almaasi reblogged
I heard this audio and immediately had to redraw it 🫠
hello tumblr friends, i am alive! and here to rec a game to YOU SPECIFICALLY
(i.e. the people who follow me and have followed me through a series of fandoms over 15-odd years, both for reblogs and my own fanfic content. this is a rec for you, regardless of whether you are a gamer or not.)
it's called BALDUR'S GATE 3
it's a realistically-animated fantasy role playing game. which means you make a character, then play as them as you go on an EXTREMELY EPIC adventure. it's based on dungeons & dragons, so it's like playing d&d but in a movie-esque form. you don't need to know anything before you start. (you do need a PC or console with 8GB of RAM that can run a game.)
you collect friends, who you talk to along the way (the game provides sentences you can click, which sway the story). you get to know them, and help them fulfill their personal destinies. they start as utter disasters, and you gradually find out their damage, then you can assist them or turn them into worse messes, depending on what you choose.
and you fight monsters - either to rescue vulnerable people, or to be evil, again depending on what you want.
if you loved things like supernatural, star trek: deep space nine, or are an enjoyer of something like lord of the rings, you'd love this.
that's true whether you enjoyed the homey, comfy moments, the dark emotional depths, the comedic relief, the silly episodes with goofy characters, or the heart wrenching moral-questioning life-altering storylines.
the music, atmosphere, the depth of the characters?? the found family!!! the FOUND FAMILY!!!
THE F O U N D F A MI L Y
and if you like schmoopy fanfic, this is for you. if you want your lil blorbo to kisskisssnuggle or perhaps bonk the other blorbo, you can do that. if you want to polyamory or threesome about it, for some characters, there are ways.
if you want to live vicariously as a genderswapped wizard version of you, this game is for you. if you want to mix and match gender and body presentations and masc-femme voice and clothing options, you can do that too.
if you want to observe your trauma expressed in a character and try and help them through it, without you needing to find the words to do so, in a way that is not you talking to someone about it directly, this exists as trauma processing on a cracker.
if you are spending your days bedrotting, scrolling on your phone, or watching things end to end and not knowing how to give yourself enrichment without leaving your home or expending precious spoons, this is your answer.
the writing? FANTASTIC
the worldbuilding? FLAWLESS
the characters? i would die for them (and have, repeatedly.)
the women are WRITTEN WELL. their stories have MEANING.
the graphics? beautiful and just real enough that you can exist in the world and become immersed.
you can adopt a dog. and an owlbear. and there are innumerable delightful other animals you can talk to.
i was very surprised by the combat. because listen, i don't like violent things. i shut my eyes when there is bloody violence in a thing i'm watching. however. this is not mindless pewpew violence, this is pause, slow down, think about what you're doing and why combat. for a decent amount of fights, you don't need to kill if you don't want to, you can toggle off lethal attacks. you are fighting for your life sometimes, and to rescue people other times. you can plan ahead. you can do it again if you want to change what you did. you can TALK YOUR WAY OUT OF IT so you don't end up in a fight at all.
the learning curve for the controls and the character-creation options may be steep if you've never gamed or played a RPG before, but i googled some basics and i had it down in a couple of days. the rest i picked up as i went along. i started on the easiest setting (explorer mode) and increased the level as i got the hang of it.
anyway i just love this experience, and if you have ever enjoyed a thing i have also enjoyed, THIS GAME IS FOR YOU. i'm playing by myself, romancing the vampire twink known as astarion, and i'm also playing another game with my sixty-something year old mother, who has never played a game before.
it's expensive. i think it's $60 USD - for me it's $100 NZD at full price, so i put off buying it. i was gifted it by my friends who were playing, because they knew it was worth it. now i've played, i also know it's worth it. the sales on steam bring the price down about 20%. HOWEVER. with the sheer amount of content, depth, and quality, i'm shocked they're not charging double. it's worth saving for. you WILL enjoy it.
if you don't have time, you can split the gameplay up and play it over years like a tv show, if you want to. i'm about 300 hours in and i'm not done yet. (i am doing every single side quest, and i'm in no rush.) and it's also replayable. i went back 80 hours of gameplay to change something. and the catch-up i did after had almost nothing in common with the previous time i did the same section.
if you need any further convincing, here's a clip of my character (starling) talking to astarion, and giving him what is most likely his first hug in 200 years. (cw discussion of sexual trauma)
k that's all.
enjoy~
almaasi reblogged
…..this is one of the things I’ve been talking to my therapist about. Pursuing and celebrating things that are valuable because of what *I* want, and what *I* love–and not measuring my worth based on the expectations of others.
