#Tin Foil Hattery

[seeker-ophelia]

14 Days Until Veilguard

Technically 13 days, 23 hours and 27 minutes but who's counting...

I AM UNWELL

[seeker-ophelia]

OK you all need to go watch Ghil dirthalens Youtube on this right now.

More below the cut.

Yeah Ima just put this picture here...

Lets work on the big ones.

Pinks probably Ghilly, im guessing with a tail, Orange looks feminine, probably Andruil. Yellow is Elgar'daddy for sure.

Green is hooded, probably Dirth?

Red with the eye.

WHO TF IS THIS?

Are You Falon'din?

Why you have the inquisition eye on your head, bro?

Why you have triangles on your back, bro?

The scratched out ones?

Probably Sylaise and June.

Why? Because we don't know a lot about them and they're a mystery. That's literally my only reasoning.

Are they really being hid? If so, why?

Well, probably because I think June is dwarf but I don't have the brain space to explain why right now.

You want to REALLY be confused?

Come talk to me about Archdemon because...

Boy am I confused by that one.

AKA

This is supposed to be a calendar, but fucking.. how?

I have SCOURED the wiki. I have spent LITERAL DAYS looking for important historical events. I have changed the zero date, no information we have (so far) matched (I actually have a powerpoint presentation on this).

But you wanna know something interesting?

The 2nd Magister, the 5th Magister, and the 7th Magister.

2 and 5 hit.

52.

Dragon Age The Veilguard begins in 9.52 Dragon.

Oh yeah, and lets not forget...

Oh and...

Fucking THESE CODEX'S?

DA:O - Corra

(Corra is the bartender of Tapster's Tavern, in the Commons of Orzammar) Corra Quote: "With fifty-two types of ales, seventeen types of mead, and a dozen imported wines, we should be able to serve your needs. What'll you have?"

DA:2 - Letter: Feeling Inadequate?

Flag flying at half-mast? Does your soldier not stand to attention? Does your dwarf shy away from the Deep Roads? Come to Jorman's Apothecary and ask for our Special Sauce. Our Special Sauce is infused with the essences of fifty-two herbs. It's completely natural, completely safe, and ABSOLUTELY EFFECTIVE. You will never feel the same again!

DA:I - Codex entry: The Friends of Red Jenny

My father went after her once. You want to lose your friends fast? Just say you're tracking hers. He found a report that said she was killed in Nevarra. Everyone in that command, to a man: dead or hobbled or somehow lost their claims during the winter following. Know when that was written? Fifty-two years ago! I'll take a witch over whatever she is. Let her pick at the nobles; I think it's nature. —Recommendations of Captain Varn, private militiaman contracted in Denerim

WHATS WITH THE FIFTY TWO, BIOWARE?

WHEN I TELL YOU I AM UNWELL

I MEAN IT

"Invasion": The Inquisition Mosaic You Didn't Look At Close Enough (Neither Did I)

There I was, minding my own business, in the "clean-up" phase of my pre-Veilguard Inquisition playthrough, finally getting to the point of picking up the final missing pieces of my mosaics and dreading it. I finished "Invasion" and talked to Gatsi for the codex entry .... and something gave me pause.

Gatsi surmises that "Invasion" -- along with the rest of the mosaics, I believe -- is a Tevinter carving. And he concludes that "Invasion" must be depicting the magisters' assault of the Golden City. There were seven magisters, after all, and seven figures in the carving -- although the piece has been defaced and two have been notably and intentionally scratched out -- and the setting is clearly meant to depict a heavenly city, where mortals are not meant to tread. But then, he says this:

This had me ALARMED. I've always subscribed to the theory of the Golden City being Arlathan. I don't even really know if that's a niche theory anymore or if most people are on the same page with that, but reading this made me absolutely certain of it. A depiction of the Golden City that an expert architect is saying has elements of elven architecture. So, I ran to the mosaic to look at it.

And then I tilted my head sideways at the figures that Gatsi was claiming to be "magisters". And I said: "No, that's Ghilan'nain".

Here's the mosaic, which I've sharpened to make it easier to see and with the addition of my own markups:

Mythal wouldn't be depicted here, because she's dead at this point. Fen'Harel wouldn't be depicted -- for obvious reasons. If my identification of who's pictured here is correct (and it may not be, associating the elven pantheon with their sigils is a bit of a shaky science right now), that would make Sylaise and June the two that have been scratched out. I'm assuming they would have originally been in the lower left hand corner.

