Turns Out All My Middle School Obsessions Are Back

Why did I enjoy this? Well, I think having Blue lack this (for this setting) very ubiquitous mobility option created some interesting challenges for the group to overcome. Challenges that aren't seen very often in this series and that I thought felt very fresh as a result.

See, there is a set of common issues you tend to run into when you give your protagonists access to free and convenient flight. It makes travelling almost trivial. It becomes much harder to challenge your heroes through putting some kind of treacherous landscape in between them and their goal, because unless said goal is inside that landscape, there is little stopping them from just soaring over it and laughing at you.

Maybe that is something you welcome. Perhaps the idea of Clay and friends having to rough it out in the wilderness for weeks, evading patrols and slowly making their way to their destinations doesn't appeal to you. You might prefer them to just fast-travel to the next big location because that's where the plot is. And that is a perfectly valid opinion to hold. Spending story time camping on a dusty trail might be a total pace killer.

But for me, a little bit of magic is lost if you can theoretically access any point on the continent with at most two days of flying. It makes the world feel kind of small. I yearn for that kind of trail filler, putting me into proximity to all the settlements on the way and exposing me to their little quirks and cultures.

Another aspect I liked about Blue's initial flightlessness was that it gave us another dragon body type to appreciate. The physiological diversity in Wings of Fire is... rather shallow. Barring injuries and some dragons having a harder time lighting a fire, everyone has roughly the same body shape and array of abilities to work with: Flight, something that kills, and in some cases one utility ability (like invisibility or darkvision). But very few have specific physiological shortcomings. I liked Blue's situation because it gave him a very glaring and obvious weakness that the others had to work around. That was interesting to me, having to conceive of ways to get him up cliffs or down to a deeper hive level.

I kind of wish there was more of that, dragons having to consider the weaknesses of their physiological makeup and planning around it. Like, if I really think about it, passing through the desert should be a huge problem for characters like Tsunami, Turtle, and Anemone, and being in the humid rainforest would be a struggle for Sunny and Qibli. The only instances I can think of where anything like that happens is with Clay's temperature-based breath weapon and Winter noting that proximity to a volcano makes his frostbreath less effective.

I’m maybe picturing a little side story on the way from the rainforest to Blaze’s fortress, where the group is crossing the desert and has to barter with some shady Sandwing water merchant because Tsunami is in danger of drying out. Maybe the merchant could say something like “If you don’t like my prices, you can go get your throat slit in the Scorpion Den instead,” setting up that place as bad news. Then when Sunny goes there in her book, people will recognize it and have appropriate expectations of it as a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

I don’t know, it could be fun.

So I guess if there are any aspiring authors of dragon xenofiction reading this, I leave you with this bit of unsolicited advice: Think about the physiology of your dragon characters and do not be afraid to give them appropriate gaps in their skillsets. Not every dragon needs to be able to fly, or do the same things every other dragon can. Sometimes it is fun watching your characters have to think of clever ways to cover for each other's shortcomings. That is how bonds are formed.

Those are my I'm-falling-asleep-and-am-rambling-nonsense thoughts of today. Let's hope they'll still make sense to me when I wake up again.

Once upon a time, there was a small RainWing who loved everyone. Kinkajou paused.

She dipped her claw in the ink and scribbled out the last word. Once upon a time, there was a small RainWing who loved almost everyone. Which is fair enough, right? I mean, who could love every dragon? Some of them were even hard to like.

For instance, she had this one venom training teacher who was very mean to her. Not to name names. It was Bromeliad.

So she definitely didn't have to love her. I mean, would you? Also, this one time, our hero was kidnapped by NightWings, and most of them were even meaner than Bromeliad. And they were like that on purpose, because they were trying to scare everyone.

And listen, I know they had hard lives, but kidnapping dragons and being awful to them is still not okay, right? So it's alright to still be mad at some of them even a while later, don't you think? Also, some of her RainWing friends even noticed she was kidnapped, which made her love them a little bit less than she wanted to, although she really did love them lots before, but how could they not even care that she was missing? Oh, and also, there was this one big old shape-shifting dragon who attacked her so hard- Kinkajou stopped and wrinkled her snout with a scroll. This story was turning out a lot grumpier than she had planned. She slipped over her shoulder at her best friend.

Across the cave, Moon was curled up with her own scrolls, studying intently. She had her very serious Moon look on, which meant she probably didn't want to give Kinkajou writing advice right that exact second. Which was fine, Kinkajou could do this herself.

