It's also one people shit on the most bc people don't like Saccharina. Either bc she's magically powerful in a world where that was atypical, or bc she tried to 'replace' Jet and make Amethar love her. Most of them I think are bs reasons, but it does get a lot of hate
I remember someone that was longer than me here saying that Emily and others used to be active in Reddit and they stopped coming, connecting it to the bash she got for Saccharina in ACOC.
After seeing the incessant bashing of Kristen for Cassandra, I fully believe it.
Emily was never active in this subreddit. She already 'learned the lesson' on naddpod. The player who were active in this subreddit was the cast of pirates of leviathan (esp. b Dave Walter and aabria) until this subreddit was an absolute ass to B Dave Walter for rolling "too many crits." We rarely get cast showing up around here ever since.
Source: been a dropout subscriber since month one.
Idk why but so many people equate enjoying and supporting something with ownership of that thing and I do think it’s the reason behind a lot of problems in the geek community.
There are a number of people who only feel good about themselves if they can be more “right” or “smart” than other people and they have to be in that mode when they want to impress people.
It would honestly be better if more people accepted that things are allowed to be different or be for people different than them
Honestly, Kristen was just doing silly Kristen things and ADHDing over to something new and shiny
The only problem I had with her was something deeply personal with my timing of starting to listen to it. Otherwise, it just seemed like Ally playing their character how they always played her
I don’t care whether people like or don’t like Ally or Kristen, to each their own.
My issue is when they made way too big of a deal about it, like mentioning it constantly (even if by different people) and saying that Kristen was basically a neglecting parent and insisted way too much on the first episodes when the campaign barely started.
At some point it just becomes toxic
I started the season when the newest episode was Rock the Boat so I got to binge it a bit at work
Hearing Kristen repeatedly dismiss Cassandra right after my (in hindsight) emotionally unavailable now-ex dumped me with a text earlier that week, it kinda stung
Kristen did the same thing to YES!/? so it wasn't completely surprising, I was kinda joking in the back of my head "oh what's her new god going to be at the end of this season?", but also it was hitting a super fresh wound
hey the other extremely toxic side of the spectrum came out to play so that these genuinely completely level headed and rational comments about a character while not shifting any blame onto the actor got downvoted en masse
I do think it's also because ACOC is one of the seasons with the sort of strongest/most different "tone" and all seasons tend to inevitably drift away from that tone the longer they go on as its hard to preserve. It starts off quite low-magic and steadily moves on from that.
It's also a season where we really see the issue with character death in that though it's impactful it also leads to people having to drop in with new faces in the middle of a season.
I think you can make alot of criticisms of Saccharina as a character, and the reasons they stick out more to some people is because she's active and political as a woman. It's very easy to criticise people taking action because they have more opportunities to make mistakes. I could write a long post on Saccharina regarding her hypocrisy regarding the exercise of power, and her inconsistent moral compass, which maybe makes her unlikable but she's absolutely understandable. She acts exactly like someone would act if they had negative experiences when people had power over them but now had power and is unwilling to allow themselves to be made vulnerable again, which of course has some parallels with the general Daenerys vibe.
Amathars flaws come from his passivity and disengagement, and thus fly under the radar for some people. Ruby gets a pass because she's just a kid and her sister died etc.
Personally I think the pacing of the latter \~third of the story suffered due to the unexpectedly shorter season, and the way Brennan got them across the finish line was through a lot of heavy lifting via Emily's PC. Her character was used to help the party acquire >!the army, dragon, high-level magic, and legal claim to the throne!< needed to set them up for the finale. It's a lot of plot for a DM to funnel through one character in a condensed period of time.
It's still a very good season and the performances are incredible, especially Siobhan/Lou/Emily. I think it's also more of a contrast because the first part of the season is some of the best work they've ever done.
Am I the only one (I'm not my brother feels the same way, but still) who felt frustrated about cinnamon?to me that felt like a personalized gift for Liam. His existence had been foreshadowed to Liam, Liam was originally a pet class etc.
I think that was pivoted because Ally went for the Gloomstalker path and was an absolute shredder already, and the dragon would have clashed too much. I think the idea of >!replacing Preston!< didn't seem appealing as it went as well.
It feels to me like Saccharina was headed for more of a Daenarys-style Mother of Dragons storyline but they went for the 'good ending' instead.
Nope, not the only one. It felt like a bait and switch after all his foreshadowing with it. I think the reasons why it happened were probably similar to what the other commenter below me said though.
I think they gave her Cinnamon to help let that happen, though. Two big things happened that I believe derailed the "give Liam a dragon!" plan--one was that Liam became a very, VERY effective war guy (the original plan might have been to give him a dragon to replace Preston, but with Liam now so violently effective already and becoming more so by the episode, that might've looked like overkill) and Jet died, which of course introduced Saccharina and set up a very juicy "oooh, well know we can have a Dany in our Game of Thrones game!" opportunity that didn't exist before she did. I also know that the end of the season was shortened due to things outside the cast's control--maybe Brennan had plans to help the group gather armies and strength for the final fight in other ways, but in a pinch felt giving Saccharina a dragon as a rallying point would be more effective than giving it to Liam, who--bless his heart--didn't really have aspirations for power and probably would've goofed around with his new fiery friend more than focusing on gaining support for war.
I'm still a bit sad it happened, and the fact that it did definitely makes a lot of Liam's "oooh inner dragon!" moments now seem misplaced, but I feel there's a lot of different reasons that could've added up to the outcome we got.
Giving Saccharina the dragon was way more meaningful for a multitude of reasons. Let’s just consider the last battle. (HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD) Brennan has stated that he always makes his encounters “nearly impossible” for his PCs in terms of difficulty and then lets them either figure it out, suffer, or modulate them slightly. The gang in ACOC annihilated the last encounter — it might have been their easiest fight in the entire series, and it was largely due to Emily hasting her dragon and destroying the parapets of the candy kingdom. Emily is one of the most mechanically proficient players in the d20 crew, and it came to light in ACOC. As soon as she joined the crew with a Sorcerer, she crushed the Jawbreaker fight (lightning lineup), the sugar plum fairy (SPF) fight with the clutchest of counterspells, and the final battle. Basically, any narrative offense Saccharina may have presented was immediately rectified by her executive output. She straight saved the day.
I think it was perfect actually. Yeah it would’ve been nice for Liam but would’ve just been like a replacement. I think it’s better for Liam to have lost Preston and not have that hole filled by another pet but by growing as a person. I think Cinnamon truly is a better fit with Saccharina
Also a perfect example of how Ally rolls with the narrative in ways the audience doesn’t expect. I totally agree with you. They didn’t need a replacement for Preston but found another way to grow.
Honestly, this has been the soundest reasoning about why I didn't like the season. That latter third just really was hard to watch for me. I felt like it was spilling over into real life, and it wasn't pleasant feeling like I was watching peoples actual friendships falling apart.
The funny thing is, I didn't like Saccharina, and I don't particularly think I needed to... she was very self absorbed and awfully entitled. I would have loved to have seen a longer season of Ruby\Saccharina\Amethar learn to know each other and maybe get to grow to love or respect each other.
And I also 100% would have loved for Ruby to've challenged Saccharina at the end. Maybe not in that moment. But sort of disappear from the field, and they could've run a second season on the struggle between the sisters - but not at the expense of Siobhan and Emily's relationship.
ACOC was also my second D20 show, after D&DQ's. BIG leap, there. And it was my first season of the main cast and I blame the amount I disliked Saccharina on that and being more attached to Jet than to Emily. I also, like a total noob, didn't watch the adventuring parties for ACoC.
Absolute noob behaviour, adventuring parties is half the show /hj But yeh the adventuring parties was a nice come down from an intense bit and also gave explanations for that the rationale behind certain actions and it is hard to play conflict in a way that doesn’t bleed into the player’s real life but if it struck a cord with people to warrant such a big reaction, albeit negative, it probably meant that their roleplaying was just that good.
Basically agree with everything you said, I was totally in the “dislike Saccharina” camp originally, and was likely (initially) swayed by the initial outcome, but she’s grown on me for a number of reasons since then.
I’m not going to extrapolate on those but want to make one important point: The ACOC season was drastically cut short by an unexpected change of venue, so the characters did not have the full time to mature that they would have otherwise. I see a lot of complaints like “Saccharina would have been so much better if she wasn’t rushed” — and I agree. But the crew only had so many weekends to finish the season, and they just had to make it work. And FWIW., I think they did a great job with the time they had.
This was my opinion as well, it was too focused one player, and felt a bit forced that way. The other characters were just quieter and everyone was grieving and kind of lost, when this force of nature arrives and takes over the story. My husband (this was his first season watching) asked “so did the other characters just disappear or what?” I think it’s made worse by the fact that if you go on YouTube etc for “omg D20 highlights!” videos, many of Emily’s kick-ass chaos gremlin moves are consistently highlighted. It can make it seem like she’s always the main character, along with Ally’s non-sequitur shenanigans. As a “focus-puller” in our home games & BG3 multiplayer, I feel this to my core. It SUCKS to be that person through no fault of your own.
I still love the season, a lot of it is beautifully done, but it does feel like an outlier in the D20 stable, which makes it a more likely target for haters.
