#sometimes things in the hoard are sentient yeah

[ask-heldrake-chan]

what is your favorite thing in your horde?

"This little guy. Found him stuck on my wing-blades after a fight with the blue ones. Asked the Warpsmith to patch him back up. Love his energy, very murderous!"

(art by @rowscara)

[favoriteginger]

Empires Worldbuilding

The Empires brainrot is real lately, so here, have some worldbuilding that came to me when I was trying to make angst:

The Empires world is filled with a bunch of different types of nature spirits. These spirits tend to stay in certain areas and tend to do their own thing for the most part, but they are willing to help the people living in the world with certain things if it benefits them in some way. I don't really have any specific ideas for Joel, Pearl, Joey, and Gem, but I have ideas for the rest that I'll go through in some detail. Idk much for the jungle yet, and I'll have to see how Joey's series progresses, but the jungle is full of life, full of growth and death and rebirth, which is why spawn is there, why it still has the bones of an old civilization that is once again starting to be populated by people.

(this one is kinda iffy imo but) the ocean spirits are generally happy with the ocean as it is, but they also kinda desire the ability to change and grow and adapt. When Lizzie comes along and starts setting up the beginnings of her kingdom, the ocean spirits see the opportunity available. They can use the infrastructure that Lizzie has put together to grow and change, in return offering Lizzie citizens to fill her realm and warriors to protect it (the villagers, the axolotl golem, her axolotl knights).

I'm thinking that the spirits can also change people over time too, so as the ocean spirits get closer to Lizzie and help her expand her kingdom, she begins to take on some of the same appearance as her citizens, the ocean spirits sometimes deliberately helping it happen so she can more effectively rule her realm (axolotl Lizzie go brrr). The main spirit in the flower forest is the Overgrown (or maybe it's more a collection of spirits that exists and acts as one being). Katherine settles in the area and is called by the spring, a slightly lesser spirit, to protect the Overgrown and help it prosper. in return, she is able to use some of the bountiful life that springs from the Overgrown, using it to make her kingdom look more beautiful and to forge and maintain peace with the lands around her.

As time goes on and Katherine becomes more familiar with the overgrown, the animals and plants become almost attuned to her. She tends to have flowers and vines woven through her clothes and hair, and it isn't unusual to see her surrounded by various animals while tending to her lands. (I also want to incorporate some sort of faerie type lore into Katherine's area but I'm still working on that)

(warning for mentions of death in the next paragraph or two, for any who want to avoid it. nothing specific, and it's not any of the empires members)

(adapting some ideas a friend had here) The swamp doesn't really have any major spirits inhabiting it, and I'm still figuring out what the ones that do live there are like, but it is full of the spirits of the dead. All of these spirits died at different times and for different reasons, but they were all drawn to the swamp and reside there long after any trace of their previous homes is gone. These spirits don't want much, mainly just company and peace for as much of their eternal lives as possible. When Jimmy first settles in the swamp, it seems to be empty of any sentient life, but as time goes on he begins to see the ghostly forms of people long dead and he begins to be able to hear their voices. The first spirits he's able to fully see are a group of children playing in the water with the cod. As more and more spirits appear to him and he gets to know them, he starts working to help them. He does his best to stay on peaceful or friendly terms with the other kingdoms so his land and the people in it can live in peace.

As time goes on, Jimmy starts to look like part of the swamp in a way. It isn't unusual to see him covered in slime and seaweed after playing with the children in the water, and sometimes he has vines woven into his hair, or a crown made of sticks and mud atop his head.

The spirits of the desert are quiet and unmoving, happy to stay where they are and watch the world change around them. Pix is one of these spirits, though he took a more human form long ago because he was curious about the people living in his land and watching from afar wasn't enough. Now, the people he used to be a part of are long gone, and he's left alone in the remains of their once great empire, watching over the world as it changes and keeping vigil over the other empires, still occasionally venturing out to get a closer look at the surrounding lands, and bringing goods to help them when he does.

Now, Pix is also a dragon (because dragons are fun), and though he exists in his human form more often than not now, he still occasionally stretches his wings to fly over the desert, stirring up sandstorms in his wake. He still burrows under the sand sometimes, looking to nap in the warm dunes, and he still hoards copper and emerald ore, using them to ornament his buildings when he isn't able to ornament himself with the treasures as he once did.

(I gave Scott a bit of a corruption arc because they're fun I guess idk) The mountains tend to be populated by wind spirits, forever moving and forever free. Their main desire is for more land to fly over and explore, and they see a way to achieve that though Scott. They offer him the freedom of the wild mountaintops, away from people and connections that could tie him down and cause him pain. As time goes on and Scott starts to hear them more clearly, they begin to tell him that having too many connections would be bad. According to the spirits, alliances are good, since they would mean that other empires wouldn't encroach on the mountains, but actual close friendships would just trap Scott in obligations and promises and do nothing but hurt him down the road. They tell him to expand the borders of his empire and give himself more space to roam free and do as he wished, as well as provide a buffer between him and the people who could hurt him. (I'm thinking that 3rd life ties into this, and after loosing Jimmy in that series, he's afraid of being hurt in that way again, which is why he listens to the spirits)

As time goes on, Scott becomes more cold, both in personality and physically. He extends nothing more than basic pleasantries to the people around him, maintaining alliances but that's it. His skin grows paler and cold to the touch, and his hair grows lighter, starting to look more like frosted ice than the rich cyan it had been before. His fingers and ears also grow kinda blue at the tips and he finds he's sometimes able to manipulate the flurries of snow falling around him or ride the winds across his growing empire.

Fwhip settles in a plains biome and not long after, he comes across the spirits of the stone and darkness, who tempt him with glowing redstone and promise him all the riches held underground and the power that could come with them. Fwhip, having spent most of his recent time alone in a hardcore world, is maybe a tad bit paranoid, and takes these spirits up on their offer, thinking he can use the riches underground to build himself and his people a beautiful city, and to make armor and weapons and trade offers and alliances to protect himself. However, in agreeing to the deal, he gave the spirits a connection to work with and they began corrupting him, making him treasure the dark deepslate and shining redstone even more, convincing him that the heads he mounted around his base were his citizens and friends, that he had to expand his empire and gain more power, or it would all be taken from him. Over time, the corruption starts to take a physical form, and not just in the land that grows darker as redstone-laced spires emerge from the ground, deepslate making it's way through the grass. Fwhip's eyes begin to take on a red tinge, glowing slightly like the redstone he cherishes so much, and his skin starts to appear grey in patches, matching the darkstone consuming his land.

So yeah, worldbuilding

Feel free to add on or whatever if you want I guess

[sugar-spice-and-everything-dice]

Hello, and welcome to my sideblog. Things you'll find here:

general D&D/TTRPG posts and memes

me asking for DMing advice; please god help

pictures of my dice collection

stuff about the campaign I'm running

stuff about the other games I'm in

the occasional reblog or thought about ttrpg fandom like D20 or TAZ

So if that interests you at all, stick around! If not, no hard feelings. Want more info? Check out the readmore!

My Campaign

The campaign I'm running is (for now) a D&D 5e homebrew game; it's retro-futuristic science-fantasy set in a world that has (dubiously) recovered from a distant apocalypse. The draft title was "Magic and Neon Lights" but I've actually gotten kind of attached to it, so it's official now. Sidenote: should I have maybe started with a module before immediately going all-in on this? Maybe. But look at the blog title. That's my alignment.

I play with four of my wonderful friends and their PCs have truly become my blorbos - I physically cannot stop thinking about them.

Aster: yuan-ti pureblood paladin; you can look but you absolutely cannot touch; prim and proper Bastard

Maeve: drow monk; will kill on sight with no provocation; new emotion unlocked: Anger2

Rahkeki: orc-tiefling barbarian; Big McLarge Huge but just. so fucking sweet; thrift fashion icon

Terlyne: air genasi cleric; mob doctor; prayin' for some booty; (was previously a PC, has been adopted as a DMPC)

Valda: aasimar warlock; definition of the word "ma'am" said in a scared-horny tone; summoner-mom to the cutest familiar; Hulks Out sometimes

Mostly, I'm going to be posting random thoughts and vagueposting about ideas so I can worry my players. Also funny screenshots probably? Yeah. Every once in a while I might do an NPC character profile or a streamlined campaign journal. Tag is: #campaign: magic and neon lights.

