Okay, time to push that two-year-old journal off my front page.

So, it's probably obvious at this point, but I've more or less dropped the original Darkmark alias in favor of Codelizard. It's been a slow transition that wasn't entirely intentional - it just kind of happened. However, as long as it's impossible to rename or migrate FA accounts,  Codelizard is just going to remain a placeholder 'cause I don't really feel like deleting and reuploading my entire gallery.

How did this happen, anyway?

Well, waaaaaaaaaaaay back, I was joining a Dungeons & Dragons game. Even back then I didn't want to play as a human, so I made a lizardfolk instead. That was the first iteration of Kh'tall Kh'rta, as a mercenary in a 'modern' setting (really just normal D&D with guns). Then when I started playing on Sabrous, I made a lizardfolk character there, Khtall (since Smaug, the MUD engine, didn't support apostrophes in names). Sabrous is where I first got the "Codelizard" nickname, since I helped the MUD owner,  not-fun, by adding new features to Smaug's hideous spaghetti codebase.

Then when I started playing games on Steam, I began as Darkmark but when I wanted to start playing on TFP's servers in TF2, I switched to something I figured would get taken a little more seriously. Using the Kh'tall name would cause headaches and annoy people trying to refer to me over voice, so instead, I took the Codelizard monicker from Smaug and named myself as such on Steam. Over time, she became more than just "Kh'tall with an alias" and evolved into her own character with a unique appearance, her own personality, and something resembling a backstory.

Over time, as old messaging services, email accounts and websites died off and new ones took their place, I kept registering accounts as Codelizard and abandoning ones as Darkmark (except  Shaaria obviously). Part of it was the same "a lizard will be taken more seriously than a Yoshi" mentality. Part of it was that I had consciously become aware of my kinks - it's not that they changed, but that I was able to fully acknowledge them, and Darkmark isn't suitable for most of them. I also joke that it's because I ran a tabletop campaign set in Darkmark's setting, but a few hundred years prior, and the actions of the protagonists altered history and prevented Darkmark from ever showing up in the first place, effectively retconning him out of existence.

Contrary to some impressions, I didn't change to a female character due to anything related to gender identity - I'm not trans, in fact, I don't really associate with any particular gender (agendered). I made the original Kh'tall Kh'rta female just 'cause I felt like it - when I design characters I often try to do things I haven't done before. I didn't make a lizard because they're my favorite species, though lizards are pretty awesome - I typically like dragons more (I've joked previously that lizards are free-to-play dragons), but any creative idea will usually work.

So here I am. Codelizard has taken over the show and Darkmark is in retirement on Lavalava Island. She's easier to get art for, though not as easy as a female with breasts, but I've omitted them from her deliberately as part of her design, partly as a throwback to her D&D lizardfolk origins, partly because it's unique, and partly because I don't enjoy creating overly sexualized characters. (Sure, she likes all the things I do, but you can't tell that just by looking at her, and there's more to her character than what she does to get off)

Anyway, thanks for reading if you got all the way down here. Here's to more lewd lizard art in the future.