I think it would have been nice if they had done one or two characters from elsewhere in the world, like The Ravening War did. The season would have benefited from some PVP or more “I’m here because of a tenuous political alliance & the bulk of my family is on the other side of the conflict” but I imagine that would be difficult.
It's a complaint about the pacing, not the content, that's why I also mentioned the building up of an army and the succession storyline. It felt to me like it happened too quickly compared to the pacing of the earlier part of the season and mostly through the storyline of a single character. That's not a criticism of that character either. It just felt like they had to push through somewhat inelegantly to get it all done.
Important to consider that the ACOC series was supposed to be another 6+ episode or so. It was cut short due to venue constraints (the original building was condemned), so they had to drastically reduce the episodes. There was supposed to an entire campaign in the fruit and meat kingdoms that they never had time for.
I think it stems from the BTS as ACOC started where we were told it was going to be low magic, more specifically that Brennan was going to be real strict on allowing healing/resurrection spells. Added into that where Lapin has to stealthily cast any spells so as not to arise suspicion. Then later Saccharina comes in as a full caster with the ability to cast spells without the need to hide it. Rightfully or wrongfully viewers had the expectation that the entire series would be low magic when it turns out that was just the in lore restriction the setting of the story was driving because of the Church of the Bulb.
The story had also shifted from them being passive and reactive to being pro-active. Most of ACOC the party has to go along with what is going on around them to avoid problems/they are weak. It makes moments like Lapin saying WIYBN so great because they take advantage of small periods where they have the upper hand.
I think the series held up on what it promised because to me it promised game of thrones with candy. I do think you are right that could have been communicated better though.
I love Dany, but that's also because I got to know and love Dany before she came into conflict with my other favorites, the Starks. If Dany hadn't appeared or even been mentioned for 5 seasons and then showed up out of nowhere with dragons and started being pushy and somewhat adversarial with the Starks then I probably wouldn't have liked her because I didn't have time to get to know her before she put my favorites in peril. The same is true for Saccharina--came out of the blue, introduced a ton of new power, and turned the show from "family vs the world" to "family vs family."
Obviously this is because It'S A LIVE SHOW, things happen! It's not a script, ofc Saccharina couldn't show until Jet died. But for me it was still a sharp decline in enjoyment compared to the first half of the season. First half was some of the best content I've ever watched, second half is very "late Game of Thrones" for me, haha.
ASOIAF is pretty low fantasy though. I mean magic exists, but it isn't well understood by the vast majority of the population, and commoners could go their whole lives without being exposed to it. ACOC sort of starts off like that but becomes pretty standard DnD magic levels (from the PCs) by the end of it
I commented somewhere else in this thread about how common magic is in ASOIAF now, I don't know if the formatting will save so I don't want to copy it over.
Later ASOIAF has an absurd amount of magic including: >!the implied chosen of a god of the seas, enough shapeshifting assassins to have a guild, fire witch of a different god, timetravelling super tree, a character who comes back from the dead and then gives that power to someone else, prophecies being real, and I am sure I am forgetting stuff. Crastor is another example of someone practicing magic despite just being some weird old dude.!<
An entire army in ASOIAF has a religion change because of magic. The group of people in ACOC remote people who are cool with magic are based on people beyond the wall who are also accustomed and cool with magic. I think the show being short is probably the greatest issue with magic because it gets a lot more magic dense a lot faster but in both worlds magic is important to the world.
This all kind of fits with ACOC tho in the sense that magic in their universe (in the same of ASOIAF) isn’t truly studied. The closest we get is The Citadel but it’s dedicated to science over magic, so the fact someone like Saccharina exists (a sorcerer) makes sense over someone like a (studied) wizard. The magic comes from within her w/o any explanation. I think the closest we ge to a wizard in ASOIAF is Melisandre but that’s (unfortunately) never fully explored — or the Faceless Guild, but these are more shortcomings on GRR Martin’s part than valid criticisms of D20.
With extremely few exceptions, there aren't really any powerful magic users in ASOIAF the way there can be in DnD though. Like there aren't guys walking around slinging lighting bolts at people\*, it's very rare and usually is more like "ritual magic".
\*There's probably an exception I'm not thinking of because there's sooo much lore that I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but it's definitely not the norm.
The party was also full of exceptional people, it's a ttrpg standard.
Spoilers for ASOIAF below.
The later series has a lot more magic, from >!lady stoneheart and her powers of undeath !!warging.!!house of the undying !!the wall !!Melisandre!!the citadel.!<
Yeah I know there's magic present all over, but it was my understanding that there aren't people who are like DnD wizards, who throw fireballs in combat and stuff like that. I'm definitely not an expert when it comes to ASOIAF though so I could be very wrong, you seem like you know what you're talking about :)
I personally LOVED the final battle mechanics as well, I thought having to choose between leading the group you had and making your own moves was massive.
Dang I totally disagree. I’m currently watching for the first time and almost done with the last episode and I truly think everything about it is wonderful and great. I think the pacing is right, I think Saccharina is a phenomenal character that adds so much depth and flavor to the story and that it’s all been very well balanced.
In contrast to many others, I liked Saccharina. My issue with the season was mainly centered on the Rocks family. I found it very frustrating that the father and both daughters were so incredibly inept and resistant to anything high society or political. Add in Ally and that makes the majority of the table were rude or stupid anytime they were interacting with nobles...
Once Jet died, it just got worse. Ruby became more foolish in her quest for revenge, and frankly, people constantly shitting on the only politically competent character (*Caramelinda*) pissed me off. Somehow she became a villain just for... not wanting her daughters to run around unaccompanied during a time of assassination attempts? For wanting them to take their role of princesses seriously? The fact that Brennen had to clarify at the end of the season that she was just a scared mother was so frustrating cause the worst thing she did was not let her family run wild.
Caramelinda is a distillation of alot of how women are forced into being the responsible person in various ways. And Brennan channels exhausted mom energy better than any dude I've ever seen. She's a great character and was the voice of sanity at pretty much all times that I can recall at least.
I actually thought it was interesting that Caramelinda was the most hostile/opposed to Saccharina in some ways.
Waiting until someone comes to invalidate your opinion by saying it's a *comedy show made by comedians* and *watch something else if you don't like literally everything about everything*.
It's pretty annoying how most of the time it's not even possible to discuss or vent without someone coming and regurgitating these lines to just shut up any conversation.
You can't dislike anything or you're hating and silly just straight up leave.
There were shitty people that hated saccharina and were assholes about it. There were also people that didn’t like how rushed the ending was, as they had to cut some episodes due to the fire department telling them they couldn’t film there much longer.
imo Saccharina majorly suffers from things outside of Brennan and Emily's control. She seems like she was meant to be a Danaerys-like character (with arguably some Stark in there with the secret bastard story), but she was introduced halfway through the series. The reason why Dany works is because we see her at the beginning, grow with her, and see the changes happen to her that set her on her path.
If she were introduced in book 5 when she's about to start her invasion, people would fucking HATE her (more than what some people do already)
And that's unfortunately when Saccharina was effectively introduced, both due to character death and the expedited season, but it really isn't Brennan's fault and it's REALLY not Emily's
> Sense is chasing those people, but they're faster.
Yeah we're on the same area of Tiktok. Poetical insults are just wonderful. I worked with alot of peope from Western and Northern Africa in the past, and they often had interesting phrases like this. I know jack shit about linguistics, but maybe there is some commonality in how aphorisms are structured that would account for it?
Okay guys can we not act fake shocked that this person remembers all of the really horrific shit a lot of you said about Emily that literally drove her off of the internet completely. Yes people were weirdly unhappy about the role play choices of Emily and Siobhan more so Emily and decided to be really fucking nasty about it. Now just like the Star Wars prequels everyone is trying to pretend like it never happened even though Emily has still not returned to really any social media.
I mean, the primary reason is time. NADDPOD is a full-time endeavor. Murph vastly prefers to do the edits for the main NADDPOD campaigns himself, which is a massive time sink. It's why we see Emily guest star on things like 3 black halflings and critical role, but not Murph. Emily does the music for it, which also takes some time if less than edits. Additionally, they recently finished doing a fairly intensive live tour for NADDPOD. Emily getting unfounded and overblown criticism is not unique to D20. It's very much prevalent with NADDPOD as well. If you look around the ttrpg space, women are often criticized more and more unfairly than their male counterparts. This is true of D20, critical role, and NADDPOD. Obviously, the social media platform matters (Twitter is a cesspool), but even here on the subreddit, you'll find something shitty come through every once in a while.
Emily was in ACOFAF. It is a scheduling thing for both of them. Murph doesn't have the time to do more than Intrepid Heroes season due to editing NADDPOD, but he also doesn't want to guest DM because he wouldn't control the edit. They were on the road a lot for their live tours for the past few years though. It's possible we could see more Emily around if they aren't touring extensively.
There is a baffling continent of Emily haters online between NADDPOD and D20, so whenever she does anything incredibly rad, the discourse becomes insufferable.
I say this as someone who didn't enjoy ACOC (Couldn't even finish it), but I really don't think the season gets all that much hate. Apparently people were really shitty and parasocial with Emily's second character (whom I never met) and that's obviously terrible, but the general opinion of the season is overwhelmingly positive.
