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Dinosaurmageddon posted:Sup fellow Topaz Dragon I'm going to go see Pete's Dragon today. I will of course give a full report when I get back.
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Aug 12, 2016 17:48
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Dinosaurmageddon posted:
mrw when I see that picture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOsnN408weA
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Aug 12, 2016 18:05
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Omg all those words about dragon manga. But I can't help finding this hysterically funny. Don't date bbws gents.
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Aug 12, 2016 18:35
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I'm a big fan of Capcom's Breath of Fire series, partially because I'm a sucker for old turn-based RPG's and the concept and sprite art for them was imaginative and very impressive. Here are a few dragons from the third one. III was especially cool because you found "genes" (purple crystals with black poo poo in them) and "spliced" them together to make new forms. Here are a few forms + bosses from 3.     There are forms you get by using a gene that mixes in another party member's characteristics. I can't find sprites of them online but there's a tiger-dragon, a mecha-dragon, an onion-dragon, and a bird-dragon! IV eschewed sprites for the coolest looking dragons in favor of 3 models. Most of them hardly even look like dragons. I prefer the concept art for them. This is a Sand dragon.  Forest Dragon  Wind Dragon (It's more like a sky-serpent)  Mud Dragon (it's see-through. Those are its vertebrae)  Plains Dragon (My personal favorite)  Sea Dragon  They all got cute human avatars too. Can you guess which goes to which dragon? 
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Aug 12, 2016 20:02
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Hogge Wild posted:typical melnibonean dragon humper propaganda How rude. We have nothing to do with Tolkien jsyk.
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Aug 12, 2016 21:12
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Is this the flying dogs thread? Because here is a flying dog for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adBmLtE4wwg
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Aug 12, 2016 21:29
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Alright, so time to review Pete's Dragon! SPOILER ALERT OBVIOUSLY. My impressions are still really fresh so this is going to come off a bit messy. There's a surprising amount going on in this movie. There are at least two main layers going on, which I'm going to call Layer A and Layer B. Layer A is what I'm calling Man's Place in Nature Allegory. Layer B is what I'm calling the Spiritual Layer. These two layers dovetail and aren't in complete disagreement with each other, though they do conflict in places. At any rate, despite the slapped together nature of this review, this is very much my wheelhouse so you're getting a good analysis here. Random things: * Pete's Dragon, Elliot, is in this movie something akin to a flying bear-bat. While this is weird, it's probably closer to biologically correct from the standpoint of existing animal knowledge, since bats exist as an example of flying mammals, while lizards can at best glide (per existing knowledge). However, since Elliot later surprises us all by breathing fire, the faux biological accuracy is kind of undone. * There is a local legend of dragons in the woods, which makes dragons a local cryptid in this movie. That makes dragons less of a mythical creature and more of something like bigfoot. It of course follows that rednecks immediately want to shoot the cryptid as soon as they get even a vague notion it might be real. Moving forward, the basic synopsis of the movie is this: A boy's parents die in a car crash in the woods and the boy runs off into the woods, where he meets a dragon who raises him, the wolves apparently being disinterested due to the fact Rome has already been founded. He then turns into a sort of discount Mowgli, until he is tempted back into civilization by a young girl. At this point, he freaks out because he's separated from the dragon, the dragon freaks out because it thinks the kid doesn't need him anymore, some hunters try to kill and then later capture the dragon because reasons, he finds a loving family who his dragon almost murders, and he parts from the dragon on loving terms knowing he can find him Layer A: This layer is perhaps 80% correct. The dragon here represents everything mystical about nature, which is in keeping with the modern bowlderization of dragons in general. It is customary traditionally for dragons to represent everything that seems particularly unnatural about nature, or to put it another way everything monstrous about nature. Here the dragon just represents nature. The crux of this layer is carried by the old man's description of seeing a dragon when he was younger, which goes something like Right then, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be. That's when I saw the dragon, this obviously being a reflection of recognizing man's place in nature (and this line is also crucial to understanding layer B also). The redneck loggers seek to kill/constrain nature for no real reason, just that they're afraid of it or are very vain. On this level, the kid survives because he has nature on his side, or is at peace with nature, and the story becomes something like Mononoke Hime, in which the kid has to live in human civilization because he's human, but can still come to visit nature in the forest from time to time, and everyone learns a valuable lesson about blah blah blah Layer B: This layer is perhaps 40-45% correct. This is actually not bad at all! A lot is going on here, which needs to be unpacked and explained a good bit, but the gist of it is that the kid's imaginary friend is actually his spiritual guardian, or daemon, or clan totem, or Holy Guardian Angel or whatever else you prefer. On this level, the story becomes about finding one's inner self, about alienation and reintegration with others, about growing up, and weirdly enough about spiritual tolerance! This layer is embedded very deeply in the material so it's entirely possible that the writers weren't even aware of it when they were writing the film. It is worth noting that a spiritual guardian is not usually a physical animal, but a clan totem often is, and these concepts are basically all just the same thing viewed through different lenses (the lens partially defines