Lyr | 40s | autistic | they/them | 18+ sideblog | (main: lyrslair) | I am terrible about remembering to tag things, fair warning. It's not on purpose my brain is just crap. | Avatar by @datacream | ao3: keldabe-kriff and SoongTypeDisaster
Okay it's official. I have a list together for @oonajaeadira's year of themes challenge, and I've chosen "Year of small joys", if only because I think I need it:
A hot meal (Din and Grogu)
Sunlight (Max Phillips)
Friendly Touch (Din Djarin)
Breathtaking sunrise (Joel and Ellie)
Stargazing (NMS Din x Reader)
Candles (Joel Miller x Reader)
Something soft (Joel and Ellie)
A cool bug (Joel x Reader, and Ellie)
Leaf pile (Joel and Ellie)
Quiet moment by the fire (Din and OC Kes)
First snow of the year (NMS Din x Reader)
A quiet night in (STA Joel x Reader)
Some of these will be the character's joy. Others will be the reader's joy. Some will be both.
(extra thanks to @grogusmum for letting me ramble myself through some ideas)
ALSO: If anyone wants to do the challenge and think small joys is one you'd like to do too, I don't mind people taking that as a launching point and picking their own small joys as challenges. <3 It's a fairly generic idea, honestly, part of why I picked it, it gives me a lot of wiggle room, so by all means if you think it would be fun for you too, I wouldn't consider it stealing my idea.
READ THEM ALL ON AO3
Looking for the Not My Stars masterlist? CLICK HERE!
Looking for Safely To Abide? CLICK HERE!
(Full works masterlist coming as soon as I get the spoons)
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When a human male wizard tries mansplaining your culture vs a cute girl drow (that's my Tav, Reynili!)
Minthara already knows all these facts but she wants to indulge her crush and tell Gale to sybau. Gale is pissed cuz he's the one who taught Reynili these cool spider facts and now she's not giving him any credit!
I adooooore how you do expressions! Do you have a favorite Astarion piece at all to showcase an expression? You have to have drawn him the most, easily.
What gave it away? Haha, I don't know if I could pick a favorite. There's been a lot that I've loved working on. He's my favorite one to stretch expressions like play-dough on.
hate it when you see something in media that has great kink potential so you skedoodle post-haste to ao3 only to discover there's none fic left beef and then you have to sit there going oh I see I'M the pervert weirdo I'M the problem with society and everyone else in the world is going to heaven with a hundred innocence dollars preloaded onto their ole fashioned wholesome funtimes themepark fast pass card like fuckin oath man
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May I present: Leda and the Swan Princess! It's based on this post about a swan princess who refuses to go quietly in obscurity when cursed. (If you liked this one you will probably also like my other comics which you can find on my pinned post).
If you enjoyed and want to support a queer art student, you can tip me over on my Ko-fi! Tips help me out dramatically while I'm still in school!
Find this and my other comics on Tapas, Once Upon a Meet Cute!
neocities guide - why you should build your own html website
do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again?
try neocities!!
what is neocities?
neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words:
"we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."
why should I make my own website?
web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!!
building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.
what would I even put on a website?
the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !!
here are some cool example sites to inspire you:
recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content!
space bar | local interstellar dive bar
creature feature | halloween & monsters
big gulp supreme
peanutbuttaz | personal site
dragodiluna
linwood | personal site
patho grove | personal site
getting started: neocities/html guide
sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css
sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating
web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics
w3schools | html tutorials
templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements
eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with
sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles
rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles
fun stuff to add to your site
want your site to be cool? here's some fun stuff that i've found
blinkies-cafe | fantastic blinkie maker! (run by @transbro & @graphics-cafe)
gificities | internet archive of 90s/00s web gifs
internet bumper stickers | web bumper stickers
momg | gif gallery
99 gif shop | 3d gifs
123 guestbook | add a guestbook for people to leave messages
cbox | add a live chat box
moon phases | track the phases of the moon
gifypet | a little clickable page pet
adopt a shroom | mushroom page pet
tamaNOTchi | virtual pet
crossword puzzle | daily crossword
imood | track your mood
neko | cute cat that chases your mouse
pollcode | custom poll maker
website hit counter | track how many visitors you have
web revival manifestos & communities
also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web!
melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum
melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival?
melonking manifesto |
status cafe | share your current status
nightfall city | online community
onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance
sadgrl internet manifesto |
yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource
reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience
in conclusion
i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :)
say hi to me on neocities
One of my wonderful online friends asked me if there was a chance I'd make these two kiss, so I made a doodle. And because many of my other - equally wonderful - online friends share the fondness for this pairing, the doodle got a little out of hand. So, this one is for you all. ššø
Some in between stages. Can you guess which encounter these two have just beaten?
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āThis kink is problematic when you think about itā ohhhhhh shit ok lemme head on over to the kink store and trade these kinks in for one that make my jackoff fantasies morally superior
āLove Languagesā are just common couples therapy techniques mangled and repackaged by an unqualified homophobe. Relationships generally need all 5 love languages to be fulfilled, which is to say, everybody needs to communicate with, spend time with, and do things for their partners, and thatās got nothing to do with any special way you communicate affection.
