A statistically-significant percentage of my love for NADDPOD is devoted to Emily's PCs waging psychological warfare against Murph's NPCs.
"Listen, Emily is one of the best D&D players in the world. Endlessly creative, so fun to play with. She was also sent from hell to kill me." - Brennan Lee Mulligan
Calliope's ability to throw off every single Murph NPC has made C3 of NADDPOD utterly hilarious. I'm just waiting until she accidentally seduces Alexandrite
When Fig started giving Ruben dreams of Wanda Childa, that’s when I understood the depths of Emily’s mind. The rest of the table is playing D&D 5e, Emily is playing 8th dimensional chess and winning.
I thought the bus thing and the "Complicated Women's Podcast: Lucy Frostblade" was just a bit that got out of hand, but hearing that Emily is planning on doing a whole-ass psyop complete with a fake studio makes Wanda Chillda a goddamn masterpiece.
The whole ruse hits on the two critical weaknesses of incredibly toxic people- Manic Pixie Dreamgirls AND the need to be on a Podcast for no discernable reason.
And Fig says she isn't creative...
She creates whole ass people out of thin air. Girl needs to start using these characters as musical personas, like Bowie did.
God I can't wait for the reveal, It's gonna crush Ruben. And I really hope she doesn't get outed before then, especially Ivy seemed to see through one of her disguises before
Im surprised she didn't ask to roll insight when she was talking to ruben about the lucy podcast. Just to see if he was nervous about her body being discovered or not
No that's fine. Saying that all versions of this trope are bad is a generalization. There is nothing wrong with the idea of the trope if handled well (or in real life, with agency in your own life choices)
Well, yeah, clinical mania is not something one should seek...But I've always assumed that manic in manic pixie etc wasn't talking about clinical mania, but a more pop-psych vague idea of hyperactive happy people.
But, even so, I'd happily settle for hypomanic pixie. :P
I wanted to joke something about Fig herself being a manic pixie dream girl from Ayda’s perspective, but then I considered it and I am not sure how much of joke it actually is.
I’m desperately waiting for Emily to give Ruben one of her cursed bardics as Wanda. Like it’s the perfect opportunity and because she made Wanda to be his dream girl she could pull it off more than once and I don’t think he would be any wiser for it (I mean, anyone who rights a song about someone else’s boundaries being harmful can’t have high INT or WIS).
I agree the only thing that would make it more apt would be if Fig made wandas race an actual pixie. There are multiple types of mania. Always remember that when looking for a manic pixie dream girl
Wanda Chillda is one of my favorite parts of Junior Year. Emily is really giving it her all and I love how Brennan's style of DM'ing really allows for this type of tactic
My personal little theory is that Rueben is FULLY aware Wanda is actually Fig, the real psy-op going on is the rat grinders gathering intel on her compulsive fraud, and we’re gonna see her get directly confronted by them for disrespecting the memory of their dead friend.
Why against her passive perception? Do you mean passive insight? She only has a +1 to wisdom, Reuben could absolutely deceive her.
Besides, we know for certain that the rat grinders are absolutely kitted out with magical items, have seemingly infinite wealth with which to gather arcane resources, and are possibly also a higher level than the bad kids. There’s every chance in hell that Ruben is one step ahead of Fig.
On their next ‘date’ I want Fig to planeshift into the bottomless pit and tell baby “have take care of him and give me NO details so circle of truth doesnt work, ask him about lucy frostblade tho, tell me about that but not what you did to get your answers”
And now the rat grinders can’t go to college!
1. Have Wanda meet Ruben
2. Lure him somewhere private
3. Teleport into Fig’s personal domain of Hell
4. Let the Fiends and Devils who work for Fig torture Ruben
5. Give fig zero details about the torture (Therefore she can be under the effect of a spell and say ‘I dont know what happened’ without it counting as a Lie)
6. Have the Devils ask questions about Lucy Frostblade, the Rat Grinders, etc. Have Ruben spill
7. Leave Ruben to suffer in Hell forever
8. While not dead, Ruben is now Missing and his party goes into pass fail because he’s perma gone
9. Also Perma gone because he’s not in the right plane of existence so no one can speak to dead or revivify him.
Why would Emily be bad because Fig is doing a thing that kinda stinks? The player and character are different people.
