#like a proper study

[callmegaith]

your real honest opinion on David's character. GO!

I feel like this implies I've been trolling everyone for the past 6 years about how much I love this silly lil guy. Is there supposed to be a /j at the end of that, anon??

Bestie I would not put this much effort into a troll ever 😭 like do you think I sat there and made a whole comic series for a funny little gag??

In case this is genuine tho:

LONG READ AHEAD

cuz of course. You give me the chance to talk about David and I'll TALK

My real honest opinion on David

Paradise

Silly funny fella. Goofy as hell. I think you can read David's attitude multiple different ways in Paradise. To some he comes off as just an asshole

To others he's just a kid being a kid

I personally read his character as somewhat sarcastic and spiteful towards Jakob. His smile? Sarcastic. His "it's been a while brother"? Sarcastic. "I hope I'm not the one who died tonight" while knowing full well it ain't him? Sarcastic.

I'll talk about this more later when I talk about Mr. Rabbit!David.

David has the characteristics of most youngest siblings; He's annoying, he's childish, maybe a little spoiled and needy for attention too.

Not to jump ahead in this analysis and all but in Birthday, the box he needs has text on it that reads "hungry ghost", "ghost who is unable to be reborn" or preta. They're often spirits of people who died full of greed and jealousy. In Japanese, a preta is also "a spoiled child" or "brat"

Based on that information I thought maybe David was jealous of Jakob cuz he wanted to be the golden boy, ya know?

Tldr;

Paradise!David is just a funny lil guy who most likely harbors negative feelings towards Jakob who overshadowed him despite not even being there.

Mr. Rabbit

Who David is now. An older more mature David. Something clicked in his brain and he realized 'okay actually we're all fucked. Peace out guys I'm looking out for myself.'

Brown Rabbit:

I feel like he represents the last bit of David's naivety, innocence, and child-like spirit. The white rabbit (David from the future) sees that rabbit get killed from the window. He can no longer deny what's happening. The child within him he used to retreat to when things got bad is dead. There's only the white rabbit now

I feel like that's also something represented in David's masks

The older he gets, the more devoid of joy he becomes

He becomes more and more aware of his situation.

As a child, you have the blessing of ignorance. That's why the world feels like a safer more colorful place to you until you grow up and you can no longer protected and shielded from the world.

To me, I think that's where David's trauma comes from. His ageing and how fast he's had to grow up and become a man, despite his attempts to remain a child.

In paradise, it's likely he was still pretty much "fingers in ears going LALALALALA" with his eyes closed tightly.

Brown rabbit is all that remained of his ignorance, and now it's gone, leaving behind only the White Rabbit. The David that knows and acknowledges the cruelty of his life. A ghost of his former self.

Speaking of:

White Rabbit

What are we but the products of our traumas and life experiences.

The white rabbit, David from the future, is on a journey to save his soul and be reborn. Obviously, the goal of all the corrupted souls. There is a soul we know succeeded in that and was, in fact, reborn. And that soul is Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was the collateral damage in a battle she had no hand in. She is probably the most innocent victim in all of this family feud going on, and I think because of that, Jakob allowed her to be reborn.

Something he did not allow David to do. I think it's safe to say Jakob and David do not like each other. Seems like David's plans clash with Jakob's and so he has to be taken out of the picture, and yet, David always seems like he has tricks up his sleeve.

Somehow, David is able to go back in time to save himself. What happens after that? We don't know yet

You could argue that he failed and died in the blue cube memory of Birthday. Or that he is simply still out there rn waiting for his story to be told. Both are true cuz that's the nature of Rusty Lake.

David seems to be on his own grand journey, stuck in his own Paradox, desperate to find a way to he reborn.

The thing that stands out of course is David's corrupted soul, or rather, the many different forms of it:

This is probably due to there being multiple different David(s) from the paradoxes he's lived through.

But what is the White Rabbit David if the brown rabbit is David's reborn Asura? Is the white rabbit not his Asura too?

Hard to say. We never seen a corrupted soul take form like David's white rabbit one before, and even more than that, one that retains autonomy. After all, David had enough control over himself to write and leave Dale a letter, meaning he is fully aware of what he is doing. Yet he is prone to violence the way regular corrupted souls are.

