#taz gns

[jerreeeeeee]

i also read the suffering game graphic novel. here's praises and criticisms. this one is also more negatives than positives unfortunately, i tried to be fair and thoughtful but i did not like it very much

things i liked:

-lucretia prologue establishing that she went to wonderland + talking abt missing the crew. fun & mysterious

-hi mavis and mookie :) they are cute

-HI BARRY sometimes i forget he stalked merle’s family outing. i love that freak

-magnus and angus scene!! fisher showing angus the statue drawing!! ango detective subplot!! this is a nice and natural addition since we know he was sleuthing around the BOB

-merle teasing taako about his date is kinda cute actually love seeing them be friends

-thank god they got rid of the chimera. idk if this is a hot take or anything but its probably my least favorite fight in the podcast its so out of place and unnecessary. there are lots of fights that didnt really matter in the beginning like all the gerblins and the slime swamp in rockport but they were still like getting their bearings and the show was more like a real dnd campaign than a typical actual play, but by the time you get to the suffering game there’s more interesting things to do and you're like god why are we still doing random forest encounters just get to wonderland already

-not a positive per se but i’m not that upset about sterling and his party being cut. i feel like an adaptation would’ve had an opportunity to make that little c-plot matter more, and that would’ve been awesome, but as is in the podcast, i never felt particularly strongly about it? not enough to miss it. idk like magnus and merle were already for ‘trust’ even if it were strangers and taako never seems all that regretful about it (which like. fair. he’s the pragmatist and that’s how the prisoner’s dilemma works. he played the game right because he couldn’t afford to lose, knowing they hurt some slightly-less-strangers doesn’t really change that).

-i dont remember which of the boys discovered it in the podcast but merle noticing the smoke thing is good. he actually is competent and especially in an arc that’s meant to make him feel useless that’s a good little reminder

-i do like that the liches say the bell is very powerful & is threatening to destroy them like both keeping in theme with the rest of the relics and an introduction to the idea that sharing an incredible and dangerous power between two people makes it easier to keep your sanity, similar to lichdom

-griffin getting cut off with the hunger is awesome finally we’re taking advantage of the medium. nothing more to say that choice rules

-posts on tumblr hyped me up for taako recognizing barry’s dick but unfortunately that’s not really what happened and now i’m disappointed. but the graphic novels arent canon so i’ll just have to continue with my barry/taako awkward past one night stand agenda despite it all

-i dont quite know how to feel about the umbrastaff leaping to barry to replace the “love barry, trust barry” moment. on the one hand, having lup actually speak to taako wouldn’t work super well in graphic novel form, not to mention the whole band of projected thought thing was kinda convoluted and they are clearly very limited on time, and taako choosing to trust the umbrastaff in this way is a creative way to get that same effect. on the other hand, its so unclear what even happened or why it changes taako’s mind without podcast context. that’s one of my big gripes, you’re expected to be familiar with the story already, but if you’re familiar with the story, the graphic novels are… worse in every way. also, i really really liked the original scene so even though it doesn’t work, i miss it. this isn’t as effective—we don’t find out there’s a person missing from taako’s memory, his heart doesn't swell at the sound of her voice, he doesn’t know with certainty that she’s someone dear to him. it's just like, another instance of the umbrastaff acting weird. maybe you put together that 'LUP' is a person but you don't have any indication until the moment of remembering how important she is. all of that would be really difficult to get across in a visual medium anyway, but still, yknow, it doesn’t hit as hard.

