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interstellarsystem · 2 months ago

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The Anatomy of: A Skarmory

So, we've decided we're going to start a little "series" of posts about our alterhuman identities. Specifically aimed to be about the anatomy/life cycle/biology of species that don't exist on this Earth but do exist in our system (such as Pokemon, other fictional species, mythical beings or anything else). Earthly beings may also make their own entries to explain their experiences--there isn't going to be a strict "who can" vs "who can't" rule--the point is to talk about our experiences and our species more.

Anyhow, onto the actual post!

Skarmory, the Armor Bird Pokemon--that's me! A bird made of metal, with wings as sharp as blades. But how does all of that work, exactly? Well... let's get into it!

Word count: 4,081 Warnings: Discussion of species dysphoria, discussion of animal (pokemon) harm, discussion of hunting pokemon. Archive: On our website!

Basic Anatomy:

Information about a skarmory's body! Some of these are words I've made or assigned to describe specific parts, as there's either no canon alternative or no this-world alternative.

Beak: The structure on a skarmory's face, similar to a bird beak but made of metal. It has a few teeth on the bottom jaw, while there are none on the top jaw.

Crest: The pointed blade/sail atop a skarmory's head.

Wings: The parts of a skarmory that allow it to fly--consists of roughly 4 metallic bladelike feathers (or wingblades).

Wingblades: Referring to an individual feather of a skarmory's wings, it usually has 4 per wing. These are sharp as knives. Each wingblade can be moved individually!

Armor: The hardened, metallic feathers/skin that cover a skarmory's body.

Plates: The individual metallic sheets of armor that cover a skarmory's body.

Legplates/neckplates/etc: Referring to a specific grouping of plates on a part of a skarmory.

Talons: A skarmory's feet. On each foot, it has 2 toes facing forward, and one facing backward--each tipped with a sharp claw.

Tailblade/Rudder: The tail of a skarmory, generally important for changing direction during flight. It is made out of metal, much like wingblades.

QNA:

Now, we move onto some general questions and answers about skarmory as a species.

1. What does a skarmory eat?

Like a lot of pokemon, skarmory are omnivorous. They'll eat berries, fruits, seeds, and a variety of prey. Due to our fast flying capabilities, we'd often swoop down at high speeds and snatch other smaller pokemon up from the ground.

Skarmory are also known to eat stones from certain locations, and we had gathering points where the stones and cliffs were rich in minerals that promoted healthy growth of our armor. We'd meet there, and drill at the rocks with our beaks until they were bite-sized. This possibly also helped with the digestive process, but I'm not familiar with our inner biology.

2. How does a skarmory become metallic?

As stated in some of the pokedex entries, skarmory chicks are raised in harsh conditions. Oftentimes, we'd nest in thorny bushes, brambles, sharp and rocky cliff-faces or anything similar. This would provide protection from outside predator pokemon, but also serve as our first line of training and building of our body's defenses.

Our skin and feathers have a property that makes them heal stronger after becoming damaged. Each time we'd get scratched, our body would heal it stronger than before. This meant that over time, feathers became scales attached to our skin, which became plates of armor that cover our bodies. This is supplemented by parents bringing their chicks small scraps of metal or mineral-rich stones to eat.

3. How does it move if it's made of metal?

There's gaps between our plates that enable us to move around still--much like the neck and leg plates you can see on the official artwork above! Though, skarmory from where I come from tend to have more that are visible, mainly around joints. They just look like little creases!

It really is like a suit of armor, just attached to your body. It's surprisingly moveable! Moving around normally as a chick while your feathers are hardening forms creases in the development of the armor, so when it's fully formed, it's unlikely that you'll have any restricted movement. The plates form around your movement, so if you move at all as a chick, the plates get molded to the shape of your body and how far your joints allow you to move.

So... theoretically, if a skarmory never ever moved, then its plates wouldn't be shaped to its body and it would be stuck, but I've never heard of that happening.

