#my bitter half

[ducktracy]

it is my sworn duty to give the public what they are indubitably clamoring for. i give you: the Little Black Duck compendium

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

but not everyone likes fun and games.

it was only supposed to be silly, lighthearted, something to bring a smile to your face. and how could they have known that somewhere inside you is an animal that still holds the fear of being trapped, held down, torn apart?

(could be considered a sort of side-part to the Bitter-Bones saga, that weird edgy angsty thing i did a while back that was abt Sun n Moon disliking a self insert and the self insert taking it badly lol. maybe this takes place when sun n moon are trying to be nice n make up for being huge jerks for so long lmao)

[elfkissing]

[ID in alt text]

He talks like a gentleman, like you imagined when you were young

[that-was-anticlimactic]

i will never understand how or why the httyd movies did the books such an injustice.

the movies aren't even an adaptation - they stole the name of the series, the name of some of the characters and places, and the general idea that there are dragons. honestly, i would be fine with the movies and maybe even like them if they didn't capitalize off of cressida cowell's incredible books that never get any credit.

the books are an amazing story about the cycle of violence and how vengeance and revenge is dangerous. hiccup says that the past is a ghost story, one we need to learn from to better ourselves. the books are about how everyone deserves freedom, how every creature, every being on the earth deserves to be free. we see that in the slavemark, with the dragons.

and like... hiccup is so different. they did him a severe injustice. he's scrawny and intelligent and learned to talk to dragons simply by observing them! he chooses kindness first above all else; instead of yelling at toothless to train him, he is kind. and in the end, that kindness is why toothless chose to save him. bc even toothless himself says that dragons are inherently selfish creatures who care only for their survival. hiccup is brave - his beliefs differ drastically from both the vikings and the world.

hiccup is a child who chose to do the right thing even at the expense of himself. he agreed to free the slaves on nobert's ship, and in return, they gave him the slavemark which is easy to give but cannot be removed. he was like twelve. and having the slavemark means he cannot be with his tribe or his family, it means he isn't considered a human being anymore. and he keeps it a secret for awhile until it's revealed and when it is everyone turns their backs on hiccup. his family, his tribe, his mentor, people he TRUSTED. everyone except fishlegs, and, once she got over the shock, camicazi. he was thirteen. and even when he lost his memories and was really injured, he persisted. he was told to go to tomorrow and to save the dragons and he did bc in his heart he knew it was right even though he didn't know who he was or how he got there.

and fishlegs,,, oh my god FISHLEGS!!! the did him SO DIRTY!!! fishlegs is hiccup's best friend, one of the main motivators for hiccup. he steals norbert's potato for the sake of fishlegs, he gives fishlegs his dragon and goes to retrieve another, he takes the blame for fishlegs. and fishlegs does the same for him. he takes the slavemark with pride. he refuses to turn. he gives hiccup his lobster claw necklace which is his most prized possession. he is brave for hiccup, he believes hiccup is alive. he fights for hiccup harder than anyone else ever has. he does not turn. his is loyal, has allergies, has asthma, has a squint and a limp, has glasses bc he's blind without them... and he's still a hero despite being a runt, despite everyone even the adults telling him he's hopeless, telling hiccup to leave him behind.

and they cut camicazi! i'm sorry, but astr*d is nothing compared to camicazi. camicazi is a tiny, feral child who can easily best hiccup, fishlegs, and pretty much anyone in a sword fight. she can bring a grown man to tears with her rudery and smack talk. she is recklessly brave and craves adventure and follows hiccup blindly bc she trusts him that much. she isn't in love with hiccup - in fact she doesn't care about romance and love. she gives up everything to help hiccup bc she has a strong sense of justice. she is the motivator, the cheerleader, she finds a positive in everything. she never gives up. literally never gives up. and that's one of the most inspiring things about her: she always has hope.

and toothless! god!!! toothless is *thought to be* a common or garden dragon. he is horrifically tiny, he is literally toothless, and is the biggest brat in the world. he will cause problems on purpose. he has a stutter, he's the most selfless selfish dragon around. he and hiccup can talk to each other. he masks his fear with singing and being annoying. his growth is remarkable. he starts off refusing to obey hiccup, doing the opposite of what he says, making life harder for literally everyone around him, and he's still somewhat like that. but he's also braver, more caring, more willing to make sacrifices for the sake of others. he's clever, which he needs to be to make up for his size and aggression. he protects hiccup with everything he has, therefore, he protects what hiccup cares about just as hard. he was the only dragon that didn't abandon the vikings in the first book bc he cared about hiccup.

