Don't have an account yet? 
Forum Thread
journal of tiny bird
Forum-Index → Diaries → journal of tiny bird
Posted: Tue, 17/12/2019 13:07 (4 Years ago)
oh, hello there! thank you for reading this, i kinda figured no one would.
an introduction's in order, i guess. i'm rookidee (formerly pyralspite), and i like bird pokemon and dark colors. a personality test i once took marked me as 100% introvert. i'm also prone to forgetting things.
i really like pink shinies for some reason.
maybe one day i'll format this better? i'm probably never getting around to it, but i can dream.
here you'll find random snippets and musings about things i've experienced and progress reports of goals in pokeheroes and maybe other games. all entries will be spoilered so that scrolling is faster.
sometimes i'll post drabbles of random story ideas i have.
again, thank you for stopping by.
Posted: Tue, 17/12/2019 14:06 (4 Years ago)
Show
hidden content
☆ 17
dec 2019
writing entries in purple brings back memories.
changed username today, still unused to it. i'm so glad it wasn't taken yet. gonna change my avatar once i get back to my computer.
i can't start the vanillite shiny hunt until the cosmog egg hatches, which seems like it'll take quite a while yet. getting a little impatient.
the new pokemon anime is full of ship bait (intentional? maybe to draw more fans who will then make fan content and then give free advertisement?), but it seems fine so far. i don't think there's a dub yet so i'll just hone my pokemon recognition skills with the subbed version. i'm already used to the voice acting, so switching to the dub might feel strange. will probably just stick to the sub.
seeing corviknight/armorga made me happy, but yamper/wanpachi truly is best boi. there seems to be a focus on the smaller details about pokemon, with the scene where gou and ash first meet drawing attention to how fins for flying and swimming are different. really excited for more scenes like that, wonder if they'll bring up the topic of pokemon eating each other? i looked at talonflame's dex entries and they mention how its favorite foods are wingull and pikipek. i wasn't expecting it at all.
with it apparently being canon that pokes eat each other, people in the verse probably also eat pokemon. but since pokemon is primarily targeted at a younger audience, they probably won't bring it up. guess i answered my own question there. dang.
ah, it's likely that they included the whole research aspect in the new anime to influence kids to be more observant about things. cool, didn't notice that. regardless, there's a lot of world building potential and i'm excited.
keeping overt spoilers for the anime out of this post was thankfully easier than i expected. kinda worried about future posts. should i just leave a spoiler warning and talk freely? hmm.
been watching a lot of sword and shield playthroughs, makes me really wish i had a switch. i never knew competitive battling was so complex, the only tactic i knew was to utilise type advantages. I kind of want to try my hand at it sometime, there's so much to learn.
the galar culture is hella cool, can't wait to see what the next region will bring. hoping it'll have more new pokes, only 81 were released this gen and i'm kinda sad.
my project pair in flight rising still isn't giving me my dream dragon. night of the nocturne is coming soon and i'm very terrified. i've been brewing as many mats as i can remember to in preparation, but i fear it is not enough. the new apparel are probably going to be too pretty for my eyes to handle and i won't have enough treasure and gems to buy them all. notn is the worst. it insta-brokes me every time. i hate it so much.
at least i'll have more time to spend on coli-ing this year. hopefully i'll be luckier with the chests.
writing entries in purple brings back memories.
changed username today, still unused to it. i'm so glad it wasn't taken yet. gonna change my avatar once i get back to my computer.
i can't start the vanillite shiny hunt until the cosmog egg hatches, which seems like it'll take quite a while yet. getting a little impatient.
the new pokemon anime is full of ship bait (intentional? maybe to draw more fans who will then make fan content and then give free advertisement?), but it seems fine so far. i don't think there's a dub yet so i'll just hone my pokemon recognition skills with the subbed version. i'm already used to the voice acting, so switching to the dub might feel strange. will probably just stick to the sub.