4. If a skarmory is made of metal, doesn't it rust?

Well... Yes, actually! Partially, at least. You won't see a skarmory rust all the way through, as we're not wholly made of metal. But our armor can and will rust if it's exposed to too much water and not able to dry properly. We tend to avoid the rain and hide wherever we can from it--usually in caves, tree hollows or somewhere similar. Particularly rainy seasons can spell disaster for us as a species, and oftentimes we do end up forced to share caves while we wait for our territories to stop being so watery.

Due to our armor often shedding its plates, rust usually isn't a permanent problem and can be shed off most of the time. Usually, it might make us itchy or sore due to crumbling bits getting stuck between plates, but that's the worst of it. However, rust can make it very hard for a skarmory to move properly if it's particularly bad, or gets in the joints between plates. This isn't too common due to how much we avoid water, but it can cause major issues if we do end up having our movement restricted. Particularly bad rust that's gotten into the plate joints can even begin to rust the new armor that grows underneath, if you're not careful. Most of us tend to avoid moisture both from water and humid air wherever possible due to the risks associated with it.

To attempt to negate this, sometimes we sunbathe after it's rained. This is usually fine to do, though on particularly hot days, it's incredibly easy to overheat. Sunbathing is best done close to a shady, dry spot you can hide in afterwards. Another method to remove as much water as possible is to fly/glide at top-speed or sit in very windy areas, basically like using a blow-dryer.

5. Does a skarmory overheat easily?

It depends on the situation, but overheating is definitely a possibility. Skarmory armor might defend us from slashing claws and biting teeth, but it's incredibly susceptible to heat--be it from fire types or from the sun itself. Our armor is generally lighter coloured, but skarmory with darker armour have a harder time staying cool.

On most days, overheating from the sun is avoidable! In the warmer months however, a skarmory may need to slip away into a cave or inbetween some foliage to escape the heat. We become more active around dawn and dusk during the middle of spring toward the end of summer in order to escape the hottest hours of the day, and focus most of our hunting at those times.

Due to the rusting problem, we don't tend to use water to cool down unless absolutely necessary. You'd have to be extremely overheated by staying in the sun too long, or under attack from fire-type moves to even consider water, though.

6. Does a skarmory have feeling in its armor?

No, a skarmory doesn't have feeling in its armor plates. However, we can feel when a plate is pressed down on! The plates are attached to our skin, so pressing on them pushes our skin too, and that's what we feel. To a skarmory, touching it feels like if you were to touch the top of your fingernail--you can't feel the surface, but you can feel the nail pressing on your actual skin below.

Our sense of touch on our body is likely duller than most other pokemon. The plates on our talons (aside from our claws) are thinner than in most places on our body, though--and those are our main means of touching and investigating things aside from our beak. The armour is still tough, but the plating is thin enough that we're able to sense things a lot better with them. Therefore, we can be more careful with what we're doing, such as holding a delicate berry, or knowing that prey we're holding is wriggling to try and escape.

We don't have feeling in most of our wingblades, most of our tailblade, or the tip of our crest, however. These parts are mostly hollow metal and are far enough away from the rest of our body that they need to be touched with a lot of pressure or from specific angles to be felt.

7. What if a skarmory's armor gets damaged or dented in a fight?

Short answer? A skarmory just.. sheds! Every so often, new armor will grow through and push the outer layer off, like someone losing a tooth as they grow. Plates will just fall off, and underneath there's new armor ready to go. This includes our wingblades! Normally, we shed one wingblade from each wing symmetrically to enable us to still fly--like a this-world bird shedding their feathers! This helps us to keep in the sky while growing our new wingblades.

Sometimes, they take a little while to fully grow back in, so we may be grounded for a week or two in some cases--but these are usually caused by injury, in which a skarmory has lost all of its wingblades at once or has lost multiple from one wing, rendering it off-balance and unable to fly. This is usually from severe damage of some sort and not a regular biological process.

8. How does a skarmory fly so fast?

Like birds of this world, our bones are hollow! Also, as stated in the pokedex entries, our wingblades are also mostly hollow too! We're able to tuck our legs in to create a more streamlined shape, and our facial structure mostly does a lot of that work for us.

