#taz dust aesthetic

[tazthetics]

michael dust moodboard with gold accents

[slightly-awkward-sunshine]

“The cards with the people with crowns on them- is there significance to the crowns?”

Gandy Dancer, requested by anon! Possibly my favorite TAZ PC 

[fia-bonkginya]

why are we having this fucking conversation? you killed a boy in the street. sheriff connors, you’re under arrest for the murder of jeremiah blackwell.

[ID: an aesthetic with 6 images in a 2x3 grid, in shades of brown and black. from left to right, top to bottom: 1. an old fashioned tan clock. 2. “heart of gold” written in gold script on a black background. 3. “wake up and smell the justice” written in white on a black background. 4. a mug of frothing rootbeer. 5. an old fashioned town with wooden buildings, one labeled “sheriff.” 6. a white pin that has a black silhouette of a howling wolf with “werewolves are people too!” written on it. END ID]

[honey-board]

Dust

In this house, we love and support The Adventure Zone

-Mod Griffin

[minkowskii]

strap on your fantasy seatbelts and brace your asses for… the adventure zone!

[wyrdwulf]

Tbh when Griffin did his mini arc I was so certain that it was the one I really wanted to become their next campaign, but now I’m also REALLY loving Dust and all of the PCs and hhhooooo

[fdevita-official-shitpost]

Me, after listening to the finale of "The Adventure Zone, Dust" arc: Yes, I'd like more of that please.

[honeyed-beans]

hey I’ve never listened to TAZ, but lately I’ve gotten an insane urge to do so... is it ok if I start with this new one? Do I need the context of all others?

Is Travis a really bad DM???

Hi!

(I’m so sorry this answer came out very long because I went on a Graduation analysis so if it’s too much than scroll to the bottom!)

To start with the first q. You can absolutely start on Ethersea first if you want! The fun part about TAZ is that it’s a anthology series. And the McElroy don’t tend to spoil or make large connections to other campaigns. At most they might reference a character name as a joke, but they don’t tend to dwell on it. It’s only vague references at best. So I would always suggest picking up whichever season speaks the most to you aesthetics wise, and/or whichever one is currently running, cause tbh it’s always nice to see real-time reactions from fans if you want to be in fandom spaces. AHS rules essentially.

For example, I’ve really gotten into Taz this past year, but I have never finished TAZ Amnesty so it’s definitely dealers choice.

Taz Ethersea is kind of a unique scenario because they’re doing a new game system. So the first couple of episodes are just world building and explaining the new system. It gives you time to decide if you want to listen to it now or not, because despite the first ep coming out today, the real game doesn’t start for another 3 weeks or so. Dw you’re not missing much right now.

The brief, no spoilers, descriptions of each campaign:

- Balance = A comedic globetrotting adventure story, with modern elements on a fantasy world. Techno music, very tongue in cheek. It’s the longest one, so storywise it’s a bit of a slow burn as the McElroys find their style. But because of its length it gives more time for the characters to breathe and thus it’s sorta the iconic golden child of TAZ. Most people would rec this one but I know the commitment can be kinda big if your not feeling it. So if another season takes your fancy more than go for that one instead.

- Amnesty = small-town americana, cryptids, sorta scooby doo / monster of the week vibe. Very eerie southern music.

- Commitment (superheroes) / Dust (what if Halloween town had cowboys in it) = these I wouldn’t suggest for a first time listen because they were experimental short stories. With 4 episodes each. None are DMed by Griffin. But very fun in their own right.

- Graduation = Comedic, intrigue, fantasy, takes place in one location (a university), plays on the themes of growing up. Very soft, lighthearted, calming soundtrack with a lot of slow notes. This one is Travis as the DM.

- Ethersea = we don’t know anything about it yet. Post-apocalypse underwater season. Very dreamy water inspired music?

Ok so q2: Is Graduation Bad and is Travis a Bad DM?

Short answer? This campaign was polarising. There are some real critiques to be made on Travis’s style. But I think some aspects of critique have been blown out of proportion. In essence he wasn’t fully prepared to helm a show with a really demanding fan base that had high expectations. But I think Grad was good actually!