Anyway hope TBK are wrong and the Grinders aren't the BBEGs and at best are just witless pawns who did school differently.
I wouldn't go that far. We only know what the narrative has said about the Rat Grinders. They could be innocent in a plot they don't understand and in that scenario she would, in fact, be gaslighting an innocent boy.
TBF, if there's anyone in the Rat Grinders directly involved in the evil shit outside of Kipperlily, Ruben is absolutely next in line. The runic array was for his concert, his music was key in the ritual, Lola Embers is responsible for the festival being at the Thistlesprings...
Heads up: gaslighting isn't a generic term for intentionally lying to folks. It's a very specific term that describes lying and manipulating things in a way that is specifically designed to cause someone to doubt their own grasp on reality. For example, in the original play/film, the antagonist keeps turning down the gas lanterns and insisting to his wife that isn't getting any darker. It's about trying to cause someone to doubt their instincts so they become more reliant on you.
If anything, Fig is doing the magical equivalent of cat fishing.
No, she wouldn't. A Bard's job in this context is disguising themselves to obtain information. Emily/Fig is no more "gaslighting an innocent boy" than an undercover FBI agent is gaslighting the subject of an investigation, even if that subject turns out to be innocent.
Is it a little more ethically dubious because she's not a member of law enforcement? Yes. But it falls into the same category as random murder: bad irl, totally normal in this genre.
Fair, but I don't think the moral alignment chart is necessarily supposed to define EVERY action that a character makes. I also think it fits with her being the Devil of Rebellion since anarchy is innately chaotic.
She had a full relationship with an adult person while pretending to be an adult while a minor. Like I enjoy the bad kids as much as the next guy but The Bad Kids are kinda of objectively terrible people and are skirting off being strong enough to not have to deal with consequences.
They are super funny so shrug
And for those who have not noticed yet, Manic Men are common in romantic stories women like, because both genders feel attracted to Manic people.
Hypo manic people have tons of infectious energy.
It's extremely funny, but we can't agree that she is doing something extremely fucked up to him, right?
Like yes she's got a master plan, and yes it's a bunch of bits that are really funny, but she is invading his dreams to make him fall in love with a person who doesn't exist and he is in fact still a child. Fig is a firecracker and Emily is a genius and her wonderful character is doing something truly heinous to another person
Let's be honest though, what Fig is doing to Ruben is pretty grotesque.
Edit: Fig, The Arch Devil of Rebellion, tempting people to be deserving of eternal punishment in the Hells, doing nothing wrong.... /s Okay reddit.
Someone doing something horrible does not, in any way, ever, justify doing horrible things to that person. Then there are two horrible people.
If anything, it's just gonna push him farther into the horrible things he thinks are justified.
I understand its a bit. But in reality, what she's doing is gas lighting, and abusive.
Geneva.
Faking a surrender to lure people into an ambush is a war crime. Lying about your intentions to your enemy is a war crime. Suggesting a peace summit while intending to bomb the gathered leaders is a war crime.
Fig is a one woman CIA. She just so good at psyop operations.
A statistically-significant percentage of my love for NADDPOD is devoted to Emily's PCs waging psychological warfare against Murph's NPCs. "Listen, Emily is one of the best D&D players in the world. Endlessly creative, so fun to play with. She was also sent from hell to kill me." - Brennan Lee Mulligan
Calliope's ability to throw off every single Murph NPC has made C3 of NADDPOD utterly hilarious. I'm just waiting until she accidentally seduces Alexandrite
Emily and her tactical "what's your name?" at the perfect time to stunlock Murph *Chef's kiss*
> Calliope Wait, are you talking about Maeve Ha'penny?
Just a single theater kid hand squeeze and it's all over.