Though, to reach top speeds, we normally dive. We'll exert a bit of our energy flying upward, and then soar around using the wind to our advantage. Minimal flapping, and plenty of time to survey the area without tiring out. Then, the skarmory will spot something it wants (prey, another food source, something invading its territory), and it'll dive almost head-first toward the ground, but curve to move more parallel to the ground as it gets closer. Almost like the shape of a really tall slide! Those swoops are where we reach real, true speed.

Doing this, we can maintain that speed gliding parallel to the ground for quite a distance if we dive from high enough. We just hold our wings straight out and glide like a paper plane. If a skarmory needs to glide for longer without breaking the momentum, a slight tilt of the wing-blades will change its direction to going slightly upward, and then tilting the blades again to head back downward gives a little bit of a boost. This is best done when the ground is in a downward slope, so you have room to dive a little more to keep up the speed.

9. What's a skarmory's social life like?

Skarmory tend to be pretty territorial, unless at mineral gathering spots which are usually areas of peace as everyone's too busy chipping away at rocks to eat or bring to their chicks.

Skarmory generally fight over territory. They keep to themselves, with the addition of a mate (or sometimes multiple mates) and their chicks, who leave to find their own territory once old enough. A skarmory will usually defend its territory viciously against other skarmory and other pokemon--especially other flying pokemon.

Territorial disputes aside though, skarmory have a few social gestures that are noteworthy in this section!

We have a greeting gesture that's usually an indication of friendliness--beak clacking. A skarmory will open its beak and snap it closed again in rapid succession to create a metallic clanking sound. It sounds similar to a large bell mixed with hitting a metal rod with a hammer, a constant ringing trill.

We also do a slightly different beak clack in anger or as a threat. The difference between a friendly greeting and a warning clack is how fast and hard we're snapping our beaks shut. Warning clacks are loud, strong, and generally much slower than a greeting one due to putting more force behind each snap. Greetings are closer to a softer trill or metallic rumble.

Skarmory also have another threat gesture–we fan out and slide our wingblades across each other to make a metallic scraping noise.

We preen each other (and ourselves) as this-world birds do, another friendly gesture. We pay particular attention to wings, sharpening each other's wingblades by clamping our beak down on them and sliding along it.

10. Is a skarmory at a higher risk of lightning strikes?

If a skarmory were to be flying through a storm, possibly, yes! However, when it’s raining, skarmory will try their best to stay hidden from the water. Which has the added effect of being largely protected from lightning strikes too, especially when they choose to hide in caves! Most other flying pokemon also seem to prefer to not fly through thunderstorms due to the risks associated with them.

As for attacks by electric-type moves–yeah, we’re pretty easily damaged by those. That and fire types are the main threats we face out of any of the other types. Water damage can also be an issue, but it’s rarely an issue in-fight, it’s simply a problem if there’s rusting after the fight.

11. What does a skarmory feel like?

A skarmory’s plating is smooth, and feels just like touching polished metal. It’s usually cold to the touch too, unless it’s been sitting in the sun. The wingblades and tailblade feel the same even though they’re more lightweight–its entire body feels metallic! A skarmory is also much lighter than it appears–due to our hollow bones and lightweight armor, we can look very heavy while being relatively light.

12. What is the crest used for?

The crest is occasionally used in fighting other pokemon, though the wingblades are normally used for that much more often. The crest can be used as a horn, and is useful when using iron head and similar moves. It might also help with steering while flying, though I don’t have anything definitive to say on that matter.

13. What is the tailblade used for?

The tailblade is used for steering! It’s similar to a rudder you’d find on an aircraft or a boat. A skarmory will use it to change its flight path, in combination with the angle of its wings. A tailblade isn’t really ever used for fighting. It also sheds less often than other parts, possibly due to its important role in properly controlled flight. A skarmory without a tailblade will be a clumsy flier at best, though they’re luckily not usually grounded because of it.

14. Can the wingblades be used for things other than flying?

Yes! Wingblades are used often in fighting. They’re sturdy, sharp, and kept in pristine condition by preening done either by the skarmory itself or its mate. A skarmory will swoop down and hit an opponent with the tips of its wingblades as it flies past, slicing them.

