So i just zipped through your altered tag and its now chewing on my brain. So sorry if youve already mentioned it but im curious about your animal choices in Altered!
Specifically Fjords -- if im not mistaken he's an otter right? (Im on mobile so i cant see image descriptions 😭) ((Such a good choice btw omg 💕)) I adore otters -- specifically river otters. Is there a reason u chose river otter instead of sea otter for him? (Or am i horribly mistaken and my memory of different sea otter appearances is lacking 😅)
fjord is genuinely one of my favorite ones to talk about because he was a JOURNEY to figure out
he's specifically a giant river otter! they live in the amazon and are about five feet long not including their tail! they are apex predators! :) VERY big otter that looks like it's witnessed the face of god
here's a photo of a couple of them on wikipedia
anyway what happened, on the day my very dear friend @tactfulgrimalkin cursed me by asking and i quote "at the risk of inflicting you with terminal brainrot, what would the mighty nein's animal forms be" when i got to fjord i said: were it not for the nautical theming built into fjord's character, he would be the easiest wolf of my life.
(doing a cut because this got long)
i consider a LOT of things when im assigning animal forms/actually i tend to start with the animal form when i'm creating characters, because i find that a bit easier, but in this case obviously it was the other way around and the fact remains i go through a LOT of things. i think about their cultural relationship w/ humans and how they're portrayed, historical stuff, but most of all the number one thing is always the animal's Actual Behavior.
with wolves, if someone is a wolf, the sort of hallmark trait that will make me define them as a wolf over any other animal i might have narrowed it down to is that above all else, for better or worse, family is the most important part of their lives. for fjord, an orphan who had a whole ass long complicated journey around learning to be accepted for who he is and all, i'd say that hits pretty true.
additionally, there's the tension between wolves and dogs which fits well with his struggle with the whole half-orc thing as well as his feeling very out of place on land a lot of the time, even if he's good at acting otherwise (sailor beached on land and all).
there's ALSO the whole perception of wolves culturally with them being regularly maligned as terrible, evil creatures when their actual behavior is just a very family driven species (a tension that's VERY important to altered, actually, but i shant say more about that yet. bewarethekingofwolves etc). and they are SO family driven like i said; they're apex predators, which in the same way caduceus described being a beast of burden as something that can mean multiple things depending on how he chooses to interpret it, being an apex predator is also something that can mean a lot of things, but its important to note with wolves that the reason they hold that spot is specifically because they are cooperative pack hunters.
But the tension again relates well both to fjord's half-orc struggles of not feeling like he fits anywhere and ALSO reflects his whole toxic masculinity thing. i could keep going on about this.
there is unfortunately one problem. wolves aren't the least bit aquatic.
technically, FULLY aquatic animals are no-gos for animal forms for logistical reasons--you can't shift forms if doing so will harm you, so any animal that starts dying the moment you take it out of the water is just not allowed (primates are also off limits but that's because of historical racism but thats another conversation). HOWEVER. semi-aquatic is fine and i knew like, the water is too important to fjord for him to not be something good at swimming. now, there's a subspecies of sea wolf that's slowly evolving in that direction up in vancouver, and if we lived in a reality in which those guys started evolving a few million years earlier and were already like fully obviously something that swims enough for my liking, i woulda jumped on that and been done with it. but we dont live in that world so me and my friend had to get back to the drawing board.
had a lot of points to look for, at least: apex predator, cooperative pack hunter, tension between portrayal in media/perception by humans vs the animal's actual behavior, huge focus on family life. but also needed to be aquatic enough to fit fjord.
and at some point one of us, i think he did but im not sure, mentioned giant river otters, so i did some reading and uh yeah it turns out giant river otters are EXACTLY that. they don't have the exact same reputation as wolves, which is the one thing i was less thrilled about, they're viewed more as pests than an actual threat by people who live near them locally, but at the same time any time you look at comments of like a youtube short of them, or try looking up documentaries, a lot of it is like look at these BIG SCARY HORRIBLE-LOOKING NASTY BOYS. they're like the cute little button eyed otters you know but BIT and CREEPY and DANGEROUS
(they are family creatures who live in the same social structure as wolves, with mom and dad in charge and a year or two's worth of older pups helping raise the youngest ones, then slowly dispersing as they grow old enough to want to establish their own territories and families. they share food with each other if someone's struggling to catch any fish. they can hunt CAIMANS sometimes. they bully any jaguar who goes swimming in their territory. they make little squeaky noises and apparently even produce a sound similar to a purr when they're content. yes they can be dangerous to humans in their territory but like it's their territory just leave them alone)
so that's. a very long winded late night ramble but i hope i got the general ideas across! thank you so much for asking!
