faewrenbird

[faewrenbird]

Where you got the googly eyesss

Everyone should have that eye

[faewrenbird]

Hey, Homicipher fanartists. I love you, and I think you should continue drawing the characters however you want and in whatever you want. 💖

[faewrenbird]

Mr. Scarletella Doodles with no context

And my sona, yeeeahhh... i really fall for him 🙏💀 So, funny heh

[faewrenbird]

My COMMS are still OPEN, if that's something anyone is interested in, please join my discord server for comms- I've also linked my Ko-fi if that's easier

I've been getting a lot of bot spam when I post my art, so i just wanted to post letting anyone who is not a bot and actually interested and not trying to scam me that COMMS are open, and I have two places where YOU can reach out to me lol -Ive been getting lot of comments saying for me to dm the bot, so just know if you're not a bot you need to reach out to me either on discord, ko-fi or dm here(and if you dm here i might not respond if your blog looks like a bot)

<3

I will draw your ocs, I will draw fandom stuff - I will draw most anything within reason (no mecha, furry, or minor/adult content tho)

Each comm has one free revision during the sketch stage, and I will for the most part update you nearly step by step to get the best result for whatever the comm is.

<3

[faewrenbird]

spare elden ring enjoyers?

[faewrenbird]

[faewrenbird]

So glad there are other Mr. Hood lovers out there, he’s my favorite ☺️

This is for myself and the other 10 Mr Hood fangirls.

I just started playing Homicipher because of Mr Hood and I’m kinda sad his route is shorter than I expected 🥲 but oh well, those breadcrumbs are better than nothing TuT

[faewrenbird]

I will never forget the “Buddy” controversy where a third of my readers were shocked and appalled that I used “Buddy” in a sex scene, never been roasted so hard in my life

When a fanfic writer puts a nickname you think Is icky in their smut fic

[faewrenbird]

One of my favourite things when reading fanfiction is when you click with an author's style so much that you adore the fanfiction you're reading, and once it's over you need more. So you go to their page and hope that there's more for any fandom you might know- only there isn't any. They've written for other fandoms you aren't familiar with and never would've thought about before.

But you're down so bad for their style and talent that they got you wading in like:

[faewrenbird]

[faewrenbird]

Real talk, chat, apart from theory posts, would you be interested in me posting one-shot character x reader/character x you fics?

[faewrenbird]

And we are back!!!

Summary:

Omeluum slowly settles into its new life and encounters many surprises. Thankully, most of them are pleasant.

[faewrenbird]

A Man. A man. A ma-a-a-a-an...

MC and her guardian Mr. Hood is it me or is this in bad quality? HUUUH?????

I never disappeared, is just that my hand didn't hand when drawing lmfao

Have an extra cause I'm feeling like it ;)

I believed this to be accurate asf

[faewrenbird]

Imagine borrowing your boyfriend’s hoodie but your boyfriend is Mr. Hood

Posting on the insta: “feeling cute 🥰 thank you baby xoxo 😘 ” and it’s a pic with a heart frame filter of you in an oversized brown cloak next to a headless corpse with its guts almost spilling out

[faewrenbird]

Totally unrealistic, they would never say please

[faewrenbird]

You see the problem was people saying “fiction doesn’t affect reality” and assuming that the opposition would be intelligent enough and or willing enough to acknowledge that there are obviously caveats to the statement

No one who says it literally means that fiction is completely incapable of having an effect on reality period. And that’s so obvious to anyone who hears it in good faith that it feels like it should go without saying.

It’s like saying, “people in Thailand speak Thai,” and having a swarm of people say “WOW exclusively Thai? What about Isan? Kam Mueang? Just gonna ignore that English is commonly used in businesses?” When it is clearly obvious in the context of the conversation and statement itself that we’re referring to the official language of the country.

The statement “fiction doesn’t affect reality” is exclusively used in conversation surrounding censorship, its meaning should be inferred.

But they will be pedantic as fuck to try to have a gotcha moment, so now we have to say: “fiction doesn’t affect reality, *conditions apply. *fiction does not affect reality on a 1:1 basis and the hundreds to thousands of studies from countless authorities on the topic over half a century have conclusively determined that, barring some mental illnesses, the average human mind distinguishes acts in fiction as entirely separate from real life acts, and no amount of taboo fiction consumption is indicative of morality, and morality is an entirely subjective concept anyway meaning that there is no fair way to censor controversial subject matter unilaterally and to attempt to do so is a threat upon the creative freedoms of marginalized groups.”

i will never forgive the internet for making the phrase “fiction affects reality” inherently suspicious because like fiction absolutely does affect reality in the sense that the themes and messages of media can challenge or affirm people’s biases, it can impact one’s ideology, so much of fiction is commentary on real social issues

and yet! everyone who uses the phrase fiction affects reality is using it as a pro-censorship argument and i simply do not fuck with that

[faewrenbird]

There’s definitely something to be said here! I think what complicates the discussion more is that it’s not just a matter of visual bias but also characterization and creator intent. Art can and does often reflect irl prejudices. It’s why there are stereotypes and tropes in fiction that are just outright racist or fat phobic or homophobic or what have you.

The fatphobia is an easy example. It’s far less common now, but look back at say 90’s cartoons. How often was there the one fat kid, always male, always a loser, always the butt of every food joke?