Family Campaigns

I play in two games - one run by my dad and the other run by my brother-in-law. I'll probably post about these occasionally.

Dad's game (tagged: #campaign: dad's tyranny of dragons) is Hoard of the Dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamat with tons of other modules thrown in as sidequests; my characters are a sun elf bard (Gavriil) and a fire genasi artificer (Cinder). It's been running for a long time and the group's gone through a lot of changes and character swaps, but we're at a pretty stable place now and having a lot of fun. Currently we are crawling through a sentient dungeon that wants nothing more than to kill us and take our treasures for itself.

My brother-in-law's game (tagged: #campaign: odyssey of the dragonlords) is the Odyssey of the Dragonlords 5e third-party Kickstarter campaign - it's a Greek-mythos-inspired epic heroic fantasy that's been a ton of fun. Our whole party is just 'oops, all monsters'; I play a siren druid (the bird lady kind, not the mermaid kind) named Adellyr, my sister plays a medusa rogue, my dad plays a minotaur bard, and dad's partner plays a nymph ranger. We are sailing across uncharted waters with a ship full of misfits and political rivals on our way to assault the twin titan gods who have been terrorizing the land. Should be fine!

Tagging System

I'll tag stuff by campaign and character, and each campaign will have its own tag. Characters will also be tagged with the campaign and their status as either a PC or an NPC. As with my main blog, if there's anything specific you want tagged, just ask!

The tag for my dice collection is #diceposting.

[spoondrifts]

They're at a park, of all places.

Jon liked them as a child. They were places he could wander off to and not be rebuked quite as harshly for; parks and playgrounds were acceptable, relatively, by his grandmother's standards. He found them boring, although sometimes there were interesting things to be found lodged in the mulch. Pennies, jewelry, four leaf clovers. He had, admittedly, been a bit of a hoarder.

It's funny, sometimes, how little things have changed.

Parks are still an escape, but they are a different variety now. Jon still hoards, but he hoards knowledge instead of items now. People, too, he thinks privately. Sasha. Tim. Martin. Melanie. Even Basira.

Daisy.

He is still collecting. His things are more valuable than nickels, these days.

The sun is low on the horizon, casting the wooded area in slim golden rays. The trees block out most of the hazy, deep blue twilight that slowly bleeds overhead, but Jon can see little patches of navy where the leaves part. A cool breeze leaves him tucking himself further into his coat.

The park is almost empty. A few kids run around, giggling and shrieking, as their parents slouch on benches and sip caffeine with dead eyes.

Some of them have stories.

Jon bites his tongue. The pain briefly draws his thoughts away from the harried mother across the park, whose traumas scratch and whine and claw at his attention. She reeks faintly of the Vast.

Maybe sensing that he's beginning to drift off, Daisy tugs on the cuff of his trouser. He glances down at her.

She's sitting on the ground at his feet, cross-legged, methodically weaving grass into knots and discarding them. Her hair is tied back in a tail with a bright red band that belongs to Melanie. Basira used to help her with her hair, when it would fall down in disarray after rough hunts and tangle around her shoulders, always begging Basira to gently work a comb through them-

Jon bites his tongue again, and the intrusive knowledge scatters. That's not mine, he snarls at himself.

"Enjoying yourself?" he asks.

Daisy frowns. She does that a lot, now. "No." She sighs. "But it's better than the Institute."

He agrees. Beholding does not. It itches for him to return to his temple, where he has left it in the care of an acolyte to a different god. It isn't right. It feels like sandpaper on a chalkboard every day that Jon allows Peter Lukas to haunt the halls of the Eye.

Beholding, if it is sentient, is quite upset at Elias for abandoning his post like this. Jon takes no small amount of satisfaction from Knowing that he is the closest thing to the golden child currently.

"Did you really expect this to be fun?" Daisy asks, squinting at him.

"Well, not particularly. I just thought... I don't know. That I'd feel more nostalgia than I do."

Daisy rips up a fistful of grass and releases it to scatter in the wind.

The woman with the Vast statement now has a small child in her arms. She is comforting him as he sniffles, flooded with guilt over accidentally crushing a cicada on the sidewalk.

They're not here to have fun. Jon had asked her to accompany him under the guise of needing fresh air, but they both know the truth.

Jon watches Daisy attempt to braid a flower crown with trembling fingers, and wonders how those same fingers were possibly ever strong enough to grip a knife and press it against his throat. He wonders when Daisy's sharp stare became comfort instead of danger.

Perhaps comfort is too strong a word for what she provides him. For what they provide each other.

Daisy is not safety. The scars on his skin prove that. But she is steady. She offers some measure of stability as his entire world spirals hopelessly out of control. And maybe that's fucked up, but hell, when has anything been normal or healthy in the past few years?

Right now, she is his leash, and he is hers.

The woman with the Vast statement is- shit. She's walking towards them.

"Daisy," Jon says, tapping her shoulder. "She, uh, she has a-a-"

"Alright," she says calmly, rising to her feet. "Stay put, I'll do the talking."

Jon closes his mouth and clasps his hands in his lap as the woman stops before them. Laurel, Beholding unhelpfully informs him, is her name.

She has her son with her. Jon grits his teeth.

"Can we help you?" Daisy says brusquely.

"Hi," Laurel says. "So sorry to bother you, but my son Xander wanted to tell you something." She nudges the boy forward.

Xander's wide eyes flicker between Jon and Daisy nervously. "I like your scarf, miss," he says, voice high and youthful.

Daisy's scarf is a deep, rich scarlet, knitted by her grandfather for his only granddaughter. She got it for Christmas when she was nine. It went into storage when she was fifteen. Her mother unearthed it and insisted she take it with her to the police academy. After the Coffin, she retrieved it because it smelled like home and gave her a comforting reminder of-

Jon drags a fingernail down his wrist and tries to suppress his wince.

Daisy looks taken aback. "O-Oh. Yeah. Um... thank you."

Xander beams. "Also here!" He reaches into his pocket and scoops out a fistful of wildflowers, dropping them into Jon's hands. "I picked them because you looked sad and I wanted to cheer you up! No one should be sad at a park."

Jon gently accepts the flowers, holding them delicately as to not crush them, though many are already torn. "Thank you," he says, allowing himself the tiniest of smiles. "You've certainly succeeded."

Grinning, Xander then spins on his heel and runs back to the playground. Laurel gives them both an apologetic glance.

"Have a nice evening," she tells them genuinely, turning to leave.

"Wait," Daisy says. Laurel pauses. "I..." Swallowing hard, Daisy unwinds the scarf from around her neck, folding it into a neat square. She holds it out, eyes averted. "Here. For the kid."

Laurel makes a startled noise. "Oh, I couldn't possibly-"

"It's fine," Daisy says. Her hands aren't shaking. "I don't really need it anyways."

Taking the scarf with many expressions of gratitude and warmth, Laurel finally goes to follow her son.

Silence reigns for a long time, the only sound the droning of cicadas. Jon looks down at the wildflowers, which are beginning to wilt, and finds he is having trouble swallowing past the lump in his throat.

Daisy slowly lowers her hands to her sides.

"That was sweet of them," Jon says quietly.

Her voice is rough when she finally speaks. "I'm a bad person."

Jon begins to place the flowers into his coat pocket, one by one. "Yes," he says simply. The scar on his throat burns with phantom pain.

He will never forget how it felt to stab that shovel into the dirt; to bury the one avatar who was actually courteous to him. He will never forget the glee in Daisy's eyes, the glint of her sharpened teeth as she slammed him into that tree and threatened his life.

He will never forget the shape of the bullet wound in Mike's forehead.

"You're trying, though," he says. Daisy doesn't look at him. "A scarf doesn't equal a life taken. But maybe it counts."

"Counts towards what?"

The Beholding doesn't have an answer for him.