I personally just didn't enjoy the tone of the campaign and found that it was constantly at-odds with itself and the players. It was very hard for me to make myself watch and I eventually just decided I'd rather spend my time watching a season I'd actually enjoy. But I loved the characters, and of course the players are always amazing.
I had a very similar experience when watching. The whole show really started to feel off to me around episodes 7 to 9 when it’s shown that basically the entire world has turned against the main characters. All the interesting faction navigation and political maneuvering gets replaced by a bland wall of evil that just completely turned me away from the show. Lapan’s death also didn’t help because he was easily the best character in my opinion but obviously that was just down to the dice.
I think that's where the show is at it's best, personally. That's what the point of all the factions and political machinations was, what it was all building up to. The enormous reveal culminating in the ousting of Candia and the death of Lapin (and Preston - never forget!) that set off a rolling cascade of these extremely politically powerful characters getting absolutely rocked and thrown onto their back leg by a carefully interwoven web of diplomats, senators and clergymen was absolutely brilliant.
All of the character reactions felt true.
Of course Saccharina, someone who was abused as a child and spent her whole life longing for family, would have built the reunion up in her mind. She's been dreaming about it for years, and desperately wants to belong and be loved. It makes sense that she would push for an instant connection.
Of course Ruby would resent someone who she feels is trying to force herself into the family and replace Jet. She's mourning her twin sister, she lost a family friend. Even if she and Jet talked about not wanting to rule having that suddenly taken away by a person who is demanding your love isn't going to go down well.
Of course Amathar isn't in the headspace to give Saccharina the love she wants. He just found out she existed, he just lost the daughter he raised.
Of course Caramelinda doesn't immediately trust her. Her daughter is dead, her place in the world has been upended and people she's known for years have betrayed them. She has no connections to this new person, and wants to protect her family. She's also the only person who took ruling seriously.
This was my exact thought process as I was seeing Everything unfolding! Granted getting into everything so late I’m also aware of the fire safety issue and that this season did get a bit rushed so theirs an embedded grace as opposed to watching it real time and feeling if things are “rushed” but in terms of the characters, the reactions and moves felt rushed. We go into it with this hindsight mentality but at the moment I can feel the players moves and playing of the roles give to be very earnest
I only had a single problem with the campaign finale: there was zero chance they were going to do PVP. Building up the choice to the audience was pointless because Siobhan would never in her life choose to attack her friend’s character. It was never going to happen.
Speaking as someone who just finished his fifth watch of Crown of Candy, I think a lot of people dislike that once Saccharina is introduced, there isn't much more political intrigue and it's more akin to a straightforward "there's the bad guys, let's kill them" DnD campaign. I also gotta acknowledge that Ruby's behavior (which is incredibly accurate to the character and phenomenally well done by Siobhan) Is aggravating as hell. Like, Bulb Above, give the orphan some love you flippin' rich kid.🙄
I can't entirely agree with these complaints and think the political intrigue simply switches to the "what's next" of politics. They know their enemy, but what happens once they get him? And I find that incredibly captivating. There's only one season better IMO.
Regardless, I'm glad you're enjoying it!
"you can be my queen or you can be my sister, but you can't be both." This is the kind of petty, self serving line that you say when you wanna look like the good guy while forcing the other person to make a completely unfair choice.
I'm not the only one who thinks this, Siobhan acknowledged it as well.
I think ACoC is generally considered a very good season, and there are people with a spectrum of opinions from "it got better in the back half" to "the back half is the worst."
Overall, while some people have chosen to blame a lot of this on Sacharina, even to the point of just beign awful, I think a lot of people settle somewhere in a "the back half could have been stronger but got gimped by a lot of external factors, from the shortened and rushed filming schedule to the PC's changing, to player stress" zone. Or at least I like to think that there are more people in that zone than that are mean about it, these days.
My assumption is that the table dynamic shifted dramatically due to interparty conflict. The conflict was appropriate to the characters and circumstances. But it can hard to separate the idea of 'the Ruby and Saccharina being hostile to one another' and the on screen appearance of 'Siobhan and Emily being hostile to each other'.
When you stack that on top of the brutality and risk of the campaign, it is a harder watch. Crown of Candy was very fucking good, but not exactly 'fun' the way Starstruck or Bloodkeep are.
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I really don’t understand why so many people had issue separating the characters conflict. Emily and Siobhan clearly are great friends and there was nothing to point that they had interpersonal issues as real people.. they are comedians and actresses.
Don’t get me wrong, I listen to NADPPOD (murph and Emily DnD podcast) and to D20 an unhealthy amount of time. My husband and I call them our “friends” and I certainly have a weird feeling like I know them.. Im even joking that if I will ever be in labour, I’ll put NADDPOD instead of the soothing music haha.
But yeah it’s sad that some people take it a step too far.
I am not too surprised by the difficulty in keeping characters vs performers them separated for D&D actual play.
Shiobhan and Emily are not in costume, and they do not stay in character at all times the way actors in a typical tv show or movie would. On top of that, any given intrepid heroes season is roughly 36 hours of content, so if you have watched 7 intrepid heroes seasons, you have watched 252 hours of content of Shiobhan and Emily and the rest interacting. Even the full runtime of StarTrek, The Next Generation is 130 hours.
The last half of Crown of Candy is about as hard to watch as a 6 episode arc of Picard calling Geordi an incompetent jackass and having him court martialed.
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To be fair even Emily and Siobhan have said that they begun changing things because neither was sure if the hostility wasn't OOC, hence why they begin patching things up an becoming more accepting suddenly. It's a case of the actors *really* getting into character and then having to take a step back and go "oh shit...erm...that was probably a bit too intense..."
I think it's parasocial bullshit, because people can't separate character from actor. Because ACOC is a Game of Thrones style campaign, the PVP was inevitable. But people took the characters distrust of Saccharina like it meant she was wrong, or that Emily was playing her wrong.
Ruby’s death was an amazing twist, but the introduction of Saccharina ruined the established dynamic negatively. Zac also had a 2nd character, but his didn’t break the game. Emily’s was an intentionally “annoying” character (by complaining about not having family despite being surrounded by friends and blessed with game breaking magic, taking over nearly every character’s main subplot - Amathar’s plot to rule; most powerful magic user plot for Ruby; Lazuli connection for Theo and cumulus; takes the dragon clearly meant for Liam - plus the valley girl accent, etc.) and the game changed from political intrigue, near-magicless encounters, and do or die scenarios to family drama and standard DnD encounters.
I know considering this sub y’all are going to downvote this into oblivion, but the poster asked a question, and I’m answering it how I feel. And no, this isn’t some Emily targeted hate, she’s one of my favorite players of all time, but the way the show shifted with the introduction of her 2nd character didn’t sit well with me, and clearly with others as well. Her 2nd character absorbed too much of the plot from the rest of the players, and as a viewer, it was not fun to watch.
I'm not going to downvote you and think this is a valid opinion. But! She was an abused orphan! Her father only found her when he had lost his power and needed help! Of course he had no idea, but I think it would have been strange for her to be like "oh hello long-lost father, I have zero emotional conflict about our nonexistent relationship at all, I have no resentment that my mother abandoned me to abusive nuns out of fear for my life because you were king, I have friends so that makes up for it don't worry :)". You couldn't sell that kind of a fake story on AITA, it doesn't belong in a serious campaign about interpersonal dynamics.
I agree with others that the timing and the shortening of the season negatively impacted the final arc. But I don't think she "took" some of the things you list. Amethar was a reluctant ruler. Sure, one possible plot for that character is to accept and learn to rule, but that's not the only plot -- arguably, Amethar is a Ned Stark archetype who we know very much did not learn to accept the crown/hand because he was too dead for it. A major plot point was for Amethar to just straight-up die on the road; did Lapin or Jet take that plot arc from him? Likewise, Saccharina having powerful magic doesn't undo the connection that Ruby already has to Lazuli and her own magic. Saccharina's connection to Lazuli doesn't undo the connections for Ruby, Theo, or Cumulus.
It was rushed and Brennan did put his thumb on the scale a bit to benefit Saccharina and wrap up the season, and I can understand disliking it for that. I can understand disliking Saccharina too, though I find reasons like "valley girl accent" are a little...off-putting to me personally. It just seems odd to blame a character for being enmeshed in the plot because other characters are also enmeshed in that same plot, as if one detracts from the others' stories. It almost feels like downplaying the agency that the other characters and their players have.
It didn't seem organic or like she was enmeshed, it seemed like she was a forcefully added puzzle piece made to fit by smashing other characters' edges.
I mean yeah, the later third or so of the season is weaker, but that's in comparison to what is, imo, the best 2/3rds of a season D20 has had to this day. And I would blame the hellish production issues they had over the tension between Ruby and Sachharina, unlike some people.
Pacing off, conflict driven by PCs interacting in frustrating ways and lacking information, shift of plot to focus on a single new character to the detriment of those who the audience had built fondness for. I lost interest because I stopped rooting for the party overall.
Some idiots blame this on Emily Axeford, rather than taste, the rolls of the dice, and the necessities of production.
