#eir's list is at the end btw

[httyd-art-requests]

Heya! I wasn't sure if this was a legal request since it wasnt listed in your bio, but it is an official httyd video game

I'd love to see the goofy guy Patch from dawn of new riders! Chimeragons really made one appearance, became way too op, and then disappeared into obscurity. But look at the guy...he so ugly and goofy I love him

Your art is gorgeous btw!

( @yuendelahoya )

So funny story. I watched a playthrough of this game when it first came out in 2019, and it's been on my wish list ever since (mostly because of the flight mechanics lol) And now that I found these asks in my inbox again, I checked the Nintendo Store just in case, and it had a 55% discount??? So I got the game and spent the last 2 days playing it and now I'm a changed man (as of posting this, the discount lasts for 2 more days!)

Dragon #125 - MLM Patch (and Scribbler)

I hope they're doing well, wherever they are...

More thoughts and spoilers for the game under the cut!

I made Patch MLM colored instead of some other random Chimeragon, because the game has shown us that he can change colors with every rebirth, which I think is pretty neat :) It also explains why neither Scribbler nor Eir recognize Patch, even after he grows to be a Broadwing and then a Titanwing- if he changes his colors every time he hatches again, then yeah, no wonder they believed there's more than one Chimeragon

I knew what the big twist was going to be at the end because of the playthrough, but MAN does this game not hold its punches. The writers really asked "How can we elevate the Best Friends Forever thing to a whole new level?" and then made Scribbler witness the death and rebirth of his best friend, and now I have to draw these guys with literal tears in my eyes 👍

The sentiment that their friendship literally transcends life and death is so meaningful to me. Patch will continue to die and resurrect, and Scribbler will be there every time to welcome him and forge their bond all over again. The mystery of Scribbler's past, his involvement with Grimmel, and the open ending leave so much room for speculation and theorizing and it's just so incredibly up my alley, it's like it was made in a lab for me lol

This game ended up being a lot darker than I was expecting, but it was honestly so refreshing. The mechanics are simple enough for younger kids to learn, and the artstyle is very evidently targeted at kids as well, but some of the dialogue and the entire theme of death and inevitable loss feels surprisingly mature in contrast. They make you go to Vanaheim and hold a burial for Patch before he resurrects, literally what other kids' game does that?? /pos

Anyways play this game, it's a short and sweet little self-contained adventure, which accomplishes the one task it set out to accomplish: making me cry, specifically

[shift-shaping]

Top 5 birds

this is an extremely difficult question i hope you know this

First, let's define what a bird is. This probably seems like a pretty easy question, but ask any paleontologist and you'll get like four different answers. From the same person.

Because phylogenetically, it's extremely difficult to say, definitely, what makes a bird a bird. For a drunk, slightly-outdated explanation of why paleontologists don't know what birds are, check out the following video:

It's not my video to be clear, I just really like it for all the confusion it illustrates. One of my favorite ways to piss off my colleagues is to call Triceratops a bird, which nobody likes to hear because it's stupid as fuck, but if feathers make something a bird then, well...

ANYWAY. For the sake of this ask, I'm going to use Avialae as my cutoff for Bird because it sounds pretty and (probably) includes Archaeopteryx but not Dromaeosaurus. Unfortunately this does not include Microraptor, which is very sad because Microraptor is a good little friend. This does, however, probably include the Scansoriopterygids, the real-life wyverns that I wrote a post about here.

Above left: Archaeopteryx, from Nat Geo Kids. Above right: Dromaeosaurus, from Gabriel N.U.

So here are my birds below the cut:

5. Secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius)

First off, nice genus name, though I think she's a gemini. This is a gorgeous bird of prey from Subsaharan Africa that looks kind of like a vulture in flight but a bitch on the ground. They kick snakes to death because of course they do. They are the only member of their family, Sagittariidae, which is within Accipitriformes and therefore places them closer to hawks and eagles rather than falcons.

4. Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin)

SKUNK BIRD SKUNK BIRD THESE GUYS ARE FART MONSTERS. They are the only living members of their entire order! Their babies still have claws on their wings! Hoatzin are herbivorous birds from the Amazon that like leaves and fruit and have a weird digestive system convergent on mammalian ruminants. Food ferments in their strange gut which gives them a bad stink and a bad taste. Despite being fairly large, poor fliers, they smell and taste so bad that people don't eat them. In addition, their preferred habitat (swampy marshlands rather than true rainforest) is disappearing slower than the rainforest proper, so these stinky idiots are IUCN Least Concern.

3. Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura)

If you live in the United States and see a fairly large black bird circling above you and trying its damnedest not to flap its wings, it's probably a turkey vulture. They are lazy and have few natural predators. These guys sometimes get a bad rap because their cousins, the black vultures, are not terribly well-behaved and will sometimes attack newborn cattle. Turkey vultures do not kill. They are too lazy. I love them because they refuse to expend effort, even on flying, and that's an entire mood. They're also pretty chill. I met one named Lurch at ZooMontana who was a bro that had been raised as a pet and thought he was a human. Other vultures perplexed him.

2. Confuciusornis

Above is a stunning specimen of Confuciusornis sanctus currently residing at the Natural History Museum of Vienna. It's actually a really common creature in the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation in Northern China. It's small, about the size of a pigeon, and those double tail feathers are not present in every specimen --possibly indicating sexual dimorphism. There's debate over how good these little dudes were at flying, but the most recent evidence I could find suggests they could perform powered flight in short bursts.

There is a persistent myth that paleontologists cannot know what color an extinct animal was. We actually can discern color for particularly well-preserved specimens, though this is an emerging concept with lots of ongoing research. The presence of fossilized melanosomes (organelles visible under a microscope that carry color information for soft tissue) possibly indicates they were a rusty brown color, but other researchers think they may have been closer to gold and white.

Above left from DK Find Out

1. Black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia)

I love these horrible bastards!!!!!! They're so trashy and loud!!!! They are easily one of my favorite animals ever, full stop. They are notorious for eating songbird eggs and chicks, but they actually don't do that terribly often. They prefer ~your garbage~ or, truthfully, nuts and seeds and lots and lots of bugs. Like crows and ravens, magpies (which are also Corvids) follow wolves and other predators to scavenge from their kills. Also like crows and ravens, magpies are highly intelligent. They were the first non-mammal to pass the mirror test, indicating that magpies can very likely recognize themselves in a mirror. Magpies hold funerals (or post-mortems...) for their dead and can be taught human speech.

They are stunningly beautiful animals, but Western culture refuses to understand them and chooses prejudice and ignorance over curiosity and compassion. Let me be clear: if you hate magpies (or really any animal; they're just doing their thing) I do not like you. That sounds harsh, but it is unfathomable to me that a person would actually hate an animal for living its life. They are not gentle, they are not sweet (usually, tw animal death in video: a baby magpie is rescued after its possible siblings were found shot), but they are vibrantly beautiful survivalists that have found a way to thrive among creatures that villainize them. You don't have to love or even like them, but every animal deserves respect. Magpies just deserve a little more. ;)

I can do Eir's favorite birds in another post with more detail, but Tumblr is trying to keep me from spreading the good news by enforcing an image limit so for now, a list of Eir's favorite birbs:

5. Red-tailed hawk. They're fairly large survivalists that live fucking everywhere in the US. She would definitely relate to their hardiness and determination. Also, they're the ones that make the hawk noise (at 0:31).

4. Little blue penguin. I maintain that if Thedas is in the Southern Hemisphere, it should have penguins. Eirwen is not always one to freak out over cute things, but her cold hard heart would absolutely melt for a little blue penguin.

3. These fucking things. Just because they're hilarious.

2. Pigeons. In some life or another, she is a crazy pigeon lady. There's a fun AU! She would love having so many small, chubby, cooing friends to feed and care for. I could see her devoting her retirement to a flock of stupid round bird children because that's just who she is.

1. Carrion crow. Because of course.

[dahl-my-life]

Writer rambles about literally everything

Phone died and was too busy learning to bake watching baking shows with mum to get a charger lol

So this is just a very compiled post of things that have been running through my head while I do homework and plan projects. Might be spoilers, might not be, I won’t be listing anything as such since nothing is set in stone until the stories outlines are finished. and considering how bad I am at finishing those...

Most of the rambles below the cut are for Star of Hope with maybe some bits on Umbra and Lux, world-building and lore for the Nine Realms too. Let’s see how far I go. Might turn this into a multi-part post.

I can’t promise anything will make sense but like I said earlier, didn’t want to wake anyone up since Lyssa is sick and might throw a book at me xD

Also sorry to any mobile users since I’ve found the “keep reading” thingy doesn’t always work when I use it.

