#a81 talk tag

[anissapierce]

My a81 bag got wet with pins on it and there was some staining on the bottom so when i did some tie dying (turned out kinda disappointing) i used some of the die that was to b used after tie dying to do something fun

Before:

After:

Also someone who ran for county coroner taught me how to get some fun blood splatter

[danrat]

ok i’m lowkey obsessed with this post bc the tags are calling me a freak (affectionately) and i’m so sorry to the people looking at any of the recent a81 fics and going “…….ohhhhhhh. anyway!”

heard tho chef. watch this space! i’m open for anything! what kind of fluff are we talking. hurt/comfort? cuddling? rat cuteness aggroing dan and squeezing him so hard he blows up? i’m just laughing and having fun!

shakes you violently GIVE RAT LONG HAIR. bro is like a mad scientist do you think he has time to cut his hair. nuh uh.

[danielpowell]

Okay, I'm making the show post cause I have to put my thoughts in one place. Warning you that this is full of spoilers, so don't get mad and say I didn't warn you. This very well could change on a re-watch, honestly. These feelings are rather fresh.

Pros:

The theme visuals look pretty.

Wardrobe is great- I genuinely want Dan's shirt and cardigan look, the film bar one.

Lots of sets look really nice and packed with detail- there's even nods to the podcast and the miniseries.

Certain tracks are nice and the sound design is well done for the most part.

Expanded backstory of the two mains we don't get in the podcast- while I don't necessarily like the ones they are given because of the aspect of ~ they were connected the entire time ~ it was nice to see any at all.

Expanded backstory and personality of the two supporting characters for the main- Mark feels far more involved and while I do think he's supportive and caring in the podcast, I do think the show does a great job at showing his ride or die attitude. Annabelle, Alexa's replacement, is still very queer ! She's a very fun character too. I think her actress did a fantastic job in this role. I would have loved to see her in a relationship with Melody outside of roommate and best friend.

Ratty is there and far more realistic in depiction. Dan barely fighting anything Ratty does is hilarious. He's a disgruntled roomie and puts up with it. I find this dynamic way more enjoyable than in the podcast, in all honesty.

The film restoration bits are sexy. The tech is on point and the tools are pretty fucking accurate if you ask me. Thanks for wearing gloves, Dan. More than I can say for Daniel Powell who doesn't even say the right model and doesn't prep the tapes before playing them.

Speaking of, they have the Otari MX5050 Bii model in the background at one point. Kudos.

The mold is kind of cool, actually. I think it would have worked better if he had noticed it on the tapes sooner. More Mold, please.

I wanna say that many of them give great performances, but genuinely it's hard to tell what I think is bad or good because the writing or directing hinders it. They did a good job with what they were given.

It is apparent they listened to the podcast by all the homages and references thrown in.

They have a Magnetic Fields track in there. It's short, but it did get me as it's one I put in an Archive 81 playlist.

The short segments at the start of each episode are reminiscent of the tapes and in-show ads from the podcast. I thought the killer clown movie one was hilarious and I kind of want to see it.

Mark bludgeons Davenport, go king go.

I'm in the unpopular crowd here, but I'm glad Rat isn't in it. People can't be normal about him. I think if he was people would have rioted anyway.

Cons:

They did in fact erase the sapphic relationship and instead have them as platonic. While Annabelle is unabashedly queer, is teasing and flirty towards Melody, and is present through a large amount of the show, there is nothing that states, alludes, or cements a romantic involvement between her and Melody which is a grevious offense.

Melody mouth kisses Samuel on screen after flirting with him. They go on a date. It's kind of implied they were going to drink and maybe do stuff in the privacy of her apartment. It's very uncomfortable paired with the fact she is now not sapphic.

There is zero confirmation she is a lesbian or sapphic in any way. If anything, it's the opposite.

They do make Cassandra Wall a lesbian, but it's done so in a way that feels... icky. I can't speak much on it as I am neither a woman nor a lesbian.

Melody is now kind of incompetent and a damsel in distress, which is so far removed from the original. She has to be rescued.

She also has a fight with her best friend and gets told she is smothering people for trying to help them. It was very upsetting to witness.

Jesse is both aged down and changed to a girl, for some reason. I think it's to further connect Dan as he has a sister in this portrayal, but it rubs me the wrong way. There are certainly some improvements when it came to antiblackness, but maybe replacing the teenage black boy with a younger girl (with lighter complexion) isn't a good look.

