* He clearly thinks he’s hot shit in it. Like he poses and preens and is really put out when Chise tells him it looks fake. I’M HANDSOME WHY U HATIN?
* He modeled it on Simon, which is why they look similar (says a page in the manga). How freaked out about this would you be if you were Simon?
* And It’s not like Simon hasn’t seen it (he bumps into human!Elias in one of the later episodes and is like ‘u alrite bro u look troubled, like you’re thinking abut murdering a ten-year-old, cool see u byeee’).
* So does Simon not notice the similarity? Or is he just too polite to say ‘please stop copying my face it’s super creepy’?
*IIRC we’ve seen Elias do three human forms – Simonish, Chise, and a THIRD MYSTERY FORM that is a younger, androgynous person with pale hair (his disguise at the dragon auction).
*It seems he can only do forms he’s seen in real life, so for some reason I really want to see his failed attempts and all I can think of is
So this official poster has been released for How To Train Your Dragon 3 and it has left me with… opinions.
My first initial reaction was excitement! Oh hell yeah HTTYD 3 is coming out! I adored the first two! But then i saw…
SIIIIIGGGGGGGHHHHHHH I knew immediately that this was most likely a female night fury and fuck yeah shit fuck it is which is so disappointing. I could write a huge essay on how female characters are portrayed in media. I could write a massive blog about smurfette syndrome and how female characters are always just a pink, soft version of their male counterparts, or how female animal or anthro characters still have to fall into society’s beauty standards so we do crazy things like give ducks tits or large eyelashes.
I COULD talk about why these things occur, and how this is a worrying reflection of how society views human females, that males are the default and females are the other… but I’m not going to do that TODAY.
Hi my name is India and not only do I have an animation degree, but I also have a degree in animal and veterinary science.
This design doesn’t just insult me as an animator. This design insults me as a scientist.
Elias is a thorn creature who’s never seen any other thorn creatures like himself before in his life. He lives among humans because, while most of them would write him off as terrifying without a second thought, he can count on just enough of them deciding to treat him kindly or at least tolerate him for it to be worth it (unlike fairies, who flat out don’t accept him, to the point it’s not worth it). Because Elias is committed to living in human society, because his closest relationships will always be with humans and not things like himself, humanity (and lack of it) colors just about every aspect of his life and future. Somewhere between wandering the woods and settling down near London, his usual physical form changed from a creature with paws to a creature with hands and feet (a form that’s unnatural enough for him that he’ll relax into other forms when he’s exhausted). Because humans often disapprove of his face, he went so far as to incorporate a way of covering it into his everyday wardrobe.
Elias had to develop extensive knowledge of how to act the part of a creature with human emotions, to keep his few human friends from leaving and to get by around the rest while in disguise. He not only lacks companions he can act naturally around, he doesn’t even know what it means for a thorn creature to act naturally. He never had anyone to teach him or any examples to observe.
Some of Elias’s emotions, possibly many of his emotions, do have some degree of overlap with human emotions (jealousy, loneliness, kindness, attachment, etc.), so it’s not entirely true that he ‘can’t relate’ to a human; his problem is that he’s always the one framed as being ‘in the wrong’ when there are discrepancies. He has to tiptoe around everyone he knows, and no matter how careful he is, no matter how much extra work he has to put into something as basic as socializing, they’ll always treat him like he’s seconds away from fucking up.
It’s 100% wrong of Elias to want so much control over Chise, and that’s not excusable (let her go to collage you bastard), but the itch he’s trying to scratch is being able to approach a relationship, any relationship, from a standpoint of being acceptable.
say what you want about woobifying villains, but i think tragic backstories and redemption via love are staples for good reason. we want to believe that people are fundamentally good, just hardened by a harsh world. that suffering earns you a happy ending. because then it means something, then pain isn’t just senseless and futile.
people don’t ‘excuse’ the actions of villains because they just don’t take those actions seriously. i think it’s a kind of projection – we forgive them because we want to forgive ourselves, and we look for the good in them because we want to see that in the world, even in people who have wronged and hurt us. because earth is a goddamn terrifying place if other humans really are evil, if they’re really monsters.
and idk, i just think it’s kind of beautiful that we all want to believe that the scariest mass-murdering motherfucker alive can be brought down by something as pure and innocent as love. that love is the answer, not violence. i don’t think that’s cheap or ‘problematic’ or a bad influence. i think it’s human, and profoundly optimistic in a way that few people are brave enough to be.
