"Aeriat," a fiery-haired 19-year-old Redditor from Atlanta, Georgia is many things: a talented seamstress, archer, student in New York City, former renaissance fair employee, and... Princes Merida doppelganger.
The student, who prefers to remain anonymous, thought she looked a bit like the Pixar princess, so she uploaded photos of herself in a homemade Merida costume to Reddit. When she later appeared on the front page, it seemed that the Internet agreed with her.
"I love Merida because she is an imperfect character," she said in an email to the Huffington Post. "They didn't write her as a sweet, gentle princess, whose only desire is to be kind -- they wrote her as a sassy, self-reliant girl with a bit of a selfish streak. She makes mistakes, those mistakes have seriously consequences, and then she has to fix the problems she created... I also like her because she has awesome red hair."
With a pattern for a medieval gown, linen fabric dyed a dark shade of green, and a quiver crafted from from pleather and a plastic spaghetti container and a wooden toy bow that she painted and decorated with leather, the teen transformed herself into Brave's daring yet relatable heroine.
And it wasn't the first time she had held up and bow and arrow. "My grandfather taught me archery when I was younger, and I used to be quite good," she said. "However, before I shot the pictures, I hadn't done it in a long time... Some people mentioned that my form wasn't very good anymore, I pulled a bow out of the garage, went in my back yard with my brother and sister, and we shot arrows for a few hours!"
What do you think -- is aeriat a dead-ringer for Merida? Do you think Merida is an admirable character? Share your thoughts in the comments below or tweet @HuffPostTeen!
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