The final thing about my characters: Flake the Sereph
(Top portion just copied from the first post.)
I’m going to talk a “bit” about some of the characters from my book series, Dragon Drive. Since I’ve got nothing better to do, and have been wanting to talk about this for a while anyway, I figured why the hell not. I originally wanted to doodle them a bit before I made this post, but I’ll just do that later. Moderate to severe spoilers should be expected, as well as personal content.
Note: I planned to put all three of the characters on the same post, but if they’re anything like this one in length, I might as well separate them. It’ll make reblogging with drawings easier later, anyway.
Flake the Sereph
To start off, Flake isn’t human; something of an anthropomorphic furred dragon with two tails and four wings. He’s also not really part of the “main cast”, but plays an important solo role in the second book, and gets romantically involved with Hunter Wasteland later on in the series. Flake is chatty when comfortable, but was raised in a society where homosexuality is shamed, as well as truly original ideas for the most part. When he finally leaves his home, he opens up immediately. As a guard he’s skilled in combat, but doesn’t relish in it. He is compassionate, but can still make mistakes.
Flake was never meant to be anything specific for myself, but when the thought occurred to pair him with Hunter, the dichotomy between them became apparent. Hunter being more withdrawn, and Flake outgoing, to be terse. (Look to the one on Hunter Wasteland to get a better idea. You can’t really read one without the other.) That relationship, and wanting to see what came of it, forced me to give development to Flake’s character.
Outside Flake’s oppressive home, Flake’s personality bloomed and he became a lot more vocal about what he wanted and what he thought, as well as energetic. This think-less-act-more pattern brought up problems almost immediately, as Hunter finds him making out with a stranger in a bar. The very attached Hunter is devastated, and his band-mates, specifically Starlik, the co-creator of the band, confront Flake. Starlik explains rather bluntly what Flake meant to Hunter, and that if Hunter is to ever break down his walls past this point, Flake needs to talk to him.
As a character past this, Flake doesn’t get much more development on-screen. Mostly due to not being relevant to the plot as other characters take the spotlight. Despite this, I still feel attached to Flake due to what he brings out in Hunter, and the reflection of my more flamboyant tendencies and what they mean for my own development in that regard. I know for a fact that by the time I reach this part in the series, I will have a lot more to say in regards to Flake. Until then, I’ll leave these as-is.
(Top portion just copied from the first post.)
I’m going to talk a “bit” about some of the characters from my book series, Dragon Drive. Since I’ve got nothing better to do, and have been wanting to talk about this for a while anyway, I figured why the hell not. I originally wanted to doodle them a bit before I made this post, but I’ll just do that later. Moderate to severe spoilers should be expected, as well as personal content.
Note: I planned to put all three of the characters on the same post, but if they’re anything like this one in length, I might as well separate them. It’ll make reblogging with drawings easier later, anyway.
Hunter Wasteland
Hunter is an important part of the main cast, and is who introduces Crios to his future Guild, as a member himself, Dragon’s Den. Hunter is quiet, observant, and often finds others easily opening up to him do to his lack of presence. He’s known for being protective of his friends, (A trait Dragon’s Den holds as a whole) and is a fairly capable fighter. He’s also the lead singer in Starlight Clocktower, a band that’s only grown in fame.
Hunter wasn’t my ideal for myself, but was admittedly what I found attractive, and has become someone who’s the closest to my real self out of all my characters. He hasn’t changed much from when I first wrote him, but his anxiety and depression has been expanded on. He finds solace in music, which is why he can still preform, and why he wears headphones constantly. He’s very walled off emotionally, rarely speaking of his own to others unless it’s through his music.