If I didn’t hold the hope that love could make a difference, my world would be cold and bleak.
People who ONLY ever like “pure, cinnamon roll” characters and try to buff away every flaw and every morally grey dimension and reduce stories to pure heroes and pure villains give me the creeps, because it seems to me like those are people who refuse to acknowledge their own capability to do terrible things, the inevitable fact that they have done things that hurt others in the past and will do so again (because that IS inevitable if you interact with other humans), who never question themselves, who think incredibly harsh standards of judgment are just fine because of course THEY would never need forgiveness or mercy.
THOSE are the people who are most likely to stomp on your face with a boot while being utterly convinced they’re doing the right thing and you deserve it. And they will never admit they were wrong and they’ll never apologize, because only bad people do bad things, and of course they’re not a bad person, so if they did it, it must have been good.
Give me friends who are honest about their own capacity to harm, who know where their own darkness lies, and can see it played out in characters good, bad, and – best of all, somewhere in between. Who understand when to rage, when to forgive, and when to just walk away. Who understand that other people, just like them, are ever-changing bundles of contradictions. Those are people I feel I can trust.
^This last comment. I’ve been thinking about this, and it’s not just that “every villain is a hero in their own mind.” I think it’s that act of making oneself into a hero in one’s own mind, of giving up self-criticism and clinging to an identity that’s based being Good, that opens the door for a person to do truly horrible things to other people. I honestly wonder whether philosophies or faiths where good is a thing you ARE rather than a thing you DO are more prone toward instigating violence in the name of said philosophy.
Skipping back up a few points in this discussion: this is the underlying logic of a whole set of medieval saints lives. The prostitute saints (who are usually depicted as promiscuous beyond financial concerns – yeah, you have to accept the premise that sexuality is bad and chastity is good, but a fair chunk of the audience WOULD have). The set of incestuous saints who not only committed incest but a whole smorgasbord of acts of sexual and other violence before being DRAMATICALLY REDEEMED.
The logic here is: look at how depraved and evil St Whosiface was and yet STILL REDEEMED. May St Whosiface bless me because I too am problematic and yet hope for REDEMPTION. Etc. Some of the St Whosifaces started out good and got too cocky in their own virtue, and consequently were brought low. Some of them started out depraved and got worse, or were born to depraved parents, and so on. These stories revel in the evilness of the protagonist but also bathe him or her in pathos, the better to deliver an emotional payoff when they are finally REDEEMED.
You find these tropes bleeding out into non-saints stories, too – Sir Gowther was a very bad knight, a very bad knight indeed, and is consquently cursed to live ass a dog and undergo various humilations until, as a dog, he defends his master and thus is able to ascend to Good Knighthood by the power of Homosocial Bonding. Yes really. That’s a thing.
There’s a psychological thingumy going on here, and it’s not new.
People who want no ugly in their characters don’t necessarily think they’re above doing bad. It could just be they’re tired of ugly and want something clean for once. Plus, you have to have some ugly in order to claim it’s excusable for that particular character.
I can understand the first part of your reply, but what you mean with “plus, you have to have some ugly in order to claim it’s excusable for that particular character.”?
Given that I think “My Immortal” is a troll (with the reason generally being that author Tara references both Marty McFly and TOM BOMBADIL), I just reread it and I’m astounded by the effort put into it.
The spelling and grammar gets steadily worse over the course of the story, messing up simple words and even the main character’s name (variations on Ebony include Enoby, Enony, Eboby, and my favorite Enopby). The author gives frequent shoutouts in the A/N at the beginning of each chapter to someone called Raven, who she considers a friend and apparently functions as a beta. In chapter 16, Tara severs ties with Raven, expels/murders Raven’s character Willow, and changes Ebony’s full name to Ebony Dark’ness Dementia TARA Way. It’s suggested that they fought because Tara stole Raven’s poster of Gerard Way. By chapter 17, they appear to have made up and Willow is brought back with no further explanation.
