THE REEDUCATION OF WEEDSHREK: EPISODE 1, PART II
Hello once again perverts, to my attempt to learn to love the genius that is graduation. I was going to post this on thursday because the idea of mogging the amount of interaction the royale episode will get is really funny to me, but in honor of the mcelroys posting late, i will post early.
last we left off we got the prototype baby voice that would eventually appear in travtin mcorcese's masterwork, "amongus". what will happen next. we haven't even asked anyone about their wheelchair yet.
as a reminder, i pre-wrote all of this episode over the course of 4-5 sessions. it means i have a backlog that i can deploy if i ever forget to recap a week.
...is what i WOULD say if this sort of wonder-technology existed. as we all know, this is not possible. a fella can dream. so, coming to you live from new york city it's
PART DEUX
travis reads another bit of pre-write for the instantly forgettable battlegrounds, but i'll highlight this passage as another classic travisism where he tries to sound cool and actually just shits out a jumble of words:
In the center of the grounds is a remarkably tall woman. One might say that this goliath holds a large kite shield, but that would not do her justice. She wields it like a protective force of nature.
you know, famously, those protective forces of nature.
this scripted cutscene also ends when the goliath gets tapped by another guy and in a world full of healing magic and specifically also one that has an immortal bear, kind of wild to me that this isn't full contact sparring. i'm getting in the weeds again i need to move on there's still so much of this episode left.
now that travis has depleted all his "fun" voices, every guy is just travis speaking somewhat softly
travis unprompted making them roll to find out lore about his dumb npcs sucks dude
travis, as jimson (remember jimson?), in a total deadpan: We're very excited to work with you. We've never had a student with your abilities before. It's very interesting.
GOD SHUT UP TRAVIS
Fitzroy: Fascinated. Cool. Like a… oh, cool. Like a science experiment. Fun.
Jimson: No, please don‘t misunderstand me. You're very special. You should feel very proud.
Fitzroy: Yes, so proud. So proud. Proud like a baby child of mine. Love it. Love the powers.
Jimson: Oh, excellent.
Fitzroy: That was—I was being extremely facetious. They‘ve ruined my life.
Jimson: Well, your life isn‘t over yet.
Fitzroy: Feels like it! Feels like it.
Jimson: Y'know, if I may be so bold, I, too, have suffered through disappointments and loss. And sometimes, I, too, felt like I was lost in the moment. But it‘s amazing what you can make it through, and who you might become on the other side. Now, you better hurry along. You wouldn‘t want to be late for the orientation, would you?
why is travis like this counter: 2
travis shut the fuck up counter: 4
travis needs everyone to know he wasn't making fun of fitzroy and when griffin doesn't want to effusively thank him for being nice he has to "win" this argument about how fitzroy should feel. I TOO HAVE SUFFERED DISAPPOINTMENTS literally shut the fuck up
we are 40 minutes in and the last vestiges of competency have finally collapsed from the crumbling foundation of text exchanges with people travis will never be as good as.
Travis: So, the three of you reconnect back at, uh—near the entrance to the main tower. Um, do you want to do a little catching up on the adventures you went on?
like literally what the fuck are you talking about. WE WERE ALL THERE. YOU, ME, THE REST OF YOUR FAMILY, EVERYONE ELSE LISTENING, WE ALL JUST SAT THROUGH THOSE SCENES. WHY THE FFFFUUUUUUUCK WOULD YOU ASK THEM TO ROLEPLAY OUT RECAPPING THAT YOU FUCK
the fucking thing, the fucking thing about where this podcast is in this moment, is the interactions between the player characters are actually quite fucking good. there's a great banter and dynamic developing here, clint has been really on the ball and he and griffin are bouncing off each other. and then here comes another fuckass travis npc
ok here we go, the rudest any travis npc is allowed to be, are you ready?
Man: Excuse me. Are the three of you going to stand around all day, chatting, or could you move along? Maybe clear the space? Because some of us are rocking some pretty big hangovers and ringing headaches, and just can't sit here and listen to any more of your bullshit.
Argo: [laughs] Oh! Uh, pardon me, friend, but this is Sir Fitzroy Applejack, and he is a very important person. Just ask him!
Do you want to guess how (spoilers, its rolandus) replies? Do you want to....play along at home, reader-kun?
Does he say:
A. I don't give a fuck who you are
B. Oh, I am very sorry.
C. If he doesn't know who I am, he can't be very important
D. Pardon me.
It's b. he apologizes immediately.