As the story in Dragon Drive progresses, Hunter learns to open up and accept himself. Originally, I had him do some internal monologue wherein he talks about being attracted to a guy, and his rationalization of his feelings snapped me out of my denial regarding something very big in my life: The fact that I’m bisexual. In that instance, my exact thoughts were being told to me via Hunter, and I just stopped in the middle of my history class (when I was writing that part in particular) and went “well fuck, I’m bi.” That is the biggest part of why Hunter is dear to me as a character. In the rework of the series itself, I’ve shifted things to where Hunter has known he’s gay, but isn’t quite comfortable with it yet. (A notable thing too is that when Hunter confessed to Crios, Crios was adamant in being “not gay.” Which was more of my lingering denial than anything else, since Crios as a character doesn’t really know what’s what with what he wants.)
Hunter also has to deal with the feeling of constantly being “forgotten”, as people rarely recognize him despite his fame, and to a greater degree, his mother has left him to his own devices for a long while. Their relationship isn’t strained, but rather she has no want to know how his life is going.
The biggest step for Hunter is when Flake, the third character I will be talking about, and him become a couple. The two behave in an interesting dichotomy of myself when it comes to relationships, as Hunter has emotional walls, still isn’t fully at terms with his sexuality and is easily attached, and Flake is an open door who’s flirty to no end, and has no problem wandering. Neither have experience in relationships. The biggest development in this relationship is rather the biggest stumble; Flake not knowing exactly how attached Hunter is to him, and Flake being too loose with strangers. What happens past that will be left to the books, but that exact betrayal is the greatest fear for myself and a big part of why I’m none too keen on drinking publicly anytime soon.
As Flake is the other half in this, I ought to move on to him.
I’m going to talk a “bit” about some of the characters from my book series, Dragon Drive. Since I’ve got nothing better to do, and have been wanting to talk about this for a while anyway, I figured why the hell not. I originally wanted to doodle them a bit before I made this post, but I’ll just do that later. Moderate to severe spoilers should be expected, as well as personal content.
Note: I planned to put all three of the characters on the same post, but if they’re anything like this one in length, I might as well separate them. It’ll make reblogging with drawings easier later, anyway.
Crios Myshcell
Crios is by all extents the main character. He’s the creator of the titular “Dragon Drive”. He’s headstrong and tends to solve his problems by force, despite his intelligence. He looks out for his friends, and will even fight to the death, if necessary, for someone he’s just met. He will go out of his way to fix an object if it’s within his capacity.
Crios was also my ideal for myself, when I first wrote him. Not just because he’s smart, rather actually capable of applying that intelligence. Not just because he’s naturally strong, but because he has the courage to use it. No fear, full confidence. While things haven’t truly changed since I wrote out the first drafts of the first four books in the series, Crios has become more than just wish fulfillment.
He prides himself in his craftsmanship, but still feels unsatisfied due to a lack of recognition and validation. Despite having incredible natural physical strength and endurance, he feels inadequate due to failings as a child. This strength and his rashness proved to be a problem with public schools, and as his strength has grown in his later years, it’s only driven a bigger wedge between him and the average person; He gets recognition, but people fear him.
Crios has been a constant looking glass for my state of mind as I wrote him. The desire for validation. The lack of self-worth. The depression he’s had in his past and hasn’t quite gotten over yet, despite not being in the same state of mind. Extremes in emotion, often anger and frustration, that comes from having to face these issues.
The ultimate thing, and a really rather frequent theme, is a lack of parental guidance. Or rather, the lack of adequate guidance. His uncle started off as how I viewed my dad at the time, and his real father has become more and more like what my dad really is like. Crios remembers his father as someone who put his all into bringing Crios back to life as an infant, and a few pleasant memories pas that. Teneo Myshcell in all reality, is someone who has an obsession with his work. He’s absent, thought dead, from Crios’ life since he was eight, and the reveal that he’s still alive pains Crios to his core, as his father “abandoned” him and made no attempt to contact Crios since that point, despite all what he should be capable of.
There is still more I could add for Crios, but it’s time I moved on to the next character I wanted to talk about.
For those who might happen upon this from Snowysaur’s post, I highly recommend reading the [Introduction] first to fill you in with some of the terms I use here. It’s fairly short compared to my other posts. I tend to use more and more terms with the more posts I write, so my recommendation (if you’re interested in reading more) would be to read the posts in the order I created them.