Longer answer:

Some people bring up stuff about his disabilities or how he acted outside of the show. I’m just viewing it from a objective stance of someone who listened to the episodes as they came out.

Trav has a tendency to have a lot of ideas he wants to show off and unfortunately tended to jump around a lot. So plot points that I personally may have wanted more time to explore got introduced and dropped a lot. Made worst by the fact that it’s a short season. If there’s not a lot of time to explore everything than weaker pacing becomes more evident. Moreover he wasn’t Griffin, and some people think Griffin can do no wrong and there is certainly favouritism for some fans.

BUT I loved it!! Definitely my favourite! It had a really engaging setting I was all over. And it had the strongest main cast out of all of them. Each main character had a good plot, with good progression, and most importantly they spent time developing a bind with eachother. Something that some of the campaigns don’t spend much time doing. They were a trio for a reason, not because events forced them to be. And it sucks that people are dismissing Grad so much because of it!

People got so upset it wasn’t living up to their expectations of Balance that they got hostile which made Grad likers hostile in return. On Twitter every post from the official page had comments begging them to end Grad immediately because it was shit and we deserved better?? So they tried to end it quickly to please these yelling fans and that only made a ending with more plot holes, and thus more complaining. There was a episode where Trav made a joke that a character handed them a chalice full of liquidised drugs at a party, and than the main cast decided to drink it. And the tag was just filled with people saying that Travis was encouraging drug taking to kids?????

At the end of the day Grad was still a fun comedy dnd podcast with lovable characters 🥰 I would suggest listening to it if it’s your cup of tea. As long as your aware that Trav is clumsier with pacing than Griff than you’re in for a pretty wild and very very ‘fun with little consequence’ campaign! Ironically most of these problems would be fixed if Graduation had more episodes lmao.

Tldr: Pick whichever one you like! TAZ is a anthology that doesn’t run into eachother so follow your heart! Technically Ethersea hasn’t started yet. I love Graduation a lot but Travis struggles to keep all his balls in the air so if that will annoy you a lot than I would understand leaving it for now. But I don’t think it’s as bad as some people make it out to be.

This was probably a lot of info to drop on you but if you want to clarify anything, or just chat don’t hesitate to send me a dm! TAZ is super fun and a nice way to occupy your time while your doing other tasks. I hope you enjoy it! ❤️

[podcastwizard]

So, having listened to TAZ: Dust for the first time, I really REALLY wish they had chosen it for the next big arc instead of Amnesty. I can't possibly be alone in this belief, right?

i did love the Aesthetic of dust but i thought amnesty had the most potential for long form. would love some dust live shows thought!

[writinginslowmotion]

WIP Inspirations & Influences Tag

Rules: list some of the works (books, movies, games, tv shows, art etc.) that have influenced your current wip(s)!

I saw this floating around the writeblr community and, although nobody formally tagged me, I decided to do it anyway. It looked like fun. I’m doing this for With A Bloody Smile.

So, WABS has quite a few inspirations/influences. The number one influence is Supernatural (I know, I know, some people think it’s cringe, but this show really does mean a lot to me. It always has) and the world and lore within the show. I drew inspiration for aesthetics and color of the WABS world from the first two seasons of SPN, which the cinematography was dark and gritty.

I discovered the McElroys and their podcast “The Adventure Zone” back in September. After listening to the campaign Dust, I fell in love. WABS doesn’t have a lot in common with TAZ: Dust, but TAZ is a big influence on the story.

The Finnish bands H.I.M. and Poets of the Fall also majorly influenced WABS. I love both bands and find the music to be so gorgeous. Music always plays a big role in my writing, and I listened to both of these bands when I was outlining and working on the story’s playlist.

I’m including the last two inspirations together, since they go together. Here’s a twofer, comin’ atcha!

VTM and HTR are both roleplaying games created by White Wolf, and are set in the World of Darkness universe. They’re both very fun games to play, but are distinctly different. HTR is probably the best game for beginners, as it allows the player to immerse themselves in the World of Darkness universe while teaching them about the lore and how the world works. But both are awesome. VTM came out in 1991 and has a very grunge/punk setting, while HTR is more post apocalyptic . VTM focuses mainly on vampires and the other supernatural creatures of the world, whereas HTR focuses on the individual hunter and how they deal with the challenges of these creatures. I love both games, particularly the lore and the aesthetics and settings, and wanted to incorporate both of them into the world of WABS.

