#how do people just exist and do stuff and make stuff and talk to people without doubting every single thing do you know how jealous i am

[thefirstknife]

Hi! I was wondering if you could explain the lore surrounding Saint and how he says he looked up to us? That whole time fuckery always confused me + the Vex apparently made him a tomb? What was that about? I really just have no idea what happened in Season of Dawn

Yes!

So, we should start with Osiris being exiled from the City (some time around the Twilight Gap, unclear when exactly, but vaguely at that time). Osiris packed his stuff and left to go do his research in peace; he went to Mercury for the Infinite Forest.

This upset Saint a lot and he decided to go after him. He even left a letter for him which destroys me every time:

Ship's Final Log: Osiris. I hope whatever you find in this place is worth it. My recommendation to install you as Vanguard Commander was not a gesture to stroke your ego. It was an order to stay and help the City achieve all that it could. An order you refused to follow. News of my demise will no doubt reach you late. I can already see your response—the guilt that will follow, however fleeting. I thought you had changed after Six Fronts; that seeing your people on the brink of destruction and spared from death would be reward enough to stay. To fight. I'll fight in your stead one last time.

However, note the following at the end:

To my inspiration. Your final gift to me I now send back to you. It will be good to see you again.

This was very bizarre at the time because there was no context to this. While we knew some little bits and pieces of Saint's story before, it wasn't until Curse of Osiris that we got the proper introduction.

Fast forward, Saint entered the Forest after Osiris and got lost in there. He wandered a lot, fought the Vex, eventually got them so upset that the Vex put all of their resources into constructing a special Vex Mind that was capable of draining Saint's Light. When they succeeded, Saint died in the Forest. The Vex were so impressed that they came to respect him enough to make a tomb for him in the Forest:

Finding this tomb was a quest in Curse of Osiris: links to the full questline. When we got to the tomb, we took information from Saint's body and used it to forge his gun: Perfect Paradox. The lore on it is also very peculiar, addressing someone that Saint looked up to. Again, we could only speculate at the time because we didn't have the whole story, but it appeared there was some sort of weird shenanigans here that potentially involved us, the player. Important:

All I have left is this weapon. The Cryptarchs say you crafted it yourself, built it out of scraps and Light and sheer will, inside the Infinite Forge.

We did indeed do that. But how can Saint know that and why is he addressing us? We've never met him; he disappeared into the Forest long before we existed.

It would take 3 years for this to be resolved, in Season of Dawn. In Season of Dawn, Osiris revealed that following our discovery of Saint's tomb, he went to work on creating the Sundial. The sole purpose of the Sundial would be to essentially allow entry into Saint's personal timeline and past, to find him in the right moment, and save him from certain death. Osiris tried to do this himself and failed. For some reason, he could not find the right Saint in the right moment. He begrudgingly gave up and put the Sundial away.

When it was discovered by the Psions and used for their nefarious purposes, Osiris told us about this briefly and let us give it a shot to try and find Saint. He advised against it and deemed it "an impossible task." However, unknown to him (and us), we were the link needed to make this possible.

We went in there and we found the right Saint in the right moment. We found him desperately fighting against the Eliksni on Mercury in his personal past, during the Dark Age. We met up with him and helped him win. After that, we talked to him. Saint seemed super defeated and hopeless, but Ghost then told him about the future where people are safe and showed him a projection of the City from the future. We also gave him the Perfect Paradox. Our Ghost pulled our weapon that we made and gave it to Saint.

The Shotgun you crafted in the Infinite Forge is reacting to the Sundial! An onboard transponder is broadcasting coordinates: a path through the Sundial, crossing two time periods. The prophecy blueprint you used to create the Perfect Paradox must have included this broadcast.

This was the link between us and Saint that allowed us to use the Sundial to save him in a way Osiris could not. The gun is a bootstrap paradox: it exists "out of nowhere" basically. We give it to Saint in his past and we pick it up from his body in the future and then we take it back to the past and give it to him. Saint had information needed to craft it because we gave him the gun, but we only gave him the gun because he had it in the first place.

Saint takes the weapon and we leave him in his personal timeline, but to him, at the time, we're a hero who saved him and showed him a future where the City thrives and people are safe. He kept that hope with him and considered us someone who inspired him to do better and to fight. He could never explain who we were, because for everyone else we did not exist yet: Saint only met us because we showed up from the future to meet him.

We end up going back to the Sundial to find Saint again in the right time when he's found by the Vex Mind designed to drain his Light. Only this time he doesn't fight alone and we save him, essentially changing the course of time. Saint doesn't die; we save him and he's able to stay in the Forest until we can open it from the outside years later in the present day.

Saint never forgot about us and how we saved him and gave him the shotgun. He spent his life with us as an inspiration; someone who appeared out of nowhere and promised him that one day the City will be safe and people protected. It kept him going, even when nobody really understood what he was talking about. Osiris also mentions this when we finish the quest:

In his youth, he talked often about the Guardian who inspired him. I should have guessed it would be you.

Osiris I promise that it's okay that you couldn't guess that Saint was talking about a Guardian time travelling from the future.

I definitely recommend checking out both quests for this whole thing, they're really cool, especially the ones from Dawn because they're more expansive and also Saint is alive there. But the setup from Curse of Osiris is really neat because they heavily hinted at Saint coming back since then. Both the exotic ship and the shotgun itself have lore that clearly reference Saint having already met us, a plotline that we waited 3 years to resolve.

Hopefully that makes a bit more sense!