the reality in magical/spiritual matters). To quote some random rear end in a top hat: quote:Generally speaking, the clan totem is an entity that is initially sensed or perceived externally; theoretically it can take on any form, but practice shows that it usually appears as an animal In this context, Pete's first contact with his dragon in a time of emotional crisis is a combination of a spiritual encounter and a "mundane" encounter with an "imaginary friend". An aside that's necessary for understanding this: I personally am beginning to think that imaginary friends are often none other than the daemon, encountered prior to a kind of metamorphosis they undergo after growing into a culture's symbolism. That is to say, the guardian of one's soul undergoes a puberty of its own, in growing into a body of information, concurrently with the host of that guardian undergoing the puberty of growing into a body of meat. The entanglement in information makes it much more difficult to contact that guardian (one needs a "map" to get through the hedge maze of symbols, and one also needs to ensure the symbols maintain a certain fixity. To quote Cioran: quote:We must beware of whatever insights we have into ourselves. In this way, literally all the events of the film represent this "puberty" of the daemon, of the metamorphosis of Pete's naked soul into a form compatible with civilization, and Pete's subsequent development and finding a way to maintain his conversation with his daemon. The lingering hostility towards the notion of dragons becomes a question of incompatible form languages (literally symbolic ways of understanding the world), and the attempted capture of the dragon becomes oddly reminiscent of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah , in which the people don't know the angels for what they are and ask Lot to bring them out so they can rape them (since in this case Dragon=Daemon=Holy Guardian Angel). Fortunately, nobody tries to rape a dragon here. However, they do try to capture and constrain one for no good reason One has to imagine that it is for the reason that they were guilty of such a mild sin that they were permitted to live. The old man's quote in this context remains similar, but instead of being about man's place in nature becomes about man's place in the pantheistic body of God. Hence his realization just gains a double meaning, and a dragon becomes the reflection of his own soul as well. In fact, enough dragons show up for everybody at the end, which is sort of appropos and sort of not. I mean, I guess they are all a family, so it kinda fits, but it just felt like overkill to me in a completely subjective way, I dunno. So yeah, it was a fine movie. I think some of the gags were stupid and they made a really weird dragon that, of course (literally in keeping with all modern tradition), arbitrarily alternates between animalistic and human tendencies. But it's all reasonably compatible with some pretty high level stuff. DrowningInDreams fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Aug 12, 2016 |
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Aug 12, 2016 23:04
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I think it would be pretty cool if green dragons smoke weed. They could even use their fire breath to light it Dibs on being the green dragon
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Aug 12, 2016 23:56
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DrowningInDreams posted:Alright, so time to review Pete's Dragon! SPOILER ALERT OBVIOUSLY. My impressions are still really fresh so this is going to come off a bit messy. 
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Aug 12, 2016 23:57
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Petes dragon got them tiny rear end wings
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Aug 13, 2016 00:02
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TheUltimateDoofus posted:Petes dragon got them tiny rear end wings So it's a wing-a-ling dragon?
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Aug 13, 2016 00:03
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DrowningInDreams posted:I'm sure you mean otherkin, but the link between deformity and the symbolism of dragons has already been established, and I always felt that there was something of a mutilation in being transgender; only not the usually thought one, but rather that one is mutilated, or as Kierkegaard put it "set outside of the universal", by nature, in the course of undergoing puberty or otherwise trying to live as male and thus taking on a masculine body type. How the hell is the dragon supposed to represent deformed people when its obvious the artist intended the dragon to be sexier than "normal" women?
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Aug 13, 2016 00:09
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Applewhite posted:How the hell is the dragon supposed to represent deformed people when its obvious the artist intended the dragon to be sexier than "normal" women? Obviously that's their inner beauty.
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Aug 13, 2016 00:10
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Aug 13, 2016 00:13
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK4fjMhGn-I
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Aug 13, 2016 00:27
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Stinky_Pete posted:I think it would be pretty cool if green dragons smoke weed. As far as breath attacks go, might I suggest starting with a corrosive gas attack or maybe even a tangling-vine-spore spray instead of fire? I know it might seem counter-intuitive when you're a *dragon* and all and so you want that super-obvious "party trick" move where you light someone's ciggie or spark that dank dragongrass joint with your own breath attack, but honestly if you go with the more eco-considerate breath attack options available to the green forest dragon clans then not only will you help prevent habitation loss but with a little skill, personal development, and magimedical gland training you too can design a potent personal breath attack power that sprays a mild hallucinatory gas in an area and causes a crop of dragongrass to grow spontaneously from the soil... so as far as "party tricks" go how d'ya like them dragoneggs?  :bongwizard:
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Aug 13, 2016 00:33
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Stinky_Pete posted:I think it would be pretty cool if green dragons smoke weed. This sounds like a cartoon idea. Like Adult Swim at 1:30 AM sort of thing.
