#lgbt themes in a song of ice and fire | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

originalwinnercheesecake · 1 year ago

Text

Steven Universe Characters as Pokemon Trainers

Okay so a little background about me: I have never really liked S.U’s fandom, and I quit the show some years ago, before its finale season. I do not watch it anymore, and my general opinion on the show’s execution is that it was that it would have been a much better show if it a.) had been shown from multiple povs instead of always being through Steven’s eyes, and b.) had been able to focus its themes and stories more. It also should have been shorter. I think, as seasons progressed, that it got to focused on trying to be a show about everything (every genera and every topic) and that the quality in how it handled situations was hurt by the choice of quantity.

All of this does not mean I see the show as without praises. The art style and colors are very fun. A lot of the songs were great. Characters could be really unique and cool at times. A lot of the issues I have with it I can tell are the result of CN imposing restrictions and not allowing Rebeca Sugar to write the show how she wanted/envisioned it. This brings me to one finale trait of he show that I will always praise it for: It was front-line in showing networks LGBT+ characters and relationships, not just hinting coded ones but making them explicit parts of the show, did not mean have to mean that the show could no longer be watched or enjoyed by kids. We would not have the present day representation we do in children’s media without Steven Universe paving its way.

On a semi unrelated note I have been getting back into Pokemon lately, and have been imagining characters from cartoons I have watched from Disney as trainers (I have like 7 previous posts with those teams by he way if anyone would like to check those out too). After I finished doing Disney shows I thought of cartoon Network, and even though I have long since stopped watching SU the question “what pokemon would Garnet have?” popped into my head and I ran with it until I had done her and seven more characters. In honor of Pride Month I am posting it now.

Garnet

I will start with the Leader, and the one who I started this train of thought with.

Flareon (was originally just Ruby’s) and Glaceon (Originally just Sapphire’s): because they have different fire and ice types, but are from the same branch evolution

Mawile (was originally just Ruby’s) and sabbleye (was originally just Sapphire’s): So I was looking up pokemon pairs and found out that these two were both version exclusives to the ruby and sapphire. That they can also both mega evolve is adds their perfection.

Slowking (has always belonged to Garnet): I had to give Garnet Slowking. Slowking is when Slowpoke and shellders fusion becomes so close they go from being two pokemon attached at the tale/mouth to one pokemon

Hariyama (has always belonged to Garnet): Garnet needed a boxer to match her style of fighting. I was originally going her Hitmonchan, but it just looked so small against some of the titans on Amythyst’s team, and Garnet is supposed to be hands down the strongest Crystal Gem. So I had to swap it for a bigger, heavier, hitter.

Amethyst

Ditto: an obvious choice for Amethyst whom shape shifting was a favorite game and method of expression for.

Ganger: It’s both a tough fighter and the ultimate prankster. Gangar and Amethyst together are a manse to all things decent and orderly (Or at least that is something Pearl likes to say when they try to have fun with her)

Machamp: They are both wrestlers

Snorelax: Another pokemon that I remember being a pretty powerful member of Ash’s team, but its also really laid back and prefers to eat and sleep. Amethyst can chill with Snorelax. Plus I just have this image of her in her bouncy ball form bouncing up and down on its jiggly stomach while it wither sleeps or genitally tries to bounce her.

Turbbish: I looked up what the messiest pokemon was, since Amethyst was pretty much a slob if I remember correctly, and Turbbish is what I got. It enjoys needling Pearl’s miccino. The two seem to have a feud going on, but are friends regardless. This one could also tie into Amethysts self worth arc. Turbbish is trash which is how Amethyst saw herself. But it is still a valued member of her team, just like how Amethyst has always been a valued member of the crystal gems.

Wishmur: hugable plush, and a little boom box. Amythyst can party with Wishmur,

Pearl

Clampearl: I had to. Its based off her gem, so of curse I absolutely had to. I feel like sh would be more likely to evolve it into Gorabis than Huntail, its more inline with her style.

Minccino: It is listed on wiki as being one of the cleanliest pokemon and as we all know Pearl is a neurotic neat freak. Minccino enjoys making jabs at Amethysts Turbissh. The two seem to have a feud going on but are friends regardless.

