#what will they play in ads and stuff

[artist-rat]

some epilogue vibes (an excuse to draw some hugs. and my durge so many times)

[wigglybunfish]

Been rereading Little Women recently... or technically, properly reading it for the first time. The last time I touched this book was when I was ten, and the book I touched was a shortened chinese edition (or was it just the first half? anyway) Here are the sisters in 21 century post covid and I think Beth would've loved the groundbreaking invention that is the Hoodie

[raediggitydog]

Dragon Bros came up on my playlist shuffle the other day, n it made me wanna redraw it! Can you believe it’s been almost 5 years? 😫💀

(Original art post and Ely’s Remix)

[rassicas]

my mom sent me money on p*ypal the other day and she called my icon "my creature"

this is my icon i dont think she needs to know how much brainspace this creature of mine has been taking up for the past 7 or so years

[smithsibsceo]

zane and kai bonded in the early seasons by discovering new music together. both didnt really have a great access to it growing up (there was an only an old radio or maybe a scratchy vinyl player in ignacia's library and zane's village had no electricity) so they mainly grew up hearing their respective villages' traditional live music. Hearing those 'end-of-2012-mashup' compilations changed both of their lives

[lizzybeeee]

The Lucanis vs Illario story would have had greater emotional depth/intrigue if the writers didn't water down how fucked up the Crows are as an organization.

Just some thoughts about how, out of all the side villains, Illario had some great potential to be a really interesting/tragic character in my opinion.

TL;DR: Zevran Aranai has a knife with Caterina's name on it for good reason and Lucanis/Illario need therapy...or whatever the Thedas equivalent is called...talking to Rook, I dunno

Going into DATV as a new player, or even as a returning one, the whitewashing of the Crows has a lot of the potential complexities of that life simply ignored or barely touched upon. The entire 'Illario vs Lucanis' boils down to: Illario seething in the shadows about Lucanis being the 'best boy'™ of the family while Illario is an after thought - which he is.

Let's be real, Illario is not subtle and immediately comes across as the Scar to Lucanis' 'Mufasa'. It's a questline with a very straightforward villain who has pretty lackluster motivations from what info we're provided - being 'I want power and to be the First Talon'. The game does very little explore what motivations he may have beyond being jealous of Lucanis/wanting more power.

However, if you play the quest line knowing what previous games have set up about the Crows - about how cutthroat and brutal the life is behind the glamour - then you can see that the entire Lucanis vs Illario conflict has amazing potential to be a dramatic tragedy.

We've seen how the life of Crow can affect Zevran - someone who was sold into the life through child-slavery. How interesting would it be to see how the life of a Crow can affect someone who was born into it? It's pretty clear in-game that Caterina intends for her grandchildren to carry on the family tradition - despite the fact that this 'family tradition' has likely led to the deaths of most of her grandchildren and however many children she had.

If there's banter about how Illario's/Lucanis' parents/cousins died specifically I haven't heard it, but the impression I got in-game was that it was likely linked to the Crows/politics in some way? Feel free to correct me! Still majorly fucked up that she pushes her grandsons into this life regardless!

Lucanis/Illario's situation was not like Zevran's - who was sold into the Crow's through slavery, with no one to speak up for him. Caterina was a woman who had power, who knew what the life of a Crow meant, and who still pushed those she 'loved' into it because is consolidated her place in the system. For all the Crows talk of 'family' Caterina doesn't seem to give a shit about them unless if they're contributing to the family business in some way - not to mention the whole 'you fail and we kill you' clause of being a Crow in the first place.

In the 'Wigmaker Job' from Tevinter Nights Lucanis talks about how Caterina hit him [also Illario] with her cane for mistakes and had him spend days without food/water. How he used to hate her but now 'realizes' that it was her way of ensuring he survived the life of being an Antivan Crow. Did it end up protecting them? It likely pushed them both to refine their skills out of fear. It's likely that simply by association with her they would be targets and thus needed to know how to take care of themselves and fight.

But why have him as a Crow in the first place? Why not simply train them well to defend themselves? You can't deny that she doesn't benefit from having her grandchildren in the family business - intentionally wanting Lucanis to take over her position as First Talon. The Antivan Crows are a force to be reckoned with and being one brings a whole lot of power in Antiva - being part of the elite of that group even more so.

If the game showed us the ugly reality of the Crows - the brutality of the lifestyle and how cutthroat the organization is, it could have really added some depth to Illario's betrayal - having it be more than "I want more power/respect" to "this is the result of what you taught me was valuable in life."

Warden: "Do you actually enjoy being an assassin?" Zevran: "And why not? There are many things to enjoy about being a Crow in Antiva. You are respected. You are feared. The authorities go out of their way to overlook your trespasses. Even the rewards are nothing to turn your nose up at."

Illario, bitter about Caterina favoring Lucanis - resentful of the fact that she has already decided that Lucanis will be her successor, being offered power by the Venatori (at the expense of the Crows) and accepting because why not? How different is it from what the Crows do? Isn't power and status the whole point of working yourself up in the Crows? Getting into a relationship with Zara because why not? Isn't sex part of the allure of being a Crow? Why can't he have this? Why shouldn't he have this?

Rook: "When we met, it didn't seem like Illario and Caterina were close." Lucanis: "It was hard to be close to her. Even for me. And...I was her favorite."