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Aug 13, 2016 01:05
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I feel like he's gotten hold of pieces of things but doesn't know how they're supposed to be used or go together at all, so he just throws them out at random. Like if a caveman went through one of those 80's action movie suiting up with all the weapons montages, but then because he's a caveman he only knows how to throw things, so he just throws the nunchucks and guns and sais and magazines and grenades-still-with-pins-in-them at his enemies, who, due to the fact that weapons are still technically involved, are with some consternation still required to annihilate the poor caveman in response.
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Aug 13, 2016 01:15
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i picked this name before magic the gathering even HAD pitdragons, i like to think i inspired them.
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Aug 13, 2016 01:42
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Pitdragon posted:i picked this name before magic the gathering even HAD pitdragons, i like to think i inspired them. My vision went blurry for a moment and I thought your username said PHDragon, which made me upset because I thought, why haven't I thought of this awful pun before you. But now I have! So there.
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Aug 13, 2016 03:05
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DID what is your opinion on dragons eating people?
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Aug 13, 2016 03:21
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Three-Phase posted:DID what is your opinion on dragons eating people? Well I mean, unless those people are cannibals themselves it's unlikely to result in a prion disease. It's still bad form generally, unless arrangements have been made by the deceased (or (sane) living) for precisely this purpose, or perhaps in an emergency. Even as a method of killing it's unnecessary and excessive, meaning the only argument in favor would be that it's more enjoyable for the dragon than unenjoyable for the human. But this is false, as it literally reflects the Schopenhauer quote: quote:Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other. The other argument would be that the dragon's happiness is weighted higher than the human's unhappiness, but this is chauvanism. The only standard above personhood is godhood, and the average dragon just doesn't qualify (though I do think a God could eat some number of people and be justified). Besides which, eating people could only be enjoyable via sadism, which is not a healthy emotion to stimulate, and belongs least of all in a healthy, free, and powerful creature. Marquis de Sade felt as he did because of his extreme impotence, and this must be understood; sadism is understandable in the weak. It is not understandable in the strong; it is genuine sociopathy there.
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Aug 13, 2016 03:47
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Do dragons have sexy butts? I'm losing interest here
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Aug 13, 2016 04:05
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Champenema posted:Do dragons have sexy butts? I'm losing interest here Most of my dragon porn is of male dragons. But I do have this: 
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Aug 13, 2016 04:09
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I'd call it a cute butt, but not sexy
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Aug 13, 2016 04:12
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Aug 13, 2016 05:30
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hell yeah now that's exactly what i'm talking about thank you very much, kind dragon
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Aug 13, 2016 05:57
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welp. I waited 4 pages and no one did it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP75aZvWVdw
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Aug 13, 2016 05:58
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Give me Your dirty love Like you might surrender To some dragon in your dreams Give me Your dirty love Like a pink donation To the dragon in your dreams I don't need your sweet devotion An' I don't want your cheap emotion Whip me up some dragon lotion For your dirty love 
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Aug 13, 2016 06:41
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Aug 13, 2016 06:58
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Faith For Two posted:How do I tell if my computer is, in fact, a dragon? Did your computer come with dual floppy drives? If not, it's probably not a dragon.
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Aug 13, 2016 08:28
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Enfield posted:kinds of dragons: green (normal) hidden you loving dilettante
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Aug 13, 2016 08:46
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This thread was funny at first but it's really starting to.... drag on.
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Aug 13, 2016 10:02
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DrowningInDreams posted:Well I mean, unless those people are cannibals themselves it's unlikely to result in a prion disease. It's still bad form generally, unless arrangements have been made by the deceased (or (sane) living) for precisely this purpose, or perhaps in an emergency. Even as a method of killing it's unnecessary and excessive, meaning the only argument in favor would be that it's more enjoyable for the dragon than unenjoyable for the human. But this is false, as it literally reflects the Schopenhauer quote: Perfection
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Aug 13, 2016 11:03
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One of the first books I ever read was Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher and that was cool and I wanted to hatch dragons but life isn't as good as stories.
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Aug 13, 2016 11:30
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Should dragons have beards? I'm leaning towards no, but am willing to be convinced. After all, many of them can pull off a wicked fu-manchu.
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Aug 13, 2016 14:16
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Speleothing posted:Should dragons have beards? I'm leaning towards no, but am willing to be convinced. After all, many of them can pull off a wicked fu-manchu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpisBkMYAxQ theyre really delicious
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Aug 13, 2016 14:40
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Speleothing posted:Should dragons have beards? I'm leaning towards no, but am willing to be convinced. After all, many of them can pull off a wicked fu-manchu. some dragons can grow them but many of them don't have facial hair. but it's like dwarfs where if they are a kind of dragon that has facial hair (or whiskers), the women are proud of having the most disgusting neckbeard possible
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Aug 13, 2016 14:44
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Kharnifex posted:I believe there is a website dedicated to bad dragons. Those are actually the mentally ill dragons they were speaking about.
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Aug 13, 2016 15:45
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So like realtalk, not to be a stereotype or anything but what do I have to do to get gold for this thread?
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Aug 13, 2016 15:55
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