[angelscovee]

𝑚𝑦 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔

🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮

ʀᴇǫᴜᴇsᴛ ☞︎ ɪᴅ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ sᴇᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ɴɪᴋᴀᴀᴀᴀ ᴍᴀʏʙᴇ sᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ɪs ᴜsᴜᴀʟʟʏ ᴀ sᴜᴘᴇʀ ᴄʟᴏsᴇᴅ ᴏꜰꜰ ᴘᴇʀsᴏɴ, ʙᴜᴛ ɴɪᴋᴀ ᴇᴠᴇɴᴛᴜᴀʟʟʏ ʙʀᴇᴀᴋs ᴅᴏᴡɴ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀs ᴡᴀʟʟs ᴀɴᴅ sᴇᴇs ʜᴏᴡ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ᴀᴄᴛᴜᴀʟʟʏ is

⇝ ɴɪᴋᴀ ᴍᴜ̈ʜʟ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

⇝ ꜰʟᴜꜰꜰ, ᴀɴɢsᴛ (ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ sǫᴜɪɴᴛ sʟɪɢʜᴛʟʏ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛᴇɴ sᴇᴄᴏɴᴅs)

⇝ ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀᴛʟɪsᴛ

🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮

it was really no secret to anyone that i was more of a reserved kind of girl, i always kept to myself, never overshared, and was always more on the quiet side.

and of course, this never changed, even when i started dating nika. i have never broke down the many walls i have set up for anyone ever.

most people see me as this cold, emotionless, rude, and over all not a friendly person, but that honestly couldn't be further from the truth.

its just that no one has "broken down" the barriers i've set. in reality im the complete opposite of everything i just listed.

nika has always insisted on getting me to open up to her about things, but i've always been so closed off and reserved that i just can't bring myself to do that.

but lately our arguments have been a bit more frequent, and as you can guess, they're about me not being open with her.

ꜰʟᴀsʜʙᴀᴄᴋ

"i just dont get why its so hard for you to tell me this kind of stuff! im your girlfriend for fucks sake! you should be able to trust me!" nika was currently going off about how i've never opened up to her in the slightest, i always brush things off as if everything is okay.

"its not about that nika! it doesn't have anything to do with that! i don't tell anyone my business, anyone. not just you." i wasn't lying when i said this either, growing up it was always hard for me to express my feelings.

so now being with someone who is very passionate with what they feel, and not being afraid to show how they feel has had its ups and downs.

that argument we had that night was not pretty, but after a few hours we were finally able to solve it thankfully.

ᴇɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ꜰʟᴀsʜʙᴀᴄᴋ

but now, its as if nika was slowly breaking down everything i built. as if they never existed. making me able to come to her whenever.

and since then our relationship has gotten stronger than ever. shes gotten me to actually be able to come to her when I'm bothered about something instead of just brushing it off like i always did.

and for that i will always be grateful, if it wasn't for her, i don't think i would ever have been able to communicate correctly with anyone.

nika has gotten pretty good at reading my facial expressions and body language, so i guess she could sense that something just wasn't right, she came up to me and sat next to me on the couch of our apartment.

"whats wrong? you look tense." she put her hand on my thigh giving me a slight sense of comfort as i sigh and lean back not knowing how to tell her.

"cmon remember what we talked about? honesty, and trust?" i looked over at her as she spoke vividly remembering the conversation we had.

i sigh as i finally spoke up, voicing my concerns to her. "its just that, its just that it all feels weird, you know? it's all so new to me and i just don't know how well i'm taking it." nika listened intently to me voicing my concerns.

although it concerns her that i'm not taking this whole being open and communicating correctly thing great, shes thankful that i was open enough to share this with her, wanting to be there every step of the way with me.

"i know it might feel scary, but you're doing great, everything is gonna take its time and you're going to adjust to it soon. but for now, we just have to take it slow." she gave me a small reassuring smile to which i returned.

knowing there was someone who truly understands me, someone willing to listen to me, and be there for me no matter what, it makes me feel like i'm worth something.

she makes me feel seen, feel loved, feel special. as if i'm the only girl in the world that truly matters, so why wouldn't i fight as hard as she does in our relationship?

"i genuinely don't know what i would've done if i hadn't met you." i look at her grabbing her hand, making eye contact getting lost in her eyes. she was the most gorgeous girl i've ever laid my eyes on.

"you're the best person to ever come into my life y/n, i wouldn't have it any other way." and with that we got comfortable on our couch cuddled up together.

knowing that it was just us right here right now made everything feel better, laying on my couch with the girl of my dreams.

maybe letting some walls down for her wouldn't be such a bad idea, it might be good for me, for us.

my rules were always to 1. never let anyone break down everything you built up in order to keep everything shielded, and 2. never let people know how you feel.

but with nika, i can proudly tell her this. "i broke my rules for you." i say as i stare at her face thats laying on my chest.

"i'm so glad you trusted me enough to do that." with that, i knew that there was nothing nika and i couldn't overcome. we were true soulmates.

i knew this girl was forever going to be mine, she'll forever be my everything.

[viria-virtual]

Things I’ve learned about Danny Phantom after finally watching it as a person who avoided watching it for months and read fanfiction instead. 👍🏻✨

Spoiler warning, just in case!

They call themselves the Phandom. (Super cute, I love it, 10/10)

Everything, and I mean Absolutely Everything I’ve learned, is a fucking Lie. (Not fun. I have to rewrite my entire understanding. I feel betrayed. Offended. Gobsmacked. My flabbers are mf gasted. -5/10)

The show is actually really funny. (I enjoyed my experience. 9/10)

Fuck Phantom Planet. (What the fuck was that shit? Um, rewind, redo, no thx, give me back the ghostie boy please. I genuinely didn’t even finish the episode, I got to where he un-died and had to turn it off. I refuse to watch it now. 0/10)

The Phandom was right to steal canon and make it our bitch. (Trans Danny? More Dani/Ellie screen time? Actual plot and lore for the show? Actual in-depth thought to ghosts and their culture? Um, yes please. 1000/10)

Frostbite actually is a doctor. (I don’t know why, but I thought it was another thing the Phandom made up. Love to see it, 10/10)

Wes Weston deserves his own episode. (What do you mean he doesn’t actually exist. What do you mean I don’t get my LGBTQ+ undertones. This is homophobic /j. -10/10)

How do you tell when a ghost is intangible, invisible, or both?? (The show doesn’t have a differentiator between the two, so I’m always confused if people can just see him floating through walls. 3/10)