As to why they'd be scratched out, BEATS ME. Maybe there was greater dissent amidst the pantheon than we know about.

But uh....yeah. I didn't fucking know this existed. Because those mosaics were annoying to grab and I really never looked too closely at them. And I looked, and I haven't seen anybody talking about it. But I'm taking this as soft confirmation on the Golden City = Arlathan = the place where the elven gods were imprisoned theory. And it's been ... right there. In the game. For eleven years.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Hard Rock Essentials 2000 Hard Rock / Blues-Rock / Arena Rock / Hair Metal / Pop-Metal / Heavy Metal / Adult-Oriented Rock / Progressive Rock / Pop-Rock

God, classic rock really has to be the most over-entitled and over-represented type of music in America, man. I mean, can you think of any other non-contemporary stuff that has a radio station solely dedicated to it in virtually every nook and cranny of this country? It's pretty obvious why it's managed to own so much radio real estate over the years, though—because it's pure catnip for nostalgic white boomers—but if you zoom all the way out and think about all of the music that's come and gone since the 50s, there's really no justifiable reason for this stuff to get so much more airtime than any other type of music from the past. I mean, classic rock is fine for what it is, but it's definitely not leaps and bounds better than everything else.

Take a song like Foreigner's "Hot Blooded," for instance, which is just one of multiple tracks to appear on this triple-disc compilation of so-called Hard Rock Essentials here that happens to deal with the complex subject matter of, *checks notes*, being extremely horny. "Hot Blooded" was a hit in its day, sure, but so were literally tens of thousands of other songs too. And I guess, at the end of the day, I just don't really understand why this song, and so many other ones that are featured on this comp as well, has earned its keep as a fixture of constant classic rock radio rotation. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, is "Hot Blooded" really all that remarkable of a song, so much so, that we need to keep continuously hearing it on our radios year after year? No way!

But, folks, I have to admit that it is actually far too late for me on this front. I am by no means a boomer, but I was, at one point, part of another segment that, like clockwork, fell prey to classic rock radio too: the insufferable tweenage boy subset who grew exasperated with the mindlessness of his own generation's contemporary top 40 fare and decided that "Smoke On the Water" and other songs of its ilk were actually the best shit in the world. Little did we know at the time, and some of us still refuse to see it, that a lot of this shit was actually every bit just as dumb as the stuff that we were trying to so actively avoid. God, how embarrassing.

But I really just cannot help it at this point. As much sense as I've tried to make at the top of this post, I really did have a substantial classic rock phase, and now that shit is just hard-coded into my own DNA. Quiet Riot's "Cum On the Feel the Noize" is not a song that deserves to ever be heard by anyone ever again—it's so fucking bad!—but God damnit, I can't stifle the smile that starts to plant itself on my face whenever that stupid thing comes on. And it's much the same for the vast majority of the other tracks that are on this comp too.

So, while Hard Rock Essentials might be revered as a biblical classic rock sampling for both a certain type of tweenage boy and white boomer alike, for me, personally, it's nothing but security blanket rock. This is music that served me well years ago, and I've clearly outgrown it too, but there are also times when I just love to go back and swaddle myself in it as well 😊. And if I'm with someone who swears by this kinda stuff, I'm obviously gonna fully rock out to it with them too, but then maybe, afterwards, I can make their heads explode with a piece of Philadelphia shoegaze from 1996 that only has 26 YouTube views 🤯.

And I'm not gonna really get too much into it here, but we also really need to have some kind of deep reckoning with this whole propped-up and closed-looped classic rock industry that serves itself with all these nearly identical radio station playlists, cheaply produced TV countdown shows, and countless 'greatest of all time' lists on tons of different websites. I'm not trying to do conspiratorial tin foil hattery, but this whole apparatus really needs to have a stick thrown into its spokes, because it's been dominant as an unchallenged authority on classic rock for far too long. Rather than yet another spin of "Rock You Like a Hurricane," a much more thorough exploration of this vast expanse is indeed possible; I can promise you that.

