#DRAGONSSS!

[amielot]

@teejaystumbles posted the final chapter of Flatter the Mountain Tops and I have emotions about it.

[tokyozilla]

Drinky doodles of a BIG DRAGON

[little-doggy-girl-kisser]

need a falin to my marcille </3

[itslanners]

arvelle can have a little violence, as a treat

@dragonaday-fr day 5 prompt!

[tunguszka20]

Okayokayokay I found a coloring book today that had dragons in it (not only dragons, but dragons too), and when I was looking for a color palette for them, it made me think, so. Here's a poll.

(edit: the question is, which color feels like it fits "the original dragon" idea in your head. Like. When you imagine the original dragon, what color do you imagine it to be. Idk if it was clear before but now it's clarified)

[percephilous]

httyd au what the hell thats crazy ! wowzers.

i have a list of all the dragons ive given to people, only drawn venam and melia tho. venam gets a slitherwing and melia gets a hobblegrunt :) no i will not explain [i will] feel free to ask more

the other one is august and his daughter who I hav eyet to name!!! deathsong/lightfury hybrid because I cant be normal and it looks cool ok

[mettywiththenotes]

Can't stop looking at the dragons in this art, the detail is incredible

[wintersoldier4ever]

EEEEEEEE WELL DRAGONS ARE HEREEE

i only had 1 wishing coin so i threw it in the pot

and im NOT dissapointed

LOOK AT THIS BABYYY

[themundanemudperson]

can you turn into a dragon.

I do not believe I can 😔 alas

What about you?

[dracastales]

Some dragon doodles

[ladydeath-vanserra]

me, making the Welsh!Night Court: dragons. dragons dragons DRAGONS

[radiant-flutterbun]

The trans dragons are no longer visible D:

[magpieinstitute]

Sometimes, one needs to paint dragons. The only problem is that dragons are hard to paint, so I gave it my best shot lol.

[competentcormorant]

We need to talk about Secrets of the Songwing and LGBTQ representation.

Dreamworks. Hey. Sup.

Remember when you made Secrets of the Songwing?

That one Rescue Riders special where they tried to do the representation thing but ended up making something that honestly borders on genuinely insulting, despite being surprisingly beautiful on the surface?

Because I remember. Secrets of the Songwing lives rent free in my head. Do I love it? Just a little, to be honest. I find ending sequence is genuinely beautiful. Here’s why it’s shit representation. If you also have feelings I’m open to discourse in the comments :)

The story follows the Rescue Riders (as well as a bunch of side characters whose appearance in the story makes ZERO sense without the show to prop them up) as they attempt to thwart Melodia, a rogue Songwing dragon who hypnotizes other dragons by singing to them. Melodia is heavily implied to be gay, but this is only revealed at the very end of the movie.

Right off the bat, this story has some extremely dark undertones, including the implication that hypnotized dragons will forgo food and sleep, and will simply sing until they die. That’s not why we’re here. I promised bad representation.

As the story progresses, Melodia hypnotizes some of the Rescue Riders dragons, and the rest of the team begins to concoct increasingly ill-conceived plots to get them back. (Side note: This movie has an excessive reliance on earplugs and being unable to hear hypnosis song. Unfortunately, these are magical plot earplugs, and they block Melodia’s singing but literally nothing else, because writing cause and effect is difficult. Additionally, I suspect they paid the writers in Swiss cheese instead of money.)

Things escalate, and Layla (a Rescue Rider) identifies Melodia as a Songwing dragon. (“I didn’t realize at first, because songwings usually travel in pairs”) OH REALLY? YOU DIDN’T RECOGNIZE THE MASSIVE SPARKLY SINGING RAINBOW DRAGON BECAUSE THERE WEREN’T TWO OF THEM? Suuuure Layla. Remember this line. It will be important later.

Eventually, the riders manage to get the still-hypnotized dragons to return to Berk. (Sorry, knockoff Berk) There are a few pointless plot threads involving show characters, and then Melodia shows up at Not-Berk to hypnotize the Vikings as well as the dragons she already controls. At this point, her motive has not been established beyond “I want everyone to sing with me.” While it is implied that she’s lonely (and, going off of the single offhand comment Layla made earlier, missing her “songmate,” as Songwings travel in pairs) this implication of loneliness only really occurred to me in hindsight, and is inexplicably and poorly explained to the audience by Dax, another rider, at the very end. This movie’s 4 year old target audience probably have NO CLUE why this massive rainbow dragon is flying around trying to hypnotize everyone to “sing with me forever.”

