#faelan

[the-mediaeval-monk]

Brother Bennett holding Baby Faelan

Fear not monastic lovers, Bennett has not given up his monkhood! Now that he's back at the monastery after being sent off to have his baby, he will be given penance and a public punishment, his hair will be cut and tonsured, and he will be welcomed back into the community...at the lowest rank.

However, now he has to convince his abbot that he's reformed. Which will be easier said than done...

(Meanwhile, Baby Faelan will be spoiled rotten by everyone at the double monastery.)

Also the sigil on Bennett's chest is based on the one found in the necromancy manual MS Rawl.D.252. Brother Bennett lives about 550ish years before that manual was made, but this is my story and I can have some artistic license as a treat.

[crabkick]

Depravity of the gods

[midnightwind]

can I offer you extremely messy sketches of my bg3 characters

[cripplecharacters]

How would I go about portraying an autistic character in a world where there wouldn’t be the terminology for that sort of thing? It’s a fantasy novel that mostly surrounds fairies, and I’m considering having her family think she’s a changeling (something I know has ableist roots and could be shown to be wrong as she’s just an autistic human)

Hello, thanks for your question!

Using pretty direct Autistic coding would be your best bet for making the character as obviously Autistic as possible without having the in-world terminology for it. This could include showing the character stimming, having distinct speech patterns from the rest of the cast, experiencing shutdowns or meltdowns when relevant, fixating on particular interests, keeping a regular routine (and getting upset when it's disrupted), and reacting more strongly to sensory input than the rest of the cast, among other things. Readers who are Autistic or otherwise familiar with Autism will probably clue in quite quickly if you depict these kinds of traits.

While the idea of changelings being equated with disabilities--and Autism in particular--has grown in popularity over the past decade, I would still advise a lot of caution in associating Autistic characters with changelings. While some Autistic people (especially those of us outside of Europe where changelings originated) do identify with changelings due to feeling othered by society, many of us don't because of the negative context of the original changeling stories. I feel that the real-world history behind the stories should be taken into serious consideration before drawing any direct parallels between disabled people and changelings.

Though it's absolutely plausible that the changeling stories did potentially originate as ways to explain the presence and development of disabilities in children as many theories argue, the changeling stories themselves don't frame changelings in a positive or even neutral light--changelings are creatures you absolutely do not want in your home or family and are seen as undeserving burdens on a family's hard-earned resources. There are documented historical instances of people--adults and children alike--being beaten, abused or murdered just on suspicion of having been changelings. I feel that this context is often lost outside of Europe, as we don't always realize that changelings were taken very seriously, especially in rural communities, and were not just harmless bedtime stories.

Because of this, I would suggest that, if you go the changeling route, you take the time and effort to portray it as a particularly dehumanizing and potentially dangerous form of ableism, and approach the subject with delicacy. Otherwise, if your portrayal of fairies in your story is not negative the way they tend to be when associated with creatures like changelings, you could keep the foundations of the changeling story--a human replaced by a fey creature--but tweak the perceptions your character's society might have around them, and perhaps change the name to something that doesn't evoke the same connotations as the changeling.

Other Autistic people are welcome to add their thoughts!

-Mod Faelan

[lokiina]

Dino is not a fan. fjkhgdkfjhg

Previously: pt 1: [X], pt 2: [X], pt 3: [X], pt 4: [X], pt 5: [X], pt 6: [X], pt 7 [X], pt 8 [X], pt 9 [X]

[author-a-holmes]

@sleepyowlwrites

You are not the only one!! I don't break out into poetry, as I only dabble in it occasionally, but I have absolutely told @faelanvance that her I hate her because her writing is so evocative.

Hate in the good way, of course *sobs bitterly*

please tell me I'm not the only person who sees someone's writing that is so good that instead of exploding into effusive compliments, I break into visceral poetry that ends up almost insulting the person whose writing I am trying to praise.

or is poor @ambiguouspuzuma the only casualty and me the only weirdo with poetry bullets? just me? yeah, I thought so.

I'm sorry Ocelot, you write so well that it makes me bubble up with passion and inspired adoration masking as disdain, and then I get silly and tell you about it. but holy heap, you're an excellent short fiction writer.

[cyrils-inferno]

Don't you love when two artist own a character? Like damn boy, your life is gonna be fucked up 😂

Co-parent/second artist: @kisses44gen

[princekoala]

Surprisingly not a RSA boy(?) This time

Name: Thornby Bell Faelan

Age: 16

Birthday:November 16th

Height: 5'6-5'9

Species: Fae

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Year: 2nd

Dorm: Fableheart (dorm creator: @windbornearchon)

Best subject: Ancient magic

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Likes: attention, being the best, the color blue, flying

Dislikes: His curse, bad grades, not being the best, the idea of disappearing

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Curse: Thornby's destined to be forgotten, and because of this, every time he seems to be forgotten he starts to fade and grow weak, it's only a matter of time before they poof out of existence

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Twisted from: Faybelle Thorn

[author-a-holmes]

Would love to know more about Tale of the Shadowfox

WIP Files Game - Found HERE

I'm actually really glad someone asked about this one!

It's listed as a work in progress mainly because I'm still undecided on whether I'll publish it publically or not, but it's actually a completed story. I wrote it for @faelanvance on the birth of their mini-gremling as a gift to the whole family. Something they could read together, share together, and that the little one could grow into over the years.

