#i do also have the next TAZ graphic novel still to read | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thepringlesofblood · 3 years ago

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bonus content for those who read the taz: petals to the metal graphic novel and haven’t listened to the podcast arc

so i decided to do another one of these bc I’m procrastinating doing my homework and I like doing shit like this.

basically, under the cut I’m going to be listing a bunch of stuff from the podcast that wasn’t in the graphic novel, or was changed.

this is NOT to say ‘oh i wished they included that’ - it is to say ‘oh look cool bonus content and extra information and context for me, someone who has not listened to the podcast’

It’s not crystal kingdom level, but petals to the metal is still a LONG arc with a lot of stuff in it. of course they had to cut things for time, or condense them, or change them. None of this is in a ‘um actually in the original it was better’ these are just observations of the differences/changes for funsies, and my opinion on them (mostly positive in case you didn’t notice)

(also important: you can be sad something wasn’t in the novel while still understanding why it isn’t and knowing that the final product is still great)

anyway. spoilers for pttm, but I tried not to spoil anything later than that, so people who have only read/listened this far can enjoy

ch. 1

the carnival was the first real lunar interlude, since ‘moonlighting’ is just them getting the job

the costumes are *chef kiss* perfect, although in the podcast taako dresses up as judge lance ito (lanzito? idk how to spell his name but i’m p sure he was the judge in the oj simpson trials???) bc justin saw a guy do it 3 years in a row at a party and thought it was funny.

that change is pretty obvious, taako does ross from friends in the book which gets across the ‘low effort reused costume thrown together at the last minute’ effect just fine

in the podcast carnival basically there’s just a guy with some cans they can’t knock down and they have some beef and that’s the only real game they play. the unicorn double-barrel special is 100% accurate though.

so in the lunar interludes garfield and the gashapon and the leveling all take place on their own before the carnival obvs, but they get all the same stuff and shenan the same shenanigans pretty much.

what IS notable is that in the podcast, this is the first appearance of garfield the deals warlock.

I don’t know how many of you know his dark origin story

but basically he started as a money zone goof on mbmbam and then griffin put him in the game

significantly, at this point he is an entry-level employee, while he’s the boss next time they meet him. in the book he has always and will always be the boss

there is also a functionality which never appears again where you can just name a price and do a contested roll against garfield’s charisma to pay that for something instead of the sticker price and like. magnus does that.

another bit that i’m very glad didn’t make it into the novel is when merle does this roll, he agrees that if garfield wins, he gets merle’s firstborn child.

(this is to buy the ring of recall, which gives you back a spell slot if the spell fails)

garfield wins. but. taako comes over to save the day with the 100$ extra money he has from selling angus’ silverware and helps him buy it.

yeah

that

eesh

also while the whole leon interaction is basically the same, leon actually bites the tokens to make sure they’re real, and everyone dunks on griffin bc he said the tokens were brass not gold

the shield in the book that magnus wants does not exist in the podcast. it was a choice b/w the mystery bag and the eyespy, which in the podcast is called the lens of straight creepin’ (this is where magnus rolls to haggle and wins)

the glass ball that stephen lives in is originally described as ‘softball size’ which is WILD

travis was not nearly as psyched about stephen as magnus was. he goes ‘well griffin it feels like when you ask your parents for a dog and they bring home a goldfish to teach you responsibility’ and griffin straight up is like YEAH THAT IS WHATS HAPPENING CAN CONFIRM but he learns to love him ^v^

the eclipse is the same. where the director is during the eclipse changes.

in the book it’s implied she’s been in her office the whole time, but it is never confirmed. we don’t see her at all before then.

in the podcast, we know beforehand she makes an announcement:

Griffin: The Director, you hear her voice amplified over the yard, and she says:

The Director: Attention, everyone. The Eclipse is about to take place, if you would like to join us in the yard, and join us for the viewing of The Eclipse. Uh, it should be here in just a minute or so.

so ‘us’ implies she is in the yard with them

later, afterwards, griffin says

“The— the Director is the first one to sit up and survey the scene.”

so, she was in the yard with them, and was knocked out when The Thing happened. And she recovers the quickest

they immediate run over to her, and this fun dialogue happens

Griffin: She’s a little bit disoriented. She just woke up, and—

Travis: I slap her.

Griffin: She slaps you back.

Director: Booyah.

they go around waking other people up with “healing slaps”

taako uses prestidigitation to turn into the sun from the jimmy dean commercials because “he always makes me feel pretty good.”

there’s a time jump b/w the lunar interlude and ep 1 of pttm

ep1 it opens a fun scene of the boys sparring with Avi, Killian, and Pringles (this is where we start calling him Pringles, too) and then the director calling them to her office to inform them about the gaia sash.

highlights

justin, who has not yet confirmed taako’s sexuality, asks griffin if there’s any babes in the audience watching the fight

griffin, uncomfortable: yeah, i guess there are some women...

justin: yeah, there’s women, but are there any ba��bes

griffin, catching on: no less than four beëhbes

the book combines the two director office scenes into one (v smart)

some fun bonus director dialogue

they establish that the bob official handshake is the one from Big, and the director says deadpan, dripping gravitas, ‘shimmy shimmy cocoa puff’ while doing it.

as she’s describing goldcliff and being like ‘surely you must have heard of goldcliff’ and this happens

Taako: We actually have only been to three places

Merle: And they’re no longer there.

Taako: …And most of them aren’t there anymore. [laughter]

she also gives them gorp to eat on their way to goldcliff, and tells them her secret ingredient is pistachios with the shells still on, making it pgorp (or gorpp, as taako puts it)

she tells them that last time on the way down in the ball they hit a bunch of unicorns that were endangered and had to pay fines for it. (this isn’t right they were pegasi)

merle horrifically mispronounces “icosagon” (like, I have it written down as omagobrakasbragsbron) provoking griffin to say: “If any of you can tell me what a 20-sided shape is called I will mail you 200$” (none of them get it. justin guess dodecahedron but that’s 12-sided shape)

ch 2

i will tell you right now - i don’t think merle ever uses dampen elements. but they emphasize that in the book instead of the other ability he gets, destroy undead which is Very useful, so maybe there’s an occasion I’m forgetting

when captain bane is like level 6?? in the podcast he also adds ‘i’m about to send three 6-year-olds into battle???’

merle and captain captain bane have a ‘gruff off’ since merle says he wants the monopoly on gruff voices. taako gives them the phrase ‘taako rules’ merle wins bc apparently clint can sound like the devil when he wants.

i. i cant. with the vines. it’s p much the same as in the podcast but please just listen to that one scene or look up an animatic. i can’t describe it. the only things i will put here:

justin says “Statistically speaking, at least one of our listeners has just discovered that they are in possession of the world’s worst fetish!“

griffin asked for it. he said with his mouth “just talk dirty to these plants.“ and clint did.

even funnier, when all of the boys turned against clint for this, clint shouts “YOU STARTED IT, MCELROY!”

you are all mcelroy. you all started it

the trent the treant fight is a lot longer with many more goofs, but the highlight of it for sure is when magnus chops trent in half, and is pissed off that he’s still alive

Travis: But… I chopped him in half!

Griffin: And he did take some damage for that.