"I don't know."

Daisy considers that. She extends a calloused hand to him. "Come on, Sims. I'll order some takeout."

Jon takes her hand and rises to his feet. All the way back to the archives, she doesn't let go.

[written-on-the-trees]

Machine Gun Kelly Fanfic - All That Glitters Is Not Gold

The Trees’ October 2020 Writing Challenge Day 2/31

Prompt: Dragon

Word-count: 1450 words

Content Warnings: swearing, non-consensual but non-graphic drug use.

Summary: Colson is a dragon - all he wants is gold and some peace and quiet. So the fact he's been presented with a human sacrifice is really just annoying.

Of all the stupid fucking shit humans do…

      Colson stared down at the young woman in white bound to the stake the humans had stuck in front of the entrance to his cave, wondering if he was actually seeing what he thought he was seeing. Because he thought he was seeing a human sacrifice…but that would be fucking dumb.

      And yet…

      And yet there was a human sacrifice bound to a stake outside of his cave.

      Fucking brilliant.

      Snarling, Colson stalked out of the cave in his dragon form.

  It was such bullshit. Colson was a dragon - what the fuck did he want with some terrified human girl? He liked gold. Shiny, warm, glittering gold. There were times when he liked human women too, of course, when he wondered down to one of the local villages in human form to drink and smoke and fuck, but then he returned to the mountains and his cold and his peace and fucking quiet and - most importantly - his gold.

  Human women were terrifying - literally, they scared Colson more than anything. How creatures so small and soft and fragile could wrap other bigger and stronger sentient beings around their fingers, sometimes deliberately and sometimes completely without meaning to, was just beyond him, and that horrified him.

  But he couldn’t leave her tied to the stake outside the cave. He might be a beast, but he wasn’t a monster, and it got really cold out there after dark - not to mention all the wild animals that would happily take a chunk out of the vulnerable human woman if they wondered past. As scary as human women were, Colson wasn’t going to let an innocent woman die just because the idiots from her village thought they would accomplish something by tying her up outside his home.

  Not that the human was grateful.

      “Are you going to eat me?” she asked, surprisingly calm for a woman who thought she was about to be eaten alive.

  “Not much point. Your bones would probably get caught in my throat.”

  The woman nodded as if that made perfect sense: “That would be annoying. So are you going to burn me alive instead?”

      She still sounded way too calm - almost like she wasn’t quite understanding what she was actually asking him. Colson wondered if they had drugged her or something, because there was no way anyone should be that relaxed when they were asking about how they were going to die.

  He also wondered if next time they could leave some of that shit for him. Preferably instead of the human being.

      “No, I can’t breathe fire at the moment. I’ve got a cold.”

  “Dragons can get colds?”

  “Sure, why not.”

      Looking closely at the ropes binding her to the rough wooden stake, Colson rolled his eyes.

  She had absolutely been drugged; the knots in the rope were so badly tied she could’ve gotten free in an instant if she wasn’t so out of it. It literally took him a second to free her, slicing through the ropes with a claw and letting them fall to the ground at her feet…but she still didn’t run. She didn’t even twitch. She just stayed there, leaning against the stake and looking up at him blankly, making Colson wish they really had left him some of whatever they’d given her.

  Sighing internally, Colson changed into his human form. The woman’s eyes widened, but it she looked more like a hatchling seeing their first bit of treasure rather than someone who’d seen a dragon turn into a person. He swung her up into his arms, carrying her bridal style into the cave.

  He really wasn’t expecting her to bury her face in his shoulder, or wrap her arms around his neck, but he supposed it was better than her kicking him or screaming right in his ear. She didn’t smell bad, either, even to Colson’s sensitive nose - he'd certainly carried worse burdens. In fact, on the list of all the non-treasurey things he’d hauled into his home, she was definitely in the top five.

      “So, if you’re not going to eat me, and you’re not going to set me on fire…what are you going to do?”

  “It took you over five minutes to think of that question?”

  The woman frowned faintly - as if she knew something wasn’t right, but couldn’t quite work out what it was: “My head feels strange.”

  Colson felt his chest tighten a little. He knew how it felt to be out of it when you didn’t want to be, and he didn’t have to be human to empathise with her: “Yeah, I bet. I’m gonna take you somewhere to sleep it off, okay? You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

      Silence reigned from then on, even when he dropped to his knees on the edge of the pile of furs he called a bed so he could carefully lower the human onto the softest spot he could find. She hummed thankfully, already looking half-asleep…although she was awake enough to wrap her small hand around his wrist when he moved to stand back up. It wasn’t enough to actually stop him - her strength was nothing compared to his, even when she wasn’t half unconscious - but…Colson still found himself laying down next to her, pulling some of the furs over her before wrapping an arm around her and tucking her head under his chin.

  Once upon a time, he’d been out of his head, and all he’d wanted was for some to just give him a hug, but there’d been no-one there to hold him. It had been fucking awful. He wouldn’t leave someone else in that state.

      For fuck’s sake, is this how they do the whole wrapping people around their fingers thing? She’s not even fucking trying - she’s just being sad.

      Apparently, that was all it took. This human was sad in a way Colson could relate to, and suddenly he was comforting her while she was sleeping in his bed. Next he’d be giving her some of the shiny things from his hoard just to cheer her up…

      Although one of those golden crowns might look nice on top of that red hair…maybe the one with the diamonds on all the points…

      Colson sighed aloud this time.

  He was so fucking weak.

  But he didn’t let that stop him from holding the human close. Even if this was exactly why he feared human women; their ability to inspire sympathy out of nothing. He ran a hand gently up and down her back, waiting until the human woke up and he’d have to deal with getting her back to her village.

  Honestly, it took her a while to wake up. Colson was actually starting to worry she’d been dozed with a draught of living death or something, only for her to finally wake with a groan.

      “Am I dead?”

  “No.”

  “But my head hurts so much.” the human whined, burying her face against Colson’s shoulder like he wasn’t a dragon who could literally eat her.

  Colson smiled, not bothering to hide it when she couldn’t see his face: “Not  feeling strange anymore, though?”

  “I wish it did. Anything would be better than this.”

      Colson laughed.

  He actually liked this human. He liked her enough that he suddenly wasn’t sure that he wanted to send her back to the village…so he didn’t mention it to her. And she didn’t ask.

  Instead of talking about what was going to happen, Colson focused on finding her a breakfast she could eat. And then dinner. And then he showed her around the cave, holding her hand as he helped her navigate the tunnels, laughing when she passed right past the room full of gold and jewels and treasure in favour of a cavern where the roof had caved in, leaving it open to the sky and allowing the sunlight to nurture a cavern full of lush green plants.

  She was odd, by dragon standards (and probably human ones too, if her calmness around a dragon was any indication, even though Colson wasn’t actually in a place to judge that) but that didn’t stop Colson from liking her. Her personality glittered brighter than any of the gold in his hoard - even if her total lack of interest in treasure completely baffled Colson. As confusing as that was, he actually didn’t mind it. What did it matter if she liked gold or green more when she smelt like amber and smoke, she was soft and warm when she slept beside him, and she sparkled brighter than all the diamonds he owned?

  Besides, Colson later found out that he was right.

  She looked fucking amazing in gold.

[trisscar368]

“OMG why it has no notes????”

1) Is it tagged properly so people in the fandom (who don’t follow you) can find it?

Tumblr used to only track the first 5 tags. You have 20 to play with now, but prioritize (and don't tag things that aren't relevant).

Stalk larger blogs in your fandom to see what tags they use - there isn’t a “general guide to all the fandom tags” manual anywhere, but you should be able to get a good idea of which tags to post in if you cross reference some more popular blogs.

Talk to people who create the same thing you are - artists, writers, graphics makers.  Find out if there’s networks (shared tags that people track) that you can join.

Keep a consistent tag for original content on your own blog - that way if people find one thing, they can search your blog for other original content.

2) Is it something your followers expect from you?

If you suddenly post something for another fandom, it won’t receive as many notes.

If everyone follows you for one ship and you post another, it won’t get as many notes.