and snotlout,,, god,,, i will never forgive the movies for butchering snotlout. hiccup's cousin, the bully character, the one who is horrifically jealous that hiccup's dad was born before his. the one who desperately wants to prove himself, to be worthy, to make people proud. and you hate him, you despise him. he betrays everyone many times bc of the nothing promised to him by alvin and his mom. he loses himself, turns his back on himself, all bc he wants to prove himself. all bc he wants to be better than hiccup. and hiccup still forgives him and gives him chances, sometimes out of pity, but also bc snotlout is his cousin. he can't just turn his back on him no matter how miserable snotlout made his life. and in the end, snotlout sacrifices himself for hiccup. he gives up his life for hiccup in one last attempt to set things right. his death and the events preceding it are one of my absolute favorite moments in the book. gives me chills. makes me cry.

that's the thing with the books - they're so realistic. there is no inherently happy ending where everything works out. the first book begins with "there were dragons when i was a boy", implying that they're gone now. the books show there are consequences to our actions. they enslaved the dragons, they fought against them during the dragon rebellion all bc alvin and his mom said to, and now they're gone bc a simple apology doesn't fix hundreds of years of enslavement. and the only way for the world to move forward was for the dragons to leave and heal on their own. and now they have to learn to live without them. and yeah i've heard the third movie ends like that but. it doesn't have the build up. it doesn't have "there were dragons when i was a boy". it doesn't have eleven books of development to back it up, to make it feel meaningful.

i know that the movies are really special to a lot of people. i know that, on their own, they're genuinely good movies. i can acknowledge that the soundtrack is amazing and the animation is beautiful. i just can't see past the way they butchered the world that i love, the world that i grew up with. i can't see past the way people yelled at me for saying i liked the books better, the way that people gave me weird looks when i showed them a picture of the original toothless, when i tell them that nightfuries aren't even a type of dragon. cressida cowell created hundreds of different dragons, and the movies couldn't even pick from that. i can't forgive the way that barely anyone knows there are books bc the movie barely gives credit to them. i cannot forgive the way they capitalized off the books and then shoved them aside. i know cressida thinks they're good movies and i know a lot of httyd book fans also like them. but i just... i cannot get over how much they changed and how they missed so much and ignored the books. also they got rid of camicazi so hiccup could have a love interest and that is unforgivable to me.

if you disagree, that is a-okay. we're all entitled to our own opinions. i just ask that you, perhaps, try the books out. give them a chance. bc they're amazing works of art and also just like. don't yell at people who don't like the movies? whether it's bc they prefer the books or just aren't into that kind of movie. and just remember that dreamworks didn't come up with the story; cressida cowell did.

[madeinwater7]

as a multishipper it’s so weird to me seeing takes like “zolu (or sanuso) have so much in canon but zosan not really so ofc zsn shippers just see them as hot or smth but there’s nothing more” and others like it. first of all… thats a weird hill to die on. since when does canon basis makes one ship superior to the other. second of all: some people just don’t enjoy having everything already established and served on a silver plate. i love zolu with all my heart, they are wonderful and perfect in a lot of ways and interpretations. but what also clicks for me in a special way (and why i can’t let zosan go since i was 16, even tho they’re very much not a priority anymore) is thinking what would it take characters that incompatible fall in love. how would it happen. how would they behave and deal with it and be stupid but also vulnerable in a lot of ways. how would this develop and change them and their worldview. its fascinating! its cool when things are pretty much established in canon and two characters are written like each other’s half but. it’s so much fun to make it difficult and make it a journey. the conclusion is always so satisfying.

so no, zosan is not just “they hate fuck and its cool”

its being incompatible and messy and weird and angry but also trusting each other and respecting each other in so many ways. it’s “you know the worst of me but you still here and i trust you with my life” and also rethinking their view on love and

it’s not for everyone, sure, but it’s not so hard to accept other people’s taste and way of thinking instead of demeaning it or making it a weirdest competition. it’s not. (especially when it’s about literally two of the most popular ships on fandom lmao)

[irhabiya]

the stillborn, arwa salih

[loupgaroualejardin]

Love being queer.

It's honestly even better as a queer system, I feel like.

We practice relationship anarchy, and polyamory, and all the likes rather casually. It comes second nature to a bunch of queer and (predominantly) ambiamorous folks.

A lot of us identify as bi, queer, or aroace. Though, we have gays, and lesbians, bigays, pans, sapphics, heteroflexibles, homoflexibles, demis, etc.

