#how to train your dragon meta

[talea456]

Thoughts on: Stoick's act of grace

Okay, look, I'm gonna put OFMD in the tags cause this is one of the most beautiful fucking reunions I've ever seen and I want more of this type of reunion between two people who love each other. Like, sure, angst and it's resolution is all fun and stuff, but IDK...maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm tired of all the damn angst. I wanna see grace. I wanna see forgiveness. I wanna see someone's love for the other person override those angry, bitter emotions and see the healing that healthy, safe love can do.

Maybe the reunion couldn't or shouldn't happen on OFMD cause their separation was very early in their relationship versus these two characters who were married and had a baby when she left, but OH MY GOD, is the grace Stoick shows here not the most fucking beautiful thing you've ever seen?? Like, you can see she's spent 20 years going over and over what she'd say if she ever saw him again. She's armored up (emotionally and physically) for a fight. She's ready to be seen as a monster who abandoned her family rather than as a human who made a mistake, didn't know how to fix it, and then convinced herself it'd be better if she just stayed away because of that.

But Stoick. He's a guy who spent 20 years grieving over his (who he thought was) dead wife. He spent 20 years missing her. Probably thinking of her everyday and seeing her in his son and reliving the same fights and heartbreak over and over again. So what he sees here is that second chance. The answer to that never-ending prayer of anyone who has lost someone they love dearly: "If I could only have one more kiss. One more chance to hold them. One more dance with them." So he takes it. He takes that chance to just love her again. Heartbreak, anger, and distrust be damned. His love just overrides them. And that's just fucking beautiful, is it not?

I know this type of stuff can seem unreal to younger folk. Heck, 20 years ago, I would think this was unrealistic. But the thing is, when you live with loss and trauma and pain for 4+ decades of life and then you start to heal from all that pain, you just get tired of it. All that pain is like a used porta-potty sitting out in the sun on a hot day--you don't want to revisit if you don't have to. Sure, justified anger still bubbles up from time to time when you feel rejected or not respected and petty arguments are just a part of life for two strong-willed people, but overall you just want to love and feel loved. To be safe with your person. To rest and be at peace with them. Cause when you start to heal, you start to see that things can be different and that you do get to decide what emotions to focus and act on. Stoick decided to focus on and act out of love, maybe because he had already done some healing between the first and second movies re: his son and his perspective on dragons.

This grace you see in this gif set? This is what comes from a life filled with loss and grief. With regret and deep, bone-aching sorrow. So, when your person (or people) show up and offer a safe place to rest, you can choose to hold on to it like the life-raft that it is. That safe, healing type of love really is strong enough to override any heartbreak or anger--if you have the grace to allow it.

[ljf613]

Apparently my best friend has never seen any of the How to Train Your Dragon movies, and I'm due for a rewatch, so we're watching them together.

We're about halfway through the first and there's two things that really stand out to me this time around:

Hiccup is funny. Like, really funny. (Sure, he's funny in the later movies, too, but there's something uniquely amusing about the self-deprecating humor of an awkward and lonely fifteen year old with absolutely no filter. It's great.)

All things considered, Stoick is actually.... a pretty decent parent. I mean, I've been reading a lot of HTTYD fics lately, and many of them portray him as this awful, domineering guy who doesn't care about his son AT ALL until he becomes "useful" or whatever. And watching the OG movie, especially from a more grown-up perspective on things, he's really not all that bad. Sure, he's not exactly getting any 'parent of the year' awards. He's a human, and he makes mistakes, but, considering the circumstances, he really is trying his best.

[sea-owl]

I'm rewatching the first How to Train your Dragon movie for the first time in years and rewatching with adult eyes I can kinda see Stoick's side with his strained relationship with Hiccup.

Now, before I get into this, I do want to say that I do not agree with Stoick's actions and words during the whole 'you're not my son' fight. Nor do I agree with how he allowed the village's treatment of Hiccup. I can see where he was coming from, but I do not agree with it. I just kinda want to explore his side of the relationship since we have the whole movie for Hiccup's pov and his side has been discussed multiple times over the years.

Now I'm going off the movie itself first without the extra info the other movies, shows, and the deleted scenes give us.

We actually get a lot of Stoick's perspective from the first 10-30 minutes of the movie, we learn Stoick is the leader of his people, meaning their tribe's wellbeing rests on his shoulders. We know the island they live on has a problem with dragons. The vikings and dragons are in competition with one another over food and livestock. Plus, the village has been burned down so many times because of this competition, the vikings are constantly repairing and rebuilding. It is also hinted at that there is a food shortage which endangers the village with the upcoming winter where food would be even more scarce.

Being a leader is tough, and adding all that on Stoick's plate as well I'm not surprised he has this no nonsense attitude.

Then we add in Hiccup, Stoick's son and future chief of the tribe. Stock loves his son, you can see it even in the first movie, but Hiccup is also unintentionally a problem viking. Don't get me wrong, Hiccup is well meaning in his inventive way, but he still has caused issues for the tribe. Now this is inferred from a spefic scene. When Hiccup is trying to convince Stoick he shot down a night fury he tells Stoick "This isn't like the other times," and when Stoick is sending Hiccup back to their house he says in a sorta frustrated tone, "I have to clean up his mess again." This tells me a few things. One Hiccup's past actions has led Stoick to seeing Hiccup as childish and tells stories leading to goose chases. The second thing is Hiccup either does not take responsibility for the messes he has created in the past, not helping with the clean up of those messes, or if he has it has just led to, in Stoick's eyes at least, more problems.

Now let's add in Gobber, who is the middle man between father and son. We see him trying to reassure both of them. He takes in Hiccup like an uncle figure and teacher in the forge. He talks to Stoick like a brother and confidant, giving him advice. These talks with Gobber also highlight the communication issues and how little Stoick and Hiccup have been listening to one another.