If everyone follows you for one character and you post another…

If you haven’t established yourself as a content creator, your followers won’t look for content they missed.

If you haven’t been an active content creator… yeah, people won’t look as hard.

If you’re posting a different kind of content than usual, it won’t (always) get as many notes.  This one is a bit different - if people know you as a Source for Fandom Fun they’ll be a bit more interested in different explorations of creativity.

3) When was it posted?

Almost no one will see it at 3 am, unless they live on the other side of the planet.  This is what timezone reblogs are for.

Depending on where most of your fandom is based, there will be different peak posting hours – but generally aim for dinnertime in the main time zone.

If it’s a holiday, people will be offline (unless explicitly avoiding family).

If you post shortly before a new episode, your content will be eaten by the void.

Conversely if you post a few days before a new episode, the fandom will probably be hungry.

Same goes for hiatus.

4) Is it a main ship or major character?

Flagships will spread faster than rarepairs, but it’s harder to find new content in a flagship tag than it is a tag for a smaller ship.

Fandom darlings will do better than controversial or minor characters.

Minor characters will spread through a smaller audience.  It will likely be a dedicated audience, but it’s going to be small.

Dead characters will spread through a really small audience

Unless the fandom is in denial over the death, in which case they will be hoarded and pulled out whenever someone is feeling sentimental.

If it’s a random gen idea (like, say, sentient buildings) or an extreme rarepair ship that you just created, you will have to build your audience.

5) Is there something wonky about the formatting?

Make sure fics are formatted with pairings and warnings at the top, and use read more buttons.

Research the proper image resolution and size limit for tumblr (they update it from time to time).

Check that your gifs actually play all the way through - gifs that are close to the size limit can freeze.

People are really really weird about artist comments.  Sometimes they help the art to spread, other times people will decide to delete them because it “ruins the aesthetic”.

Other notes:

Whether your fandom circle clicks with what you make on an emotional level is outside of your control.  It might be technically perfect, or you feel like it’s the best thing you’ve made, and it might get a fraction of the notes.  It happens to every artist, and it is not a commentary on your skill.  Keep creating other things.

Most art will have a short shelf life - it will initially spread for somewhere between one and four weeks, depending on how much people like it.  After that, notes will be sporadic.

At the same time, if someone goes trolling for art (or graphics, or fic) you may get spurts of new notes anywhere from months to years after you originally posted.

The art you see with the higher note counts (20-50k) is probably years old at this point.  Like, 5-10 years.  Don’t sit there wondering how to be that popular, it’s almost always cumulative.

Holiday art that people like has a high chance of being brought back for years to come - but only during that holiday.

There is no formula for what goes viral and what doesn’t.

You will have better success if people that follow you start to think of you as a) a person instead of a random avatar on their dash, and b) if you create content fairly often.  Build mental associations in your audience.  Exploit the psychology.

Make friends with other creative people.  Find peers, people that make the same things you do, but branch out into other areas.  If you’re an artist, befriend some writers, etc.  It’ll help - generally creative people like to support one another.

[howlsmovinglibrary]

All of the question tags!!

Damn, it seems that this is what happens when you run out of phone data and are away from wifi for a while. The 11 questions tags take over.

Imma gonna answer every tag that I can find in this one long post, and sweet jesus I’m not tagging anyone in this particular chain, for fear of starting some kind of infinite loop that eventually becomes sentient and takes over the world.

So, time to seriously overshare!!

From @books-are-portals​

1. Favourite mythological being (of any kind)?

It’s a tie between dragons and unicorns, and you know what that means…..FIGHT!

2. Least favourite drink?

I hate coke/diet coke/pepsi/cola. I’m quite intolerant to caffeine in large doses, so the last time I drank a glass of coke, at like 4pm in the afternoon probably about 8 years ago, it kept me away until 3am D:

3. What book(s) do you recommend for everyone?

The Wicked and the Divine comics. It’s hella diverse, the art is amazing, and it’s about insanely powerful magical pop star gods. EVERYONE SHOULD READ.

4. Can you touch the tip of your nose with your tongue?

No – I have both an incredibly small nose and a very stubby tongue.

5. Least favourite book protagonist?

Ummm, bar all the protagonists from classics that I could endlessly moan on about all day and all night (I’m looking at you, Pamela), I’m going to say Zoey from The House of Night series, for all her toxic slut shaming, double standards, and just generally horribly written narrative voice (‘bullpoopy’ is a word that will forever be branded on my mind).

6. What TV show/film makes you happy?

Brooklyn Nine Nine is my go-to happy tv show, Spirited Away/Howl’s Moving Castle are the film equivalent.

7. Favourite trope?

Anything where a platonic friendship (particularly between two women) gets prioritised above a romantic relationship.

8. What piece of fictional technology would you like to have?

An alethiometer from HDM – it tells you the truth, but not enough to stop you from being in control of your own fate (the beauty of a book about free will, I guess.)

9. Finish sentence: I didn’t get enough sleep last night because…

…my back aches from lugging all my books to storage.

10. Favourite food to eat when you’re feeling down?

To be honest, it’s probably toast (with peanut butter if it’s been a really bad day).

11. Can you knit?

I can, but I can’t knit well. If you want a scarf, I can, in theory, do that. Anything that isn’t just one uniform band of the same stitch and I am not the person for the job.

********

From @heretherebebooks

1. Have you ever fallen out of love with a book? Why?

There are a lot of standard answers: ACOTAR, Twilight, etc. but my most recent is Borderline by Mishell Baker – I really like books with ‘unlikeable’ protagonists so I gave this a very high rating on first review, but I didn’t realise how damaging this representation of BPD is until I read multiple own voices reviews on the subject.

2. What’s the strangest book-related dream you’ve ever had? 

I have a lot of book dreams which feature me as the protagonist in my favourite fantasy novels, but then when I try to use magic to defend myself my brain goes ‘but Emma, magic doesn’t exist’ and so I’m suddenly facing down a demon hoard with no powers whatsoever.

3. Have you read a book that you didn’t really appreciate until later on? 

Ash by Malinda Lo is the main one for this, because  I didn’t appreciate that Ash is not supposed to get with the unbelievably hot fairy prince…until I reread five years later and saw that the hot fairy prince is a dick.

4. What book would you like to see a musical adaptation of? (Bonus: any ideas for song titles?)

To be honest, I just want Starkid to do a ‘A Very Potter Musical’ version of Cursed Child and watch the fanfiction of the fanfiction.

5. Have you ever thrown a book across the room? What was it? 

Ms Marvel Volume 4 (my ship was sunk…for now, anyway).

6. What book cover do you absolutely hate? How would you redesign it?

The Falconer and Dark Days Club UK covers are just super tacky – I’d take the Falconer US covers, and replace the Dark Days standard ‘pretty woman in fragile looking pose’ covers with either ‘plain looking woman fighting a fuck tonne of demons’ or just ‘fuck tonne of demons’, which is what the story is about anyway.

7. Have you ever cosplayed a character? Who?

I’m read this question at a con while dressed as Newt Scamander, so…. (last year I was Violet from the Rat Queen comics).

8. What’s the last book that made you want to scream from the rooftop? 

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (the thing I screamed was “MURDER. IN. SPAAAACEEE!” when my housemate asked me what it was about, although I was not on a rooftop at the time.)

9. What’s your favourite subgenre? 

My new favourite is ‘geeky contemporary’, bonus points if it’s ‘geek convention contemporary’ (Queens of Geek, Geekerella, Unconventional)

10. If you could bring an author back to life to write one more book, who would it be? 

I think Angela Carter could write one hell of a feminist YA fairy tale retelling, so I’m gonna bring her back.

11. Mug full of tea on your bed - yay or nay?

I just….I don’t live life this dangerously xD

*********

From @bookcub:

1. Who was the last character you related to and what were they from?  

Luca from The Burning City by Amanda Foody – he was basically the reason I kept reading that book, which otherwise wasn’t really my cup of tea, despite being a perfectly good book. He was the love interest, and was explicitly demiromantic. Although I’m not entirely sure where I place on the ace spectrum, and also felt that his portrayal was a little bit too cut and dry – with no sexual attraction until the MC shows up and then all the sexual attraction immediately at once with not really any grey area – his indifferent attitude towards sex as a general concept until those feelings latch onto a specific person, and his hesitation surrounding how to handle a relationship when it’s not something he’s has to consider before that point, were both very relatable for me. It certainly fitted my experience a little better than Tash Hearts Tolstoy.