(This is a long post, so I’ve opted to use a read-more thingy to keep it neat. And plan to add it to some other posts now that I know how to make it!)
(And to address the long period of time since the last post, I’ve been hard at work with Full Burn, the next book in the Dragon Drive series. SO MUCH STUFF GOES ON AND I’M EXCITED.)
Since I already covered Floxes to a point in my [Monsters] post, I’ll be leading off with that. I will make a note of when I stop for those who just came from there, so you can simply scroll past to the new content.
{Floxes are a very common, intelligent Monster that resemble bipedal dragons with fur instead of scales. A preference to fly rather than walk leads to the false assumption all Floxes waddle; ground-bound Floxes can walk and run as steadily as any other bipedal species. They can range from a mere foot in length, to close to six feet tall. Capable of human speech, and in fact have their own language, society, and culture, but a close proximity to humans over time added some human customs and familiarity. Personalities among them vary widely, but they tend to be very family-oriented, going as far as to forgo last names so marriages only bring groups together. A very social species, and have no misgivings with invading the personal space of someone they trust, and vice versa. As such, some elect to keep some as pets. There are debates on the derogatory nature of such an act, but the Floxes themselves don’t complain so long as they’re treated kindly.
The ability for a Flox to use Ux is at a baseline greater than a human’s, as every Flox, including Sereph Floxes, can use Air Ux with their wings to aid in flight, as well as “float” by expelling it from their wings. In addition to this innate Type, Floxes also have the potential to use other Types, two more being the most common. Floxes still can only have use of Air Ux, but such cases leave the Flox in particular with extreme flight capabilities. Floxes also have their own Pseudo Type, tied to their flight ability. While exceedingly weak on its own, Floxes with increased Air capabilities still have the potential to induce Changing in humans they encounter.}
[NEW CONTENT]
In this new section, I’ll be diving more into the differences between the genders of Flox and trends in appearance, their customs, and significant anecdotes.
(Shoutout to @snowysaur for doing the refs for me! Lots of cute stuff over there!)
This is an example of a male Flox. They have less muscle mass and density than their female counterparts, but are more agile fliers and shed/grow a “winter coat” when local temperatures reach sufficient lows. This coat is thicker than a female’s all-around coat, but the female’s coat is a better insulator. Thanks to a male’s capacity to better manifest their Ux outside their bodies, they tend to have more options in combat versus just raw strength.
This is a female Flox; note the wider hips and thick chest fur. These two factors are key in identifying gender and makes mistaking gender difficult. She is more muscular than a male Flox and is pound-for-pound stronger, and is capable of lifting one and a half times that of a male at matching weight. The key to this strength is utilizing Ux in her muscles, rather than the wings where male Flox have specialized it for speedy flight. A female Flox is purpose-built for caring for her young, the fur on her chest allowing them to nurse even in the harsh cold where the species originated.
Floxes give birth to live young, with one child being the norm, but twins and “litters” are still fairly common thanks to high fertility compared to other species, increasing with the size of the Flox. A Flox child reaches full development rapidly, starting off very small and growing larger the longer it is carried, ultimately leading to larger Floxes when they reach an adult stage. This is what leads to the large variation between sizes, and their fertility ultimately being the limiter on how large or small that range is. Small Floxes rarely have more than one child at a time, and large Floxes frequently have multiple unless environmental factors limit that capacity.
A well-known way for a Flox to increase fertility despite their size is to consume dragon fruit, the unique scent and flavor eliciting an immediate sexual stimulation and leading to it inevitably becoming a controlled substance where large Flox populations exist due to abuse of the fruit from Flox and humans alike.
The two genders still share a number of aspects that influence their appearance, despite the numerous differences genetics offers them. Fur markings range from nothing to extremely complex designs, with no clear indication as to what influences them. These markings follow the same trends their fur, mane, webbing, and eyes follow: an indication of the Ux Types of the individual in question.
