Infodump: The Adventure Zone

[teyla]

I have been meaning to update this, so instead of fretting about how to go about it, I'm gonna just do it. :D

I've been trying to figure out how to do fandom going forward. It's so hard to find a place to hang your hat these days! I've at this point more or less abandoned Tumblr, I never managed to warm up to Twitter. When I got into a new fandom and realized I had nowhere to post my magnificent tentacle porn art, I knew I had to finally decide where to put up my tent.

So expect me to be posting about The Adventure Zone going forward. Is anyone who's reading this into that podcast? If you aren't, you really should be--it's so fun. I was dubious about it at first, because that is my nature, but if you've ever played pen & paper (or been wanting to play pen & paper), it's super relatable content that ends up turning into a really quite decent story.

For anyone who doesn't know what TAZ is: it's the three McElroy brothers and their dad playing DND and being massive nerds, surprisingly decent storytellers, and also honestly quite funny. My favorite things about it are:

• Taako (of course)
• Clint and his terrible dad jokes that are sometimes not at all dad jokes
• Knowing that for once, I am not the only one who's not getting a single reference
• These moments when I relate so much to Griffin it hurts because, I, too, have DM'ed a bunch of players too fucking dippy to consistently follow a plot
• The Big Spoiler that I won't mention here because, well, spoilers
• Taako, again. He's great.

I've listened to Balance and the one-off arcs (well, almost--I'm halfway through Dust), and am going to be giving Amnesty a miss for now because I want to check out the new arc and maybe find some folks on here who are talking about it. There's theadventurezone which seems pretty dead, but maybe the new arc will bring it back to life. I shall not be discouraged!

Tentacle porn, you said? Why yes, I did.




Griffin put him in the tank with the octopus in Petals to the Metal and I couldn't resist.


I also drew Taako (from TV) because of course I did.




For anyone who cares, these shoes actually exist and can be purchased on American Amazon.


Soo, how have you all been? Is anyone doing Yuletide? I need to make sure I don't miss sign-ups, I really wanna try and get something written this year.

Comments

[topaz_eyes]

Hi hi hi!

Yuletide sign-ups are NOW until Nov 4 @ 9 am UTC. Still a few days!

I don't know if I'll sign up yet. I submitted some nominations to hedge my bets. We'll see.

[teyla]

Hiiii :D how have you been!

Yes, Nov 04, so I am probably gonna do it Sunday night like the functional adult that I am /o\. I've also submitted some nominations, but I really want to write some TAZ. The smaller arcs are all nominated so I need to really quickly listen to them so I can decide if I can write for them. xD

What did you end up nominating? What are you into these days, anyway?

[topaz_eyes]

I finally did sign up for Yuletide, about 4 hours before the deadline. I nominated (and requested) Strike Back (TV), Evening Primrose (TV musical 1966), The Testaments (Margaret Atwood), and Stan Against Evil (TV).

These days it's not too much; I've got an ongoing RL project that I would like to get done before the holidays. Now I also have Yuletide. Keeps me busy.

[zulu]

Hi, nice to see you around!

[teyla]

Hello there! :D How have you been?

[glinda]

Hello! Nice to see you around again! :D

I'm not Yuletiding myself, but my feed is full of Yuletide letters so I suspect that signups are a' happening as we speak!

[teyla]

Heeey, thank you! Glad to be back.

Yep, they've been open a few days. I am planning to sign up over the weekend, I still need to pick what to offer, though. I had to default last year because I offered something I figured out I didn't know how to write, after all--don't want that to happen again. D:

[tinny]

Yaay, awesome drawing!

Good to have you here!

I am still very lucky in that the Guardian fandom is *incredibly active* on DW, and shows no sign of stopping. It's probably worth joining just to get to know a lot of active people? :) (doing fandom backwards... :D)

I know a few people who are doing nano here, and some who will do Yuletide. Not me, of course. *g*

[teyla]

It's always nice to come back! And a little guilt-inducing; y'all are like the reliable bedrock of DW, it's great.

Man, I wish Guardian were a thing that piqued my interest. Feels like everyone is getting into it, and a lot of Chinese soaps in general. I'm glad it's got an active DW fandom! DW's still the best platform for fandom. TAZ seems to be mostly on Twitter, which ... is better than Tumblr, I suppose. Can't post tentacle Merle there, though, because the creators are all up in everybody's business. Podcast fandoms are so weird with their lack of a 4th wall!

If I'm back here, maybe I'll check out the icon comm again. I saw you're still going strong, that's great! Do you have co-mods at this point?

[tinny]

I am so happy that this fandom is still here, I don't feel like I am missing anything.

Man, I wish Guardian were a thing that piqued my interest.

I know it's a weird love. :D But everyone loves something else about it, it's such a treasure trove of tropes.

But I think all my friends who are more into f/f never got into it, which is understandable. Chinese/Asian things are usually terrible with female characters. Guardian not quite as much, but there aren't that many female characters in the first place. There are two actual f/f ships in it, mostly as an opportunity for Shen Wei to project his own love all over them. And all of that without making any of them explicitly stated as gay relationships. They're all good sisters and brothers. :D Ah well, the whole Chinese storytelling thing is terribly oblique and the censoring isn't helping.

I just like watching Chinese stuff because I like the language. But in general, it's not really something I'd recommend. :D You need to read between the lines a lot, which usually annoys me. In case you are thinking about watching anything Chinese at all, Nirvana in Fire is supposed to be very good - and literally good! Not just good in a fannish sense that it provides a ton of holes to fill, like Guardian. :) I haven't seen it because political dramas bore me to death.

If I'm back here, maybe I'll check out the icon comm again. I saw you're still going strong, that's great! Do you have co-mods at this point?

Yeah, sure, do!

We got another very busy comm in the meantime: iconcolors, which is a low-pressure, easy challenge based on color palettes. icontalking is doing a color challenge this month, too. seraphina_snape is helping me mod, keeping track of the post that lists all the current challenges on DW and LJ.

We could do with more "talking", seeing as that's the name of the comm, but I was so busy all year I basically forgot to post talk posts. :/

Anyway, glad to see you back here! Stay a while. *G*

[teyla]

Ooh, a political drama. I might give it a shot, I do enjoy them. Well, I mostly enjoy political comedy/satire, but maybe I can get into a drama. ;) It'd be cool to learn about Chinese political structures, I know like nothing about that.

I will try to stay a while! I miss the internet, and talking to folks on here, so sticking around is the plan.

[tinny]

Haha, I never actually pictured myself reccing Nirvana in Fire to you, since I haven't watched it, but there are great comms for it, and important character sheets and stuff (because there are *a lot* of characters, apparently, and the story isn't made for dummies, so it's not trivial to keep up - but what do I know).

So:

Nirvana in Fire on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtt_YYUGi1gXRt2XVJZrHDBkZECcfmuAJ

People say that the special effects in the first episode are a) bad and b) the only ones in the whole show, so... not to worry. Most people love episode four for the many female characters with lots of agency.

The comm is nirvana_in_fire.

There's a character intro post here:

https://lesbloggerables.tumblr.com/post/157788020760/nirvana-in-fire-character-guide

But I knew there was a nicer and easier-to-handle chart somewhere on dw, I just can't find it right now.

Good luck! And yay for staying and talking!