The audacity of these men, to be so unapologetically wholesome and driven by hope and incredible love. How very dare they. The absolute nerve. Giving adults permission to keep growing and exploring who they are, in this day and age. Unbelievable.
so i've been very not-here on tumblr, or anywhere, because in some ways i'm trying to do exactly what i told myself i needed when i wrote that play. i lived for the approval of tumblr strangers, because that was the only positive input i had until then. i've since retreated to very small and very quiet corners of the internet where i can just enjoy things with people i feel safe with, and i don't need to impress anyone to feel valid in existing. as a result, i have generally missed the hype surrounding the fact garashir became kinda-canon as a domino effect from having my fanfic performed by sid and andy in 2020.
but listen
i am SO GLAD
SO GLAD
that this silly piece of loving nonsense is still helping anyone in any kind of way, four years on. especially in that specific way.
i love that for you, and for me, and anyone else who needs to hear it.
Source: youtube.com
#post of postiness#elmie writes things#elmie makes things#little achievements#garashir#anyway hi i'm hyperfixating on baldur's gate 3 right now#if you want immense queer stories with depth this game is for you#i didn't think it was my kind of game because it's nothing like anything i've played before#but no it's 100% for me. if you like watching ds9 or supernatural or lord of the rings AND like reading cute fanfic#it's for you
almaasi reblogged
Best of favorite dance moves 💃🕺 via @ Ed People on Youtube https://twitter.com/TansuYegen/status/1560874626380857344
You’re crying from the dancing video?
The inherent human experience of expressing joy through music and dance across hundreds of cultures and millions of peoples lives and families and those people sharing those dances with a stranger who asked nicely demonstrating the good and beauty of humanity got to me, alright?
Go, watch the original - the quality is better and you can “like” the original artist (it only has 82K views)!
almaasi reblogged
howley and aziraphil are here to save the world
howley and aziraphil are here to save the world
almaasi reblogged
If you like frogs. Or possums. Or cool builds. Or happiness. This is the video for you.
almaasi reblogged
After SIX MONTHS I have another Rabbit Lightning fic... that I wrote two years ago. This one ft. Redd and Lohn and some post-quarantine lovin'.
Redd and Lohn meet up for the first time since quarantine began. Lohn, at first craving a hug, soon realises he’s in need of more. Luckily Redd is just as desperate to be kissed and touched. But how many weeks have to pass before they're touch-starved enough to allow it to happen again? And what if they don’t need to be with each other, they just... want to?
🐰 17.9k ⋆ NC-17
P.S. If you want Redd's "I got the Dolly vaccine" t-shirt, that's here.
And so is this -- the official Rabbit Lightning t-shirt in Mythical's Amazon store doesn't ship to New Zealand, so I made my own.
sidenote i can't believe i posted this on rhett and link kiss day
#gmm#good mythical morning#rhink#kiss~#rabbit lightning#elmie makes things#elmie draws things#elmie writes things#post of postiness#elmie makes gifs#imma upload this gif to tenor so you should be able to find it by searching on twitter and discord#might take a while to process but it'll be there later#also i am 4 months behind on gmm but i have been Updated thank you mark
almaasi reblogged
A dogfish pack is now available for purchase at the Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery! 🐟
Link to their website in my pinned post.
Local purchase or international shipping available so feel free to get in contact with them if interested!
Catfish Pup - $225cad
Zebra Danio + Yellow Perch - $85 each
Spotted fish + Barred Knifejaw - $55 each
After SIX MONTHS I have another Rabbit Lightning fic... that I wrote two years ago. This one ft. Redd and Lohn and some post-quarantine lovin'.
Redd and Lohn meet up for the first time since quarantine began. Lohn, at first craving a hug, soon realises he’s in need of more. Luckily Redd is just as desperate to be kissed and touched. But how many weeks have to pass before they're touch-starved enough to allow it to happen again? And what if they don’t need to be with each other, they just... want to?
🐰 17.9k ⋆ NC-17
P.S. If you want Redd's "I got the Dolly vaccine" t-shirt, that's here.