Guys in White literally do nothing but be annoying. (Another case of the Phandom Lying to us. I love it though, they make really good antagonists. 7/10)

The Fentons are stupid and mildly aggressive, but they do love their kids. (I read a lot of vivisection, child neglect, and general Bad Parents fics so excuse me on that front. 8/10)

Danny didn’t actually beat Pariah Dark? (I love the Ghost King Danny fics, so to find out all he did was shove him into a sarcophagus was a bit of a bummer. He struggles more with Undergrowth than the actual king, like?? 6/10)

He can reach inside himself to take things out. (He ate a spoon in one ep and just reached inside himself to take it out. Pretty cool. 9/10)

Is he actually dead? (Phantom Planet makes it seem as if he just got a bit too high a dose of ectoplasm in his system and it fucked him up, how else could he have just undone the damage? But, most of the Phandom says he legit died in the portal, in which case he could not have gone in and just un-killed himself like he did in Phantom Planet. I think he died, personally. More trauma and angst for my writing. ??/10)

Clockwork appears a lot less than I thought he would. So does Frostbite. (I thought with how much they appear in the Phandom, they must have really important and constant roles, but no. They appear very rarely. Sad face. 5/10)

Vlad sucks. (Vlad fucking sucks. 0/10)

Dani/Ellie is much younger in appearance than I thought. (I looked her up for reference when I first started reading the fics, but she looked 14-15. She actually looks 6-7 years old in show. They literally call her a kid. 8/10)

Dani is what she chose to be called, not a funny joke the Phandom played on itself. (I though it was a silly little haha moment. Nope. The show just… named her that. I think Ellie is the Phandoms choice in calling her?? 8/10)

Why is Danny obsessed with Paulina even while crushing on Sam? (He is actively blushing and flirting with Sam and then they’ll turn around and he’s jumping at the chance to talk to Paulina?? Hate it. 0/10)

Danny and Dash don’t actually date. (I saw this circle around the Phandom a bit, thought it was cute if a bit weird, and then it didn’t happen? 6/10)

No obsessions, no cores, no real reason for the ghosts to be terrorizing Amity Park. (I legit thought it was real in-verse stuff, I’m so disappointed in the lack of it in the show. It could have been so good. 3/10)

Danny doesn’t actually become friends with his ghosts. (They don’t really get along, ever. They don’t talk outside of fighting, except for those who actually like him. Missed opportunity. 4/10)

His Space obsession is actually just a few mentions of him wanting to be an astronaut? (I thought he genuinely had an obsession with the stars and we’d see a lot of him stargazing or word-vomiting about his hyper fixation, but no. Sad. 4/10)

He does go stargazing (maybe?) and flies around when he’s not fighting. (We see him going off as Phantom in the episode where Jazz finds out about him. There are no battles and he looks like he’s having fun flying around. 10/10)

He was called Inviso-Bill?? (Hilarious, I love it, why did no one ever tell me this. 7/10)

He says “Going Ghost!” every time he transforms. Every fucking time. (It’s annoying, it’s ugly, I hate it. I am so glad no fics mentioned this or used it, I think I’d go insane. -1000/10)

That’s all I got for today, and probably for a while. I just wanted to write it down for fun, but I might post more like this eventually.

[nateofgreat]

The Brendok Witches - A critical breakdown

So I ran into a bit of a problem doing this breakdown, in that the episode contradicts itself so much that I'm having a hard time thinking of a way to describe what they believe at all.

To the best of my ability, and being as generous as I can reasonably be, here's what I got.

The Thread

They refer to the Force as "the Thread" and believe that it's an energy that binds everyone to each other and to their destinies. Now they seem to be under the impression that this is a teaching that the Jedi don't follow. However, it's actually one of the first things we ever learn about the Force from Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope.

"The Force surrounds us, it penetrates us, and binds the Galaxy together." Being generous, I'm going to assume the witches simply don't know what the Jedi teach.

As a final note they don't seem to believe the dark side exists.

It's not a power, so what are they chanting about?

Mother Aniseya also says that the Thread "isn't a power" like "some" believe, another dig at the Jedi I'd assume. Except that "power" actually appears to central to their teachings. To the point they have whole ceremonies where they chant "the power of one, the power of two, the power of many" over and over again.

So what's this "power" they're referring to? Well, when Mother Aniseya demonstrates it she's using the Force to push people. So, the Thread is "not a power" but also "power."

The only other thing I could imagine is that they're referring to power in a abstract sense, and it's just their way of trying to say that people are stronger together?

No good and no evil, only power

However their obsession with power runs far deeper than that. According to Mother Aniseya "this isn't about good or evil, it's about power and who's allowed to use it." So I suppose the coven must follow either a "might makes right" or a "if you have might you can't be right" mindset. Either is pretty twisted, and it's a philosophy they'll use to pressure children to do bad things like lie.

So... Not a good thing to teach to children.

Destiny

Mother Aniseya first says that the Thread binds you to each other and to your destiny only to later tell Osha that "there's no anonymous Force deciding your destiny, you have to choose." Their view of destiny isn't touched on at all after it's first brought up, so I can only count this as a contradiction.

History and resentment

As part of their own ceremonies they talk about how they were persecuted and hunted, thus fostering resentment in their members.

Hostility and anger

They're quick to resort to threats or violence or use of dark side magic to harm others. Even when no threats have been issued against them.

"You're too young to choose not to spend the rest of your life here."

Mother Aniseya pressures Osha to lie to the Jedi, and basically says she's too young to choose to be one. But earlier on she was trying to get Osha and Mae to swear a lifelong oath to stay in the coven, despite knowing Osha doesn't want that. Now I can kind of get why a flawed parent wouldn't want their child to choose to leave at such a young age, but this hypocrisy goes unacknowledged.

"It's the Jedi's fault"

To be frank, what I've gathered is that their entire culture, philosophy, history, and way of life completely revolve around the Jedi. They constantly reference their beliefs in their ceremonies, they whine about them during them, and they're extremely hostile towards them when they up. If the Jedi didn't exist I can't imagine this coven would either because they've built their entire culture around "not being them."

