Thestrals?--opinion on art please

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Fri May 19, 2006 5:58 pm

So awhile ago, when I first got into the concepts of bonding, me and my friend were doing a harry potter roleplay, and were like. yo, these hp chars need happy magical friends! besides cats adn frogs. Eventually we said screw it and brought us in some dragons, but before that, we tried a different sort of bondable creature. Thestrals. I think that's how they're spelled. The skeletal horses with wings? Yeah.
._.
I was thinking of maybe reviving that? But i dunno if someone's done something like it, or no one likes the idea, or what. :/ And of course, this is assuming that people want them and like the lineart.
I changed them around a lot, but not hat much, in retrospect. Same sort of design. Come in various colours, but that's not so special. :/ yeah.
kittens.
So.. Throwing it to the wind. What say-eth you?

Post by **Dray** » Fri May 19, 2006 6:14 pm

X3 I'm sure that some people would really dig them, here, but have you tried advertising them at the Orchard, yet? I know that place's life-blood is practically all-things-equine, so I'll bet you'll get a big resounding "OMGPLZ!" over there for sure!

<_< I don't have a link on me, since I don't frequent the place often, myself. ^^; Just a suggestion!

Skysong · Post by **Skysong** » Fri May 19, 2006 6:18 pm

http://silvanon.proboards12.com - Orchard!

It'd be cool so see those guys ^_^ Go skeletal horses!

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Fri May 19, 2006 6:28 pm

p'shaw, first i have to draw them~ and colour them. ._. wow. and figure out how to hold a hatching thing. I've got the general species outline, but nothing else.

I shalt check them out there~ They're not dragons, so they don't technically qualify for here, do they>?

Silver Midnight · Post by **Silver Midnight** » Fri May 19, 2006 6:57 pm

.....See Knux's lame attempt to make Chocobos "dragons".

We do actually like other types of critters, though.

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Fri May 19, 2006 7:28 pm

I'm touched by your faith~ but yay.
I'm developing the idea, though, so maybe it will work. >.> and if not, maybe one or two people will be interested and we can have a little skeleton-horse-with-wings cult.

Silver Midnight · Post by **Silver Midnight** » Fri May 19, 2006 7:35 pm

*puts on her spectacles, brings out a book entitled "Things to know about the Nexus", licks her fingers, and flips through the pages... She ceases after a little bit, running one finger down the page*

S...Silver dragons...silver bunyuns...Silver Midnight! Aha. "Silver Midnight is a very strange late teenager/early tweenager. She happens to have a strange fascination with anything having to do with death and/or the undead. Including but not limited to: dracolichs, half-eaten firelizards, wraiths, more wraiths, pseudowraiths, zombies, rotten eggs, ghosts, necromancers, atrumancers...."

*snaps the book closed*

In other words: Gimme skeletal horsies! Just a few!

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Fri May 19, 2006 7:38 pm

YAY DEADTHINGS!
I like dead things. and hugging them, though that tends to make you smell a tad after awhile.
I just finished their information, i'm gonna put it up on a page in a second.. i'll link when i'm done. >> again, this is assuming i can do lineart. ;-; that's the thing i have trouble with, making colourable lineart. -mutters under her breath about the whole strait-lines-are-good things-

Silver Midnight · Post by **Silver Midnight** » Fri May 19, 2006 7:40 pm

Who said you have to draw straight lines when drawing an organic creature?

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Fri May 19, 2006 7:44 pm

My colouring software. ;-; or else i get these bloody shakey sketchlines, which i'm fine with usually, but filling them in is a pain in the bum. X.x and my perfectionist senses make me spasm with frustration~

http://www.geocities.com/public_mindspace//explain.html
thestrals link, for hte thesties~

Mystic Dragon · Post by **Mystic Dragon** » Fri May 19, 2006 10:07 pm

>.> Don't forget that they're invisible to people who haven't experienced something horrific in their pasts. Now THAT'S an easy image.

