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Wow the shark rug. This brings back memories

there are a lot of quality moments throughout rob/dob but astrid just coming in and kicking hiccup awake has got to be on the podium

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As part of their active banning of queer books, the Trump administration and DoD have actively targeted "The Dog Knight" by myself, Bre Indigo, @mcapriglione-art for removal from DoD schools. However, you can buy it right now and support us at Bookshop!

How do I know it's banned? Well, this article was published discussing the full list of books banned by DoD schools: https://pen.org/books-banned-by-department-of-defense-schools/

It included this link to a list of all of the books banned right here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iKxUEllBpsap4cmH_vfWtzv0h069jkSc/view

Rightfully at this point your next questions is probably "Why did they ban it?" Well, they seem to have targeted a ton of books dealing specifically with gender issues, feminism and racism. Which, if you know anything about what I write, should mean I have a ton of books banned on here. But I don't!

THAT is somehow worse, because The Dog Knight is a book aimed for middle-grade students and features a protagonist who is nonbinary. It is also a book about magical talking dogs who are trying to save the world from chaos and how Frankie, our protagonist, is chosen to help them.

The list doesn't have "Navigating with You" an explicitly lesbian YA romance, "Princeless" a book that's literally about fighting the patriarchy, or "Unstoppable Wasp" a superhero book with lots of stuff about the under-representation of girls in STEM fields and comics. That sticks out.

Because what this tells me is the administration made this list by term-searching books about nonbinary people and explicitly went about removing that representation from these schools without reading any books. They explicitly went around removing books for and about kids struggling w/identity.

They aren't trying to remove books that are harmful or dangerous, they're explicitly trying to remove books designed to provide comfort and love to those who need it most. They are targeting queer children and they do not care who they injure in the process. We need to stand up for our kids.

We need to demand better. We need to fight just as hard to make sure our kids get the books they need as they are fighting to take them away. That's what The Dog Knight was written for. And sure, this is a message that financially benefits me for you to accept, but my book isn't alone on this list.

Go read "Elle Campbell Wins their Weekend" by Ben Kahn

Read "The Deep Dark" by @mollyostertag

"The Prince and the Dressmaker" by Jen Wang

"Tomboy" by Liz Prince

"Genderqueer" by @redgoldsparks

If it's on the list, READ IT

Because these books aren't banned because they're dangerous to you, they're banned because the government doesn't want your kids to feel comforted, to feel supported, to feel safe, or to feel sane. The government wants queer kids to hate themselves and you must be part of stopping them.

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we love an autistic boy and his emotional support dragon

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I still can't believe we've just stopped talking about covid. it's so surreal to watch it destroy people's lives and most people have no idea what's happening. I can't believe we're putting kids in the position of getting covid over and over again.

if you have new weird symptoms or conditions popping up seemingly out of nowhere, it could very well be as a result of having had covid. if you're collapsing into bed at the end of your workweek, bone tired, it could be because of having had covid.

it causes multi systemic issues, damages blood vessels and the brain, triggers the development of chronic conditions and autoimmune diseases and more. pots and mcas are really common. symptoms can look a lot of ways because the impact of covid is multi systemic.

I know this is alarming. but I gotta say, having had postviral illness for many years, getting started on treating these things has improved my quality of life significantly. there is no cure for a lot of it, but life can still be made better with the right medicine.

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Oh huh! I definitely didn’t remember any multiplicity stuff from the Krakoa era, thanks for reminding me!

i really need to see systems interacting with each other in marvel because we are a community. we have been rebelling against medicalism by meeting up and comparing experiences for decades. i want to see Moon Knight teaming up with Aurora or Mary Walker+Typhoid Mary+Bloody Mary and just relating to each other. something media fails to represent about plurality is that we are a people and not a disorder. Plurality is seldom represented but there's so many canon plurals in the marvel universe that this should be happening.

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Ooh thank you for all these citations!

I haven’t read Immortal Hulk but iirc Aurora is supposedly no longer a system as of Alpha Flight vol 4, so that may explain why they didn’t talk? They should’ve, though :(

i really need to see systems interacting with each other in marvel because we are a community. we have been rebelling against medicalism by meeting up and comparing experiences for decades. i want to see Moon Knight teaming up with Aurora or Mary Walker+Typhoid Mary+Bloody Mary and just relating to each other. something media fails to represent about plurality is that we are a people and not a disorder. Plurality is seldom represented but there's so many canon plurals in the marvel universe that this should be happening.

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I have been railing against this since 2019 for all of these reasons, including the movie somehow saying he’ll survive with no prosthetic maintenance lmao. Truly the most insulting thing I’ve ever seen in my life for them to make GotNF canon only to stomp all over everything it says. I loathe HTTYD3 more than anything

One part of THW that might seem trivial but really bothers me is the erasure of Toothless as a disabled individual, and the ableist implications that he needed to "become normal" to get his happy ending.

The self-driving prosthetic is the same shade of black as his remaining tail fin - ostensibly it's coated with his own shed scales so it can be fireproof - and as such it hides the fact that Toothless is an amputee. The red tail fin was easily recognizable at a glance, but now you have to look really closely to notice he's wearing a prosthetic at all.

Before THW, Toothless openly preferred the "less advanced" red prosthetic when given the choice, because even if it was a visible difference and didn't make him 100% "normal", it represented his bond with Hiccup. He loved Hiccup so much that he never wanted to fly without him and was proud to have everyone know it.