In that same vein, while Jess still runs errands for Visser residents, they completely get rid of any mention of Why. This snippet was supposed to give hints to people gathering ritual components and more importantly, touch on disability and the fact that there are disabled and elderly residents and that the programs in place for their food deliveries suck. It was an important detail to me, but instead it's utilized as an excuse to have Jess around and help groom her as a sacrifice for the cult.

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I found the scenes of her in pain distressing and unnecessary.

Oh yeah. And she lives unlike in the podcast, but she's a nun now :/

On that note, they change the genre from found-footage weird fiction with comedy and cosmic horror elements to a religious horror mystery drama that made me more angry with each bastardization of the religions in question. It feels very satanic panic and uninspired at best and lazy and offensive at worst.

The backstory for the mains quite frankly suck. The connection and involvement between them was wholly unnecessary. I don't care if it makes their connection deeper or whatever. The point was that Dan was isolated and didn't know these people. He was an observer that got strung in thanks to his obsessive and curious nature. Trading this for a tragic backstory and a family connection to Melody was a poor decision to me. I was not a fan.

The dog being the same is dumb ! That's the most generic dog with a red collar I've ever seen. Dan, what the hell are you talking about ?

Melody is a witch now, I guess ? The whole thing with her mom was just, bad. It's bad. I hate stories that try and do genetic witch shit. I'm Irish Pagan and it's by choice, it's not a hereditary thing.

Also, making it to where Melody is instead trying to track down her mom rather than simply gathering stories and staying because she cares and it's her job is a choice they made. It's not a good choice. Isn't Melody supposed to be a social worker ? Or was that not good enough for this re-envisioned story ?

Also, she stays in Visser in this portrayal and doesn't even live in New York. They could have easily kept it to where it was her act of recording and taking the tapes with her that give her a connection to Visser and its Weirdness. But they don't! In fact, the recording only feels important for the sake of letting Dan watch it and go :0

Dan's dad is her therapist because sure, why not ? Let's add threads where there didn't need to be.

Dan also has a history of mental illness and they shove this down your throat many times by having people constantly ask him if he is having a mental health emergency. It feels very modern, I'll give them that, but it only infuriates me further as:

Why the hell is LMG name-dropped in full and why did they try and make them seem any kind of caring ? They are a face-less, heartless corporation.

Dan can get groceries and leave whenever he wants. They eliminate isolation, poor living conditions, and poor nutrition. These were huge factors for his mental decline, why axe them ? You wouldn't have had to rig all the family history and trauma if you had just stuck with this. In fact, it would have been enhanced !

Dan's kind of a huge asshole to Mark for seemingly no reason ? To me, Mark was shown to be supportive and present for Dan when he needed to be. Why is Dan saying to not do stuff for the podcast, you only care about the podcast, when it doesn't look like it was, ever ?? I feel like I missed a scene or a conversation or a line somewhere. Please correct me if I did miss something cause it was not at all spelled out to me. It felt out of place, like they wrote this scene for the end but forgot to actually bring any conflict.

They do scenes where Dan and Melody interact and talk with each other and they are So Awkward. There is no chemistry here, I'm sorry.

For some reason they turned Dan into solely a techie nerd and instead gave the hipster qualities to Thomas (?) and MELODY. If they were trying to make a connecting factor with them, it failed miserably.

Dan finds out he's being watched early on and navigates this by 'hacking' so he can find blindspots. He later destroys the cameras. He is never reprimanded for having visitors or other things, I don't know why this was done at all, please help me understand, this show is somehow so stupid and so convoluted at the same time.

Something about sending both Melody and Annabelle to psych wards "for safety" really doesn't sit well. Like, um, it's pretty obviously bad ? It's bad, right ? Pairing this with people constantly thinking Dan is just having a mental breakdown feels very wrong and kinda ableist. I don't know if that's just me or not.

Ratty was an afterthought. I loved him being there and alive, but he does nothing except serve as a treat for podcast fans. He's barely there. If this was so Rat, could actually be Ratty, that would be hilarious to me.

The theme song sucks, there I said it. I found it boring and even annoying when they played it in scenes. The shrill tones, yuck.

Some tracks are actually painful to listen to. There's one in particular that would trigger headaches. It was also paired with flashing lights at one point which is just asking for trouble.

The dialogue is Bad. It's very stiff and unnatural. Boring, even.

There is some gore and the blood looks like corn syrup. It's not good special effects. At least they had sfx.

The magic CGI also blows.