For humans of the pokemon world, they’ve been known to take feathers dropped by skarmory to fashion swords and daggers! There’s been some instances of poachers in the past, though they’re much less common in the era I’m from due to humans being easily able to create their own blades.

15. What habitats do skarmory prefer?

Skarmory are pretty adaptable, but they prefer areas with little humidity and low heat. They can live in mountains, forests, cave systems, fields, and more! Skarmory are particularly susceptible to damage from both water and overheating, so you won’t find many living near an ocean, in a swamp, or in a desert. Though, these locations don’t always spell disaster to simply cross, so you may see one flying around in areas you normally wouldn’t expect to see one as it passes through.

It’s unlikely that a skarmory provided with adequate shelter will be seen out in the rain or in the heat, in which case they usually can be found hiding in or amongst trees, or in caves.

16. Are there any subspecies of skarmory?

Kind of! Skarmory can all look a little different from each other, and our armor can definitely be different colours–our colour variation is actually pretty broad. We can also have slightly different shapes to our plating, or extra features such as more than the standard 4 wingblades per wing.

I stayed in mostly the same areas, so I only know my local skarmory and how they look. The physical variations mainly are in the colour or wingblade number–though maybe skarmory from different climates can have different shapes?

Some Colour Examples:

Notes:

Pied colour forms can have as little as a single part being a different colour. You could have a shiny with one red wingblade, or a standard with just one neckplate being lighter. I also believe there could be light/dark or dark/shiny pieds as opposed to just light/standard, dark/standard and shiny/standard, though I haven’t seen any.

I’ve never seen a full shiny, though I did see a skarmory with a single green wingblade, which I can now categorise as a pied shiny with very minimal shiny colouration.

I saw a blue skarmory once, I’m unsure if it’s another variation of a dark colouration or not, all I know is he was very territorial. He’s in his own little category for now.

In This World:

And here, I'll talk about my current, this-body experiences as a skarmory fictive. This ranges from shifting experiences, to self expression, to in-system experiences, and anything else I want to cover.

In-Body, Euphoria

While fronting, I get pretty dysphoric, so I try to express myself when I can, which does bring a lot of joy!

I've become a fan of jewellery--particularly necklaces, as having something on my neck feels right. The bulkier and heavier the better! I absolutely need to buy some more, maybe some thick bangles for my legs!

I also tend to wear greyish colours to match my own armor colour. Grey hoodies/jackets are the best, because having them unzipped feels almost like having wings attached to my sides. To match my colours even more, I like wearing a red shirt under a grey hoodie to kind of mimic my read wingblades in the best way I can.

I've been known to attempt to clack my beak at people, which unfortunately doesn't go very well for someone with human teeth. However, clicking my tongue is similar enough that it gets the point across, so I love doing that too!

In-Body, Dysphoria

I've talked about this before in another post, but I'll do it here again.

I get very, very dysphoric about my body shape. I have two wings and two legs, and having arms at all feels.. So, so wrong. My arms have hands and fingers, which are close to talons, but they're where my wings belong. My legs aren't bent at the right spots. My skin is soft and getting an injury doesn't make it tougher. So many things are different about this body, and so many things upset me about it.

Phantom Shift Map

I've made a map detailing where my skarmory parts are placed on my human body, and how frequently these parts are felt. Keep in mind, these percentages are for when I'm in control of the body/fronting.

Notes:

My phantom shifts often feel like a presence--that's the best way I can put it. You know how people can tell where their arm or leg is in space, even with their eyes closed? How you can close your eyes and hold up 3 fingers and know which you've put up, even if they're not touching each other? It's like that, but I can sense specific outlines of my body parts. Sometimes they feel more "real" and tangible than others, but most of the time, it's a presence.

My neckplates, talons, and leg/thighplates are often the most "real" feeling phantom shifts.

I almost constantly have wingblades while in the front. They often tend to "clip" through objects--right now they're through the wall as I sit here and type this. I'm able to individually move each wingblade as I would have been able to before.

My tailblade also has the same issue as wingblades, always clipping into things.

Interestingly, I get a beak more often than I get a crest. I can take a guess and say this is because the crest had very little feeling in it in general, which also lines up with my wingblades feeling more like a sense than a tangible feeling.