And so is this -- the official Rabbit Lightning t-shirt in Mythical's Amazon store doesn't ship to New Zealand, so I made my own.
almaasi reblogged
I keep meeting artists who complain that Tumblr Is Dead then when I check their blog they've made four posts in six months and all of them were self promo lmao. Influencers whining that "tumblr is useless for engagement" tells me every part of the problem, like sorry you can't just show up and farm this userbase for clicks by waving buzzwords around the way you can on tiktok. This is the Excited About Stupid Things website reblog some shitty fanart or die
what do you MEAN people don't want to hang out in your curated space and chat with you and look at your work when your space is uhhh entirely crossposting shop links from instagram. you look like a fucking bot lmao
Waaaay back in 2012 I was confused about how Tumblr worked - I had created a personal blog so I wanted to showcase personal stuff, like the silly little comics I was making at the time. So i posted my comics and followed a lot of people and scrolled through my dash and liked things but didn't reblog stuff because I wanted my blog to be kind of a portfolio.
And it was really boring, and I didn't get any attention for my drawings, and having a tumblr felt kind of useless, except now I could see all the memes I'd been laughing at on imgur in context.
But then there was a comic that was cute and funny and it was about Dune (because there are active dune fans on tumblr!) So I reblogged it because nobody was looking at my blog anyway and the floodgates opened. I started reblogging regularly and adding comments and occasionally adding little comics or sketches on the comments and suddenly tumblr made sense. It was "working," because *yes* tumblr is a blogging platform, but more than that it is a social media site, and to get it to "work" you had to be social.
And that ended up getting me a job as a cartoonist. And it ended up letting me promote my band better than any other site (and thank you so much to the tumblr users who came to our shows!). And it let me build an audience of thousands of readers for my webcomic. And it is a place where I can share my art and get attention for it and promote stuff I've got on sale, and a place where i can link people to my website (because tumblr is still bad as a portfolio, even if it's good as socal media). But that only works because tumblr isn't just someplace I post, it's someplace where i hang out and people know me and we have history and a shared language of memes and shitposts.
I've had people ask how i get tumblr to work for me and the answer is, unfortunately, it only works if you live here.
This. All of this.
And yes, sex workers and artists following me who keep complaining about your low numbers, this is why it's happening to you. And part of why I reblog so much stuff and engage with folks and post personal shit as well as work- people will totally stick around for and boost your work, but you gotta have more than just that, especially if you're like me and stuck slowly churning out only ine or two new things a week at best. Interaction is the best method for tumblr.
This is absolutely true, 100% of my audience is from Tumblr - and to add my two cents, another trap I see people fall into is only blogging for/engaging with fellow artists or writers. All of my success on this site has come from being a part of the wider community, not just the niche of indie writers (which is very small, and has few exits.)
mact of the fatter is, the whole engagement economy that companies have spent years and billions trying to perfect took inspiration from the genuine connections and shit people make on tumblr and other now-dead websites. like. our engagement still means something—and means something in a non-marketing sense, but i guess in a marketing sense too? idgaf about that shit rn tho—because we’re actually engaged. we actually like each other and like the same shit, y’know? that’s what makes a recommendation from someone on tumblr or reddit actually mean something to me rather than something with the very same objective, but on tiktok.
influencer marketing tries to capitalize on people’s trust and connection with each other, but in its proliferation (idk if thats the right word we’re rocking on 4 hours of sleep, babes), degraded those very connections that it tries to leverage! somehow (and luckily) tumblr hasnt been as touched by that shit, and so lives on a little slice of humanity on this fuckin commodified-as-fuck new internet.
this is all to say, if you want to use tumblr as a marketing tool, you’re gonna have to get in the trenches and make friends. you might just end up enjoying it, believe it or not
#i am ashamed to say i have been looking at tumblr posts on pinterest BECAUSE there's no social interaction. but i miss being here#and i will be back more if and when i am up to it#at the very least i intend to post a rabbit lightning fic this week#because someone begged for more rabbit lightning in the ao3 comments of a ds9 fic and i'm here just sitting on 7 completed drafts#so i promised before the end of july#am i ALSO moving house this same week? yes. yes i am#*#tumblr#important things#fandom#artists
almaasi reblogged
Can Kamala Harris win? Does she really stand a chance? I’m so scared for my American friends, their families and every kind, decent human being who resides there.
She has a motherfucking chance because we are going to GIVE her a motherfucking chance.
