ofcryptsandhallow

[ofcryptsandhallow]

Glory takes, opinions etc. 🌺

I like glory. She and tsunami are one of my favorite dragons from okokok I like them all, I like most of it not all the dragonets of destiny dragons and for the most part I feel like Glory and Clay got done the dirtiest in terms of story arc, story telling and even their tribes.

First off, I don't like that she's just another secret princess protag like Tsunami is. At least it makes more sense with her given how the rainwings were operating, but even less sense with Tsunami who had many factorings going against her, like given the Orca Statue, being guarded by the royal guards, etc. Etc. Etc. Least with Glory it makes sense, it's just considering she comes after Tsunami's arc, it feels like she's just another secret princess and it's already been done literally in the last book. What are the odds?!

Also not only is she a secret princess but she ends up with TWO tribes to rule over, they could eventually fuse into a new race of dragons in the far far future given they don't split up after Glory's gone or hell even during Glory's reign, but like. She's a secret princess and not only is she not girly and kickass but she's also extra extra special and gets to unite two tribes! It feels very cliche and not at all fun.

Also she's very colorful and unlike most rainwings with mostly minimalistic color palettes, is actually almost every color of the rainbow at once, lacking at most, red and purple, and the way the colors are utilized in her design isn't bad on the eyes. Like at all. She gets the memo she's a tropical rainforesty dragon and does so nicely. It's just why are the rest of her tribe, despite being the tribe that's naturally green but able to be any color they please, and actively often choose to not be mostly green, have very simple and plain color palettes? Y'know the tribe that changes colors on a whim and basically wear their emotions on their scales have simple basic color palettes. Kinda a let down and I may remedy this in the future using bases I bought.

Like she isn't 100% a Mary Sue, and I won't call her that, but like the one time she should be right (as she tends to be right about most things) is about her tribe. I hate how every tribe's racial stereotype is true. And literally the one moment a character tries to call out this issue into question, she's proven false? And it's never brought up again.

The reason I make a big deal about this other than it basically justifies the dragons racist remarks towards one another's tribes basically always true, if you go in and try to make them human, you'll run into issues really really fast. All the dragons that would be possible be POC based on "coding" or natural environment, which also takes coding into account have negative stereotypes for that race:

The desert dweller dragons while they like music, are also economically poor, and tend to be sly shady dragons who are most known for being assassins and thieves, and just generally like dragons who you can't trust if they had just told you a lie or not. Also the castle was confirmed to be based on an Indian building, Fort Amber.

The jungle rainforest dragons while they seemingly have a perfect utopia where money isn't an issue and medical treatment is free... are all stupid and lazy, to the point they don't care if one of the most important members to their society, a princess goes missing. They are assumed to be pretty... And pretty harmless all around despite how OP they can be.

The muddy swamp dragons are lazy idiots who think nothing but of food, to the point one even SOLD HER CHILD FOR A FEW COWS, and when basically asked to think twice on the matter ... Didn't.

Hivewing would definitely be a mixed race, having been a hybrid of the very British coded Nightwings and Silkwings. And the only noteworthy thing the Hive dragons did was enslave the Silk wings and try to wipe out the leaf wings. And while there was an attempt to shift the blame to a plant and a dragon named freedom and the shit head Cottonmouth, might I remind you the Hivewing when not under mind control still abused their power over the Silkwings, and still didn't object to enslaving another race of dragons.

To add fuel to the fire, Nightwings are again British coded. Ignoring the blatant all nightwings minus the two that weren't raised with the tribe have British accents, the fact they will not stop middling in the history and politics of other tribes, including those who did not FUCKIGN as for, to the point they'll go as far as to intentionally try kick out another tribe from their home to take over, even capturing individual of said tribe to torture and abuse for "science's sake", treating them as if they arent even fellow sentient creatures who canonically speak the same language as them. Y'know, colonisation 101?

And then the fuck Clearsight did, her first move is to jump ship and seek a rebound romance with a tribe she's never seen before besides her visions, breed with them till one of the tribes there goes extinct and basically destroy their entire culture, including their language. The ancestors of her children also were the Hivewings, funny how she saw many things far far far into the future beyond her lifespan, and didn't try to warn of the Hivewings. Like it's canon the book held prophecies that were meant for AFTER she died, that's basically the whole book's purpose, but no mention of the Hivewings, very conveniently written if you ask me.

Like this isn't just a Glory was wrong issue, it's just the issue is most important to her story, her book where that's literally what she came to her home tribe hoping to disprove. But she was instead proven wrong and her tribe's stereotype was indeed true, and that set the status quo from there on out.

Besides this, another major thing I don't like is that all the dragons were given (potential) mates basically right out the gate, as soon as they were free. And I do not like any of them. I think they should have settled in and tried to find stable lives outside of trying to fix the world issues and get dragon world peace in order first before finding mates. They don't even really get a chance to find a true sense of self outside of being "prophecy brats" and realizing all their parents suck.

