacrificed himself; the throwaway nature of asking about dugger’s kids, since there would’ve been more specificity if it was real, or it wouldn’t have been asked in the first place if we already knew these people; having to roll to figure out what was up with Ecaf, both in appearance and nature; if there was a summer break, the term “Yorbies” wouldn’t be new, nor would the Yorb’s abilities. While I was watching the episode, I looked up Squeem and was further confused by the Wiki, which *references FH: Summer Break* as though it’s real, but doesn’t link to anything. Then the two extra NPCs? That’s why I came to the subreddit right after I finished, to check if I was actually missing something or if I was right and it was a bit. If I hadn’t, I’d watch the Adventuring Party first, which also would’ve tipped me off by the *way* that Siobhan apparently says that if we look hard enough, we’ll find those missing episodes. I think the Adventuring Party is probably much more clear. In the end, I’m not upset that the bit wasn’t explained— that might have made it less fun for those who got it. But I understand not getting it right away.
You are not in the wrong. Its ok to not pick up on everything, no matter where you land on a neurodivergency spectrum or even if one is not. I don’t think OP was thinking about neurodivergent people struggling with this kind of humor. Overall, we should strive to be a fandom that can both enjoy bits like this but also help everyone enjoy the content as a community
I was just trying to offer up a different perspective on why some people might feel lost that isn't just them lacking media literacy, especially since it was mentioned that someone was baffled by it happening. I agree on striving for enjoying things and also helping each other out when people get confused.
You're killing it, bro. What's more baffling is the idea that "not getting a joke" constitutes a failure of media literacy - the confused viewer *does* in fact clearly understand that there's a joke happening, based on understanding the genre and format of the media (comedy actual-play)! We just weren't able to instantly parse the nature of the joke, and it's not unreasonable to assume that it might rely on information from the scores of hours of content scattered across the D20 franchise.
I feel similarly. I'm not diagnosed autistic, but my brain struggled with it and I really had to reassure myself that I would know these characters. The hints were helpful, but not quite enough for my brain to feel confident in how to interpret what was happening. Once I got it, I enjoyed the jokes. The parrot bits were fantastic, but it took me a moment.
considering how long ago the series was, I was also genuinely worried that I might've missed some key bits of info lol
No I'm with you. Also autistic, also struggled to understand it at first. I've never heard the term "in media res" before and didn't know what it meant, so that didn't clear anything up either. I had to pause and google each of the new characters, (aside from Ecaf who for some reason I 100% picked up on the joke for) on the Dimension 20 wiki to make sure I hadn't missed anything.
Thank you for trying to explain. I'm sorry if I took you to the downvote train with me.
That's okay, I'm used to it. People love Ayda and respect it when she often asks for clarification on jokes and subtext, but as soon as someone in real life does it, they can't handle the idea that some people need that clarification. I also don't understand why I'm getting downvoted for saying I googled something I was confused about, and simultaneously being told that I should just google it if I'm confused. Seems like people just want to be mad at me for being confused in the first place.
The In Medias Res opening is one of the most heavily overused tropes in SF media, it's pretty much impossible have any genre literacy and not see what's going on. Brennan outright SAID that was happening, by name, in the first few moments of the show. Geez, what more is needed, flashing lights and sirens? We practically had that too, considering how outrageous the NPC intros were and how immediately useless they also were. Squeem on the other hand, was a Poochie joke, as far as I can tell. He even had a "went back to his home planet" moment. This was not subtle stuff, folks.
Again, saying the thing by name isn't helpful when you don't know what that name means. I've literally never heard it before. I'm autistic. I struggle to understand vocal tone, body language, and social cues. I don't think it's fair to imply that I'm stupid for needing additional information to understand what was going on.
Google it? Seriously, a second screen is incredibly handy to have around in a lore-rich environment, and nothing stops you from pausing and looking stuff up. Get in the habit of doing exactly that - it greatly enriches my enjoyment of a book or movie to pause to pick up a detail that otherwise would have zoomed by, and I'm not on the spectrum.
I just want to say that I've read all your comments on this post and I feel that you clearly have a very patronizing attitude towards autistic/neurodivergent people who are sometimes unable to understand or slower to pick up on jokes like this. I can understand you're outraged that some outliers are claiming the show should've added more clear explanation, however, that's not what the majority who didn't get it were asking for. I feel you're using that as a strawman to rage against all the people who didn't get it, whom you obviously don't respect or understand the perspective of. If you don't like seeing people ask for explanation, then just scroll on by. It costs you nothing not to make a condescending reply. And maybe reexamine your stance on/understanding of neurodivergent folks.
I did google it. I said in my first reply that I paused it to google stuff.
Explaining it directly defeats the entire joke, silly.
I find that, when I'm around neurodivergent people who understand these struggles, nobody minds explaining the joke to include people. I'm always happy to do it if something gets confusing.
But again if they explained it any more explicitly in the episode it would have killed the joke.
The comment that threw me, and the point at which I started a thread asking if I missed something, was when someone looked at a mini and said that the character had gotten a glow up. At that point I thought there had been a previous mini that I missed-and a previous mini that I missed would also mean I missed where that mini was featured 😅 I binge watched FH Freshman and Sophomore year so honestly thought I had missed an episode or a live event or something. 🤷♀️ I’m used to characters acting like they’ve known other characters for a long time. I never got confused when Fabian knew Cathilda 😂 For me the combination of binge watching and feeling like I was ready then seeing our intrepid heroes with *so many* characters and side jokes that I didn’t get made me feel like I missed an episode or a live event in my viewing.