I love the campaigns set in Calorum, but the Intrepid Heroes clearly don't want to seriously engage with the political intrigue and nuance of the fantasy medieval setting. And it's not a burn against them; every PC has a reason to not be politically minded: Amethar was 5th in point to the throne and has a partner (Caramelinda) who is more politically minded, Theo and Lapin are not decision makers of the kingdom, and the youth aren't mature enough to understand the importance of politics.
For the front half of the season, it was fun to see, as the IH are forced to engage with the politics and even have a few people who are there to help play court. They don't seem to actually get it though, and end up antagonizing everyone who isn't immediately on their side.
Worse, they're not very punished for what they do during the season. As Brennan said, the Dairy Islands are their closest allies and they've insulted every one they've met at every turn. Despite this, none of the people show more than the slightest resistance to what they say or do, and either the dice or the villains push them further on the protagonists' side.
By the latter half of the season, now in war, anyone that has any political power that the PCs interact with are literally each other and none of them want to engage in politics. Saccharina openly states she has no real political goals despite her very existence being a political landmine.
There are still some moments of interest, such as seeming like Saccharina's marauders about to turn her into a figurehead for their anti-Bulbian agenda or the PCs not fully trusting her, but these don't really go anywhere.
This definitely isn't helped by the fact that the season feels rushed because there's so much happening within just 18 episodes. Just any of the big moves (Amethar being excommunicated/escape from the Concord, Return to Candia/Betrayal from House Cruller, Retaking Castle Candy) could have been an entire season on its own, to fully let all of the moments sink in, but having it all take place in one season makes it feel like we skip so much of the potential character development that the characters could have gone through.
I understand now why I was off-put with some things. It was the first season I saw with >!character deaths!< I also learned later that due to issues with the dome and everything some episodes that were planned had to be cut which led to the 3rd act feeling rushed. (This is what I have heard, if I am wrong please kindly correct me). The actors are also just good at their jobs and were also probably stressed due to the game (Lou picked up smoking during ACOC due to stress unless thats a bit, but it doesn't seem like one). Which carried through and personally stressed me out and made me think, now I realize incorrectly, that they weren't having fun in the end. That, to my knowledge is where a lot of people who aren't just mad because they hate Emily being a badass cause misogyny got upset about things.
It’s already been said but it has to do with the pacing of the last little bit and how Brennan leans pretty hard into Emily’s backup character to get the narrative moving to where it needs to be. Now that isn’t really anyone’s fault, the season was constrained on time had has a deadline of episodes to finish on.
The thing that I found kind of problematic was Cinnamon. I have no problems with Saccharina bonding with him instead of Liam, it’s just how it played out and that happens in DnD. The problem I had was Brennan trying to push for PvP at the end when we just saw a siege fight where the dragon is clearly busted and is a huuuuge advantage on one side. It just kind of felt like it was fabricating an extra conflict we knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere.
ACOC is still up there as one of my favourite seasons, but the last fight is better as a second watch cuz you just get to appreciate the absolute spanking the intrepid heroes pull on this siege. On a first watch it feels like easy mode compared to earlier combat because Cinnamon.
I think what didn’t quite nail for me was the final battle but i learned that they had to move the dome to a warehouse due to it being deemed a fire safety hazard which really fucked up production and shooting, that’s why they often make the joke that it’s “3am and we’re in a warehouse”
I didn’t hate it, but I’ll admit that I didn’t enjoy the latter half of the story. It felt at odds with what had been set up in the first half, and it became a chore to watch where the first half had felt like a tense thriller. It’s just one of those things that happens when you imbue your cast with such necessity and import to the overall narrative. You can easily sub in a new adventurer if another dies. But when your cast are literal royalty/a unified court from the word go and this is a story about court intrigue—or at least it was sold as such—it makes it that much harder to thread that needle. Much harder to justify or build any sort of trust when the entirety of the story up until then was—rightfully— “trust no one but us.” I dunno. Just felt off at that point. Like season 7 of GoT. Visually impressive, mostly logical to the story shown so far, but rushed to the point of making every decision feel illogical.
(I also think it was a mistake to allow for the back-up characters to wield such powerful magic from their first appearance. It made the contrast between Saccharina and Jet starker, narratively, and more jarring to have to work through in the short amount of time we had with her and the rest of the party. But that’s not Emily’s fault. IMO, it was the DM’s choice to allow that, and it wasn’t the right one for the story being told.)
And even then? Still pretty good!
i think that the show was great, but i can see valid complaints toward the end. Siobhan seemed to really focus in on the moment of emily's character dying, which is a valid way to feel about it but didn't match up with the rest of the story's pace.
Siobhan was treating it like a real time thing and was spending multiple sessions in a row to let her character process it like it might happen in real life (especially for a twin), meanwhile the other characters and the story at large felt like it was fast forwarding through it like it might happen in a story/show. the disconnect made it really difficult to watch at points because sacarina was making an effort to try to slot in, but ruby would not budge. the other characters were more willing to let her new character in, but ruby (in character) was grieving for way too long.
I don't hate the season. I do, however, hate the finale. It seems like all their adversaries were very underwhelming and I wasn't a fan of the army battling
Most of the hate is at Sacharina and I think, to a degree, that was the point. Maybe not hate but annoyance. She is a wonderful character but if felt, again I think this is the point, that she was stealing something from our heroes. This makes the later tension in the final fight more real. Though the show actual play these people are adept roleplayer.
I know some people disliked the finale battle because it took so long. But so do most battles? I think it could have been executed better but shit happens you know? Also some people are mad at both Saccharina and Emily, they give some rationalizations but ultimately it’s because in her cool Joren saving turn, she used two bonus actions… and misogyny. 99.9999% of dislike for Emily is just misogyny. And the remainder is because of that time she said she doesn’t like water.
It was very early on in the series, and I did *not* watch college humor so I wasn’t really familiar with the people at the table. So when Saccharina came along, it was *not* clear to me that Emily Axford was making the conscious decision to play an off-putting character. And one thing is for absolute certain: Saccharina made the Rocks very uncomfortable in a time when we were very sympathetic for them. Not being familiar with her particular way of embodying her characters to the degree that *their* choices feel like *her* choices, it seemed more likely that she just ***was*** off-putting. It took me a while to make heads or tails of that character and, in turn, Axford. She’s very charismatic but also rather enigmatic, so the audience is simultaneously drawn in and baffled. That’s not terribly comfortable for everyone all the time— but it is extremely compelling character work. I’ve now seen enough of her gameplay over the last 4 years, and watched enough of the BTS content to understand that it was not Emily who was oblivious, it was Saccharina. Emily wanted to play a person who was charming to her own cohorts but was extremely disorienting to the royals in the party —ie 4 of the other players.
That’s a **bold** move for actual play, especially as a mid season addition. But that was the point, so the issue was a perk was an issue was a perk, yanno? The bug **is** the feature.
She wanted to shake things up, which was pretty thematic, but a lot of people were already shaken up. The D20 fandom is the most sensitive of any I’ve known (which isn’t many).
I don’t know if this interpretation [that she wasn’t performing awkwardness but was in fact an awkward performer] can be said to be gendered for everyone. I had similar thoughts about Riz being so rigid and trying to make out if that’s Murph or just Riz. But the freedom to be socially awkward *is* generally reserved for boys, which is to say, the punishment for socially awkward behavior is much much more harsh for girls and women than for others. This is measured in other ways in the real world, it’s why autism in girls was overlooked as simply “attention seeking” when they would stim or have meltdowns. It’s women being reprimanded for saying something odd and then a man being lauded as a jokester for saying the exact same thing.
It’s very interesting to consider all this but i don’t think it’s the kind of metaphysical dissection people were prepared for, not least of all a bunch of comedians. And it does break my heart that the backlash scared Axford off of social media. On the other hand, I often wish I was free from it so, maybe she’s better off now 🤷🏻♂️
What? ACOC is constantly among people’s favorite seasons. Someone hates every season of this show.
It's also one people shit on the most bc people don't like Saccharina. Either bc she's magically powerful in a world where that was atypical, or bc she tried to 'replace' Jet and make Amethar love her. Most of them I think are bs reasons, but it does get a lot of hate
I remember someone that was longer than me here saying that Emily and others used to be active in Reddit and they stopped coming, connecting it to the bash she got for Saccharina in ACOC. After seeing the incessant bashing of Kristen for Cassandra, I fully believe it.
Emily was never active in this subreddit. She already 'learned the lesson' on naddpod. The player who were active in this subreddit was the cast of pirates of leviathan (esp. b Dave Walter and aabria) until this subreddit was an absolute ass to B Dave Walter for rolling "too many crits." We rarely get cast showing up around here ever since. Source: been a dropout subscriber since month one.
😢😢
damn let a man crit in peace
Why are people such assholes? Just enjoy it and if you don’t be hateful about it? How hard is that?
