Everyone Introduced in Dimension 20′s A Starstruck Odyssey episode 18 (finale, part 2)

any predictions for next episode? any more thoughts on what happened this episode? everyone says this every episode but it sure was wild

I’ve been sitting on this ask for 5 whole-ass days just trying to gather my thoughts because, yeah, I do say it every week but this ep was especially wild.

I think that before I can talk about what I think is going to happen, I have to talk about what I thought was supposed to happen.

Now, before I watched the ep, I thought this fight was gonna go something like the graduation scene from Buffy because those kids came strapped and they weren’t even adventurers. They just happened to live by a hellmouth. But everyone basically dipped immediately. Now, in fairness, the bad kids are probably overleveled compared to even the seniors considering they keep going on side adventures, but man that was some weak sauce. I really wanted whoever had the highest charisma stat (Fabian or Fig I’m guessing) to give a speech, roll something crazy, and get some backup.

Like I said in a previous ask, I went into the last ep curious about what form it would take because a battle ep alone wouldn’t be enough to wrap everything up, surely. I thought they it might have been planned as a battle length ep with an extra hour or so tacked on for story and epilogueing.

I also don’t think Brennan wanted a TPK. Like, who is that fun for? Not the players who have gotten super attached to their characters by this point. Not the people paying for Dropout subscriptions. But he also made the fight pretty freaking hard. Penelope and Dayne were pretty strong mini bosses (even though they got Dayne super fast), they came into the fight at half strength, the first part of the fight had a keep away element, Goldenhoard was strong before her turned into a dragon, and then he turned into a freaking dragon. I think having Ragh there to recruit and the roll for police mechanic were meant to alleviate the sheer difficulty of the fight, but you can only rely on the luck of the die so much (something Brennan must have re-learned when he let Ally roll for a potentially story breaking action). The deck was really stacked against them. So I feel like he had a plan for a party wipe. I mean, he’s had two players die before. It’s very possible his plan was that they would all wipe, meet up in heaven, chat with Aguefort, and then come back and finish the fight, maybe after some kind of sacrifice. I think Brennan would end the series with one, maybe two significant deaths, or a full party wipe IF they specifically were making a choice to make a Big Damn Hero sacrifice. It wouldn’t be narratively satisfying if everyone just died, you know? And he knows there’s an audience element to what he’s doing. 

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s extremely wild that no one has been super concerned about Adaine’s jacket to this point. Like, I would have asked someone about it. Done some investigation. At the very least, used it more. But Adaine was basically like: Dope Jacket. +5 to Self Esteem. There’s potentially a whole plot alley we’re missing because no one’s asked the right (or any) questions.

Also wild that Gorgug can’t even look Zelda in the eye when he talks to her but he full on kissed Ragh on the lips to get him to stop beating him up. lol Imagine if he’d tried that when Fabian punched him in ep 1.

I wonder if the cast is gonna be in formal wear again next ep.

OK, I’ve gotten off topic. Back to how things were supposed to go/predictions.

I think the parents have to come into play somehow. Obvious Sklonda should be on her way and Gorthalax has shown up but Fig’s mom went off to presumably where the girls are and we need to find out how that goes. Less obviously, I think Adaine’s mom and Fabian’s are going to end up on the board. I dunno what Fabian’s mom is good for but her last appearance was her picking up a sword as Fabian rushed out which felt foreshadow-y. Anyway, if she can’t fight, she’s still rich. She can do something. And she’s a high elf so maybe she can help out smoothing things over with Falinel. Speaking of, there’s still a war on which Adaine’s family played a part in starting. If Adaine’s mom wants to follow up on her one hint that she’s not a total garbage person, now would be the time.

Adaine is the elven oracle. I feel like that has to be relevant to the fight somehow. Like, it would be weird it the only thing that played into was that she could pick up the book, right? (Unless there was gonna be a S2 where that would be explored. Sidenote, I am starting to feel like next season might be different characters, same setting. That’s still not my main theory, but we’re leaving a lot of story on the table potentially. Although I did see they might be doing a comic? Idk). Of all the knocked out people (minus Kristen who is about to avenging angel rise from the dead) Adaine is probably in the best position because she’s with Fabian who is the only conscious party member. So that’s good I guess. 

I just took a look at the prophecy and it has two parts. The first part says the things that need to happen before Kalvaxus can be released (K beholds his treasure, 7 maidens chained, war befalls the realm, king and queen crowned). All that happened. Kalvaxus was released. They can’t stop it at this point (barring time travel, which, to be fair, was mentioned earlier). The second part of the prophecy is the consequences: Kalvaxus will be released, his destruction will know no bounds, the sun shall fall from the Heavens, and the world as we know it shall perish forever. 

Two parts of that strike me as especially significant. There’s the sun falling from the Heavens part. That implies Sol, right? Especially with the capitalized “Heavens”. So that doesn’t sound good.

And the second part is “the world as we know it shall perish forever”. That doesn’t mean the world is going to end, necessarily. That means the world is going to CHANGE. Which makes me wonder if THAT is/was the planned endgame for the season. The bad kids fail to prevent the prophecy and things change in a drastic way which is why the setting for next season is super different. 

And, back to the party wipe, Brennan didn’t seem very fazed as the entire party was dropping like flies, but he was *shook* when Ally rolled that 20 at the end. Like, compare that to the ep where Siobhan said they jossed his plans or Lou’s awesome nat 20 to beat a nat 20. In the first case, he didn’t react at all. In the second case, he celebrated with everyone else. When Ally did it, he was sitting there slack jawed. The healer rezzing should be a best case scenario, right? It gives the rest of the party a fighting chance. And, clearly, it wasn’t what he was expected and he wasn’t excited. It makes me feel like he wanted a party wipe for some reason. 

Anyway, I’m sure I’m forgetting something but that’s what I got for now.