A lot of us identify as men/male/masc-aligned. Though, we have a bunch of women, and non-binary people, demiboys, agenders, pangenders, xenogenders, etc.

Polycules and open relationships are really common in our system too. Like, I know of This throuple made up of a hunter, a merc, and a streamer, one of them (or all of them) in a qpr with a shapeshifting demi-god who's dating a mercenary king who's also dating a mage and in a qpr with a soldier, a general, and another demi-god(Which, said demi-god is in a qpr with the shape-shifter). (It sounds like a hot mess to me too /lh)

Our system is, just, gay, and living our best lives inside it.

[chaseacer-ghostedition]

My favorite part of bitter reunions was when vlad decided to transition to she/her. Good for her.

If Danny gets non-cis head canons then his foil vlad can get some gender as well.

Trans version below cut

[qcomicsy]

Lately I've only been wishing to grab a comic about my favorite character and just have a genuinely good time reading it.

[poebrey]

I think what threw me off with the epilogue now that I’ve had time to digest it is that it felt so final for Michael. I’m so used to seeing everything through her eyes in real time as she lives her life as the protagonist that when we fast forwarded to the middle I guess it felt like skipping a few chapters of a book. I get why they did it, there may not be any opportunities to see her in the future so they wanted to take what they could get, but until then a part of me was in denial that the show was ending. It just felt like maybe they would pick up again next week and we would start all this over again

[dollypopup]

y'all can all cancel me (again) for this, but if there's even a SHRED of 'who should I pick?' from Penelope in season 3, I am tuning out SO fast because like. . .sorry not sorry, there IS no choice. Debling is some crusty OC suitor she barely even knows and Colin is a man who she has been so supposedly in love with to the point where she'd ruin her entire family's reputation to have a potential love story with him. Penelope and Colin have background, years of knowing each other, intimacy that few people in the Ton can boast of having (letters, conversations about purpose, fights and arguments and makeups) and her and Debling have. . .a dance or two at a ball because he's a rebound for Penelope's broken heart. he means nothing. he has no nuance, he has no weight to the story, he is such an afterthought to me. either I wanna see Penelope going 'you know what? I don't even LIKE this dude. he's. . .fine, but I don't care about him even a shred as much as I care about Colin' or the INSTANT Colin's like 'you know what? we should get married' if it's not an immediate 'say less, you're already my husband, try returning me without the receipt, Debling whomst?' then I don't want it!

like. . .it's just so frustrating to see all the 'I hope Debling sweeps her off her feet and she rejects Colin's proposal and she makes him work for it and and and-' nonsense from the fandom and it's always tagged and no matter how many times I block it, it just keeps popping up. I go into the Polin tag for POLIN. I don't give a SHIT about a male love interest other than Colin. Not one. Not a shred. Not an iota.

and also. . .Debling has the 'benefit' of not having depth, or character traits, or HISTORY, so peeps can project onto him however they want, but I'm calling it now, there is NOTHING he could do or be that would make me like him more than Colin. Colin will always hit different, and I will always love him more. and if Pen's not on that same page? lol bye

you want me to believe Penelope and Colin are soulmates and it's romance for her to hem and haw about how difficult a decision it is for her to marry a stranger who knows barely anything about her. . .

when Marina was out here dropping banger lines like 'You were the only man with which I could see myself being happy' and 'I do not care about any of these men, where is Colin?'? like hello??? and she wasn't even fully in love with him!!!! but we'll demonize her until the cows come home in our fandom and make her the villain in Polin's love story for DARING to get in between Polin, yet Debling, a white man, is a darling dear perfect prince for getting in between Polin? existing in our fandom solely so Penelope can be like 'lol, Colin ain't shit, let me entertain any and everyone else'?

if that's the direction it goes then, ten toes down and on my mama, she doesn't deserve Colin and she can move because I'm on my way to court him my damn self

and that's that on that

[stackslip]

I'm now curious about some of your bleach opinions

which ones. i got many of them

[fisheito]

yal'rlready comin for me about that next event preview and i'm like *prepares the salmon cannon, anew*

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

my toxic trait is drawing random shit at 2am. 1929 moretti, carlo n xaviero

[mo-ok]

pokemon headcanons for the big three boys

[neonsbian]

im kinda annoyed at my dad for being proud of me for getting this job which ik sounds crazy to say but it just feels so weird bc hes never been this proud of me for any of my accomplishments and kinda actively diminishes some of them and it feels like hes happy that he has something he can finally brag abt to his friends and relatives bc i have a 'real' job now and the job title makes it sound more important than it is which is so -_- but im getting free hot pot out of it so ig i shouldnt complain