#Darabella

[spontaneousful]

Daring smiled at her, and enunciated as if he were speaking to a young child. "No, I simply can't be your prince."

"Why?"

"I'm a hero. Heroes don't need saving."

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And most people would be inclined to agree with him. After all, who wants to believe that their heroes aren't infallible?

Rosabella, however, was intimately familiar with heroes who needed help. "What about Rapunzel's prince? What about all of the Greek heroes whose stories end in tragedy?"

Daring froze. His whiskers twitched. His smile didn't leave, but it faltered. It no longer reached his eyes. Rosabella reached out and grabbed one of his large paws, holding it in her hands.

"It's okay to not be able to do everything yourself. It's okay to ask for help, Daring."

His eyes slowly met hers, and Rosabella held his gaze. He looked so vulnerable. Then, he closed back off. His face hardened, he pushed her hands away.

"I don't have time for this. I need to find a way to break this curse."

[xbomboi]

rosabella “i can fix him” beauty.

[zyn0nn]

Chat, would you hate me if in my Ever After High rewrite I:

- Have Darling be the one to find the real Storybook of Legends lost in Wonderland

- Made Dexter steal Ravens place in the Storybook of Legends, essentially giving her his role and happy ending whilst he becomes the main villain thinking it’s all to help his loved ones

- Made Apple fall down the Well of Wonder instead of a water well as a kid (Beginning her first arc with Darling)

- Wrote their evil counterparts from Spring Unsrpung as their deepest fears and desires, making Apple want to destroy their world because she deeply hates and resents her fate

- Made Apple actually act like a bad bitch

- Daring the Beauty and Rosabella The Beast

- Wrote Appling friends to frenemies to lovers

- Wrote Dexven lovers to enemies to—

- Daring = Golden Child, Darling = Mothers Disgrace, Dexter = Fathers Failure

- Changed Hopper to not crush on Briar for only her beauty, but because he admires her effort and courage in making memories and forming connections with others even if she might lose them to fate

- Made Hollys fate be Rapunzel’s mother instead of being Rapunzel herself and have her question if signing her child’s life away and never see her grow up is actually for the greater good

- Aged the characters up to 19-22 because I can’t mentally deal with how young and traumatized they are in the show

- Fixed up their Magic touches to be a little more useful

- For the betterment of humanity fixed Hunters haircut

[keepingeahalive]

Miss Rosabella Beauty: The Queen of Wasted Potential

Okay, I'll admit it. I do ship her and Daring. I'm a sucker for Beauty and the Beast, and I couldn't help myself. That said, objectively, this ship and Rosabella's character.... yeah, it kinda sucks.

Maybe I didn't want to admit it because Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairytale. But the more I look into her character, the more I realize she embodies virtues that contradict her own story. Epic Winter was more about "fixing" Daring's supposed selfishness than addressing the real elephant in the room, and Rosabella was a plot device to push that narrative. I think she could have been an interesting character with flaws and a lot of depth. But she wasn't, and I am very very disappointed.

Her Character

The first time I saw her, I was really rooting for her. She's an animal rights and monster activist. She could have been great friends with Cerise for that reason. She could have even had interactions with Ramona in the past. But she comes off as self-righteous and preachy.

I get she's an activist and that's the joke; activists are inherently self-righteous. But this is Ever After High. Where's the nuance? She could be an animal and monster activist because she's experienced prejudice herself. She's the daughter of Beauty and The Beast. Look me in the eye and tell me she doesn't have any Beast genes. I dare you!

It's canon that Beauty and the Beast is considered a bad destiny story, with the stigma of the heroine falling in love with a creature most fairytales would pin as the villain, and a handsome prince carrying the stigma of being of being a beast even after the curse is gone. She should understand that better than anyone. And yet, this kindness and compassion she tries to convey comes off as condescending. She inserts herself into situations because she feels she's needed when nobody has asked for her help.

