#training analysis

[violet-moonstone]

I've been looking at a lot of reference pictures to help me while fic writing, and a detail about the Great Hall (In HTTYD 3) I noticed is that the chieftain's chair has two carved birds on the back.

I'm assuming this is a reference to Hugin and Munin, the ravens that rest on Odin's shoulders and provide him with information. I really like this detail because it seems like whoever designed the chair wanted to give the chieftain an air of wisdom -- not only would it make them visually resemble Odin (which makes them look powerful and wise to onlookers) but it also might be a reminder to the chieftain themself that they have the responsibility to make wise decisions for their community.

I might find a way to work this into the fic -- like every time Hiccup sits in the chair, he feels a combined sense of reassurance and weight responsibility because of the legacy associated with those who have sat in the chair or had the title of chieftain.

[sidsinning]

extremely strong characters who are goofy af bc they can afford to not give a fuck>>>>>>>

[saturnniidae]

HTTYD 2 is ten years old today, it was my first exposure to the franchise and despite its many glaring flaws i can't help but love it and hold it so close to my heart.

This scene is a great example of why.

I love it so much. It's a heart-wrenchingly beautiful reminder that as good as he is, Hiccup is not some perfect hero. He is still just a person, a flawed human being who has cracked under the pressure of his circumstances and is barely given time to grieve his fathers' death.

(I adore scenes like this — It humanizes characters so much more, and just adds to that layer of perceived realism.)

And you can see the regret on his face as soon as he says it. But in that moment he doesn't do anything about it; he's still processing Stoick's death, and he only snaps out of it when he sees Toothless is under the Bewilderbeast's control again and Valka has to hold him back from attempting to go after him.

What he said and did to Toothless there was a momentary lapse in judgment fueled by grief. And later, as he breaks Toothless out of the Alpha's control, you can see he feels terrible about it. About how, even if it was brief, he pushed away his best friend. And he loves Toothless so much.

The way he talks to him literally breaks me every time I rewatch it.

"It wasn't your fault, you'd never hurt him, you'd never hurt me."

"Please, you... are my best friend, bud. My best friend."

And when Toothless comes back he just looks so elated to see Hiccup.

Though, Something that's even crazier to me is the fact all this takes place over less than a week. Once he gets toothless back and Drago is defeated, he is immediately made chief. And with the state berk is in, he is given presumably no time to properly mourn Stoick, or to fully adjust to the presence of his mother.

(though I feel his and Valka's relationship will never be what it could've been. He knows she chose not to come back, and that is a blow to their newly formed and fragile bond that, as much as they love each other, is not something she can ever fully make up for.)

But at least through everything, since the beginning, the one real constant he's had has been Toothless.

They're friendship was built off a mutual feeling of out-of-placeness, then unconditional trust and unwavering loyalty.

they love each other so much it makes me wanna throw up

[hellscap3]

Makoto laser tag ft a real gun shot in the top left🔫

[grapecherry]

The Tragedy of David Chiem & Arei Nageishi: A Comparative Analysis

the absolute Tragedy of arei meeting the exact fate she feared for eden. david reprimanding arei for having a gentler worldview that he is responsible for fostering — one she reprimanded eden for having.

the Tragedy of arei using cruelty to protect eden and david using kindness to disarm arei. arei who hated seeing the hurt her efforts yielded for others’ benefit and david who relished in seeing the relief his efforts yielded for his own benefit.

the Tragedy of realizing david lives by arei’s sentiment and echoes her behavior. they’re both willing to be hated for what they see as the greater good of those they deem Good.

david deemed xander as his Good.

arei deemed eden as her Good.

and they were ready to change everything they had grown to be for them — to do anything. to feel Worthy of them.

and yet, we’re once again faced with the Tragedy of those influences having been separated before either could begin to truly trust the existence of unconditional love and opportunity to be kind.

but like I’m normal about it.

[raycatz]

You ever think about how the chain has to change their step sizes and like general gait in order to stay together as a group?

Like, I imagine Four walks with purpose. He's a focused lil guy- he's got places to be. But Time's strides have got to be much larger than his. When traveling as a group they must have all had to readjust.

Four and Time side-by-side walk animation but every couple steps Four has to do a skip hop or a lil jog to catch up. Also consider Four walking normally but Time is taking itty bitty steps.

[dragonnnfly]

Why I love how the first movie dealt with Hiccstrid

Early on in the first movie, it becomes clear that Hiccup has feelings for Astrid, although he never directly says so. His actions and the way he looks at her speaks for itself.

