Hi! I love how well you've written Tiller, she's so interesting! She also needs a hug, and therapy!
What I'd like to know is: What's her relationship with her Dragon Mom? How did they finally meet, did they have a tearful reunion, do they still have issues, if their abilities are similar, all that?
Bc having a dragon as a mom is either the coolest or the most traumatic thing ever. Maybe both?
Hello!! Thank you so, so much for your compliments and your curiosity about Tiller!!!! <3 First and foremost, my deepest apologies for the lateness on responding to this. I kept meaning to get to it and, well, time (MONTHS....) simply got away from me. But I'm truly so happy for an excuse to yap about Tiller! I'll put my ramblings under the read more, as well as a little surprise for those interested! >: ]
For most of Tiller's life, her relationship with her Dragon Mom was completely non-existent! She had no clue that she HAD a Dragon Mom until about a few months ago in the campaign timeline. Tiller was raised by her two dads, so she always knew she was adopted, but she only found out later that her dads had traveled to The Sea Dragon's shrine to pray and wish for a child of their own, as The Sea Dragon is a healing and life-giving deity. And their request was answered with Tiller! : D She was a baby literally born from the sea hehe.
Tiller did finally meet her mom, though under dire circumstances. Early on in the campaign, Tiller became infected with a magic-eating curse. We learn later that The Sea Dragon is magically and spiritually connected to all her children, but the connection runs both ways so Tiller passed that infection onto her. Tiller and the crew of The Triumph had to travel back to the original Sea Dragon shrine in Singapore to save Tiller's mom as the infection was eating her from the inside and also causing her to rampage in a spiral of pain-induced mania. (All the while, Tiller remains infected too and is losing the potency of her magic and her health fails as more time passes on). Both Tiller and her my mom would have most definitely died if this curse was not stopped.
LUCKILY!! The party did stop the curse, yippee!!! Tiller's Dragon Mom ate our entire ship Pinocchio-style and so we sailed around in her guts and skeleton and stuff in search of the source. We fought lots of creepy black crystal monsters (that's the physical form the curse takes), and found a huge spiked, growth where everything was centered. The party where able to break it apart and trap the infection in a magic crab box that we got from an extremely creepy person made of crabs (but don't worry about that, that's a whole other story). And so Tiller's mom was cured, as was Tiller and all the children of the Sea Dragon across the world!
The reunion was very tearful. Once The Sea Dragon had her wits back, she was so happy to see Tiller and so proud of her! Tiller had carried a lot of blame and guilt with her through this journey because the infection technically started with her, so she felt it was her fault. But her mom told her that Tiller did everything right by saving her and her siblings, and said she loved her and was always in her heart even before they met. :") This was made more emotional by the fact that my DM contacted my REAL LIFE MOTHER WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE to record this voiceline for Tiller's mom: "Whenever you need me, call, and I'll be there. I love you, Tiller". WHICH IS STILL SO CRAZY TO ME, I WAS SOBBING. Also, The Sea Dragon immediately helped us whoop a kraken's ass, so we really saved her in the nick of time cause we woulda been TPK'ed without her.
So yeah, now Tiller has a cool new mom and like hundreds of siblings she hasn't met. (And two she has met, shoutout to Mizzen and Killick!) They don't really have issues anymore, in fact, they're tighter than ever and Tiller pretty much has a fancy new summon spell where she can call upon her mom for help in extreme situations. Literally got an attack based off of "I'm gonna tell my mom on you. And she's a god. A god who's a Dragon. Eat shit, actually."
As far as abilities go, there are a lot of similarities! They both have healing magic and water manipulation magic (think creating whirlpools/currents, breathing underwater, etc.). And Tiller is a druid so she can wildshape into many sea creatures! (One of which is a sea dragon as well, albeit much smaller. Tiller's mom is like... leviathan size, her tooth is as tall as our pirate ship to give any reference, and obviously big enough to swallow our ship whole without ripping us apart. Tiller's sea serpent form is likeee as big as a very large anaconda or a small car. :3 And they both can talk to animals!
So yeah! Having a dragon mom IS the coolest thing ever, but it was a very traumatic journey to get here bahahaha!
Have a Tiller for your troubles!! And thank you again for the ask! I liked going down memory lane, it's been awhile since I played as Tiller, and it just makes me remember how much I love my darling girl. She's so deeply important to me!!!
Hey, I just wanted to recommend a video to you. You may like it, you may not, but considering it's a ytp of something you really seem to like, I'd like to share it with you.
Search "Jeetlebuice" by Numberer1. It made me cry laughing.
Love Jeetlebuice! The sign outside the house always takes me out!
One of the people I follow on Twitter has been reposting a lot of HuskerDust art and fics on their page. At first, I was shocked, because this person has consistently spoken out against abuse and problematic depictions of romance in fiction. Then I realized: they're only reposting fan content of the ship (alongside the occasional screenshot from the show). They haven't posted a single canonical clip from the show, and haven't even really spoken positively about the show itself. And all of the fics they've reposted have Husk treating Angel with actual empathy and care, like what healthy relationships are supposed to be. My reason for typing all this is: can you be against abusive relationships while being okay with rewritten relationships that are much less problematic?
Of course you can! Fiction is transformative and exists nowhere but your imagination, so it can be anything you want it to be. It's a wonderful thing.
(It's also entirely possible that they just don't think it's abusive, which you know, intensely disagree, but it's their right to think that.)
Hey. I'm not trying to be butthurt or anything, but, i want to say something.
After seeing your own and Charlotte's takes on Steven Universe, opinions I highly disagree with, I've noticed more and more people bashing the show and the creators in ways that feel very similar to the aftermath of the Lily Orchard video.
I am NOT trying to say they're all as bad as her, but it's one of the most important shows I've ever watched. It changed how I thought about the world. And I hate that it's now cool again to shit on the show.
It's got flaws of course, flaws I think I could do better. But I think complaining about flaws in a piece of work is anti-art. No piece of media is ever going to be perfect. I've accepted that.
Sorry, I'm not judging you. I'm just sharing what I feel.
And that's fine! No judgement whatsoever!
I do think there might be a miscommunication going on, because it's most certainly not my intention to shit on universe. There are parts of it I didn't agree with, but I love Steven Universe. I'm glad it exists.
Heyo. Just wanna bounce off of what an anon said and thank you for being very understanding of different points of view while still remaining passionate about your own opinions.
I personally do not have any interest in most of the stuff you like, especially not Beetlejuice, but I think your takes on it are interesting.
As for my own hot takes, I have two. The first I'm not sure you disagree with or not, the second one is a hot take that both you and likely everyone else on the Internet will disagree with.
I think Star Wars as a whole would have been so much better if George Lucas had zero involvement in it. The guy's got a very limited and black-and-white view of his world that's just not very interesting.
2. I really, really, really liked the ending to HTTYD3. I'm probably the only person I know who does. I guess I just like to find enjoyment in almost any piece of media, no matter how low-reviewed it is. I think the only things that I actually really hate are the wizard boy books (I used to love them, but after learning all the bigoted messages throughout, not anymore) and animated shock "comedies", like South Park, Family Guy and HB/HH (well, those last two technically they try to be dramadies, but fail at all levels)
I was under the impression that the Star Wars fandom was pretty united in the opinion that it would have been better without George Lucas!
As for the ending to HTTYD 3, I might intensely disagree with you on that one, but you enjoying it certainly isn't hurting anyone. If you like it, you like it!
Just for future reference, since this is my first ask with you, what questions are you comfortable with and which ones are you not? You can be as specific or as broad as you want.
Ask anything you want! Doesn't even have to be Viv related. It's all good.