-ango!! his mage hand is coming along so well!! although. why is his wand just like a stick. did he pick it up off the ground. taako needs to take better care of his boy this reflects badly on him as a teacher lmao

-i felt this way about the eleventh hour too but there’s so many little details of taako and merle’s friendship i feel like they have little asides and jokes together a lot and i love that

-the looming dread of the hunger is done pretty well (as well as it can be with such time restraints)

-merle trying to commune with pan and seeing john instead is good. very ominous and intriguing for new readers and exciting for podcast listeners

-really liked the panel of barry in the red robe against the stars and the bond engine’s white ring as he’s remembering. very cool very cinematic

-i actually also really like the framing as taako remembers, filling in the memories we’d seen previously and clearing out the static while he looks so broken, and merle asking him what he’s remembering, and then finally speaking his sister’s name. its framed very powerfully. i wish he and lup didn’t look awful so i could actually feel something at that part. like they are my favorite characters ever their story makes me so emotional and i just. they’re unrecognizable. the character designs are terrible and taako has spent 6 books now being mischaracterized and flattened to hell so i just can’t muster any emotion. maybe i'll redraw that page someday though because the panelling is genuinely very good

-the ending lucretia monologue is good she's the narrator she's the main character she's everything. love the portraits staticking out and mirroring and changing, and ending on the beach painting is great. very cinematic and a natural way to phase into the stolen century

things i didn’t like:

-i dont think taako’s deepest desire is his own brand of fashion forward athleisure wear if i’m being quite honest. these little things irk me

-why is liches get stitches all the way in the beginning… ill portent for how the rest of this book will go

-i think they shouldve introduced the flaming raging poisoning sword of doom way earlier. the payoff isnt nearly as good without the setup of having been magnus’ white whale for like fifty episodes. maybe they did mention it in earlier books and i just forgot though

-^ i hate his stupid ugly oversexualized stereotyped ass so fucking much its unreal

-why are edward and lydia ugly :( —(they're not ugly because they're chubby they're ugly because their color schemes and outfits are fucking awful) (fr though why are all their colors so muted and dingy?? why are their outfits boring?? at least their heart attack looks are fun)

-oh so there’s just no trust or forsake at all. yeah i don’t like that. in the end no great loss since i don't think it really says anything about thb's characters that hasn't already been said, but so much of thb's characters and arcs have been cut from the gns already

-i get that they’re low on time trying to fit in reunion tour but like come on part of the suffering of the suffering game is how long and painful it is cutting it down really just. makes it not matter as much

-magnus looks no different after aging LMAO he gets like 2 gray hairs and that’s it

-edward and lydia’s lich forms are also boring unfortunately

-no tasha’s hideous laughter on the heart attack mannequin? lame. although i have for the first time realized that dnd shows kinda have a thing for characters uninterested in romance being forced by mysterious powers to be haunted by creepy puppet-like “romance partners” huh

-magnus doesn’t forget kalen?? why cut that out? i guess because there was never closure for it in the original story?

-no boss rush?? that was fun :(

-magnus and taako aren’t surprised merle has kids??? did they know???

-dupree looks terrible but i guess props to carey for giving him feathers even though it looks bad

-just axed the liches’ backstory?? that was kind of important?? the fact that they turned to necromancy out of love for their family & powered themselves with positive emotions too? that like, has relevance later…

-NO BAD LUCK FOR ARMS OUTSTRETCHED? COME ON

-the framing of magnus’ soul being removed is so anticlimactic in general like the POINT of a VISUAL adaptation is to have interesting & cinematic VISUALS its just so messy

-all of arms outstretched didnt look very good in general sorry. its just such a big important moment and to make it so mid… a tragedy

-“i guess we still needed each other after all” doesnt work anymore because they removed all of edward and lydia’s backstory and character but it was an interesting line to me that i wish had been kept. hammering in that liches need anchors is, again, pretty relevant later on, getting rid of that foreshadowing sucks, and it also humanizes these villains in an interesting way that really highlights their powerlust as their downfall rather than just, like, cruelty for evil’s sake. like yes they torture people and find it fun because they’re so distanced from their own humanity but they also truly believed it was necessary for their own safety and seemingly only became sadistic after they desensitized themselves. i wrote a post about this a while ago but idk if i’ll ever post it