Stoick's conversation with Gobber also has this one line that most would think is a throw away or an opening for a joke but I think actually is an example of why Stoick and Hiccup's relationship is strained at least from Stoick's perspective.

"I take him fishing and he goes hunting for trolls!"

Fishing is an act that can help provide. Bring food home to a family and a job basically. Hunting for trolls is seen as child's game, by the village at large, they don't believe they exist.

Stoick's main problem with his strained relationship with Hiccup is that in his eyes that Hiccup is not meeting or not taking seriously the duties he should have already started at least training for as heir to the tribe. This is further reinforced by how proud Stoick is by Hiccup's success in dragon training because in Stoick's point of view, Hiccup was finally growing up and taking his responsibilities seriously. This is also reinforced again during the battle with the Red Death when Stoick's pride seeing Hiccup lead the other riders.

Now, add deleted scenes and information we have learned throughout the series. We know Stoick and Hiccup had a better relationship when Hiccup was younger. They were more loving and soft with one another. This leads one to believe that their issues are a more recent development in the last 3 years at the earliest is my guess.

Now you might be thinking, but Hiccup is only 15! We gotta think back on viking times and culture. Hiccup is old enough to get married. I believe I remember reading most vikings, which were considered adults by 16. Not to mention, with the constant attacks, Stoick could unexpectedly die at any moment. Hiccup needs to know this information, and needs to take it seriously.

I think another big strain in their relationship is what the two represent. Stoick is old school, follows the traditional viking way. While Hiccup is the younger generation moving forward and adapting. It is gonna cause conflict, but as we see later on, when these two learn to communicate, talk and listen to one another, there is room for both.

Now Stoick is not without his faults and definitely has shares his portion of blame, but it is unfair to lay all the blame on him. He was trying with Hiccup and he did love his son. But he also did have responsibilities to the tribe as a whole that sadly was a higher priority to him.

[artist-issues]

People don’t seem to understand what makes fan content good. Not likeable necessarily, because likability is another thing. I mean, objectively good.

So I’ve decided to illustrate my point. (badly, because I’m a doodler not a pro) Let’s say this is my character, Snatch. He’s just a simple character: a rat who lives on the streets, avoiding humans and surviving. But as simple as he is, Snatch has two distinct character traits that make him “Snatch.” 

And these character traits define everything Snatch does. They are his Unbreakable Character Traits. For example, Snatch won’t jump into traffic to save neighborly  possums because he doesn’t like risking his own skin. He’s perfectly happy stealing from babies because that also gets him food without endangering the beloved skin.

The character traits can go deeper! Like when Snatch starts to make friends or like other people, it’s usually because he was getting something out of the relationship. For example, his very closest friend, Buster the Dog, is the only friend Snatch cares about because Buster makes him feel safe. 

So we can have adventures, and people can like my character very much, because no matter how deep or shallow the antics, he’s a consistent character. He’s always Snatch. And in my story, Snatch never grows past those particular flaws.

Now let’s say people like Snatch enough to make fan content about him. (Let’s say. Hypothetically.) They want more of Snatch! So they put him in new situations, wacky worlds, and even let him meet different characters.

Some of the new situations can even break some rules, and that’s okay, as long as the rules aren’t about who Snatch is.

For example:

Cyborg Snatch! (that’s cool! Maybe he escaped from a lab, and that’s why he’s so self-protective.)

See, even though a major part of Snatch has been broken—the fact that he is a regular rat with no close experience with humans—he still has an opportunity to remain Snatch. All the fan-content creator has to do is make sure Snatch’s Unbreakable Character Traits are incorporated into the cyborg story. And it has to be believable, in some sense. Maybe, like I said, Snatch is still concerned with protecting himself…but now he can do it with lasers! Or he’s still selfish, but he talks like a robot.  This way, fans of robots and fans of Snatch can have the best of both worlds. Snatch’s nastiness is still there, but you get to explore it from a new angle. You get to fall in love with his character all over again. That’s what fan-creators who really know the original and care about craft integrity LOVE about fan creations, and it’s what other fans search for, too. But there’s a dark side. When fan works just becomes Lazy Self-Service. And that happens when a character’s Unbreakable Character Traits are treated like easily-snapped old rubber bands. Unfortunately, I’m just the original creator. I can’t stop people from breaking Scratch’s Unbreakable Character Traits. They don’t really understand Snatch himself—or else, they don’t really like him for who he is. They would rather see a story about a rat who falls in love. Or maybe they want a story about a green rat who learns the value of selflessness and proves the haters wrong.  But they don’t do the work to move Snatch from a selfish coward to a selfless cutie. They don’t write Snatch into a believable scenario that would force him to learn from his mistakes and become a better rat. They don’t explain why he would ever grow out of caring for himself above all else. Instead, they simply plop a rat character into a dangerous situation, and have him save a baby mouse’s life…he willingly shares cheese with Buster…he comforts sad lady rats…and the fan-creator tells everyone that the hero rat doing all this is Snatch.

This goes for characters like Snatch, who are simple or purposely nasty, and more complex characters like Sherlock Holmes or Tony Stark. No matter how complex or simple, most characters (that are good enough to have a fan following) do have Unbreakable Character Traits. Things that make the character who they are. Things that should not be changed without lots of hard work and believable buildup to explain the change.

You see, much like real people, most characters need lots of experiences and hard knocks before they can change what makes them who they are. And if they do change those Unbreakable Character Traits, the fan creator will have to care more about the effort that it takes to understand a character and reproduce it faithfully…and care less about what makes them feel good to write without much hard work or risk.

