#my weird concept of dragons

[chenria]

He's one of my immortal Dragon OCs (the other is Alani). But to explain my concept of Dragons would be too long and nobody would really read it anyway ;)

If I said I really do want to hear about your concept of dragons would you be up to explaining? I’m really curious!

Wow, thank you. I never thought anyone would actually like to know that. So I put together a small explanation about my "concept of Dragons" XD

The idea for my concept of “immortal dragons” grew over time and somehow stems from a quote from Goethe’s "Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil" …

Ich bin ein Teil des Teils, der Anfangs alles war, Ein Teil der Finsternis, die sich das Licht gebar, […]

I am not sure if there is an English translation to Faust… there should be, but I can’t find one online right now… the quote would roughly translate to

I am a piece of the part that was everything in the beginning, A piece of the darkness that gave birth to the light […]

That sums up what “dragons” are in my story (that is not really a story and more a concept in my head for my characters). Dragons are energy, corporeal energy. It’s alive and sentient and has been since… forever. And these beings adapted to their surroundings, taking on various forms. And since they are energy come to life they are … eternal. They were not always sentient in the sense like humans, before they were drifting specters observing their surroundings. Some took the roles of spirits... fairies... beings that are but also aren't.

But as sentient beings they are also aware of everything. There used to be many of the dragons in times long gone. But Alani and Callan are the last ones remaining. Because they were aware of so much most suffered from loneliness and helplessness. The things they cherished were always dying. And the Dragons were very passionate beings. When they loved, they loved with all their being. And constant loss took their toll on them. Dragons can’t die… not in the sense of mortality. They can enter a different plane of existence and return their energy to the universe so to speak. Then they still "are" but they are no longer sentient. As beings of energy they can feel the presence of other dragons in their corporal form because it's like a black hole... so very dense they can feel it, so they know they are the last ones. Alani stayed because she is ever curious and desires to live and feel and experience everything, despite her endless losses. Callan - as her brother/companion - remained with her because the thought of leaving her alone tormented him. He managed to never get too attached to individuals - more to places which he misses, too. The two are very close, but they go decades or centuries without meeting each other, but they “feel” each other still (beings of energy and such) and know they are aware of each other.

Dragons also have the power to change their appearance - drawing energy from their surroundings and the universe… so, yes… in the past there were dragons who looked like dragons as you know them. Scaly creatures, winged demons, ethereal beings… they can be all. But shapeshifting is painful - it’s not just snapping a finger and poof, scaly dragon form. It’s a slow process, regrowing and changing bone structure and such. That’s why Alani and Callan have settled for a look they hardly ever change. Small adjustments are regularly made - appearing older or younger to stay in an area for a few years more without drawing attention.

It is possible to “create” new dragons. It’s all about collecting energy and compressing it. It’s hardly ever done … Alani and Callan did it just once, when Alani got married and her husband (Xiang) learned of their secret and was offered immortality.

They can also use “magic”…. which is essentially just a manipulation of the energy of the matter around them. But who cares for the specifics if one can make stuff fly around.

So… yes. That’s the idea. As long as there is energy and matter there can be dragons. And dragons are just powerful beings... so yeah...

[cheriboms]

[spite] has entered the chat >:P

[vaguely-concerned]

rook x lucanis: romance with a commentary track! solas and spite contribute with their thoughts and opinions along the way whether anyone wants them to or not. it's like a MST3K episode up in here as you try to get hot and heavy. in. in the pantry. love among the radishes at the end of the world (rifftrax version)

[ddragonqueenn]

I've been trying to avoid using "y/n" in my more recent writing, and my first instinct when writing for Aventurine is to use "honey" as a replacement, thinking about it more it does suit him

Honey is a sweet thing, a common pet name. It feels artificial coming from a "sweet talker" like Aventurine, like honey is just a thing he calls everyone. But for Aventurine, it comes from a much more personal place, it pulls from his language, a culture he's long since abandoned. It's almost akin to calling you home, calling you honey comes unnervingly natural to him.