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Fri May 19, 2006 10:10 pm

i cut that bit out. >.> Becuase honestly, it wasn't plot convenient. ^^; I did modify it.
But I mean, nmot every character has a traumatic past that involves watching things die. Unless you have some morbid characters. >.> But otherwise, it would be like.

Candidate: -attends ceremony- ...waitaminute, I can't see anything.
Invisable!Thestral: <3>.> I was thinking about making the invisability-to-non-death-seeingpeople a choice by the thestral itself, but then again, i wasn't sure. :/ I guess i'm open to suggestiosn about that?

I wish i would be that easy on myself, though. >.> Then i could just scan a peice of paper and that would be that~

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Fri May 19, 2006 10:44 pm

You know if Harrys parents were killed in front of him, wouldn't he have already seen death so why did he not see the thestrals until the 5th book? Wow that sentence was poorly structured but I'm too tired to fix it

Anyway I know he didn't remember it but he had still seen it, so doesn't that satisfy the requirement? Wouldn't he have seen them in earlier books?

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Fri May 19, 2006 10:47 pm

I sense a PLOTHOLE!
That's a good point. I'll have to go back and read that bit. >.> If i can find the damn books again.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Sat May 20, 2006 12:12 am

I think that JKR said in an interview that Harry was much too young to have understood the real implications of the action he saw. Other people've said about the same thing, that he would have seen them automatically. He was only like a toddler, so he wouldn't really know 'horrific', merely 'sudden inconvienence' now that mom and dad are smouldering there.

And I'd love to have a couple Thestrals for House Domina, my hp fandom collection of characters...

Cacopheny · Post by **Cacopheny** » Sat May 20, 2006 1:51 am

I love how Rowling has an answer for everything XD No plot holes for her!

That said: thestrals freaking rock o.o

LakotaWolf · Post by **LakotaWolf** » Sat May 20, 2006 3:32 am

Hrrrrrm... are these Thestrals mostly directly taken from the HP world? Name and everything? To be honest, I'm not really comfortable adopting critters that are from an author's world. >_> I know Anne McCaffrey reacted all badly to the Pern Weyrs online, but it's given me a bad taste to adopting any critter that's from an established, known world.

If you were to call them something else and change them a bit, I'd have no problem XD

This is just me, though. I'm pretty nitpicky about things like this - perhaps because I'm trying to be an author, professionally, myself. It just kind of rubs me the wrong way .____. Sorry! Not trying to be outright discouraging... you know what I mean? :/

Edit: looked up Thestrals. It also looks like they're actually based on an actual myth? I'd still say it was gray area because they've been used in a hugely popular setting. Just like on PI where someone was adopting out Cabbits that looked EXACTLY like the cabbits from the anime Tenchi Muyo... cabbits ARE an actual myth, but the person's lineart looked like the copyrighted character, so it was a no-go in my book. (I talked to them about it and they changed the lineart to something that was more cat+rabbit crosslike.) Basically I'd say if you're basing YOUR Thestrals more on the HP world's thestrals than on the actual myth, it could eventually be a problem with Rowling. :/

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Sat May 20, 2006 4:45 am

She enjoys all the fanfic (well, probably not "all") and really appreciates fans, unlike our famously infamous McCaffrey hatred of all things fannish. I don't think she'd care.

That said, 'Nightmare' (often used in D&D) and other such creatures are similar and un-copyrightable.

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Sat May 20, 2006 5:58 am

Inspired, yes. Changed. Original thestrals come in black. Everything besides the appearance and the fact that they eat meat was modified. In HP, we see the thestrals maybe three times. Once when they're pulling the cart, where we learn they're usually invisable-- a fact i've cut out. Another time when hagrid goes to show his students them, where we learn they eat meat, which is a given., and a third time when the students use them to fly off to the ministry of magic, when we learn they can fly. That first time we also learn that they're skeletal horses with bat wings-- how original is that concept, in the first place? And the first and second time, we see that they're trainable, but we dont see any hints that they might have any sort of a personality. Just regular hosses only dead with bat wings that eat meat.