So if you are making a story about Captain America, but he’s got trauma from losing his friends and can’t bring himself to rescue kids from a war zone because of it, then you’ve shattered one of his Unbreakable Character Traits: doing the right thing, especially when it’s hard for him. You’re not really making a story about Captain America anymore.

If you are making a story about Eddie Munson, but he’s a brave hearted warrior who takes Chrissy on a date to a fancy restaurant after beating up the whole basketball team, you’ve shattered his Unbreakable Character Traits: before the events of Stranger Things 4, Eddie Munson is afraid and runs from trouble, and he certainly doesn’t believe in conventional dates enough to spend money on a fancy restaurant. You’re not really making a story about Eddie Munson anymore. 

If you are making a story about Snatch the Rat, but he’s a cute little guy just looking to be accepted by his neighbors, you’ve shattered his Unbreakable Character Traits: Snatch doesn’t care about acceptance, he only cares about grub and shelter. You’re not really making a story about Snatch the Rat anymore.

I could go on and on. But the point is: instead of writing a story you want to see and lazily dragging established characters along when they don’t fit, just make up your own character! Or change the original, but show your work. Either way, work harder.

[evilwriter37]

Okay, but it is all about the piano chords! (And also the harp.) Music can have so much meaning in tv and movies, and I think John Paesano did a great job with Race to the Edge.

So yes, at the end of Triple Cross, there’s a small bit of music that has harp playing a faster tune, and three, deep, descending piano chords.

And there’s meaning in that! The harp and piano chords have discordant beats at the beginning, almost fit together by the second piano chord, and then by the end, join together perfectly.

That’s Hiccup and Viggo’s story. The discordant dance around each other, how their feelings changed and grew, and how at the end, they were able to come to a close to their conflict.

But only at the very end. That last piano chord is the note telling the truth of Viggo’s death.

[granny-griffin]

Twelve years down the road and I finally figured out why how to train your dragon resonated with me so strongly when I was eleven and saw it for the first time.

I used to joke about how dumb I thought that movie was based on the promotional things I had seen for it. I had read the hobbit, I had read other lesser-quality Christian literature. I knew that dragons were actually evil and that anyone who thought they could tame one was stupid or uninformed and was setting themself up to be eaten in their sleep. So I went into the movie thinking that none of these characters could possibly understand the genre they were in.

As it turned out, I was the one who was unprepared.

I think most of you are familiar with the difference between "this media is good" and "this media is something that I enjoy a lot." For me, the second category has a lot to do with resonance. A story can be beautifully constructed, but if its main point isn't applicable to me personally, I'm not going to get obsessed with it. The stories that have consumed my brain for years are the ones I happened to encounter at exactly the right time, the ones containing some core message that neatly aligned with the thing that I needed to learn in that moment.

How to Train Your Dragon is about growing up. It's about individuation. It's about taking the worldview your parents passed on to you and the dissonant self growing in your gut and fitting them together in a new way.

With as much as I had decided I was going to dislike the story, it hooked me pretty fast—mostly because when the movie starts, all the characters view dragons as their enemy. That was something I could get on board with. I completely bought into the status quo. Of course killing a dragon meant everything to Hiccup. That was the right thing to do. That was the thing his community wanted to do. There wasn't anything else to it.

So when he had the chance to kill a dragon and then didn't I decided that he was an idiot. He had been so on board with the whole program! How could he have suddenly forgotten that dragons were evil? He was lucky that his mistake hadn't killed him! But it was hard to keep that opinion for long. Because the more Toothless appeared in the movie, the more I realized that dragons were objectively pretty cool. And in hindsight, Hiccup's decision to spare his enemy hadn't come from nowhere. He was incredibly terrible at performing the ideals of his community. The way he was put together didn't mesh correctly with them, and he'd spent forever trying to pretend that wasn't the case. So maybe this was inevitable. Maybe Hiccup had simply held back his innate impulses as long as he possibly could.

Because Hiccup, who has never been good for anything, turns out to be exceptionally good at befriending dragons. It's the antithesis of everything he has been taught is right, and he loves it. It speaks to him in a way that nothing in his life ever has. More than that, it makes him good at fighting dragons, a thing he has never been able to succeed at before. Suddenly his community sees him and celebrates him—but it feels inauthentic. Because he knows if they ever found out how he was getting these results, they would reject him. They wouldn't understand—or at least, Hiccup can't think of a way to communicate it in a way that would make sense.

So when he decided that he needed to leave his community for good, I understood. He'd done the thing I had always been warned against—he had rebelled against the teachings of his father and followed his heart. I couldn't blame him for it, but there was no way around it. The thing inside of him was incompatible with all of his former ideals. He could only have one, and he had made his choice.

And then Hiccup picked option three. He went back to his people and tried to explain to them that training dragons was actually pretty cool, and it went terribly. And this time, I understood why he did it. Because the perfect impossible dream would be to have both the dragons and his people—for his father to find out about the version of himself that he had kept hidden and accept it. It wasn't something that could even happen, but I understood why he would want it. I understood why he would try.

Then the ending highlighted something that I had somehow missed for most of the movie. The viking's goal of "kill dragons" was actually an extrapolation of their main ideal—protect the village. And while Hiccup takes plenty of opportunities to not kill dragons, at no point does he purposefully endanger his community. A lot of the incongruence between his perspective and the perspective of his people is that Hiccup has stopped viewing dragons as something inherently threatening. And he's right! Toothless goes out of his way to protect him! He's the opposite of dangerous!