Travis: Yeah, I should hope so!

the elevator scene...so beautiful. wonderfully done. the main difference is in the podcast, they have merle climb the stairs while magnus and taako take the elevator.

he’s almost able to save them, but he says he opens the doors at “the last possible second” bc he wants to be cool and dramatic, so griffin is like “welp. you get sucked in bc you tried to do it at the last possible second”

the other main difference is that in the podcast when taako casts blink shuffle jump, there’s no white eyes in the ethereal plane. he also blinks shuffle jumps earlier in the trent fight with no white eyes. given the knowledge i have as someone who has listened to the entirety of the balance arc at least 11 times, I’m pretty sure this is a “griffin forgot to do it in the podcast but dw we fixed it in the novel” situation. I’ll wager that any time taako visits the ethereal plane in the graphic novels going forwards, the eyes will be there. In fact, I really like seeing it here and him reacting to it.

there’s also a fantastic like, 20 seconds, that I would highly recommend listening to. Here’s the transcript

Griffin: Yeah, you climb the stairs, and, uh, it is, uh… It is an uneventful climb to the 20th floor. And a-

Travis: Floor 20!

Griffin: As- What?

Justin: [giggling]

Travis: [giggling] Floor-twenty!

[5 uninterrupted seconds of silence]

Griffin: [angrily] We’re not gonna say anything better than that, like-

Travis: Griffin we gotta fight some weeds at floor 20.

Griffin: [stunned] We, have... 30 more minutes to go,

Justin: [giggles]

Griffin: And, we’re not gonna say anything better than that.

Clint: [laughs]

Griffin: Did you even think about that?

sloane is pretty much the same - I love her so much

ch 3

the stuff with hurley folds out naturally enough, although sergeant detective strawberry isn’t anything more than a passing joke in the podcast. he’s just there in the book to tell you that silverpoint poison = bad. and occasionally be someone for cpt. cpt. bane to talk to.

merle actually does cast zone of truth in the podcast, and everyone fails their save but him, so hurley tells them all the truth and merle tells some real dumb lies just because he can

later on this leads to this wonderful exchange of taako reassuring hurley about getting sloane back:

Taako: Uh, listen. I know you’re really worried about your friend right now, and I know you don’t know us really well. But let me promise you this.

Justin: Are we out of the zone of truth?

Griffin: Yeah, yeah. You’re far away from it.

Taako: Everything’s gonna be fine.

speaking of, merle is a lot nicer in the books, mostly because clint has the benefit of reflection and time - the funniest improv is not always the most moral improv. He thanks hurley for saving his life in the book and it’s really sweet, meanwhile in the podcast he’s repeatedly suggesting cannibalism or gaslighting a guy into thinking god’s going to kill him with a train. not an exaggeration.

I forget exactly when, but at one point when they’re following hurley somewhere, magnus steals a keychain for absolutely no reason, then gives it back bc he got caught. gotta love it.

ch 4

i love love love the jumpcut of hurley telling them not to kill anyone to them throwing barbara off a cliff

yes, barbara. there’s. just so much of a scene of them getting rid of the 3 gang members guarding the entrance to their lair. they all have different ideas and decide to try them one by one. I can’t fully explain it here please go listen this is when gaslighting a guy into thinking god’s going to kill him with a train happens and it’s the funniest thing ever. (it’s episode 21, pttm pt 4, little over halfway through the episode.) quick overview

merle tries preaching the good word of pan to them but it ends up more like ‘what if you died? right now? what would happen? a train could run through this building right now and then where would you be?’ and he scares a guy with a train sound so bad that he runs off into the night.

important: the guy that runs off is Little Jerry. the guy that stays and does most of the talking is Jerreeeeee. there is also a guy in the security booth.

then magnus comes over and is like hello i would like to join your gang please :)

theres a huge entrance fee though so at first he tries to trade stephen for it but doesn’t expect griffin to say yes and when Jerreeeeee actually agrees he’s like....not this fish. but I got a guy and he can set your whole gang up with fish, i’ll send you his chainlinkedin

eventually he gets Jerreeeeee to go inside and get the boss, then pretends to have something to do and leaves.

taako comes back disguised as Little Jerry (using the spell disguise self). but then the real Little Jerry comes back and taako casts sleep on him like ‘oh no an imposter! we gotta go check on the arcane core!’

and the dumb thing? security booth totally agrees with him. they’re all set to go until security booth’s like ‘wait we should take the fake little jerry and interrogate him’ and taako...doesn’t handle it well.

Taako: [as Little Jerry] When’d you turn in- When’d you go soft? Huh? When’d you go soft?

Ruffian 3: Well no, it’s just like- we need to- gather information-

Taako: [as Little Jerry] When we were growin’ up- we were growin’ up together, in the streets. Out there, in the streets of Goldcliff. Y’know, we- You- were never soft.

Ruffian 3: We met, like, two months-

Taako: [as Little Jerry] You saw- you saw a dead bird, you-

Ruffian 3: We met, like, two months ago!

Taako: [as Little Jerry] You saw a dead bird, you’d step on it. You’d say, ‘I hate birds!’ You were- you had, no heart. Heartless Hank, we called you. Was it Hank? Remind me what your real name is, ‘cause I can only remember the great nicknames I’ve given you over the months.

and security booth gives him an ultimatum - say my real name, right now, or I’ll kill you

and justin says...”It is completely conceivable he would have a nametag. Maybe.”

griffin: in a gang?! in a gang?!?

anyway. griffin lets justin guess. he has him take off his headphones, and tells the other two the name: barbara

justin comes back on and after some dithering says his name is taako “Psych, that’s just mine! Say my name! I cast magic missile.”

and barbara gets killed. and that’s who gets thrown off the cliff at the beginning of ch 4.

ok i s2g that’s the last of that scene it’s just so so so good i needed the world to know

from here on the main differences are that in podcast taako is disguised as lil jerry the whole time and maarvey is a man.

they probably made maarvey a woman to avoid having the only female characters this arc be our beautiful lesbian plant ladies who definitely don’t die - respect

also i appreciate the continuation of the new elfington joke

there’s a whole conversation when Magnus goes to pull the lever and squish the guys where Justin’s like “wait. wait. we were SPECIFICALLY told not to kill anyone” and they argue and decide that magnus should hit it once and then again to stop it, so they just pin the guys in place. they try to do this and griffin’s like “and the guys get squished anyway bc that’s not how any of this works!”

at one point Merle casts calm emotions to try and reason with Klaarg/G’nash. Klaarg resists but the guy he’s holding doesn’t and is very chill while he’s getting choked out and thrown around

also in the podcast they continue the theme of bugbears being like exploited and trafficked and stuff so the hammerheads supposedly “bought” him, glad they cut that shit out.

ch 5

in the podcast it isn’t like. super confirmed that hurley and sloane were dating. not queerbait but not explicit like it in the book.

griffin received some well-deserved criticism about this arc and the ‘bury your gays trope’ and making queer characters explicitly queer and he really took it to heart (he talks about it in a ttazz) so I’m glad to see the effects of that in the gn.