I once wrote a short fic about Essek polymorphing into a moorbounder and definitely forgetting the intelligence penalty. I have beefed it up a bit, and one day would love to post it for real!
The creature who once was Essek hunkered in the snow about ten feet away, the evening sky casting him sleek and dark. It was a little weird that he'd been staring at the group and flexing his claws for fifteen minutes, but as far as Caduceus was concerned, Essek was just a weird kind of guy. Plus, claw-flexing seemed like typical behavior for people called things like "Shadowhand." Normally Essek was just more subtle about it.
Encouragingly, since the start of the trip, Caduceus hadn't seen a claw at all. Well, a metaphorical one; the physical ones flexing in the snow just now seemed pretty impressive. Still, it was progress.
Jester watched the moorbounder's paws knead, one-two one-two, and frowned at Beau. “But why would he eat us?”
“Caleb gets hungry and stupid when he’s a T-Rex. Sorry Caleb, it’s true.”
“I do not have an appetite for my friends when I am turned to another form,” Caleb retorted a little testily from across the fire. He too watched the dark claws.
To Caduceus’ left, Fjord acquired the extremely specific and mildly conspiratorial air of someone who vividly remembered being stuck in a tunnel with an orange, toothy shark. “Yep,” he muttered. “Never happens.”
There had been an unfriendly amount of teeth on that shark, now that Caduceus recalled the experience.
I'm so sorry for all the terrible things you went through... I am happy that you are alive though, I was really worried that you hadn't been active for a few years or so. Welcome back. Please take care and I hope you stay safe and healthy!!! <3
Sorry about that, things got really tough (balancing my regular job then covid hit, it’s just been rough ever since) but I hope to come back on here again despite my weird change in fandoms 😅 I hope everyone’s staying safe and healthy too 🙏
mr-and-mrs-gluskin
YOU'RE ALIVE 😭
yEP It’s been... so long... I feel like I came back from the dead and my joints are all creaky HAHAHA
it’s gotta be The Iron Bull. runners up are.......... Dorian, Josephine, Krem, Varric, Leliana, Vivienne, Daga, Sten, Valta, Zevran, Harding, uhhh the list goes on. But ultimate fave is just Bull.
I love the different window he opens up into Qunari culture, I love how much he loves his boys, I love that he’s a canonically pansexual, disabled, character with a complex past and a love of life. I love how he works to understand the world around him and meet his friends where they’re at, despite growing up in a culture that trained him to reject core parts of his own personhood and personality. I love that he supports Krem, and that he’s easily read as nonbinary himself. I love that his character model has such a dumb tiny head but he’s also smart enough to play a game of chess entirely in his mind. I love how sweet he and Dorian are if they’re together in Trespasser. I love that he loves fighting dragons, and the color pink, and dumb puns. I just love him 🐮💗🥰
Have you ever watched Curse of the Dragon Slayer? It's not technically dnd but feels like someones homebrew setting, and it's not nearly as beautifully Terrible as the dnd movies I've watched. Very much recommend :)
no i haven’t but i’ll put it on my to-watch list pronto 👀
subtitle - content warning: heavy on the angst - (spotify playlist link)
fire - special explostioncairo - san ferminhungover in the city of dust - autoheartwhen you break - bear’s deniscariot - vassar devilsloose change for the boatman - king charlesjourney of the featherless - cloud cultsellers of flowers - regina spektorand so it goes - billy joellanterns lit - son lux
valakiir replied to your post: hey paint water connoisseur, know any good paint...
This is y I end up dehydrated every time I paint. It Will Happen. Every single time.
every time i get ready to paint my brain goes “hey let’s make tea first!” and it’s only when i sit down with two very different mugs of liquid that i realize the danger i’m in