No really, that's the only way I can explain all the contradictions. Is that they simply hate the Jedi and thus describe everything they do as somehow being the opposite of them. Even as they practice aspects of their teachings.

In brief, everything good that they teach is stuff the Jedi already do except they add a bunch of terrible teachings along with it and then phrase theirs as being superior.

[tanix-dragon]

To Be the Dragon: Living as Tanix lei Dramon ak Hyuukii

For many years now (about 6!), I've been in the alterhuman community, thinking about how I want to write about my dragon kintype. I’ve never written much, though, despite being fairly comfortable doing so. This isn’t out of lack of things to talk about—it’s more because I have such a basic run-of-the-mill spiritual dragon kintype (in my mind) that I wasn’t sure that writing about it would do anything for anyone. Besides, it’s all so normal to me. It’s hard to write about your life when it feels so utterly mundane that to pick each piece out of it feels ridiculous. I have a dozen concepts for essays in my Tumblr drafts, but in the end, I’ve just decided to write something big. I’m going to go through it all, all I can think of, because I don’t know if I can pull it apart enough to write about each piece separately. It’s all so intertwined that it’s just easier to write a big one.

Strap in. This is going to take awhile. I’m a wordy bastard and despite how little I actually go into it, I do know a lot about this kintype.

Awakening

This is where most people start, and I’m sorry to disappoint; this is a short one. When I was a kid, I loved dinosaurs, and when I discovered dragons, and I mean really discovered them, realized how cool they are, I felt some kind of deep resonance. As a kid, I figured that it was just because they were the coolest thing of all time. In reality, this awakened phantom limbs (I think? Or just strengthened them. I don’t really remember very well; “I” as I’m known didn’t quite exist at the time, system stuff, you understand) and set me on a path of self-discovery and overwhelming draconity. I was known as the “crazy dragon kid” at school, even for years after I stopped talking about them, and I’ve always been very recognizable, even at a distance, even for people that barely know me, because I “move differently.” A friend once told me that I move like someone put a lizard or a bird in a human’s body, that I have a dragon’s walk cycle, that I have the wrong animation set for my skeleton. That was a very nice thing to be told.

I don’t know. I spent a lot of years with constant phantom limbs and sort of figured that they were normal, more or less? I didn’t think about them. They were just a part of me. Only once I tripped over a dragonkin’s blog completely accidentally in early 2018 did I start putting pieces together, and then it hit me like lightning: oh. I’m a dragon. I’m actually a dragon. And I’m not alone. I started my Tumblr kin blog and that was that. No questioning, no kinsidering, no “am I really?”--I had known that the thing was dragon, but I hadn’t known how it applied to me, and the second I did, I knew it was right. I am a dragon, and that was that.

I’d wondered off and on for a while if someone could have a past life as a dragon, but had never mentioned it to anyone (at least as far as I remember), because I was worried about the response I’d get. Once I realized that I was otherkin, though, I embraced that wholeheartedly: I had been a dragon, and that had rolled over so powerfully that I still am a dragon. It fits, and I love it.

What’s it like?

“What’s it like being a dragon?” my non-kin friends ask me sometimes. It’s kind of almost exactly the same as being not a dragon, except my mental image of myself is a big blue dragon instead of a human. Chronic pain flaring up? Dragon curled up and complaining about it. OCD lashing out? Dragon resting head against the wall with shut eyes and half-bared teeth. Someone annoying me? Dragon with exposed teeth and fangs all puffed up to try to make them back down.

My dragon body maps onto my human body to produce feeling like an anthro dragon most of the time, even though my dragonself isn’t even bipedal. It’s the happy medium my brain can settle on between what I feel I should be and my physical reality, although, again, mentally, most of the time when I imagine myself, I’m as I should be. In headspace where my headmates can see me, I’m quadrupedal unless I’m doing something that requires me to be bipedal. (Our headspace is pretty flexible, don’t worry about it.) All of this evens out to me moving kind of oddly—toss in how stiff and sore I am all the time (it’s some kind of unknown but disabling condition, hooray), and you get someone who moves very oddly. I turn my head like there’s significantly more weight to it than there should be, I visibly squeeze through spaces that are plenty big enough for me as if trying to accommodate great wings, I walk with a slight adjustment to my hips to compensate for a heavy tail, and I lift my shoulders to flare or gesture with my wings. I have slight head movements that correspond to how I move my ear fins, expressions that call for me to bare my teeth, gestures that only make sense with wings, tail, and claws, and a dozen other little things I probably don’t even notice that I do.

I don’t get a lot of species dysphoria anymore. I’d prefer to be able to switch in and out of dragon form (ideally with that anthro dragon that my brain has invented for me as an option too! I do love it as a middle ground), but I can make do as-is. I spent untold centuries as a dragon, I can handle some decades as a human. I’m here now, and I have a different life to live, and frankly, I love humans. I love the things they do, the cultures they have, the things they make, the ways they act, and I feel really lucky that I get to be in one of those human cultures and witness others. I have a minor in anthropology—I promise I’m not about to become a misanthrope anytime soon. I believe that humans are inherently creatures like any other, and can be driven to great good or great evil. I don’t believe that’s a reason to hate them, and besides, some part of me identifies as human as well as my kintypes. Not everyone does, but I do, and it’s comfortable for me.

I do have a few draconic instincts I have to juggle, but none are terribly maladaptive or troublesome. I know exactly how to breathe fire and want to when angry or struggling to keep a fire going in winter, and I know that there’s something in my chest and something else in my throat that are missing, structures that allow firebreathing, but I have phantoms and can mimic it okay, so I can huff and puff and burn nothing down. I have a prey drive that kicks in hard watching squirrels or, worse, rabbits out of my window, but I don’t ever actually chase anything (not that my slow ass could catch anything even if I did). I want to sharpen my claws, curl up in the sun, growl and threat-display with my wings (and do flare my phantoms when I’m in the car and another vehicle does something I don’t like), and a bunch of other small things I can’t think of right now. Again, it doesn’t bother me—it’s just affirmations of my draconity, and most are subtle enough that I can do them in front of people and they don’t notice, or, if they do, they don’t think much of it. 

