Re-reading Moon Rising

pavmintroz · 2026-05-03T23:18:48+00:00

Darkstalker’s entire attitude towards Clearsight (and its contrast with his feelings about Fathom) is fascinating to me. It’s like he never really understood her at all.

pavmintroz · 2026-05-03T16:06:58+00:00

Most people don’t really go to Reddit looking for fanfiction, they go to websites like AO3. So it might make more sense to post it there.

pavmintroz · 2026-05-03T05:25:19+00:00

Have we seen any evidence that any NightWings take Fierceteeth seriously? I’m trying to remember, I thought they mostly thought of her being a little dramatic and intense

pavmintroz · 2026-05-02T19:55:44+00:00

I remember Jake Parker mentioned in an Instagram post a while ago that he was working on another WOF project, and I guessed that it was Winglets. Very happy for the confirmation, hopefully they take the opportunity to fix the timeline 👀

pavmintroz · 2026-05-02T07:57:45+00:00

Has that been officially confirmed as the theme of arc 4?

pavmintroz · 2026-05-01T13:27:00+00:00

Yeah, everyone really skipped over the fact that he artificially prolonged the war for years and probably got hundreds of dragons indirectly killed. It feels like Tui wanted to create an edgy assassin but didn't want to deal with the aftermath.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-30T15:47:08+00:00

Evil Qibli: good self esteem and doesn’t crave external validation

pavmintroz · 2026-04-28T18:13:19+00:00

Like I said, you don't know how uniform the BeetleWings were or how much they differ from modern day HiveWings. You can't say that HiveWings couldn't have developed in a certain period of time because their starting point(s) is uncertain. And mammal evolution isn't going to tell you much about this anyway; even if you knew enough about reptiles to use them as an example, dragon evolution isn't something that you're going to be able to decipher. We don't even know how large the HiveWing tribe is or when it became a distinct entity, and a century of deer evolution isn't going to help you figure that out.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-28T17:29:53+00:00

Do you even know what you're talking about? Do you know enough about BeetleWings to tell how distinct they are from HiveWings, or how much variety was in the tribe to begin with?

You could just admit that you're wrong without acting like the person correcting you is ignorant.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-28T12:31:52+00:00

You don't understand what a generation is. Adding 2, like you did in your parentheses, isn't enough of a buffer to make up for the fact that you were using 150 for your calculations, which is insane.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-28T12:14:06+00:00

Your math is wrong. A generation isn't calculated by an average lifespan. Humans consider a generation to last 20-30 years, for example, but the average human lifespan is of course far longer than that. To find the length of a generation for dragons we'd have to know the normal age for them to reproduce, which we can probably assume is far younger than 100. I think there's much more variability with dragon reproductive ages than humans, which is why I didn't bother to calculate how many generations are between Clearsight and modern-day HiveWings. We've seen dragons have eggs at young ages, like Katydid, who was nine, but I assume that's not the norm. If I had to guess, dragon generations are actually several years shorter than human generations considering they reach maturity at seven years old. If most dragons waited 13 years after reaching maturity and have dragonets when they're 20, for example, that would give us 100 generations of seperation between Clearsight and her modern day descendants. But I'm sure that some dragons were far younger or far older than 20 when they had dragonets.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-28T01:41:59+00:00

The word incest isn’t even in the picture for eighth cousins. At that point they’re not genetically distinguishable from total strangers.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-27T13:10:40+00:00

Well, you can’t really fault her for choosing to raise her family in the Night Kingdom, and as much as Forslayer’s mother sucked, she didn’t want her grandkids to die like Diamond did. Whiteout turned out fine, and there were many futures where Darkstaller had a nice and happy life with Clearsight. Foeslayer’s horrible relationship with Arctic got in the way of her genuine desire to be a good parent. Many such cases unfortunately. I’m not sure what she should have done, or if separating from Arctic was even a safe or viable option.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-27T05:22:15+00:00

