cgan

[cgan]

the dragons have hands?

[cgan]

i'm reminded of an old fantasy series about the political relations between a human kingdom and a kingdom of pegasi who had tiny winghands. the main plotline focused on the princess of the humans and the prince of the pegasi working to better understand each other and overcome the old mistrust between their cultures...i've forgotten the name of the series so if this is ringing a bell for anyone i'll be obliged

the dragons have hands?

[cgan]

gghhh back to drawin pern dragons i guess

[cgan]

my bronze, harth.

[cgan]

the dragons have hands?

[cgan]

Taking a break from the meandering of The White Dragon to go read archived material of Anne McCaffrey trying to fight with her fandom about sticking to canon.

(Having roleplayed Pern I can attest that Super Special Rulebreaking Characters whose entire personality is that they Break A Canon Rule are frequently really annoying but Anne. Anne. You're wrong Anne.)

[cgan]

much like the red star itself, i inevitably circle back to Pern

[cgan]

got a renault and two sutcliffs at the discount bookstore. i'm sorry lessa

reaching for dragonflight again. DANGER!

[cgan]

thou shalt not read pern again. reading pern again is the "reading your library books that are due soon"-killer

reaching for dragonflight again. DANGER!

[cgan]

reaching for dragonflight again. DANGER!

[cgan]

aivas solemnly flashing bible quotes. we have to stop ai now before it reaches this extremity

[cgan]

robinton did not deserve to die in a corny scene that affirms one last time that he's the most wise and noble and correct man ever to be written into his friend anne's sprawling sci-fi epic. in my alternate universe scenario, "f'lar and robinton fight with knives,"

[cgan]

the knife fight with t'kul is in fact so unmemorable that i had to spend fifteen minutes on the pern wiki looking up his name

[cgan]

“Weyr of the White” Loosely inspired by one of my favorite book series’ growing up, the Dragonriders of Pern by Anne (And now Todd) McCaffrey. If you’re not familiar, I can’t possibly recommend it enough for a unique dash of 90s/00s sci-fi/fantasy. 

[cgan]

and furthermore f'lessan should have been a green rider

[cgan]

that's a bit of harper exaggeration maybe but

that it's strongly implied in the latter two books of the first trilogy that robinton has unrequited feelings for lessa is a plot point that goes nowhere. one axes those in later drafts or does something fun with them

spitballing in the latter vein: relations canonically wind up strained between the harper hall and benden weyr because robinton, being the voice of reason as usual, says something cautionary that lessa doesn't like (he warns her against acting in anger and sparking an unprecedented war between weyrs). this estrangement could have been made extra compelling and sour on a personal level with the added complication of either lessa or f'lar suspecting robinton's feelings for lessa and confronting him in an already-heated moment (narrative rule of thumb: it tends to be more engaging to watch the "master dissembler" character finally get caught in a lie than to watch that character prevail every time)

it also would have been fun to see this estrangement actually get ugly. benden weyr needs the harper hall for propaganda; the harper hall needs benden weyr for protection. they rely on each other and, conversely, have the power to make each other's day-to-day operations difficult. having lost his preferred avenue of influencing benden's weyrleader and weyrwoman into enacting his politics—and, depending on how the revelation and confrontation went, probably being angry enough to let his personal feelings stand in the way of his better judgment (and in this way paralleling lessa)—robinton might well use his considerable influence to try to sway the outcome of the weyrs' feud through other means, such as courting the favor of pern's other powers in a way that puts himself at cross-purposes with benden weyr's agendas

f'lar's big knife fight with t'kul in the white dragon is fairly unmemorable—f'lar in a knife fight. we've all seen it. fun way to test + do something fresh with the dynamic between him and lessa would be to make them absolutely miserable with the prospect of potentially having to call challenge on robinton

even in this scenario they all still care about each other. robinton doesn't want a knife fight. f'lar doesn't want a knife fight. lessa doesn't want a knife fight. if executed deftly the reader would be glued to the page

was just chatting about this with a friend—i think f'lar and robinton should have fought with knives

[cgan]

was just chatting about this with a friend—i think f'lar and robinton should have fought with knives