Rolandus: Ah. Okay. So you are a sidekick or henchperson. Thank you so much for clarifying. I almost wasted my time and energy fighting through this hangover to be cordial. Now, if you'll please excuse me, I'm going to settle back down into this ringing headache and pretend like none of this ever happened.
so like was rolandus being cordial because he thought fitzroy is nobility or because he thought he was a hero (a thing none of them said out loud prior). considering the apparently wide strata between sidekicks and heroes you'd think they'd be easier to identify. and if its nobility then i guess hero status is more important that noble lineage? but rolandus calls him a "hero of breeding" (ew not like that) implying that nobility still does matter, just i guess, less than heroship? but why would something that prestigious be open to non-nobles? it seems like it would be exclusively high nobility and maybe the children of very wealthy merchants that can afford the tuition. i mean i know the answer is "travis knows nothing about how nobility works and he's only doing this because harry potter did it" but if i say that then i could theoretically be free of this recap since it sums up most of the choices he makes.
i'm back again for round three of trying to get through this first episode. maybe i should take a page out of the mcelroys book and split this up into multiple releases, creating more content for less effort. i will also be pretty peeved if reddit breaks this because of my wordcount. I LOVE TO YAP
ah yes i stopped last time at the introduction of rolandus, and now i pick up with the introduction of buckminster. exhausting! i think what makes the Travis Special just so good at making me tired is you've just sat through a pointless jerkoff session of a travis npc, and like, the conversation is winding down, rolandus literally just said he's going to sit back down and ignore the players. thank god. AND THEN BY GAWD ITS BUCKMINSTER WITH A SHITTY BRITISH ACCENT MILDLY CHASTISING THE FIRST NPC AND FORCING THIS SCENE TO CONTINUE
rolandus snipes that he thinks buckminster's dad would have sent him to prison for some reason? and then buckminster snipes back, because travis loves to play with himself, that rolandus is the son of a disposed king. and again. it seems like the status of hero supersedes the status of noble, so like who fucking cares
OK EVERYBODY SHUT UP RAINER IS HERE
......buckminster is also a bully, yes? he literally makes fun of rolandus's dad for being unemployed, then turns to his lackey to be like "is that right? his dad is a broke bitch?" and his lackey is like "yep! broke bitch alert!"
that lackey is of course, the legendarily disabled rainer, whom is explicitly based on travis's "friend" rachel miner. I forgot about this bit, because we are minutes out from travis just fully no longer describing anything anymore, but rainer is blonde, which, if you look at rachel miner's wikipedia portrait.....
i know the answer is "she doesn't think anything about this because she did not listen to this garbage she did a couple of public events with travis and doesn't know him like that" but i do wonder what she, and actually disabled disability activist, would think about rainer. also, she used to be married to macully culkin!
the last time someone other than travis spoke on this podcast was at 44:47, when griffin says "right" in acknowledgement of buckminster calling rolandus a piece of shit.
the next time we get a player speaking is at 47:27, when travis asks the players to introduce themselves. again. that is 2 minutes and 40 seconds, the length of an average modern pop song.
also during this interminable exchange, we get this gem:
Buckminster: I am so sorry about [Rolandus]. He is, uh, as I said, a real piece of shit. He's not...honestly, he's not that bad. I mean, he is. But he-- what you see is what you get. Unlike me-- I am a piece of shit, but I'm just very charming"
W-what. huh??? there's like four conflicting characterizations happening in one line delivery. what is happening!!!
....okay counter: 3
genuinely so grating because this is in response to fitzroy introducing himself, a thing travis demanded he do. how are you going to demand your player do something and then not have a follow up response to that.
....okay counter: 4
2/3 of his replies to his players having to reintroduce themselves is okay. like imagine talking to this person in real life. "what's your name?" "hi, dave" "...ok!" what are you talking about.
and here we fucking go lads. THE moment we all knew graduation was the greatest work of fiction ever made.
Rainer: Okay, thanks Bud! Um, I'm, as he said, Rainer. Uhh, anybody want to ask about the chair? Go ahead and get that... out of the way? Anybody?
I promise no matter how much travis swears he got this from disabled disability activist rachel miner, she did not say this shit was acceptable. My guess, based on my several disabled friends and also being asian american (stay with me here), that what miner was actually discussing is how tiresome it can be to, essentially, become an exhibit for people when she's out and about, and when meeting new people, how tiresome it can be for them to hemm and haww around her disability instead of just being direct when they're curious. I often feel the same way when a well meaning liberal really badly wants to know what kind of asian I am, but is self aware enough to know that's a rude question to ask. And here's the thing, if you're going to push through your discomfort and ask me anyway (as many liberals will), then I'd rather you just be direct instead of doing a minutes long song and dance around it when you know what you want to ask and I know what you want to ask and just save me the time bro.
