Sometimes I really out-nerd myself. And it’s always so much fun.
I’ve been playing D&D for the past year-ish, pretty inexpertly and infrequently, but learning. One of my party members (friends) recommended I watch this D&D show where you essentially watch people play out a D&D campaign. They’ve brought up similar stuff before and I wasn’t that interested, but as I was gushing about She-Ra queerness, they said the magic words: “Natalie, you should watch Fantasy High. It’s so gay.”
Fantasy High is part of a series called Dimension 20 put on by College Humor. It’s The Breakfast Club meets D&D, set in a fantasy world where our teenage heroes start their freshman year at an adventuring academy. There’s mystery and magic and action, but also crystals (that act like cell phones), teen angst and parental drama, a corn deity, skateboarding dwarves, a biker/dancing gang, the cutest most badass family of good Samaritans and anarcho-socialist activists halflings, and teenage girls who are going missing . . . and so much more!
I have not laughed so hard at a show in a long time — frequently until I cry and cannot breathe. It’s all free to watch on Youtube. And there’s a Season 2 (Sophomore Year: Spring Break) that just wrapped a few months ago (the last episodes filmed socially distanced Covid-19 style).
The show also has amazing positive representation. Over the two seasons we have multiple nonbinary characters, non-white characters, asexual characters, characters on the autism spectrum, queer relationships, examples of positive masculinity (here’s a great quote from season 2: “Fuck toxic masculinity, I dance now!”). The characters acrs have brought me to tears and are more developed than I’ve seen in most TV shows or books. All through the tale of awkward magical teenagers who literally meet the first day of freshman year in detention.
I had to gush. Now that I’m done with the two Fantasy High seasons I’m starting another one, with the same people portraying new characters, that takes place in a D&D version of Candyland.
So if you’re feeling particulary nerdy with me, go check this show out. You won’t regret it.
With Love,
Natalie