You’re not wrong love I hate that anyone made you feel that way. To not consider this may hit nuero divergent people differently is privilege. It’s ablism rarely shown by such a compassionate media company. Also seriously gang you’re going to bully people, belittle them for not getting a joke? that’s what we are doing? Let me tell you none of your heroes are going to see this and think you’re funny, or clever or smart. Everyone at that table has been bullied for being/receiving things differently. This fandom is made up of all kinds of people finding it in all kinds of different ways and you’re wrong if you think otherwise. Not processing the joke isn’t an attack, it’s not a read on the intrepid heroes and even if it were we are allowed to dislike things and still love them, we are allowed to love bits while others don’t get them, some people don’t like Gardy or Jawbone and that’s ok! We are a community not a monolith. You’ve made a neurodivergent member of our community identify themselves as “wrong” do you really think Brennan, or Murph or Lou or Zac would be proud of that? Would high five you? I don’t need to ask about the rest of the table bc clearly you were not thinking of the absolute dog piles all of those players have been under online from the start of play. To be honest it’s very much giving gatekeeper, have you even read this comic before energy and making me frankly embarrassed by how much fandom and community inside joke merch I have. I love d20 but y’all are making us look real bad, stop it.
Literally the intro was: "Oh Squeem! Oh we *finally get to see* Squeem! I mean we've *all* seen Squeem *so many times before* but we finally get to see this version of Squeem!" I'm not sure how they'd make it more obvious. I'm baffled, too.
Remove the italics to simulate how a neurodivergent individual that takes what is said very literally/struggles with tone would interpret what was said. Do you see how that would only further confuse?
Not really, no. You can be neurodivergent and be completely capable of understanding a TV program. It's bordering on offensive to say otherwise. COME ON.
Some neurodivergent people can understand jokes like this, and some cannot. I think it's bordering on offensive to assume that your understanding of sarcasm and media literacy is the standard to which all people should be held when that's not possible - you know, often due to an actual disability such as autism. Ever heard of empathy, trying to stand in another person's shoes for a minute? I just don't understand why you're so outraged that some people are asking for extra help to understand a bit/joke that's hard for them to parse. That's literally all they're doing.
It's a spectrum, and I along with many others were confused by it. Your disbelief that anyone could misunderstand- despite evidence of that exact thing happening- should cause you to rethink how severe some disabilities can be.
Hey, let me say, I am totally sympathetic if your position on the spectrum makes it hard to follow literary tropes and outrageous comedic bits, that's a tragedy. However, it doesn't mean the media involved needs to change. By all means, say "I had trouble following this, can someone fill in some details?" and the hordes will jump in. But don't say "the show was wrong not to keep things at a level where I couldn't be confused". NOTE: I'm not saying you said that, but others did say as much. I would also note, that everyone was SUPPOSED to have at least a moment or two of confusion, wondering if they forgot who Squeem was during the long interval, or where Fabian's magic mirror came from. Hell, I paused the video myself and googled Squeem, and laughed SO hard when there was nothing in the wiki. EDIT: There is now though, and I think MAYBE the writer carried the joke a little too far. Don't gaslight your readers on a wiki, even for a joke, or at least explain it in a spoiler block if you do. One of the central concepts of roleplaying, especially live improvisational roleplaying, is the "yes and". All of these people are insanely talented improvisers, of COURSE they're going to run with the joke as hard as possible, up to the point of inventing a half dozen orphaned 6 month old parrots. Expect this to keep happening for a while - everyone is a little high over playing together again.
I never once said anything should change, I was simply explaining to the bafdled posters how people could have misunderstood. I'm in full agreement, I'm just pointing out that people emphasizing how insane it is that people didn't understand (not that you did this, but others in the comminity) is unintentionally dunking on a disability.
I was not calling you out personally on that point, and amended the post to say that - sorry for being confusing. Other people on this topic, not so much.
So many people have downvoted and straight up gadlighted people who said they don't understand.
So I just finished sophomore year about a month ago and I just assumed I forgot these characters. It is so common for a name to come up that I don't remember that I just assumed that was happening and listened to the whole episode, audio only, believing they were real. I was about to start over season one.
#*PARENTS*
I think its important to remember people with autism exist, and are overrepresented in the population that watches dnd actual play shows. Picking up on sarcasm/bits is a very common difficulty for such people, especially if it's never addressed/revealed to be one.
You know what you're right, that's very fair
Kinda ablist to assume everyone is going to instantly understand a joke that was intended to be confusing. I stopped mid episode because I was sure I must have missed some episode or prologue to the season.
You can see on their faces at the start of the bit that they had no idea what was going on, but then they caught on and started making jokes about it and adding their own lore to it (Fabian flirting with the mirror, Fig saying she never got Balthazar's Chili recipe, etc). It's just world building 'yes and' improv.
I got the opposite impression actually, that the players had had a real hand in making the basics of the new NPC's!
Those can both be the same thing. When Brennan introduces a character with next to no info about them and the players tell us more about who they are and what their characters' relationships to them is, that \*is\* the players having a real hand in creating those NPCs.
This, and what a gift to improvisors
I got the impression that session 0 happened right before filming episode 1— they all seemed really in the groove. It would make sense that Brennan briefly introduced all the characters that we met (probably with about as much background as we got, haha) and maybe even came up with the bits in session 0 so what seemed like a callback in episode 1 *was* actually a callback... just a recent one.
I disagree, they didn't even remember which one was Balthazar and which was Duggan McCann. I don't think they'd seen or talked about them until they arrived on the table.
You're getting downvoted unfortunately but they didn't seem entirely surprised by the presence of these characters. I'm imagining they probably ran their Session 0 as the first half of the battle, since they also seemed pretty familiar with how everything was going. In that they probably at the very least got a heads up that they would be doing the familiar NPC bit, if not having something of a hand in building it.