So when Stoick takes his army to attack a dragon that Hiccup knows he can't beat, Hiccup uses his ability to train dragons in order to defend his people. And it works—it works better than anything anyone had ever been able to do before. He's able to defeat the dragon that was forcing all the other dragons to attack the village. He completely ends the dragon attacks that had been plaguing his people for hundreds of years. The dichotomy that I had superimposed on the story was proven completely incorrect. The thing spilling out from inside of Hiccup was not only not incompatible with the ideals of his people—it was the only thing able to empower him to live out those ideals. In order to actualize that he had to be willing to stand up to everyone he had ever respected—but he never had to rebel against the core of what he believed. And at the end of the day, when he was able to show his community that he had never stopped caring about their safety, they understood. They realized that the synthesis he had created wasn't antithetical to their own worldview, and they accepted it. They accepted him.

I couldn’t have told you why when I was eleven. But I knew that somehow it was a story about me.

[wingshowdown]

ROUND FIVE - QUARTER FINALS

[thethiefandtheairbender]

I was thinking about HTTYD: The Hidden World, and some of the themes people seem to miss from the ending-- the whole concept of a short-lived golden era of wonder the world isn't ready for, but hopefully will be someday.

And it kind of reminded me of Arthurian lore and, more generally, the classic King in the Mountain archetype.

As someone who enjoys exploring literary motifs, I thought you might have some ideas about this?

If anything I think people fail to notice how little the movies actually talk about coexistence through Hiccup as opposed to Hiccup's goal every movie being about bringing an end to violence, when you get down to it. In the first movie even once bonding with Toothless, Hiccup never thinks that humans and dragons can live together. He goes into the Kill Ring to try and show that there's another way once he realizes dragons are controlled and equally victims, stating, "Put an end to this; I have to try" and "We don't have to kill them." Cohabitation on a widespread level was something that the Berkians decided on independently of him when he was asleep / recovering. That doesn't mean Hiccup doesn't want humans and dragons to live together - he absolutely does - but the first movie is far more centred on

Likewise, the second movie also isn't about co-habitation, although it's starting to get there. For example, Hiccup doesn't say to Drago that dragons deserve even to be treated kindly / to love in community with humans. What they disagree on is the role dragons play in the lives of humans: "Dragons, they are kind, amazing creatures, that can bring people together" "Or tear them apart." Likewise, Valka never believed that no humans could live in harmony with dragons, only that it was a limited few ("some of us are just born different") and that you had to submit to draconic ways rather than finding a middle ground, like Berk. It's also worth noting how little Berk does to protect the dragons / the humans do in general in the climax. Whereas in the first movie the kids were equally in the battle, the side characters are side lined until Hiccup frees Toothless, and Toothless gets the rest of the dragons on board. Rebuilding is a joint effort, but ending the violence successfully is not

Finally, HTTYD3 makes co-habitation an actual hardcore theme, and has a villain who is logistically and ideologically opposed to Hiccup's life's work: "You would have them live among us, as equals?" That's why the ending is so important, because it's Hiccup realizing that dragons aren't equals - they're better than humans, and just like he doesn't try to change Grimmel's mind because of Drago, it processes that humans will bring misery to dragons through involvement and constant chaos. It's Hiccup realizing he's entrapped in his own cycle.

Which is to say: the movies are obsessed with Endings and bringing about the ends of cycles of violence and upheaval. Letting the dragons be free in safety from human terror is perfectly in line with this theme. It's why the first and last noteworthy thing Hiccup does is the exact same:

He lets a dragon go.

He sets a dragon free.

[kingofthewilderwest]

I'm seeing a lot of complaints about the dragon designs in TNR, but I actually liked them. (With the exception of Wu and Weiʼs wings, which look awkward). What do you think about the dragon designs?

I have more fun talking in an upbeat way about the latest media myself! I’ll be honest about my opinions of the dragon designs below, including the good, the bad, and the ugly, but I hope you won’t think I descend into complaints, because I have no intention of complaining for a second. And there’s lots I enjoy and will highlight. TNR honestly does give us some great dragon design material.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Feathers and Plowhorn's designs are fantastic, a perfect reflection of the DreamWorks Dragons universe: taking unique inspirations from unexpected creatures and combining them with lovable, whimsical designs. The limitations to their appearance is the animation budget, not the design itself. Imagine how stupendous they’d look with the budget of a movie theatrical release: they’re just that good they’d deserve to be on the big screen!

Feathers is beautiful, long, and lithe, the forms I’ve gravitated to since I was a kid drawing my own serpentine creatures. With Plowhorn, the combination of the gem horn and the beetle wings was a stroke of ingenuity. Give the artists my applause for creating such uniqueness!

Now we’re getting into the polite constructive criticism territory. I don’t think Webmaster is a good design for a rider dragon. For a single episode enemy, that’d be fine. But I don’t think the shape is conceptually graspable enough to imprint on viewers in the way a main character’s dragon should.

I think Wu and Wei looks clunky and unappealing. In theory the colors should work together, but they don’t. And the dragon’s shape does not work. I hope you’re not upset at my personal opinion, but for those interested into what I really think, I admit I find the design ugly. Which is a shame, because I love the notion of expanding HTTYD dragons beyond Vikingdom into other cultures’ understandings, like Chinese dragons.

I’m not a fan of Thunder’s look. It could be worse but it could be improved. The blaze on the face, for whatever reason, doesn’t come off looking appealing. Mostly, though, it’s the proportions with Thunder that feel “off.” I get that they gave him a lanky, young cat sort of look, but the result is his whole body feels “off.” The flatness of his head combined with the skinniness of his neck is the start of the awkwardness.

Granted, I'd prefer he weren’t a Night Light at all, and I have my bias in that I didn’t like the original trio of Night Lights introduced in Homecoming (in that case, it’s because of how they were babyified). So that needs to be taken into account when I say I don’t care for Thunder’s appearance: the whole premise isn’t catering to someone like me. Chances are you’d be hard pressed to make any Fury-adjacent creature appeal to me in a modern show.