A Hisuian Lillligant: Now Here is a pokemon I feel really represents Pearl, how the worls is meant to precieve her and how she see’s herself. Lilligant is thin, lightweight, feminine, and completely unintimidating. It looks like nothing more than a graceful dancer. But picked the Hisuian version specifically because in addition to being a grass type it is also a fighting type. Pearl may not look like a fighter on the outside, but she definitely is one.

Primaria: This would be one of if not the strongest pokemon on her team. Dance style is important in SU as it’s how the characters draw forth weapons and fuse. Pearl’s style always seemed akin to ballet to me and Primaria is what I got when I googled Ballerina pokemon.

Marowak: the way it wields bones reminds me of the way pearl wielded her weapon arsenal

Escavalier: Sam reasoning as with Marowak, adding to it that Escavlier is clearly based of a mid-evil knight, and Pearl could easily be considered a knight to Rose/Steven’s round table

Steven Universe

Ralts: I got tired of using the Chancey line for any character with medical talent/healing abilities so I looked up what other pokemon could use heal. I picked Ralts because like Steven it is kind of girly, and also because its evolution line is madly powerful.

Chatot: Greg gave it to him. The universes are a musical family so they would have t have musical pokemon. i gave most of them to Greg. but Chatot due to its size and cutness, seems really well suited to Steven. Also adding that Parrots are really loving compainions to their owners, and I bet Steven could teach his Chatot to sing.

Male Pyroar: For Lion. Would it also be considered a gift/inheritance from his Mom?

Bronzo: For his shield powers and desire to defend what he loves. It has a close friendship with Connie’s honedge.

Vanillish: First episode “I can summon my shield by eating ice cream”. Yes I know that wasn’t actually true, but you cannot tell me Steven wouldn’t love this pokemon.

Larvitar: In no way was I going to get away with not giving this male queen of the rock people a rock type pokemon. I went with Larvitar because baby dinosaur

Connie Maheswaran

�� For some of these I originally intended to give her the next evolved form. Then I noticed her team had a lot more higher evolution's than Steven’s, and decided it would be better to keep them about equal, since they train and fight together (Steveonnie).

Honedge: Because Connie is the sword to Steven’s shield. It has a close friendship with Steven’s Bronzo.

Kricketune: She plays the violin and it is violin based

Vulpix: neither her team, nor Stevens has had a fire type yet, and at least one of them should have one. Vulpix, and its evolution Ninetales are both Fire types I consider to be very smart, and I could see it making a strong member of onnies team.I like to think it would be buddies with Stevens Vanilish

unown letter “M”: I gave both Dipper and Amity unknowns on my Disney lists (deserving so) and tried to make them the only ones, since I know its a very rare pokemon. But SU was on a different channel and I had to give Connie one. In addition to being extremely intelligent and loving to read, Connie basically stepped herself into the unown when she decided to become the first human soldier in the Crystal Gems. I gave her the letter “M” for her last name, and because if it turns upside down it would be a “W” for warrior.

Spoink:So originally I had it as a gruntpig and I was going to say that Connie did sports with it, then I had to de evolve it, then I found another pokemon for to be Connie’s primary sports buddy. But I decided to keep Spoink on her team because it is a good psychic type pokemon and its great at balance. Connie balances so many extracurricular activities on top of being an honor roll student.

Nozleaf: Connie’s primary Sports buddy. The pair are great at playing Tennis, pokemon ping-pong, and sparing together.

Greg Universe

Warturtle and Cyndiquail: So most of his pokemon are music based (they are a band) but I did want to give him a Warturtle to to help him out at the car wash; and a Cyndiquail to help him grill food and keep warm in the winter.

on to his music pokemon.

Ludicolo: Both are big, goofy, and fun.

Chimeco: Both are chill, relaxed, and a soothing presence

Toxtricity: Rockstar pokemon.

Meloetta: This is a more OP pokemon than I would usually give someone, and I am not sure if it stays with Greg all the time or (more likely) lives on its own and just frequently visits him . But we all know that mythical space goddesses adore Greg Universe.

Lapis Lazuli

Her pokemon are all water and flying types for obviuos reasons.