It's likely the white rabbit is an advanced form of a corrupted soul, probably the last stages before rebirth.

That or.... Well.... It's just a mask. After all, in Paradox, David spoke with a regular human voice over the phone, meaning he was not a corrupted soul.

In that case tho, if he was already reborn... Why did he say he needed to escape his current "hungry ghost" state?

Obviously Paradox is the most unreliable game narratively cuz you're just going through Dale's jumbled up memories. It's likely he's just recalling an actual conversation he had with David on the phone at the time (which still makes no sense cuz that would mean at the time David was still a human. Or it means he's recalling some conversation he had with David at some point in his life, not necessarily Birthday. OR... That's just a memory the machine is feeding him and it never really happened. Point is, paradox can't be used as a fact for anything)

Timeline is fuuuucked when it comes to David's story so uuuh

We don't know where he is now, what actually happened to him, or wtf is going on with him.

What we do take from his whoooole story tho:

Conclusion

(you did it, chat. You made it this far into my rambly post!!)

David is a really cool and very interesting character that might not appear to be so on the surface. You only really get how complex his character is when you think of everything that has happened in the games. He has a story that is either left for us to piece together or is still not yet fully explored.

To me, David is a character born of defiance and rebelliousness, as well as the need for survival and self-preservation. He is someone who has challenged his own fate, knowing damn well he's up against higher powers, but still taking the chance to save his soul. He is resilient, and stubborn, and just won't accept his fate and die. He has challenged his position in the food chain, a rabbit who is meant to be at the bottom, proving that he should not be underestimated. To me, that's worth loving and admiring. AND IM CHEERING HIM ON! GO DAVID! GO! IM SO PROUD OF YOU MY SON!!

And that's my real honest opinion on David

Thank you for reading.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I love you Safety Wizard.

(Inspired by @keroascrazy)

[exoflash]

a concerning amount of witchblr will be like "um actually new years was stolen by europeans from the ancient god scroobus mcdoobus" and then you actually try to research scroobus mcdoobus and it turns out he was invented in the 1940s by a conspiracy theorist who powdered every meal with ketamine and thinks that queer people are reincarnated fish

[tenowls]

rivals

[sicklyjelly]

ever since I finished psychonauts 2, I knew I had to draw One Thing. Now that I've achieved it, I'm at peace 🧠💫

[xxplastic-cubexx]

everyone gets thirty dollars if tumblr doesnt snipe this in 24 hours

[wuntrum]

a leyendecker homage for the first postcard of 2024!!

[maddie-w-draws]

💕!

[mistfallengw2]

Sketch pages of "studies", featuring Vlast and Aurene

[taradactyls]

So I could be totally wrong but, I believe it was sort of expected that men/gentlemen lose their virginity before marriage in regency times. But I also there’s some fandom ‘debate’ about whether or not Mr Darcy would’ve had sex before getting married. So I was just curious about what your canon for Mr Darcy in T3W is. Is he a virgin or not?

I knew someone would ask me this eventually, haha. I've actually had really long conversations with my beta reader about this trying to figure it out. It sounds like this might all be stuff that you’ve already seen discussed in the fandom, but I’ve never thought about it deeply before and so these are new thoughts to me.

I keep going over the historical real-world likelihood, the authorial intent, and the text itself but I’m still not 100%. I’ll explain my thinking and what I find most likely, but here’s your warning that it’s not a clear cut yes/no.

Because on one hand, at that time period it was most common for men in his position to have seen sex workers or have casual encounters/mistresses with women from their estates. Though I do absolutely believe not all men did that, no matter how much wealth and power they had. To go back some centuries, William the Conqueror seemed to be famously celibate (no hints of male lovers either according to the biography I read) until his marriage, and there's no evidence of affairs after it either. The best guesses as to why are that it was due to his religious devotion and the problems that had arisen from himself being a bastard and not wanting to recreate that situation. Concerns over religion and illegitimate children would certainly still have been applicable in the regency to men who thought that way. And in modern times I've seen sex workers say that when an 18/21yo is booked in by his family/friends to 'become a man' often they end up just talking and agree to lie about the encounter. After all, it’s not like every man wants casual sex, even if they aren’t demisexual or something in that vein. But, statistically speaking, the precedent of regency gentlemen would make Darcy not a virgin.

