#please please please interact

[fates-calling]

I caved and made this silly side-blog! Mostly: because I want a place to scream about my Tavs and the game itself.

So! Meet my three guys!

The only player characters I have made. So far...

Romance: Gale | Playthrough Status: Complete! | Alignment: Chaotic Good

Romance: Astarion | Playthrough Status: Complete! | Alignment: Neutral Evil

Romance: Undecided | Playthrough Status: Act 1 | Alignment: Lawful Good

Some more detailed facts about them under the cut!

Soren

He was taken in by a thieves' guild (which I named the 'Silver Tongues') in Baldur's Gate when he was young after running away from home - who posed or were also bards as a cover-up

He is a raging kleptomaniac, and genuinely can't seem to help himself sometimes

In-game every single romanceable companion in the tadpole gang, tried to sleep with him: except for Karlach. Even the Emporer tried. He only slept with two of his party members, Gale (ofx) and Astarion in Act 2: twice.

His musical instrument of choice is the lute!

His choice of weapon is a longbow & longsword! He actually uses Phalar Aluve.

He and Astarion have a bit of a messy relationship. It's queer platonic, honestly at best. But also, they are kind of in love with each other. However, Soren chose Gale and also believed that the vampire needed a friend, more than a lover. As well as, as much as he adores Astarion - he respects Gale's desire to be monogamous.

He grew up never in one place, being dragged from one city or town to another by his ever-drinking & abusive mother. They were cast out of their eleven town because Soren, was the result of an affair: and with his father being a rich lord and his mother not his wife, well - they were tossed to the streets. He learned how to swindle and steal to survive.

Durge

At first, I named my Durge run well, "The Dark Urge" because I thought it would be funny. And I couldn't think of a fitting name but then it just stuck. Now, the lore reason, is that he really doesn't have a name. So - when meeting Lae'zel and realizing that calling himself the 'dark urge' might cause mistrust, or make him seem pretentious: he simply combined the two words. Durge.

He is a dual wielder! Currently using two shortswords (Knife of the Undermountian King & just a gith blade)

While I am doing a completely evil run with Durge - he is going to reject Bhaal. Because he wants to be free, and as an aasimar, all he has known is submission and orders. He isn't going to become a good person - no, he just wants freedom. To kill who he wants. When he wants, be in complete control of himself and his deeds. Kill in his name.

He had a one-night stand with Lae'zel unable to resist her demanding allure. He regretted it the day after, realizing that he should have thought about it more. But! It did help him discover that sex makes him feel the same way giving into his urges does. It's a stress relief! It also made him remember how many people he has slept with a lot. Almost as many as he has killed. Apparently - casual sex is a habit of his.

He is obsessive. About everyone who comes into his vicinity, and who allows themselves to be under his wings & gain his respect/trust. Whether they be a friend or lover. Durge holds the people he cares for too tight and leaves bruises upon their bodies because all he has known is darkness and blood. How does he deal with these other feelings? That he wasn't built for. So, instead of casting light like most aasimar - he drags people into his swirling shadows and bloodied wings. And he won't let them go. Not without a fight.

Ouroborus

Ouroboros was a part of the Blood War before escaping Avernus

Every time he uses divine magic, it essentially hurts him as well due to his fiendish blood (half-devil)

If it were mechanically available he would totally be an Oath of Redemption

While playing, I have him in his full cambion form, he hides his devil linage and presents himself as a teifling to the party until Act 2 ish (just take away the wings pft)

I plan for him not to use any of his illithid powers, or give into any of them! Something Durge & Soren both did.

Currently using the Everburn Blade!

He has the least developed personality & backstory of my three Tavs, obviously because I haven't played with him for long. I am very excited though.

[icarus-showmethemoon]

inspired by boop day, reblog this post if its ok for people to send you random asks and interact on your posts with no judgement. i want to talk to people.

[oncorhynchus-nerka]

VERY IMPORTANT a dam in the Netherlands, the weerdsluis lock, is directly on a migratory path for spawning fish. They have a worker stationed there to open the door for the fish, but they can take a while to open it. So to keep the fish from getting preyed on by birds they installed a doorbell. Only, the fish don't have hands to ring the doorbell. If you go to their website, they have a LIVE CAMERA AND A DOORBELL that YOU RING FOR THE FISH when they're waiting, and then the dam worker opens the door for them! I can't express how obsessed I am with this. look at this shit. oh my god.

Please check on the fish doorbell once in a while :)

[artemisdesari-blog]

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

[pro-sipper]

"i want more media with zero drama, no tension, and zero problematic characters and i am not joking"

Great! Here are my recommendations:

[proshipwanderer]

i feel like. being anti-harassment should be the default. i think its REALLY strange to go out of your way to bully strangers online. i don’t think. harassing people online and in fandom spaces should be the norm. that’s just me tho

[theoldkyokodied]

Really quick doodles of a few scenes from the stream yesterday. Including combat flirting taunting, gale’s magnificently distracting shoes and.. whatever you wanna call gale agreeing to give 15 gold to astarion 😐😑😐😑😐 (that’s me blinking)

[pissed-whizard]

my blog is a gateway drug to cooler and better blogs (my mutuals)

[dumplingprincessextraordinaire]

Toxic yuri

Art by @/AmiThompsonh

[tadfools]

You guys are commenting on the fics you read right? You’re at least leaving kudos on the Astarion smut and the pairs that have less than 20 fics for them too? You’re bookmarking stories you really like that are still being updated and ones that haven’t been touched in over a year right?

