#i just remembered those tags so ppl can have some warning sdkfgjh im sorry

[ostensiblyfunctional]

[Image description: a series of tags by @/ayyden-apoloe. They go: #gajeel and juvia bffs evar #hehe i want that to be a tag i use more than once #anYway they dont get along at first as kids bc juvias afraid she'll make gajeel rust and get hurt and shes also used to scaring people away #and gajeel doesnt interact w heR much bc hes like making friends is weAK and i cant trust them anyway (lying to himself. that bitch lonely) #but they grow closer by being like huh theyre alone too and like occasionally helping the other out when they get bullied #but they dont become Friends for at least a year or so. End ID.]

I SEE YOU AIDEN AND YOU'RE SO CORRECT ADGJHLGKJ

Y'know what! Fira has inspired me so I'm gonna talk about my second-favorite Dragon Slayer headcanon, and it goes as such:

The more stress a Dragon Slayer's body goes through, the more it dragonizes. This is a really dry way to say that I think injuries a Dragon Slayer gets will scar over with scales, and also that mental stress can have consequences that are…interesting, to say the least, from a writer's perspective.

Let me bring in my favorite punching bag, Gajeel. In my headcanon appearance for him, the scars on his right arm are replaced by patches of iron scales—rusting iron scales, depending on how old those scars are, because I think rust would be really cool and mimic how human scars fade from age, and ruddy rust blends better with human skintones than silvery iron. But I also really like the idea of him having iron spines all the way down his back, for the aesthetic. Which could have the Watsonian explanation of him potentially being so distrusting of anybody to guard him in the past, that his magic responded to his paranoia and trauma by protecting his spine from a literal backstabber. Two headcanons all wrapped up in a neat 'what if dragonization responded to human fragility by dragonizing it away' bow! :D