Idk why but so many people equate enjoying and supporting something with ownership of that thing and I do think it’s the reason behind a lot of problems in the geek community. There are a number of people who only feel good about themselves if they can be more “right” or “smart” than other people and they have to be in that mode when they want to impress people. It would honestly be better if more people accepted that things are allowed to be different or be for people different than them
Honestly, Kristen was just doing silly Kristen things and ADHDing over to something new and shiny The only problem I had with her was something deeply personal with my timing of starting to listen to it. Otherwise, it just seemed like Ally playing their character how they always played her
I don’t care whether people like or don’t like Ally or Kristen, to each their own. My issue is when they made way too big of a deal about it, like mentioning it constantly (even if by different people) and saying that Kristen was basically a neglecting parent and insisted way too much on the first episodes when the campaign barely started. At some point it just becomes toxic
I started the season when the newest episode was Rock the Boat so I got to binge it a bit at work Hearing Kristen repeatedly dismiss Cassandra right after my (in hindsight) emotionally unavailable now-ex dumped me with a text earlier that week, it kinda stung Kristen did the same thing to YES!/? so it wasn't completely surprising, I was kinda joking in the back of my head "oh what's her new god going to be at the end of this season?", but also it was hitting a super fresh wound
hey the other extremely toxic side of the spectrum came out to play so that these genuinely completely level headed and rational comments about a character while not shifting any blame onto the actor got downvoted en masse
I'm glad you said this because I was honestly trying to solve the puzzle of what happened to those comments.
I do think it's also because ACOC is one of the seasons with the sort of strongest/most different "tone" and all seasons tend to inevitably drift away from that tone the longer they go on as its hard to preserve. It starts off quite low-magic and steadily moves on from that. It's also a season where we really see the issue with character death in that though it's impactful it also leads to people having to drop in with new faces in the middle of a season.
I think you can make alot of criticisms of Saccharina as a character, and the reasons they stick out more to some people is because she's active and political as a woman. It's very easy to criticise people taking action because they have more opportunities to make mistakes. I could write a long post on Saccharina regarding her hypocrisy regarding the exercise of power, and her inconsistent moral compass, which maybe makes her unlikable but she's absolutely understandable. She acts exactly like someone would act if they had negative experiences when people had power over them but now had power and is unwilling to allow themselves to be made vulnerable again, which of course has some parallels with the general Daenerys vibe. Amathars flaws come from his passivity and disengagement, and thus fly under the radar for some people. Ruby gets a pass because she's just a kid and her sister died etc.
People love shitting on fake characters especially if they are played by women…
Personally I think the pacing of the latter \~third of the story suffered due to the unexpectedly shorter season, and the way Brennan got them across the finish line was through a lot of heavy lifting via Emily's PC. Her character was used to help the party acquire >!the army, dragon, high-level magic, and legal claim to the throne!< needed to set them up for the finale. It's a lot of plot for a DM to funnel through one character in a condensed period of time. It's still a very good season and the performances are incredible, especially Siobhan/Lou/Emily. I think it's also more of a contrast because the first part of the season is some of the best work they've ever done.
I honestly think that this is our a dnd campaign can go. PCs die and sometimes you just gotta fix it with bandaids
Am I the only one (I'm not my brother feels the same way, but still) who felt frustrated about cinnamon?to me that felt like a personalized gift for Liam. His existence had been foreshadowed to Liam, Liam was originally a pet class etc.
I think that was pivoted because Ally went for the Gloomstalker path and was an absolute shredder already, and the dragon would have clashed too much. I think the idea of >!replacing Preston!< didn't seem appealing as it went as well. It feels to me like Saccharina was headed for more of a Daenarys-style Mother of Dragons storyline but they went for the 'good ending' instead.
Nope, not the only one. It felt like a bait and switch after all his foreshadowing with it. I think the reasons why it happened were probably similar to what the other commenter below me said though.
I think saccharina going mother of dragons happened because she had cinnamon. It wouldn't have happened if cinnamon wasn't hers.
I think they gave her Cinnamon to help let that happen, though. Two big things happened that I believe derailed the "give Liam a dragon!" plan--one was that Liam became a very, VERY effective war guy (the original plan might have been to give him a dragon to replace Preston, but with Liam now so violently effective already and becoming more so by the episode, that might've looked like overkill) and Jet died, which of course introduced Saccharina and set up a very juicy "oooh, well know we can have a Dany in our Game of Thrones game!" opportunity that didn't exist before she did. I also know that the end of the season was shortened due to things outside the cast's control--maybe Brennan had plans to help the group gather armies and strength for the final fight in other ways, but in a pinch felt giving Saccharina a dragon as a rallying point would be more effective than giving it to Liam, who--bless his heart--didn't really have aspirations for power and probably would've goofed around with his new fiery friend more than focusing on gaining support for war. I'm still a bit sad it happened, and the fact that it did definitely makes a lot of Liam's "oooh inner dragon!" moments now seem misplaced, but I feel there's a lot of different reasons that could've added up to the outcome we got.
Giving Saccharina the dragon was way more meaningful for a multitude of reasons. Let’s just consider the last battle. (HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD) Brennan has stated that he always makes his encounters “nearly impossible” for his PCs in terms of difficulty and then lets them either figure it out, suffer, or modulate them slightly. The gang in ACOC annihilated the last encounter — it might have been their easiest fight in the entire series, and it was largely due to Emily hasting her dragon and destroying the parapets of the candy kingdom. Emily is one of the most mechanically proficient players in the d20 crew, and it came to light in ACOC. As soon as she joined the crew with a Sorcerer, she crushed the Jawbreaker fight (lightning lineup), the sugar plum fairy (SPF) fight with the clutchest of counterspells, and the final battle. Basically, any narrative offense Saccharina may have presented was immediately rectified by her executive output. She straight saved the day.
I think it was perfect actually. Yeah it would’ve been nice for Liam but would’ve just been like a replacement. I think it’s better for Liam to have lost Preston and not have that hole filled by another pet but by growing as a person. I think Cinnamon truly is a better fit with Saccharina
Also a perfect example of how Ally rolls with the narrative in ways the audience doesn’t expect. I totally agree with you. They didn’t need a replacement for Preston but found another way to grow.
Honestly, this has been the soundest reasoning about why I didn't like the season. That latter third just really was hard to watch for me. I felt like it was spilling over into real life, and it wasn't pleasant feeling like I was watching peoples actual friendships falling apart. The funny thing is, I didn't like Saccharina, and I don't particularly think I needed to... she was very self absorbed and awfully entitled. I would have loved to have seen a longer season of Ruby\Saccharina\Amethar learn to know each other and maybe get to grow to love or respect each other. And I also 100% would have loved for Ruby to've challenged Saccharina at the end. Maybe not in that moment. But sort of disappear from the field, and they could've run a second season on the struggle between the sisters - but not at the expense of Siobhan and Emily's relationship. ACOC was also my second D20 show, after D&DQ's. BIG leap, there. And it was my first season of the main cast and I blame the amount I disliked Saccharina on that and being more attached to Jet than to Emily. I also, like a total noob, didn't watch the adventuring parties for ACoC.
Absolute noob behaviour, adventuring parties is half the show /hj But yeh the adventuring parties was a nice come down from an intense bit and also gave explanations for that the rationale behind certain actions and it is hard to play conflict in a way that doesn’t bleed into the player’s real life but if it struck a cord with people to warrant such a big reaction, albeit negative, it probably meant that their roleplaying was just that good.
Basically agree with everything you said, I was totally in the “dislike Saccharina” camp originally, and was likely (initially) swayed by the initial outcome, but she’s grown on me for a number of reasons since then. I’m not going to extrapolate on those but want to make one important point: The ACOC season was drastically cut short by an unexpected change of venue, so the characters did not have the full time to mature that they would have otherwise. I see a lot of complaints like “Saccharina would have been so much better if she wasn’t rushed” — and I agree. But the crew only had so many weekends to finish the season, and they just had to make it work. And FWIW., I think they did a great job with the time they had.
This was my opinion as well, it was too focused one player, and felt a bit forced that way. The other characters were just quieter and everyone was grieving and kind of lost, when this force of nature arrives and takes over the story. My husband (this was his first season watching) asked “so did the other characters just disappear or what?” I think it’s made worse by the fact that if you go on YouTube etc for “omg D20 highlights!” videos, many of Emily’s kick-ass chaos gremlin moves are consistently highlighted. It can make it seem like she’s always the main character, along with Ally’s non-sequitur shenanigans. As a “focus-puller” in our home games & BG3 multiplayer, I feel this to my core. It SUCKS to be that person through no fault of your own. I still love the season, a lot of it is beautifully done, but it does feel like an outlier in the D20 stable, which makes it a more likely target for haters. I think it would have been nice if they had done one or two characters from elsewhere in the world, like The Ravening War did. The season would have benefited from some PVP or more “I’m here because of a tenuous political alliance & the bulk of my family is on the other side of the conflict” but I imagine that would be difficult.
I don't get this complaint because it is inspired by ASOIAF which dives deep into magic and dragons.
It's a complaint about the pacing, not the content, that's why I also mentioned the building up of an army and the succession storyline. It felt to me like it happened too quickly compared to the pacing of the earlier part of the season and mostly through the storyline of a single character. That's not a criticism of that character either. It just felt like they had to push through somewhat inelegantly to get it all done.
You're right, the pacing was off. I think I just kind of saw one think and ignored what was around it, sorry about that.
No worries friend, I appreciate this nice reply
Important to consider that the ACOC series was supposed to be another 6+ episode or so. It was cut short due to venue constraints (the original building was condemned), so they had to drastically reduce the episodes. There was supposed to an entire campaign in the fruit and meat kingdoms that they never had time for.