I feel like part of the gn series is like. fixing mistakes/problematic aspects. not in a bad way, not in like a shitty retcon way, but in a nice way that’s like ‘we recognize that we’ve made mistakes and hurt people unintentionally, and we want to show that we’re listening and trying to do better this time around’

that’s one of the things i really like about the mcelroys tbh is their willingness to say ‘we fucked up, how do we fix it’

sorry thats not pttm related ill shut up now

throughout the podcast, the adamant spanner is referred to alternately as “the adamant spanner” or “the arc-light spanner” or sometimes “the adamantium spanner”

p sure it started out as the arc-light spanner and then they forgot what it was called. fun stuff tho

as hurley keeps bring them stuff in boxes, griffin keeps pausing for dramatic effect when describing what’s in them and everyone else keeps cutting him off with other things

ya had to be there but example: “Its a really big…black…metal…” “DILDO” “DAMMIT” (the third time he anticipates it and says “and its dildos and pizza”)

the stone of farspeech call to sloane at the end of the chapter is new. i like it.

griffin mentions that although hurley does have a halfling size safety holster for merle, it’s tight on him bc of how stocky dwarves are, and there’s all sorts of jokes about fantasy spanx and it being very slimming on him while he simmers in rage.

glad they removed this one but the term “fantasy spanx” is hilarious

Hurley is the one who says the mice skeleton thing

in the podcast they choose which animals to look like, so taako like, chooses the mongoose.

the whole “fully realized creation” monologue is 100% accurate and FANTASTICALLY rendered.

hurley makes them based on their request which is nice of her

when describing the montage of the night before the race, he describes it as “This is like a summer vacation montage, not a rocky training montage. Like camp nowhere.”

ch. 6

the race. is. awesome. they kept almost everything from the podcast.

tiny thing: magnus uses railsplitter on the glass of the octopus tank, and the first time it just puts a crack in it, and he’s like ‘it’s glass???? shouldn’t it break???’ and griffin is like ‘it’s THICK glass it has to hold a giant octopus and a bunch of water’ but the second time he gets it.

merle actually gives magnus a buff (bull’s strength) before going into the battle, unusually doing a normal cleric thing.

Griffin: “His eyebrows grow three sizes and move half a foot up his face. He’s got a lot of face”

garyl actually gets got :/ he misses a dex save and is destroyed under the wheels of one of the battlewagons. he and justin assure the audience that as a phantom steed, he cannot die and can be summoned back at any time.

Klaarg/g’nash just. bounces off in the safety harness after the laser thing.

quality quotes

Justin: “Does it look dangerous? Does it look like it’s gonna hurt him”

Griffin: “last night I googled the most dangerous octopus and you know what came up?”

Justin: “It’s a very tense situation”

Griffin: “yeah its almost like I engineered it to be that way”

they spend way longer on hurley and sloane cute bonding moments in the gn and i APPROVE

what happens to the shark tank is. a bit gorier in the podcast. like a guy gets his legs sliced off gorier.

is taako allowed to say think outside the bun?????

they truly perfectly captured the wand of switcheroo moment.

in the podcast there’s some goofs bc when taako does it there’s still like a short amount of race left to do, so they’re all trying to beat each other now that sloane has definitely lost. its all pretty funny but def kind of defuses the tension a bit too much before sloanes big dramatic drive off the cliff.

ch 7

thank you mcelroys for having hurley explicitly say “girlfriend” in the gn. its not like avoided or hidden or anything in the podcast, it’s just less explicitly spelled out for you (for dramatic effect tbh).

goofy ass thing - taako calls himself “weasel-man” in the podcast instead of “man-goose” bc he forgot the highly specific mask he was wearing? or maybe he thought mongoose is a type of weasel?

(i looked it up theyre different species mongoose =/= weasel)

the arcane core getting sucked up into taako’s umbrastaff restoring all his spell slots. the gn is perfect, it’s just that the energy of the scene simply doesn’t translate. I just. I just need to describe it as it is described in the podcast.

basically taako goes to cast fireball again right? and he casts the spell and rolls the damage and griffin goes, “actually, keep rolling. I’ll tell you when you’re done”

and the tension just mounts. with every roll. until

Griffin: The sun basically comes out of the end of your Umbra Staff.

I copy-pasted the transcript bc it simply is such an iconic scene. skip if you want but it’s just *chef kiss*

(happens around 40 min into ep 27, pttm pt 10)

Griffin: Yeah, you point the Umbra Staff at the-- at this towering vine giant and fireball starts to come out of the tip of it but it’s like, really big?

Justin: Uh oh.

Griffin: And-- and it’s not-- it hasn’t like fully come out of it yet, it’s almost like a drop of water that hasn’t really fallen out of the faucet yet, so go ahead and keep rolling those D6s.

Justin: [Snorts] Okay… [rolls] 3 [rolls] 9 [rolls] 11 [rolls] 15 [rolls] 18 [rolls] will you tell me when to stop?

Griffin: Yup.

Justin: 22 [rolls] 23 [rolls] 29 [rolls] 33 [rolls] 37 [laughs] [rolls] 43 [rolls].

Clint: This is worrying me.

Justin: Yeah. 47 [rolls] 48.

Griffin: Okay, that’s good.

Justin: Okay.

Griffin: Okay, so it’s 48 on top of the 32?

Justin: Yeah.

Griffin: For a total of 160?

Justin: ...Yeah.

Griffin: The sun basically comes out of the end of your Umbra Staff.

an interesting thing to note. for longtime fans of the show. is that. magnus (who is definitely in the aoe of the spell) does not have to roll and takes no damage. he’s inside the vine monster but so is sloane and she definitely feels that fire. on a first watch this comes off as “this moment is cool enough that griffin decided not to hit magnus with the giant, giant fireball that just happened” and that could 100% be what happened

but if you’ll come into my little theory corner, where there are *SPOILERS FOR ALL OF TAZ BALANCE* i had a thought upon listening to this for the 17th time. taako cannot spellshape. griffin repeatedly tells him that since he switched from being an evocation wizard to being a transmutation wizard, he is no longer able to spellshape (meaning, shape an aoe spell so it only hits who you want it to hit, similar to what happened to magnus here).

So. taako is not spellshaping. that’s something only an evocation wizard is capable of. now who do we know who specializes in evocation and umbrellas? 0.0

just a thought. could be total crack. *END SPOILERS*

ch 8.

every beat of hurley and sloane’s final scene is perfect. no changes made or required.

one short joke right after the tree transformation that was skipped (fairly)

Justin: I notice Magnus reaching for Railsplitter and I say,

Taako: Don’t even think about it!

in the podcast, this is when griffin is still in the “roll a wisdom save against the grand relics to see if they thrall you” era,

taako goes up to get the sash and fails the save, and griffin has hurley and sloane speak into his mind and give him advantage (so they’re still ambiguously probably not dead in the podcast) and he still fails the save

there’s a hilarious, terrifying moment where he lifts it up like he’s about to put it on and the other boys descend on him, merle making the save and magnus holding him back.

i like merle going up to the sash like its a frightened animal in the gn. it’s good.

“I don’t need your help, pal, to have sex with an onion!” is straight from the podcast. they just made it snappier for the gn. love to see it folks.

the gn makes clear at every point possible that they DID not die, and are cool dryad ladies now. originally none of that was intended - in the podcast, while they’re not really dead (see above), they’re certainly not up and walking about anymore.

in a ttazz griffin mentions that he wanted this first epic romance to have a tragic ending, so he intended for the turning into a tree to be the end of hurley and sloane’s story.

but then people told him about the ‘bury your gays’ trope and how it really disappointed taz’s predominantly queer listener base when hurloane seemingly died, and the madlad retconned it and worked hurley and sloane coming back as dryads into the finale. iconic. we love a man who can own his mistakes and work to better himself.

ooh the scene w capt. capt. bane. the deciding not to drink the brandy.

in the gn its very cut and dry. bane asks abt resisting the thrall, and then proposes a toast, and they all say no.

i understand why it was changed 100%. in the podcast, after he proposes the toast to hurley, they all start making tree puns about it, not saying no but not saying yes, and he gets. antsy.

Griffin: He is uh, he is looking at the three of you sort of expectantly, and he looks kind of nervous as he’s holding this drink up.

Captain Bane: Uh, a toast- a toast then. Have you guys ever toasted before?

Merle: Marshmallows…

Magnus: I like toast!

