#and you get characters who feel like they're just there bc the dm couldn't find another way to make the thing happen (bad!)

[utilitycaster]

When we say characters are narrative tools that just means that any statement like "we need to hold [fictional character] accountable" or critiquing a fictional relationship solely on the basis of whether it is healthy is worthless. It doesn't mean that you can excuse bad writing/storytelling by saying WELL THEY'RE NARRATIVE TOOLS. Characters don't need to be good people to be compelling nor sympathetic! But also, sometimes there's a villain who does just fucking suck (for example) and isn't interesting and only exists to push the narrative from point A to point B and that's valid to criticize. Characters aren't real people and shouldn't be judged as such; but they should feel real and vibrant and their actions should feel organic to the story and hold weight. If they actually just feel like a tool of the narrative then that's bad storytelling; the purpose of a story is to dress up these tools in something compelling.

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

Hi there! You’re the person who made me love Peanut/Tad. How exactly did your journey start with these two? Thanks in advance! <3

nonnie!! dear!!

first of all, thank you so much for this answer!! i'm so happy i inspired you into loving them, they're special to me in ways i can hardly express <3

i'll admit, it started... quite by chance, actually?? i was just listening (again!!) to the compilation of all tad's quotes and i realized that. he mentioned peanut twice. which isn't a lot but if you consider that most characters really don't mention other characters more than once unless it's important. it was odd. (it probably wasn't but i Like to Overanalyze Things). also bc one of them haas him outright planning to plot against peanut, so it was intriguing to think about it.

then, exactly about that post, a tumblr user (that has now been deactivated, but i still think of them very fondly) texted me in the dms to suggest some motivations. we started talking from there about tad and peanut and really went on analyzing a lot of interesting perspective and aspects, of their characters and everything surrounding each of them. we found ourselves discussing the motifs, the themes and so forth.

then i guess these aspects of their characters kept going around in my head like screensaver icons and well. that one post i made in june 2022 is the first recorded memory that i have of imagining them as a ship (mentioned it in the tags).

i think i started planning cockroaches will inherit the earth in september, in a very… particular time of my life. then it went through some changes and it became the story that is up on ao3 now. i'm currently planning more, of course!!

i think that the thing is. there are many of their themes, of their personality maybe, that i kind of… relate a lot to?? and they are so similar on a fundamental level. they both have these expectations of what they're supposed to be; but they do not know what those are- it's just. high expectations. in tad's case, reaching the top of the preps hierarchy; in peanut's case, being loves totally and univocally by johnny. but what they feel they have to be to reach those goals is so uncertain, so undefined, that they will only ever know they aren't good enough. that they are the problem; the exception.

but finding each other, realizing this perpetual feeling, only makes each of them realize that both of them can't be the exception- meaning the rule didn't exist in the first place. that they couldn't reach that impossible goal because it didn't exist; that they couldn't find happiness because they were looking in the wrong direction.

at the end of the day, i think, they're a tale about getting better. about realizing one's inherent worth as a human being. about realizing that they were stuck in a grave of their own making; they just needed a hand to grip to drag them up. and they found each other- because they understand each other.

it's also that- that they don't need long, tiring explanations to figure out each other's needs, because they find each other in themselves. something something finding solace in the unsaid so that what is said can only have a wondrous and heavy meaning, learning to love oneself through the mirror of the other.

they're all about healing after all. i think that is something i feel so deeply about them tbh

[himbotron]

AAAAAGHHHHH

It's stupid but I feel it's kinda draining in friends conversations but there's currently 2 games at the same time goin on

One I'm in and Sometimes I feel I'm like. the only one enjoying it, and the other one I Just couldn't get into bc I find it so terribly boring but Everyone's Just So Into It for some reason??? and it's just frustrating bc the DM for the second one just complains every fucking time in the first one about the stupidest things and then doesn't take criticisms at all lmao. Also I'm kinda going solo most of the time bc I felt from thw start just... unjustifiably treated like an Outsider???? first bc I choose a very femme character (who's actually a very masc guy trying to act like his deceased brother, long story lmao) and GOD even today they try to tell me it's not bc they were homophobic even thought I literally changed the character and I was inmediately treated with more respect bc i wasn't "actually a f*g". lmao

idk man this is like my escape from reality (tm) and it's just so stressful now lmao I really love these ocs tho and I'm always kinda tempted to snap at some players and tell them to fuck off but I'm also trying to just have fun myself and ignore them (I've even silenced them in game and completely ignored them sometimes akkdkf)