-not a fan of barry killing lydia either. idk why, its not like he hasn’t killed other people to protect the boys before. but that’s earlier in the show before we know he’s not just a villain and is in fact meant to introduce him as a villain. now he’s a friend so idk if you can just go back to having him murder people? again its not a wrong choice but it feels like messy storytelling. also like i think seeing a lich grieving her anchor and a sister grieving her brother would pull some heartstrings for him. it would maybe remind him of some people he loves and garner some sympathy and give him some pause. and i liked that in the podcast even though lydia was so distanced from the idea of positive anchors, killing edward just immediately undoes her, fits in with the themes and the way we understand liches to work, another powerful example of what bonds can do, and that's kinda lost here

-magnus’ answer to the bell sucks so badddd lmao when these books NEED context they’re devoid of it but when they actually have the necessary plot points/character arc established for the reader to put something together they have to go and spell it out like the audience is stupid. there was something so raw and powerful about magnus’ original “i’d hate it. shut the fuck up.” like just shutting it down and not even considering it. that’s completely lost when he has to be like “recap time! my wife, julia,” eugh just didnt like that. there are so many powerful lines from balance that i don’t hate on principal that they’ve changed, but there was no good reason to change, and so the new version just falls flat and there was no reason not to include the original lines verbatim? i get not wanting to just deliver a podcast highlight reel and have the gns be their own story or w/e but if you’re gonna do that you have to do it well, and they just keep being worse unfortunately

-they don’t get the chance to go off the grid themselves and choose to trust barry?? come the fuck ON that is IMPORTANT to the STORY

-this may or may not be an unpopular opinion but i’m not a fan of barry’s design either. i don’t like the hair and he’s not fat enough. less egregious than others but its still another instance of being like who tf is that

-barry’s little coin monologue was kinda fun and dramatic and i (finally) liked the visuals of him falling from the sky/silhouette of the starblaster against faerun’s single sun. but i wish they’d kept more of the original. add drama that’s fine but the point of it is to humanize him after we’ve spent so long thinking of him as a villain and a ghost and a force of the story and now it turns out he’s barry bluejeans. he’s just a guy. he loves his mom. he’s allergic to dairy. he’s afraid of the dark.

-especially not a fan of cutting out the “love that defined and redeemed you” and “dull weight in your chest” in barry’s coin monologue. those are important parts of his character. whether you interpret the love and the weight to be for lup or for the whole crew, you need to know that the red robe has lost people, and that everything he does is to try to get them back. he’s the lover and he’s grief personified. his mission is to save the world AND recover his family. thats like. kinda important for his character and role in the story. if you ask me.

-again the “we’ll get em next time” magnus flashback is not BAD but it could’ve looked so much better? carey definitely has strengths as an artist but her fight scenes and character design tends to be very weak so its unfortunate that this is an adaptation of a dnd podcast where those 2 things are like, the most important. idk i feel like i should be articulating what i mean better but i’m not sure how. the fights just are often really cluttered and framed in an odd way that doesn’t look very good or dramatic or dynamic. i don’t want to say carey is a bad artist, i really don’t think she is! but i think she was not the right artist for this project. the magic of a visual medium is, well. the visuals. when they’re mid the whole story suffers.

-taako and merle not just saying magnus is dead is sorta unnecessarily confusing since everyone like assumes he’s dead anyway? idk i don’t understand that choice. kinda fucks with his moment with carey. not a big deal in the end but it does seem unnecessary

-MAGNUS DOESN’T GO SEE FISHER?? the mannequin dies in fantasy costco??? what about johann???

-“you stole half of my fucking heart” i know a lot of people loved this line but it genuinely baffles me. Why Only Half. not only referencing one of the most heartwarming (and heartbreaking) lines in the original show with no context for why its meaningful at all yet—but also minimizing it? why soften that blow? why detract from the raw intensity of that grief? why reduce a very powerful sentiment? an adaptation of balance that doesn’t allow itself to be earnest and wholehearted (ha) about its platonic bonds is not a good adaptation, straight up. maybe its not that deep but it is To Me. maybe it has no real import and i’m just being stupid but like they made that choice to write half instead of just “my heart.” Why, genuinely

-hey what the fuck happened to johann for real though. that was a really important part of the story. hey. hey. what about johann. like are we just ignoring johann. am i insane. how has no one mentioned this. what’s up with johann