2. What’s your favorite genre of music? 

Hmmm…there’s a wide range but I guess singer songwriter covers it? I care more about a song’s lyrics than what genre it’s in.

3. Which tags on tumblr do you follow and why? 

*whispers* I still don’t really understand how following tags works…..(someone plz explain)

4. Do you have any book related jewelry? 

I have a necklace of an owl delivering a Hogwarts letter, and Howl’s earrings from the Ghibli movie.

5. Thoughts on booklr being dead? 

I think the parts of booklr that were active a few years ago might be dead, but that’s just one specific group of people and they’ve probably moved on for a reason. Given it’s only in the last year or so that I’m getting notes and making friends, if booklr truly is dead then it seems that I’m either a necromancer, or having one hell of a party in the graveyard.

6. What are some of your favorite picture books from when you were a kid?

We’re Going On a Bear Hunt is the classic (my parents used to sing it to me to get me to go on hikes). When I could read for myself, Varjak Paw. 

7. What’s the first book you remember reading or being read to you? 

My dad read me the first and half of the second Harry Potter books on the Eurostar train from London to Disneyland Paris.

8. What’s your favorite dystopian novel and why? 

Hmmm, I’m not really a fan of dystopias all that much (more of a fantasy person), but I really like the Wolf by Wolf series, which I think counts due to it being alt. history, and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The first because a) it has fantasy elements, and b) A* character development over the duology. The second because it was the first ‘literary’ book I read for school and enjoyed, and because the TV show has been one of my favourite things this year.

9. Where do you get/buy most of your books? 

Truthfully, Amazon. I’m trying to do better now that I’m no longer strapped for cash.

10. Favorite animal? 

Cats. Fluffy, smooshy faced cats in particular ^^.

11. What book release are you anxious for (one you know the release date for) (yeah that means not Doors or Stone) 

It’s a toss-up between The Stone Sky by NK. Jemisin (which is out like, next week!!), Provenance by Ann Leckie, and Warcross by Marie Lu.

**********

From @accidentalspaceexplorer:

1. What do you think of science fiction?

I think it is good when written well, where the focus on world building doesn’t leave the characters one dimensional. Unfortunately I also think it is coded masculine in a number of ways - the focus on a ‘logical, technological’ world rather than ‘illogical’ femme coded magic  -  which means that sometimes I find it quite an frustrating and alienating genre. 

2. What’s one of your pet peeves?

Mansplaining. Currently there’s this really horrible man at my book club who keeps trying to explain narrative to me and I’m like, dude, I’m an English Literature graduate.

3. If you could pick one magic system to exist in real life, what would it be?

Oh, fuck. There’s so many that would be amazing, but I think the main I always gravitate back to is Elemental magic a la the Avatar universe, because that was the first type of magic system I fell in love with.

4. What is your favorite tree?

Cherry blossom

5. Do you have any plants around the house?

I do not own any personally, but my housemate has like fifteen spider plants to which I like to think I am a caring godmother figure.

6. What is the book with the weirdest premise that you’ve read and would recommend?

The Jane Austen Project - time travellers go back to Regency era Britain to befriend Austen and try to steal one of her lost manuscripts.

7. Have you loved books for as long as you can remember, or was there a particular event that sparked you becoming a reader?

As long as I can remember - I remember giving a presentation in class about how I was going to be any author at age 9.

8. What is your favorite recipe?

Lemon meringue cake - cake, lemon curd, a fuck tonne of meringue, what’s not to love?

9. Do you reread books? If not, why not? If so, what’s one that you reread again and again?

Yes. Always reread. My three main ones are The Dark Days Club, Uprooted, and (of course) Howl’s Moving Castle.

10. What’s your favorite weather?

Cold sunshine in winter. 

11. Do you read every day?

Pretty much (I read on my lunch break at work).

I think that’s every outstanding question answered - sorry if I’ve missed anyone!

[ladyhallen]

The Problems of Ron Weasley-Fire Dragon Part 2

Ron’s family were the first in a few centuries to attend Hogwarts, as such, his clutch-brother Bill was something of a successful experiment. Given that he didn’t eat anyone in his attendance, Ron agreed.

Ron often wondered how he could stand it though. The gathering of magical beasts and magicians made such distracting scents. Visiting his hoard helped.

Ron’s hoard was intangible, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t visit it in his mind. His hoard was located in the deep sections, where the knowledge from his ancestors was buried deep too. His mind-shape was just as large as his normal shape and he looked at the Lake of his hoard with affection. When he would live long enough and collected many, he knew his lake would become an ocean.

And then his dorm mates woke him up with their loud laughter over their homework.

With a sigh, Ron got up from his nest and shook himself, tucking in the tail he had manifested in his sleep.

“Are you alright, Ron?” Harry asked, mirth in his voice. “You’re eyes are dragon-gold.”

Ron huffed irritably and tried to calm himself down with his Harry’s scent. It was easy since Harry always smelt like the ocean and the deep fires of the earth.

“Homework,” he said. He felt it was safer to speak with just one word.

Harry grabbed his hand, not even flinching at the heat, or the pinprick of the little red scales that never went away in Ron’s smaller shape.

“Hermione’s busy having a debate with the fairies in the White Dorm,” Harry said. His green eyes were bright with pleasure and Ron hoarded it, feeling himself calm down at the sight. “Of course, given that Hermione’s a mix, she doesn’t have wings but she says its instinct to know how to fly.”

Ron got stalled at the statement.

“No one knows flight better than dragons,” Ron stated. It was fact. The most basic and intrinsic knowledge of self – of being a dragon – was buried deep inside Ron’s mind, like it was with all other dragons. The knowledge was passed form dragon to dragon inside their dam’s womb. “They should have invited me.”

Harry grinned with delight. “Yeah? I want to fly by myself someday. Other wizards invented things to make flight possible, but I want to fly on my own magic, nothing below me.”

If anyone could do it, it would be Harry. Not because Harry was the last descendant of the line of Merlin, but because Ron was a magical beast and could feel how indescribably powerful Harry was.

It sometimes steamed off him when he was angry and curled around him when he was sad. Ron wondered if anyone else saw it.

Ron inhaled Harry’s gratefulness when he said, “You can do it. If anyone can, I know it would be you.”

Harry seemed to vibrate with pleasure and tackled the dragon with a hug. “You’re the best friend anyone could ever ask for.”

He hoarded the moment and understood, for a fleeting moment, how his clutch-brother survived Hogwarts.

.

Hagrid might have some dragon blood in him too, because the trio catches him hatching a dragons egg.

Ron tried not to be too outraged, but it was difficult, especially because the egg reminded him of his clutch-sister’s egg before she hatched.

“Where did you get that?” Ron asked Hagrid.

At least the beasmaster’s hands were capable and sure, exuding an aura of confidence that young hatchlings found reassuring. That would be a good thing for the hatchling to feel. Ron didn’t relax an inch though. Only dams were supposed to be involved in the business of hatching a clutch-egg. Sire’s and other male dragons were not supposed to be around at all.

“Ron, calm down,” Hermione whispered.

He figured that his eyes must be dragon-gold. He tried to calm down.

“I won it in a pub!” the beastmaster obliviously answered enthusiastically. “I’ve always wanted to witness a dragon hatch. No one has ever seen one hatch before.”

With good reason. Hatchlings need their dams.

Ron took a deep breath and concentrated in order not to release a puff of smoke. The scent entered his mind and reminded him of his clutch-sister’s egg pulsing before cracking open with violence, almost piercing his wings because he didn’t listen to his sire to get out of the den.

With some desperation, he turned to Harry. The wizard noted his face and dragged him outside.