Melodia is not a sympathetic character, because her supposed loneliness is never on display for the audience. All we see is a happy go-lucky dragon stealing free will with some mediocre songs.

Continuing with the plot, Melodia hypnotizes the entire population of Not-Berk. Only a few Riders are left unhypnotized. Exessive screen time is dedicated to making Melodia appear selfish, having the entire village pass her fish while no one else eats. Why? Why not make her sympathetic? This choice to make her completely villainous until her defeat is an extremely strange choice for a character the writers intend to redeem suddenly at the very end.

In the background, Layla is having a subplot about being able to sing in front of people, because only a better song can break a Songwing’s spell. Does it make sense? Not really, but this plot is set up and loosely held throughout the movie, so I really can’t complain about it.

Anyhow, Layla and Melodia have a song battle, and Layla wins, unhypnotizing the knockoff Vikings of Not-Berk. Right until the end of this song battle, Melodia remains unchanged, attempting to keep control. When Layla wins, Melodia’s personality shifts entirely.

Melodia sinks in on herself, and says “help? you’d help me?”. She is immediately FORGIVEN by Layla, saying “you said you lost your songmate, right?” (No, actually. She never said that. The only previous mention of a pair of dragons in any capacity is when Layla brings it up as a trait of the Songwing species. The conversation this line references never happened.) While I can forgive some plot holes in low-budget kids movies, this inconsistency is so blatant and problematic that it makes the ENTIRE PLOT OF THE MOVIE (That loneliness can make people to terrible things, and that those people can still be redeemed. This plot is utterly mishandled, to the point that they literally have Dax TELL MELODIA that “You lost the other half of your pair, and you’ve been trying to replace it with dragons and people.” YEA DAX, I think Melodia would know. Why not have her say it herself? OR SHOW HER BEING LONELY? Oh sorry, I forgot, you think kids are morons, and your writers are actually trapped in a basement signaling desperately for help).

Anyhow, this inconsistency- referencing a conversation about Melodia’s songmate that didn’t happen, makes the ENTIRE PLOT POINTLESS, because the writers FORGOT TO ESTABLISH THE LONELINESS, which was LITERALLY THE WHOLE POINT. (I genuinely could not believe that there wasn’t context for Layla’s line, so I rewatched the movie. Several times. Layla is referring to an event that didn’t happen)

After this series of increasingly odd writing choices, the movie moves on to a genuinely beautiful ending sequence.

No joke there, I just love it. Melodia is presented with a sound amplifying devise Layla used for a bit during her singing confidence sub-plot, and she uses it to call for her songmate. In a vacuum, this sequence is incredible. Cantana, her songmate, hears her, and they have a brief reunion duet.

With the rest of the movie as context, it has the single glaring issue of releasing a horrific, unsympathetic villain with zero repercussions.

Hell, if that scene had been framed as “what you did was bad, but you aren’t, so we’ll help you as long as you never do it again,” I would have no issues (again, kid’s movie. I can accept a simple, forgiveness-heavy narrative).

But while I understand a movie trying to teach young children forgiveness, this is TERRIBLE. Melodia doesn’t appear repentant, she appears manipulative. She suddenly changes tune after being defeated and outnumbered, and then gets to walk away Scot-free.

While I don’t object to having gay villains in movies, any more than I could object to straight villains, I do object to heavily relying on established gay villain tropes. (May I remind you this is a magical, singing, selfish rainbow dragon)

But ultimately, by biggest problem with this movie is that “being gay” is a substitute for a redemption ark. Seriously. That’s such a dumb sentence. I SOULD NOT have to write that.

You can make Melodia an unapologetic villain (who also happens to be gay).

You can give Melodia (who also happens to be gay) a redemption arc.

But you CANNOT do this.

Dreamworks, this is a dumpster fire. Please think before you release movies.

What the fuck.

Stop paying your writers in Swiss cheese.

It’s still better than How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. Change my mind, you cowards.

[firebuug]

i dont wanna get up today and do things aauhwasghnw ive done Enough this week...

[aquarius-cookie-jar]

I have not written any fanfics for so long, this was just a small warm up drabble.