What’s it like? What a question. What else do I say? Sometimes my chronic back pain reaches into my rhomboid muscles, which is where my phantom wings connect, so it registers as wing pain, I guess. That doesn’t usually happen, but it can. I walk on my toes a lot because I naturally want to move digitigrade. Shocker, I know. I don’t know—what’s it like being a dragon? What’s it like being human, or anything else? What’s it like to be who and what you are?

The Dragon Driik’lor

Tanix lei Dramon ak Hyuukii. Tanix of Fire and Breath. What a name—and one I have known parts of for a long, long time. As a kid, I’d sign off messages and emails as Tanadin of Fire and Air. When choosing a name for myself when I came out as trans (Tanix), I knew that I wanted something with the nickname ‘Tan’ still, derived originally from my username “Tanadin,” because it felt right. Was my name truly Tanix? I don’t know. It feels right, or at least, right enough. I swapped out “air” for “breath” because Tanix lei Dramon ak Voron didn’t feel as right. I guess the question is—who is, or was, this Tanix, and what language is that?

(I'll occasionally be referring to my dragonself as Tanix and myself as… me, I guess. I know, I’m sorry, that’s confusing, but that’s driiv name as far as I know, and calling driik anything else feels weird.)

Tanix lei Dramon ak Hyuukii was a mature adult dragon of a sapient and extremely intelligent species with its own language. My noemata have provided me with pieces of this language—individual words and ideas on its structure, some suffixes, some sounds and pieces of what a sentence should sound like. A few letters, even, for the written version. For the past fourteen or so years, I have worked on uncovering as much of this language (that, as a kid, I called Dranonic, and I haven’t changed that) as I can, and have made up much of the rest. I will never reconstruct an entire language from noemata alone, and I know that, so I just do what doesn’t feel wrong and change things if I get an inkling that I’m off somewhere.

Tanix’s species had some extremely complex social rules and dances that driit largely didn’t do much with. Dragons could be either solitary or live in clans, and driit was pretty solitary. Driit was also fucking annoying. Sorry, but it’s true—Tanix lei Dramon ak Hyuukii was a pretentious, self-centered, prideful, overconfident bastard that had other dragons going “oh gods here comes Tanix again, just smile and wave.” Driit was a bulky, powerful, physically imposing dragon, and driit knew it. (In this human life, my family is actually fairly dense and stout despite being quite tall, so that’s free species euphoria.) As far as I can tell, given driiv five horns and larger stature, driit was female. (I talk about horn count and dragon gender more in my essay Counting Horns and Making Assumptions, or, Draconic Age and Gender, if you’re interested.) However, pronouns in Dranonic are based on age category, not gender, so the fact that Tanix and driiv mate have different pronouns is because of a difference in age, not gender.

Oh, Selkhenar. Selkhenar of the Darkened Swamp. I wish I knew more about you. Muut seems to be the only dragon that Tanix wasn’t a huge bitch to—and let me tell you something. Driit was vain as fuck. My dragon instincts know what driit did and did not find attractive in a dragon, and Selkhenar was considered, in that society, to be a kind of dumpy little green and black swamp beast with a weirdly long face, short ass legs, and kind of weird proportions.

And driit loved muut more than anything. Every time I think about Selkhenar, I get holdover fuzzies and butterflies from my time as the dragon the first go-around, and man, driit was gone for this swamp dragon. I have flashes of memory of much more impressive-looking dragons trying to woo driik and getting passed up, but accidentally tripping over Selkhenar in the swamp just beyond the edge of driiv territory was apparently what driik needed.

They had at least one clutch of eggs together. I remember guarding them ferociously, even growling at Selkhenar once before recognizing muuk. I remember them hatching into the cutest little whelplings of all time, and I remember them being a mix of blue and green and red and black. I remember teaching them to fly, throwing them over the ledge outside of the cave and off the cliff. Selkhenar was below, ready to catch if they didn’t figure it out, but still, uh, not the strategy I would recommend, necessarily. I remember hunting for them, both land animals and skimming the lake outside of our cave, down in the evergreens at the base of the mountain, for fish, even though… Selkhenar was a water dragon and therefore better suited to fishing…. I think it was a pride thing. Tanix was a ferociously prideful dragon and I suspect driit was like NO, MY LOVE, I WILL HUNT FOR YOU, YOU TINY THING… YOU GUARD THE BABIES WHILE I PROVIDE FOR YOU…. and then proceeded to accidentally driik’lor (Dranonic for him/her/themself) into the water. Repeatedly. Over and over. I have very firm noemata of hunting fish, eating fish, and fucking up while hunting fish and fouling my wings and falling into the lake. I was an okay swimmer and was mostly just glad that no one saw, but like… come on. Let the swamp dragon do it. I mean, I’m sure muut did, but I don’t have memories of that.

What’d This Dragon Look Like, Anyway?

Good question! That’s something I have the firmest grasp on. I’ve been drawing this dragon for as long as I’ve been super aware of dragons, and driit has been through a lot of iterations, but I think I’m very close.

Tanix lei Dramon ak Hyuukii was approximately fifty feet long from nose to tailtip. Driit was a deep, intense blue (take a peek at any art I’ve ever done of driik/myself) with bright red stripes along driiv midline—basically, along the spine, down the tail, and along the face. The stripes also appeared on driiv legs and maybe wings, but I’m not sure about that one. Driit had five horns that were either darker blue or slightly purple that curved slightly back and were slightly offset from one another, with each set being slightly smaller than the last and a bit further back, with the single horn being the smallest and furthest back. Driit also had a single nose spike that matched the horns. Driit had big (kind of disproportionately big) ear fins, a more recent discovery of mine and out of date on most of my art, used for communication and showing of mood, mostly. Driiv “hands” had three fingers and a thumb, driiv back feet had three toes and a dewclaw, and driiv wings had four “fingers” with membrane stretched between them and a fifth “finger” that seemed to serve little to no purpose. This wing membrane connected pretty low down on the body (near or on the tail), providing a large area for lift. I believe this membrane was a lighter color than the scales around it, and I have the distinct feeling that I could flush blood into it to make it change color—red, I think? Maybe it was just some markings that could appear. I’m not sure.