The way I try to portray Aventurine and reader's relationship is very specific, Aventurine cares for reader on a level that's so genuine and real that it scares him, disgusts him, the feelings he holds makes him want to tear out his own heart (or yours, but he could never hurt you). But he's always careful to pretend as though it were artificial, so using honey- a pet name that sounds like just another trick of his, but means more to him than he cares to admit- feels very very right for him.

[always-amity]

Monster of the Amber Slavelands

[kakusu-shipping]

I have a really funny concept for an Azula reverse self ship (because I can't make a regular self insert work with her), and I'm trying to decide if it'd be funnier to make her a History RPF girlie or if the reason Zuko had to sit through Ember Island player's butchering Love Amongst the Dragons was because Azula had a massive crush on one of the characters and DEMANDED they went to see it every year.

[sheshe-cartoonlover]

Hiii!

Random page with Wings sketches, because I love drawing wings <3!!

I don't have much time to draw, recently, since my school started and... It's not that I'm busy, because I'm not, but I already draw for school In the morning sooo... I'm too lazy to draw In the afternoon too... 😅

[reyxian]

Drew Angelus from Drakengard for the last year of the dragon, so thought I would draw her again for this year.

[lockhinge]

"Do you take gold teeth?"

- Tek (bard) to a shopkeeper

[lottiesnotebook]

the kick inside (7/30)

Fandom: Dragon Age (Origins) Relationships: Morrigan/Female Tabris Rating: Mature Summary: Luna experiences a Harrowing, of sorts.

They say that the witches of the Korcari Wilds steal babes from the cradle and leave their mothers to mourn a child still living, but Seluna Tabris has never been one to believe in idle fairytales. She will come to regret this decision.

Or: Duncan’s last recruit for the Grey Wardens comes with an unexpected passenger. For Morrigan, this will change everything.

A Dragon Age Origins AU - Updates Sundays

Read on AO3

[vaguely-concerned]

there are two wolves inside me. one wolf doesn't want to make dorian pavus archon because that's just a lot. of lotness for him to deal with and I love him and would like to spare him that at least, and also even posthumously it means sort of giving halward pavus a win. which galls, naturally. the other wolf thinks it would be very very funny for iron bull to have to deal with being married in all but law to the archon of tevinter.

[lordgeneralsix]

it sucks when bad games exist bc usually they'll actually have good foundations for interesting characters/lore but it just. doesn't go anywhere. and it's incredibly frustrating every time. idk what it's gonna take for writers to take their work seriously but I am just so incredibly tired of mediocre writing.

[sockempossum]

An older TLoS Spyro design, based on concept art.

(don’t mind the alien dragon design exploration, I am haphazard in my sketchbooks)

[gem-is-still-bored]

creatures

[thecourtofinfestation]

@alelathedragon

[sylas-dove]

i've been kinda lightly working on this project in a medieval-ish dragon riders setting. part of the problem is that i want to write a lot of the years of slow plodding establishing stuff that's not terribly interesting instead of just cutting straight to the dragons but here's 2k words of that if anyone wants to read it:

All my mother had to her name was her freedom, and likewise it was all I had to mine. When my father got sick, we’d sold all we could save for our chastity, and he died knowing we had enough money for either of us to pay a decent dowry. Less than a month later, his estate was reclaimed by our liege-lord. After that, we left his lands and traveled to Kethlam. We’d lived there in the three years since. 

My mother had done her best to find work, first as a laundress or a brewer or a weaver-woman, but Kethlam had many widows and not much work. I’d tried to take up a trade in my own right– I could mend and sew and spin and weave, and I knew all the usual trades a young girl might know on a farm, but butchers didn’t want women working and most men in Kethlam had wives to churn their butter for free. 