And I think that’s it! If you have any questions about WABS, please do send them my way!

[athenasdragon]

Hey go check out that whole tag, all the aesthetics are 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼

top 10 taz player characters (as voted by my followers)

6. errol ryehouse (dust)

i’m surprised, ‘cause i would think somebody who’s been living around the mines for as long as you have would know a powder keg when you saw one. this town’s about to blow up. and we’re trying to stop it.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

hey star! i’m thinking about watching (listening to?) taz, but i know absolutely nothing about it except that it might be vaguely related to some brothers called the mcelroys? and that they have something to do with critical role and a bunch of other podcasts. should i watch/listen to (is it a podcast too?) taz, why is there “adventure” and “amnesty” and etc, and what do the mcelroys have to do with anything? thank you and i hope the job is going well!

OKAY, so, The Adventure Zone (TAZ) is a DnD podcast done by the three McElroy brothers (that’s said “Mackle-roy,” btw, not “Mick-elroy”), Justin (oldest), Travis (middlest), and Griffin (youngest and DM), and their dad.  I unconditionally recommend it as some of the best, funniest comedy I’ve ever encountered, as a genuinely good and heartwarming narrative that brought me to tears more than once, and also just as...like...sometimes a bitch wants to enjoy media that centers around a family that actually loves and enjoys each other as people.  If that last sounds like your cup of tea, I recommend the entire McElroy podcast empire (that’s a separate post), but ESPECIALLY The Adventure Zone.  

Now, in terms of DnD, a lot of people are nervous about starting TAZ because they associate DnD with a very rules-heavy exhaustive kind of activity, which they assume will be zero fun whatsoever.  Now, I...play a lot of DnD, so that wasn’t really a concern for me.  Regardless, the McElroys absolutely do not understand the rules of DnD and have never allowed a rule to stop them from making a good joke or having a good time, and frankly I think that is a totally valid way to play the game!  It’s also extremely accessible to people who may not have ever played DnD before, because hey, half the cast has no idea which dice to roll at any given moment.  They are right there with you.  Go forth.

(On the other hand, if you HAVE played DnD before and you don’t mind committing yourself to an ungodly amount of content, I whole-heartedly recommend Critical Role!  It is a YouTube series that also exists as a podcast, both equally fun ways to consume the material.  The seven players and DM are all famous voice actors that you have definitely heard in something somewhere, their characters are fucking clutch, and they play a much more rules-heavy game, classic in every way right down to the dungeons and dragons, that is a ton of fun.  The main reason I usually tell people to start with TAZ, however, is this: TAZ episodes run about an hour, with few exceptions, and release every other week.  Critical Role episodes average four hours and release weekly.  So if you have that kind of time, that’s awesome, absolutely do it!  I’ve finally started watching through their first campaign and it’s great, I’m mostly caught up on their current campaign and it’s also great.  Watching their DM work is just...competence porn, and the characters are fucking destroying me in both campaigns.  TAZ is more approachable in terms of content volume, though.)

Narratively speaking, you should start at the beginning of TAZ, at the start of their Balance campaign.  You asked about the “Amnesty” thing, and this is your answer--you can’t run a DnD campaign forever, all stories end eventually, so their first campaign that kicked off the podcast is called “Balance” and is 69 episodes long.  If you hear people talking about Taako, Magnus, Merle, “the seven birds”, etc, those are all from Balance.  Then they ran some mini campaigns where they tried new stuff out, specifically “Commitment” and “Dust,” and then they settled on “Amnesty” as their new campaign.  Each campaign is set in a totally different world with wildly different rules and they’re all pretty radical, but here’s a short breakdown:

BALANCE: It’s fucking DnD, babes (although remarkably short on both dungeons and dragons).  They fight goblins, they get magic items, they have a wizard and a fighter and a cleric.  They go to the moon to join a secret society and get in a deadly car battlewagon race, there are liches and time loops and Wheels of Misfortune, there’s a giant mindwiping jellyfish and Garfield the Deals Warlock.  There are elevators.  ...okay, so they get pretty far from your traditional DnD universe build, the universe gets weird pretty quick, but like.  Just trust me, get a good giggle out of two or three arcs worth of dick jokes, and then buckle in for the emotional shit.