On the other hand, just how aware was Jane Austen, the very religious daughter of a country rector, of the commonness of this? There’s a huge difference between knowing affairs and sex workers existed (and no one who had seen a Georgian newspaper could be blind to this) and realising that the majority of wealthy men saw sex workers at some point even if they condemned the more public and profligate affairs. The literature for young ladies at the time paints extramarital sex - including the lust of men outside of marriage - as pretty universally bad and dangerous. This message is seen from 'Pamela' and other gothic fiction to non-fiction conduct books which Jane Austen would have encountered. Here's something I found in 'Letters to a Young Lady' by the reverend John Bennett which I found particularly interesting as it's in direct conversation with other opinions of the era:

"A reformed rake makes the best husband." Does he? It would be very extraordinary, if he should. Besides, are you very certain, that you have power to reform him? It is a matter, that requires some deliberation. This reformation, if it is to be accomplished, must take place before marriage. Then if ever, is the period of your power. But how will you be assured that he is reformed? If he appears so, is he not insidiously concealing his vices, to gain your affections? And when he knows, they are secured, may he not, gradually, throw off the mask, and be dissipated, as before? Profligacy of this kind is seldom eradicated. It resembles some cutaneous disorders, which appear to be healed, and yet are, continually, making themselves visible by fresh eruptions. A man, who has carried on a criminal intercourse with immoral women is not to be trusted, His opinion of all females is an insult to their delicacy. His attachment is to sex alone, under particular modifications.

The definition of a rake is more than a man who has seen a sex worker once, it's about appearance and general conduct too, but again, would that distinction be made to young ladies? Because they seem to simply be continuously taught 'lust when unmarried is bad and beware men who you know engage in extramarital sex.' As a side note, Jane Austen certainly knew at least something about the mechanics of sex: her letters and literature she read alludes to it, and she grew up around farm animals in the countryside which is an education in itself.

We can also see from this exert that the school of thought seems to be 'reformed rake' vs 'never a rake' in contention for the title of best husband, there's no debate over whether a current rake is unsuitable for a young lady. And, from Willoughby to Wickham to Crawford, I think we have a very clear idea of Jane Austen's ideas of how likely it is notably promiscuous men can reform. This does not preclude the possibility that her disparaging commentary around their lust is based more on over-indulgence or the class of women they seduce, but it's undoubtedly a condemnation of such men directly in line with the first part of what John Bennett says so it's no stretch to believe she saw merit in the follow-on conclusions of the second part as well. Whether she would view it with enough merit to consider celibacy the only respectable option for unmarried men is a bit unclearer.

I did consider that perhaps Jane Austen consciously treated this as a grey area where she couldn’t possibly know what young men did (the same reasoning is why we never see the men in the dining room after the ladies retire, etc) and so didn't hold an opinion on men's extramarital encounters with sex workers/lower-class women at all, but I think there actually are enough hints in her works that this isn’t the case. Though, unsurprisingly, given the delicacy of the subject, there’s no direct mention of sex workers or gentlemen having casual lovers from among the lower-classes in her texts.

That also prevents us from definitively knowing whether she thought extramarital sex was so common, and as unremarkable, as most gentlemen treated it. But we do see from her commentary around the consequences of Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford's elopement that she had criticism of the double standards men and women were held to when violating sexual virtue. Another indication that she perhaps expected good men to be capable of waiting until marriage in the way that she very clearly believed women should. At the very least, a man who often indulges in extramarital sex does not seem to be one who would be considered highly by Jane Austen.

She makes a point of saying, in regards to not liking his wife, that Mr Bennet “was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice.” This must include affairs, though cheating on a wife cannot be a 1:1 equivalent of single young men sleeping around before marriage. However, the latter is generally critically accepted to be one of the flaws that Darcy lays at Wickham’s door along with gambling when talking about their youth and his “vicious propensities" and "want of principle." Though this could be argued that it’s more the extent or publicity of it (but remembering that it couldn't be anything uncommon enough that it couldn't be hidden from Darcy Sr. or explained away) rather than the act itself, or maybe seductions instead of paying women offering those services. I also believe Persuasion mentioning Sunday travelling as proof of thoughtless/immoral activity supports the idea that Jane Austen might have been religious enough that she would never create a hero who had extramarital sex.

