future ozian having to have uncomfortable conversations about how their hero authorized wiretapping animal rights leaders while serving as the good witch of the north

Our protagonist acknowledges at some point that he's aware of the cliche. How could he not? He's alive in 2025. He's seen mean tweets before about how men write women in novels. He counts himself as a feminist, an ally.

But this girl—and she is described as a *girl*—is different. He's sure of it.

Near the end of the novel, our protagonist will tell his young partner that he’s letting her go. She won’t understand. He smiles sweetly, pats her fatherly on the hand. I completed my character arc, he says. I am selflessly leaving you to live your life, pursue better men.

She walks boobily away.

features:
* dysfunctional family (nagging wife, ungrateful kid, overbearing mother)
* perky forbidden love interest who is so young and innocent and her innocence is what lets her see the world clearly
* feeling bad about my bad decisions
* social issue i became obsessed with while writing the novel

you should have a basic sense of the rules, yes, but the degree to which those need to be followed is going to vary by campaign and players

the thing to keep in mind is that the rules exist to facilitate improvised comedy/drama and if that's not working for your table, you are free to nudge things.

the only useful lessons i think you can extract are, "if you're going to attempt a high-wire, tight-rope walk, make sure that the first time you try it isn't the opening night of the circus"

and also, "don't make yourself too financially and reputationally dependent on your hobbies"

so instead you have vicious cycles of them recognizing problems, trying to course correct in the wrong direction, getting more criticism, and slowly getting more jaded and burned out.

it's a rough listen and you can tell by the end that everyone is just exhausted and feels trapped.

if Grad had just been a rando's podcast, a hobby done for free with friends, it probably would have gotten a few listeners and then quietly abandoned as they realized it wasn't working and they weren't having fun

but it being locked into their larger brand and income meant they could not escape it

unfortunately, travis had his first campaign spectated by an audience of tens of thousands with people parasocially bonded to his family on a podcast he relies on for his well-being, near-weekly, with minimal opportunities for useful feedback.

this is a terrible way to learn a complex skill.

the way this is supposed to work is you fuck up a lot in your first campaigns and then through trial and error slowly learn what does and does not work.

BLM has a bit where he talks about how his first campaigns as a kid were too planned out and he had to learn how to stop doing detailed plotting.

almost all of travis's problems as a DM emerge from inexperience. the overabundance of NPCs, the railroading, the telling players how they feel, underestimating complexity and what players can realistically grasp are common problems that i see new DMs struggle with all the time.

perhaps most bafflingly, a line at the end suggesting Veronica has done terrible things but can change ("I am damaged, far too damaged, but you're not beyond repair") is changed to imply that Veronica is the only innocent party ("I am damaged, but you're different, you're the one we ought to spare")

i really, really don't understand West End censorship either. kids are getting fed Drano and we cut a line about marijuana use. two characters get shot to death but we remove a line about bullying. suicide is present but discussions of suicide notes are toned down.

i don't know why but West End has fallen in love with these weird pseudo-rap numbers that mainly just consist of the characters monologuing really fast to a simple beat. Operation Mincemeat had this as well. Heathers has two new songs that take this approach.

im not really an unbiased authority, but my main issues come down to the set design—which is functional but not exactly inspiring—and changes ported over from the West End to soften the tone and make the production cheerier (“Blue”, a song im not fond of, replaced with a worse “You’re Welcome”)

everyone on stage seemed to be having a blast, but McKenzie Kurtz—playing Heather Chandler—was a standout performer. endlessly entertaining, with a great sense of comedic timing and understanding of her role.

my thoughts:

Don't be a lazy fuck.

you do not have to be a savvy political observer to note this is barely making it over the line, with the support of senators who are not up for election for some time or are retiring

this is a very deliberately calculated effort and it is insulting for schumer to claim he had no part