Cramorant: So did anyone else ever read that comic where, before pumpkin, Peridot and Lapis adopt an abandoned baby bird and Steven decides to help them take care of it? But Lapis winds up doing pretty much all the actual work because Steven and Peridot do not really understand how to take care of it? But Lapis is able to feed it and teach it to fly? Well the point is she is actually really good with Birds so I am giving her a couple of them, like Cramorant and

Mukrow: So since I watching the show before it ended I know that Lapis comes back from space, but I have no idea if her and Peridot ever got back together. But they were that cool artsy couple for at least a few seasons and I wanted to give them both artsy pokemon. Turns out the only art based Pokemon is Smeagle.WTF? Smeagle doesn’t really work for either of them since its a pinter and they were sculpters. So I did some out of the box thinking and decided they should both get pokemon that like to collect *cough steal cough* cool, and shiny objects, that they could use to create meep-morps. Lapis’s is Mukrow.

Slowpoke: This is not meant to show any tie or similarity between her and Garnet, who has its finale evolution. This choice honestly does not really have any deep reason to it. Slowpoke is just a really dopey water pokemon and given Lapis’s sense of humor she might find it funny to have.

Omanyte: a water type pokemon that has a shell it peeks/craws out from sometimes. Lots of symbolism for Lapis’s arc in this one.

Poliwrath: Wasn’t it a common part of her fighting style to knock any gem she wanted away from her flying with water fists? Poliwrath helps with that.

Gyaradgyos: I want you to look me in the eye and try telling me that Lapis Lazuli could not handle a Gyaradgyos. Yeah do not even try that lie with me.

Peridot

Magneton: Peridot’s ace pokemon. I picked it out due to her magnetic powers and technical intelligence.

Pachirisu: Not only do I see electric and then electric and grass pokemon as being Peridots favorite types, but Pachirisu also happens to be small, adorable, hyperactive, and keeps on form all its life. Pachirisu is basically the pokemon equivalent of Peridot as it is.

Egylem: Peridot was the first Homeworld gem to be shown landing on earth. I picked Egylem first for its whole “little body, big headed, space alien” vibe. Also according to Bulbapedia it typically has a personality that is similar to Peridot’s.

Zigzaggoon: Peridot’s little meep-morp helper. It was close with Lapis’s Mukrow, and the pair would go on scavenger hunts together to find supplies for their masters sculpting hobby.

Pumpkaboo: For Pumpkin. Vegetable Farming was hinted to have originally been Peridot’s idea, and she is the one who kept Pumpkin in her and Lapis’s split.

Sunflora: Again she loves gardening, and growing/tending to flowers was one thing she started doing as a therapy exercise after the split.

4 notes · View notes

wizardrps · 2 years ago

Text

Wanted: RP Partner(s)

Howdy! So long story short, I am once again getting back into roleplaying, and so I thought I'd make this silly little side blog to try and find some people to roleplay with! Soooo let's get on with it!!!

About me:

My name is Jessie, I'm nonbinary, and my pronouns are they/he! I'm a current college student, so I tend to get very busy out of nowhere. My style is what you'd call advanced literate/novella. I write only in 3rd person. I also have a habit of writing a lot. I have been writing and roleplaying for 10 whole years (I have a lot of stories about my rp history. It's kind of embarrassing lol).

As a little disclaimer regarding my response timing: like I mentioned, I'm currently in my undergrad and my schedule can be hectic. Some days, I'm not busy at all and that means I'm free to respond whenever. However, some days I'm super busy and cannot respond. I try my hardest to be as open and communicative with my roleplay partners as possible. That being said, I do not expect a response immediately after I respond. Take as much time as you need! I know that you have a life outside of roleplaying just as much as I do.

Preferences for Roleplay Partners:

I am over 18, so I am... a little uncomfortable with roleplaying certain themes and topics with people who are underaged. Under no circumstances will I roleplay NSFW with a minor. Please, for the love of all things that are good, do not lie about your age just so you can roleplay NSFW with me. I was 14 at some point too and got upset when adults wouldn't roleplay with me either, but trust me when I say it has nothing to do with your maturity or you as a person. It is for both of our safety and well-being.

As for the topic of NSFW, no porn-without-plots. I don't mind nsfw, but I really don't like it to be the bulk of a roleplay. It gets boring really quick for me.

Please be literate! I'm definitely not an amazing writer and don't expect you to be one either. I'm not a stickler for grammar or stuff like that, but literacy is important to me.