So, taken all together this would make Darcy potentially a virgin, or, since I couldn't find absolute evidence of her opinions, leave enough room that he isn’t but extramarital sex isn’t a regular (or perhaps recent) thing and he would never have had anything so established as a mistress.

I’ve also been wondering, if Darcy isn’t a virgin, who would he have slept with? I’ve been musing on arguments for and against each option for weeks at this point. No romantasy has ever made me think about a fictional man's sexual habits so much as the question of Darcy's sexual history. What is my life.

Sex workers are an obvious answer, and the visits wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows. Discretion was part of their job, it was a clean transaction with no further responsibilities towards them, and effective (and reusable, ew) condoms existed at this time so there was little risk of children and no ability to exactly determine the paternity even if there was an accident. It was a fairly ‘responsible’ choice if one wanted no strings attached. In opposition to this, syphilis was rampant at the time, and had been known to spread sexually for centuries. Sex workers were at greater risk of it than anyone else and so the more sensible and risk-averse someone is (and I think Mr Darcy would be careful) the less likely they would be to visit sex workers. Contracting something that was known as potentially deadly and capable of making a future wife infertile if it spread to her could make any intelligent and cautious man think twice.

Servants and tenants of the estate are another simple and common answer. Less risk of stds, it can be based on actual attraction more than money (though money might still change hands), and is a bit more intimate. But Wickham’s called wicked for something very similar, when he dallies (whether he only got to serious flirting, kissing, or sleeping with them I don’t think we can conclusively say) with the common women of Meryton: “his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family.” And it isn't as though Wickham had any personal duty towards those people beyond the claims of basic dignity. Darcy, who is shown to have such respect and understanding for his responsibilities towards the people of his estate and duties of a landlord, would keenly feel if any of his actions were leading his servants/tenants astray and down immoral paths. Servants, especially, were considered directly under the protection of the family whose house they worked in. I think it's undoubtable that Mrs Reynolds (whose was responsible for the wellbeing - both physically and spiritually - of the female servants) would not think so well of Mr Darcy if he had experimented with maids in his youth. It would reflect badly on her if a family entrusted their daughter to her care and she 'lost her virtue' under her watch. Daughters/widows of others living on the estate not under the roof of Pemberley House are a little more likely, but still, if he did have an affair with any of them I can only think it possible when he was much younger and did not feel his duties quite so strongly. Of course lots of real men didn't care about any of this, but Darcy is so far from being depicted as careless about his duties that the narrative makes a point of how exceptional his quality of care was. Frankly, it's undeniable that none of Jane Austen's heroes were flippant about their responsibilities towards those under their protection. I cannot serious entertain an interpretation that makes Darcy not, at his current age, at least, cognizant of the contemporary problems inherent in sleeping with servants or others on his estate.

A servant in a friend’s house would remove some of that personal responsibility, but transfer it to instead be leading his friend’s servants astray and in a manner which he is less able to know about if a child did result. That latter remains a problem even if we move the setting to his college, so not particularly likely for his character as we know it… though it wouldn’t be unusual for someone to be more unthinking and reckless in their teenage years than they are at twenty-eight so I don’t think having sex then can be ruled out. Kissing I can much more easily believe, especially when at Oxford or Cambridge, but every scenario of sleeping with a lower-class woman has some compelling arguments against it especially the closer we get to the time of the novel.

Men did of course also have affairs with women of ranks similar to their own, though given Jane Austen’s well-known feelings towards men who ‘ruined’ the virtue of young ladies we can safely say that Darcy never slept with an unwed middle- or upper-class woman. Any decent man would have married them out of duty if it got so far; but if he was the sort to let it get so far, I think it impossible Jane Austen would consider him respectable. Widows are a possibility, but again, the respectable thing to do would be to marry them. Perhaps a poorer merchant’s widow would be low enough that marriage is off the table but high enough that the ‘leading astray’ aspect loses its master-servant responsibilities (though the male-female ‘protect the gentler sex’ aspect remains) but his social circle didn’t facilitate meeting many ladies like that. Plus, an affair with a woman in society would remove many layers of privacy and anonymity that sex-workers and lower-class lovers provided by simply being unremarkable to the world at large. It carries a far greater risk of scandal and a heavier sense of immorality in the terms of respecting a woman’s purity which classism prevented from applying so heavily to lower-class women.