“Deep breaths, alright? Just, breathe,” Harry coaxed. He exchanged a glance with Hermione and they both hover with worry over him. Ron tried to concentrate on their concern to relax himself.

“What’s wrong?” Hermione asked once Ron’s scales felt less itchy and stiff.

He shook his head. “I don’t understand the beastmaster’s fascination with hatching. It is a violent, dangerous affair that only the dams should see. Even my sire does not stay for it.”

Harry kept on patting his hand. Ron allowed the rhythm to soothe him. “You’re not the youngest, are you? So you must have seen one.”

Ron pulled the two of them to the castle. He’s manifesting more scales than usual and his tail itched to swing in agitation. He’s a bit too distracted to notice.

“My clutch-sister’s hatching almost tore a hole through my wings,” he explained, watching their eyes go wide. But it was in understanding, not fear. “Even if the beastmaster is half-giant, I don’t think he will survive it.”

“Do you think anyone in your family will help?” Hermione asked, already a couple of steps ahead. Ron absorbed her determination and admired her like his distant cousins admired their jewels.

“My clutch-brother Charlie is near the area in a quest. He might help,” he said after a moment’s thought.

.

Clutch-brother Charlie doesn’t smell like he appreciated the interruption to his quest. Ron does not care. The beastmaster gave him some nice things to his hoard and Ron would like more.

“The beastmaster has a dragon egg,” Ron said without preamble. Prolonging things was not how dragons worked. “It is about to hatch.”

Charlie’s eyes go wide and he looked exited. “There’s a den in the south whose dam is on a rampage. That might be it.”

Negotiating the release of the dragon egg from the beastmaster was infinitely more difficult, but like all giants, Hagrid accepted a trade once he realized that with the nature of Ron’s hoard, he could give away his memories like they were tangible. It still made him itch something fierce.

“I will let you see how my clutch-sister hatched,” Ron said, holding the shimmering star of a memory in between two forefingers. “And you must release that egg. I do not like to see you injured, which is what you will be if you continue.”

Harry patted his arm again, and Ron realized he’d slipped into archaic language in his irritation at the man.

Charlie watched their interaction with intent dragon-gold eyes.

As the dragon egg was finally wrapped up in Harry’s protection spells and cushion spells, Charlie dragged him to the side and hissed quietly enough that Hermione won’t hear.

“What are you doing, clutch-brother?” he asked. “It is against the rules to hoard a sentient.”

Ron frowned at him severely. “You know my hoard is not like that.”

Charlie looked disbelieving and Ron restrains the urge to roar at him in challenge. No dragon liked to be called a liar.

“Have care, clutch-brother,” Charlie said slowly. “Hoards change. Visit your hoarding place and notice. It is against the law.”

Ron’s nostrils flared. Charlie ruffled his hair apologetically and left.

.

Every once a month, Ron was allowed to change into a dragon and hunt in the forest.

Usually, he feasted on the herd of deer they have for the carnivorous magical beasts in Hogwarts. His irritation for Charlie fresh, however, he decided to land by a large lake and brood.

He’s not allowed to brood long, because a herd of unicorns passed by.

He kept himself still so they don’t startle.

It’s useless though, because Hermione flies through the air on top of a broom at breakneck speeds that should be reserved for the larger fliers only and not small pixies like Hermione. Her landing wasn’t graceful and it startled the unicorns to running.

Ron sighed. Belatedly, he wonders which mage she’d tricked into giving away their broom.

“He’s driving me insane!” Hermione started, not even giving a greeting. “He just discovered he could talk to Inanimate Objects and he’s now going through the trapdoor without me – us.“ she corrected herself hastily. “If he gets hurt, I’ll kill him.”

Ron blinked at her lazily and took in her frazzled air and the lightning shooting from her hair, frying everything around her with strange precision.

“The trapdoor?” he repeated, just for clarification. “Where on the griffins nest could he have learned that skill?”

Hermione stomped her foot. “You’re not taking this seriously. We should go after him. Ron!”

The thought of Harry getting injured is enough for Ron to move, so he laboriously gets up and shakes the birds that always end up sleeping on him for his body heat. Hermione backs away to give him space and looks nervous but unafraid. Just for that, Ron decided to allow her to ride on him.

“We will get there faster,” he said. “Get on me.”

Hermione clutched at his neck but whooped in exhilaration at his speed. Ron felt his nose twitch and settle into a dragon-grin and he hoarded her laughter, turning it into a gem for whenever she looked like she wanted to cry.

The herd of Alicorns flying their circuit around Hogwarts is enough of a screen so Ron alights down slowly, hiding his true-self and becoming smaller. It itched to be smaller after a whole day of being so large, but Ron pushed the thought away, it always took a while to be smaller.

“Third floor?” he asked her and she nodded.

They bounded through the corridors and the stairs, and in this, Hermione was faster than him. She was the daughter of a pixie and the grandchild of a lightning god. Hermione was fast, fleeting and vicious. Ron liked having her by his side while they tried to save the last descendant of Merlin’s wizarding line from his own curiosity.

“Fluffy?” Hermione asked, not even winded.

Ron expanded his lungs momentarily for more oxygen and nodded grimly. “I will take care of him.”

And Ron did. Fluffy, compared to his true-self, was smaller. He usually kept the awareness of his real size hidden and tucked away but faced with the Cerberus, Ron lets loose and allows the knowledge of his immense vastness and potential danger to the Cerberus.

Fluffy winced and cowered, leaving the trapdoor uncovered.

Hermione opened it with an admiring look aimed at him. “I know you’re a scary dragon,” she said as she dusted her palms. “But I sometimes forget it. You’re just such a mother, you know?”

Ron spluttered and Hermione grinned, diving into the hole with a flutter of skirts.

“I am not,” Ron protested, jumping after her.

Hermione’s laughter, no matter how inappropriate, was hoarded.

.

The Devil’s Snare was burned away with dragon fire. The keys were caught by Hermione, though there were some moments Ron feared she would electrocute herself. They flew over the Chess Pieces and dodged their attempted swipes to stop them. A swamp with the troll was a bit more troubling, given the charm that disabled flight, making Hermione hiss viciously at it. Luckily, the troll remembered Hermione and cowered.

The row of potion’s vials was a bit more troublesome, as was the fire.

“In my true-self, I can walk through fire fine,” Ron said irritably, eyeing the wall of black fire. “But if I change here, I might collapse the castle.”

Hermione mouthed along the riddle, glancing back at him occasionally with some worry. After a moment, she grasped two bottles.

“This one brings you forward. The other one beings you back,” she announced. She practically exuded worry.

Ron took the latter without hesitation. “I am a good strategist,” he explained when she looked like she might protest. “But I am not very good with short term, quick plans. You can take care of him better.”

Hermione bit her lip and hugged him extra hard.

Ron hoarded her fever-bright eyes and watched her back as she left.

.

Waiting was difficult.

Waiting was always difficult.

As a dragon, Ron knew patience and waiting for something. But waiting and not knowing was one of the worst combinations in the world.

He paced agitatedly at by the entrance to give poor Fluffy some peace.

He closed his eyes and mentally takes out the memories he had hoarded and goes through them one by one. He started with the gems of their laughter. The silver-bright of their smiles. The spun-gold brilliance of their happiness.

If one of his hoard – and yes, he was finally aware enough to realize that he had hoarded a sentient – if they died, Ron’s heart would break and he would rampage with the pain of it.

Steps, not coming from inside the room, take his attention and he sees Dumbledore. The White Mage’s eyes are wide.

“He’s gone inside???” he demanded.

Ron held back a growl with some difficulty. Being so worried was not good for his control.

“Yes. He discovered he could talk to Inanimate Objects.”

He wanted to bite something.

The headmaster took his hand with a questioning look and teleports them to the last room, the room that Ron had scented his hoard in but could not get to.

He restrained himself from flying to their aid.

The scent of rot in the air makes him recoil and he hissed involuntarily.

“Necromancer,” he growled.

The headmaster’s face was grave.

Poor Ron. To be continued.