It's just like. you love something a lot and your friends keep telling you it's trash or no one cares about it, and then proceed to talk about how much they love x thing and how underrated it is and no one really talks about it (even tho they talk about it the whole time) and you personally think it's not that great or have criticisms about it but you just know if you say smth they'll take it personally so you just. shut up.

Also there's a character in this other game that I KNOW it was at least a bit inspired by mine and everyone loves him and puts him in a pedestal EVEN THOUGH they're super similar and I'm the one who is annoying it seems, EVEN THOUGH I never talk about my stuff because the first time I did I was sent this shit:

like. wow. okay then I'll just keep the stuff i'm excited about for myself I guess

yea. little things but it makes me so mad lol

[juicemitio]

Alright I went to Louisville Galaxycon and saw Travis and Clint twice, for their worldbuilding workshop and their Q&A. Here's some interesting stuff I learned (I didn't include stuff they talked about that's pretty common knowledge or they talked about on the last ttazz)

Graduation 

Fitzroy was originally going to be a jock that was weak bc he no longer had a team, Travis told Griffin that that didn't really work for the world so they reframed it as him training to be a hero, was great academically and behaviorally, but had a problem no one had seen before and no one felt like dealing with. It specifically wasn't "barbarian fails bc he can't keep his rage in check," it was that no one was willing to deal with his magic so they shipped him off

Someone asked Travis to explain fitzroy's magic, so from the DM's mouth- he's a barbarian subtype with elemental magic which has a random effect while raging, which we haven't seen yet (path of the wild soul if you want to look it up and see what he can do) and he took a feat which gives him the ability to cast 3 cantrips of his choosing. What I thought was interesting was that Travis described Fitz's magic using the word "elemental" twice, even though that isn't specifically stated in the path of the wild soul entry

Travis knows Argo's secret and is very excited about it 

Clint has a pirate fiction book he reads every night before they record to get into the headspace to play Argo, he told us the name but I forgot it 

There is one small little concept that made the whole of graduation make sense to Travis and is what the arc will be about, and he only figured it out a few days before recording. Obviously he didn't tell us what it was

Originally it was going to start with everyone starting at age 11 and slowly killing the other kids off, but Justin didn't feel comfortable playing a game surrounded by kids dying 

The accounting scene is already one of Travis' all time favorite taz scenes

The pegasus scene informed Travis on exactly how he was going to treat the firbolg

Also Travis referred to Justin's character exclusively as "the firbolg," which means "master firbolg" is solely a thing going on with the npcs in the game which I find hilarious. They just all decided to give him a dope title bc he deserves it, meanwhile no one will call Fitzroy "sir"

To Fitzroy, social threats are an extremely real and serious thing, like the Biggest thing to him (we were talking about what characters found threatening in the workshop, for context)  

There's some big concept/idea that comes up in the next episode that travis almost let spill and had to quickly stop himself from saying it

Someone mentioned eating breakfast in their question in the workshop and Travis goofed on it for a second, then said "cereal world" suddenly, and Clint had to pick up the question bc Travis had to take a second to make a note of it in his phone 

Travis started brainstorming graduation in March and they recorded the first episode in October, and his main job in that time was working on graduation 

Before Buckminster was adapted for graduation he could not fight at all, if he got into a fight he would die, he poured everything into charisma and could talk his way out of any fight (even the big bad of the game he crit 20d his check and the big bad walked away from the fight) 

Travis is really into psychology and how if you assign a label to someone they're going to act more like it (ie you tell a kid they're amazing and smart and talented and they become more like that, you tell a kid they're annoying and dumb and a problem they become more like that), and how that was a major contributor to play into hero/villain/sidekick/henchperson dynamics, you get assigned this arbitrary title of good/evil/subservient and you become like that to fit the role, and then the inevitable pushing against that mold