Along driiv back were spikes or spines, of a similar color to the horns, lined up perfectly with the stripes. I know that driit had some kind of dangerous weapon on the dip of driiv tail, and I know that this thing had three sharp points, but its exact shape and color, I’m less sure on. I know that the tail itself was fairly flexible, especially near the tip, but was most assuredly a powerful weapon when needed. Driiv belly was lightly plated, providing protection for the vital organs. Driit also, of course, had sharp teeth and a forked tongue, although two of driiv teeth were elongated and poked slightly out of the mouth when shut, which I tend to call driiv fangs.

The Binding

Back in August of 2023, I tripped over an image that made dragonbrain click on and triggered a fear response as well as a flood of noemata. The post I wrote at the time of that discovery is here, but I’ll write it out in a more comprehensible format, both for your convenience and so that I have a more organized version in general.

Some kind of humanoid species (not humans) on my planet found and trapped me when I was quite young, and dragged me to a structure not dissimilar to the image I found, not far from or in one of their cities. My limbs and jaws were chained so that I couldn’t fight or escape, and I so clearly remember feeling my claws and scales scrape over that rough, coarse stone, and the sound of the chains dragging across it. Some of the humanoids rode other dragons, who were clearly enslaved and, in many ways, broken. They had no choice but to obey, or face punishment. Their eyes were dull and they passed over me without registering me, because to acknowledge that such a young dragon was facing their same fate was, I imagine, too painful.

For the record, I was so young that I thought I might be able to carry one of these humanoids, maybe, and not all of my red markings had come in yet. I was very young.

For some reason or another—maybe I was misbehaving, maybe this was protocol with all new dragons, I don’t know—they dragged me to a dungeon underneath a great arena where they made some dragons that they figured they could never turn into mounts fight for their amusement. I was chained up down there, fairly tightly, barely fed and barely able to move. There were a couple of other dragons down there with me, in the dark and the damp, curled up on those horrible stone bricks just like I was. I could barely see them, it was so dark, but they could see me, their eyes more adjusted due to years or decades down here.

My primary companion was a dull red dragon, an adult male, as far as I can figure. I don’t remember muuv name, but it started with an Ez- or an El- with a z in there somewhere, and ended in -iel or something along those lines. Elaziel, Ezkhaliel, Ezkerial, Elzariel? I don’t remember. I wish I did. I remember muut being as reassuring as muut could be, trying to do muuv best for this poor scared youngling. Muut was beaten and broken but incapable of either fighting or being a mount—one or more of muuv limbs were gone or broken and healed incorrectly. Muut couldn’t fly and I think muut struggled to walk. I don’t know why the humanoids kept muut alive, but I do know that I reinvigorated muuk, and muut decided to do whatever muut could to get me out.

I don’t remember what happened, really. All I know is that, at some point, there was an escape, and multiple dragons made it out, or at least tried to. I remember the red dragon shouting “Mor anor axid, mor anor axid! Mor anor axid veran!”, which is Dranonic for “Let them fly, let them fly! Let them fly away!” with “anor” being distinctly plural—you would never call a single dragon “anor,” indicating that there were multiple dragons trying to get away. I know muut wasn’t among them—muut would never make it out, and I’m sure that the humanoids killed him after. I never looked back. I never saw.

I know that there was a light green dragon involved in all that, a female, I think. Muut was chained down there with myself and the red dragon, and maybe others. Maybe muut was the other one in “anor.” I don’t know. I don’t remember much about muut.

I do remember part of the escape—the red dragon’s shouted pleas, the hesitation of the dragon mounts, the sting of the dragonbone arrows fired from the humanoids that pierced my scales (because of course they harvested the bodies of their spent slaves, why wouldn’t they, the bastards), the screaming of my underused wing muscles as I tore out of that place and never looked back, not once.

I never returned. Not even as an adult, not even once my fifth horn came in. I flew far, far away, and never drew closer again. I never wanted to see that place, never wanted to fear it, never wanted to risk it. My two fears as a dragon were that place and the ocean, and the second, I feel, had some kind of horrible dragon-slaughtering beast in it that was a long, instinctive, genetic terror. That horrible place beat it out by miles.

A Couple Other Memories

I remember other things, too, not just that whole… sequence, or what I talked about before. I know that there were some kind of “dragon mimics” out there, some kind of insectoid things that looked like dragons at a distance but revealed what they were close up. They’d either do displays intended to anger a dragon and draw them close, or courtship displays to interest a dragon. Either way, once a dragon was close enough for the mimic to strike, it was too late. A lot of insectoid dragon designs set off my dragonbrain’s “mimic alarm,” and it’s kind of interesting to play with and see what triggers it and what doesn’t. I’m sure I had personal experience with them—I have too clear of a mental image of one trying to lure me in for anything else—but I don’t know the specifics.

One of the memories that I’ve had, crystal clear, for a long time, is my death. I was falling from a great height, wings too damaged to hold me, uselessly streaming behind me as I fell. Selkhenar flew down with me in a panic, knowing muut could never catch me (I was far bigger than muuk), trying to talk me into getting my wings sorted out and at least slowing my fall or something. I remember there being wounds all over me—I’d been losing some great, horrible battle—and peering at Selkhenar, thinking it was very sweet of muuk to be so worried about me but I was clearly lost, muut needed to get out of here—and then a sharp pain at the base of my skull, where it connects to my spine, and nothing. I feel like it was some sort of projectile, well-aimed, that took me out instantly.

I’m still afraid of heights without my wings.