[cadbanee]

what are your fav trans headcanons for star wars?

i love talking about these!!

pretty much any star wars trans headcanon is gonna be my fave haha (i’m always a slut for trans hcs!!) But some particular ones just stick out to me especially since you can really see them supported in canon

Anakin will always be trans to me first of all. Usually I see him as nonbinary but because this is anakin my actual trans hc of him fluctuates ? I can see him as a trans boy, or a trans girl, or genderfluid, even agender or bigender. There’s so much to Anakin as a character that I think there are a ton of ways his gender can be interpreted, and I can see canon support any/all of them!

Trans girl Ahsoka ... this doesn’t get talked about in fandom enough but Ahsoka is totally trans and Plo and Anakin are the Jedi who helped her get on hormone blockers and later estrogen (respectively). She has friends like Padme, Barriss, Aayla, and Riyo who she unconsciously ends up mimicking because she sometimes feels insecure about her mannerisms but overtime Ahsoka is able to embrace herself fully and doesn’t care about any gender norms or stereotypes. a loud and proud trans girl whom I adore

trans clones. TRANS CLONES. omg so many ideas for trans clones. Would the Kaminoeans even support much less educate clones on gender/sexuality? personally i doubt it. imagine clones questioning gender and clone medics having to sneak hormone treatment or surgeries to them. clones who hoard genders and clones who learn about all the other genders besides cisgender and educate fellow clones about them. clones adapting their own definitions of gender and how they present their genders. Just ..... trans clones ...

ON THAT NOTE, I’ve never seen hcs for trans Hutts either and I’d be down for getting into that too. And trans Nightsisters and Nightbrothers (how would that be handled considering Dathomirian culture I wonder??) I think those would be really interesting meta. not to mention how transitioning would look for various sentient species because that process would differ a lot.

and of course I hc Cad Bane as a trans male and/or genderfluid. I also hc that part of the reason his voice sounds distorted is because when he was younger he took hormones from the black market and they ended up causing damage to his voice. And the way he presents himself seems to fluctuate between masculine and feminine and i love watching it so much.

trans Kylo...which like Anakin i can actually see Kylo being either a trans girl or a trans boy. I got behind the trans girl Kylo hc because of the quote “your son is gone” which i know meant one thing but it could totally mean more. and his mannerisms convince me even more. but I can also see Kylo as a trans boy because of the mask that makes his voice sound deeper? either way, Kylo is definitely trans.

Hera Syndulla is trans and iT’S CANON!! the Twi’lek ear things?? yeah it’s canon

There are definitely other characters I could see as being trans too but pretty much any time someone has a Star wars trans hc I’m gonna love it a lot!!

[ladyhallen]

The Problems of Ronald Weasley - Fire Dragon

The Weasley’s are a family of fire-dragons, all of them born in one clutch but hatching slowly, as how it usually is with Molly’s line, the Great Dragons.

Ron thinks his family is weird.

This is attributed to coming across some dragon books and realizing that dragons were apparently supposed to be territorial and resent sharing space. He comes to terms with it though, like he comes to understand that while other dragons might be like that, the Weasley’s were different. He attributes this to his dam’s line, the Great Dragons of the East.

Ron’s hoard is achievements.

Not even great, outstanding achievements like his clutch-brother Bill achieves in Hogwarts School of Magical Creatures, or world-breaking achievements like his clutch-brother Charlie.

No, Ron’s hoard is a small collection of achievements, like watching the dawn through the first time on top of a hill. Making his dam laugh long and loudly after she’d argued with his sire and stank the den with her smoke in anger.

Ron’s hoard is small and understated, something his family struggles to understand. He understands why that is, though it doesn’t prevent the hurt from settling in.

After all, the entire family’s hoards are large, flashy and attention grabbing.

Bill hoarded beautiful things and guarded them. He was good friends with the Veela’s, and even moved there after he’d graduated, much to their dam’s dismay.

Charlie didn’t hoard things, but he chased after dangerous, exciting things. Usually adventures. He’d go through adventures in his human form and enjoyed the struggle of it. It was certainly attention grabbing. Mostly for their dams stress levels.

Percy hoarded facts. Everyone initially assumed he hoarded the printed word – libraries, but after clutch-sister Ginny had accidentally burnt his books and he didn’t get angry, they all realized that he’d already hoarded and memorized everything written and didn’t mind having the hard copies burnt.

The twins hoarded innovation. New things, exciting things and frequently invented them because the world moved too slow for them after all.

Ginny hoarded things that were different, like witch-sprite Luna who showed she was more sprite and less witch than the rest of her clan. This was difficult to their sire’s stress levels too, since sentient things are difficult hoards and there are rules about it that the government

Compared to that, was it any surprise that Ron’s small hoard is negligible? The twins even tease him sometimes, of having no hoard at all, that he wasn’t a dragon after all.

It hurt, but Ron persevered. His hoard may have been small, but it was still beautiful and he guarded it jealously.

.

Meeting Harry Potter, last descendant of Merlin’s line of Wizards, comes as a complete shock to Ron.

He wasn’t like Ginny, who’d damn near salivated over the thought of Harry Potter, so certain was she that she would belong in her hoard. Or Percy, who wanted to fill in the gaps of facts left when Harry Potter disappeared in the remnants a crumbling cottage in Godric’s Hollow.

No, he didn’t even know that he would become Harry Potter’s friend, and would come to hoard his laughter.

Ron inhales Harry’s firefly smiles and his quiet laughter. He devours the sun-brightness of Harry’s green eyes as he discovers wizarding sweets. (Dragon sweets are entirely different and entirely too expensive for him to waste time on. His dam made better anyway.)

“You’re a dragon!” Harry exclaimed, cheeks flushing red with amazement.

“Yeah,” Ron said shyly. “Uhm, the scientific term is fire-drake. But yeah, dragon.”

“You would be amazing in camping trips,” Harry declared. “Have you ever had that?”

“No..?”

“Camping trips are supposed to be cold and filled with a lot of bugs. I can take care of the bugs and you can take care of the cold. And the marshmallows…” Harry sighed dreamily.

Ron’s eyes were wide and he was blushing. “Uhm, thanks.”

And Harry became part of his hoard. Not that he would ever tell anyone that, making sentients part of hoards was against the rules and having such a famous wizard as part of his hoard somehow made it difficult to call it small and negligible.

.

Hermione Granger pixie half-blood became part of his hoard when she’d clambered on top of a deranged mountain troll screaming in terror but still determined to save Harry’s life.

Ron watched the proceedings with wide eyes, half afraid to Change into his larger shape for fear of squashing something important and half determined to do it anyway, if only to keep his hoard alive.

“Let go of him!” she’d shrieked, pixie eyes going bright with anger but deceptively strong arms wrapping around the Trolls thick neck and squeezing anyway.

“Protection of the Seven – ah!” Harry yelped, clutching his staff for dear life. Apparently, being a world-famous wizard at birth meant nothing when he couldn’t remember anything at all for sheer terror.

“What do you need?” Ron asked Hermione loudly, knowing that the pixie had a plan. Ron didn’t mind asking her, his plans were long term and often took a long time to execute. Her plans were quick, fast and better for skirmishes like that.

“Get Harry down!” she yelled. Her hair was starting to crackle with lightning and Ron abruptly recalled that she’d said her sire had once been a hero and had swallowed a lightning strike. “I can’t concentrate like this.”

Manifesting his tail was infinitely easier than manifesting a hand or leg. It was safer too, less chances of collapsing the school. Their clutch were all large and collapsing something was a definite probability.

He grabbed Harry with some concentration and the wizard helped, hand releasing something that smelled like the crashing of the tides and made the troll yelp.

“You alright?” Ron asked, restraining the urge to sniff Harry just to make sure. Sniffing was bad etiquette, especially without asking.

“Fine,” Harry panted. “I hate being useless.”

Ron patted him. “You just panicked. It’s alright. Now, let’s see if we can rescue the troll from Hermione.” Ron hoarded Harry’s startled laugh.

Hermione definitely didn’t need rescuing. The troll smoked when they checked and her hair smoothed itself again. Her pixie eyes went back to its normal color and she jumped down delicately.