-

so all in all, again, rushed pacing, axing of a lot of very important plot points, shoddy visuals.

it did not make me relive the emotional journey of the suffering game and reunion tour. it inspired a vague nostalgia for the first time i experienced reunion tour, reminded me of how much i love the original show, and made me want to listen to the podcast again. especially reunion tour good god i love reunion tour. and it made me desperately wish for a good adaptation. i would do fucking anything for a good adaptation. the longing is making me sick. at least we always have podcast reunion tour.

the graphic novels are just so empty and soulless compared to the original show. i wouldn’t have an issue with changes, except that the changes, at every turn, gut the emotional core of the story that makes it so special, and ruin the strong themes throughout the story. they fundamentally misunderstand what is so good about balance. and also, like, basic storytelling. they’re poorly designed and poorly written, so they don’t even stand on their own as a different story. i'm not expecting an exact replica, but i am expecting good writing, good changes when necessary, and respect for the original beloved story. without those, the soul is gone, the spark of what makes balance so compelling and emotional.

i am dreading the story and song graphic novel. i don’t think it will be any good. the themes and character arcs and plot of the show have been mangled beyond belief so nothing is really meaningful anymore. can we go back to the johann thing for a moment—

[pep-rambles]

[wizard-loving-wizard]

and that's when i started sobbing

[non-binarystarsystem]

good ol barold the loverrrrrrrr

[lithiumseven]

[very-much]

HOLY SHIT THEY FUCKING KILLED GRIFFIN MCELROY

[felicitywilds]

don't mind me, just thinking about how in every other graphic novel cover, the d20 is in the air, bouncing away from them, just out of reach, almost mocking them as it determines their fates. but for the suffering game, taako is on his knees, front and center, pinning it to the ground, umbra staff at the ready. has he got a fuckin' idea for you.

[leftmyheartinthetardis]

Turns out I am unable to be normal about him.

[gejnialnie]

I know that merle's terrified and his world just shattered but on the other hand I JUST WON AT LIFE!!!

[sunspriite]

angus u are just little as fuck

[eugeniedanglars]

shes the love of my life it must be said

[jerreeeeeee]

i read the eleventh hour graphic novel, here's some praises and criticisms. unfortunately it’s mostly negative, but i did truly try to give it a fair shake and have an open mind

things i liked:

-prelude with jack and june and mysterious red robe was a good addition, it's intriguing, it fills out the world, it introduces jack and june in a fitting way (sidenote to that, why does jack look more like magnus than magnus does)

-ANGUS hi angus :) whatever else in the gns i bitch about know that angus is perfect

-having the lunar interludes be little moments of memory as they’re dying was a cool and clever way to include them

-time stamps are super helpful, i remember the podcast always got a little messy and confusing with the timeline of the hour to me at least

-REN hi ren :) her design isn’t like awesome or anything she also kinda suffers from ugly blue blonde elf syndrome (or purple and whitehaired i guess. although she’s a drow so it makes more sense) but i am glad they made her fat

-getting rid of the diamond stuff was a great way to cut down on noncritical runtime. even in the podcast it was very clearly just a way to get thb to go to different places and stuff, which is appropriate in a dnd actual play but not so much in a graphic novel. having the prophecies fall according to istus’ whim is also much more thematically relevant and introduces istus earlier than like.. right before she shows up. good decision all around

-really glad they kept most of the verbatim wording of lucretia’s admission to merle about her choices and the loss of her dear friends, and while i don’t hate the way merle responds, i do kinda miss “you do have faith, it’s faith in you.” going further in on merle’s insecurities and doubts is great but i also love the way in the podcast he was so reassuring to lucretia and she felt like she could confide in him and receive wisdom. and also pointing out that lucretia does have a really strong faith and conviction and commitment to doing what she thinks is right. determination and reliance on herself are big traits of hers, for better or worse, and i really liked that line