Eventually I found us work in the house of the brewer. Him and his wife had no sons to marry me, but they were decent enough people and let me keep most of the extra money the patrons passed me for myself and my mother. We shared a room at night with two other women who worked for the house, one of whom had a young boy who slept with us. That was another way the brewer and his wife were decent– the woman with the boy was unbound, and to the best of my knowledge not a widow. Dragons didn’t like bastards and neither did the church. 

I was working at the brewer’s when I met Edifrin. It was raining hard and all the roads had turned to mud such that horses and carts couldn’t run anymore. A young nobleman of maybe thirteen or fourteen and his man-at-arms had been forced to stop on the road at least for the night and had come into the alehouse. I had figured the boy was noble by his manner of dress– he was in finer clothes than I’d ever afford, complete with an escutcheon pinned to his collar. The lord was sat at a table while his man began to drink, and over the next hour and a half the soldier got plastered while his charge sulked with his wet hair plastered to his forehead.

Eventually I was passing by the table with a broom when the boy leaned towards me and said, “You’re about my age, aren't you?” 

I wasn’t sure how to talk to a lord and I was sure it showed on my face. I knew better than to stop and stare like a fool, so I said, “Um,” and then blinked twice and said, “sorry sir, no, I don’t think so.”

He dropped into another scowl. “How old are you then?”

“I’m sorry sir, I’m not sure,” I said, staring at his finely embroidered collar. Someone had missed a stitch, or maybe he’d pulled it out and it hadn’t yet been noticed. “Maybe around nineteen or twenty?” I’d been bleeding for about a year when my father died and it had been three years since then, but I wasn’t sure how old I’d been when I’d started.

His eyes went wide. “You don’t look nineteen! Do you have a wife?”

The lord’s assumption that I was a man was nearly as surprising as him deciding to speak to me. That must have been why he thought I was his age– if dressed with sufficient androgyny, a young woman looked like an older boy, and when you were poor enough, you didn’t much care what your clothes looked like as long as they kept you warm and dry. Men and women both wore skirts if they couldn’t afford to keep horses, and I wore a hat indoors to keep my hair out of people’s food.

I didn’t think to correct him then. It would have felt like I was talking back and would have risked embarrassing him. I shook my head and said, “No sir, I don’t.”

I wished I’d been a man. I could have inherited my father’s estate and provided for my mother, or at least found a better job for better pay in Kethlam.

“Oh. Why not?” He squinted at me, tilting his head this way and that to inspect my features. “Well, I guess you look rather young— although, that could get you a younger wife. I don’t have a wife yet either, or even a fianceé— my mother and father died when I was a baby, so I’ll have to make the match myself once I’m old enough.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “I know how it feels to lose a father, at least. Sir.”

His lips pursed in a way I couldn’t interpret. Anxiety and shame rose up in me– had I spoken out of turn? Had I been too friendly? “Thank you, but I don’t remember–”

The young lord was interrupted when his man-at-arms shouted loudly from across the alehouse and began to sing loudly with another patron. The lord and I both winced, although probably for different reasons. The lord scowled at his wayward servant.

“I know. He’s an embarrassment. Thankfully, I won’t have to deal with him much longer!” The lord broke into a grin. “He’s escorting me to Sir Gilhad’s castle just north of here, where I’ll be made an esquire.” 

So this young man was to become a dragon rider. “Congratulations,” I told him, and I meant it despite the stab of jealousy I felt. He’d never have to worry where he would sleep at night or if his belly would be full, if his mother’s belly would be full. He didn’t even have a mother. Or a father. And he was being escorted to become an esquire by a drunken fool.

And he’d just told me that he thought I was a boy his age.

It occurred to me that I could take his place. The Sir Gilhad he’d mentioned likely wouldn’t know his face, just his name, and that would be on the noble pedigree paperwork that he had with him. If this boy were to disappear, I could take his clothes, slip the leash of his man-at-arms, and make my way to Sir Gilhad’s, and everyone would be none the wiser. Only, in order to get away with it I would have to kill him, and do it somewhere private, and get rid of the body. I wasn’t sure I could do that. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. He was only a boy.