Last but not least, someone who is willing to talk OOC! The most fun I've ever had with roleplays was when I've roleplayed with people who have talked to me OOC. Whether it's about the roleplay or anything about your life, talk to me!!! We don't have to be best friends, but I like to think of roleplaying as a good way to make some really cool friends that I can basically work on a story with :) There's no obligation to always be talking to me, but talking from time to time is nice.

The fun stuff!!! What I'm looking for:

Fandom or OC! I lean towards OC, but if there's a fandom we both enjoy that I can comfortably write a character from, then let's do it! My main genres of interest are: high/dark fantasy, modern fantasy, horror/psychological thriller, pretty much any historical fiction especially if it is medieval or takes place in the last 200 years, some sci-fi, or anything that gives Life is Strange vibes. I'm down for realistic fiction settings, but I usually prefer the other stuff.

Ships. As a queer person, I prefer lgbt relationship dynamics. I'm comfortable with straight ships, but they're just not what I'm used to. Most of my OCs are guys, but I have gals, nonbinary, and trans people also thrown into the mix of my endless batch of OCs. Also, platonic ships are welcomed!

Fandoms:

If you are looking to roleplay a fandom, here's what I'm currently into/what I'm willing to roleplay! A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, the Witcher(show, books up to a certain point I left off at lol), the Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age (all 3 games), Hannibal, and Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit (movies and books I guess?)

No/no's:

Things that will get you immediately blocked if you try to pull include: non-con, incest, s/a, children in any sexual context, or any fetishes that have to do with bodily fluids.

Things that are iffy/icks: romanticization of mental illness (i.e. if you haven't done the research to be able to correctly pull of an interpretation of a character with ASPD, don't do it), abusive relationships, and dub-con.

Disclaimer: these are things that I am not okay writing into detail about. For example, if your character has a past of being abused, I am okay with having the subject touched upon. However, I am not comfortable writing an abusive relationship where my OC is abusive towards yours, or vice versa. Please just be respectful and speak to me OOC prior to bringing up any of these subjects.

Anyhoodles, that's about it! Sorry this post is long and drawn out. If you're interested in roleplaying, please interact with this post via comment or like, or message me! My main means of roleplaying is through discord. My discord tag is WizardLizard#2018. Please bare in mind that I get busy (and last time I made one of these posts I got absolutely swamped with responses and got overwhelmed), so it might take me a little while to get back to you! No matter what I will respond, though!

#roleplay #roleplay finder #rp finder #roleplay ad #rp ad #rp advert #fantasy roleplay #fandom roleplay #fantasy rp #fandom rp #literate rp #literate roleplay #fantasy rp finder #looking for rp

6 notes · View notes

becquerel · 8 months ago

Text

it got to the point if i saw someone with a mxtx themed blog on my dash id click their blog to block if if they had the same like weird ass disclaimer about how mxtx was a horrible person secretly putting messages in her works and didn't actually care about lgbt people at all. and then cite a weirdly translated interview from her like 3 years prior. and they always did. they always had this disclaimer somewhere on their blog. like she isn't above criticism lord knows the colorism is atrocious in her work. but come on do you all see a song of ice and fire fans doing this about grrm. or like literally any other popular author ever

do you guys remember when the pandemic happened and mxtx's novels got really popular on here and everyone who even vaguely had a blog about her works were just incredibly sinophobic for some reason. i don't think i can forget that

#grace post #this is something i think about often

15 notes · View notes

tasloveskk · 4 years ago

Text

Some folklore thoughts 💭🌲✨🏳️‍🌈

Part 1

I’m going to take it song by song while also tracking key themes in red! Please also feel free to add in your thoughts in the comments, I’m curious to see what else people think folklore is about...

folklore

‘folklore’ is defined as “a body of popular myths or beliefs relating to a particular place, activity, or group of people.” or, by Steve from Taylor’s IC,”the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth.” Taylor herself in her introduction/prologue says “A tale that becomes folklore is one that is passed down and whispered around. Sometimes even sung about. The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible. Speculation, over time, becomes fact. Myths, ghost stories, and fables. Fairytales and parables. Gossip and legend. Someone’s secrets written in the sky for all to behold.”

the 1

- firstly, it’s the best opening track she’s ever had! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

- “I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit” = sounds to me like a conversation you have with an ex, like someone is saying “yeah I’m doing great, I’m dating/doing ‘x’” the first time they run into their ex in a while.