Captain Bane: N-- [sighs] it’s bad luck if you don’t drink after the toast.

and that’s when they decide not to drink.

it just kind of gives more context then “they suddenly decide to not drink”

instead of cpt cpt bane losing it on them and getting physical, in the podcast taako casts charm person on him the second he gets too aggressive about them drinking the brandy.

but griffin says that it feels like taako’s charm person spell is being overpowered by another spell on cpt cpt bane.

and then the red robe goes all ham on the possession and makes cpt cpt bane drink all the brandy n shit

the red robe is like. way more cryptic in the podcast. ik you’re like “wait how is that possible???” but it is.

“are you afraid?...... are you afraid of the dark? ........you do not know how to be afraid”

some real theater kid shit. I like the gn version better, it makes more sense for the overall arc and flows better.

still talks about the hunger of all living things and the past relic users, but doesn’t mention the director.

instead, ends with “This is your first lesson.”

“lessons” never come up in any context ever again. i’m pretty sure a lot of this was griffin being vague and threatening so he can come up with stuff to back it up later, and that is so, so valid.

*minor spoilers*

in the podcast Griffin uses a gendered pronoun* for the red robe right out the gate, as does the director. this is the pronoun the red robe uses for the entire podcast. idk if griffin using the correct pronoun as the director is an assumption on her part of the red robe’s gender/pronouns, griffin just forgetting whether or not the director would know the red robe’s pronouns, or him trying to convey that the director does know the red robe’s pronouns, but just want to put that out there.

i also don’t know if knowing the red robe’s pronouns counts as spoilers. hence the warning

but in the gn when they talk to the director about it they all default to they/them - the spoiler here is that that isn’t the pronoun used by the red robe. you probably could’ve guessed that. hence the ‘minor’

*any pronoun can be gendered, but in this case I’m specifically talking about the difference b/w using they/them as a “neutral” option because you don’t know someone’s pronouns vs knowing the pronouns that someone prefers.

*end minor spoilers*

magnus does try to beat the shit out of an incorporeal being though and it’s exactly as entertaining.

ch 9

i just. this scene is maybe the most different. for the better.

first off, it takes place in the lunar interlude, and it takes place after the relic disposal chamber destruction bit

the director’s whole speech at the end is new, mostly to show off our cool new dryad ladies, v valid, and to drop some VERY big foreshadowing in that last panel!!

merle’s interaction with the director is much more sincere in the gn as well as being much more there.

but there’s just a LOT of lunar interlude stuff that gets skipped in the gn. I don’t think covering it all here would be helpful, just listen to lunar interlude II, it’s one of the best ones. here’s the transcript and the episode

stuff gets skipped for lunar interludes in general. I CANNOT recommend highly enough that even if you don’t listen to the rest of the podcast, you at least listen to the lunar interludes, bc it looks like that’s where they’re cutting out the most meat.

highlights from this lunar interlude (ep 28. Lunar Interlude II - Internal Affairs) include:

voidfish bonding time. so good. so good. a truly iconic, unmissable moment. if nothing else, listen to this.

they have to bring cpt cpt bane’s stuff down for the rites of rememberance (aka johann chucks his life story into the tank so it can get erased while the boys awkwardly try to eulogize about this guy who tried to kill them)

lucas is there and they meet him and hate him instantly. he leaves.

they say hi to the voidfish and it sings to them!

johann is like ‘it usually doesn’t sing like that’

and then magnus puts a hand on the glass and it puts a tentacle back...it’s so beautiful.

pringles has been thrown in the brig :/

the boys get a promotion! new quarters!

angus joins up with the BOB for the first time and the boys say hello to him again (with appropriate bullying)

quality gachapon (goshapon? gawshupon?) antics w leon. they get

defender’s dial - magnus

cloak of the manta ray - taako

physician’s pendant - merle (you will never hear about this magic item again)

first use of the official fantasy costco jingle. within the clutches of the costco...

the first appearance of the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom.

magnus gets the Shield of Heroic Memories and the Glutton’s fork (which is never used in the gn for good reason) but has to sell back his old shield signed in blood to afford them

merle gets the nitpicker, the phone-a-friend scrying bones, and a rusty can of cheerwine which he drinks, raising his max hp by 5 points.

taako gets the immovable rod, the plastic sheriff’s badge, and the anti-gravity sphere, and trades back the gustmaster 5000. this will be a minor plot hole later.

some of this bleeds into the beginning of crystal kingdom but no major spoilers.

plus, i wanted to make a list of things that are different so the boys don’t get sued by wizards of the coast (the dnd people). it’s mostly spell names, but also klaarg is actually in the lost mines of phandelver, the box campaign that the first arc started out as.

anyway here’s all the ones I noticed at least. formatted like: gn name = dnd name 

UPDATE: made a more comprehensive post

g’nash = klaarg

haverdale = phandalin

shuffle jump = blink

dampen elements = absorb elements

blast of fire = scorching ray

magic rope = rope trick

sleepy-time = sleep

clair-vision = clairvoyance

diminish size = reduce

the spell is enlarge/reduce, and later on they use “enlarge” with no trouble - why is it “diminish size” here???

spirit steed = phantom steed

ethereal weapon = spiritual weapon

gout of flames = fireball

blessings of the cherubim = prayer of healing

concussive force = concussive blast(?)

Taako just magic missiles the boar in the podcast

they probably wanted to spice things up a bit since magic missile kind of has a Brand.

Concussive blast is a real 3rd level evocation spell that taako would’ve been able to cast, it just doesn’t actually happenin the podcast

levitate is still levitate

how is that one ok but “sleep” has to be “sleepy-time”??

zone of truth is still zone of truth, idk how they got away with that one

destroy undead is a toughie

it’s technically not a spell, it’s a use of channel divinity, at while at first it’s called turn undead, when you reach level 5 you get to automatically destroy any low-level undead (each time you level up you can destroy one level up of undead), so the ability is called destroy undead from that point onward, but you still do the turning bit too.

it doesn’t say the name, but on pg 123 taako casts “crown of madness” on the gerbil guy, which is a Horrifying spell

the crickets cast “dominate person” to control taako in case anyone’s interested.  

welp that oughta be enough bonus content for 18 years. we’ll see if I get a job this summer before writing the next one lol

#taz #taz b #taz balance #pttm #petals to the metal #the adventure zone #taz gn #taz graphic novel #original post

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raineydaywrites · 4 years ago

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Step-Son Zone

Inspired by the TAZ Crystal Kingdom graphic novel and all the amazing jokes about Lucas being Lucretia’s stepson that I have recently seen.

"Package for you, Luce!" Lup said, entering the family room. She'd gone to get the mail hoping for a package she'd ordered, but sadly, it had not yet arrived. She loved Faerun and everything, but she had to admit she still missed package tracking. Having to go to the actual mailbox every day to figure out if her things had gotten here yet? Like an animal? Gross.

Letters were not an uncommon thing to find in the mailbox, a lot of which were fan mail. Saving the multiverse made one pretty popular after all. When the letters had first started coming, they were an onslaught, though now, months after the start, they were less frequent.

Still, it wasn't exactly unusual to find something from an address they didn't recognize in their mailbox these days. It was a little more unusual for the mail to be addressed to only one of them, but far from unheard of. Plenty of people liked to address their fan mail to some particular favorite in the family.

That didn't mean that Lup wasn't still pretty curious to see the package, but she had boundaries! She'd at least let Lucretia see it first, before she swiped it for a peek.

"Thank you, Lup," Lucretia smiled up at her from the couch as she took it. Some of their other family members- Taako, Barry, Merle, and Magnus- were also gathered in the family room, but there was still plenty of room to sit down, since they'd designed this room knowing exactly how large their family was and with decades of frustration at the relatively small size of the Starblaster common room in mind. Lup still plopped down immediately next to Lucretia anyway. All the better for reading over her shoulder, and it wasn't like any of them had much respect for each other's personal space anymore.