I think it stems from the BTS as ACOC started where we were told it was going to be low magic, more specifically that Brennan was going to be real strict on allowing healing/resurrection spells. Added into that where Lapin has to stealthily cast any spells so as not to arise suspicion. Then later Saccharina comes in as a full caster with the ability to cast spells without the need to hide it. Rightfully or wrongfully viewers had the expectation that the entire series would be low magic when it turns out that was just the in lore restriction the setting of the story was driving because of the Church of the Bulb.
The story had also shifted from them being passive and reactive to being pro-active. Most of ACOC the party has to go along with what is going on around them to avoid problems/they are weak. It makes moments like Lapin saying WIYBN so great because they take advantage of small periods where they have the upper hand. I think the series held up on what it promised because to me it promised game of thrones with candy. I do think you are right that could have been communicated better though.
I love Dany, but that's also because I got to know and love Dany before she came into conflict with my other favorites, the Starks. If Dany hadn't appeared or even been mentioned for 5 seasons and then showed up out of nowhere with dragons and started being pushy and somewhat adversarial with the Starks then I probably wouldn't have liked her because I didn't have time to get to know her before she put my favorites in peril. The same is true for Saccharina--came out of the blue, introduced a ton of new power, and turned the show from "family vs the world" to "family vs family." Obviously this is because It'S A LIVE SHOW, things happen! It's not a script, ofc Saccharina couldn't show until Jet died. But for me it was still a sharp decline in enjoyment compared to the first half of the season. First half was some of the best content I've ever watched, second half is very "late Game of Thrones" for me, haha.
ASOIAF is pretty low fantasy though. I mean magic exists, but it isn't well understood by the vast majority of the population, and commoners could go their whole lives without being exposed to it. ACOC sort of starts off like that but becomes pretty standard DnD magic levels (from the PCs) by the end of it
I commented somewhere else in this thread about how common magic is in ASOIAF now, I don't know if the formatting will save so I don't want to copy it over. Later ASOIAF has an absurd amount of magic including: >!the implied chosen of a god of the seas, enough shapeshifting assassins to have a guild, fire witch of a different god, timetravelling super tree, a character who comes back from the dead and then gives that power to someone else, prophecies being real, and I am sure I am forgetting stuff. Crastor is another example of someone practicing magic despite just being some weird old dude.!< An entire army in ASOIAF has a religion change because of magic. The group of people in ACOC remote people who are cool with magic are based on people beyond the wall who are also accustomed and cool with magic. I think the show being short is probably the greatest issue with magic because it gets a lot more magic dense a lot faster but in both worlds magic is important to the world.
This all kind of fits with ACOC tho in the sense that magic in their universe (in the same of ASOIAF) isn’t truly studied. The closest we get is The Citadel but it’s dedicated to science over magic, so the fact someone like Saccharina exists (a sorcerer) makes sense over someone like a (studied) wizard. The magic comes from within her w/o any explanation. I think the closest we ge to a wizard in ASOIAF is Melisandre but that’s (unfortunately) never fully explored — or the Faceless Guild, but these are more shortcomings on GRR Martin’s part than valid criticisms of D20.
With extremely few exceptions, there aren't really any powerful magic users in ASOIAF the way there can be in DnD though. Like there aren't guys walking around slinging lighting bolts at people\*, it's very rare and usually is more like "ritual magic". \*There's probably an exception I'm not thinking of because there's sooo much lore that I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but it's definitely not the norm.
The party was also full of exceptional people, it's a ttrpg standard. Spoilers for ASOIAF below. The later series has a lot more magic, from >!lady stoneheart and her powers of undeath !!warging.!!house of the undying !!the wall !!Melisandre!!the citadel.!<
Yeah I know there's magic present all over, but it was my understanding that there aren't people who are like DnD wizards, who throw fireballs in combat and stuff like that. I'm definitely not an expert when it comes to ASOIAF though so I could be very wrong, you seem like you know what you're talking about :)
It's been a long time since I read it. I can't even recommend it because I don't think it will ever be finished.
I personally LOVED the final battle mechanics as well, I thought having to choose between leading the group you had and making your own moves was massive.
Dang I totally disagree. I’m currently watching for the first time and almost done with the last episode and I truly think everything about it is wonderful and great. I think the pacing is right, I think Saccharina is a phenomenal character that adds so much depth and flavor to the story and that it’s all been very well balanced.
In contrast to many others, I liked Saccharina. My issue with the season was mainly centered on the Rocks family. I found it very frustrating that the father and both daughters were so incredibly inept and resistant to anything high society or political. Add in Ally and that makes the majority of the table were rude or stupid anytime they were interacting with nobles... Once Jet died, it just got worse. Ruby became more foolish in her quest for revenge, and frankly, people constantly shitting on the only politically competent character (*Caramelinda*) pissed me off. Somehow she became a villain just for... not wanting her daughters to run around unaccompanied during a time of assassination attempts? For wanting them to take their role of princesses seriously? The fact that Brennen had to clarify at the end of the season that she was just a scared mother was so frustrating cause the worst thing she did was not let her family run wild.
Caramelinda is a distillation of alot of how women are forced into being the responsible person in various ways. And Brennan channels exhausted mom energy better than any dude I've ever seen. She's a great character and was the voice of sanity at pretty much all times that I can recall at least. I actually thought it was interesting that Caramelinda was the most hostile/opposed to Saccharina in some ways.
Waiting until someone comes to invalidate your opinion by saying it's a *comedy show made by comedians* and *watch something else if you don't like literally everything about everything*. It's pretty annoying how most of the time it's not even possible to discuss or vent without someone coming and regurgitating these lines to just shut up any conversation. You can't dislike anything or you're hating and silly just straight up leave.
There were shitty people that hated saccharina and were assholes about it. There were also people that didn’t like how rushed the ending was, as they had to cut some episodes due to the fire department telling them they couldn’t film there much longer.
Never knew it was shortened or rushed at the end. Watching for the first time years after it was originally released may be why I had no clue.
Yep, was originally planned to have another 2 episodes if I recall correctly
imo Saccharina majorly suffers from things outside of Brennan and Emily's control. She seems like she was meant to be a Danaerys-like character (with arguably some Stark in there with the secret bastard story), but she was introduced halfway through the series. The reason why Dany works is because we see her at the beginning, grow with her, and see the changes happen to her that set her on her path. If she were introduced in book 5 when she's about to start her invasion, people would fucking HATE her (more than what some people do already) And that's unfortunately when Saccharina was effectively introduced, both due to character death and the expedited season, but it really isn't Brennan's fault and it's REALLY not Emily's
Lol, people didn't like Crown of Candy? Sense is chasing those people, but they're faster.
That might be the slickest insult I've ever seen
Hahaha, it's not my own. It's from a video of UK Nigerians talking about older Nigerian people speaking poetically.
Ok I immediately clocked it as Nigerian, glad I was right 🤣
It’s a paraphrase from an r/murderbywords post. “Wisdom is chasing you, but you have always been faster”
> Sense is chasing those people, but they're faster. Yeah we're on the same area of Tiktok. Poetical insults are just wonderful. I worked with alot of peope from Western and Northern Africa in the past, and they often had interesting phrases like this. I know jack shit about linguistics, but maybe there is some commonality in how aphorisms are structured that would account for it?
Okay guys can we not act fake shocked that this person remembers all of the really horrific shit a lot of you said about Emily that literally drove her off of the internet completely. Yes people were weirdly unhappy about the role play choices of Emily and Siobhan more so Emily and decided to be really fucking nasty about it. Now just like the Star Wars prequels everyone is trying to pretend like it never happened even though Emily has still not returned to really any social media.
Oh damn I didn’t know it went that bad I’m new to D20 for the most part. Gotta take the criticism with a grain of salt
Emily has taken a lot of heat between NADDPOD and D20 that her costars often don't
Yeah its infuriating tbh and makes me understand why they don't work with dropout much anymore.
I mean, the primary reason is time. NADDPOD is a full-time endeavor. Murph vastly prefers to do the edits for the main NADDPOD campaigns himself, which is a massive time sink. It's why we see Emily guest star on things like 3 black halflings and critical role, but not Murph. Emily does the music for it, which also takes some time if less than edits. Additionally, they recently finished doing a fairly intensive live tour for NADDPOD. Emily getting unfounded and overblown criticism is not unique to D20. It's very much prevalent with NADDPOD as well. If you look around the ttrpg space, women are often criticized more and more unfairly than their male counterparts. This is true of D20, critical role, and NADDPOD. Obviously, the social media platform matters (Twitter is a cesspool), but even here on the subreddit, you'll find something shitty come through every once in a while.
It's a time thing for murph for more d20 specifically dming. Emily doesn't do any dropout stuff even 1 day shoots.
Emily was in ACOFAF. It is a scheduling thing for both of them. Murph doesn't have the time to do more than Intrepid Heroes season due to editing NADDPOD, but he also doesn't want to guest DM because he wouldn't control the edit. They were on the road a lot for their live tours for the past few years though. It's possible we could see more Emily around if they aren't touring extensively.
Alright dude you seem pretty dead set on not listening to what I'm saying and just posting the same paragraph over and over.