-i enjoyed the extended istus scene where she explains what she does a little more but is still very vague and mystical and deific. and her saying that in this world the force of fate is less laying things out in a predetermined exacting pattern, and more making a pattern and story out of events as they happen and as they are about to happen. she’s a chronicler of sorts. she’s continually weaving the tapestry. nice little bit of expansion on that idea and her role thematically. also istus sorta resembles lucretia facially, which i’m not sure if its intentional or just the similar face syndrome the whole thing suffers from and the fact that carey sometimes struggles to draw people of color (<- she's gotten much better at it, to her credit, angus and kravitz both look very good). if it is intentional it’s a nice touch

-changing merle’s regret to be leaving his family. obvious choice but a very critical one. the reason adaptations have their advantages. merle’s kids were presumably not even thought up yet by this point in the story in the podcast, but of course it makes so much more sense to bring them in here

-taako remembering that magnus asked after julia in crystal kingdom is cute. he cares about his friends :)

-in general: the environment design, colors, and panelling is consistently good. no problems there, refuge looks very nice.

things i didn’t like:

-got rid of the line where taako says its probably better for boyland’s family not to remember that they lost him. it’s a tiny thing and more or less inconsequential but it hits me like a truck whenever i relisten to the podcast

-taako’s outfit is ugly sorry. he’s always ugly and his color palette is awful but this one was especially egregious to me idk. eleventh hour should’ve had fun outfits that look good. magnus’ and merle’s aren’t terrible but they’re kinda cluttered and uninteresting. not as bad as taako still. the skirt looks weirdly thick? i guess i can’t talk cause i’m terrible at drawing skirts too but idk it almost looks like winter clothes to me, weird and out of place. also stop giving him heels just because he’s gay. weird choices all around. i don’t like it. i don’t like blue taako. in fact i hate his ugly ass. had to be said so i can ignore it for the rest of this post

-roswell doesn’t look as cool as they could but the bird is cute

-taako doesn’t tell angus about glamor springs!! that sucks!! that was an important moment of vulnerability and connection between his past and present relationships with his apprentices!! i know they want to keep the reveal of the poison further in the book with only vague reference/foreshadowing beforehand but. idk i hate that taako’s moment of honesty with angus is gone i feel like that was important to that arc

-i know “something about the dying feels familiar” doesn’t really work since its narration but they could’ve like. asked each other if they were ok or something and worked that into the dialogue or had it be a thought bubble or something. eleventh hour is so huge for themes and foreshadowing etc and i feel like they just blew right past that. what’s the point of the time loop and the deaths if you aren’t examining the consequences at all. also skipping over so many of the loops for time and just showing a bunch of them in a montage makes sense for the format but it also gets rid of the futility and exhaustion that the time loop is like… literally meant to engender. i don’t know what the fix here is but something’s been lost.

-NOT a real or valid criticism since there’s literally no way to do it in a visual format but so much is lost from paloma’s character without her batshit bjork accent i miss her

-sad that luca and redmond were cut, i don’t think they were like, super important, but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense for it to be ren instead? i liked luca i thought he was fun i like seeing religious characters in dnd worlds and the moment of him and redmond raising the temple is more cinematic and gives weight to the threat of the time loop, that if they don’t do it in time they have to start all over, and gives the temple a sense of respite and divinity in its place frozen in time. more than magnus just sprinting away to unlock it with a random key after the others already died. also it’s very much… barebones hehehe… but rip the like smidgen of foreshadowing with pairs of siblings where one of them is a skeleton in a cave lol. i don’t think this was a bad decision per se i understand why they did it but still a little sad

-junebug scene sucked. too rushed in the monologue, no sense of stakes or urgency as taako’s reading the diary, immediately cut away before roswell could even react?

-pacing is a huge problem in general for this book and i’ll wager to guess it’ll be a problem in the suffering game too. i know seven is a nice and thematically significant number of books to have but they really should’ve split at least this arc and the remaining arcs into 2 books. spells disaster for stolen century and story and song all being in one book

-“patience is not one of my strong suits” fuck off actually. taako is canonically a great teacher and also fishes as a hobby, the two things that require the most patience in the world. he hangs back and waits, he’s specifically not the impulsive impatient one. maybe this is nitpicking but i don’t care. these little mischaracterizations, especially ones influenced by common fandom mischaracterizations, are small on their own but pretty prevalent, and they piss me off. the graphic novels want tres horny boys to be stupid and immature and one dimensional for laffs sooo bad but you can’t have them be like that all the time or the impactful moments just fall through because they’re unearned!! you have to strike a balance!!