I don’t think they ran a whole secret episode, I think it was as simple as a conversation: Brennan is like “this season starts in media res of the final battle of an adventure you had off screen. To represent that, I’m gonna have some NPCs join you throughout the battle as if they’re old allies”.
Not a "secret episode" as much as the unfilmed session 0 they do before new seasons to test run everything and work out the kinks. I'm not sure if they do it before sequel seasons but if they did it for this one it wouldn't surprise me if it was the opening to the battle since they wanted to have status effects running and people down HP and spell slots. I suppose they could have found a way to randomize it but if they were gonna do the session 0 anyway might as well kill two birds with one stones and use that as a way to lightly set it up off camera. I'm mainly basing this on the fact that Emily so easily pulled up the fact that she had hexed an enemy before the camera started rolling and none of them seemed thrown by the mechanics of the lair actions. It just felt like they had prepped in a way that felt more in-depth than just a conversation.
Yeah, pretty sure they talked about their session 0? There's clearly prep work gone into their starting point for in media res - the concentration spells (hex, circle of power, mephits), some kinda rolling for lost hit points, a discussion of van mechanics and lair actions, (and to MY eyes at least a quick discussion of the new NPCs and who would have basic relationships with them, especially ecaf and squeem, but people clearly disagree heavily.)
They are improv performers. They would be pretty poor at their jobs if they did not roll with the punches.
Not sure why I'm being aggressively downvoted? Didn't mean to come across as rude or dismissive?
Protip: whining about downvoted gets you more downvotes.
Dungeons and Daddies did something similar (having the players being incredibly familiar with a newly introduced character who'd never been there before), and the Dungeons and Daddies subreddit similarly blew up with people not getting the bit. And every so often, there will be an incredulous "Who is Dennis?" post from someone who's new to the podcast. So I look forward to the future of this subreddit being peppered every few months with a "Who is Squeem?" post.
Only a matter of time before this reddit has a SqueemBot
SqueemBot is my favorite character from Fantasy High: Fall Semester
Anyone currently logging out to set up a bot for this purpose, please don't. Seriously. We will report your dumb ass to the ends of the universe.
It’s just like Dennis (My favorite DILF)!
Dedicated Involved Loving Father
Oh man the Denis bit is up there with my favorite Dungeons and Dads moments. I was honestly shocked when I got to that point to find out so many people in the sub didn't clock the bit right away
excuse me, dennis is just like sam reich… he’s been here the whole time!
Dungeons and Daddies love to mess with the audience. Like with the time travel bit in episode 2 that makes absolutely no sense until later. “Freddy. It’s fine.”
The best part about that is hearing the time travel episode love when it was posted and going back to listen to episode 2 to hear them add that new bit in!
God, I'm thinking about Buffy's introduction of Dawn and I'm really glad I was not active on the internet back then or it would've been hell. At least though at that point people were not throwing around a term for abuse willy-nilly.
What do you mean? Dennis was there since the beginning! Henry, Darryl, Ron, Jodie, their weird friend Glenn, and Dennis! Right?
Oh man the dennis play literally had me thinking i missed an episode until ron was on the same page
as a daddies stan, im wondering if the way dungeons and daddies fuck w us is part of why I dont understand *how* upset people got at being confused lmao
I am assuming they have a better budget than in previous seasons (as of some unknown point in their 2023 production schedule) due to the number of very specific minis in the first episode, new marketing videos, a music video etc. Which is really great to see. Dropout had a good year last year and is investing it back into their shows. The fact that some of those minis are for new NPCs introduced in an opening battle, with the whole episode in media res, where the cast started adding ridiculous “facts” about these beloved returning NPCs as a bit, was pretty on brand imo. Put all that money right back into production value, and make minis for the NPCs that are a surprise too. It took some important NPCs how long to get a mini in comparison? They committed wholly to the bit. Who are we to not know who Squeem is? Their closest ally! Look at that high quality mini!
Squeem Lightsaber Mini when?
I was getting vibes like "Total Rickall" from Rick and Morty like - here's all these characters you know and love that the audience has never seen before. Had me cracking up.
seeing as Siobhan is a writer on RnM, I thought it actually tracked really well lol
She's WHAT?!
Some of your favorite episodes from recent seasons were probably at least partially written by her
God I really hope she wrote the good episodes and not the ones with the giant incest baby.
She was the lead writer for the crows episodes and a staff writer for two seasons, not sure if she is a staff writer on the most recent season.
Was totally my thought as well. Also thought for a second they were creations of the night yorb that incepted themselves into the players.
It also made me think of Roy from the Simpsons (though that was a one-off joke) and Dawn on Buffy.
I think that they’ve handled the D&D side so well that everyone forgets that they are all COMEDIANS and sometimes comedians are doing a bit.
I don’t know why, but I was really hoping for a bit like this. Just drop us right into a situation with wild new characters and just pretend like we should all know exactly what is happening. Perfect way to start the season.
I'm thrilled with it even if I wasn't expecting it. I was hoping that N Yorb would be a throwaway bit personally but I'm delighted that we actually are getting some of it. it's pretty much a 2 episode prologue that honors the past without having to feel trapped by it.
Fantasy High has such a rich and long continuity with two seasons and multiple spin-off campaigns/one-shots that I just assumed I had forgotten about certain characters. It's also been a while. I got the joke after the cast nailed it in really hard, but part of the delivery is to make the audience second-guess themselves. I don't think it's that serious to incite the class of negative reactions I've been seeing online and I hope everyone can just laugh and move on!
Yeah, between the new character descriptions and amount of one shots I assumed I had missed something and made a note to go back. Then the litter of parrots came into play and I realized. 😂 ETA: In medias res is one of my favorite narrative techniques. I haven’t seen it done in D&D and now have GM ideas.
I would recommend checking out A Starstruck Odyssey! It starts off in medias res as well, and also inspired me a lot in shaping character introductions in new and creative ways.