--

He never thought he’d ever get the chance to raise a child again, not since his son’s banishment, and even more so ever since he realized how terrible he had treated him in the past. He swore an oath to protect those young ones, but to ever have any under his care again is a much more complicated idea to grasp. At least, that’s what he thought…

Earlier, during the meeting they had with the council, he introduced the twin dragons to the others. As expected, they immediately got into an argument with the greenish-red dragon Hollyberry managed to ally with, and attempted to fight them. He himself had sparred with the dragon a few times, how they’d annoy him with their arrogant and brash nature. He and Hollyberry had to immediately cease further hostility between the reptilian beasts, lest the Vanilla Kingdom have its property destroyed… again…

After the meeting, the twins went on a ramble about how they could’ve taken Pitaya Dragon in a fight, and all the other things that immediately passed through his head. Tired of their antics, he encouraged them to have a look around the kingdom, just to make sure to not get into any trouble, and they immediately ceased their ranting, flying off to who knows where. 

Not long after, Pitaya themselves came up to him, demanding they spar with the dragons, attempting to belittle him at the same time, also (not so subtly) hinting they want to brawl with him as well. Dark Cacao had long since tuned them out, not wanting to entertain them the same way Hollyberry does. But then they mentioned something that piqued his intrigue.

“Don’t be sssso arrogant, cookie. Thossse excussses of dragonsss only call you ‘massster’ becaussse they’re only ssso young. You won’t be hearing them call you that in a few hundred yearsss! You’ll sssee!” 

It was that sentence that made Dark Cacao finally turn to the red dragon. 

“Huh?” He raised a brow. “What do you mean by that?” A sigh of annoyance escaped his lips when he saw them grin, seeing as how they finally captured his attention. But he had to know more.

“Oh? Can’t you tell? They’re ssstill only youngssstersss who know no better.” Pitaya claimed.

“And yet they can transform into beings that stretch across mountain ranges.” He recalled the first time he encountered them. How their roars shook the ground, and each strike against the other caused shockwaves through the mountains. It was as if the gods themselves fought for territory of the earth.

His reply only caused the red dragon to shrug. 

“They probably absssorbed too much power asss sssmall drakesss.” 

Ah. He remembers the tale of Stormbringer, how she split the black and white dragon into two and banished them to the furthest corners of the land. But he also remembers how the dragon just hatched out from its egg, and immediately devoured the world in pursuit of power.

He turned back to Pitaya, arms crossed as he asked, “How old do you think they are?” A small ���tsk’ escaped the dragon’s lips, he could tell they’re growing a bit impatient. 

“Hell if I know. But from what I could tell, lesss than five hundred or something.”

“And how old do dragons get until they’re considered fully mature?” 

There was a small pause. Pitaya scratched their chin, pondering their answer.

“At least a thousand years old.”

He knew he shouldn’t be surprised, but he couldn’t help but feel his eyes widen. It’s been over a thousand years since he defeated the dragons and founded his kingdom. And yet, according to Pitaya Dragon, they’re still only so young. Had they not aged while trapped in his sword? It made sense maybe, they laid dormant within his weapon unable to do anything for so long. But the thought that he may have robbed them of the opportunity to grow. Something about that just—

Pitaya huffed, a small amount of smoke escaping their nostrils. They had enough of the questions, and pointed their lance towards him. 

“Enough with the chit chat, I demand a battle, right now!” 

Just as they spoke, the twin dragons returned, snarling as they immediately flew to their master’s side, as if to defend him. Dark Cacao sighed, and decided to get things over with and spar with them. 

Hours had passed, nobody emerged as the victor as Hollyberry interrupted their battle and immediately ended things as soon as she arrived. 

The twin dragons, tired from the fight, immediately curled up on Dark Cacao’s sleeping mat, leaving no space for him, but not that he minds. He sat down on the floor next to them, a hand reaching out to stroke the black dragon’s head. 

It was strange. Upon learning how young they really are, it’s as if a new, yet familiar, sense of protectiveness grew in his chest. He knows that the dragons are more than capable of fighting and defending themselves, he saw the damage they had caused to the land a thousand years ago, but he couldn’t help but feel responsible for them. 

Was this his parental instinct? Or was this him wanting to right his mistakes he made when he failed to properly care for his son? 

He sighed, shaking his head as if to free him from those thoughts. Nevermind that for now. He’ll work on these feelings another time.

“You’ve done well today… Rest now, young ones. I promise to protect you…”