The sex scene is sudden and unnecessary.

There is one archive and it never said to be the 81st. The title has no relevance to the series.

The last shot where you can see the twin towers reflecting in the windows is COMICALLY BAD.

Overall, I was bored to tears. I multitasked at points and was still wishing I was watching something else.

TL;DR [too long, didn't read]

It's a very bland and uninspired adaptation that makes very bad, stupid decisions for plot and only has a few good things going for it.

I'm proud of Marc and Dan for getting to this point, and I want to support them, but if you are a fan of the podcast I have a strong feeling you won't enjoy this show. But hey, you just might.

Edit: [March 30th, 2024] I'm actually a fagdyke, so this is funny to look back on.

Also, for reference, I now have the screen worn film bar shirt. Huzzah.

[zipmode]

Ratty: squeak squeak

Samuel:

[fioblah]

you carry him like a person! fucking gay people

[dickwheelie]

just started archive 81, honestly I’m not sure what to make of it yet, it’s......fine so far. I think I need to just keep listening and see where it goes

[discountdyke]

imagine writing the best podcast ever and then turning it into the worst podcast ever

[anissapierce]

Bringing up a81s acting is like bringing up Dylan's singing at this point like it bothers the newcomer on first listen but after a bit you realize you can grow used to it and find it charming even bc the art behind it is so good it doesn't matter and you wouldn't trade it

[angel-archivist]

God the Dsmp fandom reaches its grubby little grabbers literally everywhere it’s infuriating

Also hi Orph we need to hang out more cause we haven’t talked in a while, I hope all is mostly well in your life

LITERALLY its like, they feel the need to tag EVERY LITTLE THING and its so infuriating cuz its like I do NOT go into the TMA tag to see what avatar you’d headcanon Philmumps or whatever the fuck to be like PLEASE.. and its not even JUST the dsmp fandom like i saw people tagging when they drew other characters in the sfm style with the main tag and it clutters the whole tag up!! especially when the other thing your tagging has a broader/larger audience then the tag your cluttering up! I even see it happen accidentally in the archive 81 tags when people will talk about listening to the podcast in the tags and it ends up in the a81 tag just bark bark!!! be careful with tags on tumblr is all!! 

HI!!! yeah we havent :((( schools be crazy these last couple of weeks ive had so many tests n stuff!!! We should try to talk more 👉👈🥺💕 ily!!!

[sickeningradiances]

date of origin: 22 Feb, 2021

update: i already unfollowed a81 tag and ive listened to friends talk abt the show, i have too many things i want to watch to bother hatewatching this but listening to stuff about it is already painful enough

here's a post from a darker timeline. imagine, its after the archive 81 show comes out. the tag is filled with dan/melody art by people who have only watched the show. the rat enthusiasts have been forced out. people are weirded out why do we keep mentioning this Alexa lady. i have to block the a81 tag

[anissapierce]

The city is like soooo under the hill core... In fact i imagine tht in the past it mightve been closer to tht human involvement sullies quite a bit even something as vast and unknowable as the city which us so unknowable its hard to describe but thru dan powells soundscape he gave you a vibe comparing it to night Vale a city in a narrative told by narrators tht u tell you about it well it's hardly a fair fight

[anissapierce]

The funny thing abt Rat is that....he thinks hes a muppet... Like the shit he does could b funny in another situation if played for laughs but like he literally thinks of himself as dr bunsen honeydew

[anissapierce]

S3 of a81 is soooo house of l... Literally a brother and sister sorting through their dads audio tapes

[theradioghost]

Oh, I agree with this so much.

I was talking about this with my dad, who's been a writer and producer for film, live theatre, and radio drama. He told me that in a film scriptwriting class he took, his teacher told them that narration happens in film when the writing is too weak to let you know what's going on through dialogue, action or acting (like the terrible Blade Runner theatrical cut.)

I feel like my issue with the narration problems in Bubble and Starcalled has very much to do with this, and with what you said about limits. It feels as though these were shows written by people who wanted something as close to television as possible, but who were either unwilling to work within the limits of immersive audio fiction, or unaware of how to work with those limits. So, feeling like they weren't showing enough, they fell back on a device that works even worse in pure audio than it does onscreen; rather than learning how to work within the capabilities (and advantages!) of immersive audio, or trying a different method altogether. Learning to work within those limits, but also learning the unique things you can do in audio (and specifically immersive audio?) that you can't do in other media, is really what I want to see.