Which is worlds away from meeting someone and going HEY I KNOW YOU WANT TO ASK ABOUT MY MOBILITY AID GO ON AHEAD I LOVE THAT SHIT
this is also yet ANOTHER moment where in the hands of a competent world builder who is curious and engaged with their world, it could be kind of cool! because rainer has a chronic illness that affects her mobility, and that's actually super interesting when your setting is high magic. in a world where you can literally raise people from the dead (she's a necromancer herself lmao) how is it that you still have a chronic illness? that is a question you need to answer! and the answer enriches the world! because, for example, say there is magical treatment available, but it is priced exorbitantly, to the point that one might, for example, join a high risk profession that pays well in order to afford treatment. Or maybe her illness is magic-based and that's why it can't be healed! that's suddenly a potential future adventure hook for the players. The worst thing you could do is cosplay your disabled "friend" and leave it at proudly parroting that she's chronically ill.
ok travis's tendency to sigh dramatically like its soooooooooo hard to put into words this high concept, and then its actually a very easy concept a baby could understand, is actually a way more annoying verbal tic than his huh ok
i've been rewatching the 2019 watchmen tv show/continuation. i wasn't crazy, this shit kicks ass (and feels relevant again since it is about a bunch of cops who mask up to avoid reprisal for their actions), and for the most part really really works, something i'm still taken aback by, because like, there's no way on paper that a tv show sequel to the fucking watchmen should work, and yet here we are. i am reminded of that because that is a show that also wants to play with the idea of a "fix" and false flags and blurring the line of hero and villain, except, you know, written by people who understand basic story structure and cause and effect.
oh god we are not even halfway through yet i need to stop commenting on all the insane shit he does there will be more episodes where he repeats it, but another thing that unreasonably irritates me are his calls for rolls. in a normal game of dnd, as the dm you might call an impromptu perception check based on the situation. but every other non-combat roll, investigation, history, arcana, etc generally you are waiting for your player to interact with something and then arbitrating it down via a called roll. here, travis keeps having his npc say something, then asking for a history or such roll so that he can lore dump on them with zero player interaction or input.
Travis: Okay, cool. So, then I'm gonna say that you know this. Everybody knows this (editor's note: if everyone knows this then they should not have to roll dumbass). That basically, the way that this world works is that there are people who are hired to be villains, and people who are hired to be heroes in a town, in a city, in a kingdom. Right? And then, the battles that they wage, quote unquote, the, y'know, their antics, their stories, raise the profile of the kingdoms (e/n: how??). But the Heroic Oversight Guild exists to make sure that heroes don‘t start taking bribes, or hurting people, or anything like that. And that, um, villains don‘t hurt too many people, and keep it to like, injuries, instead of like, killing (e/n: how would that be enforced? if it's all a fix, why would anybody be getting hurt??). And that it—it kind of becomes a very much like, uh, almost Looney Tunes-esque battles, back and forth, to make them more showy, rather than actually having any kind of end goal (an ominous bell chimes).
this shit really makes my head like, itch, because why are you so stupid. ok so like, japan, that is a country that loves bureaucracy right? like you see it in so much of their media, they love to have some sort of governing body that issues licenses. that's pretty much every superhero show to come out of japan, that's hunter x hunter, naruto, garo, etc etc. this is, in fact, something actual governing bodies do in real life in japan to help with tourism promotion and local pride. they are called local heroes and i love the concept dearly. and here, you can sort of immediately see how it works, it is a hero tied to a specific locality and that association is what elevates both the town/prefecture and the hero/mascot. but when instead heroes and villains are just randomly assigned temporarily to battle in an area, like....the whole thing collapses. how does this increase a town's profile? it can't even be like, "joe's diner, famous for that time spiderman crashed through here fighting doc ock" because the town has to hire the heroes and villains to show up!!! it doesn't make any sense!!!!!
Travis: So, at this point, it‘s more about the hero and villain titles, uh, you are on the hero track or the villain track, depending on what your skillset is, of how showy it will be when you attack or anything like that. It has very little to do with any kind of morality.
i mean this is obviously untrue if one side part of the job description is to actively hurt people. it also doesn't make any fucking sense because BOTH SIDES SHOULD BE FLASHY. THE WHOLE PREMISE IS THAT EVERYTHING IS FLASHY. or as iconic dreamworks character megamind so eloquently put, it about PRESENTATION
travis has fallen into a trap that many game devs in the early 2010s did, which was when character customization was a huge trend, making their customization options broader, and broader, because more options mean you can customize your hero HOWEVER you want!! and at a certain point they had taken away so many rails that the game became less fun, because if you weren't following a hyper specific guide for how to build your character, you ended up with a directionless mess. by being determined to make sure nothing is gated from the players, the end result is just....boring. there's no identity behind it.
and i'm back for a fourth time for this first episode what the fuck.
