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I listened to the ep of Woodland Secrets that Griffin was on this morning and thought it was really great and nice. Griffin talks a lot about his relationship with feedback and with fans of his show and shifting priorities after becoming a father. Highly recommended.

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They released a commentary track for episode 1 of the SeeSo show today, and I enjoyed it quite a lot and hope they release more, if only because it'll give me an excuse to watch the show through again.

 

And I also enjoyed Griffin's interview with merritt. It hit all my favourite discussion topics: parenting, working too hard, and dealing with an audience.

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the SeeSo tv show is available for purchase on iTunes in the UK, Canada & Australia now, and may be available in other places too. It's worth checking if you haven't seen it and live in one of those places.

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Ooooooooooh. I've just downloaded the whole series to my phone! So excited to watch it on the metro. Although I imagine I'll have to contain a lot of my laughter in public which should be interesting. I'll let you know what I think about the series when I finish it all. 

 

I feel sorry for ya'll who wanted the TAZ prequel arc to be short. I'm enjoying it, but I do hope it's coming to a close. 

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I'm finally catching up with TAZ and I'm digging the change of pace. Thinking back to the "how to get off the boat" arguments from Friends at the Table, I can see them getting more comfortable with this type of system with a few more episodes under their belt. I hope they keep doing dice-light systems going forward.

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Griffin bought a new mic right before doing his interview with merritt. You may just be able to pick up on some of those ticks/patterns better w/ the new mic.

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Yeah, I remember him saying that but surely like the TV mics and when they've done live stuff you'd be able to notice something like that before. Right? I feel like I'm going crazy 

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http://theadventurezone.tumblr.com/post/161367685782/on-the-adventure-zone-graphic-novel-blue-taako

 

I'm not sure how I feel about how far down the rabbit hole they've gone on this. If the 3 characters are all white men that's an issue. If he looks like a latin man that's an issue. I understand this! Ok so their solution seems to have been make the character a non-human coloration and now people are mad about Lore. I suppose I'm of two minds. One is that I respect their attempts to avoid real world comparisons that could be problematic, and two that once you give a concrete shape to an abstraction people are going to disagree about what you did because it's different for them.

 

I kinda feel like the extra work of listening to every single voice has really bitten them in the ass, because in attempting to placate everyone they've managed to satisfy no one. Now in service of their art they've worked themselves into a real pity party and are wallowing hard in it. Taako's not going to look like SOMEONE expected no matter what.

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people have been VERY hostile and VERY mean to them and to each other about this.

the woodland secrets episode with Griffin touches on a lot of this stuff.

TAZ is much more popular than they ever expected it to be and there are a lot of young people (including queer and or poc) in the fandom who have a lot of  strong feelings about how people like them are portrayed in media. 

i wonder if they either change taako's (and the other characters') appearance with each volume of if they just don't make any more.

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I think this is a decent response given the circumstances. They can't please everyone, he can write this post to show they're listening and aware. I think they've made mistakes, but missteps are inevitable and how you respond to them is what matters more.

 

Unfortunately lots of people as fans can't accept their view of a work being undermined, and lots of people also seem to think problematic things need to be fixed as if they can become pure. I just hope they can handle things better going forward, without stumbling over themselves being too careful.

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It seems like the fact that they've demonstrated that they're willing to consider this sort of criticism has led to everyone with an opinion trying harder than they normally would to make that opinion heard.

 

I really think the best solution would be to change up the character designs every chapter, to reinforce the idea that no one design is visual canon. Plus, that would mean they'd have to do more than one chapter and I don't want to live in a world where everyone's favorite boy detective never appears in print.

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if you haven't listened to episode 2 of The McElroy Brothers Will Be In Trolls 2 (now in its own podcast feed), it's so fucking funny. Their manager Joel is so charming and bitingly funny.

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It's less that the response is necessarily good or bad and more that it's almost verbatim the same response they gave two months ago on the max fun drive episode. Just a bit frustrating that no one seems to have made any progress since then.

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On 5/16/2017 at 10:45 AM, Gormongous said:

To piggyback off of that fundamental truth, Travis' new podcast The Kind Rewind is four episodes in and it's really good. It's just Travis and his wife Teresa watching old TV shows and movies, then talking about what they liked and didn't like, especially compared to what they thought as kids. They just finished going through the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and now they're going to do ET: The Extraterrestrial and then the first season of Cheers. It's really warm and genuine, and Travis' passion for talking about media shines through even as he says some pretty dopey things and defends Xander waaaay more than Xander deserves to be defended. I'm rewatching Buffy right now and that made the past few episodes really enjoyable, but I like the vibe enough to follow them into stuff that I'm not rewatching and don't really care about.

 

I'm tentatively withdrawing my endorsement of The Kind Rewind. Their first half-dozen episodes, on BuffyET, and Cheers, were all good, if a little shaky and too prone to defending their feelings of nostalgia, but now Travis and Teresa are going through the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which they both profess to be among their favorite shows of all time, and it's... not good. As opposed to Buffy and ET, and to a lesser extent Cheers, where there were good moments and bad moments and they'd talk about what worked and didn't in all of them, every episode of Avatar is gushed over to no end, even when they start out with their harshest criticisms of it being "just fine" or "a solid entry" that "didn't move the needle."