As far as the rest of the dragon designs in the show, I want to make a post where I glibly rate everyone! Go through every dragon, old and new, that TNR shows. I appreciate that we see some but not all of the old species and that the high majority of the screen time is on new dragons. Off the top of my head, the vomiting pus bag is the best thing I have seen in my thirty years on earth. I. Love. It. I would buy merchandise of that dude! The Sky Torcher is a cool concept, though needs more budget and a few tweaks, but it certainly stuck with me among the many new dragons we’ve seen. I hate how the Bubblehorn looks with an utter passion. But overall, I have fun seeing how the new dragons look! And I think there are way more positives than negatives when it comes to the designs of background, non-rider dragons! Definitely can’t complain to MORE DRAGONS!

[mikeellee]

In mha, which boys and girls do you think are the biggest mary sues and gary stus in the series? Because alot of fans say that Izuku is a gary stu that has asspulls and plot armor but never said that about any other characters, especially the female cast. If it's any other girl from a different franchise, they'll complain. But if it's a girl from Mha, people instantly worship them without question. I know one is hori's pet but who else?

Hi @mega321boom

First off

Who ever called Izu a Gary stu?

The question is not meant at you btw, just confused. Bc Izu is the opposite of a Gary Stu .... everything, I mean, everything must be impossible hard and he must be connected to no one

Ok hm. Boy as Gary Stu is obvious BK. That goes without saying.

Mary Sue? I think Ochako fandom makes her to be one. It's a bit tricky as you know, she has no relevance but her fandom takes all she does and magnifie to 10000. Her speech in the Dark Izu arc is ass but her fans make videos and metas to say she is the goat

Momo? Again, hard to say. To me she is more the hot babe than anything else.

Girls in MHA aren't all that important.

Maybe Toga fits the Mary Sue's criteria. Like she knows how to fight like a boss and we don't ever saw her any training. Not saying she knowing how to fight is "breaking the rules of the story" Dragon ball has anyone being able to fight, but how Toga is so good? She seems to be able to take down armies...and well, she kind did. She is not related to no one important (her family exists and that's it we don't know anything about them) she never tried to talk to Izu (she fails at the yandere trope badly) she is kind pointless ...

Shig? Is he a Gary Stu? Unclear. I do think Hori hand things to him to move plot and it wasn't earned. But it was more on his laziness than Shig being a real Gary Stu...plus Shig has been tortured 3 times in the manga....if anything he is the dark deku.

Girls of A1 have nothing to go on aside they all team up to gang on Izu ...do far that I don't care.

Nana has nothing to call a Mary Sue

Inko is just a neglectful mother.

Look to answer your question, I think MHA has BK as Gary Stu but Ochako fandom turns her into a Mary Sue

[hollowwhisperings]

how to train your dragon, meta edition.

the hiccup method: develop trust and comaradery over time, food acting as the go-to icebreaker.

talk to dragons, ideally in their own draconic language/s or with telepathy. if those are biologic impossibilities, educating yourself on draconic customs and on recent (for them) politics show you to be acting in Good Faith.

beat the dragon in a fight, shōnen protagonist style.

survive the dragon doing its best to kill you.

be good at riddles and fluent in the complexities of governance. a balance between pragmatism & benevolence can prove crucial.

hatch & raise the dragon lovingly.

have a very susy family tree that may or may not have featured gene splicing, blood magic, and man-made eldritch abominations.

[minijenn]

Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: Captain Underpants: The Epic First Movie

So I have to admit, Captain Underpants is yet another thing I didn't engage with as a child. I remember the books being around when I was a kid, but I was too busy being obsessed with Disney Princesses and Barbie to really care. So as my first exposure to this property, how does it hold up?

We focus on best friends Harold and George, who spend their days writing and drawing the "Captain Underpants" comics about a underwear-clad superhero's epic adventures. Those adventures find their way into reality when they accidentally hypnotize their strict principle Krupp into thinking he is Captain Underpants. While fun at first, danger is thrown into the mix with the arrival of Professor Poopypants, who seeks to rid the entire world of laughter.

So yeah, this movie is really silly, but I think it works in its favor? Like, it's probably the most meta Dreamworks movie ever, like no joke Harold and George break the fourth wall constantly ala Emperor's New Groove and it's actually pretty funny in that reguard? The humor overall is pretty sharp, spare for a few obvious potty jokes (I mean, the bad guy's name is Poopypants). But even then they didn't really bother me that much because, well, this movie is just... charming? Its sharply written and a silly little romp that knows exactly what it is and doesn't strain itself trying to be anything more (unlike Boss Baby before it).

The characters here are all pretty fun. George and Harold make a great dynamic duo and they play off each other really well. Our titual captain is expectedly silly and humorously emptyheaded, but he steals the show whenever he's on screen. We start the movie off thinking Krupp will be the antagonist, and he's delightfully cruel and unhinged. Even more unhinged though, is our villain. Professor Poopypants may just be one of the funniest Dreamworks baddies yet. He just plays the insane supervillain trope so well and he gets some of the funniest jokes in the entire movie as a result.

I think what really charmed me about this movie, however, was the way it looks. I am highkey OBSESSED with how stylized this movie is! It matches the vibes of the books perfectly and does it so well. The colors all pop, the simple character designs just work, and the animation is so smooth and fluid and fast-paced with some really great work when it comes to character expressions, which is impressive given the fact that all of the characters have dots for eyes.

So yeah, overall this is a pretty simple movie, but a really fun little romp! I appreciate that it really doesn't try to be more than it is, doesn't try to phone in some fake emotions or a pointless message. It exists to be silly and over the top and ridiculous and it does a pretty solid job at that! As an epic first adventure, I can safely say I hope it ends up being the start of several more.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Verdict: Get flushed down the Turbo Toilet 200

Previous Review (The Boss Baby)

Next Review (How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World)

[the-critic-god-of-books]

One thing to think about when writing powerful protagonists or even overpowered protagonists, is that spectacle will only get you so far.