-“I thought I saw you at the bus stop” has BIG “this city screams your name” energy but is also very clever by Taylor because Miss Karlie Kloss is ALWAYS on advertisements on bus stops/literal buses around the globe 🚌

- “I hit the Sunday matinee” to me seems like an inside thing, because obviously as the world biggest pop star, if taylor is going to go to the theatre or cinema, she’ll pick the least busy and most filled with older people which would be the Sunday matinee.

- “you know the greatest films of all time were never made” —> the greatest love stories never get told? happen behind the scenes? There’s something deeper here but I’m still forming the cohesive idea!

- “if you wanted me you really should’ve showed” = showed up or showed for the world, either way Taylor wanted KK to chose her not Josh so they could work but that didn’t happen so now she’s left to wonder.

- “roaring twenties” evokes two clear images for me! 1. They were both in their 20s for the entiretyof their relationship, the best years were spent together and 2. The Roaring 20s were a time of independence, pushing boundaries and breaking the rules of prohibition - which is basically what Taylor and Karlie were doing behind the scenes.

- “if my wishes came true, it would’ve been you” = let’s say, ONLY FOR ARGUMENTS SAKE, that Taylor really IS with Toe, that still means that this song is her yearning for someone else who she always loves more AND had to lose at some point. Looking at her past beards “relationships”, there are only two plausible options - Joe (which seems unlikely seeing as they’re still “together”) or CH who she supposedly wrote “you would’ve been the one if you were a better man” about. Either way doesn’t seem like it fits. However, if you look at it as Karlie is the 1, it becomes clear - it would’ve been fun being best friends and lovers for ever baking cookies and dancing around the kitchen, it would’ve been forever if Karlie hadn’t “married” jerk, it would’ve been her and it still is. 💗

- “in my defense I have none, for never leaving well enough alone” & “I know that I went psycho on the phone, I never leave well enough alone” are about the same moment with the same person = she didn’t leave well enough alone because she kept writing about Karlie and re-engaging us Kaylors as well as I’m sure, she kept up with seeing Karlie or keeping tabs on her to the point where it forced someone to reach out to the other.... she can’t apologise or defend her actions because you can’t explain the things you do for true love.

- “I have this dream you’re doing cool shit” aka starting a podcast, expanding businesses, making headway as an entrepreneur and being a highly-paid and respected international model? Seems straight forward 👀

- “you meet some woman on the Internet and take her home” = 1. Karlie is specifically interested in tech and the internet, it is literally her entire business and 2. if Karlie and Tay did break up, then because Karlie is actually NOT married to Josh, she hooked up with someone she met through the internet somehow (probs social media not an app) and Taylor found out this is probably a snarky comment about that from a jealous ex. Could possibly also be about the dream mentioned above. 💔🔐

- “another day waking up alone” = lost her lover, sleeps alone? Bold claim on opening tack.

- “persist and resist” = very famous feminist saying, civil rights/political echo?

- “the temptation to ask you if one thing had been different, would everything be different today” = this what if mentality continues through the album but personally, I think this is about Kissgate.

- “Rosé flowing with your chosen family” = repeats later, your chosen family could refer to Karlie’s group of friends like Derek and Jourdan etc.

- “would’ve been sweet if it could’ve been me” = flipped perspective, wishes Karlie chose her.

- “dragging up the grave another time” = firstly, THAT pin on her EW jacket now makes more sense. second, Taylor has written about Karlie for 4 straight albums now, she hasn’t let their love story die even if they did.

cardigan

- “brand new phone” = this is not some story, this is current reality. Taylor hides behind era-specific language and imagery in some other songs but this one is clearly about here and now, and her.

- “sensual politics” to me stands out because only really here and in TLGAD is politics explicitly mentioned and sensual politics to me screams sleeping with someone for political gain or with political connections which certainly sounds like someone...

- “when you’re young, they assume you know nothing” = sounds to me like a lot like a) love story and b) “you don’t know you’re gay, it’s just a PHASE! you’ll grow out of it!” 🏳️‍🌈

- “chase 2 girls, lose the one” = supposedly, when KK and TS met, Taylor was still in love/entangled with Dianna so perhaps she’s reflecting on making the wrong choice?