seeing corviknight/armorga made me happy, but yamper/wanpachi truly is best boi. there seems to be a focus on the smaller details about pokemon, with the scene where gou and ash first meet drawing attention to how fins for flying and swimming are different. really excited for more scenes like that, wonder if they'll bring up the topic of pokemon eating each other? i looked at talonflame's dex entries and they mention how its favorite foods are wingull and pikipek. i wasn't expecting it at all.
with it apparently being canon that pokes eat each other, people in the verse probably also eat pokemon. but since pokemon is primarily targeted at a younger audience, they probably won't bring it up. guess i answered my own question there. dang.
ah, it's likely that they included the whole research aspect in the new anime to influence kids to be more observant about things. cool, didn't notice that. regardless, there's a lot of world building potential and i'm excited.
keeping overt spoilers for the anime out of this post was thankfully easier than i expected. kinda worried about future posts. should i just leave a spoiler warning and talk freely? hmm.
been watching a lot of sword and shield playthroughs, makes me really wish i had a switch. i never knew competitive battling was so complex, the only tactic i knew was to utilise type advantages. I kind of want to try my hand at it sometime, there's so much to learn.
the galar culture is hella cool, can't wait to see what the next region will bring. hoping it'll have more new pokes, only 81 were released this gen and i'm kinda sad.
my project pair in flight rising still isn't giving me my dream dragon. night of the nocturne is coming soon and i'm very terrified. i've been brewing as many mats as i can remember to in preparation, but i fear it is not enough. the new apparel are probably going to be too pretty for my eyes to handle and i won't have enough treasure and gems to buy them all. notn is the worst. it insta-brokes me every time. i hate it so much.
at least i'll have more time to spend on coli-ing this year. hopefully i'll be luckier with the chests.
Posted: Tue, 17/12/2019 14:35 (4 Years ago)
Posted: Fri, 20/12/2019 07:02 (4 Years ago)
i'm glad you think so!
Show
hidden content
☆ 20
dec 2019
vanillite hunt is go! wasn't very lucky with the two previous hunts i did (got bored and broke the chain after 300 or so), i have high hopes for this one.
spoiler warnings for wings of fire below (also kind-of rant)
got my hands on a copy of wof - the hive queen from the library yesterday, haven't read past the prologue but it reminded me of just how much i dislike moonwatcher.
she's not that bad of a character, but all of her development went into moon rising and just stopped after that. her only personality is her niceness. she could probably be loosely described as a mary sue, that's how bland she is. a lot of her character arc was just learning how to do nightwing mind things properly with darkstalker's help, scant interactions with the jade winglet, and murder plots. i'm fairly sure she didn't receive any actual development, she already was herself and it didn't need changing. moon at this point is kinda just walking plot device, an excuse to dispense ominous prophecy at a whim, and to let readers see more of other non-skyfire wearing dragons' thought processes without switching to their point of view.
i don't really get how qibli and winter both fell in love with her. wasn't expecting a honest-to-stars freaking love triangle snuck into the series of all things. it felt somewhat natural when i read it, still does whenever i reread Winter Turning and Darkness of Dragons, but it's strange how it happened like that. the triangle's formation kinda went ‘moon saves winter's pet scavenger, meets both winter and qibli, at some point in the meeting their thoughts go does she like me? without any real incident that happened to trigger that.’ i didn't notice it during my first read, what with my tendency to get immersed in stories i like. but as i read more of the books with moon in them, it got harder to like her.
hell, even squid of all dragons is easier to like. he's a whiny, sheltered dragonet who lives with a secret peace organisation working behind the scenes in hopes of ending the war. his father, the leader of the group, tries to give him the peace and stability he's always wanted. as someone who likely was born during war or right before the war started, he didn't receive a lot of stability and thus doesn't know how to raise his dragonet properly. squid feels entitled to things, a result of being the leader's son and being used to having his father make allowances for him.
