I zoned out during work all day thinking about my dragon!phoenix au so i'm putting everything I thought about beneath the cut so I don't forget it and also you guys can see if in case it never ends up like in the fic
Phoenix gets his dragon form from his mom side! His two maternal grandparents are dragons as well, but his dad is just a human guy.
Dragon!Phoenix is also farm boy Phoenix! Farm leaves a lot of space for a growing dragon to run around without being afraid of being seen.
While dragons can shift between human and dragon form quickly if needed (Phoenix's personal record is five second) that's actually painful and dangerous and they need more time to 'stretch out'. Phoenix will usually take between 20-30 seconds to shift forms, and his grandfather can take almost three minutes.
It's said if a dragon changes from human to dragon too quickly, they'll totally burn up their human form.
Phoenix used to have a much older sister, but she apparently burned up her like that.
His grandma outgrew her human form, but sometimes she'll still visit as a dragon.
While Phoenix's mom encouraged Phoenix to accept both parts of himself, his dad worried constantly about 'loosing' Phoenix like he lost his daughter and always pushed Phoenix to be more human than dragon.
There's dragon hunters, uh oh! But they're mostly a worry in Eurasia.
Partially shifting is possible, although it's usually at least somewhat painful and difficult to maintain for long amounts of times.