Paired – Details, episodes & analysis

Thank you for joining us for this bonus episode of Paired! We hope you enjoy this outing into the very real world. Paired will be back this fall!

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This week's guests are the cast of Rude Tales of Magic. Rude Tales of Magic is a biweekly D&D podcast featuring artists, writers, and comedians from Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Marvel Comics, and more as they fight and fumble their way across the madcap, and exceedingly rude, fantasy wasteland of Cordelia.

Cast includes: 

Tim Platt - Tim is a comedian, actor, and musician out of Brooklyn, NY. His stand up is a mix of characters, jokes, puppetry, and music. In 2019 he was selected as one of Comedy Central’s Up Next Variety Comedians at Clusterfest as well as a Kickstarter 2019 Creator-In-Residence. Along with being a cast member in the hit actual play podcast Rude Tales of Magic, Tim has written and performed music for Sesame Street, Comedy Central, The Story Pirates while also having appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and Masterclass with Steve Martin.

Carly Monardo - Carly is an artist and performer living in Brooklyn, NY. She has over a decade of experience (despite being incredibly youthful) and has worked behind the scenes on such animated favorites as The Venture Bros., Steven Universe, and Blaze and the Monster Machines. She is the illustrator of the New York Times Bestseller, Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things. She also designed the Bird Team and illustrated the show opening for Adult Swim’s Birdgirl. Reader, she is married to Chris!

Christopher Hastings - Christopher Hastings is a comics writer best known for creating The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, co-creating The Unbelievable Gwenpool, and adapting the NYT bestselling graphic novel, Five Nights at Freddys: The Twisted Ones. Christopher also voices Frederick de Bonesby for the narrative play podcast Rude Tales of Magic

Ali Fisher - Ali is an editor and performer from the Seattle area, currently living in Brooklyn. She's been studying and performing comedy in New York since 2011 and she reads like it's her job because it is! She works at Tor Books where she’s edited New York Times and USA Today bestselling fiction and nonfiction. She primarily edits science fiction, fantasy, horror, and humor.

Branson Reese - Branson Reese is a Los Angeles based comedian and artist originally from the Washngton DC area. He is the DM for Rude Tales of Magic, creator of the award winning webcomic Swan Boy, and the author of Hell Was Full, currently available from Oni Press. He's a tall drink of water, easy on the eyes, and will never give up on the Baltimore Orioles.

Joe Lepore - Joe is a comedian, writer, and director living in beautiful Brooklyn, New York. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, then came to New York for college and never left. When not recording cool podcasts, Joe can be seen performing with his sketch team The Nitro Girls every Friday at the Magnet Theater, and at comedy festivals all over the US & Canada.
 

Thank you for listening to the finale of Paired Season Three! 

We'll be back with Season Four after a nice long snooze cycle. In the meantime, make sure to leave us a review if you're enjoying the show - it really does help other listeners discover Paired! And keep an eye out for some very special episodes in the coming weeks on the Paired feed!

Creator/Writer/Producer/'Patient' - Liz Anderson

Editor/Composer - MJ

Cover Art - Adrian Theuma

Theme Music - Arne Parrot

Dr. Toretto - Sarah Shockey

Nurse - Stephen Kropa

Stephen Kropa is an actor, writer, and comedian living in Los Angeles. A journeyman of the TTRPG Podcast world he has appeared on countless programs such as NeoSum, AutoNomic, and multiple episodes of the OneShot Podcast Network.  He can currently be heard on the audio drama Blake Skye: Private Eye. For updates and to find out more please follow him on Twitter @KropaCabana. 

Thank you listening to Paired Season Three!  Be sure to leave a review if you enjoyed this episode!

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Credits:

Creator/Writer/Producer - Liz Anderson

Unnamed Scientist - Jonah Cooper

Editor/Composer - MJ

Cover Art - Adrian Theuma

Theme Music - Arne Parrot

Jonah Cooper is a queer comedian & artist whose work is focused primarily in the strange and uncanny. Her work has been featured on Cracked, FunnyorDie, Zach Braff's youtube channel and more! Follow her at @jonahformayor.

We asked Empty Heaven to describe the thought process that went into the writing of "Pump-Up Playlist": 

In the first episode of "Paired," Harriet is getting ready for a date. Her phone is giving her information about her upcoming evening at the esteemed eatery Buffalo Wild Wings, while also playing her "pump-up playlist."

She is clearly nervous, and is considering canceling. The phone acts as her counsel, asking if she wants to go or not. As it happens, her nervousness is not dread; she wants to go very much. Her phone continues the counseling, playing her destress playlist and monitoring her heart rate. 

She changes plans with her date, escalating things by inviting them to her place; The text works, and the pump-up playlist resumes. But what if it didn't work? What does a pump-up playlist sound like to the disheartened? My song is an alternate ending to "Harriet's Phone," the episode that started this whole thing.

Thank you for listening to Paired Season Three! 