 

If there's something weird or uncomfortable, like Sokka displaying toxic masculinity or Uncle Iroh cops a feel off an unconscious woman, they'll both rush to one of two defusing tactics. Travis' preferred one is to talk about the characters like they're real people with agency who have made the conscious choice to behave in a certain way, and not fictional individuals written by writers who have chosen to make those individuals say and do things out of some artistic intent. Sokka's just immature! Iroh's a bit of a dirty old man! It wouldn't make sense for them to behave other than how they really are. Note, of course, that he didn't really have this problem with Xander in Buffy. Travis made some apologies for Xander, but more because he used to like him so much, as a teen, than because he thinks that Xander is justified in some of his shittier character moments. Meanwhile, Teresa prefers to write off any bad, tone deaf, boring, or uncomfortable moments as a consequence of Avatar being a kid's show. It's perfectly acceptable for children's programs to have actions without consequences or to be intermittently turgid and obvious, kids don't care! You can't have complex or subtle moments, kids will miss them!

 

I don't know, I get loving a show a lot and how difficult that makes cogent criticism of it. The one formal review that I've written of a Mad Men episode was incredibly hard because I love that show to the point that I couldn't help seeing intention and meaning behind even its weakest moments. That said, the fact that the Buffy episodes were so good in their critique, despite Travis' obvious affection for the show, makes the fact that the podcast has broken down into a watery Avatar love-in really hard for me to bear. I don't need a dozen episodes arguing why I should love Avatar, warts and all, especially when it's a spoiler-filled cast that presupposes everyone has already seen Avatar!

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18 hours ago, Badfinger said:

The end of the stolen century arc is some of Griffin's strongest storytelling. I liked it.

Yeah, I thought he stuck the landing pretty well, which made the sort of lurching pace and linearity of the preceding sessions feel worth it. Now that things have looped back around, I hope it will open up a bit and give the rest of the guys more opportunities for goofs and japery.

 

For future games, I think it would be neat if they fully make the move to a narrative system in the Powered by the Apocalypse vein, at least if their intent is to keep telling stories. If it's more of a messing around situation, then a simulationist system can actually provide a lot of fun prompts and small goals.

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9 minutes ago, Gormongous said:

The McElroys appearing on @Midnight is pretty damn funny. After all their jokes on the podcast about not being able to think on their feet, they all made a really good showing!

 

Making a note to watch this! Thanks for letting me know it came out.

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5 hours ago, Gormongous said:

The McElroys appearing on @Midnight is pretty damn funny. After all their jokes on the podcast about not being able to think on their feet, they all made a really good showing!

 

Not that it really matters but pretty sure a lot of @midnight is pre-written

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12 hours ago, gavku said:

 

Not that it really matters but pretty sure a lot of @midnight is pre-written

Yeah, it sounds like they were probably given prompts a little bit ahead of time - that still seems like a nightmare. 

 

It looks like they are announcing a whole bunch of new MBMBAMand TAZ dates and the ticket sales go live on Friday. Will definitely hit up the Chicago date, I might actually try to drive down to TN to go see TaZ live. 

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Quoting the Facebook post :

 

Fall Tour Dates Announced!

(Updated with the venue websites - no shows are listed as of right now, just FYI!)

Tickets go on sale this Friday, July 28, at noon local time (local time for the city the show is in):

Shows:

Sept 8, Brooklyn, NY - Kings Theatre (MBMBAM) http://www.kingstheatre.com

Sept 9, Washington, DC - Lisner Auditorium (MBMBAM) https://gwutickets.com/online/default.asp

Sept 10, Boston, MA - Wilbur Theater (MBMBAM) https://m.ticketmaster.com/The-Wilbur-tickets-Boston/venue/8252

Oct 20, Atlanta, GA - Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center (MBMBAM) https://m.ticketmaster.com/Cobb-Energy-Performing-Arts-Centre-tickets-Atlanta/venue/115457

Oct 21, Nashville, TN - Andrew Jackson Hall (MBMBAM) https://patron.tpac.org

Oct 22, Nashville, TN - Andrew Jackson Hall (TAZ) https://patron.tpac.org

Nov 17, Chicago, IL - Chicago Theatre (MBMBAM) https://m.ticketmaster.com/The-Chicago-Theatre-tickets-Chicago/venue/57522

Nov 18, Minneapolis, MN - Orpheum Theatre (MBMBAM) https://m.ticketmaster.com/Orpheum-Theatre-tickets-Minneapolis/venue/49292

Nov 19, Milwaukee, WI - Riverside Theater (MBMBAM) http://www.riverside.theater/tickets/

Dec 8, Tacoma, WA - Pantages Theater (TAZ) 
https://tickets.broadwaycenter.org/Online/

Dec 9-10, Seattle, WA - Podcon! (MBMBAM, Sawbones announced so far) (This one has tickets to go to the actual con OR a remote attendance option, where you can watch the recorded podcasts after the fact if you can't make it in person)
http://podcon.com/

Links will be up at mcelroyshows.com under Tour (once they've had a chance to update the site!) & the boys will tweet links. <3

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