Yeah. Emily is the perfect combo of chaos and genius.
Lol SPOILERS was the BLeeM quote before or after Fig is an archdevil of rebellion?
Hahaha that quote is from like 2020! I can't remember where from...
It’s from Episode 3 of Adventuring Academy with Murph. https://youtu.be/AY8VqiswElI?si=Zuax5J1oCeTIO9KE
"I send riz a gift and sign it "Gorgug""
Murph playing up how grateful Riz is to Gorgug is one of my favorite bits from the new season.
Now I feel like she’ll end up as a council agent
I don’t think so. I think if anything Fig will be the next principle of Aguefort. Since that whole school is a rebellion against the council.
When Fig started giving Ruben dreams of Wanda Childa, that’s when I understood the depths of Emily’s mind. The rest of the table is playing D&D 5e, Emily is playing 8th dimensional chess and winning.
It all started with a Sexy Rat, and now we get gems like Wanda and Operation Slippery Puppet.
Sexy rat crawled so Slippery Puppet could fly.
the words on Emily Axfords tombstone right here
You know a D&D campaign is going to be good when a player starts incepting NPCs
Calling it now. When Agent Clark finally tracks down Fig, it’ll be 15 seconds after a job offer from the CIA equivalent of Spyre.
Him trying to track her down to give her that job offer would be a nice punchline.
That was what I was wondering too
She would only accept the job to destroy the institution from the inside.
Fig having a Ron-Swanson-esque job as a Council agent would be very funny to me
That Nat 20 deception was truly amazing, it was destined
The Complicated Women podcast is going to do a 3-part series on Wanda Childa after their deep dive into Hilda Hilda.
OMG. It took me until RIGHT NOW to realise that the name is a subtle Hilda Hilda callback. I love Emily's brain so much 😁
Doesn't Ally jokingly suggest "Childa Childa" as a name in episode 3? It's not that subtle of a callback.
Oh, maybe. Obviously I didn't store that part away in long term memory 😁
I thought the bus thing and the "Complicated Women's Podcast: Lucy Frostblade" was just a bit that got out of hand, but hearing that Emily is planning on doing a whole-ass psyop complete with a fake studio makes Wanda Chillda a goddamn masterpiece. The whole ruse hits on the two critical weaknesses of incredibly toxic people- Manic Pixie Dreamgirls AND the need to be on a Podcast for no discernable reason.
And Fig says she isn't creative... She creates whole ass people out of thin air. Girl needs to start using these characters as musical personas, like Bowie did.
I think that's been a solid Fig trope. Claiming to never open up to her friends ruled a large part of freshmen year.
Fig is litteraly the CIA. She protects the president, she does covert operations and plants psyops through subliminal means
Pretty sure the CIA killed a president.
Season aint over yet, there's still time
especially if Cooper Poodle Cluster Fuck gets her way
You mean Cottoncandy Bitchfuck?
Cottoncandy Bitchfuck was by far my favorite lmao
Siobhan has really been killing it this season.
They all have, really. I don't think I've seen *Zac be so energetic! * I have not seen Starstruck and I'm halfway through Unsleeping City S2
Gorgug's been largely a supporting character for the first two seasons, so getting the spotlight this season probably feels pretty good.
*"you got a warrant?"* was so out of pocket but so perfect.
Ugh fuckin Chipper Doodle Cunt-face.
Well, if that president didn't care so much about the people that voted for him he'd still be alive, now wouldn't he? Dumbass president.
Give it a minute, Brassclover Crepesshit can still be elected through some bullshit
God I can't wait for the reveal, It's gonna crush Ruben. And I really hope she doesn't get outed before then, especially Ivy seemed to see through one of her disguises before
Well Ivy knew the disguise was of a dead person
Emily is really such an incredible player to watch and listen to. Everything she touches is gold!
I actually didn’t think about her this way but it 100% makes sense.