Hiccup also says that he hopes that by hunting dragons, he might find himself a girlfriend, but he never specifies that it is Astrid he’s interested in.

Still, Hiccup's crush on Astrid is not the main focus of the story, in fact, romance is brought up very little. While he attempts to impress her and the others during training and flirts with her once, he never becomes blinded by his feelings for her, not even after their romantic flight which leads to his feelings for her being requited.

He doesn’t do this

This

Or even this

To impress her.

Even though Hiccup initially had a crush on Astrid and later developed deep feelings for her, his motivation to become a hero was never driven by his feelings for her, and that’s not something you can say about all protagonist in movies.

[uselessreptile]

You ever think about how Valka in HTTYD2 is basically what Hiccup would've become had Astrid not stopped him from running away?

Valka didn't return to Berk because she didn't believe people could change. She believed the people of Berk would always hate dragons, and that trying to persuade them otherwise would be futile.

Hiccup probably would've thought the same thing as his mother, had he not been able to bring Astrid around to his side. Astrid, the most devoted among her peers to her training to one day protect Berk by fighting the dragon menace, was able to change her mind about dragons. If Hiccup could change her mind, he could change his whole village's mind.

Valka never got a chance to change someone's mind about dragons, so she never got a chance to change her mind about people (that is, not until she saw what Hiccup had accomplished).

[yea-baiyi]

ok but like imagine being hua cheng. and when you were a teenager you were trapped in a cave with your god when he got hit with sex pollen and you already felt ugly and unlovable but he stabbed himself through the gut rather than touch you and you saw him shirtless and horrifyingly that’s how you found out you were gay

and then you meet him again centuries later when you’ve grown up and become comfortable in your own skin, and you think you might be in love with him except a part of you still feels terrified that he’ll look at you and find you hideous again. but you want to trust him so you show him your real face. and. turns out he finds your adult self so hot that you make him horny for the first time in his life and he keeps doing and saying absolutely deranged things because he does not know how to cope. he panics and tries to give you, a ghost, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and while you’re lying there trying not to freak out he is beside you acting out his one man humiliation-style comedy show because he has never wanted to kiss someone before let alone fuck. he agrees to get locked in a coffin together because he never even considered the possibility that he might pop a boner except he does pop a boner and now you are stuck under him while he squirms and you are trying very hard not to think about your own boner

i don’t know how to end this post i just think that’s so funny. and they live happily ever after and have lots of gay sex. hua cheng keeps winning. slay king

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

ok so. forgive me for a second but i've been abnormal about skizz and ren since the hiatus between third life and last life and holy shit this season is already not helping.

let's talk about skizz, ren, undying loyalty, and golden apples, shall we?

so the thing that you need to understand about skizz is that he is loyal to a fault. impulse literally says this exact thing about him in limited life, and skizz himself says himself: "you know me and my factions, i never turn." the second thing is that the first person their loyalty manifests for in third life is ren. he and ren run into each other on the second night when ren is getting accosted by mobs outside skizz's door and skizz gives him a place to stay the night. ren decides to trade skizz for his leather, for the upcoming enchanting buisness, and gives skizz a golden apple in exchange. skizz thinks this is wildly more than he deserves but is very thankful. skizz doesn't say it here, but this is the moment he swears his loyalty to ren.

throughout third life, he is willing to do or get basically anything for ren. the two of them literally die together to the tnt trap. when ren dies on the alter and everyone thinks martyn betrayed him, skizz is the first person to get there in the morning. he's in half broken gold armor and borrowed tools from bigb and he still tells ren "get behind me", still tries to protect him from martyn. when skizz is on red, he goes a bit crazy, but he channels that bloodlust into protecting ren. he kills jimmy in the red desert, he kills cleo when she tries to attack ren, he chases down impulse when he betrays dogwarts and dies trying to kill him.

when skizz dies in third life, he's got an unused golden apple in his hotbar. after he dies, he remembers the first time he met ren, etho, and martyn, and he spends quite a bit of time on his memory of ren and ren appears in his first memory of etho. after he dies, ren wields a blade named in his honor.

skizz spends third life loyal to ren- he dies for him and he dies with him.

in last life, ren and skizz end up on completely different sides, and it very quickly gets bad because when ren becomes boogey, he kills skizz. he lures him into a trap. he tells skizz he loves him. skizz literally says "i am broken hearted" when ren kills him. ren holds no regard for the relationship they used to have and yet skizz cannot help but compliment ren's skill with the trap, outright says he can't be mad at ren.

