#the marked dragon prince

[bookloveravenue]

The Marked Dragon Prince (book 1): Ruthless Mate by Jen L. Grey

Two dragon princes. Arranged to marry one. Kidnapped by the other.

I’d always hoped to marry for love.

Fate had other plans.

My mundane life gets spun off its axis when my family is threatened.

The price of protection for the people I love?

A forced marriage to a handsome, enigmatic man who holds… dark secrets.

He’s fighting a war I didn’t even know existed.

Thrust into the world of the supernatural, I’m kidnapped by his brother.

And now, I’ve become a pawn in their sinister game.

I shouldn’t be attracted to my captor.

But something about Thorn overpowers my soul and makes me want to forget all the unforgivable things he’s done.

Yet, none of it matters in the end.

I won’t let my family suffer, which means going back to the man I must marry to save them.

Even if it destroys me.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63284182-ruthless-mate

********

March 20, 2023

My Review: 5/5 Stars

All Everly wanted to do was go to med school and keep the promise to her mother that she would look after her half-siblings. Even if that meant dealing with her less than welcome stepfather. And when she hears her stepfather owes a lot of money to a powerful man named Drake and if he doesn't come up with the money, he'll take her younger sister as compensation. Unable to live with that, she goes to Drake and tells her to take her instead. If that means marrying a horrible man then so be it. She'll do it to protect her sister. But there is a lot more going on than she realizes. And when she and a woman who was supposed take her to Drake are kidnapped by Thorn, well Everly is about to learn there is a whole world she doesn't know about. Specifically: dragons. And her deal with Drake? Not so simple after all. And then there is Thorn. Her attraction to him is unreal and though she tries to fight it, it's not so easy. Not when she learns the truth about who he is, not when he saves her life and in doing so changes her forever. There is a war brewing in the dragon world and Everly is fight smack in the middle of it. I loved this first book of Jen's new series! I'm so excited to see this new story unfold with dragons and the new set of rules from Jen's other supernatural series. This first book promises romance, danger, and the supernatural in ways we haven't seen yet. Everly and Thorn are a great new pair of heroes and I can't wait to see how their story unfolds.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[m4rs-ex3]

2x09 // 6x09 // 6x06

truth, mind, and heart

[withdenim]

Furry on furry yearning, that’s my jam

[tategaminu]

manifesting more scenes like this please

[jellydrawsposts]

As much as it pains me I can’t imagine Corvus staying at Katolis Castle and I do NOT think Soren would take that news well

[vaguely-concerned]

so for obvious reasons, rye is not generally all that popular with most of the senior watchers. however. I think there is a certain type of younger watcher to whom he is The ultimate hot badboy icon and fantasy. (we're talking about a group of extreme indoor kid goth nerds who've barely been outside. it doesn't take a lot ot achieve bad boy status in this context and the only thing in this world that lasts forever is a bad reputation in a small insular group like the watchers.) it's SO funny because rye thinks of himself as such a disappointing fuckup of a son of the grand necropolis. and meanwhile there are novices kicking their feet and giggling as they're like

'Ingellvar is so cool. no one knows where he's from he was found down here as a baby. mysterious orphan appeal. he could be a secret dalish prince or something for all we know. (*annoyed extra nerd watcher novice voice*: umm actually the dalish don't have princes, merrivar?? read a real book sometime maybe???) he's a rebel. he doesn't care what the senior watchers think no time for politics he just gets the job done. (*small sad rye voice* I care a lot what the senior watchers think actually. a pathetic amount, in fact. it just rarely seems like it helps anything at all) I heard he graduated almost top of his class even though he spent all his time as a student partying up in the city and having a torrid affair with the son of a noble family. sometimes in his spare time he wears a cool punk leather jacket but like the fantasy version of that. he has tattoos apparently but no one's seen them for years. yuh-uh it's true too, I know someone who knows someone he dated once. they say he saw a knife fight once. like, in a bar brawl, with living people. all that, and he's even sneakily emotionally unavailable. *starry-eyed sigh* what a dreamboat'.

needless to say this only grows worse with the events of the game, after he takes out the formless one and rumours start to spread that he maybe killed a god or something too???? and this being nevarra, more importantly he's out there killing dragons with his sworn companions?? like a fucking fairytale prince but with that devil-may-care rebellious streak???? he's the safely unavailable first crush at a distance of many a young watcher. now imagine the reaction when he shows up home for the first time in a year after the war of the banners accompanied by The one true bad boy fantasy to rule them all: literally the sad brooding crown prince of the crows of antiva in leather pants who has WINGS and a dark tortured side of his nature that he has to constantly battle against for the sake of those he loves.