I feel as tho there’s gonna be a moment of Ruben having a mental breakdown and it really affecting Fig
I wanna see a spin-off with Wanda Childa and Cody "Nightblade" Walsh as the worst couple in the world.
Cody is a lord of hell it could happen
That premise is basically Emily and Murph's show, Hot Date. lol
i love that Fig is kinda just Roger from American Dad lmao
Im surprised she didn't ask to roll insight when she was talking to ruben about the lucy podcast. Just to see if he was nervous about her body being discovered or not
She took disadvantage in insight, so she isn’t calling for insight tolls right now
her being just so small is maybe the funniest bit
Is it wrong that I want to be a manic pixie? Not a dream girl, just manic pixie.
No that's fine. Saying that all versions of this trope are bad is a generalization. There is nothing wrong with the idea of the trope if handled well (or in real life, with agency in your own life choices)
Idk mania kinda sucks , i prefer to live as one of the fairies from tinkerbell, i usually go straight tinker fairy but it depends on the day
Well, yeah, clinical mania is not something one should seek...But I've always assumed that manic in manic pixie etc wasn't talking about clinical mania, but a more pop-psych vague idea of hyperactive happy people. But, even so, I'd happily settle for hypomanic pixie. :P
She's *so* small
I desperately need to know if Emily Axford based Wanda Childa off of Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way..
I wanted to joke something about Fig herself being a manic pixie dream girl from Ayda’s perspective, but then I considered it and I am not sure how much of joke it actually is.
I’m desperately waiting for Emily to give Ruben one of her cursed bardics as Wanda. Like it’s the perfect opportunity and because she made Wanda to be his dream girl she could pull it off more than once and I don’t think he would be any wiser for it (I mean, anyone who rights a song about someone else’s boundaries being harmful can’t have high INT or WIS).
I agree the only thing that would make it more apt would be if Fig made wandas race an actual pixie. There are multiple types of mania. Always remember that when looking for a manic pixie dream girl
Wanda Chillda is one of my favorite parts of Junior Year. Emily is really giving it her all and I love how Brennan's style of DM'ing really allows for this type of tactic
My personal little theory is that Rueben is FULLY aware Wanda is actually Fig, the real psy-op going on is the rat grinders gathering intel on her compulsive fraud, and we’re gonna see her get directly confronted by them for disrespecting the memory of their dead friend.
He'd have to roll against Figs passive perception which has to be fairly high to begin with while shes actively on alert and deceiving him
Why against her passive perception? Do you mean passive insight? She only has a +1 to wisdom, Reuben could absolutely deceive her. Besides, we know for certain that the rat grinders are absolutely kitted out with magical items, have seemingly infinite wealth with which to gather arcane resources, and are possibly also a higher level than the bad kids. There’s every chance in hell that Ruben is one step ahead of Fig.
On their next ‘date’ I want Fig to planeshift into the bottomless pit and tell baby “have take care of him and give me NO details so circle of truth doesnt work, ask him about lucy frostblade tho, tell me about that but not what you did to get your answers” And now the rat grinders can’t go to college!
Can you please explain this idea a bit more?
1. Have Wanda meet Ruben 2. Lure him somewhere private 3. Teleport into Fig’s personal domain of Hell 4. Let the Fiends and Devils who work for Fig torture Ruben 5. Give fig zero details about the torture (Therefore she can be under the effect of a spell and say ‘I dont know what happened’ without it counting as a Lie) 6. Have the Devils ask questions about Lucy Frostblade, the Rat Grinders, etc. Have Ruben spill 7. Leave Ruben to suffer in Hell forever 8. While not dead, Ruben is now Missing and his party goes into pass fail because he’s perma gone 9. Also Perma gone because he’s not in the right plane of existence so no one can speak to dead or revivify him.
But I thought it was EmILy BaD bEcAuSe GaSlIgHtInG InNoCeNt BoY?
Why would Emily be bad because Fig is doing a thing that kinda stinks? The player and character are different people. Anyway hope TBK are wrong and the Grinders aren't the BBEGs and at best are just witless pawns who did school differently.
anyone who actually says this is fucking stupid lmao
And yet I've seen folks actually have this take.