Creator/Writer/Producer/'Pairy' - Liz Anderson

Editor/Composer - MJ

Cover Art - Adrian Theuma

Theme Music - Arne Parrot

We asked Empty Heaven to describe the thought process that went into the writing of "Shadowself": 

Jungian psychology purports that every human has a "Shadow Self," an unknown, unconscious side. It's mostly thought of as a receptacle for all of our negative feelings, although it's chaotic nature can often diffuse emotions as we understand them, replacing them with an incomprehensible mush.

When I listen to "Paired," I am reminded that not only do our devices come equipped with a personality (however artificial), we also teach them our own. However, we don't teach them how to be us as we really think we are. We fill them with data points, search history, demands, private notes, and all sorts of other private things. If someone were to try to make a portrait of us based off of our devices, it would be an undoubtedly warped, sadly sterile, and sometimes disturbing one. I know mine would be weird for sure. I believe it's accidentally poetic that they even get little Apple IDs with our name.

"Shadowself" is about having a double, a doppelganger that follows you wherever you go, and it feeds you stressors, insecurity, and endless stimulation...the proverbial "devil on one's shoulder." But, you are slightly to blame, because you taught it everything it knows. I consider this to be the dark side to the concept of "Paired," a very funny and also sweet podcast that I love.

Lyrics:

When I move, so do you

When I deviate, you see through every move i make like i was scripted

You can feel when weight has shifted

When I look away, you disapprove

We are one in the same

We play symmetrical party games

We dance together in the shower

We rise and fall at the same hours

But when I sleep, you interrupt the dream

I built myself a shadowself 

and always want to look at them

and when I tell myself I don’t

I spiral and I look again

Am I sick? I am sick

Seeing double and I’m second pick

They hold the things that I have hidden

All the thoughts that are forbidden

To keep their mouth shut, I’ve gotta pay a tithe

Call a priest, call a nun

Call the ghost adventures hosts’s own son

I need an exorcism

I need light without a prism

There’s a schism in my heart and it’s alive

I built myself a shadowself 

and always want to look at them

and when I tell myself I don’t

I spiral and I look again

It’s horrible to hold them

and it’s even worse to let them go

It’s horrible to keep from people

even worse to let them know

It’s so hard to have me in my hands

When the night turns its head

The lonely hours reveal what I had said to so and so sometime

it always feels like violent crime

my double will enunciate the words

When I covet the face

of a man I want to have replace my visage in the mirror,

my double draws the image nearer,

and now I have to focus til I’m sure

When I don’t know a thing,

my own double starts to bring the fount of knowledge to my idle hands

My brain retracts, ennui expands

Now knowledge isn’t special anymore

I built myself a shadowself

I taught it when it came to me

I won’t be held responsible

But I oughta be, I oughta be

It’s horrible to hold them

and it’s even worse to let them go

It’s horrible to keep from people

even worse to let them know

It’s so hard to have me in my hands

Thank you for listening to Paired Season Three! 

Creator/Writer/Producer/'Pairy' - Liz Anderson

Editor/Composer - MJ

Cover Art - Adrian Theuma

Theme Music - Arne Parrot

Thank you for listening to Paired Season Three! 

Hannah - Brooke Breit

Creator/Writer/Producer/'Pairy' - Liz Anderson

Editor/Composer - MJ

Cover Art - Adrian Theuma

Theme Music - Arne Parrot

Brooke Breit is a writer and game designer at Jackbox Games. She is resident stage alum of the Second City e.t.c. and has performed improv comedy for many years with groups like Whirled News Tonight and The Improvised Shakespeare Company. She can be seen on television shows like Easy, Shrink and Hot Date, and heard as Flower on the popular podcast Hello From the Magic Tavern.

Thank you for listening to Paired Season Three! 

Dr. Stormer - Hal Lublin

Creator/Writer/Producer/'Pairy' - Liz Anderson

Editor/Composer - MJ

Cover Art - Adrian Theuma

Theme Music - Arne Parrot

The co-host of both "We Got This with Mark and Hal" and "Tights and Fights" podcasts on the Maximum Fun Network as well as "Good Morning Night Vale", Hal Lublin is an accomplished actor and improviser. Best known for his work as one of the core WorkJuice players in "The Thrilling Adventure Hour" and Steve Carlsberg on "Welcome to Night Vale", Hal played Wide Wale, Manolo, and others on "The Venture Bros" and plays Omnibus (among others) on Cartoon Network's "Mighty Magiswords". He was a frequent guest on SiriusXM EW Radio's "L.A. Daily" and a contributing performer and writer for David Feldman's public radio program and podcast, and has been a panelist for John Fugelsang on SiriusXM Insights.

His work runs the gamut from animated films and television programs to radio shows and video games for CBS, Happy Madison, Disney, Clear Channel, SyFy, JibJab, Wired and more. Hal trained with Second City, The Groundlings and IO West, and has been improvising and performing sketch comedy for over 20 years.

Thank you for listening to Paired Season Three! 

Dr. Toretto - Sarah Shockey

Creator/Writer/Producer/'Pairy' - Liz Anderson

Editor/Composer - MJ

Cover Art - Adrian Theuma

Theme Music - Arne Parrot