I think it’s important to note here that something that removes the need to think about duties of landlords towards the lower-classes or gentlemen towards gentlewomen is having affairs with other men of a similar rank. But, aside from the risk of scandal and what could be called the irresponsibility of engaging in illegal acts, it’s almost certain that Jane Austen would never have supported this. For a devout author in this era the way I’m calculating likelihoods makes it not even a possibility. But if you want to write a different fanfiction (and perhaps something like a break-up could explain why Darcy doesn’t seem to have any closer friend than someone whom he must have only met two or so years ago despite being in society for years before that) it does have that advantage over affairs with women of equal- and lower-classes. I support alternate interpretations entirely – it just isn’t how I’m deciding things in this instance.

I keep coming back to the conclusion that, at the very least, Darcy hasn’t had sex recently and it was never a common occurrence. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jane Austen felt he hadn’t done it ever. Kissing, as we can see from all the parlour games at the time, wasn’t viewed as harshly, so I think he’s likely made out with someone before. But in almost every situation it does seem that the responsible and religious thing to do (which Jane Austen values so highly) is for it to never have progressed to sex. I also don’t think it conflicts with his canon characterisation to say that he wouldn’t regard sexual experience as a crucial element of his life thus far, and his personality isn’t driven to pursue pleasure for himself, so it’s entirely possible that he would never go out of his way to seek it. So, I’m inclined to think that the authorial and textual evidence is in favour of Darcy being a virgin even if the real-world contemporary standard is the opposite. (Though both leave enough room for exceptions that I’m not going to argue with anyone who feels differently; and even if you agree with all my points, you might simply weight authorial intent/textual evidence/contemporary likelihoods differently than I do and come to a different conclusion).

Remember that even if Darcy is a virgin this wouldn’t necessarily equate to lack of knowledge, only experience. There were plenty of books and artwork focused on sex, and Darcy, studious man that he is, would no doubt pay attention to what knowledge his friends/male relatives shared. Though some of it (Looking especially at you, 'Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure') should NEVER be an example of appropriate practice for taking a woman's virginity. Darcy would almost certainly have been taught directly or learnt through exposure to other men talking to make sex good for a woman – it was a commonly held misconception (since Elizabethan England, I believe) that women had to orgasm to conceive. It would be in his interests as an empathetic husband, and head of a family, to know how to please his wife.

Basically, I’m convinced Darcy isn’t very experienced, if at all, and will be learning with Elizabeth. But he does have a lot of theoretical knowledge which he’s paid careful attention to and is eager to apply.

[devllishy]

handyman Bill au but make it a beach pool episode! idk what happened to the quality here (probably should've used a bigger canvas but oh well)

closeups:

edit: just realised i forgot ford's body hair smh

[eaterofdust]

Hookfang: comparison and art study

To start simply, one of the more bigger picture differences between these Hookfang's is that of grandeur. The Animated Hookfang has long tendrils, massive wings and very teeth, things that all serve to make Hookfang look scary despite his large, human-like eyes. The Live Arena Spectacular (Arena) doesn't seem to get the memo for this, instead choosing smaller wings in favour of front legs and a four-legged stance rather than being a wyvern. The Live Action (Action) seems to be a blend of both: shorter spikes, no curving spines, more spikes.

This specific set of images, alongside being a reference for the art used here, also displays one other thing: the colour difference between them! The Animated Hookfang has more orange to his design, with a more vibrant red-orange palette compared to the live action which is redder but keeps the orange underbelly despite forgoing the orange face/wings. Again, the Arena Hookfang is the outlier here, with a red pallet and yellow underbelly, as well as lighter horns and spikes.

The biggest difference overall between all these designs is the face. The Animated Hookfang has his unique eye-bulbs, while both the Arena and the Action prefer to simply exaggerate his brows. Both the Action and the Arena designs also add more of a "crown" to the back of his head, making it easier to see where the horns originate from whereas the Animated lets it be slightly ambiguous by hiding the exact spot, no doubt helping mask the fast that Hookfang's horns are flexible (see shows).

