I can’t stop thinking about those great facial hair edits@glowamber did on Eugene, and how much younger he looks when he’s clean shaven. And it makes me wonder, did he grow his goatee in order to look older in the first place?
That calls to mind the flashback from “The Return of Strongbow,” and how he already had a goatee back then. We all know by now that the meta reason is because it would have been too expensive to create a new Eugene rig for such a short amount of animation, but how about the in-universe reason?
Flynnigan Rider was probably not written as a teenager. He was an adult man with wealth and stature, and a kid wanting to be like him, modeling himself after him, would likely try to make himself look older to fit the role.
In Rapunzel and the Vanishing Village, Eugene is even called the spitting image of Flynn Rider, which implies illustrations, or at very least, illustrated covers. So, if the book hero had a goatee, I can easily see a young Eugene, just old enough for facial hair, growing a goatee to look not only older, but just like his hero.
(Did Flynnigan Rider also wear a hat with a plume in it? Is that why Eugene likes those so much?)
You know, probably?? That would make sense why Eugene is so drawn to those hats. You can’t say they’re the height of fashion, or that goatees are, we don’t really see them being that popular on other characters. (The goatee thing is likely just to help Eugene stand out, but I def agree he did it also to look older.)
So what if its not a fashion thing and it is just an idolization thing? We know he still very much does idolize Flynnigan Rider, even if he’s not pretending to be Flynn anymore, so him just incredibly drawn to the things Flynnigan would have worn or liked makes sense.
He’ll say it’s because it’s all the rage somewhere, but he’s still got that giddy feeling in his chest when he grabs one of those hats because Flynnigan Rider absolutely loved those hats and they were mentioned as his favorite in several books. Eugene just has to have them.
I’d think its the one chink in his ‘vain’ armor. Whether or not he looks good in them doesn’t matter, it’s something he relates to Flynningan Rider and he loves those books.
“The double agent for the patriarchy is basically just a woman who perhaps unknowingly is still putting the patriarchal narrative out into the world. Is still benefitting off, profiting off and selling a patriarchal narrative to other women. But it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You know, just because you look like a woman, we trust you and we think you’re on our side, but you are selling us something that really doesn’t make us feel good. You’re selling us an ideal, a body shape, a problem with our wrinkles, a problem with ageing, a problem with gravity, a problem with any kind of body fat. You’re selling us self-consciousness. The same poison that made you clearly develop some sort of body dysmorphia or facial dysmorphia, you are now pouring back into the world. You’re like recycling hatred. I find that really dangerous and I think it’s unacceptable and I don’t care if you’re a woman. I think constructive criticism is needed for anyone to ever evolve. For our gender to evolve we need some sort of constructive criticism. As long as we do it in a somewhat careful way. (…) So many of the worst things in the world have happened motivated by greed. And I just don’t think that’s an acceptable excuse anymore. How much money do you need? Really how much money do you need? How much money do any of these huge influencers who are worth millions or billions sometimes… why are they still promoting appetite-suppressant lollipops to young girls? And it’s not a fight against obesity. They have young, already slim girls, in their adverts for Flat Tummy company, this company that are absolutely everywhere, and they’re even being advertised in some of the most mainstream magazines, women’s magazines, and they have a billboard in Times Square. The money is built on the blood and tears of young women who believe in them, who follow them, who look up to them like the big sister they never had. It’s so upsetting and it feels like such a betrayal against women.”
Ejakkulate 