COMMITMENT: A superhero mini-campaign!  Three people get superpowers from their place of business and trash shit at an abandoned amusement park, it’s a good time.

DUST: Urban fantasy old Western murder mystery.  What else do I even need to say, honestly.

AMNESTY: The new arc!  If Supernatural took place in small-town West Virginia where half the monsters were pretty chill actually and the cast was Sketchy Con Man With Car, Long-Suffering Chosen Forest Ranger, and Punk Magical Bisexual With Pet Rabbit.  This one has a much more cohesive aesthetic than Balance, but I love it anyway.  

TLDR: yes you SHOULD listen to The Adventure Zone.  It’s hilarious when they’re busy telling dick jokes at first, and heartwrenching when they realize they have the ability to get heartwrenching, and those two things happen within minutes of each other more often than not.  And if you have gotten this far and you are sitting there thinking “Huh, this is weird, normally this is where Star goes the fuck Off about pitching the narrative,” it’s a DnD game! They go on quests to find shit!  There are seven shits to find!  They have mixed success at finding the shit!  What do you want from me!  

Oh, also, something that I have come to really appreciate lately: the McElroys put a lot of work into being funny without being mean.  Balance and Amnesty and the mini campaigns are all diverse, enjoyable universes, the punchline of a joke is never “ha ha, that person is [whatever]”, queer characters live long badass lives--I dunno, this might not matter to people, but I just find it incredibly restful.  Four cis white heterosexual men are not necessarily who I expected to provide that restful universe, but damned if they didn’t deliver in spades.  Plant your gays in healthy topsoil and water regularly and you too could mysteriously end up on the NYT bestseller list.

[undertakers-convention]

I feel like no one talks about taz dust enough and that's a fuckin crime. It was an absolute delight, aesthetic as fuck, and I like it, which means all of you have to

[sebayard]

N, W, Z

Thank you for indulging me :’)

N: Your favorite fanfiction or fanauthor

Ooohhhhhhhh boy, it’s impossible for me to pick one so… 

been living in the fast lane by @arahir

of desert grains and cosmic dust by @wolfsan11

And Hey, Thanks for Listening by BurntTea

and I’m really loving just my soul responding by @hazelnatcoffee

W: 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms

Okay, here we go:

1. Keith (VLD)

2. Hiccup (HTTYD)

3. Taako (TAZ)

4. Spock (Star Trek)

5. Gimli (LOTR)

Z: Just ramble about something fan related

Uuuuuhhhhhhh Oooh!! How about music??? I love how songs can really evoke a certain aesthetic involving a character or a ship or a setting; it’s such an awesome storytelling tool. Like The Black Paladins theme??? Gosh I can’t listen to it without getting emotional. I’d even argue that listening to it gets me more teary eyed than watching, because I’m doing play by plays in my head, thinking about the meaning, kinda making my own version in my head. I do this with TAZ too (catch me sobbing whenever Lucretia’s theme comes on). And also listening to certain songs and thinking about how your favorite characters relate to them. Like every time I listen to Expensive Mistakes by Fall Out Boy I think of Keith. Here’s a couple more songs/what I associate them with because I literally can’t shut up:

Work Song // Hozier (Sheith)

Cut To The Feeling // Carly Rae Jepsen (Shiro) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  

Wallowa Lake Monster // Sufjan Stevens (Keith)

Surrender // Walk The Moon (Lance, any Lance ships tbh)

Sick of Losing Soulmates // dodie (Sheith or Keitor)

Still Some Big Deal // Josh Pyke (Sheith)

Ask Fandom Stuff!!!

[wiredentrails]

so obsessed with the aesthetics of both taz dust and taz amnesty

[snzical]

1, 7 :D

:D

1. what’s your favorite way to dress?

i’m a cozy boye!! i wear a lot of sweatshirts and the same converse every day, even thought they have a hole in the canvas

7. what song is your aesthetic?

either the taz dust theme or push back the hands!!