Interestingly, both the Arena and the Action as a slope to Hookfang's snout while in the animated, Hookfang's snout starts at a slight dip. Alternatively, both the Animated and Arena keep the small spikes on Hookfang's snout, while the Action smooths them out significantly.

As pointed out, Animated Hookfang is primarily diamond shapes, the Action is made of more curves, and the Arena is a mass of wrinkles. This makes the animated feel a bit more "dangerous" to the others, who use softer shape language. They manage to win the point back by having smaller eyes, though such progress is undone by teeth: Animated Hookfang has long tusks that cannot fit into his mouth, peeking over his snout from the other side. Action Hookfang's teeth has more thorn-like teeth that hide behind lips. This, while technically being more realistic in that teeth exposed usually sustain damage, also significantly reduces the fear factor- thing a saber-tooth tiger compared to other big cats. The Arena Hookfang has a zig zap pattern with his smaller teeth, the fact they remain exposed also beating the live action; as the indoraptor's (Jurassic World) appearance divulges, this is simply more threatening upon first glance than of bare lips.

The Action Hookfang also fails to present a threat when someone knows their reptile biology. A thin jaw is almost always reserved for aquatic hunters which results in a very weak jaw- one of the main reasons Dilophosaurus is debated to be a scavenger or apex predator, but I digress. Though I struggled to find a picture of Arena's jaws, they also seem to be thicker but the Animated trumps both with how Snotlout is able to almost entirely fit inside of them. Even without the biological aspect, the fact that the Animated's jaws are so much larger are enough to give off more a threatening energy.

Speaking of shapes, let's take a break from the almost argument happening there in favour of posture! The Arena is the most divergent, how could it not be? It goes for a typical dinosaur stance, with a thick body, neck and tail, much shorter compared to the others.

The Action and the Animated are similar generally, though the Animated Hookfang has his legs further on his body (which is still slightly longer due to his tail), and a thinner neck.

The Arena has it's smaller wings- which have a more traditional shape in perspective of other dragons- between its front and back legs rather than at the shoulder joint. The Action's wings are, again, a blend of both, and the Animated's wings have a shorter primary wing-finger that causes the general shape to arch out before returning.

The Arena's flaws begin to reveal themselves here: they are but that of the most basic dragon, none of the spikes that at least make the other two Hookfang designs the most iconic. When one looks to the Monstrous Nightmare, the first sights are that of the face and the wings. There are four wing-fingers, each ending with a tiny claw.

The Action's wings have more flair to them, with shoulder-pad like scales, and tiny spikes running long the top of the fore-arm scales. They also follow the claws on the tips as the Arena, with eight wing-fingers as well as the two claws acting as feet resulting in a total of ten digits per arm. There's not much else to say about the wings as their shape is also rather typical of other dragons.

The most unique is definitely the Animated, as instead of a typical dip between each finger, there is a tendril. Though this is probably not very efficient for flight considering that there's not any bats that have something similar, it makes for a unique wing shape unlike other dragon. Interestingly, there is only eight wing-fingers, with the two claws and five spurs (? - Spikes? A wing spur is the spike the Arena has but I know not of what to classify these as) making a total of fifteen digits per arms.

Interestingly enough, all designs have skin connecting the upper arm to the forearm.

The Animated Hookfang's legs appear to be a mixture of digitigrade and plantigrade, and depending on his pose one could argue either, though digitigrade seems to be the more likely answer. He has a thin knee with larger thighs and ankles, spikes on the lower half of his leg that the other two Hookfang's seem to lack, and much larger, hooked claws than the others.

The Action's legs have spikes along the front, with a larger toe to claw ratio than the Animated Hookfang and smaller than the Arena Hookfang's. It is obviously digitigrade with a bird-of-prey inspiration just as obvious.

The Arena is different as it is plantigrade, has thicker legs and toes, small talons that do not protrude from the foot near as far at the others. It has spikes similar to the like, and its front legs (though not depicted here) have the spikes from the Animated Hookfang as well.

The Arena Hookfang's spikes are the furthest from the others, simple short spikes that are a tan-black colour. They are not special, and unlike the other two Hookfang's seem to sprout from smaller scales rather than larger back plates and are only in one row rather than the duality of the other designs.