and then it only gets worse because skizz tries to storm ren's tower with impulse after they've gone red. and that! doesn't go well! and while skizz is retreating, while he is eating the golden apple in his hot bar, ren shoots him dead.

and that is the last time they've spoken. two years ago.

because skizz isn't in doublt life. and ren isn't in limited life.

and when skizz's time comes in limited life, he ensures he doesn't have a golden apple in his inventory this time. this time, he hands the apples off to his teammates, where he knows they will go to good use. and then he hands etho a diamond fucking axe (red winter is coming) and asks him to execute him for the sake of their alliance. ok! sure! fill ren's role more explicitly, why don't you!

and that first session of secret life genuinely only made it worse. when skizz is talking to tango and cleo about their alliance, skizz says he wants to give leadership over to someone else: "i want to be more of a soldier than a leader this time." cleo says she'll fill the roll of leader- she doesn't take orders well - and then seals their alliance by giving tango and skizz a golden apple each. because of course she does.

and well, we all know that didn't really work out, so that's one person off the list that skizz can fill the dogwarts shaped hole in him with, so then he goes to bdubs. he says he'll lay his sword at bdubs' feet. he says he'll win bdubs with his loyalty. he calls bdubs "my leige", jesus christ dude, you couldn't be less subtle unless you straight up called him ren's name.

skizz has been (whether accidentally or on purpose is up to you) trying to recreate the experience he had with dogwarts, and particularly what he had with ren, since the moment dogwarts fell. he can't have it with ren because he missed his only chance in last life, so he'll fill the void with whoever he can. his fellow soldier. ren's successor. ren's new kingmaker. anyone. and it's never gonna work. i need ren to come back for like, 900 reasons, but i especially need him to come back so skizz can have a shot at making it to spring.

[slyvester101]

Donut remembers how Caboose was back in Blood Gulch, even if everyone else forgot.

He remembers when he's snark back to Church's and Tucker's digs, always surprising everyone with his clever comebacks. He remembers when nicknames were said with affection, when Private Biscuit was a light-hearted tease instead of a sign of forgetfulness. He remembers when it felt like the only person in the world who could understand him, who he felt like he could actually talk to without getting made fun of or bullied, was Caboose.

He remembers when Omega came and fucked up Caboose's head, remembers watching Caboose slowly loose himself as Omega tore through his head in a rage, unsatisfied with the mind he decided to inhabit. He remembers the first time Caboose looked at him and asked what his name was again, remembers feeling choked up at the idea of all the days they spent together, all the jokes they made, was wiped away.

He had smiled and given his name again, voice forced to stay steady as he reintroduces himself to his best friend.

Donut remembers never getting that relationship back, remembers Caboose slowly slipping further into his memory problems, injury after injury jostling his brain until there's barely anything left of Donut in Caboose's head. He remembers the sting of realizing that he was never getting Caboose back, that as close as he could get to him, it would never be the same as Blood Gulch. He remembers feeling guilty for missing a version of Caboose that will never come back.

He remembers missing him anyway, hiding the ache in his heart with a big smile whenever he stands next to the man he once knew like the back of his hand, that he could read with a single look, who knew him back just as confidentially.

He remembers it all, even when Caboose doesn't.

[kacievvbbbb]

The gag is Zoro and Shanks aren’t that different. Zoro is also completely reckless with his body less so now but I have no doubt that even now if he needed to cut off any part of his body to win, to save his crew he would do it without hesitation just like shanks.

And the thing is Mihawk would still fight him as long as Zoro can pick up a sword Mihawk would still fight him and relish in it.

Zoro loses an eye, Mihawk still trains him.

And Shanks…..Shanks loses his mind a little bit

[jackwhiteprophetic]

Thinking again about how canonically BEFORE Buck and Eddie met, both had scenes about "having the back" of their respective romantic partners, of which in both relationships this agreement was seemingly broken, and both make the promise to each other while still grieving those relationships, still feeling broken and undeserving of that trust, and they STILL have upheld that to this day.

THAT SPECIFIC COMMITMENT is the foundation of their relationship and is a massively fucking defining moment in their lives, and establishing each other as probably the most formative figure of their adult lives.

Fucking romantic little shits (I hate them btw)

[saturnniidae]

Interesting and, in my opinion, often overlooked thing about Hiccup is how he's like, not really a compassionate person by default. It was learned, not an innate trait like it seemingly was with Valka.