Travis is fully aware of his story being compared to harry potter and he doesn't care bc it's apt (people in a school arbitrarily divided into four groups and one of them is the Bad One), also he knows people describe it as "sky high meets Harry Potter meets my hero academia" and he actually finds that really flattering bc he thinks that sounds cool and like something he'd want to watch 

On that note, Travis is a self-identified Slytherin and he's always upheld that the reason Slytherin is depicted in a bad light is bc Rowling decided she didn't like them, and he's always sympathized with the idea of a first year Slytherin working their ass off following the rules and doing their work and getting points, and Dumbledore rewards three idiots for breaking like every rule and pulls the trophy away from you. This was a big inspiration for graduation, of one group getting a bad rep and being portrayed as evil for literally no reason 

Amnesty

Clint & Travis's favorite scene they've ever done together was Ned & Aubrey's final scene together 

Aubrey and Dani do move in with each other at the end of amnesty

Balance

Travis' main emotion around taz is pride and he's most proud of the scene in stolen century with the spirits in the robots, bc they had to record it a second time bc it got way too dark and ended in a really grim way and about 20 min after they finished they all decided that they weren't happy with it, that it didn't fit the tone, he's really proud they didn't just leave it be and they took the second pass at it to make it right

I'm pretty sure he's talked about wanting to kill Magnus off at the beginning before but he mentioned that it was only at the end of petals to the metal he actually realized he wanted Magnus to live, bc Hurley had to sacrifice herself to save Magnus bc Magnus had been so reckless, that hit Travis really hard. Travis realized that Magnus' recklessness was getting people hurt and so Magnus did too, so Magnus become a bit more cautious and took up rogue training to try not to get anyone killed again 

Dust

Dust wasn't designed to be anything more than a one off and the workload was completely unsustainable, the document of notes for dust was about 100 pages and only about 10% of it got used

The reason Travis loved it so much was bc it was a mystery and he found it really fun

Commitment

Clint would love to revisit commitment, but probably not in podcast form bc he didn't find himself really being in the moment as much bc of all the different things he had to keep track of, he'd like to see a comic adaptation/continuation if possible

It was based of a comic he wrote that never got published bc the company producing it failed (he still cashed his paycheck) so he reused it bc he still liked it a lot, it was about how America was founded as a monarchy instead of a democracy and what that changed in the usa's (united sovereignty of america's) history, and how people now were fighting to establish a democracy. Also there were cowboys and spaceships and other cool stuff he put in there bc he liked it

General adventure zone

The reason why they're are able to do romantic relationships w/o being weirded out by it (they joke about it but they don't actually care) is bc it's never done in an explicit or sexual way and since it's the decision the characters would make to pursue the relationship then that's the decision they make. He reframed it as it wouldn't be weird if a family were writing a script together and there was a romance and one person wrote lines for one character and the other wrote lines for the other. He did mention that two siblings playing characters in a relationship as actors on screen wouldn't be cool though

They sometimes get comments that some of the stuff they do is "fanservice," but they feel that they owe their success to their fans and they owe some to them 

They are both aware of and proud that Justin is the best at character creation, Clint specifically really was talking about how Justin's strong suit is definitely character creation and characterization

General mcelroy stuff

They walked pretty close to me when they entered the stage room for the q&a and like… they're short, like shorter than you think

Travis referred to his unborn child as "baby dod" (I'm not 100% certain but I'm pretty sure) which I looked up and is a nickname for George, and given with their older kid being named Barbera and nicknamed BeBe and Travis talking before about how he and his wife like classic names with cool nicknames it makes sense

Travis had an earing in his right ear, I didn't get to see his left ear and I couldn't tell if it was an actual piercing or a fake, it looked really good though. Also his tinted glasses look a lot cooler irl than they do in pictures

Clint told the teenage mutant Ninja turtle story with the signatures that griffin told on mbmbam, but Clint remembered it as happening at King's Island, not Disney. This story was prompted by the question of the biggest lie he ever told his kids, and he only came clean about this a few months ago

Travis told a story about how he finished a videogame when he was younger and was so excited that he picked up a plastic knife, yelled "throwing knife!" threw it directly at Griffin who dodged it and it hit and shattered a window