- CIWYW links: my baby’s high above the whole scene—> heartbeat on the high line, tidbit:as is clear in both Lover & 1989 New York is a sacred place for TS and KK’s love story, the high line is a) a beautiful NYC icon and b) right in between the girls’ two places...

- as mentioned, miss Karlie ELIZABETH Kloss was the brand model for Levi’s and definitely has worn some sequins and black lipstick on cobblestones sooooo.... 🤷🏼‍♀️

- “you drew stars around my scars” = see Drake’s birthday party and the infamous third Polaroid mystery 👀

- “stepping on the last train” could mean one of two things to me; 1. The last resort for KK was marrying J*sh or 2. the last train could represent some goodbye the girls had where KK chose something/someone else over Taylor.

- “peter losing Wendy” is such an interesting metaphor on so many levels but specifically, Wendy loses Peter because she wakes up (from nearly dying but nvm) and grows up and stops believing in Neverland and magic, basically Wendy loses an attachment to Peter because her reality shifts and that’s what gets remembered especially in the Disney version of the story. HOWEVER, the opposite is also true meaning Peter Pan loses Wendy because he can never co-exist with her again, he can never grow up or bring her back to Neverland without either killing her or ruining her. So this idea that someone wanted to change the ending from peter losing Wendy because he had to do what was best for her because he loved her echoes as Karlie didn’t want to marry Jerk or hurt Taylor but had to in order to protect her. Right? 😅

- “leaving like a father, running like water” = Taylor’s parents got divorced and there’s SOME thoughts Scott left the house and Taylor lives with her Mom in Nashville in her teen years.

- “I knew everything when I was young” - Taylor has always know she was LGBT+ 🌈 and also, baby VSFS vibes because as we all know, “we were both young when I first saw you...” send tweet.

- “I knew you’d come back to me” hopefully, HOPEFULLY foreshadows the girls being together/coming out soon !!!!!!! 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

- music video wise, I’ll do a break down soon.

TLGAD

- ‘Rebekkah’ refers to the previous owner of Taylor’s Watch Hill, RI house, Rebekah Harkness. She was a divorcee until marrying Standard Oil heir William (aka Bill) Hale Harkness, a new-money dynasty was formed in this time from their profit. There are MANY wild, whimsical stories about ‘Betty’ (which is obviously an extended metaphor of folklore) that this song tries to re-create/recapture.

- Taylor is also known as ‘Becky’ due to the popular meme so this is quite literally a play on her own character as well as the previous inhabitants of the house.

- St Louis is not only Rebekkah’s hometown, but also Karlie Elizabeth Kloss’.

- “the wedding was charming, if a little gouche” seems like a direct shot fired at Karlie’s woodsy photoshoot of 2018 😂😂(ironically, folklore’s key aesthetic is the woods!!)

- “it must’ve been her fault his heart gave out” refers explicitly to William dying of a heart attack in the house, but subtly I feel like this is a dig at the media who constantly blame women for things they cannot control, as they have done with Taylor too many times to even count.

- “who knows if she never showed up, what could’ve been” seems like Taylor is stuck thinking about what may have happened for her and Karlie if things had been different, see the 1.

- “she/I had a marvellous time ruining everything” is such an incredibly provoking lyric on two fronts, 1. obviously taylor buying her RI house had a massive impact on an otherwise sleepy holiday town that is now more famous for Taylor’s july 4 parties than anything else and 2. seems introspective or personal, as if the things that ruined everything for Karlie and Taylor were the best and most marvellous parts of their relationship (big sur, kissgate etc.)

- “flew in all her bitch pack friends from the city” is not only about the friends and celebs Rebekkah was notorious for hosting but also Taylor’s ‘bitches and model’ girl gang circa 2015 which includes one Karlie Kloss.

- “blew through the money on the boys and the ballet” refers to Rebekkah’s love of wasting her fortune on things, including a ballet company that went under not long after she created it BUT also refers to Taylor paying so many boys to be her beards and PR stunts whilst also spending her money on a certain ex-Ballerina. Also remember her AMA’s performance of Lover/ bts of Shake It Off? 😉😉😉

- “50 years is a long time” - 50 seems deliberate, a bit of a reach but note it WAS the 50th anniversary of Stonewall last year. 🏳️‍🌈

- “free of women with madness, their men and bad habits and THEN IT WAS BOUGHT BY ME.” - this clearly shows that ALL the songs are being narrated by Taylor, some of the lyrics are about her, some are about these fictional or fantastical characters she’s created but there is her truth behind all of them too.