2. DARABELLA

Rosabella was only introduced in one minisode and suddenly gets a big role in Epic Winter? She and Daring hadn't had a meaningful conversation up until that point. Really, she barely knows Daring.

For the daughter of Beauty and the Beast, she's so .... judgmental. She's supposed to have the ability to see people's true intentions, but why does she get it so wrong? She immediately assumes Daring is self-centered and narcissistic. On the surface, I can see where she's coming from. But, that's only on the surface.

Daring is more complex than she made him out to be, and Epic Winter wanted the audience to think she was in the right. We know this isn't true. Daring loves being a hero and saving people. He loves his siblings and does what he thinks is best for them. He certainly cared about Lizzie enough to respect her wishes. He's chivalrous to a fault!

Daring is clearly going through some things, and it doesn't seem like anyone's paying attention to what's really bothering him: He has no purpose anymore. He's been brought up his whole life thinking he would be King of Ever After, and now his world is shattered. He's not coping well. And Rosabella thinks he's full of himself when she's barely met this guy.

Having him become the Beast from Beauty and the Beast felt natural to me in the story progression, but Rosabella's inclusion felt forced. She gives him the same old advice from her original story when she should be hinting at something greater. This should be the turning point in Daring that destiny is malarky, and he can break away from the expectations his family and peers put on him. But she doesn't understand that. She only sees that he's obsessed with his looks because his main form of coping is gone.

He's not really upset about his looks. He's upset that his destiny is gone, and either that's not as important to her as him getting over his looks or she doesn't know him well enough to know what's been put on him. Assuming it's the latter, why wouldn't she try to find the root of the problem instead of fixing what she thinks needs fixing?

Daring is the victim here, even if he has issues to work out. And it doesn't seem like she's really listening to him.

3. The Cousins No One Talks About

Yeah. Rosabella and Briar are cousins. And there is very. little. BACKSTORY!!

We know their dads don't get along. Briar's is a monster hunter. Rosa's is The Beast. Their moms are sisters. That's all we know. What's her relationship with Briar? Is it a tragic sisterly bond? Or did the two drift apart/fall out because of their family conflict? Rosa's mom is likely the black sheep of the family, so do she and Sleeping Beauty still talk anymore?

How does Briar feel about all this? Does she have time to feel anything about it at all? She has her own family and her own destiny to worry about. What kind of influence did Briar's parents have on her views on beasts? She hadn't even been to Rosa's home until they were both well into high school. How much do they even know about each other?

We know so little about their dynamic. Family conflict shapes a child, and both of them probably have some deep-seated trauma relating to their families. But did the writers forget that they're cousins?

4. How I Would Write Rosabella (and maybe Daring)

First, give her the ability to transform into a beast. It's not hard.

She's advocating for people like her to exist. She wants people to see both sides of her and those like her to be seen as more than monsters. But she's had her fair share of prejudice, even within her own family. Her uncle is a monster hunter, so a half-beast niece would be considered an abomination. Because of this, she suppresses her anger to better the image of beasts. She doesn't want to, but she feels like she has to, for her own safety and to make herself more palatable in society. However, the more anger she holds in, the less control she has over herself. Her judgment becomes clouded, and this makes her jump to conclusions about people's behavior. She wants things to be fair so much that she gets in trouble for it. She wants to be understanding and patient, but having a hair-trigger temper gets in the way of her goals.

Give her a backstory with Cerise and the Hood-Badwolf family. Her family would know more than anyone the hardships that a human-beast family goes through, and they should be very good friends because of that. Her growing up around Cerise and Ramona would give her more of a reason to protect the beast population.

If any sort of relationship with Daring were to work, they would both have to learn from each other. Daring would learn to let go of people's expectations of him, and Rosabella would learn to let her anger out in a healthy way and pick her battles. Daring can't be the only one learning from her, and Rosa shouldn't see anything to fix in him. She needs to accept him for who he really is, not just preaching about appearances.