Stories are about conflict, and having every conflict be about the main character one-shotting someone is boring. there are 2 main options that you can go with: you can make the story a comedy like "One Punch Man" or You can get your drama from another source.

You can also do both like "The Eminence in Shadow" does

let me go on a rant about that real quick

You see the world of The Eminence in Shadow is a dark fantasy. It's on some Game of Thrones shit.

The Cult of Diablos: a secret organization that almost ended the world a few years back is moving in the shadows to gain more power.

Shadow Garden: a female-only group of mater rogues and assassins comprised of the victims of The Cult of Diablos (experiments gone wrong)

Diablos: A woman whose dead body is used by the cult to further their power. she works to escape and return to the real world. to fight Sid and a lot of other shit.

Other factions fight to maintain some sembles of normalcies in a world fucked to hell and back by Diablos.

and then we have Sid also known as The Eminence in Shadow.

Use Sid wants to be Batman but in our world, no matter how hard you work out or how much you train if somebody drops a nuke on you, you die. so Sid kills himself and gets Isekai'd (on purpose btw).

You see Sid has 2 powers

The power of The Eminence in Shadow (supper strength speed mastery of the sword supper good magic) that he kinda worked for

And

The Power of Plot (which he's not aware of ) you see Sid has Infinite luck. and things will always work out for him in the best meta way possible.

Sid makes up The Cult of Diablos when he tells the girls that: will later on create shadow garden, about it. Through sheer luck The Cult of Deablos is real.

You see this anime works through the same logic that Sid does "What would be the coolest thing that could happen if I was in an anime."

Everyone in the world is playing a political drama set in a Dystopian Dark fantasy. And Sid is a 14-year-old edge lord playing Dungeons & Dragons. Sid the comedic character just having fun does some weird cringe edgy shit and all of the serious well written characters have to deal with his bullshit.

You see Sid is the DM's little brother who we have to entertain till he goes to bed and he's playing as NotBatman in our Darkfantasy. and the world is funnier for it.

In Conclusion/ TLDR

The Story works because from day one you know that Sid can win any fight he wants to. and the story is not about fighting. The story is about "how will the characters deal with {black}"

if you want to have a story with an overpowered protagonist then make the story about how they affect the world around them not how many people they can kill.

[illarian-rambling]

Thanks for the tag @kaylinalexanderbooks!

Wip Questionnaire

Rules: answer as few or as many as you'd like!

1. What was the first part of your wip that you created?

For Honor's Outcasts, it was the Trench. There was this game I played a lot while waiting for my sister to get out of cheer practice called Seashine, and I guess I just imagined what would happen if people were trapped down there and how they'd survive. That's where Izjik came from. When I decided she needed a friend, that's how I came up with Sepo. (If any of you want to play the Trench simulator, Seashine is free on mobile)

For Mortal God, the first thing I came up with was the villain, Vermir. I needed a villain for an arc in my dnd campaign, and I figured some crazy lich trying to encase her body in steel while experimenting on the local population was threatening enough. Mashal and Astra were created as a way to get my... less than clever party to her hidden layer. I liked them enough that I decided to write a book about their story.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Honor's Outcasts' intro would be War Pigs by Black Sabbath. I think the intro sequence would be a bunch of their battles stitched together chronologically, so you could see everyone's abilities change and grow. Maybe some short sequences from End's siege of the Watchtower mirroring that too.

Mortal God intro would be Night of the Living Ted by Hillbilly Moon Explosion. It's got a country sort of vibe and even though the lyrics don't match at all, I think it fits the chaos of the story.

3. Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

Good lord, that's a tough question. I like all my characters. If I had to choose though, I'd pick Izjik for Honor's Outcasts. She was the first one I made, and it's mostly her who drives the story forward. Also, her POV is just really fun to write.

Astra is my favorite from Mortal God, despite all the difficulties I've had with refining her character. She's just a lot of fun, and she's also a sort of plot catalyst like Izjik.

4. What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

I mean, any high fantasy books. I think Honor's Outcasts and the Lies of Locke Lamora would share fans because of the pirates and found family vibes, though Locke Lamora is a lot grittier and less magical.

Mortal God would have a place with the steampunk crowd. A lot of people also compare it to Star Trek? I've never seen Star Trek, so I don't know how accurate that is. In my own mind, I compare both series to Mistborn eras 1 and 2, in that they take place on the same planet, but the second series is some time in the future.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

The making of the Honor's Outcasts plot was an absolute roller coaster. Every book I wrote like it was the end of the series, only to go, wait no, this doesn't feel done.

With Mortal God, I had more trouble with the characters. I knew I wanted a romance, but I'd never written one before, so setting up that early chemistry between Astra and Mashal was rough. Also, riding that edge of making Ivander a likable jerk wasn't easy.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Uh, I don't really like to write pets. I always forget about them and my characters move around too much. Case in point, in Honor's Outcasts book 2, Sepo has a horse. When they teleport post haste to Unity, they leave poor Landhorse behind, and we never see her again. (She just ends up with their neighbors, don't worry)

Similarly, Astra has a cat named Mercher's Day. In book 2, she leaves him with her parents so he's not in danger when they travel north. The meta reason for this was because I knew she was going to have to leave her vardo behind at the end of the story and I didn't want to abandon poor Mercher in some icy city.

7. How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

Transportation changes between the series due to the time jump. In Honor's Outcasts, the quartet's main mode of transport is by boat, at least until Twenari learns to teleport people. Even then, she can only do it once per day, and only with a physical piece of the place she intends to go, so they're still walking a lot.