From things said in the first movie, we can presume he's always had a fairly intense interest in dragons, but it was solely with the intention of killing them – and very stubbornly his way at that, considering he hadn't even read the Book of Dragons yet – and it kind of makes sense considering, he's likely desensitized to violence with how often their village was repeatedly burnt to the ground then rebuilt. Like he got excited there was a raid, completely one-track minded on his plans to shoot something down for his own benefit with no regard for the danger everyone (and himself) was in (and yes! This is somewhat selfish, but he was also a child.) Again, a lot of people overlook the fact that while he was insecure about it, alienated by his peers, and looked down upon by adults, Hiccup is still a viking – or at least was raised as one. He still very much held the same, core dragon killing beliefs every one else on Berk did. The only thing that set him apart was his inability to follow directions due to his unwavering obstinacy when it came to doing things his way.

He had every intention of killing Toothless upon finding him, only changing his mind after seeing the dragons fear and realizing they're both trapped by circumstances outside of their control, and even then had no plans of seeing Toothless again after freeing him. He thought he lost his chance at killing a dragon, after uaving the realization he just didn't have the heart to look an animal in the eyes and take its life, he was fully prepared to return to his mundane routine of ignoring what adults want him to do in favor of his own, ironic and futile attempts at making his father proud.

He's never had any kind of 'natrual' connection with dragons, it was something he stubbornly worked towards. Like I said before; he was as set on killing one as any other person on Berk, I just think he had an easier time accepting they were wrong due to spending most of his life as an outcast.

He only went back to find Toothless after his first attempt at dragon training, it was with no intention to get closer, more of an almost childish curiosity, a fascination that grew out of hand, especially after Astrid yelled at him and forced him to confront what he was doing with the question: 'Whose side are you on?"

I know Forbidden Friendship is the moment we all talk about, but I don't think Hiccup and Toothless had any kind of solidified bond until they flew together, and from Toothless' point of view, the realization that Hiccup had now gone beyond just brief fascination and was actually invested enough to help him fly again.

And even then it wasn't until he met that Terror he realized that Toothless wasn't just a one off thing, that most dragons won't attack pointlessly unless pushed to. And even then his relationship with them is still very flawed, and remains that for a long time; I know we're mostly talking about movie Hiccup here, but would the 'do-no-wrong dragon whisperer' that some people act like he is really have trapped that Skrill in a glacier because it was the easy way out? (In his defense he was like sixteen and at least realizes it was pretty fucked up when he was older and did his best to fix things)

It took time for him to get to be the so called 'peace keeper' he is as an adult (though he always seems to prioritize dragons over people, especially Toothless which is a really interesting and fitting flaw but I digress).

tldr; Hiccup was kind of a selfish, maybe even insensitive kid in the beginning, his compassion took time to develop. I feel like people too often forget that, one of his best traits wasn't an innate thing; it was something he worked for.

[hellscap3]

Well drawing I was thinking of his first time playing vs his 100th. You may notice in the top left one of these bullets is not like the other..

[thefruitbros]

was rewatching the movie (again!!) and noticed a lil something

okay so you know how Tangerine and Lemon in the movie discuss their (very sophisticated) code names for their job on the train?? and how outside their Kyoto job, they don't actually go by Tangerine and Lemon????

but despite that, they've taken the effort to change their pfps to images of a tangerine and a lemon respectively???

with this in mind, does this mean they change their pfps to reflect their code names for every job they take?? why???? why do they need to do that???

right off the bat, I think Lemon's definitely the one who does this (because Tangerine would insist it's unprofessional, or something). this is his phone, after all.

BUT, is this only on his end, or does he force Tangerine to change pfps on his phone too because he wants them to match?

if ever, I bet Tangerine just lets him do it because he knows, through experience, that it's best to just let Lemon do His Thing instead of fighting it (Lemon always gets what he wants in the end anyways so he just gives up :D), even if he thinks it's dumb.

going back, why? assuming their phones are burner phones they use specifically for their jobs, they're probably going to (or were supposed to) throw them away the second they finish their current assignment. they probably don't contain any identifying information for their own safety.

if we go with this, then that means that changing their pfps was just a thing Lemon wanted to do for no reason other than just. wanting to change their pfps :) and Tangerine lets him because it makes him happy

ik it's a really small and dumb detail shown for literally 3 seconds but I think it's very silly and cute idk!! 🫠🫠 I love the Fruit Bros so much

(p.s. still going crazy over the 🍊 emoji being officially named tangerine and NOT orange. Bullet Train fandom we won)