Sure enough, Lucretia didn't even look over at her at the invasion of her space, just shifting slightly to the left to make a little more space for Lup between her body and the arm rest.

Instead she looked down at the package, read the address it came from, and immediately turned and threw it in the garbage.

"Oookay," Lup said, curiosity even more raging now. "What the hell was that?"

"An admittedly nice gesture that I have no interest in reciprocating," Lucretia said crisply.

"From who?" Magnus asked, glancing over at the trash bin as if he wanted to dart over and grab it, but was restraining the impulse.

"Lucas," Lucretia said, with a long-suffering sigh.

"Miller?" Taako questioned. "What's that dick writing you for?"

"The holiday, I presume," Lucretia said, waving her hand vaguely.

It made zero sense to Lup that Lucas would be sending Lucretia something on holidays, and the weirdness was only compounded by the fact that she couldn't think of any recent holidays that she could be referring to. Glancing around at the confusion the rest of them were displaying, she was pretty sure it wasn't just because she was the least familiar with Faerun holidays of their group.

"What holiday?" Merle asked, scratching his head in confusion. "Only holiday I can think of around now is Mother's Day, but obviously it's not that."

Lucretia's mouth opened and closed in confusion for a moment, before her eyes widened. "Oh. Right. I'd forgotten you didn't know."

"Didn't know what?" Barry asked, head tilted to the side in curiosity and confusion.

"Lucas' mother Maureen and I- we were together. Married, actually," Lucretia said, glancing down at her hands in her lap as she said it. "It was pretty common knowledge, at the Bureau, so I thought you would have known- but I guess I assumed wrong. Which isn't that surprising, really, since nobody mentioned it too much after Maureen's death-"

Lup's had automatically reached out her arms when Lucretia started to sound sad, turning her lean into an embrace before her shocked mind could catch up with what had been said.

"What the fuck, Lucretia! How do you forget to mention the fact that you were married?" Taako squawked, even as he came over to them and gave Lucretia a quick, tight hug.

"I really thought you knew! It doesn't come up much with most people; I assumed it was the same here!" Lucretia defended.

"You thought we wouldn't have anything to say about the fact that you had a wife and she died?" Taako asked, still incredulous.

"Most people don't bring it up. It makes them awkward and uncomfortable," Lucretia said.

"Uh, yeah, obviously, but we talk about Julia with Magnus sometimes!" Lup said, wincing immediately afterwards and shooting a concerned look at Magnus. She hadn't meant to be so flippant about that.

Magnus looked a little shaken and wide-eyed, but he threw her a smile and a careful thumbs-up, so Lup knew she was okay.

"That's different," Lucretia said. "Magnus has been always been less private about his emotions than me."

They all knew what she wasn't saying. And also, Magnus didn't do what she did. And yes, those things were true, but like fuck was Lup going to let Lucretia think that they would just leave her to deal with her trauma and grief alone, just because she had betrayed their trust. They loved her way too much to do that to her.

"So? Being a private person doesn't mean your family isn't going to hug the living shit out of you when you lose somebody!" she said, squeezing her arms tighter to prove her point.

Lucretia chuckled softly, and her eyes got very soft and warm. "Thank you, Lup, but I promise, I'm okay. Now, anyway. Maybe we can talk about it another time?"

"Yeah, alright," Lup agreed, not totally loosening her hold.

"Wait, fuck, okay so it is Mother's Day? That's the reason Miller's sending you shit?" Taako asked, his face shifting from irritation and concern to a shit-eating grin.

"Presumably," Lucretia said. "He's done it before. And usually, when he writes me, it's just a letter, nothing more."

"Oh my god, he's your stepson," Magnus snickered.

"Yes, that is what it means when you marry someone's mother," Lucretia agreed, an indulgently amused look on her face.

"I can't believe you didn't tell us! We've been missing out on some choice goofs because of that, Lucy!" Taako said, faux indignant.

"Again, I thought you knew! I figured you didn't bring up Lucas being my stepson because he is, you know, terrible."

"Solid reasoning, but not quite," Barry chuckled.

Lup let go of Lucretia to push herself up and move toward the package in the garbage.

"Lup?" Lucretia questioned, watching her.

"Just 'cause he's an ass is no reason to throw out free shit before you even know what it is! Come on, Lucy, use your head! Might be something nice, and you don't gotta talk to him to accept free stuff," Lup explained.

Lucretia laughed, taking the package from Lup's outstretched hands. "I suppose you have a good point."

She opened the package and inside was a set of paints.

"Oh," she said softly. "These are- These are my favorites. Maureen used to get me this same set all the time."

"See! Nice!" Lup chimed. "You can just toss the letter and keep the paint!"

"Yes," Lucretia nodded, "you're right."

But she didn't move to throw the letter away.

Instead, after several long moments of internal debate, she said, "Lucas wasn't always such a dick. When he was younger, he could be a real sweetheart. When he wanted."

"Why don't you look at the letter, Lucy?" Merle said, soft. "Seems like you really want to."

"I don't," she said, firmly. "Lucas used the Philosopher's Stone in a way that was insanely risky. He didn't care about how it would affect anyone but himself and Maureen. And that was hardly the least of it, either. Maureen- wasn't always the most cautious when inventing or researching, but she only ever put herself at risk. She didn't hurt people. Lucas was grieving, yes, I understand, but that's not an excuse. And it certainly doesn't excuse what he did to the bugbears or- any of the other incredibly inethical things he did! Maureen would be disappointed in him. And so am I."

Even with the tirade, she hadn't tossed the letter.

"Yeah, that was fucked up," Magnus chimed. "Nobody's going to make you read it or talk to him ever, you know that, right?"

"Uh huh," Lucretia nodded. "I think- I think I'll take these to my room."

She waved the paints as she said it, and only the paints, but she still took the letter up with her. And when she came back down and threw out the mess of packaging on the floor, she didn't have the letter anymore.

(Notes: Okay, so I personally can't really stand Lucas, especially in the podcast with the whole, uh, enslavement debacle, but in a fandom that has so much focus on family and forgiveness and redemption and hope and moving on, it felt weird to just completely shut off any chance of Lucas redeeming himself and being less of an asshole and rebuilding that relationship so. I left it open-ended. Feel free to assume he never does though, if you want!

Additionally, I really wavered on whether to go with podcast canon of the control chips and basically enslavement of the bugbears or the graphic novel canon of intelligence enhancing chips, because the latter is less uncomfortable for me personally, but also the fact that the former is a thing is part of why I wrote Lucretia feeling so harsh towards Lucas, so I decided basically to leave it vague. You can assume the bit about what Lucas did to the bugbears refers to either podcast canon or something shitty in gn canon depending on your own preferences.)

#taz lucretia #lucas miller #taz gn #taz #taz fic #taz graphic novel #not spoilers #my writing

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fantasysamsclub · 5 years ago

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so the adventure zone was recently picked up for an animated series.

hooray! good for the mcelroys. i’m glad they’re getting more mainstream. i’m glad they’re able to financially support themselves and their family with this fame. i’m glad taz has a chance to get new fans! i’m glad fans get to see some of the most iconic balance moments animated!

i also think it’s a monstrously bad idea.

(this is long and this may seem pretty mean and radical, but please read before fighting me on any of this. also this isn’t an attack on anyone that’s excited for any of this adaptation stuff! it’s good to be excited for this success. but also there are some things to consider.)

okay! so, up front: i think the taz animated series is a bad idea. i also think, retrospectively, the graphic novel was a bad idea. also i think the vox machina origins comic and animated series are bad ideas.

okay so this is going to get. a little long and rambly. but i’ll try to keep it organized.