Highlights:

CD1:

Ted Nugent - "Cat Scratch Fever" Great White - "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" Kansas - "Carry On Wayward Son" Quiet Riot - "Cum On Feel the Noise" Warrant - "Heaven" Judas Priest - "You've Got Another Thing Coming" Loverboy - "Lovin' Every Minute of It" Blue Öyster Cult - "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" Scandal - "The Warrior" Living Colour - "Cult of Personality" Mountain - "Mississippi Queen" Argent - "Hold Your Head Up"

CD2:

Foreigner - "Hot Blooded" Bad Company - "Feel Like Makin' Love" INXS - "Need You Tonight" Damn Yankees - "High Enough" Ratt - "Round and Round" Skid Row - "I Remember You" Black Sabbath - "Heaven and Hell" The Doobie Brothers - "China Grove" White Lion - "Wait" April Wine - "Just Between You and Me" Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It"

CD3:

Whitesnake - "Is This Love" Golden Earring - "Radar Love" Joe Walsh - "Rocky Mountain Way" Scorpions - "Rock You Like a Hurricane" The Allman Brothers Band - "Whipping Post" Uriah Heep - "Easy Livin'"

[cucamonga-springs]

Brain Activity Decoder Transforms Thoughts Into Text

From the Tin Foil Hattery Dept.

'Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a semantic decoder that converts brain activity into a continuous text stream, according to a study published in Nature Neuroscience. This non-invasive AI system relies on a transformer model and could potentially aid individuals unable to physically communicate due to conditions like strokes. Participants undergo training with the decoder by listening to hours of podcasts while in an fMRI scanner. The decoder then generates text from brain activity while the participant listens to or imagines a story...

'Unlike other language decoding systems in development, this system does not require subjects to have surgical implants, making the process noninvasive. Participants also do not need to use only words from a prescribed list. Brain activity is measured using an fMRI scanner after extensive training of the decoder, in which the individual listens to hours of podcasts in the scanner. Later, provided that the participant is open to having their thoughts decoded, their listening to a new story or imagining telling a story allows the machine to generate corresponding text from brain activity alone...

'The result is not a word-for-word transcript. Instead, researchers designed it to capture the gist of what is being said or thought, albeit imperfectly. About half the time, when the decoder has been trained to monitor a participant’s brain activity, the machine produces text that closely (and sometimes precisely) matches the intended meanings of the original words.'

Read more here.

[seeker-ophelia]

Spoilers below the cut

You have this:

This is what I'm talking about

It's from the window side quest in the fade.

But it also kinda looks like this...?

This is the box that holds the spirit in Chateau d'Onterre (Emerald Graves).

And uhh.... peep this.

Look familiar?

Teventer? You mean Elvhan.

It also looks kinda like the caretakers thing?

(Not pictured here, I cant seem to find it but I thought he had a glowing cube?)

I have no more brain-string left for theories, only pictures.

Make of it what you will.

frame by frame analysis making sense of the new release trailer >:)

major spoilers below including clips from today's trailer, clips and info from previous trailers, and mention of information from broken NDA's/leaks

everything i mention here is basically new footage or footage given new context within today's trailer. most of the trailer is stuff we've already seen, but there are a few completely new clips and honestly some major reveals if you're looking closely and are generally INSANE like me :D

starting at the top is this same scene we have seen several times now, originally from the (controversial) reveal trailer back in like june, but we are seeing it before whatever ritual happens begins. ive been trying to figure out where exactly this takes place but im honestly not sure. it could be the black city in the fade, though the sky doesn't really look fade-like and theres a distinct presence of gravity and logic that the fade doesn't have. plus, the moon can be seen a few seconds later, and she's usually not in the fade.

these statues are similar the ones from solas's ritual site in the prologue of the game, but area is slightly different. the evanuris statues seem to be in the same order, however.

i honestly dont know where this is. or what the fuck this thing is.

lyrium idol????? titan heart orb?????? no clue. its red though!

next we have a new dragon we have seen very little of over in rivain. we have only ever seen this dragon in shots of rivain, such as taash's introduction in the original reveal trailer. it seems to just be a dragon, but the audio that plays at this moment says "it's been feeding on the blight!". i think this is an editing fake-out, and would bet that this dragon is just something we slay when we recruit taash.

we can see them being sexy and fighting it in the reveal trailer:

next up is a shot of a blighted minrathous, featuring both the andraste statue we saw in the gameplay reveal and the famous floating panopticon, being taken over by blight cysts and tentacles, under a red sky (seemingly caused by that ritual happening with the red ball in the first pic). remember this one because its arguably part of the biggest reveal of this trailer :)

next we have some venatori nonsense. to be honest idgaf about these losers but they are up to something, possibly working with the evanuris if i were to wager a guess, considering it is effectively confirmed that the evanuris are the old gods, and there is no way they are not capitalizing on that worship and loyalty by manipulating the venatori just like cory did!

what is interesting is WHO THE FUCK IS THIS?

my heart wants to say andruil so bad. its probably not its probably some venatori or something but what if. WHAT IF!