[ofcryptsandhallow]

DeathBringer thoughts, opinions and criticisms

I want to like DeathBringer as a character. When he's not with glory he can be a very interesting character. Given that I'm taking Tui's word in good faith and he is indeed meant to be around Glory's age, this would imply he is a prodigy for his age, that he has done a lot of things most dragons his age have not done or are unable to do. That is a very cool idea to think about.

However, this NEVER gets brought up or utilized and it comes across more like Tui had TOO many plans for DB, but just fumbled hard to make any of them work to the point she had to shove them aside for a winglet instead of a main line book! This winglet does fix the age situation I think, that's what I heard I haven't read it BECAUSE IT IS NOT THAT READILY AVAILABLE WITHOUT PIRATING.

Hell, I don't even like the ship that much, the Glorybasket ship, and yes I'm one who prefers that name over any other shipname for them, GloryBringer sounds cool, but as an apparently rare enjoyer of the scavenger book, I liked the Murder basket name, it's funny and cute? And I bet he prays to the moons that no one finds out about the nickname. And honestly the book wasn't that bad, most people don't seem to like it because dragons took a back seat in the book and I think that's ok! We knew about the humans existing in the world of wings of fire and finally got an idea of how their society works and I actually think that's cool as a lore buff.

As for why I don't like the ship, it's not because of the weird age mistake that happened, or the fact that he was originally sent to kill Glory and his friends. It's actually because once he's with her, he is just a simp. There is no more personality, he's just a simp. And yeah he could have been secretly a dorky assassin all along but we don't get to see that prior to them getting together, do we? Nope, not really, he's more charismatic and sassy if anything. He does nothing that plot relevant afterwards, and it's just disappointing, given they could have been a power couple that put the SASS in asSASSin.

Honestly just wasted potential over all, giving all the build up only to throw him aside like that and downgrade him. Not to mention ignoring that he is one of many nightwings who killed and hurt other dragons only for it to be forgotten and ignored with Mastermind taking the fall as the Nightwings' scapegoat. Like he was a prodigy assassin who killed and maybe tortured who knows about many dragons prior to meeting glory and all the other nightwings get punished sorta (mostly mainly only Mastermind overall) but he gets a free pass cause he's the queen's boyfriend?

Also another reason I don't like the ship is that with how simpy he is, but also how Glory seems mostly disinterested, it feels very very one sided. I've seen people throw the "but glory hides her emotions!" argument at the wall, but like ... Not really? She's more blunt and straight forward about her emotions, if she likes something she'll let you know, and if she doesn't, you also most definitely know. And she had moments of being sweet and loving to her found-family, if she liked and truly liked Deathbringer back, even if she wasn't very interested in open/public displays of affection, we'd know and have her being generally sweeter and nicer to her supposed boyfriend.

Instead it comes across as not wanting the dumb love sick idiot basicly get himself killed for him, even though he's supposed to be a very capable assassin who could handle himself just fine and would be the number one dragon to guard her overall, especially compared to the rainwings who still aren't 100% sold on the idea of hurting another dragon even if that's the best case scenario. Literally we see this in the book that they aren't still fully ready to be proper guards for queen and she decided to bench her best option.

And at worst she seems kinda actually annoyed by her advances and hasn't gotten around to telling him off yet. I don't think it's a good look that THIS is how it comes across to at least readers. At least one scene where they aren't in the public eye and her returning the advances or being more openly affectionate with him would have been nice. The idea they SUPPOSEDLY have a dragonet together in the future (Firefly) isn't confirmation as that's only implied to be in a few timelines, not all and comes across as a nod to the fan ship at best.

Like the ship doesn't bode well to me and I think is written horridly. End of the story.

As for his appearance, I like it. He's a blue toned/hued whatever Nightwing. I personally think nightwings can be any cooler, but are normally dark, often near black hues of those colors, like how crows and ravens under the right light are actually very colorful and pretty to look at. Yes, blues, greens and purples may be the most common colors, but other colors CAN exists and do so, often with white freckles being the most common to exist marking.

For the record, I think the opposite exists for icewing, being they can also be almost any color but a pale, pastel near white shade of so.

But yeah I think only one other Nightwing that's blue like this vibrantly exists, and people like to assume she's a hybrid, which I hate to death given how proud nightwings are of being Nightwing historically, I feel like intertribe couples are rare and shouldn't be the first thing to consider when a dragon looks "weird" than what's status quo. Biodiversity exists, and so do genetic mutations that exist independently of a dragon being a hybrid. A dragon doesn't need to be a hybrid to look weird or different than what we've seen a tribe to look like.

Like for example a white Nightwing can just be albino, and a black icewing could just be melanistic.

[ofcryptsandhallow]

Hello, I am Jackyl or Jack.

I am a void player from the Land of Crypts and Hallow.

I post my opinions and scream into the void.

My gender is [redacted] my age is [21+] and my sexuality is [redacted].

I like pumpkins, and Jackalaturns, but do not have the greenest of thumbs.

I like void stuff. It's all I talk about.