In-Headspace

Inside the headspace, not much has changed about my body. We have a decently realistic headspace, so all of my regular parts and physics tied to them work the same. However, I no longer need to worry about rust and I haven't shed since I got here. Other people in-system still have their hair grow with time, so either I simply don't need to shed anymore, or it hasn't happened yet.

I don't feel any territorial needs anymore, and I mostly exist around other pokemon inside. Particularly a talonflame named Thrash, and a noivern named Echo. Flying type solidarity!

I'm also very glad that there's no fighting for survival with other pokemon in-headspace either. I don't need to worry about getting hit with a fire-type attack or getting downed by rock-throw mid flight--that's always a plus!

Differences from Source Media

I’ve noticed a few differences in my anatomy vs that of souce skarmory. The differences are pretty small, but some are also fairly strange to me. The main difference I’m weirded out by, is the beak shape of canon skarmory. Skarmory where I’m from have a toothlike structure on their beak, and their bottom jaw lines up pretty well with their top jaw–very much unlike canon.

I’ve included another diagram demonstrating the differences below.

Notes:

Wingblades are generally longer than in my drawn image, but they can vary in length anyway. They do, however, often end up being quite thick and covering most of the body-length.

A skarmory in my canon can have more than the regular 3 neckplates.

A skarmory in my canon can have, as far as I’ve seen, up to 6 wingblades per wing.

In Conclusion:

That just about sums up everything I can think of! Going through all this and writing it all down has actually been immensely helpful to me, and helped me remember loads of things I didn’t think about along the way. I’ll definitely look back at this later on, when maybe I have more information, or maybe when my memory starts failing as it always does, and get a refresher when I need it. Hell, if I find out enough new information, I might add some updates to this.

Being a kinda niche pokemon species, I wanted some representation for my experiences. The pokedex entries from the games offer a bit of info–most of which I covered here–but what I remember about our world and our lives goes so far beyond just little lines of flavour text. I’ve never seen another skarmory alterhuman out there, and my experiences might not even line up with those of another skarmory, but I at least wanted a reference for myself. If it helps others, great. If it doesn’t, that’s also fine. I just wanted this to be out there.

Maybe it could be a starting point for some. Maybe it’d spur on memories in someone else? Maybe it’d help someone discover that they are a skarmory, or have another alterhuman connection to it? Maybe it’s just cool to learn about! Either way, I wanted to document my experiences, so here we are.

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valve3nthusiast · 1 year ago

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Someone expressed interest in a robotiddy version of my crystal plating idea.... I am so deranged for transformers in pretty crystal corsets and bras. Fuck I wish I could draw...

I think transformers tiddy should glow softly because the energon wells are backlit by the spark, so a crystal chestplate would have this scattered warm light to it that would look stunning, in my opinion

But you know what would be even more beautiful? Crystal carved more in the shape of a bra, with delicate faceted designs illuminated by sparklight. Boobs gently cupped in the pretty crystal, just a teeny bit of a window between the neckplate and the top of the bra so you get a peek of bare tiddy, soft and bouncy... hrnggg

✨️roboobies and glowy sparkly lingerie✨️

#valveplug #mine #roboobies #i dont think im coherent today #crystalingerie

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therealandian · 10 months ago

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“So who finally found you on Aldara, then? And if you tell me it was Marius, I swear I’m going to run him through the next time I see him.” He thought for a moment. “Honestly, I might just do that anyways.” Elias set his cup down, undrank. “I…somehow feel you’re going to like my actual answer even less.” He glanced nervously over at the painting still laying on the floor, and massaged the flesh around his neckplate. “It’s something I very much don’t want Jonah Knowing about.” “I really couldn’t give less of a fuck if he finds out about the Mechanisms.” Martin gestured at Elias. “You Knew about them, and it hardly did you any good.” Sweat was beginning to bead his forehead. “Yes, well, I…didn’t know about this particular Mechanism. And given that I travelled primarily alone with him for roughly two-and-a-half centuries, I don’t think you do, either.” “What the hell are you on about?” Elias gulped. “Um…it’s- erm…” “Spit it out!” “It’s Jon!” he gasped. “He- he saved me centuries ago—g-gave me a chance to prove myself!” Silence fell. Elias gripped the counter like he was afraid he might faint. Martin gripped the counter to keep from tearing Elias’s neckplate from his throat and watching him bleed to death. “What.”