next we are back in minrathous with..... some massive skeleton feet stomping around?

we know this is minrathous for a few reasons, mostly because of the magic glowy barrier wall in the background that we see later in minrathous with venatori walking past but also with our entire group of allies:

this is extra interesting because the only time we've seen anything about giant skeletons are of course this dude, who we have seen now here and in the release date trailer

THIS guy is clearly in the grand necropolis however, so the question is how did he get his big skeleton feet to minrathous? of course, there could be multiple big skeletons running around causing havoc. we will find out in a week. heres another shot of the skeleton feet because i find this fun

next!

we know this is ghilan'nain's archdemon because we see it referred to as that (could be marketing manipulation, tho) and see it in the gameplay we have seen of the weisshaupt quest. this seems to also be in weisshaupt or the surrounding area of hossberg, due to the cute lil griffon statues behind her head

next we are back to the giant skeletons; this time i think this guy is in minrathous rather than the necropolis due to the architecture behind him. this could be the top part of his body while his bottom half is crushing rook beneath his big skeletal toes. im already obsessed with this

next we've got something else that i have no fucking clue about: ???????? all i have to say is notice the distinctly elvhen ear. ghilan'nain's creation perhaps???? why are they stabbing a rock and why is it bleeding??? why does this look identical to the skyrim dragonbone armor??????

next we have mother ghilan'nain being a freak in a new scene with a massive serpentine monster <3 this seems to be in weisshaupt because of davrin, the steeples in the background, the lighting, and the griffon statues on the right.

we see the serpentine monster again later in the trailer and it honestly looks so fucking sick. this is a creature we have never seen before and i cannot wait to see it in action. it seems like the above scene takes place after this one, perhaps after the creature is defeated?

NOW REMEMBER WHEN I TOLD YOU TO REMEMBER THE MINRATHOUS PANOPTICON BEING BLIGHTED????

whats that? in the corner?

pookie is free and walking around minrathous <3 <3 <3 also notice he has his dagger on his hip....

speaking of the dagger.... we also see rook taking it out of a stabbed ghilan'nain

we saw the first half of these scene earlier in the release date trailer, as rook tries to get close to her and large waves of power burst out of her body:

im gonna put it into the universe now because why not..... i think this might be an attempt to cure ghilan'nain of the blight. MAYBE! im just saying. we know a stab to the heart with this isnt neccesarily fatal because we know varric survives something similar. or, this is one of the few ways to effectively kill a blighted creature that can just hop bodies, like we know cory and archdemons can do.

next we see a familiar dragon in what seems to be a new setting?

this is the same dragon from the snowy, warden fight scene we've seen several times now, with this dragon and then the blue one that we saw the boss fight of. but the architecture on the right is clearly tevinter, the statues are ???????, and the spine off to the side kind of looks like what we saw above with that massive serpentine creature. i wonder if the mish-mash means that this is in the fade.

next we see a follow up to a moment we saw above, all of your assembled allies together in minrathous:

this seems to happen moments after this:

i think this is probably the finale of act 1, and all of these scenes of your squad running through minrathous lead up to the other ones we have seen of a massive dragon fight under a red sky, with solas in the dread wolf form. this one, from the release date trailer:

this is also the same environment where the skeleton guys are stomping around earlier, so part of me wonders if they are actually on our side against whatever evanuris/dragon/eldritch horror we are fighting here and just a bit clumsy <3

also - shoutout to carly @arlathen for noticing it looks like there is an executor in this lineup

thats all folks! partly because im done but also because i literally hit the 30 image limit LMFAO. my biggest takeaway from this is that solas is freed from his prison fairly early on, because i really thing this is the finale of act 1. they have said that everything we've seen in marketing is from act 1 and i dont think that would have changed for this trailer.

happy 1 week left and please go crazy speculating in the replies and reblogs xoxo <3

[watsonianbumble]

blah blah contact twits

I’ve reversed Google Image searched pictures from the ContactJHW and ContactSH twitter accounts and they’re always original.

OG pup pic “Paddy” - so why did JHW post a pic from s3 setlock:

Didn’t need to post a pic of Sherlock. Hasn’t before. Why now? 

When reserve searching I found that Mark Gatiss posted this photo from s3 Setlock [x]

But there was also another recommended bit that popped out of the search 

this is most likely from the fan edits that came out after this photo was released, but just in case it’s relevant, here are the lyrics [x]:

i’ll leave you to your deductions.