To utilize the two above, let’s start with the male. His yellow and silver are indications of his ability to use Lighting and Metal, and while the webbing (and inner ears) are darker, it doesn’t remove from this. However, there are still instances like with the female, who appears to have three or even four different Types, but only the orange is indicative of her Types. (Nova, and the second is unknown.)
These five color aspects (webbing, mane/hair, fur, fur markings, and eyes) can vary widely, but a Flox always has one of their colors a mark of the Ux they can utilize, even if it’s very weak. But as with any species that has appearances based on Ux, there isn’t a strict standard of one color per Type. Red can indicate Fire, Sun, and Nova. This will be explored in more detail when I explain Ux Types in a more advanced light.
The original customs of Floxes have been diluted from a close relationship with humans, as mentioned above, but utilize human customs in a Floxish manner versus complete mimicry. “Floxish” is the name humans have given the Floxes’ language, which has a unique dialect between humans and Monsters due to different hearing ranges altering the syntax.
For a Flox, it’s normal to be more interactive with those in their community, including hugging strangers and other physical actions to indicate affection, or more violent ones to indicate distrust. Visiting communities where humans are rare can lead to being mobbed by curious children and adults alike, but they have implemented fragrances or sashes to indicate a discomfort with such actions to better accommodate visitor’s preferences.
A notable community that doesn’t follow these tenets of behavior; Yitkin. “Yitkin” is Floxish for “grey-haired” and was named after Tommori Felkin, who organized a starving Flox community into a mining and foundry city, despite his young age at the time. These Floxes were oftentimes at the largest end of the Floxes’ sizes, and boasted pitch black fur despite living in a desert wasteland. Due to Tommori’s close influence and that of humans as the city developed, the Floxish part of their culture faded to something more strictly inter-Flox.
As isolated populations rose after the incidents of the Great War and those surrounding the Dragon Drive, Flox culture flourished and could hold sharper distinction from human culture.
Another important note with Flox biology, to return to dragon fruit’s aphrodisiac-al effects, is that of other foods, particularly fragrant fruits, bringing about a specific reaction. This is due in part to a lack of sweet and fragrant foods in their original habitat and coincidences with their natural pheromones. While dragon fruit is the substance with the most apparent effect, other fruits have been known to cause serious harm and death due to Floxes’ unique metabolism. Some on the known list of poisons include many fruits that would normally allow a human to replenish and utilize more Ux than they previously could. Ux in the fruit itself also plays a significant part in these reactions, compounded in the more potent reactions.
A final note for this exceedingly large post is that Sereph Floxes share a lot of physiological traits with Floxes, as they are an evolutionary offshoot of Floxes created from a mutation related to the development of twins. As listing the specifics of these similarities would be pointless considering I plan to do an individual post on them, I’ll leave you with the knowledge that Flox/Sereph hybrids can exist, and can be fertile, but their appearance take after Floxes primarily, rather than a Sereph’s more human appearance.
Scientifically speaking, Monsters are defined as creatures with an inborn affinity for Ux. While some might not be much different from animals, that aspect allows for the separation. For some, this affinity arises as a unique kind of Ux: a Pseudo Type. So named because their Ux cannot create Krux.
As Monsters have a vast variety of appearances, abilities, and physiology, I’ll use a single Monster species to give an idea of what to expect; Floxes in particular.
Floxes are a very common, intelligent Monster that resemble bipedal dragons with fur instead of scales. A preference to fly rather than walk leads to the false assumption all Floxes waddle; ground-bound Floxes can walk and run as steadily as any other bipedal species. They can range from a mere foot in length, to close to six feet tall. Capable of human speech, and in fact have their own language, society, and culture, but a close proximity to humans over time added some human customs and familiarity. Personalities among them vary widely, but they tend to be very family-oriented, going as far as to forgo last names so marriages only bring groups together. A very social species, and have no misgivings with invading the personal space of someone they trust, and vice versa. As such, some elect to keep some as pets. There are debates on the derogatory nature of such an act, but the Floxes themselves don’t complain so long as they’re treated kindly.