Travis: Absolutely. There are many heroes that are like, chaotic, or y'know, chaotic good, or even maybe chaotic evil. Um, but—or lawful evil or whatever. But the Heroic Oversight Guild keeps them in line. And what you also know is that, when someone is branded as 'evil,' it means that the Heroic Oversight Guild has determined that they are no longer qualified to work professionally as a hero or villain
a. i think it is so fucking funny that travis's first instinct for "hey i bet you wouldn't think THIS alignment could be heroic!" is chaotic fucking good. this is of course, because deep in his heart, travis is a cop.
b. the idea that the people you would put in charge of training the next generation of performers are performers who, did not retire, but are in fact deemed in some form incapable of professionally doing their jobs is like. this is peak. and travis wants to be the deconstruction/subversion guy sooooooooooo badly but like this doesn't read as subversive it is just confusing and that maybe you are stupid. i personally think it is like, very difficult to reform a word like evil, which is pretty absolute in its moral positioning, but like, if you work at it you can usually come up with something. i'm thinking about all the various death and blood gods and demons and shit in fantasy that often fantasy writers will take a stab at trying to deconstruct and rationalize why, yknow, the evil death cultists are cool with worshiping the evil death god. or i guess you could just take a word and say "actually that means something else now". Like, this has added zero depth or texture to the world, its inclusion is strictly a negative in making the worldbuilding much messier. because like, assuming that this world still has the concept of "evil" and just shares the word with this title, which is what is implied, then like.....what are the optics of this school??? because presumably the general populace isn't aware of-- actually, hold on. god this whole thing just falls apart no matter how hard you try to hold it together, each previously thought to be sound foundation is nothing but gossamer. so since this is a school of heroics AND villainy, it MUST mean that everyone in the world is aware this is kayfabe-- after all, towns have to hire these actors. but then like.....why would you call discredited workers evil? for what purpose? i guess i turn around back to the optics because again, travis is very specific that these are people who are essentially barred from professionally working in this field. like am i sending my kid to school to be taught by turbo titan, that guy who got busted for dogfighting? who is going for this?
griffin thinks its a cool idea
Rainer: So, with introductions aside, what say we head in and get this orientation underway?
why the fuck would she say this. imagine your first day at college and you meet another freshman, and she says this. you'd be like what the fuck are you talking about. are you secretly 40 and the teacher
Travis: Hi everybody! It‘s me, your dungeon master and your best friend, Travis McElroy! And I'm so excited that you are here. I'm so excited that we are here. We have been talking about and planning Graduation for like, six or seven months at this point. I have put way too much work and thought into it, and I'm so excited now that you get to listen to it! And I have a lot of announcements to make here in the break, so I will make this as quick as possible.
First, I want to say a special thank you to everyone who shared the trailer, and thank you to Janet Varney, Mimi Chu, Griffin McElroy, and Evan Palmer for the amazing work that you all did on the trailer. It‘s—I think it‘s breathtakingly beautiful. I love it so much.
Um, and special thanks to another actual play D&D podcast called The Broadswords. The Broadswords is an all-female and nonbinary led actual play show, and it is also where I first debuted Buckminster Eden. I love playing him so much that I incorporated him into Graduation. If you would like to hear more from him and Leon, go listen to The Broadswords. It‘s a great show. You're gonna love it.
Uh, also, thank you to Kay Welch, Brandon Lee Mulligan, Matt Mercer, Sateen Phoenix, Chris Perkins, and Griffin McElroy for being my DM mentors.
Uh, and more than anything, thank you to Justin, Griffin, and Dad for helping me create this world, and for playing with me in it.
just putting that in for posterity. also, lol:
Uh, there‘s going to be lots more NPCs coming, lots more NPC names that have already been named, lots more NPCs that will need names. So, uh, be sure to keep tweeting about the show and using the hash tag, TheZoneCast, and your name might get used for an NPC.
an ominous bell tolls
shoutout to dynamic ads meaning i do not have to listen to the adroll as it is not part of the historical grad listening experience
next time: boy i sure do hope they spend 20 minutes going room by room through the entire school
Posted Mar 3, 2026, 8:34 PM UTC