he displayed a playful side in Winter Turning, feeling safe and doing things that would most definitely have gotten him killed in the midst of the war, because his father had retrieved him from morrowseer's hold and showing him that yes, his father really does have power. he's not a character that shows up a lot, since the main cast doesn't interact a lot with the talons of peace. a lot of his characterisation is just his faith in his father, his faith in the talons to keep him safe, his belief that the dragonets of prophecy would do important things, and his relief that he's not actually one of them.
we could view squid as what he showed himself to be in The Dark Secret; a whiny, sheltered dragonet who likes food. but if you look deeper, you see a sheltered dragonet with a loving, well-meaning but ultimately not very good parent, hopeful but pessimistic from having been hatched in a brutal war. he's lived his entire life with the talons of peace. how much death has he experienced (in terms of how many dragons he knew not coming back, he's too sheltered to have known actual fighting)? how many times has he had to relocate with the rest of the talons to avoid discovery by the sandwing sisters? his life is infinitely more interesting than whatever moon does in the rainforest.
moon is a lucky dragonet. her mother loved her enough to look around and think ‘do i really want my child to live in this food-barren volcano that will probably explode and kill us all?’ she disobeyed her queen for her daughter. secretkeeper disobeyed her queen. if she'd been found out, there is a good chance that she would have been executed or exiled and ostracised. it is very likely she would have been separated from her dragonet, who will even more likely be made to live on said barren volcano that will probably explode soon. she risked herself for her daughter.
moon gets luckier still, hatching on a night with two full moons. each moon grants a nightwing one power - prophecy or mind reading. she gets both. these powers have served her well in survival in the rainforest all alone, i'd imagine. avoiding danger and other dragon with seer powers and mind reading combined is a lot easier than it would be for a defenceless dragonet without powers. (what was secretkeeper thinking, leaving her there like that? i get that she doesn't have a choice, but she doesn't strike me as someone who thinks ahead a lot if she leaves her child that she wants to protect in a forest full of poisonous frogs and plants and also jaguars. she's lucky moon's a seer, she probably would have died otherwise.)
due to her isolated upbringing, she doesn't have friends or much social experience. probably learned how to be nice from her mother's mind. secretkeeper is moon's foremost role model, being the only dragon who knew of her existence and loved her. good thing she's relatively well-adjusted, i dread to think what kind of disasters a murderous mind reader who can see the future could bring.
secretkeeper is a nice dragon, though. just as nicely bland as her daughter. both are characterised as brave and kind, with the less socialised moon being more nervous. she is unused to interaction with dragons who aren't her mom, so she wouldn't know how to utilise mind reading for things like manipulation or general networking. the reputation of nightwings doesn't help any, either.
the only things she did in Moon Rising were for the plot. actions are supposed to show the personality of the character. tsunami lashes her tail when she's angry, and threatening others comes easy to her. she's protective of those she cares about, and is fiercely passionate about things she likes. she'd probably fit in more with skywings, as most seawings we see are relatively more passive. glory is sassy and sarcastic and a tsundere, and strives to learn as much as she can, not wanting to fail her tribe or her friends.
what do we get from moon's actions? she's nice and kind. she sees the best in others. she likes having friends. she's optimistic, very optimistic. she's also pretty and nice enough for a love-at-first-sight situation. having lived with the ability to hear surface thoughts for her entire life, she's not very observant when it comes to body language. she depends entirely on mind reading to see what others think of her. there's nothing that really drives her. we only see her kindness in her words and actions. it shines through moon's every scale, because kindness is her only character trait, learnt from the mind of the only dragon she's had extensive contact with before jade mountain academy. the rest are things she's developed with the hand she was given in life.