Wrap-Up

There’s more, I’m sure. More specific essays that I feel like I can write now that I’ve gotten most of it down. I could write an essay on draconic courtship, or what little I know of rearing offspring, or whatever else comes to mind. For now, though—that’s most of it. That’s The Everything. I’ve been meaning to put this together for a long time, and now I have, and I hope it’s helpful to someone—either in understanding me, or in understanding yourself. I know that, when you’re questioning something, reading about someone else’s experiences helps a lot. I’ve never felt like talking about my dragon kintype was ever going to be terribly helpful in that regard—after all, there’s a dozen other similar essays out there—but I decided, well, it’s not for other people. It’s for me. And no one’s written four thousand words detailing my kintype before.

That’s the thing about writing like this. It’s for you, and if it helps someone else, that’s just a bonus. Write what will help you, what will let you figure yourself out and document it so that, if it changes, you can pinpoint when that was and track your own growth and change. I wonder what, in a few years, will be inaccurate in this essay? I wonder what I will add, what I will change, in a theoretical future version?

I guess we’ll find out together. Thanks for reading.

[killswdclub]

HE'S LIKE A POEM | PERCY JACKSON

summary: You are a very dry person when it comes to showing feelings but somehow you manage to express all the love that exists between you and the PDA boy (Percy) pairing: Percy Jackson x Hypnos!male!reader « now playing . . . so american, olivia rodrigo↬ ♡ »

[ ... ]

'Dress up and make yourself look attractive, keep quiet. Even if you have to act silly.' It's what you've heard so much coming from your mother for years and years, now more than you have a boyfriend. It has always been difficult for you to express your emotions, or just your expressions; Your face has always been a blank canvas that you have wanted to paint yourself, but due to pressure you only limit yourself to observing everything from tired eyes and a neutral almost sarcastic expression.

Everything changed when you met Percy, that loud and so affectionate boy that he made you nauseous, you never knew why he agreed to be your friend or how he fell in love with you, you never expressed anything different towards him than how you behaved with others. Or so you thought.

It was one night when you realized it; you two were sitting on the roof of your cabin watching the stars, he was exhausted from talking up to his elbows and leaned back on your shoulder to rest his eyes, 'curiosity killed the cat' and with your powers of a son of Hypnos you slept Percy without him noticing. You entered his head, you could see how he dreamed of you quite often, you saw only the superficial, you were even afraid to investigate the head of a fifteen-year-old teenage man.

You came out of his dream, you didn't know what to say or what to do, for you everything was too fast, for the first time you felt that you were making a genuine expression and not just being bored, you realized that Percy could do that. You took a deep breath and went back into his head, no matter how afraid you were of yourself. He had an insecurity: he didn't know anything about you.

It was all a lie, Percy knew every detail about you, he knew how to read your non-existent expressions, your tone of voice, your body language and your sarcasm. He knew what you liked and what you didn't, what made you angry and what made you happy, your favorite food, your favorite place at camp, your bedtimes, and your problems with your mother. Percy Jackson was simply the perfect man for you because he knew you from head to toe and from the inside out.

You left his head for the second time and proposed something; be more expressive. Maybe because of him but deep inside you would like people to understand you, not just one person. By the next morning you had written about four poems, drawn three drawings, and written seven letters. Even if you wanted to send them all at once, you knew that one wrong step and you would lose the right guy. You were going to start slow.

Four months had passed since the meeting on the roof and two since you had been sending letters, drawings and poems. Nothing anonymous. You pretend not to know what Percy is talking about when he asks you about all 'that', and you keep sending it.

The nerves consume you little by little until it becomes too much, you were going to end this and send the last letter to find out if he wanted a serious relationship like you had been idealizing.

"I apologize if it's a little too much, just a little too soon But if the conversation ever were to come up I don't wanna assume this stuff But ain't it love? Think I'm in love."

When you started a relationship, he noticed your attempts and efforts to show that you loved him, and he was also very good at showing it. It was like PDA ran through his blood, he couldn't get enough of it. His dedication was to read and read everything you gave him, no matter how dyslexic he was.

[glass--beach]

hi j!

my highschool band and I played for the first time at a small music fest. we only sang covers and we're not very good lol, but we kinda want to start making some songs ourselves!!

do you have any tips for songwriting? how do you choose themes and melodies, and what's your process with glass beach?

doing covers is a good place to start! i like to learn songs i like and then try to take them apart and try to understand what parts i like the most and why they work. i do most of my songwriting by playing some chords and humming or singing until i find stuff that works. you can even take chords from an existing song to start with, lots of songs reuse chord progressions. lyrics usually come way way later. once you find two sections that feel connected but contrast each other a bit you're golden (verse and chorus is enough, you can figure out bridges later)

i like to structure melodies as a "question" and "answer", so every first phrase ends in an uncertain place (any note other than the 1st note of the scale, the 3rd and 5th note of the scale are usually good options) and every second phrase ends on a resolved note (the 1st note of the scale, OR the 3rd or 5th if the first phrase ended on a note besides those two). this is more of a guideline than a rule though, plenty of great melodies don’t do that but i find that method to be reliable. i hope that makes sense

next bit of advice i have is to just try to write as many songs as possible, and don’t take it too seriously, especially if songwriting is new to you. spending a really long time trying to get one song perfect can be a trap. lots of people will just idly sing little made up songs to themselves, or to their pets or whatever, that’s the kind of stuff i’m talking about, goofy and frivolous. it should be fun! that’ll give you a lot of practice and make writing more “serious” songs a lot more comfortable. lots of my oldest songs were conceived as jokes.

if you’re trying to write with your band i say take a really simple chord progression (like 2 chords even, definitely no more than 4) and just loop it over and over and jam on it and try our different ideas. you really can write a song with just two chords, I - IV is a good progression for that (ie D - G, C - F, E - A).

this was kinda disorganized and stream of consciousness but i hope it helps! i have spent so long honing my songwriting craft but it is very difficult for me to explain how i actually think about it. keep in mind there’s pretty much no rules and the best thing you can do for yourself is make songwriting fun! good luck writing some songs!!

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I wanna know ur Fontaine msq criticisms 👁️👁️👂I’m all ears

I'm not sure if you wanted me to talk about this secretly or publicly but! Here I go!