That gave me a framework. Everything else on that sheet I made myself. The internal systems, the various colours? Mine. The running on magic thing? Mine. EVERYTHING about their mating, reproduction and the beginnings of thier life? Mine. Their intellegence and the ability to bond? Mine.

I'll give rowling credit for the name, the inspiration, and those first five things, most of which she probbaly found in a legend anyhow. everything else is mine, and, being posessive, i'll fight tooth and nail for that. >.> but i'm not snapping at you or anything, i'm proving a point.

whatsmore, people use gryphons and hippogryphs all the time, and no one complains. Hippogryphs, even, which aren't as well known as gryphs.

If Rowling hadn't used them, i'd probably haev some version of them. it'd be different, granted. maybe live in a swamp, have fire somewhere, but it would still be a skeletal horse with bat wings. Which is essentialyl what these thestrals are. She borrowed them from a legend, I borrowed them from her, and I modified htem and filled them out.

Finally, correct me if i'm wrong, but this whole nexus was created by pernese weyrs, originally? Or started or formed because of it? McCaffery hates fandom, and only recently allowed fanfics and roleplaying that weren't on sites approved by her website. She certainly hates any noncanon. So she'd hate half the sites here, technically. It's changed TONS since then, but the basic idea of this whole place is based on someone else's world to begin with. We constantly put our characters in other peoples' worlds here.

/points. Sorry if i sounded snappish, i honestly didn't mean to. >.> and now i have to run to work~

so yes. >.>

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat May 20, 2006 6:50 am

Anne McCaffrey wouldn't have a leg to stand on if she attacked us here and now, though. Most of us aren't even on Pern, and the idea of having bondable creatures is not exactly Anne McCaffrey's sole domain. I can think of... three instances outside of Pern where creatures bond to one individual person. Make that five. Just remembered another couple.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld (bonding with dragons)
George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice & Fire (bonding with dragons and limited bonding with dire wolves)
Christopher Paolini's Eragon (bonding with dragons)
Robin Hobb's Fareer and Tawny Man trilogies (bonding with animals)
Dinotopia? (vaguely remember bonding with dinosaurs in the TV series, anyway)

I bet some other people here could name a few more, too.

The point is, Anne McCaffrey doesn't own bonding, and most of us are pretty far removed from Pern. How many species do we have that are anything like the Pernese dragons? So maybe a fair few of us got the idea from Anne McCaffrey, but Anne McCaffrey got her original idea from birds (anyone seen the way a newly hatched bird will impress upon the first thing it sees?). Mating flights in Pern are based on the mating practices of bees and ants.

If JK Rowling got the idea of Thestrals from mythology, and you've done your own interpretation of them, then there's no harm in using them. So what if it's been done before? Elves come from various mythology (namely Celtic and Norse, I think), but if you say 'elf' these days, everybody thinks LOTR. But that doesn't stop people using them, even though most people believe that Tolkien invented them.

There's nothing new under the sun, so as long as your ideas aren't an exact copy of someone else's, then do whatever you want. My thoughts on the matter, which will probably now get me yelled at.

Silver Midnight · Post by **Silver Midnight** » Sat May 20, 2006 9:57 am

Elf is actually used in a variety of different things...but yes, the elves we think of these days are the style used in LotR which come from certain areas in Europe... I think like they are Finnish, Norse, Celtic in origin... As I said before, Lord of the Rings is actually based on the Finnish epic Kalevala, and Tolkien's elvish languages are based on Finnish dialects.

As for the subject of creatures from myth--people, we're mostly adopting out types of DRAGONS. There are dragons EVERYWHERE these days in a variety of hugely popular stories for instance Eragon, which I've been reading lately. Also must find the Sword of Truth series, as Mika said that's a wonderful series with an awesome red dragoness...