MBTI has been proven completely ineffective at predicting anyoneās success at a particular job, and half the people who take it twice will get different results. Reputable psychologists do not recognize it, and the company that owns the rights to it uses it to scam people. People donāt adhere to strict binaries in basically anything. Very few people are going to be exclusively introverted or extroverted. Itās just astrology repackaged as pseudoscience. Shockingly enough, you canāt boil the complexity of the human experience down to a dozen Types of Guy.
The concept of IQ is flawed from the startā āintelligenceā is an abstract concept that encompasses many different skills, from social intelligence to emotional intelligence to the very narrow kind of problem solving intelligence IQ tests generally measure for. It cannot predict how fast you learn, how much you know, or how logical and well read you are. It mostly measures how good you are at solving puzzles. Coincidentally, itās also a pretty good predictor of income and education level, take a guess why. Most peopleās IQ will change throughout their lives, because itās inconsistent bullshit weāve only held onto this long because weāre still kinda hoping we can breed the ubermensch. IQ tests and the way they attempt to categorize people are explicitly eugenicist and racist.
BMI was developed by a man known as the grandfather of eugenics, who first of all was a mathematician, not a doctor, and second never intended the formula to be used to categorize individuals. Itās intended to give a rough estimate of obesity in populations, and itās not even good at that. It hangs around because of fatphobia and insurance companies who want it as an excuse to charge fat people more.
The study which determined peopleās prefrontal cortex was still developing at 25ā¦ stopped measuring at 25. Evidence suggests your brain probably never stops developing. Stop infantilizing grown adults. This is a branch off from the larger mess of misinformation surrounding fMRIs.
If you havenāt put together what all these things have in common yet, hereās the moral of the story: STOP TRYING TO CATEGORIZE PEOPLE. STOP TRYING TO PUT PEOPLE IN A GODDAMN BIOLOGICAL HIERARCHY. EUGENICS IS BAD, AND WILL ALWAYS BE BAD, NO MATTER WHOāS DOING IT.
Itās Disability Pride Month! And you know what that means, right? No? Well it has been ages and Iāve long been casually planning a series of short (maybe) essays around the parallels to disability - and the clearer disability representation - throughout Baldurās Gate 3 in both the characters and the story. So what better month than this to finally work on them and bring them out?
Whilst I do have some personal lived experience with disability, this doesnāt account for every type of condition or all the ways that different disabilities affect so many of us. Two people with the same condition can have quite a different lived experience, and even the condition itself can vary significantly. So what I mean to say here, loves, is that if you have a differing opinion, or thereās something Iāve missed, or youād just like to add your thoughts - please do just that!Ā
I welcome hearing from all of you about how you relate to the game through your own lived experiences, and what the characters can mean to you. Representation isnāt always clear, but honestly I think when we look closer we can see parts of all kinds of experiences reflected through the characters and story.
So, what I intend to do is create a series of essays, looking in depth at the potential parallels we can see in each of the main companions that Iām most familiar with (unfortunately I donāt know Minthara well enough to include her in this, but I would welcome input from others!) and then perhaps some of the other characters. (Edit - all pieces completed for now, next year I may add more!)
These pieces are not meant to be diagnostic in any way, or claiming āthis character has this illnessā, but instead is a look at how the characters and their stories and details can be similar to real world disability and health, and how different people might find ways to relate to their experiences through this.
Links to the Disability Discussion Posts
Karlach - Terminal Illness (Completed)
Wyll - Sudden Physical Change (Traumatic Incident) (Completed)
Gale - Chronic Illness, Autism (Completed)
Astarion - Complex Needs, Specialised Diets, and Addiction (Completed)
Laeāzel - Ableism, Eugenics, and More Neurodiversity (Completed)
Shadowheart - Memory Difficulties, Depression, Fluctuating Chronic Pain (Completed)
Halsin - Carer Fatigue and The End Of The Path Of Healing (Completed)
Gortash - Invisible Disability and Visible Mobility Aids (Completed)
---
I'm not sure how quickly I'll get through posting these as I'm having a tough time with my own physical health right now - isn't that ironic? - but I do intend to get through at least this list by the end of July in between fic writing and other projects.
If you would like to suggest other characters, storylines, or disability related topics in BG3 please let me know! I'd love to hear how you all relate to the game and the characters from these angles too, and I might be willing to add things to this list if I can.
Lia's Disability Experience
As a little peek behind the curtain (and for full disclosure that I'm not an abled person here to talk over disabled experiences) without giving you too much of myself on the single plate, my lived experience is with an unpredictable chronic pain condition as well as a few other chronic illnesses and disability issues. I'm a wheelchair user, partially ambulatory (essentially I can shamble around in my home with assistance but outside the house I rely on my wheels), and my most prevalent symptom is constant pain.
I have made vague references to these things in a few works and the experience does provide me with some fic inspiration for a couple of works. I'm far too familiar with Loviatar's embrace, but I feel this is something that can be used to my advantage at times like these where I can examine the characters and storylines from angles that abled people might not consider.
