taabakiera

[taabakiera]

been working on these for a while! I miss the da:o squad so much (✿´‿`) 

(some notes on the flowers and symbolism under the cut!)

EDIT: it’s a little late but i finally fixed the bit of fur coat on alistair’s drawing that was bothering me lol

EDIT 2: now on redbubble! you can buy it as a spiral notebook or a greeting card or whatever you desire! :-)

Keep reading

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jesus f christ i'm on fire this week

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Just saw a post asking how tall people are and now I want to make it a poll. Apologies to people in the fringe height categories, you do not get specifics.

I had to consult a chart for this

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You paid attention to what I said when I was drunk? That's... special.

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a sketch that got out of hand while thinking about that one homoerotic banter they have. rest assured though leliana is thinking about it too

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Not to be a bitch but sometimes people engage with fiction in the most boring way possible, and nowhere is this clearer than in videogames. Like what you mean you hate a character just because they were kind of abrasive when speaking to the player character? "They were mean to me" and it didn't occur to you to wonder why? Like, what might their attitude toward you reveal about the world? About the social dynamics within it? About their own perspectives and backgrounds and personalities? Does it even occur you to ask? Would you only have liked them if they bowed to your presence and talked about how great you are? Like I'm sorry but you're so boring. How boring fiction would be if it cathered to you

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Notes and thoughts on my Araj Oblodra tag dive. This one is long.

Everyone loves an evil woman (unless she's mean, and a woman).

Oh boy! I started Araj because I'm too busy lately to keep tackling Orin or any of the DA tags, so I thought I'd bang out some ~100-tag characters. With only 122 English language works, Araj has a pretty small tag that manages to be an unsurprising but illuminating facet of the BG3 fandom experience.

Like I said on the infographic, 85% of works tagging Araj also tag Astarion; going further with that, in over half (59%) of works tagging Araj Oblodra, she is only in the story to act antagonististically towards Astarion. The criteria for this was: Araj seeking Astarion's blood in an impolite/creepy/pushy way, hurting people close to Astarion, or treating him in any kind of rude, demeaning, or abusive manner; and she has no separate interactions or plot points.

This number jumps to 71% when mistags are removed.

Over a third of her works total specifically follow her exact canonical in-game role.

I divided her tag presence into 5 roles because of this: Main, Side, Minor, Mistag, and Canon Antagonist. In Canon Antag works, whether she appears for a single scene or an entire fic, Araj does not deviate from canon. She says her game lines verbatim, and if/when Tav attacks her later, she does not have any further unique dialogue or actions except for like, dying on the ground. If she deviates from canon in any way, this shifts her role into main, side, or minor. (Here is a deeper explanation of how I sort roles.)

Of all the fics tagging Araj, an alarming amount go on to have her screamed at and assaulted. She's choked, stabbed, sliced, beheaded, dismembered, grabbed by the collar and spat at, called a bitch in all caps. I get it, kind of -- it's fun to imagine how you or your Tav would confront a bully, and Araj is distinctly a bully. But it's a little jarring when we consider how few other characters receive this treatment.

Lady Esther, for comparison, is a nearly identical character: a selfish merchant who profiles and belittles a companion while making a dehumanizing request. There are four works total tagging Esther on AO3. One of these involves her crimes against Lae'zel. (so for Lae'zel, that's 1 anti-merchant fic per ~6k works)

Lann Tarv, the bugbear merchant found in Moonrise Towers, is also similar: offering a material deal in exchange for triggering a companion's past traumas. There are two fics tagging Lann Tarv on AO3; one of these is about him and Karlach. (so for Karlach, that's 1 per ~8k works)

For Astarion, who is tagged in 21,817 English language works, there's 1 anti-Araj fic per ~300 works -- over twenty times the rate of those mentioned above.

So what makes Araj so different? Why do Astarion fans care so deeply about her?

This is rhetorical. We know why Araj receives this kind of hate and backlash while others go ignored or enjoyed. She's not a woman hurting other women like Esther, Viconia, or Orin do; and she's not an abusive man, like Cazador, Raphael, Gortash, Ketheric, Lann Tarv. Instead she's committed the cardinal sin of being a woman who is mean to a hot white guy, so she deserves to be called a bitch and kicked until she spits up blood and dies -- or at the least, used as a mean little stage-prop for someone else's growth. No further character exploration needed.

I'm not arguing that Araj Oblodra is this misunderstood character who deserves only love and cinnamon buns. I'm also not saying we need to coddle her because she's ~just a girl~ or something. She's a self-serving merchant who dehumanizes and triggers Astarion, and isn't apologetic about it. She'll give you a potion to make you explosive. She's got some sketchy experiments going on.

But she's also like...not that worse than a lot of other characters in the game. She's not even really worse than Astarion himself, who is also nasty to a lot of people (he's funny, but he's an asshole); also iffy about consent (just bites you in the night); is not apologetic about chunks of his past (the Gur, their kids); and is equally self-serving at times (wanting to ascend despite the blood toll).

I'm not saying Astarion is some awful, irredeemable character, either. Both he and Araj are complex characters operating within their own unique set of morals, seeking personal power to right past wrongs and traumas.

Together they paint a good picture of the problems in the BG3 fandom, and really, fandom as a whole. The martyrdom of a hot white blorbo guy; the demonization of a woman; the often-female OC swooping in to uphold this status quo; the relative fixation on the whole melodramatic scenario.

I'm sure some people will disagree. Before you do, stop!

Do not tell me about how your Tav is super deep and well-written and so it's actually really feminist of her to kill Araj for her vampire lover. Awesome for you. Take that energy and write something about Lady Esther, and then we'll talk.

The rest of Araj's stats were pretty predictable. She leans hard towards Explicit and Mature ratings, which isn't surprising. I like the ones where she and Minthara interact, always fun to see drow from different Houses working together (or against each other!). I also like the idea of Araj x Aurelia, the tiefling vampire spawn.

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when you join grey wardens to escape death sentence and shortly after you get betrayed and almost killed, find out you have approximately 30 years of life left, and the guy who is more experienced than you doesn't want any responsibility so it all falls down to you

and it's just the beggining...

inspired by this photo:

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inquisitor playing the knife game to the distress of her companions but she insists it’ll be fine bc it’s her marked hand so the finger will probably grow back anyways

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“unbothered. moisturized. happy. in my lane. focused. flourishing.”

-Cassandra reading her smutty literature on the beach (don’t tell Varric)

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when you join grey wardens to escape death sentence and shortly after you get betrayed and almost killed, find out you have approximately 30 years of life left, and the guy who is more experienced than you doesn't want any responsibility so it all falls down to you

and it's just the beggining...

inspired by this photo:

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I saw @paragondreams post about aveline’s outfit in the canceled dlc and ohhh boy. She looks great!

I wish I could’ve commented but my tumblrs broken 😭 aggh

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Getting ready for Orlesian court

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I had the absolute pleasure of drawing for lovely @ohmyarda I had a blast with these commissions, it was fun drawing some more Dragon Age.

If you haven't already, please go check out her art!

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that lovable captain-troublemaker