The TLDR: Fontaine MSQ aestheticised prison, poverty, child abuse, the justice system/court and didn't properly address any of it.

More:

Focalors/Furina has way too much of a sympathetic angle for a dictator who's lets people drown with her inaction.

Neuvillette feels Bad for sentencing some people to death/prison, but that's it. He's one of the most powerful people in Fontaine. If he felt like there are systemic injustices, I.E sending an abused Child to prison, he should be the first person to DO something about it, not just cry and be sad so the audience can be like aw, that's complex character writing isn't it? No it's not! And guilt doesn't absolve you!!!!!!! (These are stuff we deal with in OTCOJ read my fic now /j)

Meropide has children in it, both Sentenced there (Wriothesley) and BORN THERE (Lanoire), and this is just a quirk of the place. Not only that, Meropide accepts prisoners of all genders and crimes. There are abusers and abuse victims in one place. Do you know how bad that is? How much potential for crimes to happen in a place like that— oh wait, Meropide isn't under Fontaine's jurisdiction. If you are assaulted as an inmate it literally means nothing to the court.

Wriothesley had no qualifications when he took over. Depending on how long he lived on the streets, how old he was when he killed his parents, how old he was when he was first taken in by the orphanage, etc, the man might never have more than 4–5 years of formal education. Sigewinne probably had to teach him how to write reports. And do Meropide's spreadsheets. Edit because I forgot to elaborate on this one: This isn't a point brought up anywhere, which is bad, because when poverty and incarceration robs you of a proper education (and the rights to vote in many places too, too, by the way), it reduces your prospects for jobs, reduces many people's ability to get a home etc etc. Wriothesley was just, narratively, Given his position.

Meropide is an industrialized prison, and they portray this as a good thing. Prisoners are paid in coupons for their labour, and this is also portrayed as a good thing.

The One-Meal-A-Day reform was something Paimon gushed about being so great of a perk, that people might want to go to jail for food (could be interesting and reflective of systemic poverty if MHY had brains, but they don't, so I was just Pissed because essentially all Paimon wanted to say was "Prison isn't so bad, but still don't go to prison guys! Prison labour is really hard!"). By the way, in most real-world prisons they are obligated to feed you three meals a day. Because that's how much food a human needs. MHY went with one meal just so they can say "if you want to eat more, you have to work." And then the welfare meal is a goddamn gacha. So imagine you're a starving child who's too weak to work in the fucking robot assembly line, and you wander up for your first meal in 24 hours, only to luck in with a shit one. I'd kill myself.

They wrote Wriothesley, who's a victim of the system, into a guy who's say shit like "I'm the Duke I can do whatever I want" for a cool moment where he choke-slams an inmate (I know he was a bad guy. But also, in copaganda when cops are violent/disregarding protocols, they are always only portrayed to do that against bad guys, so what does our critical thinking tells us about this one?) They wrote Wriothesley, who was an inmate of a prison so bad, so notorious that it is the literal boogeyman of Fontaine, that has a legal (???) fighting pit, with an administrator who abuses his position to be unreasonable, to willingly stay in the place and become an Administrator who would choke-slam an inmate while saying a cool line about how he has the power to do whatever he wants. They wrote him, the guy who had to be fed on the streets by melusines, to think one-meal-a-day was a good enough reform (while he spends god-knows how much on his boat). This wasn't a victim-turns-into-abuser narrative either, they want all this to be seen as positive character growth.

And then, the final kicker is, they gloss over his entire abuse. You can only read about these shit in his profile, which most people don't because they don't Have Him or doesn't care to unlock it/read it online, and they jammed his entire backstory into a flaccid info-dump at the end of his character story quest. This man isn't Allowed to feel abused and neglected and show any reaction to it within the narrative of Fontaine itself, because if they actually Gave Weight to what happened to him, they'd have to confront THE FUCKING JUSTICE SYSTEM they had NO PLANS on criticising. I don't think they ever explicitly said the fucking Crime-Theatre nonsense was Bad either.

I could go on, but this is already so long. But yeah, I hope this gave you an idea.

[megumi-fm]

.

[5w6]

i actually do feel like ive been doing slightly better at this lately though.. like replying to peoples posts and trying to initiate conversations and dms and stuff... so i am winning a bit

[pens-personal]

Y'know I don't know much about schizophrenia or hallucinations or delusions or plurality but I DO know that my older sister (who experiences none of those things) had the cops called on her because she was talking to herself in public and I think that's pretty messed up actually.

[darabeatha]

/ I've noticed that at this point I'm not even writing on any blog anymore, I just come and yell about some blorbo and leave. Rinse and repeat my lieges

[todayisafridaynight]

I’m fairly new to the fandom, but I do have a question if you can answer it! Why do people ship Daigo with Aoki / Masato? I tried looking to see if they’ve interacted before, but couldn’t find anything! Sorry for asking I’m just </3 dumb AND I LOVE YOUR ART OF THEM!!! Nerd looking ahhhhhh

hi ! welcome to the community i hope you're having a lovely time so far and ty for enjoyin my stuff :) no need for apologies it's a very fair question to have :]

i cant speak for everyone (all. ten people into masadai anyway) but Personally To Me i just think the idea of them together is very funny. thats quite literally it im afraid..

[callibones]

debated sending this or not, b/c we don't rlly know each other and i didn't want it to sound objectifying? but please do not stop tgirl tummy tuesday. not only is it a wonderful way to boost your self confidence. it is a little treat for your followers

FAR FROM IT!!! this made me go AWWW and my eyes lit up. thank you so much.... i was so anxious agajsgsjsg this makes me feel so much better about it :-] i will continue to give my followers lil treats as long as i feel comfortable doin so and im havin fun with it! and i sure am havin fun with it

[icewindandboringhorror]

examining a seemingly normal image only to slowly realize the clear signs of AI generated art.... i know what you are... you cannot hide your true nature from me... go back where you came from... out of my sight with haste, wretched and vile husk

[isfjmel-phleg]

🤐