She should be embodying both Beauty and the Beast, all the kindness and grief that comes with it. She's not meant to be a paragon, and the writers should not have portrayed her as such. She needed to be a character with her own development. She needed to be portrayed just as in the wrong as Daring was when they met, not about appearance but about each other. She needs to admit her mistakes and acknowledge she is not always right about everyone. Or, at the very least, have her see right through Daring's facade about looks and realize there's something deeper going on.

The writer's dropped the ball on this ship, and they did Daring so dirty here. But they also did Rosabella a disservice by making her so two-dimensional and preachy, almost not even her own character. There are so many routes they could have taken with her. She could have been great, but she wasn't.

[athena-xox]

No because giving daring depth is my favourite thing ever.

We never ONCE get his perspective which means his ulterior motives can be whatever the fuck I want

[lordcryosrealmoftrash]

If I'm being entirely honest, I think part of my love and preference for Darabella comes from the fact it even further adds to the mess that is the Charming siblings interpersonal relationships. Like when you examine the Charmings and their partners, it's hilarious how messy it is.

It starts with Daring and Apple and Raven and Dexter. Like Dexter is literally crushing on/in love with the girl he has been told will poison his future sister in law. Plus, Raven and Apple's whole deal is messy. Then we throw Darling, being Apple's true love in the mix, and suddenly we've gone from daytime tv soap opera to actual theatrical opera levels of drama. Like Darling is with Daring's kinda ex, Dexter is with Darling's girlfriend's roommate, Darling and Dexter's gfs have their own weird co dependent thing going on, then Rosabella comes in to tie it all up in a neat little bow as Darling's roommate and Daring's partner. Family dinners must be fun.

"My roommate, really, Daring?"

"You stole my destiny!"

"It wasn't really yours in the first place."

que Darling having to stop Daring from strangling Dexter

[cometblaster2070]

you think in epic winter, after apple finds daring in his beast form, that entire scene takes place where she tries to kiss him to see if it'll break the curse or whatever, and then he runs off.

you think apple went and told someone about that like "hey I just saw daring and he's a BEAST what's up with that?????"

i'd like to imagine she went to raven and was like "yk I love you adore you and ik you've basically mastered your magic now but PLEASE don't tell me you accidentally cursed daring" and raven is CLUELESS

it's even funnier if she tried to go to DARLING to talk about this like "hey yes your brother my ex-destined prince is cursed to be a beast now and he asked me to kiss him and that flopped REAL bad what should we do??"

and darling, whose roommate is meant to be the beauty in beauty and the beast is like WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE.

but in all fairness, after the events of dragon games, I wouldn't blame apple if she just went "I'm sure we can sort this out later" and decided not to give 2 shits about the matter because she's already got a LOT to process right now.

[thelilylav]

In a Darabella mood lately I guess so I'm just gonna rant a bit more about them.

I feel like people genuinely underestimate the effect that Daring had on Rosabella when they get together, because a really common criticism I see of the two of them is that Rosabella doesn't get much out of the relationship and ends up kinda parenting Daring, but I really think this is a misunderstanding of her character?

Rant continues under the cut cause it turned out super long lmao

Now, I'm gonna admit this right now, but Rosabella was a huge favourite of mine when I first watched the show. Her, Maddie, Raven, Cedar, and Darling were my absolute favourite characters, so I do have a bit of bias in her direction. But I also think people don't really understand what I thought was pretty obvious about her personality. She's a huge animal rights activist, but she's also just big on social justice in general, and because of this she's a pretty big outcast among the other royals. They're friends with her, sure, but apart from Darling we don't really see people reach out to her until something goes wrong in their lives, and then they come to her for her to fix it. This is a role I'm sure she's played for the majority of her life, so she's probably used to it by now, but she also just genuinely enjoys helping others. Still, even though she puts all this effort into helping others out and making Ever After a more accepting place, when she actually tries to speak out on problems that she cares about, everyone tunes her out. We see this especially in A Semi Charming Kind of Life. Even Darling, who I would say is her closest friend, does this, although she seems to have mixed feelings on the whole thing, which makes sense considering she's going through her own doubts about the royals at the time.