#the mechanisms #the magnus archives #tma #redeath stts #mechs!jon #mechs!elias #mechs!martin #fic #fanfic #:)

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medievalsnippets · 1 year ago

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Armour of the English Knight: 1440 - 1450

Source: Armour of the English Knight 1400-1450

Great Bascinet: Neckplates now quite closely shaped to the chin and throat, more closely resembling a bevor.

Cuirass: Skirts continue to shorten after 1440, especially with the introduction of the new Italianate tasset form. The english variation of the style usually includes sidetassets often of the same size as the front tassets. Hind-tasset design uncertain, but probably similar to those observed on Iberian and Italian export armour of the same period. Because of the shorter skirt, more of the mail skirt is visible, and is generally shown to be drawn down into long dags at the front, back and sides.

Pauldrons: Asymmetric fluted designs introduced, the right having either a large or small cut-out or "mouth" to accomodate couched weapons, the left fully covering the shoulder and upper arm, offering greater protection especially at the front. Arming points and underarm straps assumed to be present, although not depicted on the effegies.

Vambraces: The side-wings now take on a deeply fluted, shell-like form. Upper cannons closed with straps, lower cannons perhaps with loose-pin hinges or straps.

Gauntlets: Older hourglass form illustrated coexists with the newer type having an extended metacarpal plate.

Leg Armour: Introduction of diagonal flutes on the thigh-plates, new side-wing design to match the vambraces, and cusped uppermost poleyn lane and demi-greave.

Sabaton: Articulation lanes starting to be drawn out into points along the top of the foot. Continued and consistent use of downward lapping construction indicating use of internal leathers.

#sabaton #greave #demi-greave #poleyn #vambrace #gauntlet #pauldron #tasset #bascinet #great bascinet #bevor #chainmail #knight #english knight #15th century #medieval #middle ages

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breathe2-fr · 7 months ago

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Gods in Decay (pt 1)

At last, the Shifting Wind had arrived at the Tempest Spire. The massive bronze tower clawed at the sky, beckoning the clouds to strike it with fierce, untamed lightning. Spelldancer reminded herself that if the lightning strikes the tower, that means it won't strike her or her clan. The dragons finally lifted themselves from the ground, searching for the entrance, and found a massive landing pad with hundreds of dragons coming and going into the tower.

As the group set foot on the landing pad, they realized other dragons were stealing glances at them. Gloam leaned in and whispered to Spelldancer, "They know we don't belong here."

"How would they know? Most of them are Lightning dragons, yes, but not all of them."

"They bear some sort of plate on their necks."

Spelldancer looked again; Gloam was right. Each dragon in the landing zone had some sort of collar on, with a metal plate hanging from it. Everyone was moving so quickly she couldn't get a good look at just what it was. She tried not to let the difference affect her mood, and moved forward toward the entrance of the tower.

There were security dragons stationed on either side of the open door. They seemed to ignore most of the dragons bustling through the busy exit, but a ridgeback eyed the Shifting Wing's group suspiciously. He raised a halting claw. "State your name and business."

Spelldancer looked at the ridgeback's neckplate, which read "Jawbert." She realized it must be a name tag.

"I am Spelldancer, Matriarch of the Shifting Wind Clan. We are requesting an audience with the Stormcatcher."

"For what purpose?"

"We wish to immigrate to the Shifting Expanse."

Jawbert looked her up and down, scoffing. "You? You look a little fragile, bug. You think you'll last in the Shifting Expanse?" The ridgeback glanced over to his partner, an imperial on the other end of the door, who shook his head back.

Spelldancer had come this far, she wouldn't be talked down to by the doorman. "We seek shelter from The Shade, which pursues my clan. I have heard the Shifting Expanse has the greatest protection from the Shade in all of Sornieth."

