I’ve always been interested in the way stories change as they are adapted from one form of media to another. For most of my life, the only examples I had were books to movies. I didn’t follow comics closely enough to really consider how comicbook characters were represented in superhero movies and TV shows, and I knew that most comicbooks had such varied, ever-renewed stories that adaptation was fairly open-ended. When the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I was given my first real chance to evaluate something I was familiar with as it moved from books to movies. I didn’t have the skills required to do it in a good, critical way when the first movie came out, but the movies remained a part of my life for long enough that I was still thinking about them and the books when I finally had the skills to do a thorough critical analysis.
Continue readingZone
Swept Away Again
Due to my attention/anxiety issues, I almost always have music going in the background. It makes it easier to ignore errant or intrusive thoughts if I have music playing. As I’ve gotten into podcasts, I’ve found myself doing the opposite, finding something to play in the foreground so I can pay attention to my podcast since I’d almost always wind up browsing twitter or something on my phone if I don’t have something to do with my eyes and hands when I’m listening to a podcast. As a result of this habit, I’ve discovered a special moment I treasure whenever it happens.
Continue readingTAZ and The Words I Needed to Hear
“See, there’s magic in a bard song. They call it inspiration and it tells the listener what they need to hear right when they need to hear it.”
Those were the words I needed to hear right when I needed to hear them. I was sitting on my couch the night following my grandfather’s funeral, a year and twenty-seven days ago. I’d just gotten back from Chicago, unloaded the car, and then sat down on the couch to finish the podcast I’d started on my first of many drives down to Chicago in 2019 to visit my grandpa and help out my mom. I was alone–my roommates could tell I didn’t want to talk–and I put on the last two episodes of the Balance arc of The Adventure Zone.