No more talking about how "of course" the country won't elect a black woman (they also thought that with Obama in 2008). No more dooming. We can destroy the fucking billionaire donors as soon as the election is over. We can do everything else as soon as we have time to do it because we are not being fucked in the ass by Trump and his despicable orange fascists.
We are going to rally the fuck behind Kamala Harris and we are going to do it now. We are going to support whichever VP she chooses. We are going to be on the fucking lookout for any Purity Police whining about how Kamala isn't good enough either. We are going to keep our eyes fucking open for the Russian interference that frankly, I suspect, contributed heavily to this in the first place. We are going to learn our fucking lesson from 2016 and not whine about Third Party Protest Votes. We are going to pull together and quit fucking whining. Now Biden is out. You don't have to cOnDeSceNd yourself to voting for him. You are going to fucking help us get Kamala in office so fucking help us God. Then we can deal with the rest of it later. It is that simple.
The end.
“She has a chance because we are going to give her a motherfucking chance” is probably one of the stronger motivating statements I’ve seen…for years, really.
From a numbers perspective, the way Democrats (both official endorsements and regular voters) have immediately LINED UP behind Harris is something we haven’t seen since Obama and I’m honestly not sure it was this strong then (the Obama/Clinton primary competition was fierce). ActBlue (the Democrats’ political fundraising platform) raised $63 MILLION in one day yesterday, which is a record for any political fundraising ever. On the more conservative side, the Nikki Haley Voters PAC, a group that represents conservatives who oppose Trump and had already endorsed Biden, immediately endorsed Harris yesterday.
There’s tons of work to be done, and there will be challenges. The misogynoir has started and it’s going to suck and we need to be prepared for that. But this is more than a chance, this is the most energy I’ve seen from the Democrats in YEARS.
Oh and I just saw this and I cannot imagine a zoom call with 40,000 people (the call raised over $1 million in 3 hours)
almaasi reblogged
I don’t want to find out about world events anymore
can't wait for biden to resign from the campaign this sunday, july 21 2024
I'm about to pass out
Long week for Cas and Dean
almaasi reblogged
almaasi reblogged
Joe Biden, coherently and normally: I have three issues to speak about. First, the NATO conference went well. Second, the economy is back on track and inflation is down. Third, my proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza is moving forward. Any questions?
The media: Did You Know That You Are Old
At one point Biden misspoke and said “Vice President Trump” instead of “Vice President Harris” when answering a question, but to be fair he was probably expecting a relevant question about his opponent and not literally 6 questions in a row about whether or not he’s Dead Yet
Can’t believe I went back on political Twitter for this, but I needed some sane takes after weeks of nonsense.
Biden has a stutter. Sometimes he mixes up names, replaces words, or pauses for a minute. But it’s not forgetfulness - it’s literally misspeaking. It’s not great. But it has nothing to do with his ability to govern.
This press conference showed a clear and in-depth understanding of the job he is doing, particularly in relation to NATO and foreign policy. The media is too cowardly to bother asking Trump the same questions, but I think we all know his responses wouldn’t be nearly as coherent. This whole conversation has been overblown. There’s only one candidate in this race who can do the job, and it’s the one who is already doing it.
I'm honestly appalled that we got some of our first concrete news on a deal that both Israel and Hamas agreed to AND that stipulates Israel will not occupy Gaza after the war, and all everyone can talk about is "Vice President Trump".
To be fair the bots are all talking about it and the press stopped listening to people a long time ago, so you can understand their quandary
Everybody just needs to stfu and get behind Joe and do their civic fucking duty and showthefuckup and vote. At least NYT's editorial board showed some huevos this morning. Everybody and everything else in the news (UNTIL THIS) gets a facepalm.
almaasi reblogged
ive found that partially treated mental illness can sometimes look to uninvolved onlookers like faked mental illness.
"someone who really has pOCD would be disgusted and horrified at their intrusive thoughts" or maybe i'm in therapy & am going by the books, being radically ambivalent to my intrusive thoughts instead of wasting energy mentally washing my paws of sin. i'm not going to perform my rock bottom for you for the sake of being believed.
also like... something something, being afraid of healing because you're afraid of letting go of the stability of misery, letting go of the narrative you made up to feel worthy of attention, letting go of your "sympathy cred," this narrative has probably killed a few ppl.
Generally if you find yourself demanding to know why strangers aren't living more miserable lives, you're probably in the wrong.
"I'm not going to perform my rock bottom for you for the sake of being believed."
Holy fuck. Tattoo that one on your bones.
That's good.