1. TAZ Graphic Novel

now, when the first book was announced, i was excited! i’m still excited for the next one. aside from the blue/green elves thing, which i won’t ever forgive, carey’s doing a great job adapting this piece. i’ve met her before and she generally does know what she’s talking about, comics-wise, so i do think she was a very good choice to pick up the graphic novel

there are still problems! oh, are there problems. for example, i think everyone in the novel is characterized in a wildly different way than the original podcast. i can also get into this later if people want to hear about it, but! people have picked at that one before.

out of all the adaptations i’m going to talk about, this one is the best!

2. Vox Machina Origins

alright. context. i don’t know if i’ve said this on this platform before, but i’m a comic book artist (my big project is coming out this year, i’ll announce it on here, that’s not the point of this rant). and i bought the comic on a whim! it was a christmas present to me.

now, i know a lot of people read it and enjoyed it! and that’s great. i’m happy you got joy out of the book, really. i think every piece of art means something to someone, no matter its popularity or quality. and it did well, as far as i know! so that’s very good for CR and its fans. also i think pike is hot.

all that aside, the comic does suck very much.

i could go into a deep analysis of it (i CAN, if enough people actually want to see that?) but tldr: it’s rushed, both in production and story pacing. the character art is good! but you can see the shortcuts. the lettering is. awful. (that’s mostly a problem of modern comics in general though)

and i’m not blaming anyone at CR for these problems! really, if dark horse wants to pick up an adaptation, any writers from the original project should be heavily coached on how to write for a new medium. i’m not blaming matthew for that one! i know from firsthand experience that comic writing is different from anything else you will ever write, and is so difficult to get correct. as far as i knew, matt had never written for comics before! it would be really nice if he had some more resources to get this done right.

but that would cost money.

and that brings me to--

3. The Vox Machina Animated Series

wow! look at all that money everyone raised for this animated series. this animated series that the creators said they were raising money for so they could do it independently. hope they don’t go pitch it to a bigger company to do m--

and, it was sold to Amazon.

like, it didn’t even take them a month.

and in the current climate of how animation is bought and sold, i understand the need to sell it to a streaming service! you need a platform to let people view it, and youtube is in the shitter with its copyright stuff lately, so it makes sense to go private to keep your show safe. and then, you can maybe make more episodes after you run out of kickstarter money. i don’t hate that idea!

but amazon...hm.

it’s probably fine, right?

3.5. Wendy’s

haha remember when CR got sponsored by wendy’s and played their shitty rpg that wasn’t even balanced properly and then people called them out for it and then they donated all the money to a cause wendy’s hated to make up for it (good on them!) and then deleted the VOD off youtube? gosh, good times.

money makes people do strange things.

4. TAZ Animated Series

so, peacock has taz. sure! that works. it’s not the best company to pick this up, but it’s also not the worst. i’ll take that. i looked up the guy that’s slated to direct this and i don’t think he’s ever directed an animated show? which isn’t great, but that’s not what i’m worried about.

you know what i am worried about?

these big corporations don’t care if these adaptations are any good. they just want to cram as many iconic moments from your quirky, small-owned d&d podcasts to get you to give them money. for the mcelroys and the CR crew, it’s a passion project. to amazon and dark horse and NBC, it’s an investment.

you’re going to buy the book to see vax and vex bicker!

you’re going to tune in to watch magic brian!

you’re going to want to read pike meeting scanlan, of course!

you want to see “phantasmal and resplendent” animated!

here’s the other thing. when i see people talking about the animated series, this is exactly what they’re looking for.

“i want to watch merle dirty talk the plants on screen!”

“i want to see the taakitz date!”

“i want to see magnus do the julia scene...”

now, this mindset isn’t bad! no, if you’ve been thinking this, that’s okay! it’s really not my personal thought (i think adaptations are best when they DO change things in the story to better fit the new medium they’re going on) but it’s fine.

we might get tom arnold!

but you know what we’re not going to get?

we’re not going to get apologies and revisions when something goes wrong. we’re not going to get cute extra scenes because that would require more writing. we’re not going to get the same respect for the LGBTQ+ characters on screen. the people working on this show will not get paid what they’re worth.

we’re probably not going to get a trans actress for lup.

we’re probably going to see less of carey and killain.

we’re probably going to see even fewer black and brown characters than we already have.

why’s that?

because it’s a money project. they’re doing it for money. and they want to reach as wide of an audience as possible, right? “really, we need to cut back on this gay stuff so that straight people aren’t uncomfortable. we need to stay more moderate on this project so that more people will watch it!”

(that was sarcasm)

now, NBC has had some good shows! but that’s really the responsibility of their individual writers, and it’s usually in spite of the companies they work for, and not because of them.

once an author or an artist sells their project to a company for adaptation, they often lose all rights to input from it. i don’t know what the mcelroy’s or CR’s contracts are, but unless they have better lawyers than NBC or amazon.....they probably got shafted somehow.

it’s not a mcelroy product. it’s not a CR product. don’t pretend like it is.

you can enjoy it, but please be cautious. this is just a pile of money in a cheap taako costume. don’t trust it as much as you would the podcast.

tldr: individual creators are always going to make more genuine content than corporations that buy those creations for larger adaptations. it’s okay to enjoy these adaptations, but please be aware that it’s not going to have the same spirit or heart as the boys talking about masturbation on a filler show they did quickly so justin could go support his wife in labor.

#taz #the adventure zone #taz balance #taz animated

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humblereviewblog · 5 years ago

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The Adventure Zone

This is a great place to jump into the wide world of McElroy content, since it has both hilarious and often stupid (but in the good way) humor and incredible storytelling. The three McElroy brothers have teamed up with their father to play some D&D and other tabletop rpgs, and it’s great. They’ve done a few campaigns now. Here they are.

Balance: Their first campaign that just started as a way to pass time while Justin was on parent-leave, so it started as mainly just goofs, but in the end, made me cry :). It’s a fairly classic fantasy setting that, of course, they twisted into a complete goof. The storyline is amazing, Griffin’s storytelling is genuinely some of the best I’ve encountered, the characters are lovable, and the buildup was incredible. Also, Griffin invented the new trope “unbury your gays,” so that’s gotta count for something. Honestly, this is my favorite campaign, even though the rest are equally good.

Mini-Campaigns: In between Balance and Amnesty, they ran a few experimental campaigns to try and figure out what to do next. Fun and short and honestly I hope they explore them sometime in the future.

Amnesty: A huge shift from Balance. Uses a different game system, set in modern West Virginia instead of a fantasy universe, incredibly different characters, but still so good. It features a small team of different people that get pulled into a side-career of monster hunting which eventually turns into them attempting to solve the source of a larger problem. It also has really good bi representation in the form of the iconic Aubrey Little, which is always a nice thing.

Graduation: This one just started recently, so not a whole lot has happened yet, but it’s fun. This time, Travis takes the DM seat, and he’s leading everything through...school! This one definitely has a bit of a slower start, but it’s definitely building up to something so big. I can’t wait to see where it goes.

Bonus! TAZ Balance Graphic Novels: I’ve only read the first one (still working my way through the second and the third isn’t out yet), but it’s so good! The art style is great, and it’s a really good representation of the podcast. It really captures the spirit of Balance, and it’s such a fun read.

#taz #the adventure zone #taz balance #taz amnesty #taz graduation #podcast

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arofili · 5 years ago

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Author, bibliophile, prologue, and appendix?