(the perception vs. reality situation for both of these characterizations is. so unspeakably hilarious needless to say. consider how much of the above lucanis characterization is accurate to the person he actually is and then you've basically found the level of distortion lens being applied to rye as well. is most of it technically true? sure. 'technically' is having to do a whole world of heavy lifting there tho fhdfska)

what I'm really saying here is that there is a subsection of this group that's been ferociously writing rye/lucanis rpf from the moment they were seen trotting down into the necropolis depths together (other pairings within the lighthouse gang as a whole, caught in tantalizing glimpses as they visit the necropolis, of course having their own devotees), and when this fandom subgroup eventually discover they were right it's with all the insane glee of a sixteen year old fanfic writer on wattpad (is that still where the kids are these days. idk i'm getting old folks) finding out that their dark mafia prince AU is basically true. varric might be gone but the legacy of friendfiction lives on after him. the king of thedas rpf being the shoulders of titans that young watchers are standing on to write fevered WILDLY inaccurate depictions of the private life of two of the most low-key domestic quietly devoted and undramatic people on the continent, one of them being varric's own poor little meow meow slash mentee, is something that can actually be so personal. rye does not end up terribly famous in the end considering the shit he manages to get done in this game, and he thanks his lucky stars for it. but to a tight-knit community of mourn watch fic writers he is blorbo from my apocalypse. it's all I could have wished for him.

(funniest possible outcome of all this: myrna gets so fucking tired of trying to understand what the novices are being so tittery about that she asks rye 'watcher ingellvar with the realization that this is a long shot and the admission that vorgoth and I have exhausted all other avenues of investigation: do you possess secret insight about what an 'x reader' is. and also 'ship war'. your name seems to come up in this context a surprising amount'. 9000000 points of incoming psychic damage about to hit the fan.)

[mistxmood]

mods are asleep post more doodles

[elderscrollsconceptart]

Nafaalilargus Descends on Prince A'tor

Concept art for The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard - Introduction slide

Art by Mark Jackson

[moon-sky-sun-earth-ocean-stars]

Karim's markings

Did I'm the only one who noticed Karim doesn't have face marking like the rest of the sunfire elves? I really wonder why. I noticed earthblood elves don't use it but the sunfire elves does, so it feels like he is not supporting the tradition or something.

[cosmicpoutine]

i know nothing about shibari therefore this is not accurate i just searched some references and speedran this in like 40 minutes

[kradogsrats]

Been noodling idly on something about Aaravos's tiddies chest marking for a while, and since @raayllum just did a big update/summary of the "Aaravos's heart is in the Key" theory... I thought it might be time to put my little thinky-thoughts out there.

In short form: Aaravos's Star primal chest marking is not a natural feature of Startouch elves. It's a brand.

In long form: My initial question was "why, if we have the primordial Star symbol associated with the Celestial elves and with Aaravos himself, would he then have the primal Star symbol front-and-center on his literal body?"

None of the other primal elves have birthmarks or tattoos of the primal sources. (That we've seen. Runaan's might be on his butt or something.) "Actually, all elves are physically marked with the symbol of the primal they are connected to" would also be a very weird lore drop to have this late in the series. So why do Startouch elves have them?

Well, the answer is... they don't. This is a feature unique to Aaravos, and it's an important feature.

For give my heinous artbook page photos, they want thirty-five literal dollars for a digital copy:

What do nearly all of these designs have in common? They don't have their dang tiddies out. We only see what would become the chest mark in the far right and teeny bottom second from the right designs on the second page. Note that in these designs, its nature as a hole or source of corruption is much more obvious—in the far right design, it's even spreading cracks or veins across his body in the same way that dark magic affects humans. (Thank god they didn't go with that single horn, though. The fanfics would have been obscene.) Either way, Aaravos's chest being constantly, readily visible wasn't a design factor until some point where it was determined that it needed to be, because of what would be there.

