Dragon's Lair

Lisa Stevens’ Ceramic Sculptures Capture Coral-Inspired Motifs in Vibrant Color

I LOVE being alive so I can be mediocre at SO many different hobbies

People in the tags keep saying this but unironically but this WAS unironic I actually do have hobbies and I am mediocre at them. And they do make me happy anyway

The conversation around media piracy is never really going to be a black-and-white "always good" or "always bad," because it's so situational.

I'd really prefer people didn't pirate my book, because I am an independent, self-published author who makes like thirty cents per sale and regularly has to e-beg in order to get groceries. Maybe don't pirate from people in my situation.

Meanwhile, it's currently very imperative that people preserve as many things being purged from HBO Max as possible, because even the creators are saying they don't know the fate of the shows right now. The corporations that own everything are screwing people over and restricting access to the art.

Authors have been screwed over by publishing houses over book piracy issues, and legitimate sales numbers can sometimes make or break an author's career. In that sort of circumstance you should get books through shops or the local library, if you can.

But on the flip side, I recently tried very hard to go through legal sources to get my hands on some books for a project I'm working on. Half my booklist is out of print or hard to find, the local libraries didn't have it, the inter-library loan system was complicated to navigate, and the only "accessible" copies cost almost $100 on Thriftbooks. Pirating the PDFs is the only way I'm able to read them at all, just like several documentaries I downloaded that are only available through paid streaming services I can't afford.

Sometimes piracy is a dick move, sometimes it's vital to media preservation, sometimes it's a grey area, most of the time you've gotta make a personal judgment call on what constitutes "ethical piracy."

I generally adhere to the guideline "fuck over as few artists as possible; fuck over corporations as much as you can."

Nathaniel Howe

I've been watching some videos about plot choices in DA:O and DA2 that I've never seen, and Merrill has this amazing line in the Gallows at the end of Act 3, if you side against her and the mages. It speaks to everything I adore about her character, and sums up the central conflict of the entire Dragon Age series so poignantly:

"If I leave these mages to die, or I help you kill them, what then? Magic can't be made safe, and it can't be destroyed. Fear makes men more dangerous than magic ever could."

That's the thing I love about Merrill. Out of all the mages we encounter throughout the series, on both sides of the mage-templar conflict, Merrill has always been the one who, despite her flaws, or maybe because of them, understands the hard truths about magic that almost no one else seems able or willing to accept.

This line in the Gallows reminds me of another line she has, a banter line with Anders after Justice takes over and almost kills that one girl.

Merrill understands that magic is not safe, and will never be safe. And until the rest of Thedas is ready to accept that, the mage-templar conflict will never end. Because until you can accept that there's no silver bullet solution to the problem of dangerous spirits and mages who choose to hurt people, you'll never be willing to do the hard work it takes to co-exist.

This is about succession in general but take it for any story.

i said wat i said

The Bus | Paul Kirchner | Via

WOW

DAI Scenery | Storm Coast - Daerwin’s Mouth

Nathaniel and Anders……and Sigrun 

In Amaranthine (Awakening)

"I can fix him" not in a "I can make him into a better person" way but in a "if he was my character I would've handled his story better" way

Very happy to finally post my third tutorial! Thank you so much for your overwhelming support of my last tutorial, I am so happy it was useful for you guys 🙇‍♀️. I feel like this topic was harder to explain so feel free to ask me some questions if you want!

Like last time, I really hope this helps some of you in your art path 🙌

I’ve noticed lately that it’s often Americans who leave tags like “I don’t even care if it’s made up” on posts I make that are not particularly unbelievable, but are pretty specific to my way of life or corner of the world (like the one about the cheese vendor). It reminds me of that tweet that was circulating, that said Americans have a “medieval peasant scale of worldview”—I mean, if you don’t want to be perceived this way by the rest of the world maybe don’t go around social media saying that if a cultural concept or way of life sounds unfamiliar it must be made up?

It’s the imbalance that’s annoying, because like—when I mentioned having no mobile network around here I had people giving me info about Verizon to fix my problem. I post some rural pic and someone says it must be somewhere in the Midwest because the Southwest doesn’t look like this. My post about my postwoman has thousands of Americans assuming it’s about the USPS. On my post about my architect there’s someone saying “it’s because architecture is an impacted major” and other irrelevant stuff about how architecture is taught in the US. This kind of thing happens so so so often and I’m expected to be familiar with the concepts of Verizon and the Midwest and impacted majors and the USPS and meanwhile I make a post about my daily life and Americans in the notes are debating like “dunno if real. it sounds made up”

Going online for the rest of the world means having to keep in mind an insane amount of hyperspecific trivia about American culture while going online for Americans means having to keep in mind that the rest of the world really exists I guess

The thing op is talking abt:

Revenant Hill

“In the shadow of your wings” by Daniel Gerhartz