Author: What is a book you really regret buying?Some of my textbooks tbh... as for fiction, i don’t know about “regret” but there’s may books i’ve bought that i haven’t read yet, and i’m not sure i’ll ever get around to reading tbh

Bibliophile: What popular book series haven’t you read yet?i mean, game of thrones/asoiaf? i have no plan to read them tho, even though as a fantasy fan and a fantasy writer i do kind of feel like i “should”... its just everything i hear about them is like, Not My Interest aside from the high fantasy aspect :/I also haven’t read the name of the wind, but it is on my listas for more ya/pop fantasy, i haven’t read the raven cycle or six of crows

Prologue: What is a book that hasn’t been released that you want to read?the taz graphic novels!!!!!!!!! hurley and sloane are gonna kill me in the next one!!!! fuck!!!

Appendix: Overdone book trope that you still love?“maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way” + any found family bullshit lmao

#ty!!#ask games #dwarrowdams #answers

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softshelltaakos · 6 years ago

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alright, folks! if you know me you know that i 1) received the taz graphic novel for the holidays and 2) have hated the taz graphic novel since before it came out, and that 3) actually reading it in no way improved my opinion.

let’s review.

disclaimer: i love the mcelroys. i truly do. taz has gotten me through some very difficult stuff and i have a tattoo. all this to say i’m not doing this because i hate them or because i like hating things — on the contrary, i’m doing this because i care a lot about the podcast and analyzing things is what i do for fun and also because, like, it has issues that i want to talk about!

there are spoilers for the graphic novel and the whole of the podcast under the cut.

this is part 1, in which i’m talking about the actual storytelling and writing; for character design thoughts, you’re gonna have to stay tuned because i’ve been working on this for three and a half hours and i have shit to do. so!

let’s start off with the things i actually liked. there are a few!

the main characters get little intro cards, which i think are pretty cute. this isn’t all of them, but here’s a sampling (forgive my messy collaging):

[ID: four panels.

the first introduces magnus burnsides, a barrel-chested white guy with auburn hair and a fluffy beard and sideburns. he’s saying “trust me, if the law hassles us, i’m the guy you want at the front of the wagon. but look, if you want to drive so bad, i might let you spell me the next time the dwarf has to stop for a pee break.” there is a scroll with his name listed, as well as his race (human), class (fighter), and proficiencies: battle, carpentry, and “everything else... apparently”

the second introduces taako, a skinny mint-colored elf wizard. he’s blonde with pronounced lower lashes and a big pointy nose. he’s saying “hell, no! i’ve got stuff to do. i’ve read the books. adventurers are supposed to, like, forage for food and shit. bor-r-r-ring! no, thank you. not for taako.” the proficiencies on his title card are spell-casting, transmutation, and gastronomy

the third introduces merle highchurch, a brown dwarf with white hair pulled back into a bun and a big poofy beard. he’s saying “i’m studying my cantrips!” and his title card proficiencies are “healing... supposedly,” “religion stuff,” and bleeding

the fourth panel introduces griffin mcelroy, a white human man with brown hair and glasses wearing a collared shirt. he’s saying “guys! it’s me: griffin! your dm!” his title card shows his race as “actual human” and his class as “dungeon master,” while his proficiencies are podcasting, karaoke, and “weaving a rich tapestry of drama.”]

then there are a few cute references to other mcelroy stuff:

[ID: two side-by-side images. the first is a photo of justin mcelroy wearing a bib with “shrimpin’ ain’t easy” written on it in crayon. the second is a close-up of a similar bib on a goblin -- though the text is distorted, it’s the same phrase.]

[ID: magnus thoughtfully says “unless...” and the other boys echo him in traditional mcelroy fashion.]

barry also wears underwear that read “meloincloths” around the waistband, which i didn’t take a picture of because it was small and also i didn’t really want to take a picture of barry bluejeans’s underoos. but that’s cute!

as it mentions in magnus’s titlecard, there’s a running joke about him being proficient in everything. that gets some play in the podcast but it comes up a lot more here and i think it works pretty well and establishes early on that magnus is cocky and headstrong and all that. it’s actually introduced in the very first panel of the comic, where he mentions his vehicle proficiency, and then it comes up several more times.

there are some moments that shift out-of-character dialogue to in-character dialogue, and i think it works sometimes. notably, it occasionally happens with griffin’s dialogue, which i think is a good way to include his voice without constantly breaking the fourth wall. it’s done some, obviously, but it’s not to the point that it’s intrusive.

[ID: a panel featuring taako approaching the other boys, who are playing cards while they wait for him to scout the next room out. magnus asks, “would you say it is spooky... or beautiful?” and merle cuts in “or spookily beautiful?” followed by magnus finishing up with “or beautifully spooky?”

taako responds “if you were a gerblin you would actually find it a pretty chill den to, like, hang out in.”]

i also like the introduction of the voidfish static. i think it’s appropriately dramatic and does a pretty good job of emulating how it’s presented in the podcast.

[ID: a panel featuring killian, an orc woman with a crossbow. the lighting is dark gray-blue-green and she’s shouting something unintelligible marked by a cluster of consonants and a shaky, brush-strokey speech bubble distinct from the other speech bubbles stylistically.]

the scene where taako grabs the umbra staff is also appropriately dramatic, as is merle trying to talk down gundren/bogard from the gauntlet’s thrall, but those are full page images and very large, so i’m not including them.

then there’s this panel of lucretia, which slays me:

[ID: a closeup of madame director lucretia, a black woman dressed in blue with white hair, though her eyes are out of frame. she’s holding a white oak staff in her hands. she’s stopped mid-sentence and there’s a little jaggedy line near her head indicating surprise.]

this is lucretia turning around and seeing the boys for the first time since she dropped them off at their respective “homes.” she’s caught off-guard and i think this is a beautiful way of noting that without giving too much away, and this is a good moment of foreshadowing that she knows much, much more about them than she’s letting on. she catches herself quickly and gets back into the swing of things, but i think this is a very lucretia panel, and it’s probably my favorite panel in the book.

now it’s time for the negative.

first off, a nitpick: there are moments where the characterization feels very off -- at one point magnus is said to have been the kid who “always reminded the teacher that they had forgotten to hand out homework,” which... does not really match what we know of young magnus. at all. travis describes him as “a good but kind of rebellious kid, like he was probably kind of a little bit of a turd [...] who was kinda sarcastic” (ep. 60, the stolen century part one) which feels super incongruent with the homework thing.

my issues with characterization come into focus most strongly with taako. while a lot of moments get his voice down pretty well, there’s a major issue in his presentation, which is that from the very beginning, he’s bragging about his tv show.

[ID: several panels in which merle and taako are talking. the first is a wide shot with taako’s voiceover saying: “--and then the lights come up, and there i am, standing under a magnificent banner that reads:”

the second is taako posing under a spotlight, speaking in large, fanciful script: “sizzle it up with taako”

panel three is merle asking disinterestedly “so it’s a show... about cooking?” and taako replying emphatically “it’s about life!”

in panel four he adds “...told through the perspective of fine dining.”

another panel collaged in features a cookbook with taako’s face on it labeled “perfection: cook the taako way” and taako excitedly saying “i know that smell!! that’s my recipe for haunch a la taako!! it was in my very first cookbook!]

now, we all know that by the end of the show “taako -- you know, from tv?” has become a catchphrase of his, and i understand the desire to retcon that kind of thing into his personality from the start. it seems like a natural way to add character early on when in the podcast, the boys are still pretty underdeveloped at this point.

here’s the issue. neither tv nor the title “sizzle it up” are mentioned at any point during here there be gerblins. in the eleventh hour (e48, part 8 of that arc) we’re told that we’re six years out from the mass poisoning in glamour springs. while the maxfun donor bonus episodes, like the liveshows, play it a little bit fast and loose with canon, and this episode was the 2015 bonus episode (e48 didn’t come out until september 2016,) that’s the only real explicit sizzle it up development we have until the eleventh hour. i’ve transcribed some of the bonus episode below, as transcripts for it are not available via @.tazscripts.

justin: taako-- i’m sitting in a corner by myself with my hat sorta pulled down low so people don’t recognize me. and i’m just trying to eat my meal but i keep changing the items that i’m trying to eat into different substances, so every few minutes you hear from my corner of the tavern:

taako: damn it!

clint: i hate asparagus!

griffin: i turned this sandwich into wood!

