#looking at you the Originals fandom ya’ll are prolific

[thelibraryloser]

I’m the librarian that gets to cover the new books and I read all the inside flaps while I’m covering them and then based on that synopsis I play a little game called which fandom was this originally fanfic for?

[veridium]

dragon age day

I know today might be a bit overwhelming for the fandom since it is, of course, the day (the day of all days). When I thought about what I wanted to contribute, if anything, I could only think of saying thanks. As I am in the midst of finals and grading assignments, I don’t have many spoons to spare, except to reiterate what I have said so many times before: dragon age has provided me with so many blessings. 

CW: discussion of toxic relationship, emotional abuse.

Some of you know that around the time I joined the fandom in 2018 (after having only played Inquisition for several months beforehand), I was in the midst of an incredibly toxic, emotionally abusive, and failing relationship. I had just graduated college and was at a crossroads. Because the relationship was the longest and most serious I had ever known I was incredibly attached to it, even as it became detrimental to my happiness. We were planning on getting engaged this past summer. Our entire lives were planned and I was in it for the long haul. 

Earlier that year my ex had gifted me Inquisition after I kept seeing it in GameStop and saying I had always wanted to try it. I played it once, got infuriated by the Hinterlands, and put it down for a long time. Around the time I finished undergrad I decided to give it another try, and quickly became hooked. I would spend hours and hours in front of the TV learning by trial and error how to play. My ex was the more prolific gamer but that quickly started to change. 

That wasn’t the only shift that was happening. 

One of the symptoms of my ex’s and her family’s toxicity and its impact on me was that I had become incredibly detached from art. I have been artistic since I was strong enough to hold a crayon in my hand. My family swore for years I’d be an artist, or an actress. But I have learned that, what all-too-often happens when you choose to love something that doesn’t love you the way you deserve in return, you lose touch with all the things that remind you of why you’re so worthy of a great love. You don’t invest in it, you don’t nourish it, because it becomes all about preserving this person in your life and what you believe they bring to it. When things turn dark the natural inclination is to sacrifice more in order to save it: to prove that you can be as loyal as your promised. 

A year later and I am still unpacking the trauma that was inflicted upon me during that time of my life, trauma I didn’t know by name as it was happening because I had given my all to someone I loved and the future we wanted. But not everything was rosey and blissful, and I am reflecting upon that. I think back to what finally woke me up, and it’s quite literally this: I turned into a huge, enthusiastic, and clumsy nerd. 

Playing a game with such a vivid world took what was perhaps one of the last surviving matchsticks there was, lighting it, and dropping it on me. My imagination consumed Thedas like water after a 40-year drought. I began theorizing characters, researching the prior games, and scrolling through the wiki site hunting for lore. I realized the universe was so much bigger than what Inquisition represented. 

Then, I bought the first sketchbook I had in over a year. 

My characters became my muse, and over time, their portraits grew into stories. I looked up Tumblr and rejoined specifically to engage with the fandom and see what sharing my love with other people could do for my creativity. Even though art and writing were lifelong passions of mine, I had no intention whatsoever of writing fanfiction until I read other people’s work, saw the fun they were having with it and what it was doing for their healing, and I decided to go out on a limb.

The more stories I wrote the more I remembered my marrow: I was so much more than what my relationship, and my partner’s family, warped me into seeing. My original characters started out as projections of the qualities and traits I loved and missed about myself, as well as love letters to the women and queer people in my life. And in the canon characters I grew attached to I saw hope and inspiration for surviving adversities. Tests of faith, conviction, and courage under pressure. In their stories I found refuge and reliability for a terrible era of my life where I felt so completely alone.

As I gave more and more time to my passions, my relationship strained even further than it had. I was no longer hopelessly devoted to its endurance, I had something that was purely mine again, and my partner’s encouragement waned. It turned into jealousy -- for this and many other parts of my life I used as an escape from the sadness -- and rather than bend as I had done before, I pushed back. I protected what was my own and I did not sacrifice it. To be fair it wasn’t always healthy: I would log hours and hours into the game to escape the stress of the relationship, to distract myself from the fact that my mental health was the lowest and frailest it had been in years, and the cold, hard truth: it was over, or else I was going to commit my life to something terrible. 

Months later, I said enough. I ended the relationship once and for all. I was moving my life out of an apartment I had lived in for years, saying goodbye to everything I had fought so hard to build. In your early 20s everything feels like a vast unknown and you have a manual with no writing on its pages. Every serious decision feels like invoking a storm you have to hunker down in. I still deal with that, and am learning from it with every new season. I have also learned that sometimes destruction, and creative recklessness, is about so much more than loss. I had given up security I was paying for with my emotional well-being. 

But I kept me, and my sketchbooks, and my art supplies, and my stories. I had my cat, too, but you know, technicalities (haha).

So, for as imperfect as my fandom experience has been, and for as grumpy as I have become with society’s bullshit (which is quite the high level), I will always be grateful to these games for existing. For giving me something to hold onto when my life was falling apart, a world I could slip away to when I wasn’t ready to face the evils in my own. Because when I was finally ready, and willing to be my own warrior, my imagination was ready to make something out of nothing. These games and this universe helped me save myself.

