My Pride is an animated web series by Tribbleofdoom
. It follows the story of a disabled lioness named Nothing looking for a new pride to call home. The series starts off with her father and brother being killed off by a rival lion and goes from there.
It can be watched on this playlist.
My Pride contains the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: For starters Powerstrike named her daughter Nothing.
- Nearly all lioness' step-fathers are this by default, as they are required by Pride Law to murder any adolescent step-children, while they show arrogance and/or contempt to their adult stepchildren for not being of their blood.
- Animal Naming Conventions: Lions living under Pride Law have strict rules for names:
- Females remain nameless (referred to as "daughter", "sister", etc.) until they come of age, in which they undergo a testing ceremony and are given a name that best describes their hunting aptitude, usually with an {attribute}{noun} format such as Powerstrike, Farleap, or Longrun.
- Males are given naturalistic or attribute names (such as Fire, Feather, Quick, or Proud) immediately, but they're ostensibly incomplete until they claim a pride and the suffix "mane" is added to their name; most male names are clearly designed to facilitate this eventuality.
- Prideless lionesses don't abide by the rules; Prideless take on names similar to those of males, such as Hover or Rain, and choose them for themselves rather than earning them.
- Historical figures have names of pure fantasy, with only some bearing recognizable meaning.
- Animal Religion: The mythology of the Prides, as fleshed out in this video narrated by Sharptongue. Cansu the water goddess brings rain and watches over the lost, Sunce the sun goddess is The Watcher to the world, particularly the brave, and Asra the moon goddess watches over the souls of the dead and the lost and desperate still alive.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Feather is Nothing's cousin, but he still had this dynamic with her.
- Artistic License – Biology: It’s treated as a sin and a legitimate reason to not accept a male lion as a pride’s leader if they receive help from another lion during the challenging process... Even though lions, often related, in real life regularly team up on older males to stake claim for a pride with the two sharing responsibilities and females.
- Asshole Victim: It's hard to feel bad for Quickmane after he's killed by Proudmane.
- Bait-and-Switch: When the homophobic Proudmane brings his paw up, it looks as though he struck Hover/Longrun as drops of blood hit the ground...only for Farleap to take the blow instead; she's not paralyzed, just scratched.
- Big Damn Reunion: After weeks of being on the Prideless Stretch, Nothing and Feather reunite with Fire.
- Broken Ace: Farleap placed first in her skill assessments, but she craves her mother's approval.
- Bullying the Disabled: Nothing's mother and sisters treat her like dirt for having a limp.
- Butch Lesbian: Hover/Longrun fits this.
- Cain and Abel: Fire and Nothing fall into this dynamic after Fire kills Feather in a bid to be accepted as the Mane of a pride, which leads to a violent fight between the siblings that would have been to the death, if it wasn't for an outside intervention.
- Cats Are Mean: With the exception of Nothing and Feather, all lions are complete and utter jerks. This is justified as Lion society is based on ensuring the strongest are on top, with child murder being the default way of taking over a pride.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Pride lions are indoctrinated into believing Pride Law, where the murder of the father-figure and his adolescent children is considered a perfectly acceptable way to become the new patriarch and immediately breed new cubs from the mothers of the children he just killed. Nothing is one of the few who sees something inherently wrong with all this because she survived a cub-killing.
- Cool Big Sis: Feather sees Nothing as this, especially because she clawed out his dad's eye.
- Dream-Crushing Handicap: Nothing really wanted to be a hunter, but her crippled leg made her unable to do so.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance:
- Feather says that hunting is for lionesses (though he is quick to change his mind).
- Rain instructs Nothing to leave Feather to die, as it is hard enough to take care of one person on the strip. If the freak lightning strike is any indication, she tried to murder Feather herself.
- Romance between two lionesses is forbidden by Pride Law and punishable by death (although it's selectively enforced). This has everything to do with the real history behind Pride Law.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Well bad lionesses anyways. Despite being an abusive parent, Powerstrike cares deeply for her mother and is heartbroken at her death.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Quickmane cares deeply for his own children even if he wants nothing more than Starmane's children dead.
- Eye Scream: Nothing claws out Quickmane’s eye in the first episode.
- Faking the Dead: Feather appears to have died in Episode 10. Come The Stinger and he's running through the Prideless Stretch calling for Nothing.
- Flat Character: Waterhunter, and to a lesser extent, Silentstalk and Feather’s sisters. They don’t do much besides the former serving as the Pride's huntresses and the latter dying in the paws of Proudmane.
- Foreshadowing: A moment from the very first episode that foreshadows something all the way at the end of the first season. As cubs, Nothing tried to play a game called "Mane and No Mane" with Fire, but he brushed her off, saying females couldn't be manes and that he didn't want to play the game with her. In episode ten, Nothing, enraged and grieving over Feather's apparent death, challenges Firemane for real. He doesn't take her seriously until she attacks him outright.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Nothing has a scar on her left eye after fighting with Quickmane, and she's a kind lion even if she is passive and diffident. Quickmane has a scar on his right eye and is an obnoxious jerk.
