pinewing

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2 minutes out the egg and its rubbing off on him already smh.

Gotta hand it to Arctic. If you're depressed, homesick and feeling the pressure of your marriage being a political project. Having a child that can read your mind is an innovative idea for perhaps the single worst thing you can do to both yourself and that child.

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Me starting this blog: wow people are so silly about this series I should just post dumb things.

1 month later: No, you don't understand. Animus magic is about labour rights. It's all labour rights!

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I really want winglets to have a comeback. Please please please I need my side characters I love to be expanded upon.

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If there's one thing I have in common with the dragonslayer, it's an affinity for naming things that are mine 'mine'. makes things simple.

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The more I think about it, the more the Talons of Peace specifically have aged poorly as the tone of WoF has shifted. Initially they were presented as a story about how even revolutionaries still carry the baggage of the society that raised them. Except the society that raised them got all the edges sanded off so now the revolutionaries are just inexplicable assholes.

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idk. i think fandom could use a lot less of “every person’s interpretation of a text is valid and true!” and more of “reading a text means taking all parts of it into account, including the bits you don’t like or the pairings you don’t ship, to consider what the full picture is and what the larger themes are.”

projecting your fantasies onto a text, hyperfocusing on the characters you think are hot/shippable and building entire theories based on micro interactions that don’t take other competing dynamics and plotlines into account isn’t “analysis” it’s projection and fantasy. which is fine, but take responsibility for your desires and your fantasies instead of making fandom inhospitable for everyone. some readings of a text are plain wrong, others miss or willfully erase vital context just to rationalize romantic pairings. these are not accurate readings of the text. doesn’t mean they should be attacked or shamed, but neither can you expect people to validate every single headcanon and shipper fantasy as a legitimate “reading” of the text either.

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WoF books Tierlist

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Wishing we had gotten to see more positive interactions between glory and the other rainwings, specifically in regard to the fact that they just witnessed some troubled teen save their missing friends and then immediately become queen.

Like obviously thats a crazy chain of events to begin with but specifically in regard to a society that raises dragonets communally i wonder if the other dragons have a hard time treading the line between respecting glory as their queen and making sure she takes care of herself as a dragonet

(if i remember correctly it is stated that jambu makes sure she sleeps/gets sun time but it doesn’t make sense to me to only be him in a society that doesn’t care much for blood family members) also i just like the idea that even if glory didnt find the family she was hoping for she still found /a/ family, it just happens to be the entire rainwing tribe

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okay actually more assorted moon and turtle and peril thoughts

moon and peril have pretty much no positive interaction within the arc (with the only two exceptions to my knowledge being when moon looked at peril with pity at the end of chapter 8 of escaping peril and when moon laughs at peril’s thoughts in chapter 19 of the same book) and in fact, throughout most of escaping peril moon is outright aggressive towards peril, and describes her thoughts as “disturbing”, (which is interesting given how turtle is noted to have developed violent intrusive thoughts in talons of power following his fight with chameleon-as-shapeshifter in the previous book). It seems almost out of character given her willingness to excuse winter, flame, darkstalker, etc.’s hostility, even when others tell her she shouldn’t. moon is usually portrayed as empathetic to a fault, and yet she switched to being hostile to peril in a way that contradicts their initial interactions in moon rising, especially given that moon saw peril try to save carnelian and bigtail in the fire. she has a level of disdain for her that only makes sense if we assume she’s taken winter’s opinions on her as gospel, which she notably refuses to do later for darkstalker, but i digress*

turtle does have a positive relationship with both of them, in both cases seeming to stem from his feeling of solidarity towards them and their “dangerous” powers. in the case of peril, he goes as far as to say he had considered telling peril about his animus magic, a secret he has kept from everyone his entire life, based solely on the principle that, “we’re not so different, you and i.”

the three do share a narrative similarity as well, being that they all temporarily lose their abilities in their own books. moon becomes unable to read minds when she takes the skyfire necklace from onyx, peril gives up her firescales when she accepts the enchanted pendant from chameleon, and turtle is enchanted to lose his animus magic by darkstalker. interestingly though, they all have different reactions to it. for moon, she is startled and afraid by the sudden quietness, and describes feeling as though she is drowning in silence. she is quick to pass the amulet to qibli, and feels as though she needs to sit and take in the noise after her powers return. turtles reaction is both negative and positive. while he feels that his powers being taken away is worse than his imprisonment, he describes feeling as though he has been “scoured clean” of his power. peril losing her power was a gift to her, she views it as a kindness to “no longer be herself”. she loses this mentality towards the end of the book as she works through her trauma from queen scarlet, but her initial reaction to losing her powers is still positive.

i think turtles neutral view towards his ability is what lets him relate to both moon and peril, he understands what its like to feel anxiety at the thought of that power being taken away, but he also knows why peril feels her firescales are a curse. he approaches both with a kindness and compassion that peril and moon do not show each other.

