Hi I have some thoughts about The Adventure Zone comics that I wanna share, but I want to preface this by saying that I absolutely love the comic adaptations and feel they're the perfect blend of the podcast and graphic storytelling. Please don't take criticism as disavowal (1/?)

Okay so spoilers ahead...

TAZ just released a new comic, an adaptation of podcast recordings of the third adventure of their Balance (DND 5e) campaign. This adventure arc, the heroes are getting to know a protag named Hurley and an antag named Sloane (possessed by a sash). (2/?)

Their relationship is never in-canon referred to as romantic, but I believe one of the players asks the DM directly and learns that these two female characters are intended to be in a sapphic relationship. The podcast afterward begins introducing real stakes to the viewers. (3/?)

In the podcast, in order to snap Sloane out of her possession, Hurley jumps towards Sloane, sustaining a fatal injury from her. The final scene is Sloane holding Hurley in her arms, asking the heroes never to let this happen again, turning herself and Hurley into a tree. (4/?)

The intent of this was that Hurley was going to die because the heroes failed to stop the possessed antagonist. The only way to keep Hurley alive was to turn her into a tree, and Sloane chooses to join the tree so they can be together. The effect was very "bury your gays" (5/?)

The creators of this recognize the problems, and have referred to it as one of their biggest regrets, and that's commendable. They messed up and tried to fix it- writing another lesbian couple in and towards the end of the podcast they actually bring Hurley and Sloane back. (6/?)

The issue is the comic adaptation. In it, Hurley and Sloane are brought back to life from the tree nearly immediately after they turn into the tree. This was an attempt to undo some of the harms of the podcast, but made the story objectively worse. (7/?)

This branch of the story famously is the one which shows that the lighthearted adventure actually has serious components the heroes would have to be careful around. That sad deaths can occur based on their choices, changing the tone. The comic removes any stakes from this. (8/?)

Without the sad ending, there is no reason that the scene of Hurley dying is important whatsoever. However, I also agree that "bury your gays" is problematic. The solution? Well mine would be that there's some harm to them becoming dryads, such as being stuck to the tree. (9/?)

The ending is sad because the heroes have harmed someone they care about, but the story does not suffer from an anti-gay trope. That's just my suggestion. We need to start valuing the way we combat tropes, to ensure diverse media isn't solely good due to its diversity. (10/?)

The point of this thread? I'm tired of having to put up with weaker stories in order to consume media I can identify with. I appreciate the care put into avoiding harmful tropes but if the story is suffering due to that then you're diminishing the content to its diversity (11/11)

To clarify this, I am absolutely not saying "let problematic stories be, at least the author was trying." This thread proves I think criticism is valid. I just feel as though your sensitivity should fit into the story rather than being forced to work around it. (1/2)

In this instance, I understand that this was hard as the original story was made with a different mindset than its adaptation and wanted to find a way to stick to the same story while still changing the ending. But please don't underestimate the power of how that is done. (2/2)

ALSO, to be clear I still think that media with over-sensitivity at the expense of the story is better than a good story with bigotry innate to the writing. I am just saying that, if you can make a good story WHILE being sensitive to marginalized groups, work hard to do that.