The Action Hookfang has spikes that flare out near the tips, with thin plate-like scales that blend into the shoulders. Though they are much longer than the Arena's spikes, they are shorter than the sail of the Animated Hookfang.

Speaking of the Animated Hookfang, I was expecting the long, curled tendrils (they are one of his most iconic traits to me) but what I had not expected to find was that each plated scale on his back was lined with tiny spikes! This is not in the other designs, including that of the other movies, interestingly enough.

Now, to quote the rant I sent my friends upon the release of the teens in training: [Action] Snotlout is the unholy offspring of HTTYD1 Snotlout and RTTE Snotlout. I said this mostly as a joke about how features of RTTE appeared- his boots, shirt and the studs on both bracers and his belt being sired by the design- but HTTYD1 is far less in what it provides despite being the adaptation.

Sure, he has his vest, but it has the dark scale patterns of RTTE's armour. His pants are shared between both alongside his helmet. But people prefer RTTE's design anyway, right? Well, typically, but if you compare RTTE's design to all the other iterations of Snotlout, it's different. Though I'm probably looking into this too far, I always saw this as not only logical (the Edge is far warmer than Berk) but as a sort of sign of him pulling away from his father and allowing himself to dress as he wants to rather than what holds his status.

There is less logic to his Action design: the fur of his bracers and (presumably) on the insides of his boots will help with chafing, but why the random ring of fur on his boots? It offers nothing but a mess for the boy who rolls in literal yak crap. Alternatively, his fur vest fails to make him look either bold or obnoxious: the orange fur is no more than an eyesore at times, and the brighter colour that- again, assumed- lines the inside is not near as efficient as the dark colour of his original vest: black absorbs heat easier.

Animated Snotlout only wore armour that nearly everyone else did (bracers, a helmet which society demands he don, a belt which only theoretically counts as armour) and left most his skin exposed- this gave off the vibe of the "real man" type, showing off that he feels neither the cold nor that he fears being mauled by dragons.

Action Snotlout's more fortified vest and bracers get rid of such an illusion: he fears death, and he will remain protected to be safe. This is technically not out of character; Snotlout is the "logical" one, and one of the first to look out for danger ("Aren't you going to teach us first?!"/"I don't need that to know where it's going... It's coming!") but such is for RTTE.

Action (and, by extension, RTTE) Snotlout is one of logic and safety, making sure he remains safe to live another day. Animated Snotlout is a bold creature that likely gains many scars in his attempt to mimic his father.

Interestingly, the necklace Action Snotlout wears closely resembles that of Tuffnut's, seeming to continue the newer trend of making Snotlout and Tuff partners in the group. (Think the whole couple scenes thing vs. the first movie, where Snotlout and Fishlegs lifted Hiccup together at the end and Fishlegs would lean on Snotlout when he hunched over while catching his breath.)

But what of Arena Snotlout, you scream?

...He seems to be closer to Snotface. Still, he has his dark fur vest, his helmet, his bracers. Despite it all, I had to reread the wiki description to make sure that it was Snotlout. If I had to guess why, I would assume the beard and long-sleeved shirt to be the culprit; it provides him a "maturity" that simply cannot fit with Snotlout. Snotlout is to be immature, to be clueless and confused and yet still capable of caring for himself anyway. Where Action Snotlout pushes the inward aspects of Snotlout too far, Arena pushes his outward aspects too far, though it's slanderous to say that the Animated design doesn't leave a viewer wanting for more sometimes.

In summary:

Animated: Fearsome, hideous to look at and yet deserving of affection.

Arena: The set designers had fun, returning to what works and yet being unique still, even if the designs stray a bit too far from the movies.

Action: A weaker version, and yet still recognisable to a degree: once you've already been told and when they are in the context of their scenes. For Hookfang, I only knew it to be him because of him being a trailer poster child, and I only realised Snotlout wasn't Hiccup because of the fact several people were spamming his name with his original photo.

[styxxsyringe]

did i mention i finished her model?

[reksink]

Thorns, Bouquet

[faaun]

last night i got home kind of tipsy and very much in tears and my mother told me the force you exert to keep someone in your life is proportional to the force with which they will leave your life. if you have to fight tooth and claw to keep them, their leaving will be just as hard, just as harsh, and just as definite.

[lukazade]

lazy undersea naptime