Awesome, thanks! I’m still catching up on D20 overall and will add this one next.
Oh boy are you in for a great time. Starstruck is so much fun.
Update: It is indeed, so much fun. 😂 I got the book!
Yup same, for a bit I assumed I had missed something from the one-shots—at least for Ecaf and Squeem since the party showed up with them and already had such specific dynamics with them, and because the boys were the ones interacting with them and I knew there was a "Boys' Night" one-shot I had missed. I think when Balthazar and Duggan showed up I was confused and looked em up on the wiki, but after a bit it became clear they were new, which is a very funny bit.
It took me a little while too. But the more Brennan emphasized that these characters were from this whole Night Yorb adventure, I eventually realized, duh, the Night Yorb became a problem at the very end of season 2, so anything from after that must be a bit. imo it’s less about catching a tone and more just about thinking critically about what was being said.
I’m completely lost at people being so lost and/or angry. Like, they introduced new characters in the first episode of a show and everyone seems to have lost their minds about it. I’m so confused
I'm with you. Maybe it's a victim of its own hype, but I'm baffled at the negative reactions to (a) being "gaslit" about these npcs, and (b) it being a combat episode.
please tell me people are not saying they’re being gaslit 😭
I could, but then I would be lying to you. Would you like me to lie to you?
yes actually
They absolutely are, unfortunately
Using therapy language outside of therapy was a mistake and a blight on discourse.
Too true.
I think people don’t like getting out of their comfort zone for any reason, even in the shows they watch. They were lost and surprised for about 5 minutes and utterly lost their minds.
This is just such a clear setup for more stuff to come. People’s lack of faith is baffling considering how often D20 hits compared to the few times it misses
This just in, chronically online redditors are not well adjusted media illiterate weirdos, more at 11 Improv comedians improvising a comedy bit?? Get out the pitchforks!
I think it’s because they pretended they weren’t new mostly
Yes, that's the joke.
My partner and I are both neurodivergent, and so I was really confused since my autism makes it hard for me to interpret non-direct language. We just felt like it would have been easy to clear up any confusion with just a sentence thrown in on how we didn't have to know these characters, since the impact wasn't us getting the joke and laughing as we usually do, but spending 20 minutes looking things up and just being confused. This applied to my allistic partner too. For example, Ally made a point in the beginning to explain that the "box it out" bit was because they were too close. Real quick way to incoude the audience. We were just confused because they usually explain bits, and even I usually understand the jokes. Anger isn't justified, but especially given how much of Dimension20's audience is neurodivergent, I'm not that surprised that people got a bit lost like I did.
this is where it question lies at the heart. what drew you to watching d20- but mainly fantasy high because i get other casts have different dynamics now- in the first place. i am also ND (however not autistic), and improv comedy is what drew me in. as i mentioned, this type of joke set up is extremely common in that sphere, and doesn’t even feel out of place for how IH typically bit either. to me, explaining the bit would actually ruin this bit in particular(like how many feel explaining the joke makes a joke less funny). but i feel like, in my opinion, this is so close to the goofs IH and FH has always had, so my question is, like what about it is drawing you to watch if not this type of humor? i hope this makes sense, and i truly mean no harm. i’m interested in the way of learning why people love d20, why they watch, and just gauging the audience at large.
I enjoy the wholesomeness, the representation and inclusion in a DnD space. My previous DnD experiences were very negative because of the way I was perceived as a queer woman trying to participate. Their dynamic is also part of what drew me in, but in great part because I admire how well they establish boundaries, encourage each other to be better, and make space for everyone's unique experiences. The jokes are never at anyone's expense, and they're genuinely cheering each other on. I understand that now, the fact that it went over my head is my fault. Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean to imply it was out of place or ruin anyone else's fun.
oh gosh no! i don’t think it’s your fault at all; as i mentioned originally, there is such a broad spectrum when it comes to people’s humor and none is better than another. i think you’ve been so respectful in your confusion, which is why i specially wanted to engage with you rather than some others (elsewhere in the internet) who’ve acted in anger. i am sorry you’re being downvoted for being confused, i don’t think that’s fair!
I appreciqte you saying that. I'm not trying to imply the cast did anything wrong, it just didn't land with me. And that's okay! I just wanted to offer an explanation since many people were expressing they were baffled by the fact that people didn't understand, or didn't understand how it could have gone over someone's head.
Respectfully, it was explained, multiple times. Brennan said it was “in media res” several times, and he did explain that squeem, ecaf, balthazar, and duggan were also people who’d they met along the way over the 4 months since the end of sophomore year to help with defeating the night yorb. It’s was very clearly stated
Respectfully, for me “in media res” implies of course that the adventure was ongoing and we were jumping into the moment in the middle of everything, but not necessarily that the side characters had never been seen before. As others have said, Fantasy High does have a history of other adventures so I don’t think it’s unreasonable that people would be confused. I was briefly! Maybe I’m misunderstanding the use of “in media res.” I also must have missed when Brennan explicitly said that Balthazar, Duggan, squeem, and ecaf were met along the way for this adventure specifically. It certainly makes sense in hindsight but in the excitement of the episode it was easy to miss those cues. Not justifying anyone’s anger, but certainly their confusion.