"Sure we do. But that doesn't come without earning it. And I don't think you can hold your end of the--"

"Let her through, Jaws," the imperial interrupted. "It's not for you to decide, it's for Stormcatcher."

"Fine." The ridgeback sauntered over to a nearby guardhouse on the landing pad, fiddled with something inside, then came back out. He handed Spelldancer a metal plate with no collar, which simply read "Guest."

"We'll have an escort for you soon to take you up to Stormcatcher. Don't touch anything when you're inside, understand?"

Before too long, a skydancer appeared at the door, patiently waiting with a pleasant smile. Spelldancer moved to enter, her clanmates following, but the ridgeback stuck out a wing to block them.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Only the clan leader, chumps! We don't need all of you running around inside the Spire! Absolutely not!"

The dragons all looked between each other, but reluctantly stepped back - except for Gloam, who stepped forward.

"I am the queen's curator! I must attend her at all times! You will let me in as well!"

The ridgeback side-eyed the imperial, who shook his head and shrugged, before rolling his eyes at Gloam. "Whatever. Just you. But you're not getting two guest passes, so stick together. If you're found alone inside the tower, you'll be considered a spy and dealt with. Got it?"

Gloam's crest fluttered back in fear. "G-got it."

"And absolutely no magic in the spire!"

The skydancer guided Spelldancer and her son through the Spire, which was unlike anything they had ever seen before. Bronze, steel, and copper structures stretching miles into the air like walls with various landings. Hundreds of dragons flew about, maintaining and operating pieces of them. Most dragons bore the blue eyes of Lightning, but occasionally other elements also maintained the machines, fettering about with just as much dedication. The group flew past the workers and through the maze of beams, hanging cables, giant turning cogs, and brass plates. As they flew, the skydancer was giving bits of information about the Spire like a tour guide, and seemed to navigate even the most claustrophobic of passages without looking. Gloam struggled at points to keep up, and Spelldancer found it faster to just carry her son. Though Gloam was fully grown now, he was still small, even for a Fae. Being Wind dragons, they often allowed their magic to carry them rather than fly, and so trip was also a workout for Spelldancer, which embarrassed her.

The skydancer finally landed on a platform outside of a large, golden rimmed door. A short line of dragons awaited entry. "This is the Boss's room. Please line up and be patient. You're quite lucky you came today, He only opens an audience for a few hours once a month." She turned back to Spelldancer. "Remember, you're speaking to one of the Eleven, who has made time out of his busy day to entertain your needs. Do not waste his time."

Spelldancer nodded.

"Oh, and..." The skydancer cleared her throat. "Keep in mind. Covering your ears is considered rude."

"Pardon?" Spelldancer squinted slightly in confusion, but the skydancer flew off without another word. The two of them were left to wait in line.

While the line was short, it was more than four hours before any movement occurred. The sound of busy working dragons echoed in the distance as the dragons stood silently. At times, Gloam attempted to make small talk, but the conversations were short-lived. Spelldancer gathered that they were being monitored by Lightning dragons out-of-sight, and the others seemed to be nervous that this would make their chances of being accepted by Stormcatcher more difficult.

Finally the line began to move. Each time the door in front of them opened, one dragon would enter before the door closed again. It was at least ten minutes before it would open again, but the dragon who entered would not return. This continued until Spelldancer and Gloam were the last two remaining. At last, the door opened - it was their turn.

She held her son's hand as they walked in together, but the hall it led to was dark - save for a light at the far end of the tunnel. They stepped carefully; like with flying, neither of them walked much. They both feared a misstep would lead to embarrassing their clan in front of the god of Lightning.

Spelldancer's mind raced as butterflies danced in her stomach. Stormcatcher! I cannot believe I'm really having an audience with one of the Eleven! Though she'd always prayed for the day she would speak to Windsinger about her many questions, it was not lost on her that this was a great honor. They have done so much for dragonkind, I only hope He'll grant us a safe haven. I can't mess this up for my clan!