her niceness is her only driving force. her bravery is just her kindness. she's kind for the sake of being kind. it's not necessarily bad, but it's her only reason for doing what she does. maybe it's just personal preference, but i think this makes her bland and uninteresting. as someone who believes that (emotional) conflict makes the character, moon's utter lack of inner conflict besides her turmoil over her mind reading causes her to be boring. her fear that she wouldn't be accepted if others found out that she could hear thoughts was the only emotional conflict she had to go through in Moon Rising, and was resolved quickly. the other stuff that happened in her book didn't really affect her. yes, all those murder plots were shocking, but the conflict that was generated from them was targeted at other dragons. not moonwatcher. she ends up just being a spectator for the events in the book, nothing but a plot device and a catalyst for the adventure the jade winglet goes on.
there aren't really any character flaws i can pick up on besides her inattention to body language, which is why i described her as an almost mary sue. it at least makes her a little more interesting, though i dislike that she takes near everything at face value when it's not an obvious joke. stars, she didn't even notice darkstalker's increasing mania, though it was likely because of the loneliness she felt in him, but that's not really an excuse to deny the war preparations he's doing right in front of her.
at least squid's life is more interesting to imagine. we don't get a lot of information about the talons, so there's a lot of potential for headcanons and fanfic.
...oh. that was a lot longer than i thought it would be. oops?
vanillite hunt is go! wasn't very lucky with the two previous hunts i did (got bored and broke the chain after 300 or so), i have high hopes for this one.
spoiler warnings for wings of fire below (also kind-of rant)
got my hands on a copy of wof - the hive queen from the library yesterday, haven't read past the prologue but it reminded me of just how much i dislike moonwatcher.
she's not that bad of a character, but all of her development went into moon rising and just stopped after that. her only personality is her niceness. she could probably be loosely described as a mary sue, that's how bland she is. a lot of her character arc was just learning how to do nightwing mind things properly with darkstalker's help, scant interactions with the jade winglet, and murder plots. i'm fairly sure she didn't receive any actual development, she already was herself and it didn't need changing. moon at this point is kinda just walking plot device, an excuse to dispense ominous prophecy at a whim, and to let readers see more of other non-skyfire wearing dragons' thought processes without switching to their point of view.
i don't really get how qibli and winter both fell in love with her. wasn't expecting a honest-to-stars freaking love triangle snuck into the series of all things. it felt somewhat natural when i read it, still does whenever i reread Winter Turning and Darkness of Dragons, but it's strange how it happened like that. the triangle's formation kinda went ‘moon saves winter's pet scavenger, meets both winter and qibli, at some point in the meeting their thoughts go does she like me? without any real incident that happened to trigger that.’ i didn't notice it during my first read, what with my tendency to get immersed in stories i like. but as i read more of the books with moon in them, it got harder to like her.
hell, even squid of all dragons is easier to like. he's a whiny, sheltered dragonet who lives with a secret peace organisation working behind the scenes in hopes of ending the war. his father, the leader of the group, tries to give him the peace and stability he's always wanted. as someone who likely was born during war or right before the war started, he didn't receive a lot of stability and thus doesn't know how to raise his dragonet properly. squid feels entitled to things, a result of being the leader's son and being used to having his father make allowances for him.
he displayed a playful side in Winter Turning, feeling safe and doing things that would most definitely have gotten him killed in the midst of the war, because his father had retrieved him from morrowseer's hold and showing him that yes, his father really does have power. he's not a character that shows up a lot, since the main cast doesn't interact a lot with the talons of peace. a lot of his characterisation is just his faith in his father, his faith in the talons to keep him safe, his belief that the dragonets of prophecy would do important things, and his relief that he's not actually one of them.
we could view squid as what he showed himself to be in The Dark Secret; a whiny, sheltered dragonet who likes food. but if you look deeper, you see a sheltered dragonet with a loving, well-meaning but ultimately not very good parent, hopeful but pessimistic from having been hatched in a brutal war. he's lived his entire life with the talons of peace. how much death has he experienced (in terms of how many dragons he knew not coming back, he's too sheltered to have known actual fighting)? how many times has he had to relocate with the rest of the talons to avoid discovery by the sandwing sisters? his life is infinitely more interesting than whatever moon does in the rainforest.