She pushed the grumpy scroll off her writing rock and spread out a brand new one. Right, let's try this again. How else did stories about heroes start? Kinkajou tried to remember some of the ones she had studied in school this year.

There was that one scroll that Webs assigned for history class about a brave SeaWing from long ago. It was kind of weird how many scrolls were about amazing SeaWings, honestly. She remembered it started with a story from when a SeaWing was a dragonet.

That was tricky, though. Kinkajou didn't really like talking about her life before she met Queen Glory. Because back then, she was the noisy one, and the one who talked way too much, and, oh no, here comes Kinkajou, and the troublemaker.

She thought her friends still liked her and didn't really mind that she was a little different. But then, none of them had cared when she was kidnapped, so that would seem to indicate that maybe they didn't like her that much after all. It didn't matter, though.

Kinkajou had Glory and Moon now, and other friends at Jade Mountain Academy, who she was pretty sure liked her. Hopefully, most of the time. Also, she wasn't thinking about this.

Okay, perhaps she could start her story with the time she was kidnapped by NightWings. Whoa, that was such a gloomy beginning. It had been horrible on the NightWing Island until Glory showed up and rescued her.

Glory was shiny and brave and smart and cared a lot about all dragons, including dragons she'd never even met. And she was very different from every other NightWing, but it didn't bother her at all. Kinkajou hoped she would be like that one day, all cool and unbothered.

Maybe she should wait to write her story until she was a little more like Glory. No, no. Starflight said to start writing for the practice.

I can write something. Today. Yes.

Here I go. Kinkajou went over the new scroll. Once upon a time, there was a RainWing named Kinkajou.

Most dragons would think, oh, that dragon is small and harmless and frequently pink. And she smiles too much. So who needs to worry about her? Certainly not us, the bad guys who want to take over the world.

What are the chances a tiny RainWing can stop us? None, that's what. We turn up our arrogant bad guy noses to her. Well, guess what? All those bad guys were wrong.

Turns out even little smiley dragons can save the world. More than once, in fact.

“Oops.” Kinkajou said, accidentally out loud.

“Oops what?” Moon said absentmindedly. Kinkajou sighed.

“I think I just did the thing where I gave away the ending in the first couple of paragraphs again.”

Moon looked up and blinked at the drift of scrolls piled around Kinkajou's talons.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm writing the very exciting, long-awaited, extremely dramatic epic of Kinkajou that readers everywhere have been demanding. Well, I'm trying to. Moon, did you know that writing is actually very hard?”

Moon laughed, and Kinkajou repressed the urge to run across the cave and hug her.

“I just can't figure out where to start.” A wave of concerned laughter rippled across Kinkajou's wings. She paused, took a deep breath, and turned the back to sunflower yellow.

Yellow was for happiness. Yellow made other dragons happy, too. Yellow and pink, the colors Kinkajou wanted everyone to see, and the colors she wanted to be inside and out.

“That's normal, I think,” Moon said. She rubbed her forehead, frowning a little. “Maybe try writing down everything that flies through your brain, and then you can edit it later.”

“I have a lot of things that fly through my brain.”

“I know, but it's all wonderful,” Moon said, which made Kinkajou want to hug her again. And that's when Starflight-

“Oh. Ow.” She folded over, clutching her head. Her silver speckled black wings unfurled like billowing distress signals.

“Moon!” Kinkajou cried. The ink bottle spilled a long shadow across the blank scrolls as she leapt to her feet and flew across the cave. “Moon, are you alright? Moon?” She wrapped her wings around her friend and pressed her front talons over Moon's.

“No, no,” Moon whispered.

“What is it? You can't be doing another prophecy!” Kinkajou shook her gently. It hasn't been long enough since the last one.

“It's Glory,” Moon gasped, her eyes flying open.

“Glory?” Kinkajou's heart stopped. “Queen Glory? My Queen Glory?”

“She's in danger. They all are. Something is about to... I can't…” Moon closed her eyes again, clutching her talons like she wanted to drive her claws into her head and drag the visions out.

That was all Kinkajou needed to hear. Or rather, she would have been delighted to hear more, such as extremely specific details about danger and how to stop it. But she had witnessed Moon's visions before, and the thing was that it could take forever to spit them out.

And even once Moon shared everything she saw, the details part was always still kind of vague and unhelpful. So, Glory in danger and upset, Kinkajou was out the window before Moon could open her eyes again.