The ability for a Flox to use Ux is at a baseline greater than a human’s, as every Flox, including Sereph Floxes, can use Air Ux with their wings to aid in flight, as well as “float” by expelling it from their wings. In addition to this innate Type, Floxes also have the potential to use other Types, two more being the most common. Floxes still can only have use of Air Ux, but such cases leave the Flox in particular with extreme flight capabilities. Floxes also have their own Pseudo Type, tied to their flight ability. While exceedingly weak on its own, Floxes with increased Air capabilities still have the potential to induce Changing in humans they encounter.
As you can tell, a Monster isn’t simply an animal with use of Ux. While most lack the capacity to speak human due to a very different vocal frequency, many still have their own language and intelligence at or greater than a human’s. Due to this intelligence, partnerships between humans and Monsters for Guild work and other activities are common. Humans who partake in such agreements are known as Beastmasters, even if a Monster is simply a pet to its owner.
As many early Beastmasters resent simple pet ownership classifying people as Beastmasters, they developed a ring system that allowed for greater connection between two Beastmasters, and a distinction from the common people. Any kind of jewelry can be used, but rings are the most common. A Beastmaster has a Monster condense its Ux Types in close contact with the ring and a clear coating on the ring quickly combines with the Ux to form a Krux. As these Krux are tied to the Monster via a means that hasn’t been fully explained, even far into Arkrux’s timeline, a Beastmaster can wordlessly communicate with their partner by manipulating the ring, commonly by twisting it on their finger to call them to their side if they wander.
Beastmasters also developed another tool to aid in their communication: a kind of electronic earring that translates the higher frequency languages of a Monster into something they can hear, which still requires learning the syntax and nuances of the language. In some cases, Monster species have a shared language, but only a scant few languages can be programmed in an earring at one time, leading to a tendency for multiple if the Beastmaster can afford them.
As a final topic, the husbandry of Monsters has been a common practice for humans and other Monsters alike, as they care for weaker or less intelligent species for mutual benefit as well as a sustainable food source. It’s rare for an intelligent Monster to be considered a part of this “Monster ranching”, rather as a partner to a Beastmaster due to moral and logistic issues. There are many who find conflict in any form of the practice, but they are a minority and the usefulness of the “livestock Monsters” is too great.
[Introduction]
A List of Monsters (Will be a masterpost.)
Floxes, Sereph Floxes, Monster Civilizations
Pseudo Types, Changing, [Ux Types]
The planet of Arkrux has extremes unseen on other planets that support life, due to both the Great Wars and the innate abundance of Ux that permeates the planet.
To start with the planet as a whole, Arkrux's crust has sustained the greatest damage from the Great Wars, with drastic changes in elevation and soil content. Some locations even expose the underlying mantle to the surface, leading to volcanic craters slowly turning into mountain ranges.
Due to the drastic changes in terrain and the introduction of extreme temperature variances, climates around the planet are just as extreme and prone to changing in merely a generation.
Arkrux’s mantle however, was largely unfazed by the ravaged surface. Molten rock and metal still flowed as it always had, with only a marginal increase in Ux circulation that was eventually balanced out by new deposits of Krux in volcanic rock.
The deepest center of Arkrux, the molten core, gained metallic Ux Elements in quantities enough to increase the strength of the planet’s magnetic field, and making it more observable from deeper in space by reflecting more Sun Ux.
As practically every mineral and metal on Arkrux is used in Kruxsetting and the craft of Krux, I’ll leave those details to the corresponding posts. It may leave this post a bit threadbare, but the posts in question would be far shorter without those details.
[Introduction]
[Great Wars]
Innate Elements, Ux Elements
[Krux and Kruxsetting (General)]
Krux Materials, Matrix Materials, [Ux Types]
Map of Arkrux’s Surface