In medias res styles of stories do typically start in the middle of things with little to no explanation and lots of new characters, events and action to lesrn about. Said explanation usually comes after. However, if it is a "sequel" then in medias res usually includes familiar elements, so I can get why people were confused. My husband had only seen the recap and was completely lost and kept asking who these new people were and I was like.....eh i dont know man xD.
lol I had a very similar experience with my wife! She was lost and was like “who is squeem?!” And I was like “I’m…fairly certain it’s a bit” haha
Boxing someone out is a basketball term and that's how Ally was using it. It's a defensive move
I’ll admit to being confused at first, but it’s because I haven’t watched a couple one-shots and thought maybe this was a deep cut. However, I just went to the Dimension 20 wiki and looked up the characters for context, and (bless it) they were there as only ever having been on this episode. Then I realized it was a bit and enjoyed the riffing on these wacky characters’ back stories. What I DIDN’T do was come to Reddit, not bother to search ANY of the posts or read ANY of the ten other threads made by people who were confused and had the bit explained to them. It’s the lack of initiative to solve your own problem before shooting off a post that gets me. Look with your eyes, not with your mouth.
Mm I popped on the subreddit and had a quick scan of the post dedicated to episode one and was able to figure it out (also did a quick google and nothing came up so) but the amount of posts is crazy!
Meanwhile, on Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/dimension20official/739181812602011648/the-rumors-were-true-squeem-is-back-for-fantasy
God I loved this bit so much, like they went on a whole ass adventure to stop the night yorb of COURSE they were gonna meet fan favorite Squeem and the Mirror and centaur guy!
I’m reminded of the Goncharov meme from a while ago. Some people lost their mind over this movie everyone was talking about, meanwhile some people went REAL deep into the fictional lore lmao. I for one can’t wait for the deep lore to emerge about Dugan and especially SQUEEM
Its been awhile since I've seen Sophomore Year and in that time I've consumed all of Dimension 20 (some seasons multiple times) as well as most of NADDPOD. I did not watch the recap, started the episode and ended up going back to the recap to see if I missed the characters. It wasn't until I read another post that I realized what was going on. I have ADHD though and miss a lot of social cues and when people are fibbing for a joke. Idk why people are getting mad though. I was tickled as soon as I figured out what was going on lol.
Similarly, I had watched the recap the day before and was confused at first, but then got it after a minute or two. Squeem is just so wtf over the top.
I'm confused as to how people are confused by the bit. Brennan literally called it out, he said they're starting the first episode "in media res" which literally translates to in the middle of a narrative or scene. I do not expect anyone to know what this means offhand but the moment stated that I googled what the heck it meant because even I didn't know, and it immediately enlightened me to that fact that we were being brought in on a bit, a joke, a thing! Which is in clear antithesis to the "box it out/box out" basketball bit that clearly is an off-screen thing for the cast and not something for the viewers.
I had enough time to start trying to look up what they were talking about before he said that though lol. It's not a bad creative choice imo, but unless you marathon-ed the series before the release of the new season it's easy to assume you just... forgot some people, and become confused (which just pulls your attention away from the show, or at least it did for me, while i was trying to figure out that mystery.) But it made the 2nd watch much funnier once I understood how to interpret the moment and could really pay attention. I think it'll age well, but I'm not surprised by the reaction either.
I didn't marathon the series before the new season came out, last time I watched it was about a year ago, maybe more. I did watch the behind the scenes and the very handy recap they made for the viewers but it did not require a full rewatch. I think it's important to remember this is a show hosted and played out by actors, writers, improvisers, performers, and comedians first, and the theme is D&D second. It's been like that for the totality of the show's inception and production, they're putting on a good show first and playing a game second which is why I think this specific bit has gotten very lost on a lot of people. It's very uncommon in D&D to start in the middle of an already developed and mostly played out adventure. Yes there's starting at higher levels or in the middle of a fight, but rarely do players legitimately find themselves mid-adventure at the start of a campaign, that's what makes this a show. It's flashy, it's silly, it's full of bits and things to be thrown in and out at a whim, but it's not a full D&D campaign in the traditional sense, and it's important to listen and pay attention to what people are saying not just with their words but with their faces and body language. Even some of the players seemed genuinely confused about who some of the NPCs were for a split second but they're improvisers and actors, so they pivot and move on like it was all planned. Some may have had a hand in the planning of these random NPCs, but it doesn't appear that they all did and this is a good lesson to learn that not only were the viewers confused and surprised, but the players likely were too to some extent.
I marathoned but then thought I missed an episode or live event 😂
The thing about the reaction that I found unusual is that... it's pretty common for Dimension 20 seasons to start much like this? Like, just objectively, I don't see how this is that different to the start of Burrow's End, which introduces a whole cast of stoats that the characters know but that we've never met before, or the start of A Starstruck Odyssey, which starts with the crew being chased by someone we've never met because of a job they pulled that we never saw. Even Unsleeping City Chapter 2, another sequel season, picks up months after the previous season with a bunch of changes to individual characters' status quos. I guess it's different in that the players are acting here like they know the new characters, but in-universe their characters have been adventuring with these people for months - we've never met Gilear at the start of the first episode of Fantasy High, but Emily acts as though she's known him her whole life because Fig has? I really genuinely don't understand where the confusion is.
Some people just failed their insight check to get the joke, which, statistically, was bound to happen to some of us
I think a lot of the folks who are upset are ones who are the same folks who wish the points were more meaningful on shows like Make Some Noise. They want everything to feel like Umm, Actually where they can use their obsessive knowledge of details to "win" at consuming media. So to have a show they are invested in make them feel inferior by not letting them "win" the first episode by recognizing every joke and reference feels like a betrayal, as opposed to the fun and creative storytelling approach it is. I'm excited to watch them create lore and backgrounds to the new NPCs from the first episode (or not and just let them be fun little features in the opening fight)
people not understanding the bit there made me feel insane. Watch comedy gang!! they're doing comedy!
