Okay, Uh, I'm Not 100% Sure That I'm Autistic (I Mean, I Took A Test, But I Still Need To Go To Get An

Hey, everyone! Due to the sudden influx of viewers on AO3, the site has had to modify some things, including the experience of guest users and how hits are counted on the site. This is not the fault of AO3 (they're doing their best to keep things up and running for all of us), but if you're a guest user following stories on AO3, PLEASE make sure to leave kudos for your authors to see. We understand it can be difficult to get an account on AO3 (probably more now with COVID-19 leaving people in their homes), but sudden drops in statistics can be inexplicable and disheartening.

Keep your heads up, people. We're gonna get through this.

you deserve to be loved without having to hide the parts of yourself that you think are unlovable.

friendly reminder that gypsy is a slur and if y'all gadjo keep saying it i will fuck u up :-)

Okay, but if Raz is canonically wearing some of Sasha’s old clothes in Psychonauts 2 now, that really just reminds me of that old Memory Reel from the first game where Milla is wearing the dark-suit-and-sweater combo and Tim and Scott joke in the commentary about how she was wearing some of Sasha’s clothes… maybe that’s just a thing Sasha does??

If you’re part of his little pseudo-family, he doesn’t care, clothes are just clothes, and if you need them more than he does, they are yours.

compare.

trust him, he would know

I made a Light Fury redesign! I decided to keep her and name her Skadi (norse goddess of the wilderness). You're free to draw her if you want!

Fifteen years ago, my favorite animated movie released in theaters. I saw it two days later; at only 6 years old, seeing the film in 3D, my entire world had been changed.

more under the cut; autistic, passionate ramblings ahead.

How to Train Your Dragon came out at the perfect time for me. A few months before its release, my uncle had gifted me his old PlayStation 1 console, and I'd been blazing through Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon over and over again for weeks. Spyro 3 had kickstarted a deep obsession with dragons. From the day I first started playing it, all I could think about were dragons. If it had dragons on it, I wanted it. This led to other core childhood memories -- the one I recall most being my Dad picking up a book for me: "Dragonology" by Ernest Drake.

I'm still not sure where on Earth he found this book, but all that mattered back then was that it'd ended up in my lap, and it had dragons on it.

As I was known to do, I let my obsession with dragons seep into everything I did. While I wasn't as much of a writer as I am now, back then, whenever my friends asked me to come out and play, I'd always have one non-arguable condition: that I could pretend to be a dragon. Sometimes I was a big, mean, scary dragon, the likes of Smaug or Malefor. Other times, I was a cuddly, curious, likable protagonist dragon, like Spyro. But regardless of what dragon I was during play, all my reptilian escapades gave me a reputation: from my neighborhood to the halls at school, I became the "dragon girl." Kids I didn't know would come up to me and show me dragons. Teachers would print pictures of dragons for me, ask me on and on about them (I'd repeatedly bring my Dragonology book to school in order to show my teacher, and ask her fervently if she believed the "invisible dust" on Page 17 would actually work -- her answer was always "It could, but don't experiment in my classroom, please"). It was heaven for me, being the dragon girl.

My instant gravitation towards anything dragon-related makes the fact that I didn't know about How to Train Your Dragon until two days after its release quite comical. But that was how it went: my sibling, years older than me and already tired of my unshakeable instinct to follow them around everywhere, had been invited to come out and see the movie by a friend of theirs, and had done everything possible to keep me from finding out. But eventually the news found me, and as I ran to them to insist I come along, too, the words they used to try to dissuade me are still fresh in my mind.

"You don't want to watch it, it's a scary dragon movie."

And because I'd heard the word 'dragon', obviously my response was, "COOL!"

I can't remember who paid my way in, but I pray it was our mother, and not my sibling's poor, dear friend. Regardless of who covered my $8 matinee, I sat down in those cushiony theater seats not even an hour later, ready to watch the very first dragon-related film I'd ever seen in my life.

And it just so happens that I witnessed not only my first dragon film, but also the pinaccle of animated movies. In 3D.

To say that How To Train Your Dragon changed my life... despite that the highest bar something fictional could achieve, it still feels like an understatement all these years later. The film was nothing I'd expected it to be; simply having dragons in it was going to be enough, but HTTYD had more. I'll never forget the pure exhilaration of Test Drive in 3D, the way the score swept over the room in quiet and daring moments alike; a story that captivated me, about friendship and finding somewhere you belong. I was lucky enough to not have experienced bullying at that time in my life (or, if I had, was simply too naive to realize it was happening), but I remember watching Hiccup struggle and being able to sympathize with him all the same. And while I may not have been Hiccup down to the mark, I could at least relate to my interpretation of him: the wonder yet anxiety of a world opening up before you, and the pain that was trusted adults looking down at you critically instead of out at that world you saw.

Seeing How To Train Your Dragon in theaters was the best experience I could have had at such a young age. I had truly witnessed something one of a kind, and it was obvious not just to myself back then, but everyone else in the roon with me. A recurring story in my family is literally the fact that I stood up and went "WOOHOO" after finding out Hiccup and Toothless survived the fight with the Red Death, only after I had screamed "NOOOO" as Hiccup was knocked off of Toothless' saddle minutes prior. The second I got home from seeing the film, I began creating original characters, writing stories set in the film's universe (what we all know as 'fanfiction'), things I had rarely done in the past, for anything.

I couldn't get enough. I remember trying to track the days until DVD release without the Internet, watching the TV eagle-eyed every day until finally, the teasers for home release began to air. My neighbor had gotten a copy long before I managed to - a copy that would soon end up being mine anyways, after I borrowed it, didn't give it back when I was told to, and was never asked about it again.

How to Train Your Dragon has been the creative backbone to practically everything I've ever made. At least one soundtrack piece has made it into every playlist I've ever made, with the motifs inspiring events in stories from completely different universes (like @peacedoveau , my Sonic The Hedgehog [2006] rewrite project). My love for this film has followed me for 15 long years of my life, and I've always struggled to put it into words because of that; how do you explain 15 years of love? How do you transcribe every little moment where you remembered you saw How To Train Your Dragon in freaking 3d, and how happy it had made you?

I would not be where I am without this film. I wouldn't have made any of the things I'd ever made. I wouldn't even be the same person. 15 years later, whenever I watch How to Train Your Dragon, I'm immediately transported back in time to 2010. I'm watching the credits roll over Jonsi's Sticks and Stones, and knowing deep down that I am not the same as I was.

This movie is timeless -- it will always be timeless. And there is nothing that may be made in the future that can take it off the top of my list.

So, 15 years after release, I'm glad I could finally tell the world just how much this film means to me.

Happy 15 year anniversary, How To Train Your Dragon!

Ford: we need to safely separate their brains, otherwhise the results could be terrible!

Sasha: *pulls out a saw*

Ford: no not like that Nein.