#flight rising #shifting wing clan lore #flight rising lore

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bingsoo-jung · 4 months ago

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Returning with a mediocre part 3. I want to say thanks to @dalishious for sending me the Rivain pages! So my current working theory is that the halter/tabengman is supposed to be from Qunari culture. The reason for this, is that the pages in the art book specifically note that Rivaini fashion is very recognizably Rivaini, but borrows from a lot of cultures. As far as I can tell, Rivaini fashion seems to be a hodgepodge of a few cultures, there’s some colonial Carribean, some SWANA, and some southeast Asian fashion.

So this for instance seems to be a cross between a Grong Kor/กร��งคอ, which is this neckplate worn both as jewelry and armor in southeast asia historically, and possibly a neck plates worn by the Aztecs I think (I couldn’t find the name unfortunately, and thus I cannot verify its existence).

However this seems to be based off of what the conquistadors wore (to be fair, it’s very generically 1600s European, but the invocation of a pirate-y aesthetic makes me think spanish-Portuguese more), which is very interesting because that’s not quite what i got from the lof originally! But i think it’s also a very interesting framing to put them in.

what makes me think it’s from the qunari is that the first time we saw things like the tabengman being worn, it was by the qunari. There’s also concept art of Qunari in DAI showing them wearing a sash with a knot tied at the belt, there’s a few knots this could be, but this strongly closely resembles a chinese knot called the cloud knot (戒箍结) or a bamboo cage knot (十角结). I’ll admit despite being Thai-Chinese my family doesn’t make knots on the new year, we buy them.

I think beyond that there’s only so much I can draw more direct and staunch comparisons to because it starts to get into the zone of ‘well this is featured in many cultures’. So for instance I’ll say that the qunari are often depicted wearing something akin to a loin cloth OR a sash with a long hanging middle piece, which most Southeast warriors wore historically, but that’s not really proof of much. Mactan and Dayak warriors seemed to wear the most similar looks though.

i will say, that i do think vitaar and qunari tattoos in general do more or less resemble filipino, indonesian, and burmese tattoos. Most specifically, i think they resemble the tattoos of tribes that practiced headhunting traditionally, especially the konyaks (i’ve also officially run out of images on mobile sorry).

But I think I’ve also finally beat this dead horse into submission! So unless I find something new and fun? That’ll be all for this weird little series of posts.

my funny controversial veilguard opinion is that while i get why people are saying the 'sexy lof' armor is orientalist and i do think there's a convo to be had there... that armor is also based off of actual clothes people historically wore in southeast asia. like this

is absolutely based off of these

and while these are stylised forms of the outfit it's not because of the skin being shown. the women wearing shirts underneath are not wearing it as thai people wore tabengman historically. because historically we didn't really wear a lot of shirts, shirts were not legally mandated clothes until the 1940s. my thai grandmother is older than that. in fact a lot of asia didn't get around to stigmatizing and sexualizing breasts until the 1800s or later (like you can find photos of korean women in the 1900s with their breasts out and that was fine and normal culturally). the reason these are stylized though is bc they're made of silk and they're wearing brocades. most people would've worn this in plain fabric without gold brocades bc silk and gold are expensive.

and, to be clear, a lot of both the LoF and qunari armors and fashion is based off of historical southeast asian fashion. isabella is straight up wearing a hmong necklace.

the qunari ropes are also almost certainly based off of muay boran kard chuek which is this old way of binding your hands with hemp ropes in thailand for boxing. you can also see that in qunari concept art they've drawn them with intricate knots that are very chinese in origin, they're wearing armor in rattans weaved patterns. (i'll also point out that it was explicitly said in the past that people from east tevinter, which is closer to seheron, look like dorian, and dorian's va is half indo-fijian and half malay. that man belongs to the south pacific.)

and yes, we could have a whole conversation about specifically choosing to look at these armors instead of other southeast asian armors. but i think a lot of people think the armor is based off of western fantasies of belly dancer costumes... which while may have played a part, it's also very clear to me that the devs have used a lot of southeast asian inspiration for seheron, rivain, and part of tevinter.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age the veilguard #dragon age the veil guard #veilguard #datv #dragon age 2 #dragon age origins #dao #da2 #dragon age meta #fashion!

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