The plot, of course, is just insane, but the story was obviously being read; Tara begins each chapter furiously ranting about “flamerz” leaving bad reviews, terribly misspelled. At one point, Ebony was referred to as a Mary Sue and she immediately tried to shut that down, citing “Satanism” and “depression” as flaws. She held each new chapter hostage, demanding a certain number (usually 5) good reviews before she would update. Assuming the spelling and grammar mistakes were intentional, the natural progression of them getting worse and worse is incredible. The difference between Tara’s A/Ns and Raven’s edited text is also astounding, although chapter 16, during their supposed rift, is not noticeably more poorly written than the chapters immediately preceding and following it.
The misspellings of character names and general slipups get worse and worse to the point that once, “Enopby” is referred to as “Tara”, and at another point, “TaEnby”, further to emphasize that Ebony is, in fact, the most obvious self insert in the history of literature. The reference to Marty McFly (he appears at the end of chapter 35 to spirit Ebony into the future) confounds me; Tara does not seem like she’d been aware of pop culture enough to have seen “Back to the Future”, given that she describes “The Nightmare Before Christmas” as this serious, depressing, Adult movie. She’s young enough to consider “he put his thingy into my tool” an accurate description of sex. Further, she references Tom Bombadil, a character in “Lord of the Rings” who I believe just shows up and sings for a while and is strongly implied to be God and then disappears, not really relevant to anything. He’s not even in the movies. Would Tara Gilesbie have read “Lord of the Rings” when she admits she’s never read the Harry Potter books?
Read through that lens (that this was an elaborate hoax), can you believe the rest of it was so organically terrible? Even now, 10+ years after the fact, no one can agree on whether this story is a troll, and until anyone finds out who Tara Gilesbie really is, it’s going to be impossible to know for sure. This is just crazy to me.
I have done extensive digging on this subject, and there is a lot more to My Immortal than meets the eye. Read as a troll, this story is a brilliant piece of satire on fan fiction. It incorporates so many cliches of the genre, especially those from the early to mid 2000′s. The obviously self-inserted Mary-Sue (mentioned above) along with unnecessary and unexplained crossovers, nonsensical sex scenes, and allusion to scene culture and pop punk music. Not to mention the story outside the story, Tara and Raven’s falling out, critiquing the culture of A/N’s and reviews. The tropes and cliches are far too obvious and overplayed to be sincere. I am a true believer that Tara was not only a troll, but a genius of satire. After all, if it was truly so bad, it would not have survived mixed in with ten years of equally terrible fan fiction. The legend of this story is so *ehem* immortal it has sparked heated debate in the online community for years, and was even made into a web series. (https://vimeo.com/70381882) Whether you believe it was satire or not, there is something about My Immortal that is inherently fascinating. Even if it was not her intention, Tara has created the bad fan fiction. It is a perfect storm of chaotic, nonsensical drama spiraling around the least original character ever written. Story lines are dropped and picked up again seemingly at random, characters and names are inconsistent to the point of being unintelligible, and there is no consistent overarching plot. In a sense, it is the anti-story, because it so decidedly defies every literary rule in the book. Either we are drawn to My Immortal as one watches a car wreck in awe, or because it satirizes the worst aspects of every story we have ever read. Regardless, the legacy of My Immortal will live on, either as a warning, or a work of pure genius.
In Mother 3, quite a few things are named after dragons.
The most obvious examples include the English word “dragon,“ which is represented in the original Japanese version as ドラゴン (doragon). In the fan translation, all of these references to dragons are intact and obvious.
The Dark Dragon (闇のドラゴン)(yami no doragon), a massive creature of incredible power sleeping under the Nowhere Islands. Awaking it, and potentially recreating or destroying the world, is a major focus of the game’s plot from Chapter 7 onwards.
Dragos (ドラゴ)(dorago), a friendly species of theropod dinosaur, resembling tyrannosaurs with green scales and pale chest markings. They live in the mountains on the northern end of the main island.
Ancient Dragonflies (
ドラゴンむし)(doragon mushi), fire-breathing insects with serpentine bodies and eared, crocodilian heads. They live in the swamps of Tanetane Island.
Dragon Power (ドラゴンパワー)(doragon
pawā), a currency introduced to the nowhere islands by the Pigmasks and their ruler.