Why would he have connections to his family? Why should he? Caterina certainly never seemed to value 'family' beyond what they could do for her and their family legacy. Most of his family is already dead, and of those that remain the only parental figure he has obviously favors Lucanis. We don't have a lot of evidence in-game to show that Illario ever really cared for Lucanis, but the prequel story 'The Wake' and Lucanis' own banter imply that they were practically brothers, best friends. Perhaps he did care and then ceased to at some point, perhaps he didn't at all, or perhaps he accepted that an early death for them both was inevitable like everyone else in their family. Dead now or later - what was the difference? At least if Illario sells him out now to the Venatori then he'll get something from it instead of another dead family member to bury.

It's the tragic result of raising a child in an environment where he was taught and experienced the need for self-preservation at all costs. Constantly threatened, punished, and made well aware of that fact that his life was an expendable commodity. Then, when things in the world went to shit he picked the only option that made sense to him. To save himself.

The irony of the potential fall of the Crows, the fall of House Dellamorte, coming at the hands of one of their own - not because he had a change of heart but because he was taught too well by them. The Crows view those that fail them as disposable, someone to be discarded - if the Crows fail Illario, what is to stop him from applying that mindset to them?

But this would require the writers to acknowledge how messed up the Crows are and we can't do that to our 'Noble Freedom Fighters'™. They'll also need to address Zevran's existence and what lore was established in past games...and we can't have that either lmao.

[somegrumpynerd]

Killer and Dust are both picky eaters send tumble

[clumsypuppy]

auggie!!

[sonknuxadow]

crazy how ive been seeing people absolutely losing their minds over the way amy is written in the generations remaster and how she was character assassinated and her crush on sonic was removed and im playing it right now and the literal first thing she does when you free her from white space is call sonic cute which is nowhere close to what she said in the original. wtf are you people on about

[grandquest]

Lacey!!!! She’s fun to draw for me

[autistickaitovocaloid]

[xavathun]

hi chat. people liked my mossy titan so i’ve come with my hoard of warlock outfits :]

[sam-montembeault]

Hey so I did actually make a little primer for any of you interested in learning about hockey :) It covers the basic rules and pretty much goes in order of the bare minimum you'd need to know to understand what's going on. It does not include propaganda for convincing you to watch hockey. There's a final section I'll keep expanding on that's just personal enjoyment, and maybe I'll put propaganda there, but the actual meat focused on explaining how to watch the game is all completed and hopefully actually useful :)!

[t-u-i-t-c]

"My... Wheel..."

[medicinemane]

Also listen... I'm hesitant to talk about this just cause of my whole preferring not to talk too much about current events cause I know you all already know, but I gotta say something at at least... like for my own sake on this one

What happened in Boulder is terrible, and... I don't know... shouldn't even need saying, but with the amount of antisemitism I'm seeing these days I at least have to do the bare minimum and say that much

You don't get to kill people just because you disagree with them, even if they're truly horrible you don't

I've been worried about antisemitism on the left for years and... it's coming out in exactly the ways I was fearing all the way back in like 2015

You can criticize the Israeli government with being antisemitic, I actually think it's pretty easy. You say something like "I think it's wrong to bomb hospitals and I think Israel needs to stop", and I did that without having to bring up Jews at all

At a certain point you have to ask, are you fighting for peace? Are you fighting for an end to suffering and senseless death? ...cause I'm not so sure, with way too many people these days I'm just not so sure that's the major focus anymore

Grew up knowing a lot of Jewish people, so I'm not Jewish and at the end of the day I'm safe from any antisemitism... I'm not the one at risk here and any time I wanted I can just shut up and I'm not effected... I know that about me. But even though it's been so many years, was close to enough Jews growing up that antisemitism fucking eats at me, and I gotta say something

You've got people literally just... existing, living their lives... what the hell are you doing bothering Jews for?

Final closing thoughts?

You're not immune to antisemitism. I'm not immune to antisemitism. Even Jewish people aren't immune to it. None of us are immune to being bigoted or hateful. Just because you're coming at things from a good place, a place of love, a place of caring... it doesn't make you immune. In fact, a lot of times love is exactly what gets twisted around till it's a justification for horrible things. You've gotta be careful. Care more about protecting Gazans than hurting or punishing people... like they need help and we gotta do what we can

Second is that you can criticize a government without needing to rip in to everyone in a country. You got anything going on in your country that your government is doing that you don't like? ...yeah, those bastards kinda have a way of doing that, don't they?

Rip the hell into the Israeli government. I don't talk about much other than Ukraine, cause frankly I'm just way more informed on Ukraine and... I think I'm more at risk of saying something stupid than useful here, that's why I tend to shut the hell up, but I mean... Israel's military reminds me way too much of russia's and you have to understand to me there's few worse insults (it's the bombing hospitals that really does it)

But man... what's wrong with you if you're acting like every Jew in the world is responsible for the Israeli government? Not even every Israeli is responsible. They're not a monolith just like you're not a monolith with your government

Focus your anger on who deserves it and stop catching Jews in the crossfire (and if you already do that, then that's real good news to me)

Just seeing way too much antisemitism lately, and way way way too much of it on the left. I can't take it, I can take seeing that growing in my own backyard, you know? If I were gonna convert to anything, it would be Judaism, I feel a connection and I had a lotta friends growing up, so I can't take seeing all this shit

So sincerely, all I'm asking is you look at yourself and make sure you're not sliding into being hateful. That's it... and if look and think maybe you are... don't be doubling down out of shame, get that I'm here telling you that could be me too. There's a line that'll work on all of us if we're not careful, what matters is you catch yourself and work to do better

Anyway... haven't wanted to make this post cause I hate putting too much negative stuff on people's dash, but... man... I can't take it anymore and I gotta say something

Cause it eats at me

[rinofwater]

So outside of the bond quest events and main story, the characters in Azuma get pretty shallow characterization, huh?