#there will be more of these

[elise-the-blind]

So, redrawing the first cutscene in TLF means that sometimes I'll notice something and get caught thinking more into it, one of those being that Daxter is the first to notice they're being followed by pirates because he heard them. So Daxter probably has enhanced hearing because of him being an ottsel (along with other senses probably) which is cool and all but man that had to have been a pain to deal with the first few days right? Except that Sandover was a quiet beach village with a very small population, so it probably wasn't as bad as it could have been. Dude was in a reasonably peaceful area, and sure when lurkers were attacking, that would have been noisy, but so many times there's just areas where you can only hear nature and your own footsteps.

But then of course, he ends up in Haven. A huge city, full of people and machinery and conflict. Constant noise all the time with no real end. Thinking about it this way, maybe another reason it took him so long to find Jak was because he was beyond disoriented and had to get used to the city sounds before he could really focus on anything. Maybe something that helped with that was getting a job where he got to be in places that were empty of people because of the infestations?

If I have to be stuck thinking about this then so do you.

[beedallo]

[english-history-trip]

Images from the margins of the 14th century Luttrell Psalter

[thetrolltolls]

dee as barbies 💖🎀👠

[fritzyritzy]

doodles

[owenthetokencishet]

LORD-CAPTAIN CAMINA BALTAZAR

Camina is the spoiled younger child of the Baltazar family. The only daughter of the late Gabriella Baltazar, and younger sister to Lord-Captain Gideon, Camina assumed the throne would never be hers. As second-born, the most anybody would expect of her was a marriage arranged for political favour. She had grown up spoiled rotten and incredibly sheltered. After her mother's death at the hands of Drukhari slavers, it became a shelter she was determined never to leave.

Then, Cadia fell, the Eye of Terror opened, and the Imperium was cleft in twain. With her mother long-dead and her brother, and half the Baltazar Protectorate, lost on the far side of the Rift, the throne was hers.

She inheritted a realm in utter disarray. The Protectorate's trade network was eviscerated, with many agri-worlds and the primary Forge World cut off from the capital. Insurrection spread like a virus, with much of the protectorate in open revolt. And behind it all, the shadow of Hive Fleet Leviathan creeps over the realm.

[jayoftheorb]

Had some thoughts about the bad kids class swap, so here's my headcanons about them all if they were bards (very rambly, I'm bad at writing)

Gorgug- when he was small he would play on the pots and pans like drums and his parents wanted to encourage his creativity. Has tried probably every instrument his parents could find or make, it's metalwork. Gets really into drums and some string instruments, can't play alot of brass cuz of tusks but trumpet is easier, French horn is even harder because of the delicate trigger mechanisms, gets really good at clarinet for some reason, so good that it's his secondary instrument in case he breaks all of his drumsticks (true percussionists have like ten spares, sticks break too easy)(and also fiddle, he can play fiddle really well)

Adaine- learned viola because her parents made her, ended up really liking it, switched to "violin" (plays fiddle, can't call it that in front of parents) think Lindsey Stirling, parents got mad when she became a Bard instead of wizard even though they pushed her to learn and get better, hits her dad w fiddle and kills him, her fiddle in s/j year is a gift from fabian and its practically indestructible(gold, made by telamine, theres a side quest where she kicks the devils ass at fiddle)

Fabian- Really likes sea shanties, starts out dancing with his pa, does alot of 2 and 4 steps, lotta linedancing before getting into elven dance, could be a real good master of ceremonies when he starts hip-hop dancing, is in the college of swords but its very piratey, learned fiddle for fun but actually really enjoys it especially the slower more classical melodies favorite spell is suggestion

Kristen- acoustic guitar. Can also play piano but doesn't want to lug around a keyboard. Has a lovely voice but prefers to let her guitar do most of the work, wanted to be a paladin(to helio) like her parents for a while but becomes a paladin of Cass in the nightmare forest, it's wild. When she meets tracker at the black pit they bond over only really knowing worship songs and tracker gives her a book w/ rock sheet music (classically trained) she steals an electric guitar from the black pit and stashes it at fabians house for a while till she moves in with track and jawbone