In the time of Mortal God, trains have been invented and are a common mode of transportation for rich city folk like Ivander. Astra prefers her vardo. The DuClaire Extraordinaire is a steam-powered, steel crocodile-legged, self steering vardo wagon covered in bright paint and electric lights. It isn't fast, but it's her home and it can make it over almost any terrain. It's very much based on Baba Yaga's chicken house.

8. What part of your wip are you working on rn?

The Honor's Outcasts series (still gotta come up with a real name for that) is written. I'm working on finding beta readers, saving up money for professional editing, and working up the courage to query.

Two books of Mortal God are written, with plans for a 3rd under way. I need to find readers for the first two and maybe a developmental editor before I finish the series.

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

People eat found family up, so hopefully that'll mean they like Honor's Outcasts. There's so much found family in those books. Also, queer characters, no romance, and some spooky eldritch horror.

In Mortal God, I think the slow burn between Astra and Mashal will make the romance subplot people happy. There's also robots and I love robots, as well as some themes of classism and empire.

For both series, I think it's my worldbuilding that really shines. I read a lot of high fantasy with super detailed worlds and magic systems, so it's my hope that my books approach some of that.

10. What are your hopes for your wip?

I want to publish both of them. Not really for the money, but I just think it's the best way I can get my stories out there, you know? I long for the day when I'll be able to read fanfic someone wrote of my books.

I'll tag @mk-writes-stuff @somethingclevermahogony @nbwriteschaos @autism-purgatory @cssnder and anyone else who wants in :)

Blanks under the cut

1. What was the first part of your wip that you created?

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

3. Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

4. What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

7. How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

8. What part of your wip are you working on rn?

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

10. What are your hopes for your wip?

[nebulize-my-mind]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

(I don't know anybody here, so nobody tagged me, I just thought it'd be fun, sorry if I've committed Tumblr crimes lol)

How many works do you have on AO3?

8! But if you don't count my original story snippet it's 7... but if you count my one fanfiction-dot-net-only fic that I've been too lazy (and slightly embarrassed bc it's old) to transfer over... it's 8 again lol

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

With my original story snippet: 16,705 Without my original story snippet: 15,047 And for fun... Including my fanfiction-dot-net-only fic but not original story snippet: 105,467 (lmao)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Oh boy here we go. Well. The fandoms I currently have fics posted for are Danny Phantom, Natsume's Book of Friends/Natsume Yuujinchou, Batfam/DCU (and does the Teen Titans animated show count as a different fandom or nah?), Spider-Man/Marvel, and Harry Potter. However. The fandoms I have fics for including unposted WIPs are as follows: Danny Phantom, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ben 10, My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia, Batfam/DC, The Morose Mononokean/Fukigen na Mononokean, Gravity Falls, Randy Cunningham: Ninth Grade Ninja, Star vs the Forces of Evil, The Magnus Archives, Spider-Man/Marvel, How to Train Your Dragon, Rise of the Guardians, Harry Potter, Natsume's Book of Friends/Natsume Yuujinchou, Sk8 the Infinity, Bungou Stray Dogs, Be More Chill (the musical), the Rick Riordan universe (Percy Jackson, etc.), and Big Hero 6.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

So I don't have a lot of fics actually posted and obviously I can't count the one that's only on fanfiction-dot-net so... 1) They Say Right, Let's Go Left (Batfam Titans Tower AU; 2,871 kudos as of 11/12/2023) 2) Skia Tou Myalou (Batfam Meta!Tim AU; 1,832 kudos as of 11/12/2023) 3) How To Summon A Halfa (Without A Ouija Board) (Danny Phantom 30-minute oneshot; 178 kudos as of 11/12/2023) 4) And Thus, I Repent (Danny Phantom/Teen Titans crossover preview posted for International Fanworks Day 2022 that still hasn't been updated; 144 kudos as of 11/12/2023) 5) What A Lovely View (Natsume's Book of Friends/The Morose Mononokean crossover oneshot for International Fanworks Day 2021; 74 kudos as of 11/12/2023)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

As much as I can! A lot of the time I'll respond to a lot of comments after I post the story but forget as time goes on lol. I appreciate them so much nonetheless! I'm always flabbergasted that someone took the time to tell me their thoughts and feelings about MY story, it's so cool. Gotta make sure they know how cool I think it is and they are!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Okay... so I haven't actually had any angsty endings per se, at least none that I've posted. Because of where the prologue chapter leaves things for Fractured (Danny Phantom/My Hero Academia) it's currently the most angsty thing I have posted, but I haven't posted anything past the prologue chapter and the story will get more lighthearted. I once accepted a request to write a major character death oneshot, but I never was satisfied or finished it. If I had, it would definitely be the most angsty. As for WIPs/unposted things... I have a "choose your ending" Tim Drake AU series in the works and the "bad ending" will be the most angsty ending I've ever written or planned once I get there.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh, most of what I write has happy endings, I'm honestly a hopeles romantic. I'd call on Skia Tou Myalou (Batfam, Meta!Tim AU) for that probably, mostly because half of They Say Right, Let's Go Left's (Batfam, Titans Tower AU) fluffy ending is in the author's note and also it's a oneshot. As for WIPs/unposted things... I have no idea lol.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

The only real hate I ever got was on my fanfiction-dot-net-only fic and I still don't know what the guy had against me other than being mad at my author's notes and that I was following a canon plotline... after I said that that's what this fic was going to do before branching out after I finished the rewrite. The positive feedback completely outweighed them though! Thanks to those folks!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

NOPE. Not my thing, totally chill if it's yours. I am too sex-repulsed asexual for that lmao.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

ABSOLUTELY! You may not believe it from what I have posted (or actually maybe you will) but my main genre is crossovers, specifically involving dimension travel. I wouldn't call any of them particularly weird combinations honestly. Maybe What A Lovely View (Natsume's Book of Friends/The Morose Mononokean) or my WIP "Nanashi" (Danny Phantom/The Morose Mononokean) because of the more obscure fandoms.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Thankfully no, and I always make sure my fics are tagged where exactly I've reposted them under my own accounts so there's no misunderstandings.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not yet, that'd be the dream, wouldn't it?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nah, I don't really have people I know in the fanfic community.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

That sure does change monthly! Currently I'm vibing with Reki and Langa from Sk8 the Infinity, can't wait for the next season of that show!