Tale of the Shadowfox is a story about a fox cub with threee siblings. As they grow their parents bestow names on her three brothers, but Cub can't seem to accomplish anything well enough to make her stand out, and earn herself a name.

When she is the oldest cub in the pack to still not have a name, and the other foxes begin to shun her, she runs away from home. Determined to prove herself, she braves the wolves and the bears and the humans to find something she's good at... but instead finds herself lost, alone and hungry.

I wrote this childrens story in a week. I spent another week putting together illustrations using assets from Creative Fabrica, and formatted it and had it printed.

1 month after Fae came home with her newest bundle of joy, Shadowfox was delivered to her front door and I'm INCREDIBLY proud of the fact that I brought the whole family (old enough to read) to tears *smug emoji*

As I said, this is a WIP because I'm still undecided on whether to publish it or not. If I ever do, all royalties will go into a bank account for the mini-gremlin. It's her story, after all.

[the-mediaeval-monk]

Brother Bennett holding Faelan outside the church.

[fanolotsoart]

redesigned Charlatan and adult Fae, and drew her younger with 2 of her friends, Cosmo and Kerry

[stranger2time]

I made a new Durge... Meet Faelan.... I can't get over how hot he is... Apparently half-drow get this sexy chest hair kinda like Halsin... who I will definitely be romancing late game...

[author-a-holmes]

@faelanvance

Re; our recent discord discussion

"How many times can I write about this trope before people start to think it's a kink of mine" and other author problems.

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! A little while ago you made a post where you mentioned a character who suffers from migraines would be considered disabled. I have had periodic migraines since I was a kid (varying in frequency and intensity, and now tend to get them associated with changes in the weather/seasons), and have never heard them described as a disability before. Is there a certain threshold for migraines to be considered a disability? Apologies if this sounds insensitive - I promise it is made in good faith.

Hello, thanks for your question! I love these kinds of identity-related questions, so apologies in advance for the slight ramble.

(The post referenced in this ask can be found here for anyone interested.)

This may be an unsatisfying answer, but it really depends on the person and whether they're personally comfortable identifying as disabled. This is true not only for people with migraines, but people who experience any kind of dynamic disability whose severity fluctuates over time or from day to day -- and especially so for people who may experience both extremes of being functionally able-bodied one day and fully debilitated the next.

My personal experience has taught me that people will often think their good days somehow cancel out the bad, and this gives them a kind of imposter syndrome when it comes to engaging with disabled community. My aim isn't to force people to identify as disabled (and I hope it didn't come across that way!) but rather to emphasize that there is no "correct" way to be disabled, that it's okay to find solidarity in disabled community even if you have more good days than bad, and to encourage us to think about why some conditions "count" in popular imagination as disability and others don't, no matter how debilitating they may be.

Some people who experience dynamic conditions like migraines (as just one example of many) might genuinely not consider their condition a disability and won't necessarily benefit from identifying that way, and that's completely okay. My mother gets a couple migraines per year that last about a day, and doesn't consider this a disability in itself because she just doesn't really feel they impact her life in a meaningful way. But a good friend of mine gets them much more frequently and isn't able to live normally/needs specific accommodation for days or weeks at a time, and does consider this a disability because it has a profound impact on their comfort and lifestyle. It just depends on what resonates with people and what they feel speaks most authentically to their experiences.

Just a sidenote as some people may not know this, but it's also exceedingly rare for a doctor to just come out and tell you that your diagnosis makes you disabled. In my experience, they'll hardly ever even use the word "disabled" at all. I've known people to go years living with a diagnosis the community practically unanimously sees as a disability, yet fully identifying as able-bodied without even thinking to connect with us for support, just because they expected a medical professional to tell them the moment they became disabled.

Ultimately, there are no hard and fast rules for who is "allowed" to identify as disabled. My own personal stance is that if people find comfort and solidarity in recognizing themselves as disabled and benefit from connecting with disabled community, I have no interest in interrogating them to figure out how affected they are by their condition or deciding whether I think they're disabled "enough" to call themselves that. I believe them to know their experiences best.

Even if someone lives with a dynamic condition and decides intentionally not to identify as disabled, I do think we all ultimately benefit from introspection about our own sense of ability and way of inhabiting the world, and from asking ourselves why so many people allow themselves to live in any manner of pain and discomfort before they'll let the word "disabled" even cross their mind.

I hope this helps explain my answer to that particular ask a bit more! While not necessarily writing related, per se, I do think these conversations are important, and I hope that at least one person comes away from these types of asks with something new to think about.

-Mod Faelan

[lokiina]

Things to think about...

Previously: pt 1: [X], pt 2: [X], pt 3: [X], pt 4: [X], pt 5: [X], pt 6: [X]

[kirin-central]

all OCs from my yuuniverse twst timeline

note: links to the picrews/artists’ profiles are hyperlinked below each set of pictures

••

— Yujin Han & Romi Klee

cr: hunbloom / poika

— Hyde Faelan & Hotaru Hasegawa

cr: Siga / poika

— Klara Finley & Rina Liang

cr: Elequinoa / Sangled

— Misaki Hasegawa & Miri Lovell

cr: おいちぃ牛乳 / Naylissah

— Yulia Biru & Feng Yuwen

cr: Sangled / おいちぃ牛乳