Learning the medium is so, so important. I think one of the few cons to how accessible audio drama is to creators via podcasting is that it's equally accessible to people who haven't (or haven't yet) learned what they're doing in audio, including people with big budgets and no experience writing audio drama, who assume there's no difference between serialized AD and television. As I mentioned in the tags of my first post, it's one of the reasons I really believe that podcast AD creators should listen to more golden age radio -- it may be outdated, but it was produced when radio was the most popular entertainment medium, by people with a ton of professional experience and very high standards for audio fiction that worked. I think there's a lot to learn listening to Escape or Suspense about audio fiction, immersive or not.

(Side note: while I'm not too familiar with Big Finish, I definitely think there's a lot to be said for audio horror that uses the medium well. I always think of Archive 81, and how the understanding that I think maybe only professional sound engineers/foley artists can have of the capabilities of sound have resulted in a show that's totally reshaped my idea of what audio can evoke. A81 pushes the limits of what audio fiction can do far enough to essentially create visual body horror in audio, and it's such a glorious, terrifying thing.)

big ol possibly controversial opinion: if the only way you can convey what’s going on in your audio drama is third-person narration, then you are probably bad at writing audio drama and need to stop trying to write for TV, seriously rethink your medium, and learn how to use it properly!

narration isn’t unusable. it’s very important, in fact. shows like Greater Boston and The Orbiting Human Circus, as well as noir-inspired shows like The Penumbra and Neon Nights, use narration (both first and third person) in ways that are stylistically innovative and/or which inform you about the world and the story. (spoiler: I still count the moment in GB season two where Leon interrupts the narrator as one of my favorite moments in the audio medium, period.) other narration gives a window into how characters think and process their world, and the possible differences between that and the reality of that world. the fact that Julian the Janitor summons up an imaginary narrator speaks to his dreamy loneliness, his love of old radio, and his desire to see himself as a character in the show he adores, as well as adding to the bedtime-story atmosphere and foreshadowing the end of the first season. the expressionistic nature of noir, where the dark and pessimistic views of the protagonist reflect, create, and inform the corrupt world around them, makes the kind of first-person narration created on the page by writers like Chandler and Hammett feel much more natural in audio than it would in many other genres. and in really good, deconstructive noir like The Penumbra, Juno’s internal monologue is vital to his character development exactly because of this expressionistic quality; Juno believes he lives in a world as dark as his thoughts, but those thoughts don’t always match up to the reality presented beside them; his depression effectively makes him an unreliable narrator. that doesn’t even touch on shows presented in monologue, arguably its own kind of narration, and which has its own brilliant uses — as in Within the Wires, where the medium of narration is a vital part of the story. effectively, all of this narration exists within the universe it presents — it affects and is affected by that universe.

but if the only way you can characterize your setting or your characters is to have an unintegrated narrator visually describe them! you are doing a bad job. in the trailer for Bubble (and oh, Maximum Fun, how could you do me like this), I can’t help but feel it would be much more effective to leave the dialogue of all the hipster-types in and cut the description of them lounging around in the park and vaping! the narration comes off as insecurity, someone who doesn’t know or trust the ways that audio is used to set a scene. and Starcalled, for all its interesting plot, is effectively a full-cast audiobook with a few sound effects. stop telling me that characters are narrowing their eyes or that the sunlight is glinting off their black visor. “show, don’t tell” applies to audio drama too! it just means something a little different.

Learn how to work with what you can and can’t show with audio! know that listening audiences will usually accept characters speaking or giving exposition in ways that would come off as unrealistic in many other mediums, and learn how to walk that line! and if you have to use narration, learn to use it in a way that doesn’t utterly break immersion or just prop up insecure writing. Lend a little thought to what makes narration in audio work.

[anissapierce]

The thing dan powell as a character (not the actor/producer) is tht even if sound fetus abortion was an option n he knew abt the pregnancy idk if hed do it .. like.. not all mpreg situations can b solved w abortions but esp not ones rooted in reproductive horror inflected on kind caring dudes who are maybe too invested in Weird Things™ to kill said weird thing gestating within

[anissapierce]

I know that archive 81 didnt invent rituals that involving sacrificing a story or mad scientists who do surgeries on ppl involving a fucked up deal struck.... But like that doesnt change yu yu hakusho from being similar to yu yu hakusho. Cmon a brother going through with a ritual that change him to be able to save his sister. Ok that lines up more with dromen (its a gay trait to sacrifice yourself for anyone you love regardless of the type of love)