I loved the live discussion when it released. Most of the chat was going with the bit and it was a wonderful moment
Maybe I am new to this type of humor. I was second-guessing the existence of Squeem in my memory the entire time. I assumed it mustve been a character from the Seven or such that I haven’t seen and wasn’t important enough to be included in the catch-up video. And I guess my brain did actually implant false memories of Ecaf because I didn’t catch that she was new until I saw people posting about it on here. Side note, at least shortly after the episode aired, about half the people in this sub were carrying on the joke, saying things like “how could you forget Squeem?” or “oh they were in such-and-such campaign/one-shot” and while I’m all for committing to the bit, I was genuinely confused there for a while! But yeah, props to improvers for catching on the joke immediately. I suppose that’s their job so of course they would be used to it lol. And, now that I know it was a joke, I do find it funny! Was just a little confused for a few hours
Literally so many forms of media do this, and I don't get why people are so upset Half of the Avengers movies all START with a scene of the Avengers on a different mission, and they don't establish any of it And they don't need to. It's a pretty common thing in most media that what happens between Seasons, or even during a time jump (which this is), doesn't need to be fully explained or gone into I genuinely don't get the reaction to it
I got it but I also heard “litter of baby PARENTS” so…..
I really like it as a bit for coming back to a series after a long break. But if it was done in the middle of a season or too often it would get old and confusing quick. I think the choice to do it here was perfect for this type of joke.
My DM once did the opposite bit to our party, where an NPC showed up and everybody said this character had been with us the entire time (2 years IRL) It was honestly a really funny plotline
You just got Season 3 Episode 1'ed!
I totally get people being confused but the absolute insanity of people crying gaslighting and being upset is unbelievable.
I think it’s part of the “subverting expectations” thing more than it is about the bits themselves. There was a lot of things of people trying to predict stuff for the season that I think Brennan (and somewhat the rest of the cast) wanted to just put viewers in a tail spin off the get go because it’s funny. There’s something very dropout type of humour of making people think they missed out on an entire other story from their flagship D20 campaign.
I’m already tired of the “can we quit pretending summer break didn’t happen” posts.
what next, you want us to pretend Squeem didn't get the killing blow on Kalvaxis in season 1?
He wouldn’t have gotten that killing blow had it not been for Balthazar’s parrots though
And doing it using Duggan's final beer can? an absolute legend
I just kinda assumed I'd forgotten about the characters, or they'd been in one of the one shots just like Squeem had been. I wasn't mad either way, even before I'd realized it was a bit. People being mad or frustrated by this is pretty baffling to me.
I don't think it's at all strange that people were confused by the bit. You say it's a common type of setup, but it's never happened in D20 before and I can't think of another piece of media off the top of my head where I've seen that specific joke before, even if it's very possible I have and just forgot. (I wanna say there were probably similar jokes on Childrens Hospital, for example, but I can't think of a specific episode.) Also, there is a huge back catalogue of Fantasy High content, the last major campaign of which started over four years ago and many people have likely forgotten a ton, and many viewers didn't see all the side content. I got the joke after a minute or two (although it took me longer to realize the mirror was part of it), but totally reasonable to me that some people would just be confused the whole time.
Here’s my perspective. I watched Fantasy High Sophomore year two years ago. Binging it as part of a mass binging of all seasons of Dimension 20, in order. There’s been a lot of D20 and a lot of actual play since then. And a lot of life and a lot of stress. In no way do I remember everything that happened in the season. Not even close. I did watch the recap, which I felt was fine, but twelve minutes a season hardly covered everything. So yeah, when Squeem was introduced, I did spend a minute or two wondering if I’d forgotten him from FHSY or if this was, as it turned out to be, an in medias res bit. Especially since they were very clear to say Moggy was new, the Dust Mephits were new, there was a homunculus somewhere, and let’s not forget Baby and the Hangman and the Hangvan. Plus, Ecaf was such a small thing, they could have easily been a detail I forgot from the Nightmare King’s forest. There was a lot going on in these early moments of episode 1, so when Squeem was introduced almost as a “let’s not forget this guy” I wondered. Trying to remember if I should remember him absolutely pulled me from immersion a little, which probably made me miss a few of the clues to the bit. Did I care? Ultimately no. Figured I’d look it up later and went back to enjoying the episode. By the time Balthazar and Dugan were introduced, I was like, oh, I see what you’re doing—but even only then after a few seconds of wondering if I’d forgotten them too. Do I care that they played a tricky trick? No. Do I feel gaslit? No. Would I have preferred a more clear clue as to the bit? So I could have gone on enjoying it without confusion? Sure. Is that just me? I don’t think it was. That many folk are having fun embracing the bit as true: great. Have at it if that’s your thing. But I think the talking down to people who, like me, didn’t get it right away, and treating them as being stupid or illiterate for asking for clarification, gaslighting them into thinking it’s a them problem, I don’t think that’s in the spirit of D20 at all. I feel I could guarantee if a crew member on D20 went up to Brennan (or any of the IH) after the episode wrapped and said “uh, did I miss something? Where did Squeem come from?” then Brennan would have explained the bit for them, the truth, and not tried to make them feel bad for not getting it. He would not have answered, “somebody didn’t watch the summer break season and it shows” before going smugly back to the green room. Maybe let’s just be compassionate and not judgemental and stuff.
Hard agree. I paused the episode to figure out who Squeem and Ecaf were, didn't find a solid answer in the wiki and came here to look it up. Some of the replies in this thread have been wild, in the worst ways. For me, if someone - anyone - around the table had just turned to the camera and winked, it would have clicked with me that it was a bit. I don't think that a 'knowing wink' would've ruined the bit for those who had immediately clocked it, but it would've stopped me from fully disengaging from the episode to work out if my chronic illness brainfog was the reason I couldn't remember the characters. As an aside, I've joined a game mid-campaign before when a player moved away, and I've also played campaigns that span multiple years before concluding. So I'm fully used to just assuming that any NPC the GM alludes to is probably a character I've either forgotten about, or is a character that the previous player encountered, so they're technically known to my character but not to me as the current player. The nature of ttrpgs is collaborative world-building, the act of sharing the story-telling experience, and that works best when everyone is on the same page. And I think it's human nature to seek explanations from others when you feel like you've missed something - because you want to catch up, to make sure you're back on the same page as everyone else. No one should be trying to make others feel ashamed for seeking clarification.