[...]

justin: mainly, i’m just trying to be nondescript.

[...]

justin: the whole time i’m talking to [the tavern owner] i’m like, keeping my face down so he doesn’t recognize me.

griffin: why would anyone recognize you?

clint: why?

justin: well, taako, uh, used to host a cooking show. it was a very, very, very popular cooking show. uh, and--

griffin: what was it called?

justin: what?

griffin: the show.

justin: sizzle it up with taako.

this episode is when the boys take the job with gundren off of craig’s list, so the time gap between this and episode 1 is negligible at best. there is a moment where the other boys recognize taako and he doesn’t lie about his identity, but:

taako: (begrudgingly) yeah, i’m taako, i’m disgraced, you might have heard about the [poisoning] thing.

so... he’s clearly not putting himself on display the way he does later in the podcast. in episode 40 (lunar interlude III: rest and relaxation) which came out in may of 2016, we get the first reference to the poisoning itself:

taako: one time i transmogrified something that, uh… i transmogrified it into something you really shouldn’t eat, ever? for life, to live, i mean? And, uh, a lot of people ate that. and that went... so sideways. um... i-- i just decided i would never again cook for people i cared about, because i couldn’t risk, um, y’know, something happening to them. until i get this under control, i guess.

so we know that even at that point this is still something that troubles taako greatly. one might even say... he’s traumatized! and doesn’t talk about it! he does not go into detail about sizzle it up with anyone over the entire course of the podcast except for june while she is literally possessed by the chalice and forcing him to relive it. So. kind of a weird character take.

to skip ahead a little bit, most of the moonbase stuff is fine, but there’s one omission that feels very weird to me.

[ID: three panels. the left is a shot of the elevator hallway leading to the voidfish’s chambers. thb follow killian towards the elevators; johann is walking away from them. he’s a black human man with natural hair dressed in a silly bard outfit with a violin strapped to his back. he’s carrying a ton of scrolls.]

these three panels are the only time we see johann in the book. in the podcast it’s johann that escorts them to the voidfish’s chambers and inoculates them. it makes sense that this has been changed to lucretia in the gn; it gives her a much stronger entrance and cuts down on scene changes. but it also cuts out a lot of establishing things about johann that are all extremely important and set up not only his character arc but several core plot points.

it’s during that scene that we hear that johann’s greatest fear is being forgotten, and that that’s exactly what will happen to him and all of the other bureau employees when they die. it’s during that scene that we learn the basic mechanics of the voidfish and the mission of the bureau. it makes sense that some of that is going to be handled at the beginning of the next book (presumably) and i’m glad that lucretia is introduced here, but the gn adjusts it so that killian takes the boys into the elevator. that’s johann in the podcast, and it easily could have been johann here. it would’ve been a good chance to establish at least johann’s fears, which would be a weird and creepy setup for the voidfish mechanics when they do get revealed.

it’s just odd to me that johann, who is the reason for the song half of story and song, gets the short shrift here.

i’m gonna wrap up with one last thing. i wanna talk about arms outstretched.

griffin: and you’re both getting pulled into the rift now, and-- but with a 20, taako, you fight against the pull and both of you are flying backwards towards the center of the room, back towards the catwalk. and merle, you’re standing in front of the two liches, one in the form of magnus and one not. lydia just is there in her spectral form. and you’re standing next to a taako who’s gone completely catatonic.

[...]

griffin: okay, then, m—magnus and taako, you two are flying back towards the center of the room. the pull of this rift is still trying to suck you in. and out of nowhere, just merle turns around—turns his back to the two liches—and just outstretches his arms and as he does, you see, like, spectral versions of his soul-wood arm sort of reach out and grab you and he’s also pulling you back in too, now. and he rips both of you towards himself.

i don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this is one of the most emotionally charged moments in the show, and it’s that because it’s a moment where we see, crystal-clear, real character development and growth.

magnus, who rushes in, who has never wanted anything as much as he wants to be reunited with julia, actively resists the pull of death to help his friends.

taako, who’s good out here, who is so selfish that an entire town died because of his ego, risks his life to help his friends.

merle, who can barely feel his holy connection, who barely ever even heals, breaks planar bounds to help his friends.

we’ve been with these characters for 56 episodes. we’ve seen their worst regrets, we know their tragic backstories, we understand why they’ve been the jackasses they’ve been, and now we see them moving past that to work as a unit. one might even say as a family!

arms outstretched is a moment that has been earned over the course of those 56 episodes.

enter the graphic novel.

[ID: a full page. flames are everywhere and panels are intentionally chaotic. dialogue reads:

merle: maybe now would be good?

magnus: i’m a hero, not an idiot.

taako: actually, you’re both idiots!

he outstretches his arm from his position safe in a well.

taako: come on!

merle and magnus reach for taako’s hands. there is a closeup on their arms: merle and magnus each hold one of taako’s with one hand. then there’s a panel showing an explosion.]

this is obviously intended as a way to foreshadow arms outstretched. and typically i’m not against foreshadowing! i think one of the benefits of the graphic novel is that it’s an opportunity to insert foreshadowing in cool ways that were not necessarily possible given the in-progress nature of the podcast -- like i said earlier, that lucretia panel is a really great example of it. you can’t foreshadow arms outstretched in episode one because you have no idea it’s going to happen.

but here’s the thing. you also can’t foreshadow arms outstretched in episode one because it hasn’t been earned. these characters are not those characters yet. they don’t know each other. taako actively shuts down the title of “friend” earlier in the book. they’re not even coworkers yet. and you could make an argument that in the face of death, taako would try to save them, but... would he? really? he’s a pragmatist, and that’s putting it nicely. during the stolen century the only person he tries to get to safety at the risk of his own neck is lup, and, uh... neither of these guys are lup. hell, he doesn’t even know about lup right now, and we see in the podcast that not remembering her leaves him colder and more self-centered. he knows people are dust, but he doesn’t know there are people that aren’t. i truly don’t buy it.

the nature of adaptation is that things are going to change, and that’s fine; but this is such a major shift that it left me really jarred and unhappy with the writing. in the podcast itself, we get this:

killian: c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon!

clint: decision made.

justin: yeah, i follow her.

travis: i follow her.

clint: me too.

griffin: the three of you dive into the well.

it makes sense that the gn adjusts this slightly so that magnus and merle try to pull some heroics and save everyone; i don’t have a problem with that. that’s a good adaptation of character that hadn’t exactly been seen yet, but comes to be a core enough part of the characters that it makes sense to insert it earlier. but even then, they could’ve gotten to the well without taako’s help. it’s just such a weird rewrite, and i really think it weakens the impact of arms outstretched itself.

i’ve been meaning to get my thoughts on this out for nearly a month at this point so if you’ve stuck with me this whole time, wow! thanks! i appreciate it! i’m not a professional, and obviously the mcelroys signed off on this, so i don’t really have space to say “oh, taako would never do this” or “oh, magnus was never like that” on a canonical level -- i know travis says something along those lines in one of the ttazzes. but as i said at the very beginning: this story means so, so much to me, and it’s really deeply frustrating to see an adaptation that handles things so... weirdly.

#prim.txt #tazposting #tazmeta #NEW TAG BABEY

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