-why was merle given the chance to decide whether to stay in the final hunger battle as his gift?? taako was the only one who even considered taking it??

-why is sazed’s name changed? philippe?? is the name sazed trademarked??? kind of annoying

-changing the convo to be instead of taako rudely shutting down sazed’s presumptuous ambitions, to just be him being cruel for no reason to ‘the help,’ i don’t like that. don’t get me wrong taako was an asshole, i want him to be an asshole in this scene, but like, he doesn’t wield an employer’s power over sazed because he’s a snobby brat who relishes stomping on those below him, ‘the help,’ it’s because he’s unused to being on the advantaged side of a power dynamic and, more crucially, allows himself to be closed off and selfish regardless of the harm it causes to others. you know, the character flaw we see him struggle with in the canon era and as far back as the stolen century. he’s not a fucking aristocrat who thinks servants are inferior. idk i think sazed is quite important to taako’s arc, actually, so changing it like this is not welcome for me. especially in conjunction with the fact that angus was so distanced from the reveal of that part of the backstory, and taako making the same mistake by lying to ren to take advantage of her adoration (and subsequently apologizing and bettering himself) was cut out entirely, etc, etc… like what’s even the point now honestly.

-WAIT OK I READ FURTHER ITS EVEN WORSE. it almost seems like taako already knew sazed was responsible?? where is the guilt?? where is the relief at it not being his fault?? the lingering guilt that even though he didn’t poison them he still feels like he drove sazed to?? come the fuck onnn i know we’re dumbing down their arcs and their characters but that sucks so bad like Literally what is the point of showing us this if it doesn’t actually matter and results in no consequences or growth or story at all

-“if you wanted me to blame myself for their deaths you should have gotten to me before my therapist” WHAT DO YOU MEANNN so we’re just gonna have all character development happen offscreen?? what the FUCK. is the therapist thing a joke? is it serious? neither makes any sense?? why did he struggle with and come to terms with this traumatic event and major part of his arc completely OFFSCREEN I FEEL INSANE. i was afraid i was unfairly judging the graphic novels because i think the character design is bad but it turns out the writing is too. what have they done to my fucking boy. should i even bother to keep reading.

-

i did finish the book. all in all, the things i liked were mostly obvious choices for an adaptation to make, and the things i disliked were major fumbles in narrative and themes.

i’ve seen a lot of people say, “well, it’s a different story, you can’t compare it to the original and not appreciate it on its own, it’s its own thing.” first of all, it’s not its own thing, its an adaptation, of course you can compare it to the original, that’s how adaptations work. and second of all, i can’t appreciate it on its own, because without the podcast for context, it wouldn’t make any fuckin sense! it’s poorly written in general but it especially expects the reader to have a familiarity with the original story. and with the podcast for context, i’m consistently disappointed, because it’s just a worse, more simplistic, less impactful rehashing of the story that takes all my favorite characters and moments and renders them shallower.

so all in all, i remain unchanged in my opinion: the graphic novels are not good. they are, in fact, bad.

[spaghetti-taako]

how it started/how it's going

[bunni-art]

now that Lup's got a canon design in the graphic novel, i feel okay sharing the speculative GN!Lup designs i've done!

being identical to taako makes it pretty easy to assume what she looks like, but it was fun to think up hair and clothes for her!

(also many of these poses were traced from taako in the graphic novel so credit to carey for that!!)

[murdercene]

im rereading the crystal kingdom graphic novel. this is upsy.

he has this on the bottom.

this is a soul battery like the other robots have. heres noelle and maarvy/jenkins/magic brian.

upsy used to be a person. upsy your lifting friend was a person who died and their soul was put into the body horror elevator and i Dont Like That

[lithiumseven]