However, there are two other, more subtle dragon-related names in Mother 3. These usually go unnoticed because they involve sneaking native Japanese terms for dragons into western or pseudo-western names. When they are noticed, there’s some debate among fans as to whether or not they’re even intended to be dragon references.
Tazmily Village (タツマイリむら)(tatsumairi mura)
is typically written that way in roman letters by both Japanese and Western official sources, so that’s clearly the intended pronunciation and spelling. But it’s interesting that its kana spelling starts with tatsu, isnt it? Fan translators once considered translating the town name as “Dragonstep Village,“ before they learned of the town’s official romanization.
And then there’s the game’s protagonist: a traumatized, sensitive young man; The only person with the power to pull out the rapier-like “needles“ that keep the chthonic dragon in its slumber.
(Hmm…isn’t this just the myth of a dragonslayer, played in reverse? Stab the sword in to slay the dragon; pull the needle out to revive it.)
In the Japanese version of the game, the pronunciation of the name Lucas (リュカ)(ryuka) is based on the
French pronunciation, where the ‘s’ is silent. This is because Lucas and
Claus are named after the twins in
Agota Kristof’s novel The Notebook, which was written in French, and translated into Japanese directly from the French version. So, there’s a literary allusion and an anagram.
However,
リュ (ryu) is also the katakana spelling for the spoken
pronunciation of 竜, the kanji for “dragon.” Another possible pun in Lucas’ name, visual instead of spoken: the katakana カ (ka) has a strong visual resemblance to the 力, the kanji for “power.“
If both these things are intentional, and not merely a coincidence… then Lucas’ name has a hidden meaning, one already translated for us English-speakers by the Pigmask’s bizarrely-named money.
i love prince eric. from the little mermaid. he’s hilarious. because he seems like one of the most mild-mannered and unassuming princes in the disney canon, but he is also one of the few to actively kill the bad guy. most disney villains die by consequence of the final battle but are not directly killed by the hero/heroine. most of them fall to their deaths or cause their own demise, and sometimes the hero is indirectly responsible because they’ll launch them into that direction or something, but they still don’t bring knife to heart directly.
but then a couple do. and prince eric is my fave out of those few because up until the final act, he is the most chill motherfucker u ever seen. like he is quick to spring to action during the storm scene n stuff, but otherwise? he’s really quiet n sensitive and runs along the beach playing the flute for his big shaggy dog n he smiles like a lil nerd and gets all cute around ariel and he’s so sweet n everything.
AND THEN IN THE FINAL BATTLE THAT MOTHERFUCKER STRAIGHT UP DRIVES A SHIP THROUGH URSULA LIKE WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!! NO WONDER NO ONE IS TRYIN TO LAY SIEGE TO HIS KINGDOM!! ALL THE NEIGHBOURS ARE LIKE “HOLY SHIT DON’T GO THERE! PRINCE ERIC IS A BEAST! HE’LL STRAIGHT UP DRIVE A BOAT THROUGH YOUR BITCH!”
i love him
At the beginning of the movie Prince Eric, without hesitation, jumps into the ocean, in the middle of a storm, and climbs onto a ship that’s on fire, all to rescue his dog.
Then when he’s convinced some mystery woman saved him, he starts looking for her just to thank her. On his way, he meets some mute naked teenage girl who can’t even walk or dress herself, confirms that she’s not the girl he’s looking for, then brings her to stay at his castle anyway, for no particular reason.
No one questions this, just like they don’t question when he shows up three days later with a mysterious woman one morning and says he’s getting married that same day. At said wedding, several witnesses see his fiance turn into a sea monster, which he then murders by piloting a submerged ship pulled up from the bottom of the ocean straight into her.
A week later, he marries the mute girl and the god of the sea himself rises from the ocean to give his blessings. Again, no one questions this.
I’m convinced that Eric had to have done some crazy insane stunts on a regular basis, cause despite him being so chill and relaxed normally, no one bats an eyelash at any of his ridiculous decisions or incredible feats during the course of the film. Clearly they’re all used to it, and rumours of him marrying an ocean princess would only dissuade potential enemies of his country even further.
PiraticOctopus 