#wolfe probably

[crow-caller]

as a child there's nothing cooler than a kid who gets subjected to evil experiments and gains special abilities. it's even cooler if these abilities also cause unfathomable suffering to use/against others. children love stories like this.

[porcelain-rob0t]

on identity, healing the inner child, fursonas, and cringe culture

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[effemira]

"want a piece?"

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[newtid]

had the urge to draw the butch werewolf again (mainly in thanks to punkitt's werewolf sona)

started making this a couple days ago and was planning on posting it tomorrow but i just learnt that woah!! it's butch appreciation day

anyway i made this gal nearly a year ago but she's still unnamed, so if you've got any ideas let me know

[pigeonstab]

@somegrumpynerd :3c Cross getting his first toy ever

I think it's the kind of thing he brings everywhere cuz it's his comfort item.. and he's never had a comfort item before

[tyquu]

Srry for not answering my inbox, wrestling artblock. Have some lazy ezra memes

[heatherchasesyou]

Why dis Claudia look so mad 😩

[demaparbat-hp]

Izumi (steambaby) sketches.

[felassan]

DA:TV info compilation

there's a lot of lil bits of info floating around. this post is just a compilation of various bits in one place.

The young griffon's name is Assan. [source] "assan" is elven for "arrow". as a certified -Assan-enjoyer, that makes me happy :> we'll see more of Assan in the weeks ahead. Edit: I forgot to add that Assan is a he. :)

The Gameplay Reveal tomorrow is going to be 20 minutes long now, not 15. [source]

down the line they will be showing the character creator a lot. CC is not being shown tomorrow. [source]

Michael Gamble confirmed being able to play Rook as an elf [source] and a Qunari [source]. here's an image of human Rook. Scylla Costa confirmed you can play as a dwarven Rook [source].

We will have the ability to change our companions' armor. [source]

Emmrich was compared to Vincent Price. [source]

the game is not Xbox exclusive. it's also coming out on PS5 and PC. [source]

Taash the dragon hunter's name is indeed related to the Qunlat word that means dragon: "ataashi". [source]

"Hopefully we put out information about romance options soon" [source].

Taash's pronouns are she/her [source].

Trick Weekes is the writer of Taash [source].

Mary Kirby is the writer of Varric and Lucanis. [source]

Derek Wilks did lots of cinematic designer work on Emmrich. [source]

John Epler is the writer of Bellara. [source]

these four images : one, two, three, four were all taken in-game (they are in-game-screenshots, not concept art pieces) [source].

[pcktknife]

twyleen based on old drawings of them i cant find but! have memorized

[wolfssixshadows]

Friendly reminder that Kaz goes to stare at the Emerald Palace everytime he feels low on rage. Just one good look at the eyesore and he's back and ready to take on the world.

[howlsnteeth]

i guess there's no remedy, own worst enemy

[verflares]

nasty dog (painting practice)

[lustlovehart]

Blade who travels across the universe, goes to your planet, breaks into your home, and wakes you up in the middle of the night because you sent him a 💀 emoji and he thought it was a code you were dying.

"Mm...? Blade...? Wha why are you here??"

And all he does is shove your text on his phone really close to your face.

And then you have to explain to him not everything you do is a code that you're in danger and need him to come save you.

(All the stuff you say goes in one ear and goes out the other, because the next time you do the same thing, he's already at your window with his sword in hand ready to fight.)