- Hit Me, Dammit!: Thinking she has nothing to live for after seeing Fire attack Feather and "kill" him, Nothing challenges her brother for the Pride and demands for him to fight her.
- Hypocrite: Powerstrike refuses to let Nothing call her "mother" since she's no longer a cub, but refers to Sharptongue as mother. However, later episodes have Powerstrike be referred as "Mother" by Nothing, and she doesn't even flinch.
- Kick the Dog:
- Quickmane starts off with killing Starmane and sadistically kills his cub Sparks in his first scene. After this he's always insulting Nothing.
- Powerstrike names her daughter Nothing, and tells her she is worthless.
- Hover/Longrun is upset that Nothing missed her naming ceremony, refuses to listen to Nothing's explanation, and tells her that if her brother dies it's her own fault.
- Rain tells Nothing to leave Feather to die; potentially, this one is a Secret Test of Character, as it's heavily implied that Rain approves of Nothing's refusal.
- Mouth Flaps: Averted. As a cost-cutting measure and stylistic choice, the characters open their mouths to speak but their lips don't move at all, making the show look more like a Motion Comic than an animated work during conversations. The saved budget is put to good use, as everything in the show other than dialogue is animated quite fluidly, including when a character who is speaking changes from one facial expression to another.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Feather tells a group of No-Manes that his father is blind in one eye. This leads the No-Mane Proud to kill Quickmane and take over his pride, killing Feather's sisters as well.
- Nothing Personal: Proudmane tells this to Nothing after he kills Quickmane.
- Parting-Words Regret: Hover is shown regretting the last words she said to Nothing especially since she thinks that Nothing died along with Feather.
- A Real Man Is a Killer: Effectively enforced by Pride Law, as young male lions are expected to seek the status of a Mane of a pride by killing its old Mane and any his offspring. Those unwilling to do so would be forced to forever live as prideless outcasts.
- Reduced to Ratburgers: Nothing and Feather end up lost in the Prideless Stretch and eating things (in Nothing's words) that "vultures wouldn't touch".
- Ship Tease: Nothing and Hover are said to be gay by the creator, so they have many moments. Hover joins Nothing's pride for her. Nothing is flattered when Rain says that Prideless Lions consider scars attractive. Nothing is really happy when she thinks Rain is Hover.
- Shown Their Work: Pride Law is brutal and unfair, and for good reason: the core aspects of it are drawn from real-life lion behavior.
- Suicide by Cop: Nothing confesses to Ghost that her intention in challenging Fire to combat repeatedly despite being beaten was to force him to kill her, in her despair caused by Fire killing Feather.
- That Man Is Dead: Inverted. When Powerstrike and Farleap discuss making Hover/Longrun leader of the Prideless Stretch, Farleap suggests "Longrunmane" as her name. But Hover just says, "No. Call me Hover."
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Hover/Longrun was just a snarker when introduced, but after joining the Pride she has become colder, and rather cruelly snaps at Nothing for missing her naming ceremony. She regrets it and goes to look for Nothing when Rain tells her she (along with Feather) was alive when she saw her.
- This happens with quite a few characters in the series.
- Lite is introduced as a confident, kind lion who encourages Kyoga in her insecurity over her leadership abilities, only to show his true colors as violent, unstable, and controlling when Kyoga leaves him.
- Fire matures from a snotty cub to a kind and encouraging brother to Nothing, even being friendly and kind with Feather, the young son of his father's killer. After a brief disappearance, when we next see him, he attacks Feather (who had saved his life mere hours ago!). When Nothing challenges him, he declares seemingly out of nowhere that Nothing has never been anything more than a curse.
- While he was never exactly considered a good guy, Proudmane graduates from looking out for number one to violent homophobia when Hover declares her love for Nothing.
- This happens with quite a few characters in the series.
- Tuft of Head Fur: Most male lions have prominent hair tufts on their head when they’re cubs, such as Feather, Fire, and Spark. A few lionesses like Hover/Longrun, Karabi, and Rain also have pointy tufts of hair forming on their heads.
- Unexplained Accent: Most characters speak in fairly generic American accents; Powerstrike and several characters closely related to her such as Sharptongue and Farleap are British, which doesn't stick out too much, but Rain's very thick Southern American drawl and Barkmane's mild Scottish brogue can be a bit jarring.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy:
- Farleap mentions that she had to be perfect to get her mother's attention, but it always went back to Nothing.
- Nothing wants her mother's approval, but her mother just sees wasted potential.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Hover/Longrun chews out Nothing for missing her naming ceremony. She later regrets this after thinking that Nothing is dead.
- Wham Episode: Episode 8 revealed the full history of the downfall of the three kingdoms, and the creation of Pride Law. Suffice to say that the version first presented in the series had undergone some... historical revisions.
- Wham Line: "Because I love her!" from Hover/Longrun when Proudmane asks her why she'd rather "go after a ghost".
- World of Action Girls: When most of the main characters are lionesses, this is a given.
- Would Hurt a Child: It's an accepted part of Lion society that No-Manes kill the recently born offspring of the prides they take over.
- Xenofiction: The characters may talk and have laws and a religion, but said culture, for better or worse, operates on the worldview, morals, and social structure of real lions.