[thesherlockexperiment]

Interesting Fact

The Director of TBB is named Euros Lyn...

[mikabee]

tinhatters be like

(i love u guys!!)

[seeker-ophelia]

Some Felassan Tin-Foil-Hattery from 3 months ago?

DONT MIND IF I DO

WHAT IF THE MYSTERIOUS ENCHANTER IN THE LIGHTHOUSE IN DA:TV IS FELASSAN?

SPOILERS FOR THE MASKED EMPIRE BELOW PLEASE DONUT READ IF YOU WANT TO BE FRESH FOR THAT BOOK

the dev team has been cagey talking about who/what is enchanting your shit in the Lighthouse. Some people are taking that as meaning Sandal may be back (myself included) but his voice actor isn't listed and he has said he hasn't gotten the call.

When Dreamers are killed in The Fade they're made tranquil in the waking world. This is explained in the DA2 Feynriel Questline. At the end of The Masked Empire, Solas kills Felassan- as confirmed by Cole in Trespassers- but the way the scene is written it is heavily implied he died in the Fade because he can only meet Solas via dreams (Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, pp. 378–380)

The Tranquil and Dwarves are the only people who posses the immunity to Magic/Lyrium in order to work enchantments. David Gaider on the defunct Bioware Social Forums: "Raw lyrium affects mages the worst, yes. The affect on non-mages is lesser but still harmful. Dwarves and tranquil would be mostly unaffected by raw lyrium unless they spend too much time in its presence."

CONCLUSION: TRANQUIL FELASSAN IS A VIABLE OPTION TO BE OUR ENCHANTER IN THE LIGHTHOUSE IN DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGAURD

[heimishtheidealhusband]

Okay so I'm reading the guardian article on Ian and Mark. (https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/feb/01/mark-gatiss-and-ian-hallard-sherlock-we-met-online-back-when-that-was-odd) (sorry, I'm on mobile) A few things: 1) they were considering titling the episode backlash? What? This implies that they knew the public would hate it. Their argument that they knew the public wouldn't like anything they did because Sherlock is popular and that's what happens to all popular things makes absolutely NO sense. Im sorry, but if this anecdote is true, it adds evidence to the show getting reichenbached. 2) Mark states that series 3 of League of Gentlemen was initially panned but is now seen as a masterpiece. As a LoG nerd, let me say: I wasn't around when s3 initially aired but I literally can't imagine it getting bad reviews? I loved it the first time I watched it and loved it more with each rewatch? Certainly there was no drop off in production quality or writing. And I did just a bit of digging and I don't see any evidence whatsoever that the series got the reviews that Sherlock is getting. Which leads me to: 3) Just gonna put this out there for the tin foil hat squad. The plot of s3 of LoG was that each episode appeared to be a stand alone, but when you get to the last episode you see that every episode's plot is actually intertwined via a car crash at the very end. So. That's a thing.

[housmania]

A Study in Conspiracies

Fandom: Well, this has been VERY interesting. We look forward to complaining to the BBC.

Mofftiss: Just before you go, did you figure it out? Whether it's a real episode? Gay or trash? Genius or dumpster fire?

Fandom: ...

Mofftiss: Come on. Play the game.

Fandom: ...

Fandom: *sighs*

Fandom: *puts on tin foil hats* WE DIE LIKE CONSPIRATORS.

[fishfingersanddeanmons]

GUYS I FOUND SOMETHING

 I don’t know whether this has been done already but I haven’t seen anything on it so I decoded it myself. You know the solveme code on thelostspecial.com? The dancing men? 

It translates to this: “I see you stand like greyhounds in the slip-straining upon the start” Right, so I looked it up, and i found out it comes from that “once more unto the breach dear friends” speech at the end of Shakespeare’s Henry V, 1598.

It literally means “I see you anxious and ready to depart”. Back to this speech again? What does it all mean?? 

@inevitably-johnlocked

[conspiracybeardisawig-blog]

“Surprise. You didn’t think I’d just disappear, did you?”

This came on AFTER the behind the scenes footage AFTER what is known as the final episode! What’s the point, if not to hint at something to come?

[sockenpuppe]

[reticentral]

What would you do, then?” “Engage a special.

The Final Problem, Arthur Conan Doyle

[may-shepard]

If tfp is John's Mind Bungalow, and he's lying on the conveniently blood-coloured rug on the floor of Euros's office, then maybe he really is on the verge of death, and he has to pass through the purgatory of Mary's final voiceover to get to the heaven of the dream of the rest of his life spent with Sherlock and Rosie.