Furthermore, I'm convinced that Aaravos's design and the use of the Star primal symbol on his chest informed the design of the symbol itself:

Look how much basically none of the unused ones resemble the final design. The one they chose is a total outlier from the direction all the other designs take, but it's also the one that works really well as part of Aaravos. It's the only symmetrical design, and it's simple and solid where the others are busy in a way that would interact poorly with Aaravos's already star-studded skin. (I did a broader analysis of the primal source symbol designs a while back, if you want more.

So Aaravos and the Star primal symbol were designed in a symbiotic way, knowing that it would be a prominent feature for him. Let's take a look at it, then.

In every official appearance of the Star primal symbol, from Rayla's drawing of them to Claudia's spellbook, from the cover of Tales of Xadia to the Mystery of Aaravos titling... the Star primal symbol is in the opposite orientation from the one on Aaravos's chest.

Except in two specific instances: the book page with the Midnight Star poem, and the Key as held by the Orphan Queen in the flashback sequence:

Both of which are referencing Aaravos specifically, and in a specific way—as the one who gifted dark magic to Elarion, and as a deceiving manipulator.

But it's pretty clear that Aaravos's chest star is upside-down. Falling, you might even say. It has also always been that way: we see both in the s1e1 intro shot of the elves preparing to cast the humans out of Xadia and in the much more recent s4e3 flashback sequences that it has the same orientation even before he's imprisoned. It's also there (and I'm 90% sure in the same orientation) in the s6e1 photo leaks (spoilers).

This key element of Aaravos's design is a) not a natural feature, b) very specifically oriented, and c) has been with him as far back as we have thus far seen, to what we are generally assuming for the moment was his "fall."

So, in combination with the "something (literal heart or no) was removed from Aaravos when he "fell" and may be connected with the Key" theory: either in conjunction with or as part of that process, Aaravos was branded, on his body for all to see, with the mark of a fallen star. Then he absolutely owns it with his tits-out outfit, presumably out of sheer fabulous spite, and no one around him actually knows what it means—that he's a punished exile, a piece of himself or his power stolen and/or corrupted.

[m4rs-ex3]

july 5th: hands/touch starved

i was going to actually draw shit but i realized i can't fucking draw hands so it's mostly traced hand holding + a silly little doodle

[luniviravosshipper]

I don’t know if anyone else pointed this out yet, so I’m just going to put it out there to consider.

In the background of the title card we see 7 stars falling.

And, although I could have counted incorrectly since the image isn’t the clearest, there appears to be 7 spirit like beings in the background of the new season 6 poster. Not to mention, but they also seem to be rising in juxtaposition to the stars falling in the title card.

I have a feeling that these two images are showing the same people.

Interestingly enough though, the people that are possibly represented in the title card are represented as stars. However, as many other people have made note of when the poster was released, none of the people shown in the poster have horns or star like markings that could indicate they were Startouch elves or creatures. At least, not any of the ones we’ve already seen, like Aaravos, Leola, or the Merciful One. And that includes the person portrayed at the bottom of the poster.

It’s hard to tell if they’re really humans either though, mainly because of the coloring and blurriness of the image. So who’s to say that they’re not Startouch beings?

Anyways, I think whatever the case is, they seem to have some significance to Aaravos and are maybe even related to his goals in the show. Maybe they’re other fallen Startouch elves that Aaravos is planning to in some way save? Or maybe they’re actually dead and he was reviving or releasing their souls in some way in the poster? Or maybe they mean something else to him entirely?

[chernobog13]

A giant-size komodo dragon attacks in the days of King Arthur!

[night-crawler08]

I just finished S6 of The Dragon Prince, and I loved it‼️

I especially loved Claudia and Terry this season and their dynamic, and since I don’t have my sketch book on me and I’m terrible at coming up with fanfic plots, I’ve decided to bless(?) you all with my ibisPaint drawing I did in like under a few minutes to show my love for them💞

They’re simultaneously going to make each other better and worse, and I love them for it.

(also go watch the dragon prince if you haven’t yet)

Okay that’s all I wanted to post goodbye