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have a couple of unposted WIPs that I call "cancelled" WIPs because I never plan on continuing them, it's mostly a couple Danny Phantom crossovers from my early days. As for posted things, work on Fractured (Danny Phantom/My Hero Academia) is actually trudging along pretty well even though I haven't posted anything, I had to completely reorganize the notes for it into a section of their own because they outgrew my standard page formatting! And Thus, I Repent (Danny Phantom/Teen Titans) is at a wall though I plan on continuing it eventually. What's really been getting me is my fanfiction-dot-net-only fic that's been going on since before it was first posted in 2019 but at a standstill since 2020 and the pandemic. I've really been struggling to get any work done on it, which sucks because it's my longest fic but it's also from the early days and I have a love-hate relationship with it and its fandoms.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hesitantly... imagery? Scene description? I love writing a good, visceral chunk of text that makes you feel like you're there. It lands... sometimes lol

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Trying to develop relationships. Romantic, platonic, any. I have no idea how to pace these things or sometimes how to move them forward, I'm not a super social person and I don't have any experience in romantic relationships, so it's harder to pull from my own life. I'd love to get better though, and relationships are so important to writing and fun to see unfold.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I think it's fine as long as you're respectful of the language and culture. Like, the title of Skia Tou Myalou (Batfam, Meta!Tim AU) (sorry for the lack of accents, I don't have access to the right keyboard right now) is in Greek because the language is cool af, and I had a reader confirm it was correct. Some people get worked up specifically over including Japanese honorifics in anime fics sometimes, but I think it adds a lot of nuances to character relationships so as long as you do your research and apply them correctly and respectfully, I don't mind it at all. I personally prefer to do so when writing fics in anime fandoms where they're used for that extra level of attention and detail. Y'all have no idea how long I spend researching this stuff!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

This one was never posted and deleted way back when, but when I was in middle school I wrote a Percy Jackson and the Olympians OC oneshot lol

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

Y'all trying to make me choose? Betrayal... and it changes every time I work on one lol. Currently I have a certain fondness for an unposted Bungou Stray Dogs Chuuya-joins-the-ADA-with-Dazai AU but my favorite posted is Skia Tou Myalou (Batfam, Meta!Tim AU). Sure it's a little eh in places but I love elemental-ish powers and Tim Drake is my favorite Batboy lol

[evil-doppelganger-duel]

Hey! I still have to put all the matchups together, but in the meantime here's a sneak peek of our line-up :]

List of characters under the cut:

•Alternate Barney (Dead End: Paranormal Park)

•Alternate Norma (Dead End: Paranormal Park)

•Anti-Pops (Regular Show)

•Bad End Pretty Cure (Smile Pretty Cure!)

•Bad Janet (The Good Place)

•Badeline (Celeste)

•Cesar's Alternate (The Mandela Catalogue)

•Ciel Phantomhive (Black Butler)

•Dahlia Hawthorne (Ace Attorney)

•Constantine (Muppets Most Wanted)

•Cure Unlovely (Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!)

•Dark Link (Legend of Zelda)

•Dark Meta Knight (Kirby)

•Dark Pit (Kid Icarus)

•Dark Samus (Metroid)

•Dippy Fresh (Gravity Falls)

•Ditto (Pokémon)

•Doodlebob (Spongebob Squarepants)

•Doppelganger (Scribblenauts)

•Doppelganger Arle (Puyo Puyo~n)

•Evil Xisuma (Hermitcraft)

•FalseSymmetry (Empires SMP)

•Father (Fullmetal Alchemist)

•Fowen (Story Thieves)

•Fukua (Skullgirls)

•Félix Fathom (Miraculous Ladybug)

•Gruffnut Thorston (How to Train Your Dragon)

•Helsknight (Hermitcraft)

•Imposter (Going Under)

•Katherine Pierce (The Vampire Diaries)

•Katrina Spellman (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch)

•Kevin (Welcome to Night Vale)

•Kimura Koichi (Digimon Frontier)

•Le Purr (Fetch with Ruff Ruffman)

•Ledroptha Curtain (The Mysterious Benedict Society)

•Liquid Snake (Metal Gear)

•Lore (Star Trek)

•Mad Ducktor (Donald Duck)

•Madelyne Pryor (Marvel)

•Man in Red (Ghost Trick)

•Mark Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga)

•Mean Rachel (Animorphs)

•Metal Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)

•Millions Knives (Trigun)

•Mr. Edward Hyde (Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)

•Nale (Order of the Stick)

•Omori (Omori)

•Robo-Fortune (Skullgirls)

•Robo-Reagan (Inside Job)

•Roxas (Kingdom Hearts)

•Scourge (Sonic the Hedgehog)

•Scruff Ruffman (Fetch with Ruff Ruffman)

•Shadow Kirby (Kirby & the Amazing Mirror)

•Shadow Mario (Super Mario Sunshine)

•SheZap (SheZow)

•Sonozaki Shion (Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni)

•Tac Nayn (Nyan Cat)

•The Rowdyruff Boys (The Powerpuff Girls)

•The Valeyard (Doctor Who)

•Tsukasa Yugi (Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun)

•Tyrone (Gravity Falls)

•Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)

•Vergil (Devil May Cry)

•Yosuke's Shadow (Persona 4)