It's not uncommon it seems for authors to base things off of myths they like--Rowling, Tolkien, Paolini, Nix... I've found elements of mythology in all these books. They're very much there if you look for it... In fact, it's safe to say the entire genre of Fantasy is working off myth and lore. That's the whole idea behind it.

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Sat May 20, 2006 11:49 am

-nods to shiolar and silver- exactly my point. I guess i just need to state things clearer. But i mean, dragons are a common concept and that's what give this place life, and winged horses are as well, and just. None of this is original, even for the sources we gleaned them from.

What i meant was, the idea of pernese dragons started this thing, you guys changed it beyond belief. I changed the thestrals a lot, but not so they were unrecognisable. Given time, that will happen, i'm assuming, but yes.
>.>
I should've made that clear. And I'm aware mccaffery wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but she doesn't have much of one anyways. I'm all for ignoring her.
Thestrals come from various places too. Tamora peirce had some skeletal horses with whings, but i forgot their names. And i remember reading a few other books with skeletal winged horses, or just skeletal horses and winged horses. :/ Give a nazgul's mount wings, it's the same sort of thing.
^^

I wasn't aware the discworld had bonded dragons? I need to read more~ I just finished maskerade.

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat May 20, 2006 11:55 am

There's only one Discworld book with bonded dragons. I think it's Colour of Magic, the first one, but it might be Light Fantastic. One of the ones with Rincewind and Twoflower, anyway. Dragons created through imagination, and thus attached to the person that created them, kinda thing.

I'd be interested to see whether the Pern books or that Discworld book got published first, though. They were written within a few years of each other, but I wonder which came first? Be funny if it was Pratchett, wouldn't it?

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Sat May 20, 2006 11:57 am

snort- it would be, but unlikely. That weyrsearch story that makes up the first few chapters of dragonflight is ANCIENT. like dusty smelly ancient.

And ou? I read both of those, but I don't remember it.. :/ Which probably means I have to read them again; I did when i was in portugal and such~

efellai · Post by **efellai** » Sat May 20, 2006 12:01 pm

Actually, Pratchett was making fun of the Pern books in there. I believe he says so somewhere out there on the internet...anyway, if you look at the names and such, he's certainly poking a bit of fun at it. But his ideas about dragons are pretty original and definitely cool.

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat May 20, 2006 12:01 pm

The first Discworld books are pretty old too, though... Like... older than me, which counts as ancient...

Tis definitely in there... it's the chapter with the upside down pyramid thing, and all the dragonriders with their honourific'd names with exclamation marks. Wouldn't F!lar have been so much better than F'lar?

And yeah, I figured Pratchett was making fun of Pern. Woulda been funny if McCaffrey had based all her novels on one of Pratchett's jokes, though... I have a weird sense of humour after a couple bottles of beer...

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Sat May 20, 2006 12:03 pm

-elgasp- I THINK I remember that. ;-; now you've got me riffling through my bookshelf to find the books~

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat May 20, 2006 12:05 pm

The imaginary dragons are cool. But the swamp dragons are better. Those'd make interesting bondable creatures, wouldn't they? What would the bond say when his dragon explodes, though? Heh heh heh.

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Sat May 20, 2006 12:07 pm

;-; swamps make me happy. Murky happy stinky mush of quicksandy gooplike love!
They might have a really dramatic :O NOOOOOOOOOOOO scene like they did in starwars. that would make my day.

LakotaWolf · Post by **LakotaWolf** » Sat May 20, 2006 1:37 pm

XD Okay, cool. I honestly wasn't trying to totally stomp all over the idea X3 You'll probably eventually notice that I'm the kind of person who will take a stick and turn the rock over, mostly because everyone around me is stepping over it or giving it funny looks. I also don't like to see people get in trouble about using copyrighted critters or art. :3 ::hugs DNS:: No offense or harm intended, and thank you for explaining it to me :D