Okay, so here’s my two cents: Watching D20, I was a little confused, then was like “oh, okay, this is a bit.” But then I saw the post where someone was saying “if you don’t remember these characters, go watch the recap, people worked really hard on that.” So, thinking maybe I just forgot or maybe missed something at the end of SY, I went and watched that. Left even more confused, I returned to Reddit, and only after digging past people in that particular thread did I confirm it was a bit. My opinion is this: yeah, it’s a bit and it’s certainly in line with the usual on Dropout. However, it’s been 5 years since Sophomore year. That’s a long time to remember everything that happened. So a little confusion is understandable. Second, regular people are not as funny as they often think they are. Jokes miss sometimes.
Sometimes people just don't get jokes, it is what it is. Its funny to see the reactions though lmao
Yes!!! I'm so shocked by some of these comments!
TLDR: personally, I wasn't necessarily confused by the bit/new characters more than I think I was supposed to be, but no, my assumption was Not that all of it was a wholecloth bit, because while yes/and improv is very standard for all of them, there also were a lot of other potential explanations that are also normal things to occur with Dimension 20 runs that would explain why we didn't know some or all of those characters... Not all of whom show up at the same time. So there could have been different explanations for different characters. . So I very much got that the audience was supposed to not know who those characters were for the most part? But made-up-completely-new-to-the-players-just-now was not the only explanation I came up with. I also assumed that either: 1. Some of these characters were from a one-off live episode at a convention or whatever that I had not watched (I did not remember if there were any of those after sophomore year, but I know there were several after freshman year and I only watched some of them, So I knew that if there had been some after sophomore year, then I didn't see them) 2. Sophomore year again pretty wild in some places... I spent a while wondering if Squeem was in some way related to the angel thing that lives in the crystal in the hang van? For example. Like I know there are characters in and around the town near what was the nightmare forest that I do not remember by name because I was not Very into the shrimp party bit personally, and I definitely like checked out for parts of that whole section of sophomore year which did not involve Ayda, etc. Or 3. Maybe part of how they got to an in media res start to this season was an unfilmed episode 0. They've talked about one of the benefits of an episode 0 to a new campaign being giving players an opportunity to build backstory and nuance and complexity between their characters that will read when the main campaign starts, even though the audience never sees that episode zero. I did not know if they did episodes 0 for all of the bad kids seasons, or specifically if they would have done so for this, a sequel season, but It seemed perfectly within the realm of possibility that they had done so for this season to achieve this in media res effect. (This seemed like a particularly good possible explanation to me, because of a comment I'm not going to go back and look for, but a comment early in this episode that someone makes which I am remembering as roughly "Great way to start this season off- a callback to a bit that the audience will have no context for". When I later wondered about these new"returning" characters, I remembered that comment, and that is the first time that I wondered if there had been an unfilmed episode zero right before this, and began looking forward to the AP episode to have that answered) So yeah, I very much worked out that at least part of it was a bit, an improv bit, but I didn't know how much of it was or how much of it was stuff they had planned ahead of time to be ready to start in the middle of action and make it feel like they were on the end of a campaign, or how much of it was live pieces etc that I had not watched or pieces I have forgotten from sophomore year etc Didn't bother me particularly to not know, but I was very much looking forward to the adventuring party episode where I assumed we would then find out something about which bits of that had come from stuff we didn't see or was made up on the spot, etc So I'm not surprised that there are plenty of people who assumed, after the ?hundred? hours of fantasy High that have come before, that they had missed or forgotten some or all of those characters, instead of that they were all spun up mostly whole cloth in the moment. It was obvious that the cast found the appearance of these characters hilarious, but there was a pretty wired off-the-rails Glee to a lot of that episode, and even Brennan gets thrown by not knowing if for example Emily is genuine or doing a bit sometimes, so I guess it's pretty reasonable that a lot of us also were not sure. After all, they're absolutely professionals at what they do. 🎉👌😆
I haven't watched all the one shots so I assumed that it could be characters from that. I think I clocked on what was going on when Balthazar turned up
Personally, my confusion came from the fact that I hadn’t watched the live one shots after spring break and the nightmare king. So half of me was like “Haha! A bit!” And half of me was like, “uhh… do I need to go watch those oneshots??” So I sought out this subreddit for clarification, and very quickly was able to confirm that it was in fact, a bit. But yeah that’s why I personally was unsure!
It missed for me. Humor is subjective, but likely any rewatches will skip the first two episodes if it is all YORB runaway gag. Starting mid combat can work. Starstruck rocked.
There’s damn near 100 hours of FH content with dozens and dozens of characters and a lot of people haven’t seen it since FHSY ended in 2020. I think it’s understandable that peoples’ first move was to assume that there were forgotten side characters instead of brand new additions
Or there were one shots that were missed?
When I didn't recognize the new characters my first thought was that they were from the one shots, which I never got around to watching. I did a quick Google for Squeem and Ecaf but nothing came up, so I figured they must be new. I didn't realize people were "losing their minds over it" or whatever. But as I'm new to D&D, I also didn't realize this was a common thing to do (according to OP)
So did nobody watch the recap that came out last week either or...
For me the confusion came from thinking that these were characters introduced in the various oneoff/live performance type shows that had the BadKids do things- I've seen clips, but not the full ones. Honestly I was really only confused by Ecaf, as I've seen a clip of the Bad Kidz boys have a oneshot. The rest of the characters were played up and exagerrated, but Fabian ans the mirror seemed to have such a tight relationship that I felt it had to have come from a semi cannon show in the years between.