He interrupted my thinking with a bright, “Thank you! I’m terribly excited. What about you? Do you work here all the time?”

I tried my best to not look distracted. “Yes, sir. I…” didn’t want to reveal I was a woman, “do what I can, and make a wage for it.”

“Why not become a farmer?” he asked, resting his chin in his hand. “You could just have your own piece of land and work it.”

Because I couldn’t own property. “I’m hoping to take up a trade in the city,” I answered. It wasn’t untrue– I liked to sew and weave well enough, but the weaver’s guild was choosy and not looking to fill spots. “Also, the prospects are better here if my mother were to remarry.” Or if I were to marry. 

“You’re supporting your mother, then?” he said, now looking me up and down as if inspecting a horse he meant to buy. 

“Yes, sir.”

He cast his eyes over my shoulder and towards the brewer’s wife. I looked back, too. Her name was Miara and while I knew she was having a hard time managing by herself, you couldn’t tell by looking at her. Still, I couldn’t leave the conversation until the little lord dismissed me.

“It would’ve been easier to leave her, wouldn’t it?” he asked. His tone was too flat for me to figure out what he was getting at, so the question surprised me.

“I’m sorry, sir?”

He looked me in the eye. “You could have left and gone your own way,” he clarified. “After your father died. You’re a young man, you could have taken her dowry and bought a piece of land and a wife and not looked back, but you didn’t. You’re here working in a tavern for some other man to support her.”

“I–” I didn’t know what to say. “Of course, sire. She’s my mother. I love her, I want her to be well.”

“You’re loyal, is what I mean.” He hummed and picked his cup up to take a sip of whatever he was drinking– probably a weak wine or small beer, if I had to guess based on the face he made. “You’re not motivated by money.” 

Everyone was motivated by money, but I didn’t say so. 

“I’ve kept you for a while,” he said after a long moment of silence. “Fill my cup, please.” 

“O-Of course, sire. Just a moment.” I took it and scurried away, and he didn’t hold me up any longer. 

The young lord nursed his drink until his man-at-arms passed out drunk. The brewer helped them both to bed, apologizing the whole way for the state of the room, and finally offering him and his wife’s own bed to the young lord for the night, but he refused. He said he didn’t trust his man not to destroy the place and didn’t want to pay for any damages. When mid-morning came and the roads had dried enough to travel (and his man-at-arms had sobered up enough to hold a spear), the two of them left. As far as I was concerned, they were leaving my life forever. 

Seeing someone else go on to live a better life than you is a bitter feeling. Or, it was for a while– two months later, I’d forgotten about the lord, but he had not forgotten about me. 

I received a letter at work with a wax seal. The brewer and his wife Miara were busy when I got it, which I was thankful for, although I didn’t know why. I didn’t open it until the evening, when I was crammed into my room with Mother and the uncoupled woman we worked with and her son. None of us could read well, but between the four of us we realized that I had received a job offer from the young Earl Edifrin of Avera. In the morning I feigned illness and went to a local scribe to have him read the letter in its entirety to me.

The lord was offering me a job as his man-at-arms, and my mother a job as one of his servants at his estate in Avera. He apologized in his note for the fact that if I took the job, I wouldn’t see my mother much while he trained under Sir Gilhad, for I would be expected to stay with him. The head housekeeper would decide where my mother would work based on her aptitude, but her job was guaranteed if I chose to work for him. After a sufficient period of loyalty to him, I would even be granted tenancy on a portion of his land. 

My father had been a peasant, and now I had the chance to be one, too. All I had to do was take a job predicated upon a lie when I was being offered it based on my perceived faithfulness. 

If I wanted this job, I would need to be a man.

My mother and I gave our notice to the brewer and his wife that night. I cut my hair and used what money we had to buy new clothes the next morning, and by that afternoon my mother was on a cart to Avera and me up the road a few hours North to Sir Gilhad’s castle.