Co-Host Love Letter: Dustin

So I get to kind of be the odd one out on some of these. I live up in Portland an everyone else lives in Northern California, so I don’t get to spend much time with them. I haven’t even met Angel or Jess in person, and it wasn’t until a couple months ago that I met Abbie. She and Dustin came up for my birthday ♡ but I have yet to get to hug Jess and Angel despite how much I’d love to. So for me, much or our friendships come from wonderful conversations and just getting to know each other through gameplay. So here we go my cast love letters:

Dustin. The mastermind behind all of this. Down to the original game, Dustin is who brought us all together. He’s been our DM in both games, and without him, we wouldn’t even be here. He is the guy that put together a PowerPoint and charts to convince us to do this. He’s the one who built the website and did the majority of the research. He is basically the backbone and brain that got us to this point. Anytime I have a question Dustin is the guy with the answer. We give him a hard time and call him Game Dad, but despite it not being his favorite thing, I hope he knows it’s out of love that he has been given such a title. Seriously, guys, you should hear the unedited recordings, it’s chaos. If it were up to Jess and I it would be bullshitting 24/7, spewing stories about our stupid cats, and talking about anime. Angel wouldn’t try to stop us, and Abbie would join in because she’s just as chaotic. Dustin is who keeps us organized and on track. It’s seriously like herding cats. I work in mental health with children, and I still can’t fathom how he does it.

Dustin is hands down the most generous guy I know. He drove up with Abbie for my birthday and gave me the BIGGEST bright pink rainbow cake I have ever seen from a vegan bakery because he loves me that much. I just can’t even with that. I still tell people about that, and it was months ago. He’s come up to see me in Portland several times and always makes a point of reaching out and just trying to be the best friend he can be. Which is just crazy to me because I can be such a grumpy butt. Honestly y’all it’s a miracle the group as a whole hasn’t thrown me to the wolves yet. Playing with Dustin is both wonderful and terrible. Being the DM means he creates an amazing world for us to run around in, but it also means he gets to try to kill us ALL THE TIME. I don’t even know how many times he’s dropped us below zero at this point, but it’s a lot. That being said, I can’t even imagine how many hours he spends putting all this stuff together. Not even just the time he spends planning the campaign itself, but also working on accents, putting together maps for roll20, figuring out how to fit our intricate backstories that we made into the adventure path. You guys don’t even want to know how much time he spends editing the podcast itself. Just, damn dude. I remember the first time I met Dustin. I had just gotten together with my partner Shannon and we pulled into a gas station in Chico, CA. There was Dustin in his mini cooper getting gas. Shannon introduced me and he hugged me super hard and lifted me off my feet. It was probably the warmest introduction I’ve ever gotten from anyone. He’s got such a good heart and I’m proud to call him my friend. ♡

Tagged as: gamer, #gamedad, fwp, roleplaying games, family, Fantastic, Podcast, Dustin Alexander, Kailey O'Connor, reign of winter, Kay, odessa, friends, #worldstraveler, pathfinder, dustin.