You know that even the smallest interactions are like cocaine to fic writers right? You understand how important a string of emoji hearts left behind on a chapter at three am is right?? Right????

You’re treating AO3 like a community and not a content factory….right?

[zekuto]

i was obsessed the first time i saw someone post leon on that stupid panda rocker but i was never able to find raw footage of it lol, so i decided to compile leon with all the playground interactions because i love him <3

[spoopyium]

I don't know why but when he said he sampled the water of Qiaoying Village I just imagined him lapping it up on all fours when no one was looking so I doodled this up 💀💀

[magnusbae]

To illustrate this post by @mayahawkse I would like to visualize to you the difference:

A post in 2023:

A post in 2014:

A zoom out of the same post:

This is what a community looks like.

See how in 2023 almost all of the reblogs come from the OP, from their few hours/days in the tag search. Meanwhile in 2014 the % of reblogs from OP is insignificant, because most of the reblogs come from the reblogs within the fandom, within the micro-communities formed there. You didn't need to rely on tags, or search, or being featured. Because the community took care of you, made sure to pass the work between themselves and onto their blog and exposed their followers to it. It kept works alive for years.

It's not JUST the reblog/like ratio that causing this issue, it's the type of interaction people have. They're content with scrolling and liking the search engine, instead of actually having a reblogging relationship with other blogs in their community.

Anyways, if you want to see more content you like, the only true way to make it happen is to reblog it. Likes do not forward content in no way but making OP feel nice. Reblogs on the other hand make content eternal. They make it relevant, they make it exist outside of a fickle tumblr search that hardly works on the best of days.

If you want more of something, reblog it.

[luwha]

LMAO so, recently someone tried to SCAM me, so i'll show you what happened and the telltales of it being a scam.

This one is quite obvious but i know people who are just starting their artist careers and might not have experiece.

Follow the thread:

🚩#1: They pick your most famous/Popular art as reference. They don't know what you actually sell.

🚩#2: They will pick a random popular character. They're not roleplayers or anything. They're not here for the art in any level

You ask me, what are the odds they really like Goku? Oh, well, you'll see. At this point i check their profile for anythign that might indicate it, but as you'll see you won't have to.

🚩#3: They say they saw my ToS. On it i state i only work with paypal and google forms.

🚩#4: Random issue with payment method. They might have a real problem with it, but see; they'll never ever accept any other payment method, such as Zelle, CashApp, Payoneer, Ko-fi, etc.

I already knew this drill so, let's continue.

🚩#5: I love playing dumb lmao. Anyway, this scam revolves on them either sending you "too much money" and asking it back or something like it. I won't be following through because i know it'll be annoying.

BE ADAMANT WITH YOUR METHODS. Do NOT EVER bend them for randos.

🚩#6: They're so ready with the info on how the payment works it's fucking funny.

The reason I PERSONALLY use PayPal INVOICES (no any other payment within paypal) is that they're safe for both me and my client. My rules are stated clearly.

MAKE A ToS I BEG YOU YOUNG ARTIST

🚩#7: They're not even a good scammer lmao they REFUSE to go on my PROFILE to get a link or read anything.

I use Forms because it collects the client requests and it's easier for me to read it all in one place. It ALSO makes scammers bored.

🚩#8: They're so disinterested on the art they don't care for posing, vibes, colors, nothing. Again, they're NOT here for art. That's hilarious.

🚩#8: Same as above. They don't care for posing or anything.

On my art they link me, i have a vampire almost staking himself in a state of euphoria.

IMAGINE VAMPIRE GOKU STAKING HIMSELF THAT'S SO FUCKIGN FUNNY MY BRO, THINK YOUR SCAM THROUGH MAYBE

🚩#9: They will price your own work for you. And they'll overshot what we, smaller artists, charge for it.

They'll overshot by a lot.

They want you to be impressed and showing "generosity" usually gets people who need monay into risky situations. That's just plain cruel.

🚩#9: Same as above. Over generosity and eagerness to pay.

They're not even with the sketch, this haven't been an hour, they don't have any work form me but OH GOD they're SO READY to pay you NEED TO KNOW they WANTS TO PAY YOU SO BAD

Lmao yeah it's working out ❤️

THIS ONE IS JUST HILARIOUS BRO I CAN'T EVEN.

ANYWAY let's continue

🚩#10: They don't know me. They don't follow me. They broke every rule on my ToS. They're making me go through a payment method i am unfamiliar and don't use.

They don't care for my process. They're not interested on my sketch.

BE. ADAMANT. ABOUT. YOUR. RULES. AND. PROCESS.

Now, for the beautiful closure of this:

Have a ToS. Don't bend the rules for randos.

Use Invoices. Be sure you're safe.

Use forms if you'd like. Requests through DM and Discord ARE COMMON FOR OTHER ARTISTS. I personally don't like it, i have ADHD.

Being an artist on an online space is dangerous. If you need help, poke an artist you know, see how they operate and if it fits you. Most of them would help you.

🚩#11: goku isn't even on their icon 😭

This is the account that tried to scam me.

#art is life ❤️

[tinkaqueer]

Things antis need to actually get acquainted with

The block button

The AO3 tagging system

The block button

Blocking keywords on twitter and other social platforms

Not clicking on fanfics that have blatant warnings on them for triggering topics

Dear God the block button