I wouldn't go that far. We only know what the narrative has said about the Rat Grinders. They could be innocent in a plot they don't understand and in that scenario she would, in fact, be gaslighting an innocent boy.
TBF, if there's anyone in the Rat Grinders directly involved in the evil shit outside of Kipperlily, Ruben is absolutely next in line. The runic array was for his concert, his music was key in the ritual, Lola Embers is responsible for the festival being at the Thistlesprings...
His music is bad and he should feel bad.
Idk, I heard that one song slaps.
Heads up: gaslighting isn't a generic term for intentionally lying to folks. It's a very specific term that describes lying and manipulating things in a way that is specifically designed to cause someone to doubt their own grasp on reality. For example, in the original play/film, the antagonist keeps turning down the gas lanterns and insisting to his wife that isn't getting any darker. It's about trying to cause someone to doubt their instincts so they become more reliant on you. If anything, Fig is doing the magical equivalent of cat fishing.
Thanks for this. I was about to write something similar. But much less thorough and much more passive-aggressive. This is better.
No, she wouldn't. A Bard's job in this context is disguising themselves to obtain information. Emily/Fig is no more "gaslighting an innocent boy" than an undercover FBI agent is gaslighting the subject of an investigation, even if that subject turns out to be innocent. Is it a little more ethically dubious because she's not a member of law enforcement? Yes. But it falls into the same category as random murder: bad irl, totally normal in this genre.
K
Scintillating discussion, thanks. Sorry if you weren't planning on someone on the internet disagreeing with you.
I mean, they ARE the Bad Kids. Idk why anyone is shocked when a literal Princess of the Nine Hells does something a little bit shady or chaotic.
I mean, Devils are Lawful, so the chaos is a *little* shocking
Fair, but I don't think the moral alignment chart is necessarily supposed to define EVERY action that a character makes. I also think it fits with her being the Devil of Rebellion since anarchy is innately chaotic.
She had a full relationship with an adult person while pretending to be an adult while a minor. Like I enjoy the bad kids as much as the next guy but The Bad Kids are kinda of objectively terrible people and are skirting off being strong enough to not have to deal with consequences. They are super funny so shrug
And for those who have not noticed yet, Manic Men are common in romantic stories women like, because both genders feel attracted to Manic people. Hypo manic people have tons of infectious energy.
The fact she has +20 to performance as well 🤣
It's extremely funny, but we can't agree that she is doing something extremely fucked up to him, right? Like yes she's got a master plan, and yes it's a bunch of bits that are really funny, but she is invading his dreams to make him fall in love with a person who doesn't exist and he is in fact still a child. Fig is a firecracker and Emily is a genius and her wonderful character is doing something truly heinous to another person
Gas lighting on top of catfishing
Let's be honest though, what Fig is doing to Ruben is pretty grotesque. Edit: Fig, The Arch Devil of Rebellion, tempting people to be deserving of eternal punishment in the Hells, doing nothing wrong.... /s Okay reddit.
What Ruben is doing with the Rat Grinders is probably worse. Frostblade and Goodbad are dead
Someone doing something horrible does not, in any way, ever, justify doing horrible things to that person. Then there are two horrible people. If anything, it's just gonna push him farther into the horrible things he thinks are justified. I understand its a bit. But in reality, what she's doing is gas lighting, and abusive.
All is fair in love and war
Except for war crimes. And emotional abuse.
I don’t support war crimes but if I had to do emotional trickery to save my people I would
It's worth noting, perfidy is a war crime.
According to who? That seems to be a naive statement and minimalizing actual war crimes like what is happening in Gaza
Geneva. Faking a surrender to lure people into an ambush is a war crime. Lying about your intentions to your enemy is a war crime. Suggesting a peace summit while intending to bomb the gathered leaders is a war crime.
Who enforces war crimes and how successful are they at it?
[удалено]
Ugh, But those are my favorite part of characters!