Arrrrrcadia

welcome aboard partially rp avatar by Elizondo_art

[motherofsephy]

Hello! Here’s a little comic I made for the Zero x Harlock zine hosted by @zerolockfan depicting what actually happened during the bar scene.

It was an absolute pleasure to work on this zine. I love the Warrius x Phantom ship and I’m so glad there’s a dedicated fandom for them. ^_^

I am open to constructive feedback so I can improve my drawings in the future. Thank you!

[arrrrrcadia]

homesick

HOMESICK

There are days he misses it. The “easy” life he had back from wherever he came. On these days he will sit in the heart of this Arcadia, hold his collar in his hands and stare at it, soothed by the beeps and bops of a different mainframe. There are some constants in his lives. Tochiro is one of them. His friend. His lifesaver. Harlock is another. Always a friend, not often a lover. He smiles a little wistfully. He’s got Harlock here. And Yama, who’s new, but good. He’s just as big a mess as them. He chuckles mirthlessly. They all think they do not deserve to be loved unconditionally. He flinches as Tori alights on his shoulders. Another constant. But, different. They go along here. And he reaches up to pet the bird. A glimmer drifts by vanishing in an open circuit and he smiles as he looks up. Another constant, but vastly different here. He lifts his hand, places it over the white line around his neck and then puts the collar back in place with a soft smile. “Home…” Tori lets out a loud shriek and the mainframe - Tochiro - makes a soft encouraging noise which whispers into his ears… “Is where the heart is.”

[arrrrrcadia]

Space Battle Ship Cat Basket

 Captain J’s spaceship. It wasn’t always named thus, but Harlock (2013Movie-verse version) made a joke and if Harlock makes a joke it gets honored. It’s built up on a predecessor of the Death Shadow class. The Captain basically took a wreck and rebuilt it to his liking. (in most Harlock!Verses with Tochiro’s help.) The ship’s very much smaller than the Arcadia but no less wicked. In the 2013 Movie!Verse the Cat Basket gets “strapped” to the Arcadia for IN-Skip. No one exactly knows how the Basket survives the skips, but as long it works, no one will complain.

[bigfrozensix]

“Ariel sold her voice for legs just because of a guy“

Meanwhile Ariel with legs;

Ariel already loved the human world long before meeting Eric (you don’t get a collection like hers overnight) and when she finally got a chance to explore it, she took it.

Ursula made it more about Eric than Ariel ever did.

[gae-bolg-alternative-dot-exe]

[atalana]

and i mean hell this has been talked about before in more depth than i can, but when people complain about how the ending was changed (the original fairytale does not give ariel a happy ending, she dies trying to protect the prince), i think about the fact that this was written by a gay man in the 1980s

and i think it’s entirely valid (and gives her an extremely strong connection to the queer community) to change the story so she doesn’t die because of who she loves

[starlitskvader]

Triton made escape a necessity. Once someone goes to the point of destroying your possessions in a violent rampage, there is no staying and sticking it out, there’s no safety. (And Ariel, even in Ursula’s lair, gave Triton more thought than he deserved at the time.) Nowhere in the ocean she could go and be safe. Everyone’s always ‘why don’t they just leave :|’ in abusive situations until the leaving is not something they find 100% worthy of approval.

Ursula made it about Eric. She didn’t have to. Ariel had to get out from under Triton’s thumb, it could have been literally anything. Ursula took advantage of a desperate victim for her own agenda. Realistic predatory behavior toward a vulnerable person.

And also

There’s always the ‘Eric didn’t want her until she was silent and meek’ criticism - FIRST OF ALL he started out looking for a woman who wasn’t silent, and second of all what part of the carriage driving bit (or any of her other actions on land) is meek, exactly?

People above have noted the queer subtext. Now, on the subject of Ariel being willing to leave her family, aside from the baseline ‘this is an abusive environment and she was not safe there’ angle I already mentioned, consider: Ariel’s father made it clear he would stop at nothing to crush and tear down who she was and replace it with what he wanted her to be. Now - what demographic might that resonate with? And given Ashman’s involvement, do you think that was a coincidence?

[tokidokifish]

there has been scholarly discussion about the idea that the og little mermaid story, where she dies at the end, was written as a queer allegory.

so taking that into account… there is something very touching about taking this story from hans christian andersen from beyond the grave and being like “things are different now. they get to be happy. she gets to live.”

[imagitory]

Howard Ashman’s involvement – as a gay man of the 1980’s – reinterpreting this story written by a queer man of the 1830’s cannot be overstated, as far as I’m concerned.

In the original Little Mermaid fairy tale, merpeople are depicted as less than human – creatures that lack a soul who live a long time, but ultimately vanish into sea foam, leaving no lasting impact on the world around them. The titular little mermaid (never named) has to abandon everything she is and masquerade as a human, trying everything she can to fit in and be happy alongside her prince, all while it feels like her feet are being stabbed with knives with each step she takes and the prince treats her more like a child than a lover:

“As the days passed, she loved the prince more fondly, and he loved her as he would love a little child, but it never came into his head to make her his wife.”