Both boys eyed her with varying degrees of trepidation.

“Well, that was simple. I wonder why I panicked in the first place,” she murmured.

Ron hoarded her smug smile and Harry’s indignant protests.

.

Having Hermione as a friend was infinitely better, because taking care of Harry Potter’s laughter was a full time job. One firedrake couldn’t do it alone.

Harry had the tendency to attract trouble, realize what he’d done wrong and then mope about it. It drove a dragon mad.

Hermione realized his problem by the third incident. Ron liked her immensely. She solved a lot of his worries for his hoard.

“You need to learn more about Magic and Creatures Harry or one day, you’d get eaten no matter how famous your line is,” Hermione declared, thumping a book of Creatures on top of Harry’s homework about protective barriers and ignoring Ron’s whimper of distress at the thought of his hoard being eaten.

Harry pouted. “It’s not my fault everyone expects me to just know not to pull a were-cats tail, or that it would be extremely rude to ask if they hack up hairballs after the full moon.”

Ron determinedly did not laugh. That had been a fun afternoon, playing chase with the pack of were-cats and keeping away from an angry McGonagall. In the end, Hermione had caught the both of them and reamed Harry out for not controlling his impulses and Ron for enabling him. (Ron adored her lectures, she was the only one in Hogwarts brave enough to lecture a dragon.)

“No, it’s not your fault that your Aunt is a bigot and pretends that the Other World doesn’t exist. It is your fault that you continue to be ignorant. Hogwarts houses the most comprehensive magical library in the world and you didn’t even bother to research!”

That, she had a point. Poor Harry hung his head and reached for the book. Ron frowned and patted his shoulder in a gesture of solidarity.

“If the book confuses you about dragons, you can ask me,” Ron said kindly. “A lot of things about dragons are wrong.”

Harry’s grateful look is another one for the hoard.

“If the book confuses you about pixies, don’t ask me,” Hermione said irritably. “I’m a half-pixie, half-human, half-god. It’s amazing I didn’t explode into stardust the moment I was born.”

Ron whined at her low in his throat, knowing she alone would hear. He didn’t like to hear anyone exploding. At all.

“Half-god?” Harry asked, looking up from the book with relief.

“My dad was a hero,” she explained. “And heroes have some of a god’s essence or something, after they get chosen. My dad’s supposed to belong to a fire god in the east, but he swallowed a lightning strike so his magic got confused. So he retired.”

“How did he marry your mother?” Ron asked, finally unloading a curiosity that had plagued him since he met her.

Pixies were vengeful, vicious creatures that held long grudges. They were small and minded their own business. They were also increasingly difficult to find, given that Voldemort had marched most of his undead army through their forest. (That was part of what decimated his army, given that the pixies had gotten angry at the army trampling on their houses.)

Heroes had adventures all over the place and often offended pixies.

They ought not to have married at all.

“She saved his life by accident,” Hermione said. “And he accidentally started a pixie courting ritual when he thanked her.”

Harry sighed dreamily. “Your family is amazing,” he said. “My mum was a witch, but my aunt was ordinary so she left the Other World. My dad apparently offended my uncle somehow, so they spent my entire life insisting I was crazy for seeing the Other World. It wasn’t until Hagrid came that I realized I wasn’t crazy, just different.”

Ron patted Harry again. It soothed his irritated feelings.

“Now, don’t keep stalling me, Harry Potter. Read the book,” she said firmly.

Harry sighed and went back to his book.

.

Dumbledore banned entry to the third floor corridor and Hermione’s curiosity went crazy. Harry’s too.

“Aren’t pixies supposed to not care about things that don’t concern them?” Ron asked, mostly to stall the pair from charging inside the room.

“Blame my father,” she answered, like all times she’d gone against a pixie’s habits. “Heroes are supposed to investigate curiosities, you know. And help people.”

Ron arched an eyebrow at Harry. “And what’s your excuse?”

Harry smiled sunnily, having finally caught on what made Ron relax. It didn’t help his gnawing sense of foreboding.

“I want to know,” he declared. “There’s something overwhelmingly magical hidden here and I want to know why. It’s keeps asking for my attention.”

Ron had felt that too, but he’s not the sort to hoard curiosities. Percy might have, but being Prefect might have distracted him too much.

With a sigh, Ron helped them open the door, Harry’s magic glowing a gentle green that made his eyes shine bright.

“Oh my gosh that’s a Cerberus!” Hermione squealed.

Ron wasn’t too intimidated, his other self was fairly larger than the Cerberus, but that was a lot of teeth. It was impressive.

“How do we put him to sleep?” Ron asked, mostly to himself. “All Cerberus have weaknesses.”

The Cerberus finally noticed the three of them and advanced. Hermione noticed first and grabbed their hands and dragged them to the door, closing it with finality.

“Let’s not do that again,” Hermione declared.

Ron tried not to be too outraged at the hypocrisy. He arched an eyebrow at her, hoping it conveyed how he felt.

Hermione blushed. “Sorry Ron.”

“We can ask Hagrid!” Harry said, finally showing some sense that he ought to have inherited from his witch of a mother. “He’s the beastmaster so he should know these things.

.

Hagrid did indeed know.

And he was such an awful liar that the trio didn’t even need Ron’s nose or Harry’s truth spell to know.

“So why is your Cerberus stuck in the third floor?” Hermione asked, eyes glinting.

“Not my Cerberus,” Hagrid tried to interrupt.

“So he’s stuck there and no one’s visiting?” Ron prodded, catching on.

“I bring him some cow every Sunday,” was the answer.

Ron hoped his face didn’t show his amusement. That was almost too easy. Harry had no such thought to the half-giant’s dignity and laughed. Hermione smirked with a pixie’s triumph, eyes glowing for a moment. Ron hoarded their smiles and laughter, and guiltily included Hagrid’s sighs too. It was a beautiful sound, if a bit unhappy one.

Hagrid sighed in defeat and answered.

.

“So the headmaster’s elf friend is taking a vacation and decided to leave his treasures inside Hogwarts,” Hermione summarized. “And the headmaster, in all his wisdom, realized that leaving it unguarded would be very bad.”

Ron snorted, inadvertently releasing a gust of smoke. “Hogwarts is secure, but it has too much traffic,” he said with scorn. “If you have to hide treasure, put it in a place where no one will die if you place lethal protection.”

Being a dragon, he knew how to defend hoards. Even if his wasn’t tangible, it was just instinct.

“Lethal protection?” Harry asked, cocking his head to the side.

In reply, Ron showed his teeth.

Hermione huffed and Harry’s eyes went wide. Ron hoarded their lack of fear.

.

Rooming with a part dryad, part elf had its difficulties.

For one, when Neville had a nightmare, which he had often, his plants enveloped the room and removed all exits, basically making a cocoon.

This would be fine, since Ron liked closed spaces and he could burn his way through, if he wanted.

The problem was that Seamus was a Fire Sprite and tended to explode things when he was surprised or terrified.

And hurting a dryads plants was a big faux pas. Right up there with asking were-cats about hair balls.

Luckily, they had Harry, who was fast learning useful spells.

Also unluckily, they had Harry, whose spells tended to explode when he didn’t concentrate on it properly.

“You have to change our rooms, Professor McGonagall,” Ron said. He didn’t know what his face showed, but her eyes were a bit wide. He was serious though. He didn’t want to make his Harry cry, which he did when a spell exploded on him.

“I’ll see to removing Mr. Longbottom to the Green Dorms,” she said. “Where he should have been at the very beginning. Who did your room placements?”

Ron didn’t know, he just got it from the prefects.

Her nostrils flared and her eyes turned cat-yellow in irritation. “I will get to the bottom of this. And you should not have Harry rooming with you, he should be sleeping in the Magical dorms.”

This, Ron did not like. He straightened his back and raised his chin – a dragon defending his hoard.

“Do not remove him, he is bearable,” Ron said, archaic speech spilling out in his urgency. “I will thank you to not interfere with him.”

McGonagall sighed but Ron smelled her resignation and didn’t push the point.

..

To be continued