A little bit of a personal rant here, but when I was a kid I was really into environmental activism. As in, went vegetarian and would try to start up protests for environmental rights and was the head of that club. I also got bullied for it, which didn't really register as bullying at the time, but seeing a character like Rosabella on screen was really refreshing for me, because that is what kids are like sometimes. Not trying to make this too personal, I just wanted to point out that she's not that unrealistically written, because there are people like her irl (like me!). She's a teen, a young teen at that (I think I said in another post she's fifteen cause I thought she was Darling's age, but then her wiki says she's seventeen, so idk how old exactly, but either way she's in high school), and teens are kind of known for having a lot of big emotions about the things they care about, even if they don't express that in the best way. So while I understand critiques against her character saying she's a bit abrasive with her advice, I honestly always saw this as intentional writing, because her telling people what they need to work on (even if they may not have asked for her advice) is part of what ostracizes her from the other royals.

So what does Daring have to do with this? Well, his first interactions with Rosabella are pretty similar to every other royal. He dismisses her and her interests, and doesn't see why animal activism is so important. This changes in Epic Winter. I've got my own issues with how they wrote that special, but I think Daring and Rosabella are actually written pretty well. Daring's going through an existential crisis after Dragon Games, and this leads to him regressing in character a lot, but that's a reasonable reaction for someone who essentially just got told his whole life is a lie. Rosabella sees him struggling, and does what she always does. She helps.

Where people get this wrong, imo, is that she doesn't do this out of a sense of obligation, she does this because that's who she is. When something goes wrong, she tries to help as much as possible, because she enjoys helping others. It's not taxing for her to reach out to other people. Was her advice to Daring a little assumptive? Yeah, but if you look at the interactions they've had in her diary and Darling's diary before that point, you can kind of see why she would think Daring's just another big-headed prince, and wouldn't understand why he's spiraling this badly. The thing about this is that I think she wasn't actually expecting Daring to take her seriously. She berates him the whole special, but he keeps pushing off her advice because he's knee-deep in an existential crisis, and nothing about his behaviour seems to surprise her. That's because she's used to this. It's what every royal has been doing to her for her entire life.

And you see her surprise when he starts to take her words to heart! She's surprised, because she's been tuned out by so many people for so long, and Daring has done the exact same thing to her time and time again. If I had to guess, she was probably expecting him to brush her words off and go about his daily life. But she tried reaching out anyway, because she can't help herself. She saw that he was hurt, and she cares about him because she cares about everyone, so she said what she thought would help or set him on the right path. He rolled his eyes like always, and she shrugged it off and kept trying anyway.

So imagine you're her for a second. You're passionate about acceptance and social justice and you care about everything, and your whole life this has been seen as a negative quality by all your friends until it serves them. So, you accept it. It's the way life is. Then, you see your roommates brother feels terrible, so you try to help him because you help everyone, and you expect him to not take you seriously because he hasn't every other time you've interacted, but he does. He takes you seriously, and it's probably the first time in your life someone other than your parents has actually taken your advice to heart and listened.

That's why she likes him. Their relationship is built on helping each other, I think people just don't see how Daring helps her, which is such a shame. He gives her acceptance and understanding, true understanding, for the first time ever. And to someone like Rosabella, who wants to make a positive change so badly? Imagine how much it must have meant, for her to realise that she actually had an impact on someone.

I dunno, you guys don't have to agree and I'd love to talk about it, these are just some thoughts I've had about her for a while.

[angstintensifer]

me and silly favorite cartoon ships against the world

[sadly-never-after]

I don’t have any real preferred endgame ships for Daring. I like Darabella more than the average tumblr EAH account and I love Dizzie but in a very different way than most shippers, I think.