Seraphina’s full name is officially Seraphina Marie Watson-Holmes. I remember going between that and another middle name but since Marie is my little sister’s middle name, I went with that as a little nod to Chlobug.

Since I brought up her first, Seraphina is a Tera Star Folk and a Pure Star at that. While she doesn’t have the same physical features as the Pure Star Folk living in the Star Realm, she does have the main features left. Mainly the slightly longer and pointier ears and the pale, elaborate markings that spawn her entire body and not just around her Star mark. Which is located on her upper right thigh. Plants have always been a huge part of her life since her father is a nurse that comes from a family of highly regarded Healers and her mother also comes from a family of Healers. It wasn’t much of a surprise when Phina declared she was going to be a Healer. Training didn’t go as plan since Seraphina found out it was very textbook and closed-minded. “Don’t fix what isn’t broken” was a phrase she heard a lot those short months she was at the Healer’s Temple in the Star Realm. Her method of healing is based around what makes the patient calm and more hands-on instead of handing a bottle of medicine, saying a healing spell and leaving.

She uses a lot of her new treatment ideas on Arabella, with or without her knowing. This girl is a crocheter and a knitter. I’m like 95% sure she has a loom somewhere but I’m also thinking she gets yarn and thread from Eire. (I know that woman has a loom lol) She’s made about 70% of the blankets between her stash and Arabella’s stash. There are about five giant baskets full of skeins.

Seraphina can also sense when Glamors and Conceal spells are in use. The only time she has failed to trace one is with Arabella and this is because Seraphina has never known her foster sister without the Galmors and Conceals up.

Because her magic is so intertwined with plants and healing, if Seraphina was to lose any of her senses, she could use plants to replace the missing/damaged (keep almost spelling damnaged. halp lol) sense. Technically she already takes advantage of this by developing a special moss that covers the entire building they live in and a special vine plant that travels the rooms. If she touches a vine she’ll see the area it ends in and the moss alerts her to movement. Imagine how surprised Lux is when he ends up in one of her bramble traps because he touched the moss xD

She’s easily flustered and embarrassed by Elisabeth’s shameless flirting lol

Comparing heights, Seraphina is the tallest of the four friends. She beats Taayin out by a few inches. Arabella is the shortest at 4′0. Elisabeth loves how she beat her by two inches xD

Speaking of Elisabeth...

To quote a friend of mine: “I’m short, sassy and feisty AF.”

She is considered over the top and very spontaneous with little to no filter. Elisabeth is in many cases, the one who lightens the mood and encourages her friends. If this lady ain’t smiling or making a joke, start running for your life or get her her favorite things. There are a few rare moments where we get to see what is behind her normal moods. She’s been through a lot. Originally Elisabeth was meant to be one of Arabella’s antagonists (is that the right word?) but the moment I introduced her to the story, it quickly became clear that the two were best friends. 

She is a Pure Star who was adopted by Edmond Song after Eire and Vash found her parents were murdered in an alleyway when she was a few months old. Her middle name is her birth name. Edmond had given her the chance to rename herself if she wanted to. She kept her name as is: Elisabeth Adilah Song

It’s later found out her mother was from Egypt and her father was from Morocco and they had escaped to London in hopes to escape the family’s dark secret in the two countries...

Elisabeth is a shameless flirt and is super gay for Seraphina btw

Elisabeth is a fun character to write. I take a lot of the phrases I hear Lyssa and other friends say and use them for Elisabeth. She loves called Arabella and Seraphina “baby girl”. Gotta have a bit of fun with being the oldest of the four friends. Oldest by a month

Side tangent: the idea behind Edmond Song actually is as old as the very first versions of Awakening. There was originally a character named Mr. Song who later became Edmond when Awakening became well Awakening. If memory serves, I spelt Edward wrong but went with it because I liked how Edmond was easier to say. Somehow stumbled less.

Elisabeth is a Water Star. She mainly uses her magic to add little special effects to her dance routines but when push comes to shove, she isn’t afraid to use the gentle element as a weapon.

She can also track things with water. So when Arabella gets lost in the Celestial City, Elisabeth is the one who finds her. It’s mainly done by offering the water something of the one in need of finding and then following the glow.

There are other things she can do with her magic but my brain bluescreened so I guess time to stop. Sorry for any weirdly worded bits or misspelled words. Will absolutely do this more with other characters!