moon is a lucky dragonet. her mother loved her enough to look around and think ‘do i really want my child to live in this food-barren volcano that will probably explode and kill us all?’ she disobeyed her queen for her daughter. secretkeeper disobeyed her queen. if she'd been found out, there is a good chance that she would have been executed or exiled and ostracised. it is very likely she would have been separated from her dragonet, who will even more likely be made to live on said barren volcano that will probably explode soon. she risked herself for her daughter.
moon gets luckier still, hatching on a night with two full moons. each moon grants a nightwing one power - prophecy or mind reading. she gets both. these powers have served her well in survival in the rainforest all alone, i'd imagine. avoiding danger and other dragon with seer powers and mind reading combined is a lot easier than it would be for a defenceless dragonet without powers. (what was secretkeeper thinking, leaving her there like that? i get that she doesn't have a choice, but she doesn't strike me as someone who thinks ahead a lot if she leaves her child that she wants to protect in a forest full of poisonous frogs and plants and also jaguars. she's lucky moon's a seer, she probably would have died otherwise.)
due to her isolated upbringing, she doesn't have friends or much social experience. probably learned how to be nice from her mother's mind. secretkeeper is moon's foremost role model, being the only dragon who knew of her existence and loved her. good thing she's relatively well-adjusted, i dread to think what kind of disasters a murderous mind reader who can see the future could bring.
secretkeeper is a nice dragon, though. just as nicely bland as her daughter. both are characterised as brave and kind, with the less socialised moon being more nervous. she is unused to interaction with dragons who aren't her mom, so she wouldn't know how to utilise mind reading for things like manipulation or general networking. the reputation of nightwings doesn't help any, either.
the only things she did in Moon Rising were for the plot. actions are supposed to show the personality of the character. tsunami lashes her tail when she's angry, and threatening others comes easy to her. she's protective of those she cares about, and is fiercely passionate about things she likes. she'd probably fit in more with skywings, as most seawings we see are relatively more passive. glory is sassy and sarcastic and a tsundere, and strives to learn as much as she can, not wanting to fail her tribe or her friends.
what do we get from moon's actions? she's nice and kind. she sees the best in others. she likes having friends. she's optimistic, very optimistic. she's also pretty and nice enough for a love-at-first-sight situation. having lived with the ability to hear surface thoughts for her entire life, she's not very observant when it comes to body language. she depends entirely on mind reading to see what others think of her. there's nothing that really drives her. we only see her kindness in her words and actions. it shines through moon's every scale, because kindness is her only character trait, learnt from the mind of the only dragon she's had extensive contact with before jade mountain academy. the rest are things she's developed with the hand she was given in life.
her niceness is her only driving force. her bravery is just her kindness. she's kind for the sake of being kind. it's not necessarily bad, but it's her only reason for doing what she does. maybe it's just personal preference, but i think this makes her bland and uninteresting. as someone who believes that (emotional) conflict makes the character, moon's utter lack of inner conflict besides her turmoil over her mind reading causes her to be boring. her fear that she wouldn't be accepted if others found out that she could hear thoughts was the only emotional conflict she had to go through in Moon Rising, and was resolved quickly. the other stuff that happened in her book didn't really affect her. yes, all those murder plots were shocking, but the conflict that was generated from them was targeted at other dragons. not moonwatcher. she ends up just being a spectator for the events in the book, nothing but a plot device and a catalyst for the adventure the jade winglet goes on.
there aren't really any character flaws i can pick up on besides her inattention to body language, which is why i described her as an almost mary sue. it at least makes her a little more interesting, though i dislike that she takes near everything at face value when it's not an obvious joke. stars, she didn't even notice darkstalker's increasing mania, though it was likely because of the loneliness she felt in him, but that's not really an excuse to deny the war preparations he's doing right in front of her.
at least squid's life is more interesting to imagine. we don't get a lot of information about the talons, so there's a lot of potential for headcanons and fanfic.
...oh. that was a lot longer than i thought it would be. oops?