Whenever I’m in my comfort place (my post canon extension based on Athena-xox’s amazing timeline (all time fave post. Truly an amazing accomplishment)) I like imagining that Daring will consciously decide to stay single and NOT mingle for a while, until he has come to terms with certain things. And I like imagining that Rosabella will be there for him, but rather as a friend with some unacted romantic chemistry. I want to believe that everything that happened since Legacy Day, culminating in his abrupt change of imagined destiny will trigger a more pensive side of him. And here’s when Lizzie comes. I want him to slowly become aware of how much he hurt her, even when it was never his intention.

I know this is a franchise made to sell dolls at tweens so it’s weird to get this dark about it, but let’s do this for the sake of my fantasies.

I feel like Daring has been hypersexualised and objectified through most of his life. His place as the most Charming of all the Charmings has turned him into a figure of lust and of status even before he was really aware of what those words meant.

The hypersexualisation can be seen through the recurrent jokes about girls fawning over him, following him, his dashing smile, and I honestly feel like Sparrow’s dare that lead to the entire thing with Lizzies was also based on that etc., etc., etc.,

When it comes to the objectification I think Duchess obsession with him is a good example. In NTV it becomes clear that she is not truly in love with him and when he scorns her she even daydreams about being the one able to reject him. Daring is not much of a real person to her. He is a symbol. He is the best of princes who saves his Princess and gets the two to live happily ever after. Everything that Duchess longs for and is denied.

To a lesser extent I also think that Ravens reaction to him (apparently) writing her a love poem could also be an example of this. Even if she has never been interested in Daring and has actually described her type as his opposite she still takes this as an accomplishment of some way.

Just to clarify: by no means do I blame neither Duchess nor Raven for this. They aren’t really at fault. This is more of a societal issue.

So, as he now realises all this things about his life, I want him to remember Lizzie. In my Sparchess heart the two are talking and Sparrow asks him about that one date Daring & Duchess had and after that a rush of unprocessed memories come at Daring and he can’t stop thinking about what he did to Lizzie for at least a week.

I want him to stay up away at night and cringe at himself wondering if an actual apology would be welcomed or not. It would make him feel better, sure, but is it Lizzie or his guilt conscience whom he wants to console? I want him to remember things about Lizzie that he otherwise didn’t think of very often. I want him to suddenly tell all of this to Rosabella only for her to feel disappointed and conflicted. I want Lizzie to catch him looking at her during lunch with a strangely contemplative expression and to turn away in apparent apathy only for her to be weirdly sad for the rest of the day and remember how isolated and betrayed she felt not only by Daring but also by Duchess.

[rise-jez]

So it's time for the Charmings' wifes!

Raven Queen

(Just to clarify, all of them are future versions of the EAH characters)

Apple White

Rosabella Beauty

The other version is still in process srry (⁠ ⁠╹⁠▽⁠╹⁠ ⁠)

[rebelcharmings]

she’s everything… he’s just ken

[xbomboi]

Daring’s Royal Retrospective (part 1/2)

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2

————————————

read the previous comic —> here start from the beginning —> here

[hjonko]

if it wasn’t obvious, they’re stupid-

also peep hopper being a girls girl and making sure no one falls over lmao

[eah-confessions]

Hate that when you go into the Darabella tag, like 50% is people of supposed good faith saying "Dizzie is better." Literally just let people ship what they want. Some think Darabella is cute, some think Dizzie. But can yall not go into the other ship's tag talking about how you "totally support it but-" No but! Just stop there! You don't need to explain why you think your ship is better

That is valid.

[froggywentaprincin]

There are currently around 1386 fics on fanfiction.net for Ever After High. Of these, 367 fics are tagged with at least one ship (As in, [Character, Character] or [Character, Character, Character])

Above are the Top 15 tagged ships!

Below are all the tagged ships, in order of how much they are tagged:

+There is one tagged Apple X Milton and I am horrified. It’s in spanish so I really hope it is just a terrible misunderstanding.

This data taken on May 5th, 2024.