Your Input!
I really would love to hear from all of you - what other characters do you feel reflect some of the lived experiences of disabled people? Are there any that you connected to? Did you find the game was accessible for you to play as a disabled person? What do you wish you saw more of in the game or in games in general?
This month really is an important one for awareness and understanding, as well as finding things in ourselves to be proud of that don't fall into the categories of "inspiration porn" or the kinds of internalised ableism that can drive some of us to push too hard to work against our conditions instead of with and around them leading to more issues.
Remember - The Disabled Community is the one minority that anyone could become a part of at any time. Advocating for our rights could also be advocating for your own future or that of a loved one.
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Your recent reblog of your DU!Drow fic pointers post reminded me - I had a vague idea for a fic inspired by your A!Astarion/Fallen!DUDrow AU, and I wondered if you had any fic pointers for the specific dynamic in play between them there?
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The Ascended Astarion and Disgraced DU dynamic/future is not as clear to me as of yet (at least in comparison to the Bhaalist AU) that's something I plan on exploring more with comics and art etc, but I definitely have a good base that should hopefully help you!
A disgraced, spawn-turned DU Drow is someone who was in the middle of succumbing to a full and permanent Slayer Form transformation as punishment for losing his duel against Orin. While the transformation progressed between his loss and Astarion turning him into a vampire, it stagnated as soon as he was turned, and so did the degeneration of his mind. Because of this:
-Disgraced DU Drow is slightly more scatterbrained than he used to be. This expresses itself by him lacking his usual filter: the blood fantasies he kept to himself are more readily shared, he snaps more at others and expresses a lot more vulnerability openly, especially at Astarion. To be clear, he is not incoherent or animal-like, he just doesn't adhere to social norms as well as he did before.
-He is, also, more violent and quick to arrive at murder as a solution to his problems. Most of the time, this is not an unwelcomed outcome given his and Astarion's "lifestyle", but other times Astarion employs his control over him as a spawn to keep those urges under control.
-Generally, this is the only time when Astarion exerts explicit control over DU drow's body: to keep him from physically lashing out, to manage his bloodthirst, and to keep him from hurting himself or even Astarion.
[more below because this got too long š]
-For similar reasons, DU drow and Astarion do not share a bedroom, and DU drow is chained whenever Astarion isn't around.
-He may sometimes wear an ornate steel muzzle as well.
-DU drow "agrees" to all of this treatment because he does not believe to have another choice. He does not want to lose what's left of his mind or get himself or Astarion killed by accident. Unlike redemptive DU Drow, he also remains head-over-heels for Astarion after his ascension in this universe and believes that the changes to their dynamic (Astarion taking on the role of protector and provider and having much, much more control over him) is a result of his own failures rather than Astarion's hunger for power and dominance. In a way, he thinks of what Astarion has done as a type of sacrifice in itself.
-In private, he becomes incredibly needy and clingy. Wishing to always make Astarion happy and to be on the receiving end of his attention; in front of others, DU drow still attempts to come off as being in control of himself and of his situation to varying degrees of success.
-If you thought he was a giving partner before, just you wait until you see him now.
-He wears clothes around the manor, just not many, lol.
Ascended Astarion in this universe most certainly does not see his own circumstances as a necessary sacrifice at all. This is the best possible outcome, in fact. Not only did he acquire a good excuse to ascend despite DU drow's initial reservations, but also a perfectly reasonable motive to turn him into his spawn that made him out to be his lover's hero and savior.
-His behavior is pretty much much based off the game's characterization in his Ascended scenario: he's confident to a fault, self-righteous, and slightly demeaning to his partner under the assumption that this is what they want (and in this case, that assumption is mostly correct, especially over time as DU drow grows used to his predicament).
-He provides both food and "entertainment" to DU drow and enjoys watching him feed and brutalize his victims. In fact, DU drow does most if not all of the killing between them.
-While Astarion's magical control over DU drow may be employed only if necessary, he does keep close tabs on his routine. He wakes him up, feeds him, keeps him at his side most of the day and puts him to bed every night. Their co-dependency is, as the name implies, mutual, even if it looks a little different depending on whose perspective you are looking through.
-Astarion does not take issue with the changes to DU drow's appearance, and even likes to bring attention and "exoticize" them - even saying that it is more "him", now - under the guise of reassuring him that he doesn't find him any less attractive for it.
-Most of the time he loves DU drow's constant attention seeking-behavior and neediness - he even loves to ignore it for the explicit purpose of letting it build throughout the course of the day and to experience it as a desperate explosion when they are finally alone; In some other occasions, however, he is less keen on the clinginess and may find alternative ways to keep DU drow entertained so he doesn't have to deal with it himself. This often looks like magical illusions that mimic his company, playful but awfully convenient restrains, toys (in many senses of the word) or coming up with tasks that get DU drow out of his hair for a while.
-As suggested above, a lot of aspects of this relationship mimic a sort of 24/7 Dom/sub dynamic, but that's never explicitly set up or stated by either them.