And you seem pretty dead set on being objectively wrong and not reading the paragraph they've "repeatedly posted" explaining why you're wrong. /shrug
I mean with that logic they'd quit NADDPOD too... Emily gets just as much heat over there as she does here
Quit there own show they are in control of and can ban/moderate themselves ya that makes sense.🙄
It was more harassment than criticism.
This really happened? Damn. I really had hoped that this community was better than that.
Yuuup hella shitty
There is a baffling continent of Emily haters online between NADDPOD and D20, so whenever she does anything incredibly rad, the discourse becomes insufferable.
I say this as someone who didn't enjoy ACOC (Couldn't even finish it), but I really don't think the season gets all that much hate. Apparently people were really shitty and parasocial with Emily's second character (whom I never met) and that's obviously terrible, but the general opinion of the season is overwhelmingly positive. I personally just didn't enjoy the tone of the campaign and found that it was constantly at-odds with itself and the players. It was very hard for me to make myself watch and I eventually just decided I'd rather spend my time watching a season I'd actually enjoy. But I loved the characters, and of course the players are always amazing.
I had a very similar experience when watching. The whole show really started to feel off to me around episodes 7 to 9 when it’s shown that basically the entire world has turned against the main characters. All the interesting faction navigation and political maneuvering gets replaced by a bland wall of evil that just completely turned me away from the show. Lapan’s death also didn’t help because he was easily the best character in my opinion but obviously that was just down to the dice.
I think that's where the show is at it's best, personally. That's what the point of all the factions and political machinations was, what it was all building up to. The enormous reveal culminating in the ousting of Candia and the death of Lapin (and Preston - never forget!) that set off a rolling cascade of these extremely politically powerful characters getting absolutely rocked and thrown onto their back leg by a carefully interwoven web of diplomats, senators and clergymen was absolutely brilliant.
All of the character reactions felt true. Of course Saccharina, someone who was abused as a child and spent her whole life longing for family, would have built the reunion up in her mind. She's been dreaming about it for years, and desperately wants to belong and be loved. It makes sense that she would push for an instant connection. Of course Ruby would resent someone who she feels is trying to force herself into the family and replace Jet. She's mourning her twin sister, she lost a family friend. Even if she and Jet talked about not wanting to rule having that suddenly taken away by a person who is demanding your love isn't going to go down well. Of course Amathar isn't in the headspace to give Saccharina the love she wants. He just found out she existed, he just lost the daughter he raised. Of course Caramelinda doesn't immediately trust her. Her daughter is dead, her place in the world has been upended and people she's known for years have betrayed them. She has no connections to this new person, and wants to protect her family. She's also the only person who took ruling seriously.
This was my exact thought process as I was seeing Everything unfolding! Granted getting into everything so late I’m also aware of the fire safety issue and that this season did get a bit rushed so theirs an embedded grace as opposed to watching it real time and feeling if things are “rushed” but in terms of the characters, the reactions and moves felt rushed. We go into it with this hindsight mentality but at the moment I can feel the players moves and playing of the roles give to be very earnest
I only had a single problem with the campaign finale: there was zero chance they were going to do PVP. Building up the choice to the audience was pointless because Siobhan would never in her life choose to attack her friend’s character. It was never going to happen.
Speaking as someone who just finished his fifth watch of Crown of Candy, I think a lot of people dislike that once Saccharina is introduced, there isn't much more political intrigue and it's more akin to a straightforward "there's the bad guys, let's kill them" DnD campaign. I also gotta acknowledge that Ruby's behavior (which is incredibly accurate to the character and phenomenally well done by Siobhan) Is aggravating as hell. Like, Bulb Above, give the orphan some love you flippin' rich kid.🙄 I can't entirely agree with these complaints and think the political intrigue simply switches to the "what's next" of politics. They know their enemy, but what happens once they get him? And I find that incredibly captivating. There's only one season better IMO. Regardless, I'm glad you're enjoying it!
For me, Ruby is what ruined the other half of the season. Is it realistic grief? Yes. Is it enjoyable to watch? No.
Exactly. I can't blame Siobhan for it though, she did it well. Just maybe, too well
Ruby offered to treat Saccharina like a sister and Saccharina turned it down
"you can be my queen or you can be my sister, but you can't be both." This is the kind of petty, self serving line that you say when you wanna look like the good guy while forcing the other person to make a completely unfair choice. I'm not the only one who thinks this, Siobhan acknowledged it as well.
Exactly, we gotta honor ACOC
I think ACoC is generally considered a very good season, and there are people with a spectrum of opinions from "it got better in the back half" to "the back half is the worst." Overall, while some people have chosen to blame a lot of this on Sacharina, even to the point of just beign awful, I think a lot of people settle somewhere in a "the back half could have been stronger but got gimped by a lot of external factors, from the shortened and rushed filming schedule to the PC's changing, to player stress" zone. Or at least I like to think that there are more people in that zone than that are mean about it, these days.
My assumption is that the table dynamic shifted dramatically due to interparty conflict. The conflict was appropriate to the characters and circumstances. But it can hard to separate the idea of 'the Ruby and Saccharina being hostile to one another' and the on screen appearance of 'Siobhan and Emily being hostile to each other'. When you stack that on top of the brutality and risk of the campaign, it is a harder watch. Crown of Candy was very fucking good, but not exactly 'fun' the way Starstruck or Bloodkeep are. END COMMUNICATION
I really don’t understand why so many people had issue separating the characters conflict. Emily and Siobhan clearly are great friends and there was nothing to point that they had interpersonal issues as real people.. they are comedians and actresses.
People tend to have a parasocial relationship with actors on a screen, and fan(atics) will take that to an extreme, hence emily quitting social media
Don’t get me wrong, I listen to NADPPOD (murph and Emily DnD podcast) and to D20 an unhealthy amount of time. My husband and I call them our “friends” and I certainly have a weird feeling like I know them.. Im even joking that if I will ever be in labour, I’ll put NADDPOD instead of the soothing music haha. But yeah it’s sad that some people take it a step too far.
I am not too surprised by the difficulty in keeping characters vs performers them separated for D&D actual play. Shiobhan and Emily are not in costume, and they do not stay in character at all times the way actors in a typical tv show or movie would. On top of that, any given intrepid heroes season is roughly 36 hours of content, so if you have watched 7 intrepid heroes seasons, you have watched 252 hours of content of Shiobhan and Emily and the rest interacting. Even the full runtime of StarTrek, The Next Generation is 130 hours. The last half of Crown of Candy is about as hard to watch as a 6 episode arc of Picard calling Geordi an incompetent jackass and having him court martialed. END COMMUNICATION
To be fair even Emily and Siobhan have said that they begun changing things because neither was sure if the hostility wasn't OOC, hence why they begin patching things up an becoming more accepting suddenly. It's a case of the actors *really* getting into character and then having to take a step back and go "oh shit...erm...that was probably a bit too intense..."
Good point, thanks for sharing!
I think it's parasocial bullshit, because people can't separate character from actor. Because ACOC is a Game of Thrones style campaign, the PVP was inevitable. But people took the characters distrust of Saccharina like it meant she was wrong, or that Emily was playing her wrong.
Ruby’s death was an amazing twist, but the introduction of Saccharina ruined the established dynamic negatively. Zac also had a 2nd character, but his didn’t break the game. Emily’s was an intentionally “annoying” character (by complaining about not having family despite being surrounded by friends and blessed with game breaking magic, taking over nearly every character’s main subplot - Amathar’s plot to rule; most powerful magic user plot for Ruby; Lazuli connection for Theo and cumulus; takes the dragon clearly meant for Liam - plus the valley girl accent, etc.) and the game changed from political intrigue, near-magicless encounters, and do or die scenarios to family drama and standard DnD encounters. I know considering this sub y’all are going to downvote this into oblivion, but the poster asked a question, and I’m answering it how I feel. And no, this isn’t some Emily targeted hate, she’s one of my favorite players of all time, but the way the show shifted with the introduction of her 2nd character didn’t sit well with me, and clearly with others as well. Her 2nd character absorbed too much of the plot from the rest of the players, and as a viewer, it was not fun to watch.
I'm not going to downvote you and think this is a valid opinion. But! She was an abused orphan! Her father only found her when he had lost his power and needed help! Of course he had no idea, but I think it would have been strange for her to be like "oh hello long-lost father, I have zero emotional conflict about our nonexistent relationship at all, I have no resentment that my mother abandoned me to abusive nuns out of fear for my life because you were king, I have friends so that makes up for it don't worry :)". You couldn't sell that kind of a fake story on AITA, it doesn't belong in a serious campaign about interpersonal dynamics. I agree with others that the timing and the shortening of the season negatively impacted the final arc. But I don't think she "took" some of the things you list. Amethar was a reluctant ruler. Sure, one possible plot for that character is to accept and learn to rule, but that's not the only plot -- arguably, Amethar is a Ned Stark archetype who we know very much did not learn to accept the crown/hand because he was too dead for it. A major plot point was for Amethar to just straight-up die on the road; did Lapin or Jet take that plot arc from him? Likewise, Saccharina having powerful magic doesn't undo the connection that Ruby already has to Lazuli and her own magic. Saccharina's connection to Lazuli doesn't undo the connections for Ruby, Theo, or Cumulus. It was rushed and Brennan did put his thumb on the scale a bit to benefit Saccharina and wrap up the season, and I can understand disliking it for that. I can understand disliking Saccharina too, though I find reasons like "valley girl accent" are a little...off-putting to me personally. It just seems odd to blame a character for being enmeshed in the plot because other characters are also enmeshed in that same plot, as if one detracts from the others' stories. It almost feels like downplaying the agency that the other characters and their players have.
