I suppose it's time. Even though I can't change my username (yet; it's supposed to eventually be an FA+ member feature) I can still change my icon.

And to be honest, Darkmark hasn't represented me in a long time. I have no ill will towards the character, other than just general "I came up with that when I was a teenager" cringe, but that's the thing - he's just a character. I have so many characters from stories and tabletop games and so on that I made a spreadsheet to track them all. But only two characters are used to actually represent me online these days, and Darkmark isn't one of them.

A glance at my gallery/galleries makes it clear where my focus lies these days. So it makes sense to update my non-Codelizard profile to the character that I actually use to represent myself in some spaces, rather than just having Darkmark hanging around as cruft because FA won't let me rename my account.

There's always some anxiety involved in a decision like this, rooted in how decisions about how I present myself are received, but something I've come to learn recently is that I shouldn't be ashamed of who I am or what I like.

I won't get upset about unwatches; sometimes people change and their interests no longer overlap with yours, and that's OK. I know I've ditched a few artists who changed to only drawing things I disliked, but I don't hold it against them. But the reality is that I have learned more about myself and what I want to represent myself as online, and I'm not going to hide that just because some theoretical person I haven't spoken to in forever might not like it.

To end on a more positive note, the new icon was drawn by  xizzdot who did a lovely job as usual.