The prince even calls the mermaid his “dumb foundling” and “dumb child” at two different points. (Using “dumb” meaning “silent,” but still – not exactly the most romantic or even platonic terms of endearment.) And no matter how much the mermaid tries to walk the walk and be everything the prince could want, he ultimately chooses a “real” human woman in place of the mermaid, leaving her to die and chase salvation for all eternity as a Daughter of the Air.

This is a story of a queer man deeply scarred by religious trauma – who sees himself as someone less than the people around him and constantly falls short of happiness because of his inherent nature. Merpeople – maybe as an allegory for LGBT people in that period? – live apart from humans ignorant of their existence and are ultimately forgotten and unloved by humanity. The mermaid’s desire to be truly human therefore can be totally read as a gay person wanting social acceptance and never getting it from society and – therefore – presumably from God as well. Even the mermaid’s transformation into a Daughter of the Air seeking an after-life…she has no power in whether or not she will ultimately succeed in that endeavor, as at the end of the fairy tale, it’s said that she’ll wait 300 years, unless the children of the world do good deeds (shortening her stint) or misbehave (lengthening her stint).

“After three hundred years, thus shall we float into the kingdom of heaven,” said she. “And we may even get there sooner,” whispered one of her companions. “Unseen we can enter the houses of men, where there are children, and for every day on which we find a good child, who is the joy of his parents and deserves their love, our time of probation is shortened. The child does not know, when we fly through the room, that we smile with joy at his good conduct, for we can count one year less of our three hundred years. But when we see a naughty or a wicked child, we shed tears of sorrow, and for every tear a day is added to our time of trial!”

Until the very end, the mermaid is reliant on others to dictate her worth. Not even sacrificing her own happiness for her prince is enough for her to earn the soul she longed for, nor the love, happiness and acceptance she deserves. Like a struggling writer beholden to patrons to promote and celebrate his works, the mermaid is constantly seeking approval and praise from those more powerful and “normal” than her, all the way until the end.

Contrast this again to Ariel, who quite frankly I would say Howard Ashman put just as much of himself into as HCA put himself into the original mermaid. Ariel values herself – she wears her emotions on her sleeve – she knows what she wants and she’s not ashamed of it. She might have a secret grotto where she keeps her human treasures, but that’s more of a safe space for herself, since her father and other merpeople don’t “get” her interests. Ariel is told by Ursula, just as the mermaid is told by the OG sea witch, that her looks and charm should be enough to snag the prince’s heart, regardless of her voice, but Ariel doesn’t play games trying to “win” Eric’s heart. While on land, she’s honestly just enjoying herself so much that her heart shines through even without her voice, prompting Eric to fall for her all over again. Even with the deadline looming, Ariel can only focus on how much she loves being on land and with Eric. She’s happier than we’ve seen her in the entire rest of the film, including while she was around human stuff before. Ariel isn’t chasing Eric’s love out of any desire to “complete” or “improve” herself – she’s not looking for his love to “give her a soul,” the way the OG mermaid does. Instead being with Eric on land gives Ariel a kind of liberation she’s never known before. Ariel always had a soul – and now, as a human on land, that soul can finally soar. She doesn’t need the world to validate her or her trials – she just wants one person to share her experience of this wonderful world with her.

It’s honestly little wonder that LGBT+ people of all stripes really identify with the Little Mermaid story as well as its adaptations, and it will continuously frustrate me how many people neglect to acknowledge the depth of the Disney film’s themes.

[themousefromfantasyland]

@ariel-seagull-wings @the-blue-fairie @adarkrainbow

[armaff0]

[arcadiargh]

for an upcoming zine

[armaff0]

🏴‍☠️

[arcadiargh]

[beesgav]

space's saddest prettyboy

[darthelexas]

RPC commission by a friend! His playby is Captain Harlock, so, I guess it’s fanart too!

[the-stray-liger]

This is also from 2022!! I was just finishing Space Pirate Captain Harlock and was obsessed with this man. Lowkey still am

[rose-de-noire]

I had a dream, can’t remember anything but the narrator’s voice in the background: “… and there we have Harlock being a little shit and giving Tochiro a wedgie… “ I woke up cackling.

[art-in-arcadia]

[beesgav]

was trying to think of something to draw for a strawpage and literally the only thought I had was "tochiro" so.

[katatsu-chan]

Another sketch dump

Is that still a sketch if I rendered the sketch? 🤔

[ganondorf]

ppl are rlly trying to defend being on your phone during a movie in the theater what is going on

[ganondorf]

using your phone in a movie theater is a symptom of long covid

[cicada-and-pomegranate]

the defense of being on your phone in a movie theater is who cares? by your own admission, you should be paying attention to the movie. so why do you care what other people are doing? you’re meant to be paying attention to the movie.

[ganondorf]

[patheticperipatetic]

Once there was this boomer lady in the back right corner of the theater, I don't remember what movie, but her defence to what she was doing was that she wasn't on her phone. And she was correct, having a forehead lamp so she can see her cross stitching isn't being on her phone, but this level of absurdity is what I think of when people defend being in their phone.

[minim-calibre]

Okay.

A: I laughed out loud in shock at the FOREHEAD LAMP.

and

B: A FOREHEAD LAMP?????????????

[notherpuppet]

My inner artist demon vs. my inner writer demon 😵‍💫