A lot of this is deeply ingrained prejudices and stereotypes that we grow up with and sometimes don’t even realize we have. Which I think could be the case in a lot of these situations where ugly = villain, pretty = good. There’s a learned pattern in our brains that says “these features indicate evil, while these others indicate good.”

And this is actually more evident in fiction than in reality because fiction often exaggerates qualities, sometimes to the extreme.

I think Mohg is actually the perfect example of this in action. It’s not just that he’s not as pretty as Miquella, or even that he’s big and masculine. It’s the curled goat horns and black skin and jagged teeth and association with blood. He’s purposely designed to evoke satanic imagery in the back of your mind with these exaggerated qualities that are stereotypically associated with evil.

That background prejudice, those learned patterns, are like a running script in peoples’ heads when they consume media. And that’s not always necessarily a bad thing. To the consumer, they’re a safety net. They prime us to have certain expectations met. If I see a bad-ass, scary looking boss creature, I’m naturally primed to expect something evil. And there is entertainment value payoff when that expectation is met. If I see a dainty and unblemished, fragile character, I’m primed to expect innocence. And again, having our expectations met is entertaining because it feels rewarding.

Those expectations are also where creators can have the most fun and power. Because what if those expectations are subverted? How can they be molded and changed to guide the consumer along a surprising and exciting journey with the narrative?

Back to the Mohg and Miquella example, I think this was the intended effect. Mohg was intentionally designed to trigger the subscript of our brains to think “evil.” Then, later, we learn that it was more nuanced than that all along. And that’s exciting! There’s a reason we all love wise old sexy grandpa Ansbach and it’s because he is the messenger here. Through him, we are directly told, “No, this character was not evil,” which is in direct opposition to what we know about him before that point. He challenges our subscript and it’s a fun plot twist!

However, I think the execution of this in Elden Ring was maybe sort of…bad? Mohg’s stereotypical evil characteristics were SO over-exaggerated that they break the suspension of disbelief when Ansbach tells us the truth. Our thought isn’t “holy fuck, he was the good guy all along,” it’s “whoa, even the evil guy got manipulated.”

Idk, maybe that’s what they were going for. A more nuanced reveal. But even then, they designed him with so many standard evil qualities, that many people just don’t believe there’s depth to it at all. He must still have been evil, and also manipulated. But still pure evil! I mean look! He committed murders and worshipped blood! (as if fire or holy light are any better than blood in the context of this universe)

Had they toned it down or toned Miquella up, maybe there could’ve been a much more compelling beat to the reveal.

But yeah, stepping away from extreme examples, we still continue to carry those biases even into less exaggerated fiction. We still expect that unattractive characters are bad or not to be taken seriously.

Realizing I strayed from one of the main points of the OP which was in the context of fandom. And yeah, fandoms rarely have the space for nuance in any circumstance, which is a shame. So much of that has to do with media illiteracy, fast entertainment, and peer-group, Internet sociology. Which, in contrast to what I said above, is actually hindering the progress of media away from the stereotypical tropes.

As much as I love fandom, it is quite literally the enemy of nuance. Actual media analysis ain’t happening in fandom social media tags, that’s for sure

if i was a more intelligent and more of a well-read and well-educated person, i would actually genuinely love to do some sort of a study about the differences in fandom people's attitudes towards characters who are not conventionally good-looking compared to characters who are, and how differently people in fandom treat those characters and judge their actions. but i'm not any of those things, and also that would be a very difficult thing to research because people are really adverse to admitting that the way a character looks plays a huge role in how much they like them, how they treat them and how they perceive their actions, because that would be admitting that they're shallow and no one wants to admit that.

like i definitely think that fandom isn't (or at least shouldn't be) all that serious, and if there's any context when one is allowed to be shallow, it's with fictional characters. people like what they like and they can't help it, and i often feel very stupid for constantly noticing this (the different ways in which people treat conventionally attractive and "ugly" characters) and caring so much about it.

...but at the same time, i do feel like maybe people might benefit from examining their biases and their attitudes towards characters that they personally don't find attractive, and especially how differently they judge the actions of two characters of whom one is conventionally attractive and the other isn't, and how much more grace and compassion they give to and straight up excuses they make for the conventionally attractive ones, while condemning the same or equally bad actions of another, less attractive, character - how when the character is attractive, there are a multitude of factors that explain and excuse their actions and make them understandable and sympathetic - they had good intentions, they had a traumatic past, they don't know any better and so on and so forth - whereas nothing ever excuses the actions of a non-attractive character, and anyone who tries to understand said character even a little is immediately condemned for excusing and defending their unforgivable actions and being an "apologist".

honestly, i probably wouldn't have this much of a problem with it if so many fandom people's definition of attractive wasn't so painfully narrow. like obviously people are drawn to characters who they find visually compelling, but man, so many people's "visually compelling" is just "someone i want to fuck", and their idea of "someone i want to fuck" is so fucking limited - literally just young, thin, hairless, scarless, blemishless etc.

and i also probably wouldn't have as much of a problem with it if people could just be honest. just say "yes, i care about this character more than that character because this character is pretty and the other one is ugly. yes i have less compassion for that character because they're ugly, and judge them and their actions much more harshly because they're ugly, meanwhile this other character can do no wrong in my eyes because they're hot" and stop pretending that the character you think is ugly just so happens to be somehow fundamentally less deserving of compassion and understanding than the character you think is hot.