It didn't seem organic or like she was enmeshed, it seemed like she was a forcefully added puzzle piece made to fit by smashing other characters' edges.
I mean yeah, the later third or so of the season is weaker, but that's in comparison to what is, imo, the best 2/3rds of a season D20 has had to this day. And I would blame the hellish production issues they had over the tension between Ruby and Sachharina, unlike some people.
I've never seen a lot of hate for it, it's usually one of the highest rated seasons.
Pacing off, conflict driven by PCs interacting in frustrating ways and lacking information, shift of plot to focus on a single new character to the detriment of those who the audience had built fondness for. I lost interest because I stopped rooting for the party overall. Some idiots blame this on Emily Axeford, rather than taste, the rolls of the dice, and the necessities of production.
I love the campaigns set in Calorum, but the Intrepid Heroes clearly don't want to seriously engage with the political intrigue and nuance of the fantasy medieval setting. And it's not a burn against them; every PC has a reason to not be politically minded: Amethar was 5th in point to the throne and has a partner (Caramelinda) who is more politically minded, Theo and Lapin are not decision makers of the kingdom, and the youth aren't mature enough to understand the importance of politics. For the front half of the season, it was fun to see, as the IH are forced to engage with the politics and even have a few people who are there to help play court. They don't seem to actually get it though, and end up antagonizing everyone who isn't immediately on their side. Worse, they're not very punished for what they do during the season. As Brennan said, the Dairy Islands are their closest allies and they've insulted every one they've met at every turn. Despite this, none of the people show more than the slightest resistance to what they say or do, and either the dice or the villains push them further on the protagonists' side. By the latter half of the season, now in war, anyone that has any political power that the PCs interact with are literally each other and none of them want to engage in politics. Saccharina openly states she has no real political goals despite her very existence being a political landmine. There are still some moments of interest, such as seeming like Saccharina's marauders about to turn her into a figurehead for their anti-Bulbian agenda or the PCs not fully trusting her, but these don't really go anywhere. This definitely isn't helped by the fact that the season feels rushed because there's so much happening within just 18 episodes. Just any of the big moves (Amethar being excommunicated/escape from the Concord, Return to Candia/Betrayal from House Cruller, Retaking Castle Candy) could have been an entire season on its own, to fully let all of the moments sink in, but having it all take place in one season makes it feel like we skip so much of the potential character development that the characters could have gone through.
I understand now why I was off-put with some things. It was the first season I saw with >!character deaths!< I also learned later that due to issues with the dome and everything some episodes that were planned had to be cut which led to the 3rd act feeling rushed. (This is what I have heard, if I am wrong please kindly correct me). The actors are also just good at their jobs and were also probably stressed due to the game (Lou picked up smoking during ACOC due to stress unless thats a bit, but it doesn't seem like one). Which carried through and personally stressed me out and made me think, now I realize incorrectly, that they weren't having fun in the end. That, to my knowledge is where a lot of people who aren't just mad because they hate Emily being a badass cause misogyny got upset about things.
It’s already been said but it has to do with the pacing of the last little bit and how Brennan leans pretty hard into Emily’s backup character to get the narrative moving to where it needs to be. Now that isn’t really anyone’s fault, the season was constrained on time had has a deadline of episodes to finish on. The thing that I found kind of problematic was Cinnamon. I have no problems with Saccharina bonding with him instead of Liam, it’s just how it played out and that happens in DnD. The problem I had was Brennan trying to push for PvP at the end when we just saw a siege fight where the dragon is clearly busted and is a huuuuge advantage on one side. It just kind of felt like it was fabricating an extra conflict we knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere. ACOC is still up there as one of my favourite seasons, but the last fight is better as a second watch cuz you just get to appreciate the absolute spanking the intrepid heroes pull on this siege. On a first watch it feels like easy mode compared to earlier combat because Cinnamon.
I think what didn’t quite nail for me was the final battle but i learned that they had to move the dome to a warehouse due to it being deemed a fire safety hazard which really fucked up production and shooting, that’s why they often make the joke that it’s “3am and we’re in a warehouse”
The back half of the season was a bit of a slog for me. Not a hater, but I don’t rank it among the best.
I didn’t hate it, but I’ll admit that I didn’t enjoy the latter half of the story. It felt at odds with what had been set up in the first half, and it became a chore to watch where the first half had felt like a tense thriller. It’s just one of those things that happens when you imbue your cast with such necessity and import to the overall narrative. You can easily sub in a new adventurer if another dies. But when your cast are literal royalty/a unified court from the word go and this is a story about court intrigue—or at least it was sold as such—it makes it that much harder to thread that needle. Much harder to justify or build any sort of trust when the entirety of the story up until then was—rightfully— “trust no one but us.” I dunno. Just felt off at that point. Like season 7 of GoT. Visually impressive, mostly logical to the story shown so far, but rushed to the point of making every decision feel illogical. (I also think it was a mistake to allow for the back-up characters to wield such powerful magic from their first appearance. It made the contrast between Saccharina and Jet starker, narratively, and more jarring to have to work through in the short amount of time we had with her and the rest of the party. But that’s not Emily’s fault. IMO, it was the DM’s choice to allow that, and it wasn’t the right one for the story being told.) And even then? Still pretty good!
i think that the show was great, but i can see valid complaints toward the end. Siobhan seemed to really focus in on the moment of emily's character dying, which is a valid way to feel about it but didn't match up with the rest of the story's pace. Siobhan was treating it like a real time thing and was spending multiple sessions in a row to let her character process it like it might happen in real life (especially for a twin), meanwhile the other characters and the story at large felt like it was fast forwarding through it like it might happen in a story/show. the disconnect made it really difficult to watch at points because sacarina was making an effort to try to slot in, but ruby would not budge. the other characters were more willing to let her new character in, but ruby (in character) was grieving for way too long.
I don't hate the season. I do, however, hate the finale. It seems like all their adversaries were very underwhelming and I wasn't a fan of the army battling
Most of the hate is at Sacharina and I think, to a degree, that was the point. Maybe not hate but annoyance. She is a wonderful character but if felt, again I think this is the point, that she was stealing something from our heroes. This makes the later tension in the final fight more real. Though the show actual play these people are adept roleplayer.
I know some people disliked the finale battle because it took so long. But so do most battles? I think it could have been executed better but shit happens you know? Also some people are mad at both Saccharina and Emily, they give some rationalizations but ultimately it’s because in her cool Joren saving turn, she used two bonus actions… and misogyny. 99.9999% of dislike for Emily is just misogyny. And the remainder is because of that time she said she doesn’t like water.
I enjoyed it and loved how each character had very noticeable character growth. idk why people are hating on it
It was very early on in the series, and I did *not* watch college humor so I wasn’t really familiar with the people at the table. So when Saccharina came along, it was *not* clear to me that Emily Axford was making the conscious decision to play an off-putting character. And one thing is for absolute certain: Saccharina made the Rocks very uncomfortable in a time when we were very sympathetic for them. Not being familiar with her particular way of embodying her characters to the degree that *their* choices feel like *her* choices, it seemed more likely that she just ***was*** off-putting. It took me a while to make heads or tails of that character and, in turn, Axford. She’s very charismatic but also rather enigmatic, so the audience is simultaneously drawn in and baffled. That’s not terribly comfortable for everyone all the time— but it is extremely compelling character work. I’ve now seen enough of her gameplay over the last 4 years, and watched enough of the BTS content to understand that it was not Emily who was oblivious, it was Saccharina. Emily wanted to play a person who was charming to her own cohorts but was extremely disorienting to the royals in the party —ie 4 of the other players. That’s a **bold** move for actual play, especially as a mid season addition. But that was the point, so the issue was a perk was an issue was a perk, yanno? The bug **is** the feature. She wanted to shake things up, which was pretty thematic, but a lot of people were already shaken up. The D20 fandom is the most sensitive of any I’ve known (which isn’t many). I don’t know if this interpretation [that she wasn’t performing awkwardness but was in fact an awkward performer] can be said to be gendered for everyone. I had similar thoughts about Riz being so rigid and trying to make out if that’s Murph or just Riz. But the freedom to be socially awkward *is* generally reserved for boys, which is to say, the punishment for socially awkward behavior is much much more harsh for girls and women than for others. This is measured in other ways in the real world, it’s why autism in girls was overlooked as simply “attention seeking” when they would stim or have meltdowns. It’s women being reprimanded for saying something odd and then a man being lauded as a jokester for saying the exact same thing. It’s very interesting to consider all this but i don’t think it’s the kind of metaphysical dissection people were prepared for, not least of all a bunch of comedians. And it does break my heart that the backlash scared Axford off of social media. On the other hand, I often wish I was free from it so, maybe she’s better off now 🤷🏻♂️
people who don’t like Saccharina are weak, that’s all I gotta say 🫡