ROTBTD Incorrect Quotes / Dialogue

ROTBTD Incorrect Quotes / Dialogue

* Starts to rain somewhere*

Hiccup: Oh wow today's weather looks just like you, Merida.

Merida: The forecast did say several inches of rain I heard, can you imagine more than one inch. 

Hiccup: I think I'm having trouble maybe if you moved a little bit that way into the oncoming dragon swarm. Then, the entire world and I would have the peace and quiet necessary to envision such a thing. 

Merida: I would but then who would take care of our dear Rapunzel? What would she do without her best friend? 

* Hiccup pushes Merida into the rain.*

Hiccup: Oh, you didn't melt the stories lied to me.

Merida: I hate you.

Hiccup: I hate you more.

Ah well shit this is me when I'm on my meds.

Whenever I start to fall down the doubt spiral of ADHD doom (“but what if I don’t have ADHD, what if I’m actually just a terrible person who doesn’t try hard enough and who somehow accidentally managed to manipulate a specialist into thinking I have ADHD?”) I like to take ADHD “tests” to remind myself that yeah, actually, my brain is 13 trash fires masquerading as 12 feral cats in a trench coat and that actually, my ADHD is both

a) pretty severe and

b) entirely unmedicated due to my physical health being the equivalent of a meteor strike masquerading as 13 trash fires.

Anyway, this one has a cool pie chart with colors which I found quite helpful compared to the usual number scales. But also, lmao, help...

Edit: link for anyone that wants it. (This is obviously not a complete or comprehensive diagnostic tool. I just thought the way it was laid out was cool and way more accessible compared to others I’ve seen in the past.)

Ah, that answers a lot of questions thank you.

A little while ago you reblogged(?) a post about not using certain monsters because they belong to certain cultures unless you belong to those cultures - I’m not trying to be offensive or ignorant, I was just wondering, if enough research is done and appropriate respect is taken to those origins, is it ok to use them? I mean, is there something to be said about sharing parts of stories? Is it any different than using monsters from Greek mythology?

You’re referring to this post.

It’s complicated, but it boils down to “Since so often the research isn’t done and appropriate respect isn’t given to the originating cultures, it is better to err on the side of caution; as part of that, abstain from using those entities (especially as they’re typically presented in pop culture), and instead use these substitutes.” 

I mean, is there something to be said about sharing parts of stories?

Yes, there is something to be said about sharing–when it’s shared by someone who it belongs to.  Otherwise, it’s theft.  And cultural theft–of dominant cultures taking the “fun bits” of cultures that they find interesting and discarding the rest–is a massive problem right now.  

Let me give an example that’s particular to my culture.  My culture is Jewish–or, speaking more specifically, Rabbinic Judaism, which developed from Pharisaic Judaism after the destruction of the Holy Temple by Rome almost two millennia ago.  For the last 1900 years, my culture has been living in diaspora at the (dubious) mercy of gentiles, and we’ve developed a wide array of religiously and culturally meaningful rituals, stories, foods and so forth.  These cultural artifacts are ours, and I can say without hyperbole that we have been brutalized and killed for practicing these parts of our culture.  We have paid, in blood and lives, for our right to these practices as part of who we are.

Now, after centuries of having killed us for our culture, Christians are instead stealing bits of Rabbinic Judaism’s cultural practices for themselves.  Christian “Seders” at Passover are a thing.  Christians write thinkpieces on why they should celebrate Channukah.  After centuries of persecuting Jews for practicing Judaism, It’s considered cute and trendy to take the “fun bits” of Judaism for themselves.  (And that’s not even touching “Messianic judaism” and it’s wholesale theft of Rabbinic Judaism’s cultural practices in an effort to convert Jews by trickery).  

Imagine how I feel about that sort of theft, seeing it again and again and again…

So you’re asking me if you can use the Golem in your stories?

Well, why should you?  Do you know that the Golem was made as a protector by the head rabbi of Prague to protect the Jewish community against the Christian community during a period of repeated accusations of Blood Libel?  That it was essentially made as a defender that wouldn’t abandon us, that wouldn’t take our money and turn on us like mercenaries did, when the mobs came with torches and knives to kill the Jews who they believed were kidnapping Christian children to use their blood?  That it was a story told by Jewish parents to Jewish children that we would have a magical bulwark to stand between us and a world that wanted to kill us in horrible fashions?  

Why should you take that and get to turn it into a generic constructed monster built by a wizard as a dumb defender of his wizard’s tower when there is a perfectly acceptable substitute in the form of elementals, which don’t have that baggage of coming from an abused culture watching the stories that they’ve kept for themselves be torn away from them and used for the enjoyment of the people who persecuted them?  Why do you have to take it?  Why does your desire for it outweigh our wish that you leave it to us?

As for the difference with the Greeks–while the Greek pagans are making a comeback, the original religion of the Greeks has been destroyed and paved over with Christianity.  There’s a fundamental difference between taking from a dead culture and a living persecuted one.  

It works on dragons, too. 

Astrid redraw:>

I've never tried to exactly redraw an image in digital before, as I did in traditional, although I think this is an oversight))

Hope you like it, I tried very hard on this, her skirt is just a pain🥲

Oh shit, here we go again.

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is the twins are finally back!

The bad news is they've brought a Whispering Death with them. A Titan Wing Whispering Death. An angry Titan Wing Whispering Death. An angry Titan Wing Whispering Death that is currently chasing them through the village as we speak. Someone should probably do something about that.

We're going to send them to dragon island. They got themselves into this, they can sort it out themselves.

It IS concerning that we now have to deal with the carpenter again. We're not exactly on good terms with him.