Thank you to Dragon Age, to the fandom community I have made in its name, and to everyone who makes it worthwhile. But it wouldn’t be me without saying: fuck off to every single bullshit game writer who used its medium to perpetuate harmful tropes and norms, fuck off to fandom racists and racist apologists, to queerphobes who hated my meta on account of it using the word queer even though it was my explicit voice as a queer creative on queer issues (did I forget to say queer? queer!), to Vivienne haters, sexist gamer bros, fetishists; but explicitly to romanticizers of unhealthy power dynamics between couples and friends alike. These horror stories (yes, horror stories) exist enough in real life, take it from me. We don’t need them made into romanticized, co-opted, and misused fictions here. 

The reason why I and so many others write for this universe, and participate creatively, is to combat these influences. With our own blood, sweat, and tears as artists, might I add. I am so, so proud to be included in that community. 

So, happy Dragon Age Day, ya’ll. Let us keep warm on this, our trash can fire. 

[randomslasher]

Time to go for a ride... (old art)

So some unsuspecting anon innocently asked me about old fandoms and old fanart. And ya’ll. Buckle up, this is gonna get interesting. 

Be aware though: I’m not gonna be making fun of my old stuff. We all started somewhere, and while I’m proud of my improvement, I would never have gotten anywhere if people hadn’t been supportive of where I started. This is just gonna be a fun trip down memory lane. :) 

Gonna start out with the very first ever big fandom I joined, and the first fandom where I started drawing humanoid characters (instead of dragons, dolphins, horses, and wolves): Lord of the Rings. This is technically my first piece of fanart ever: Samwise Gamgee receiving his box of earth from Galadriel: 

If you can make out that date, it’s 10-13-01. As in 2001. As in 17 years ago--before some of you were born. This was before I learned to draw with confident lines, or to press down on the paper so you could see the result after it was scanned. Meep. 

The rest of these are going behind a cut. While nothing is going to be explicit, there may be some blood or nudity (again, nothing explicit) so enter at your own risk. This will also be a very image-heavy post.

Another couple from Lord of the Rings, just because it is probably still to date my most prolific fandom: 

What?? I used to do backgrounds??? Glad I stopped that nonsense. 

I definitely didn’t start out knowing how to use colored pencils. Proud of my improvement with them! 

Ok let’s move forward. I have three more fandoms I’d consider ‘big’ fandoms--Supernatural, Merlin, and Avengers. While I did have a hodgepodge of art from a ton of others too, those are the only ones in which I had a number of drawings. I’ll share some now! 

Merlin first: 

One of my earlier chibi efforts. The style has developed a lot since then. 

Drew this from a photo ref and melded it with Arthur’s armor. I don’t do much graphite shading anymore but I have to admit it looks pretty good. 

I have always angsted. 

Now let’s jump to Avengers! I was a huge Coulson fan and a Clint/Coulson shipper: 

But most of my Avengers stuff was chibis: 

Supernatural time! 

99% of my stuff from SPN days was my comics. They were chibi comics and you can find them on my tag on this blog rsspnart. They’re longish so I won’t post many, but here’s one of my favorite shorter panel ones: 

“Sammy’s Bad Hair Day” 

“Swoop!” (I love Gabriel so much and I was a Sabriel shipper--never got into Destiel, but I loved Sabriel!)

Observe here one of the very few arts I ever managed to do digitally. Sabriel again. 

Here’s another! 

Now some misc fandom / original characters! 

Mark and Roger from the musical Rent

Billy and Dr Grant from Jurassic Park 3 (talk about obscure fandoms...but seriously watch it, that movie is a fanfic)

A sad smol draw of Jake and Trudy from Avatar (because I have a massive crush on Michelle Rodriguez and I’m sick of how often she dies and I hated that she didn’t get any dramatic sad death scene or mourning, wth.)

Jack Frost and Grown-Up Jamie Bennet from Rise of the Guardians

Dragonheart fanart? Why not. 

JD and Dr Cox. I used to ship these guys and I have a TON of art of them but now it’s pretty much a NOTP so I don’t feel like digging it up. 

Tumnus and Lucy from Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Old friends. 

And now a few original characters!

My Naga boy, Kaven: 

He’s a prince, and he ended up falling in love with his minstrel (who’d saved his life years earlier after he’d been left for dead during a border skirmish). 

Here’s said Minstrel, Thorne (who is @sanders-sides-thuri‘s character)

Here are the two goobers together: 

Kaven is significantly larger because he was royalty, and had much more access to food. Being part snake, characters in this world grow based on how much food they get. Thorne, being raised a poor farmboy, didn’t have nearly as much to eat and therefore stayed quite a bit smaller. There is over 150k words of story written about these two. 

And here are a few OCs I created from World of Warcraft: 

Tokaal (the troll) and Kyrel (the draenei), who, as WoW players know, are on opposite factions and expected to be enemies. But Tokaal rescued Kyrel from a slaver caravan in Un’Goro Crater and they eventually learned to communicate and became friends. Tokaal took Kyrel back up to Theramore Isle (an Alliance stronghold) but given that he was a troll and a member of the Horde, he was attacked on site. Fortunately Kyrel managed to convince the guards he was an ally, and was able to help heal him. Tokaal just woke up from his healing sleep to find himself in the arms of a very worried draenei. 

The next two images in the series: 

bwaha h/c ftw

There’s a ton more out there, but it’s pretty scattered to the winds. But here’s a healthy sampling of the nonsense I’ve created throughout the years! 

I hope you enjoyed, those of you who actually looked at all of this, LOL! Thank you for joining me on this nostalgic ramble! <3 

~LJ