Riz- (most excited about this one) goblin music is chaos, idk alot about indigenous music, but I like it, riz does alot of throat singing and body drumming, alot of odd noises, his dad used to sing him to sleep, kinda sounds like Tibetan throat singing with alot of clicking and hissing and all that (need to do research) the other bks like it alot, when he gets more comfortable he starts doing more metal (kinda like korn) struggles alot with connecting to his heritage (personal hc; 3rd gen goblin imigrant, sklondas ma came to bastion city for a new life when the rangers moved in on the mountains of chaos, poks dad moved from the other side of spyre (idk) Pok lived in elmville for his whole life, moved to bastion to work for the government culture outreach program, met sklonda, moved back to elmville, had riz, got eaten by a dragon)

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

shameless characters as cats

blame @lovekenney for this post… idk why just do

[byrdkueer]

The Strokes, Meet Me In The Bathroom

[aquamonstra]

sooooo @sidneysussex and I did a thing....

Prompted by the question of "What EXACTLY is the success condition of the Joining, and why is the survival rate so low?" I fell DEEP down the DA research rabbit hole and developed this theory based off in-world lore/evidence and real, natural world comparisons.

But because I'm a disaster when it comes to academia and its practices, the BRILLIANT @sidneysussex swooped in and saved my ass, molding my rough ramblings into this BEAUTIFUL AND PROFESSIONALLY FORMATTED paper 😍

Without further ado, please enjoy possibly the driest Dragon Age publication ever 😅

Toward a unifying theory of the blight and its effects

In this paper, we present a unifying theory of the blight that positions it as a corruption of the ancient isatunoll, or collective hivemind consciousness, of the Titans and their descendants. We propose that this isatunoll, sundered from the Titans and cast into the Fade by the Evanuris and then further altered to incorporate the Taint, constitutes the blight as it is known today. Additionally, we propose that the Joining ritual of the Order of the Grey Wardens serves to inoculate those who survive it against further corruption by the Taint via a sympathetic bond with the archetypal isatunoll. Finally, we provide reasoning to suggest that the Joining can only be survived by those with latent genetic heritage derived from the Titans themselves, whether directly (as with the dwarva) or via the ancient elvhen people who constructed physical bodies from lyrium, the blood of the Titans.

Download the PDF version here

ao3 link

[ms5m1th]

soft!dad!lo'ak pt. 2

will rough house with his kids, letting them win most of the time

let's them climb him like a jungle gym

introduces them to Payakan and pouts when they ignore him for the tulkun

literally cries when his kids are in their phase that they don't want him hugging or kissing them

will play along with their childish beef/gossip

"daddy, guess what!?"

"what is it, baby boy?"

"____ was caught eating SAND!"

"no FUCKING WAY!"

Mentioning cursing, curses all the time but doesn't let his kids curse.

they find it more amusing than anything.

*the kids beating him at a game*

"I'm sick of this goddamn BULLSHIT!"

"Daddy's silly,"

"Do it again! Do it again!"

teaches his son (and daughter) about consent and boundaries at an early age, causing the boy to be slightly protective over his Mama and sister.

on that some road, he hates bullies.

will punch, kick, and bite, no matter the gender.

rated e for everyone.

Lo'ak scolds him for it sometimes, but is proud.

surprisingly, his shy baby girl is more chaotic than her brother.

and she doesn't even mean to be, she just does stuff without realizing it (and is SO clumsy)

gives him heart attacks at LEAST 4-5 times a day

"Daddy?"

"Yes, baby?"

"what is this?"

*holds one of his guns, pointing it towards her own face*

"baby NO-!"

Teaches his kids gun safety.

Lesson learned.

[scales-of-stardust]

before I go to sleep and have to work tomorrow

Have some Yaling and Feng rambles that have been thought of in the past 4 weeks. More coming soon

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[nightmare-from-heaven]

Hey. Your brain needs to de-frag. Literally it needs you to sit there and space out.

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

Give your brain a Daily Dose Of De-Frag.

[ducktollers]

🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