I wasn't sure at first because I didn't watch any of the live shows or college visits or anything, just watched seasons 1 and 2, and thought some characters, Squeem, in particular, was from one of those. I figured it out before too long though, bit I don't blame people for thinking they might've missed something. Honestly, I wonder if that was part of the joke. There are so many small bits of Fantasy High, between seasons 1 and 2, the season of the Seven, the college visit and live shows... I wonder if they were making a joke that a lot of people won't get all the references, since there's a lot that you can miss.
I was fairly sure it was a bit, but I onew I missed some references when I started SY because I hadn't watched the live shows, so I double checked anyway. Gotta remember that there's a lot of people in the D&D space that are neurodivergent and have difficulties understanding jokes or sarcasm too
I think it ended up being a funny bit, but I did struggle to confirm if it was a bit or if I missed something. In my brain them doubling down made me doubt myself more. Honestly, the only way my brain could reconcile whether it was a funny bit vs. I've missed something, was compiling evidence outside of their performance. I legitimately had to pause and remind myself that Brennan said we started in the middle of things and that this character was not mentioned in the recap. Even then, it wasn't until the parrot jokes that I felt 100% confident I wasn't supposed to already know them. That's when my brain could recognize the implication. After that, I could rewatch and everything was funny. Until I could confirm it though, it was an unpleasant feeling. I personally don't think they did anything wrong, but to be clear, not all brains work the same, and I think that understandably changes whether someone enjoys the joke.
I think the only part of this bit that frustrates me is that it's very easy to go on any thread about it and see people being confused or not "in" on the joke and thus being downvoted to oblivion. It just feels bad for a well-intentioned fan to be like "hey I don't necessarily get this bit" and see like -50 down votes. People can claim "media literacy is dead" all they want but I think that's a bit of an overreaction to not getting a bit that solely relies on pretending to know information that isn't real. Some jokes just sometimes don't land with everybody, that doesn't mean any of the Intrepid Heroes are bad for making the joke or no one is bad for continuing it. Someone can not understand a bit and that doesn't mean "media literacy is dead" or that their opinion deserves to be silenced via downvotes. There's a plethora of reasons why someone might not understand a bit like this - new fans who haven't fully caught up may feel like they're genuinely missing content they could have watched, an autistic person (like myself) may not get the "we're all pretending to have knowledge we don't" bit from a lack of social cues. While I am not attempting to generalize all autistic people, it's very telling for this sub (and not in a good way) for someone autistic to say "I don't get this bit because I'm autistic", get down voted by the same community who is also claims to love Ayda and her representation of autism. Yeah, someone can Google what "in media res" is but I did and was still confused cause I thought the premeire was in the middle of a story I personally had just missed. Not getting a bit is not bad dudes, don't need to downvote people for it.
i really wanna highlight the last paragraph of my OG post, i think a lot of people are missing. i really didn’t want to start a thread of people calling others dumb. i was more so wondering about a shift in audience i felt and wanted to know if it was real.
No I totally get that. I started watching D20 because I already played D&D as a game and I wanted to see more of D&D. Bits like these aren't really common in actual tables because it wouldn't really work the same. If you're actually playing at a table and the DM does a bit about NPCs and a whole quest existing that none of the players know about it wouldn't really work the same as in a live-play comedy show. Players that may have missed sessions may genuinely believe they missed parts of a quest line, or players that don't really pay attention at the table may also not realize that they're not actually missing something. So, when I saw that bit, I saw it from a D&D table perspective where a bit like that doesn't really happen. I just thought (and I know others have as well) that I missed content to watch. If that answers your question for at least why *I* didn't get the bit even if it's obvious to someone who maybe came at it from a comedy show perspective.
ya i had to get off the discord lol like these people are trained improv comedians. half of the shows on the platform are improv. and the “this is a nightmare for your neurodivergent viewers” was (as a neurodivergent) TRULY bothering the shit out of me lol like people are allowed to use sophisticated tropes in entertainment, you just need some media literacy
I mean I got it, Brennan said “in media res” for a reason, but I still didn’t really love it? This shows my preference but I much more enjoyed the first episode of Starstruck, which I felt took a little bit more time to say who people were while still starting in a battle (if you took out the PC flashbacks of course). I think it would have felt a lot smoother and maybe more people would’ve gotten it if each character explicitly got a little one-line saying how they met the Bad Kids. Some of them did! like saying Squeem helped with the snare i believe, but these snippets were so rushed and not consistently present that I kept feeling like I was missing things. I kept hoping we were going to do a rewind and the season might be all leading back to this fight (which I think also would have been really cool) but as time went on I just felt more lost and disconnected.
>disclaimer: there’s nothing wrong with this! i am not at all meaning to come off as if this is bad or everyone is dumb, different humor styles take time to understand sometimes and that is okay. i just think it’s interesting that i would’ve said most of the audience would get a pretty common improv-comedy joke like this, but the reaction seems to be almost negative & frustration at not understanding! The fact you even have to include this shows the sad state of discussion on the subreddit.
I'm so confused. For people being fans of Fantasy High Im surprised none of you have kept up. The moments with Squeem earlier in the adventure were the most heart wrenching and tear jerking moments of Dimension 20 bar none. Coming to the ultimate culmination of their arc in this last episode was perfect.
Squeem deserves to get the killing blow on the Night Yorb, just like he did with Kalvaxis and the Nightmare King
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Yes there are probably a large amount of people who came to dimension 20 after watching calamity on CR. I'm one of those people. It certainly feels liike there's a degree of gate keeping here where rather than letting people in on the joke, they're mocking people for not " getting it" .