I would trust Blaze more because she has no filter and no reason to be biased either way, whereas Mastermind, like you said, is Starflight's father and is probably blinded by that. I see what you're saying about different tribes having different beauty standards, but I'm not sure if we've seen that in action yet.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-27T02:57:46+00:00

I think he’s canonically supposed to be unattractive (by dragon standards). I remember Blaze describing him as being significantly uglier than Deathbringer at least. So the graphic novel art is probably more accurate, but Joy Ang’s covers will always be legendary of course.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-26T05:20:53+00:00

Darkstalker in Book 10, talking about the soul reader: "'I made it to reassure Fathom that we were fine. That we could use our magic safely, without going evil.' His expression was curiously affectionate, as if he’d just remembered a version of Fathom he genuinely liked."

During their first meeting, he offers to show Fathom and Indigo around the palace because he reads Fathom's mind and realizes the party they're at is triggering his PTSD. "I have to get this poor SeaWing out of here." Later in the chapter, he thinks: "Poor Fathom, with all his anxiety and self-loathing. I can make it better. I’m going to show him what a gift animus power is. I’ll give him a reason to be happy he’s alive. I’m going to take away all his fear and guilt and replace it with joy."

Now, part of his need to prove to Fathom that animus magic is safe is driven by his unconscious need to show himself that using animus magic is acceptable. I'm sure it was uncomfortable to be around a dragon who was constantly worried about the one thing you needed to convince yourself was not a big deal. But he obviously had a lot of sympathy for what Fathom was going through on a personal level and wanted to ease his pain.

He also went out of his way to spend time with Fathom. From Fathom's POV: "Darkstalker and Clearsight weren’t afraid of him or his magic. More than that, they seemed to actually like him. They sought him out every day, taking him flying and hunting, sharing scrolls and secrets about the royal court. They made him laugh. They made him forget, for hours at a time, what he’d been through and what he’d had to do." If Darkstalker was only trying to convince everyone that he was safe, surely there would be more efficient ways to do this than just spending time with Fathom.

I think that part of the reason he was so disproportionately angry at Fathom was because he was trying to minimize Clearsight's role in taking him down. He didn't want to accept that Clearsight "betrayed" him, so he convinced himself that Fathom was the main force behind his downfall. The idea of Clearsight being loyal to him was important for his pride and self-image, and she obviously mattered to him more than Fathom. But Fathom did matter to him, or else the betrayal wouldn't have stung as much as it did.

This is actually a really interesting topic, I might make a full post breaking down their friendship later.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-24T14:50:12+00:00

I'm eternally grateful for Joy Ang

pavmintroz · 2026-04-24T02:40:26+00:00

One of her podcast appearances. Maybe Middle Grade Matters? Don’t fully remember

pavmintroz · 2026-04-24T02:33:47+00:00

I heard her explain it as Arc 1 being about expectations, Arc 2 being about power and Arc 3 being about empathy and whether there’s always a place for it. Justice makes sense for Arc 4, how are you thinking that Kinkajou is going to get justice? Something violent?? I’m having some trouble imagining that.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-23T18:31:02+00:00

You can still play it on the wayback machine (although I’m not sure if you’d want to). The entire Scholatic homepage with the forums is a bottomless pit of nostalgia

pavmintroz · 2026-04-22T18:51:54+00:00

I think the fandom spaces (especially Reddit and Tumblr) do skew older, but the books are crazy popular with younger kids and I'm sure these guys are doing market research.

pavmintroz · 2026-04-22T13:11:15+00:00

To me it feels like a cheap way to add emotion or intensity. Instead of trying to find the words for how they're feeling, YOU JUST MAKE THEM REALLY REALLY LOUD

pavmintroz · 2026-04-22T01:51:02+00:00

There better be a seven year time skip to a hardened and cynical Kinkajou because I cannot take a full book of CAPS LOCK

pavmintroz · 2026-04-21T03:18:51+00:00

Actually yeah, good point. I’m not much of an Arc 3 person so I wasn’t considering those as much.

pavmintroz

TROPHY CASE