#taz music

[thatoneacecryptid]

So I was listening to the Amnesty soundtrack lately - because it's fall and that means its time for the annual Amnesty relisten - and I noticed something. All of the music, even the comforting tracks like the Lodge themes and Kepler, WV, has either a doppler/rippling effect in them or more electric sounding "instruments" utilized.

It really adds to the whole vibe and aesthetic of the setting and story. Sylvains and Abominations both come from another place and Kepler is well within the NRQZ meaning that telescopes and space in general has a massive impact on their area.

And even with that artistic choice that Griffin made with his music, the Kepler specific tracks still have a calming, rural, ski town feel to them.

I could gush about it for ages.

[hazardouslibrarian]

Kepler, WV starts playing.

Me:

[jerreeeeeee]

you know how little kids like to interview people?

[ghostslazy]

Extremely rough first stab at the Taz Vs. Dracula lineup bc I love them all so so much already and don’t have the time to finish a lineup of characters for fun rn 🥲

Close up sketches, design notes and surprise drac under the break:

Travis’ characters are always the hardest for me to design idk why, but I made him very western inspired with some vampire hunting flair. Lady Agatha Thistle’s breed was one I hadn’t heard of before but I love a good blood hound. I always end up making Travis’s chapters warm toned, they’re all very red/orange coded to me. (Beef would be the exception I think he’s very pink and blue in my mind)

Clint always makes the sweetest roundest characters I love designing his. I wish we had a cannon spelling because there’s so many directions you can go with “Filo” also his characters are usually green or green adjacent to me. I cant wait to see him bust out more booger potions

Justin never misses with a character and I cling onto every single one he makes so quickly and violently it’s getting embarrassing. I like the idea that she would still dress extremely fancy and posh even tho her new body should be in some battle ready armor. Also I made her blue since she is a Frankenstein’s monster and most likely wouldn’t have the blood flow to have a human color. Plus I love the monster high color palettes so I’m referencing a little bit. Justin has very cool coded characters to me, lots of blue and purple and forest greens.

Probably not sticking with this Dracula design but I want him to love a bit more silly and slick, I think having him be lanky and shorter will pair him very well against our rough and rowdy boys

[srapsodia]

LOTS of bangers on these last few episodes but i had to quickly doodle this exchange with Steven the goldfish

[trix-or-treatz]

taz balance soundtrack. save me taz balance soundtrack.

[junotter]

I wasn't sure which version i liked so have bothhhhh woahh

[motherfuckingmagicbrian]

Griffin said Mr Misstoffeles was a “cat man” but all I’m seeing is

[anistarrose]

This isn't something I would describe as a prominent or even intentional theme, but there's something fascinating to me about how TAZ Balance characters associated with composing and performing music are almost entirely correlated with either being forgotten, or having an incredibly warranted fear of being forgotten.

Johann is obviously the latter. I have an ongoing fic about his parallels with Barry — who plays piano, and who is the character we see spend the most time knowing he has been forgotten by people dear to him, and grappling with it. And I've seen the Johann and Lup dynamic get well-deserved attention in AUs where she lives, and they get to relate to each other as violinists — yet the parallels are at their strongest in canon, where Lup is the "most" dead of all the undead characters, the "most" forgotten, the most reduced to a near-invisible specter haunting the narrative, and the most like Johann's worst nightmare.

There's even a parallel with Davenport, who is a beautiful singer, and whose life story and dreams and achievements are all completely erased. So that's three different characters whose forgotten stories — which Johann obviously does not know — still serve to silently justify Johann's fear of the same fate, emphasizing just how likely it is that it could come to pass. How yes, it would be that horrifying.

And as a non-musician, but an artist of a kind myself... it all resonates. The fear of one's legacy being forgotten is a common fear in general, but it has a particular type of teeth to it for us creatives, who shudder in terror at the thought of a masterwork — that feels like a piece of one's soul — being forgotten, let alone cut short by untimely tragedy.

But that's why I treasure, so dearly, that all of these musically inclined characters — Barry, Lup, Davenport, Johann — are not forgotten permanently, but instead immortalized by the Story and Song, no matter the varying degrees of alive and dead that they wind up in the end. I treasure the parallels between these characters that say being forgotten is a grounded, reasonable thing to fear; that it is scary — but that no matter what, memory will still find a way.

[doctorsiren]

“Seven Birds / Crystal Kingdom”

A TAZ:Balance song / cover I “wrote” back in (i want to say) 2018

I say “wrote” because the lyrics are the prophecy and then the second half is simply a cover of the Crystal Kingdom verses + a final one I added

[qde-jiko]

Re-listening to taz balance, i miss the tres horny boys so much man

Also i thought avi was a half elf until halfway through finishing the piece, it was exhausting trying to fix 😪

[karmathenightowl]

So I have a theory about Dracula's plan 🐱

I saw this post talking about Dracula's whole plan with this mysterious "aria" and recreating an experience with music, to which I reblogged commenting in the tags saying:

"What if is this is an homage to CATS?"

Well with some newfound knowledge near the bottom of this post, I couldn't keep this theory hidden.

Hear me out. Also spoilers ahead!

So Mr. Mistoffelees being an npc in this campaign is funny and obvious enough. However, it may go deeper than that.

In ep 2, the diary entry tells us that a young Dracula had a plesant experience of witnessing a band of troubadours play beautiful music. However, that happiness was short lived when Dracula's father had the troubadours impaled.

In ep 24 when the party is reading Dracula's diary, Justin asks Griffin about this memory, which he refers to as "the moment of happiness."

Sounds familiar, huh?

The song "The Moments of Happiness" from the musical CATS have these lyrics:

The moments of happiness We had the experience but missed the meaning And approach to the meaning Restores the experience in a different form

The meaning I get from the song as a whole is that the happiness that comes from positive memories are different from your experience of said memories.

Dracula may not have truly understood what this happiness truly meant for him at the time of these troubadours performing. But rather than self reflecting on that happiness and how it affected him, he wants to recreate it in this macabre Frankenstein-esque manner with the people of Lumineaux.

There's also the matter of Dracula's "ascension." We don't know what this means just yet, but I'm willing to guess it is directly inspired by CATS to have Dracula literally ascend up to the sky and be reborn "heavyside layer" style. For what exactly? I am unsure of.

ALSO earlier today I discovered this:

In episode 375 of Besties this year (Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Starts the Year Out Strong), Griffin opens it up with this:

"For reasons that will become apparent for Adventure Zone listeners in the future, I've have been listening to MIDI versions of songs from the CATS musical this morning."

Now this COULD just be referring to Mr. Mistoffelees, but if not...

Has the story of this entire campaign just been a massive tribute to CATS this whole time?

With EVERYTHING that has happened, every wild, out there, bonkers set of events that have occurred up to this point in the campaign, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.

What are you planning, Griffin? Or I guess I should say "What are you planning Dracula?"

[yourbelgianthings]

disloyal order of water buffaloes / taako taaco

[lupsbro]

heyo it's been a while since I posted anything myself but I really wanted to share the Taako hat I made for the cosplay I wore at Japan Expo!! I did use a witch hat as a base but I painted/decorated it myself which was SUCH a fun project :)

[ethersierra]