But oh no, we can't have a physically disabled character be happy just the way they are - what would the love interest think?! THW makes Toothless resent his own disability in a way he never did before, because it comes between him and his love interest. The Light Fury isn't willing to stay with him when he can't fly, so when he's unable to follow her, we get this shot:

After his disability causes him to fall into the cove, he lifts his half-amputated tail fin in front of him, glares at it, and frustratedly slaps it down into the water, then looks at the sky with a forlorn expression.

Witnessing that is what compels Hiccup to finally bite the bullet and make the self-driving tail. Toothless is extremely excited about that because he wants to meet up with the Light Fury.

And he does, and the fact that he can now move both tail fins independently - in other words, the fact that his disability is completely mitigated and he can now pass for "normal" - is the very first thing he shows off to her. He clearly hopes she'll be impressed, and she is.

And then, once the third act comes to a close, he takes his new prosthetic to live in the wild away from humans forever. Normally I don't care about "realism" in a movie about fire-breathing dragons for obvious reasons, but this relies on several misconceptions about how living as an amputee actually works. Whether animal or human, prosthetics are typically not meant to be worn 24/7/365, since they can be uncomfortable or irritate the skin; in addition to needing breaks, they eventually wear out and require repairs or replacement.

Because of that, an animal could not return to the wild or live independently if it required a prosthetic to get around. Not that being interdependent with a human is something Toothless should be or canonically would be ashamed of, mind you. But the idea of his prosthetic holding up perfectly with zero issues even after a decade of constant use and no maintenance is just ludicrous. It's unrealistic about a disability that millions of real people actually live with, which I find in poor taste.

And that's supposedly the ending Toothless always wanted and deserved. When he had an observable physical disability, he was still able to be happy and thrive with his best friend who has the same type of disability. But come THW, he was eager to leave that life behind in favor of passing as able-bodied and living away from Hiccup, because the love interest who doesn't like Toothless's disability doesn't like Toothless's closest friendship either.

It's honestly a little maddening. Toothless was perfect just the way he was, and he knew it, and the narrative treated him as such. The fact he was an amputee was never a source of insecurity for him even when it made things challenging. He was never ashamed of being different; in fact, he was proud of how his condition brought him closer to Hiccup. That's such a heartwarming message to send with a disabled character, but THW threw it all away. Blech.

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Ohhhh, Spider-Man’s Big Time era. Big Time vol 1 omnibus was the very first comic I ever bought. I became a Spider-Man fan, and through that, a superhero fan in general, during the Slott era. It felt so accessible and fun to me compared to Classic Spidey eras and I will always have a lot of fondness for it, especially Spider-Island

Very curious to see what I’ll think when I reach this era in my complete chronological read, whether I’ll still like it then!

I'm curious what famously hated comic books you actually enjoyed.

I'll start us off. Despite the gaping plot holes, and awkward writing, I genuinely enjoyed Young Justice (2019) by Bendis. It was a comic that to me felt more like the spirit of Young Justice than any comic we have had with the core four in decades.

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Damn yeah I’ve never even once had this thought

After the way we saw Toothless absolutely shred the bars I don’t think the netting would be a problem? We do also know Hiccup’s harness is a safety measure and not, uh strictly necessary… damn why hasn’t the fandom explored this

It’s so juicy! It’s so public! He just made Astrid swear to protect Toothless if he dies or something, she is On His Side.

And if they skedaddle now, Stoick never finds out about the Red Death….

Every time I watch How to train your dragon (2010) and I get to the part where Hiccup is pushing toothless and telling him to go after he saves Hiccup in the arena, as all the villagers are flooding in to take toothless down all I can think is "boy, the saddle is right there get on your dragon and fly away!" And every single time I start looking for a fic with that premise - what if hiccup saw that toothless wouldn't leave without him, was protecting him, and thought okay! Time to go now! - and every single time I fail to find one because I don't know what keywords to search

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I miss my old moots 🤧🤧 the MOTHERS OF httyd fandom!

Avannak, E-wills, Foxie, Nokki, Funkytoes,Oh You Pretty Things, CuriosityRedux

Like my queens fr made the best hiccstrid fics and content 🤧🙌🙌🙌 I miss them dearly

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My greatest sadness for the ANAD era is that Nadia and Doreen never got to have a team-up issue. They would have been too powerful together…

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the constant high school-ification of spider-man has given flash thompson such a bad pop culture reputation. I bet 90% of people don't even know that he's been one of peter's best friends since like. the 70s

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this right here is my favorite part of httyd 1

the way he was so excited

and hiccup looks so proud

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Circling back around to impotent fury that no fic magically exists about this for me to read now in bed tonight, I want it so bad omg

Dragon eyes

+ bonus cursed Toothless with human eyes

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disabled people who do not directly "contribute" to society and need large amounts of care and resources to survive deserve not only to survive but to have comfort, stability, and fun within their lives while they do. no compromises.

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I love it when characters have some kind of weird bond between them. Psychics bonds, telepathic links, empathy links, soul bonds, and whatever else. What if you were always aware of the people you loved? What if you could feel their presence in a way beyond the five senses? What if they could never fully hide themselves from you? What if you could never fully hide yourself from them?