we started seeing the signs of a more positive relationship between the two towards the end of escaping peril (such as the scene in which peril burns the scroll, qibli and winter are horrified, but moon and turtle are both appreciative of peril), but unfortunately given the group is separated following darkstalker’s release, that dynamic was never explored further, i really think with how turtle cares for both of them, the three of them could have been close friends had they spent more time together

*having reread that scene i realized she’s specifically hostile to peril because she, in her thoughts, insulted qibli’s intelligence and implied it would be easy to defeat him in a fight, which feels like a strange thing to be upset about given several of her close friends (i.e. darkstalker, winter, and qibli himself) plan how they could defeat others in a fight if they had to, and have been known to insult turtle (and others), peril isnt any more hostile than they are, so moons fear of her is based almost entirely on her firescales. its somewhat reciprocated with peril’s reaction to moon’s ability, but peril was upset with turtle having assumed it to be a trap, not moon

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was going to go on a tangent on main about how annoying the “all asexuals are obsessed with dragons” meme is and then immediately remembered I do in fact run a wings of fire fanblog

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Darkstalker really picked the one guy almost as callous about other people's autonomy as he is to be his hired conscience huh.

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Yeah we've had an apartheid state for decades. But, you know, one day the dictator is so mean that everyone who supported her will just give up. This is entirely incidental to the plot of the books themselves. It's not like controlling an entire tribe was sustainable anyways. The villain just spontaneously self-destructed. The main characters and plot of the books have no bearing on the outcome of this situation btw.

Still reeling from the fact that the Flames of Hope just skipped over the actual revolution. Like, noteably, the Hive Queen pretty heavily stated that eliminating the mind reading would only provide the potential for Hivewings to change. And that most of them were pretty clearly complacent. But whatever it was, apparently the actual change in power structures in Pantala actually just happened off-screen. Guess Wasp ruined her reputation with the whole hive-lockdowns or something? I really don't know. The book abandoned its own core conflict.

[pinewing]

Still reeling from the fact that the Flames of Hope just skipped over the actual revolution. Like, noteably, the Hive Queen pretty heavily stated that eliminating the mind reading would only provide the potential for Hivewings to change. And that most of them were pretty clearly complacent. But whatever it was, apparently the actual change in power structures in Pantala actually just happened off-screen. Guess Wasp ruined her reputation with the whole hive-lockdowns or something? I really don't know. The book abandoned its own core conflict.

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Leafwings continued ‼️

Root, Maiden hair, Pistachio, Mezereum, and Bois dentelle

All the current leafwings in Conifers group now have up to date refs yippee. I can now close the 36 layer canvas I have been making them all in.

At some point ill make a big long intro post for each of them but for now I need to go on my quest (clock into work) for if I dont I surely wont survive winter (help pay bills)

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Mudwings and animation

I have been making a few animated icons mainly because I got an experimental animation commission (right) I have never offered them as comm options but I may in the future

Especially since this 2nd pass with the mudwings was pretty fun to make. Mudwings featured are Argile and my lady Chocolate Strawberry. They dont exactly have much lore rn but I think they are cute together

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returning to the American suburban NightWing parents groupchat all the children go to high school but in a lame way human!wof AU but we shall take a look at our darling Sunny, who is not wrapped up in the NightWing parents pushing their children to outcompete each other BS (because Stonemover doesn't care about Sunny's grades. That's Thorn's job. Thorn's job is also... practically almost everything of importance when it comes to parenting, but shhhhhh. Also, Stonemover never got added to the groupchat). Anyway, Sunny is a well-rounded child of divorced parents. Thorn makes time for her and takes good care of her. However, in the rare events Stonemover has to drop her off to school, Sunny has to pester her dad for 10 minutes before they have to go so that he can drag himself out of bed. He drives a small grey car with furry grey seats (you know the smell) that still have stains on them from Sunny putting her feet up on the back of the front seats back in elementary school. There is an antique receipt from McDonald's for a 10 piece McChicken nuggets that was from six years ago (the last time he took Sunny out to eat) in the cupholder. They finally get into the car, but Stonemover then drives into the wrong entrance and drops Sunny off at the opposite side of the school, and then she gets annoyed at him for that. He also drops her off at like, 7:30 A.M. (which is almost before sunrise) so that he has enough time to get to his depressing cubicle job where he's been working at the same desk for years and years. His breakfast is a protein bar, a spotted banana, and dishwater coffee that he gets for free at his workplace. Sunny had to eat the starchy school breakfast that sorta sucked. Anyway, this is why Sunny doesn't have Stonemover drive her to high school very often.

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"Oh the power" what power? What about Anemone or Albatross or Arctic gives you the impression they had any power over their situations.

The essential problem with the narrative that Animus magic is corruptive simply because of how powerful it is, is that almost every Animus we see is either suffering under the immense control that queens grant themselves over their lives or recently escaped it. And yet a society that permits one dragon absolute power over the lives of her citizens is a perfectly tolerable amount of power that a wise queen can easily manage properly. Apparently only supernatural power is inherently corruptive. Which we all as irl humans know because of our extensive interaction with supernatural powers.