“Wait!” Moon shouted. “Kinkajou, come back! We need help, and if you... We have to…”

Whatever she said next was lost to the wind, rushing around the peaks of Jade Mountain. Kinkajou soared toward the rainforest as fast as her wings could beat. Moon could go tell someone in charge and ask for help and organize whatever official mission needed to happen.

Secretkeeper & Moon • I understand theres a lot of reasonable hate for Secretkeeper but!!! I find her & moon to be a very fascinating pair! To make a long ass thought short, I think Secretkeeper is the embodiment of “product of her environment & deeply traumatize & projecting”. I think she genuinely really loves moon but obviously expresses that through being “”protective””. But I think shes genuinely a character with a capacity for change & realizing the autonomy Moon has over her own powers. Also from the perspective of Moon I think her arc around her relationship with her mom could be really interesting, especially as Secretkeepers authority becomes challenged in Moons life & she has to confront the bullshit her mother has put her through. Overall very very interesting pair I think about them a lot.

Design Note: Secretkeeper is duller in color than Moon & has less stars due to lack of moon light on the island! Also the scales around her mouth are almost completely black, making her mouth barely visible, giving her the name “Secretkeeper” as she “has no mouth to tell others secrets.”

Tsunami & Starflight • Just one of my fav siblings! This specific illustration is from the Arena Scene in Dragonet Prophesy! I really really love Tsu & Starflights dynamic of looking up to eachother & their development together just. So neat!

Design Note: Starflight has very few constellation marks in this illustration as he hasnt spent much time under moonlight quite yet!

Shark & Abalone • One of my more out-there ships! I based this on the thought that Shark was once close with Abalone (cough. Husbands.) and that relates to why he was willing to give Tortoise a lunch-break from watching the eggs. He already saw someone close to him die from being overworked to watch the clutch, he didn’t want to watch another dragon die from his sisters selfishness. I could write an essay on these two I swear

Deisgn Note: Shark is based on a tiger shark & abalone is based on real abalones! hes one of my fav designs here

Six-Claws & Ostrich • He’s just a sweet dad! the little we see of him he seems to really love her & vice-versa <3 they’re just neat

Design Note: Six-Claws is based on a king cobra & is a specific sub-“species” of hooded Sandwings ! Burn found his hood mutation & six-claws super interesting

Tamarin & Pike • My fav background friendship! They’re just fun. I like Pike just chillin out around Tamarin & describing flower colors to her to the best of his ability (she just likes to hear him ramble about a shared interest)

Design Notes: I updated how I draw Tamarins eyes to properly resemble a blind-born dragon ! Also Pike’s deisgn got some yellow in it and I really like it <3

Whiteout & Thoughtful • I just think they’re neat!! They just seem like a sweet pair love them

Design Note: none really! Just experimenting with a rando Thoughtful design that I tossed together for my “ships tier list”

Tsunami • Its just her :) my fav dragon <3!!! I definitely dont think she upholds the “princess” title once she gets older, her only link to the throne is by Coral insisting monthly visits but Tsu otherwise wouldn’t be any interesting in royal life I would imagine

Design Note: Shes caught a waaururrghh something im going bonkers I cant remember what fish that is and my reference photo seems to have dissipated into the cosmos

Anemone • I LOVE HER. SO MUCH ! Anemone haters BACK OFF!!!! Her relationship to her powers is so fucked man. Something you’d think would give her power & control is just a key by which others use to manipulate and abuse her like . Man :( shes literally never had any autonomy over her own identity & intermingled her powers into her identity So Much only for that aspect of herself to also be revealed to be a facade for someone else’s desires like. GUH I love her so much I hope shes having a good day I dont care what anyone says she deserves to be a brat and I support her for it

Design Note: none really! The stars in her talons are just metaphorical though

Snowflake & Snowfox • THE OGS!!!!!! MY FAVORITE PROBLEMATIC LESBIANS <3 Ahhh remember in the early days when they were considered the #1 most problematic ship because they were gay and also evil. I love the evil lesbians so much they’re so shitty sorry Darkstalker Snowfox should’ve been queen I would’ve loved to see that go down it’d be so silly

Design Notes: Snowfox is based on an arctic fox shedding into their summer coat!! I know its p . Away from canon descriptors of her but it was sm fun to illustrate so shhh <3 Snowflake is just grey & blueish per-canon but shes sooo fun. love her.

Okay thats all here are the individual illustrations now !!!!! Because why not !!! If these aren’t transparent its all over