- “the loudest woman this town has ever seen” = Taylor is undoubtedly the most famous woman in the town who regualrly causes uproar there (see the Sea Wall debacle and the Taylor Swift Tax)

- in all, the two famed women owner’s of Holiday House have many overlaps and are forever intertwined.

exile

- “i can see you standing honey with his arms around your body” as the opening line is LOUD. to me, feels like this is about ALL those staged photos of Josh and Karlie uncomfortable/fake as hell on social media.

- “laughing but the joke’s not funny at all” is something we’ve all thought about Karlie’s marriage before and is about that moment where if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry at the situation.

- “it took you 5 whole minutes to pack up ... holding all this love out here in the hall” to me is about someone moving out of a shared home, like Karlie from Taylor’s NYC apartment, after a break up or fight. We know it is MORE than likely that the girls’ broke up, for a while or for good, in 2017/18.

- “I think I’ve seen this film before, and didn’t like the ending” is a lot like “Cause cruelty wins in the movies, I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you” / “All of my heroes die all alone.” which makes me truly believe that delicate > the archer > exile are all the progression of the same love story. ❤️

- “now I’m in exile seeing you out” = both of them have lost their home, exiled from the relationship.

- “I can see you staring honey, like he’s just your understudy” has a lot to unpack. Firstly, see this photo. Second, as a beard, Joe is quite literally Karlie’s understudy - stepping in only to fill a public void or play her part when she can’t.

- “like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me” is basically this tweet

- “second, third and hundredth chances” - hopefully this means the girls WILL be together again soon!!!

- “those eyes add insult to injury” - Taylor has often made explcit reference to her lover’s eyes, but this could also mean the eyes of the public on her every move and relationship not allowing her to properly grapple with break ups. 👁️

- “i’m not your problem anymore, so who am i offending?” - homophobes love to say wlw or mlm relationships “offend” them or their beliefs, so who could taylor be offending if she’s publicly in a straight relationship?

- “you were my crown”, Taylor was/is Karlie’s princess, if Karlie is gone, Taylor doesn’t feel like she’s a princess anymore. Likewise, Karlie is Taylor’s sunshine which makes the moody, misty, dark aesthetics all the more relevant to this album.

- “so I’m leaving out the side door’ - this side door? the other side of the door?

- “all of this time, we always walked a very thin line” between outing themselves and being happy?

- “I gave so many signs” - Taylor has queercoded EVERY album since her self-titled, she has been dropping hints and signs for years that she is LGBT+ so it must be exhausting to have to keep hiding who she loves. This is repeated so many times - it means a lot.

- written with William Bowery who nobody can quite identify, but Karlie and Taylor have been to the Bowery many times together and William is mentioned earlier in TLGAD

- this whole song is a duet, a two-sided conversation between lovers - her and karlie both without each other.

my tears ricochet

- Track 5 is, as per usual, deeply confessional, personal, emotive and moving. 😿😿

- there are lots of theories and layers to this masterpiece of a song, including that it’s in reference to big machine. I personally think every single song of Taylor’s is made up of layers that reflect multiple things in her life and experience so plausibly it can be about multiple things all at once including Sco** and Scumbag as well as Karlie, who was under Scumbag’s management for the majority of the decade. Another theory which with every new listen I think is more and more possible is that this is alternating between Taylor and Karlie’s perspectives.

- ‘if i’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too” whoever is associated with Taylor will ALWAYS be dragged down with her. If she’s being attacked, they will be too. Big 2016 energy.

- “even on my worst day, did I deserve babe, all the hell you gave me?” could be directed at a lover, or at Big Machine, or even the public for all the shit they’ve said about Taylor over the years.

- “I swear I loved you ‘till my dying day” seems a lot like the 1, as well as could be about the music and the label she helped build.

- “I didn’t have it within myself to go with grace.” Taylor was LOUD about her split from Big Machine, she called them out (rightly) and made noise which is not a ‘graceful’ split.

- “you’re the hero flying around saving face” very easily is about S+S jackasses but deeper than that, while Taylor was under immense attack and criticism, everyone who actually like her music pretended suddenly to hate it and her to stay ‘cool’

- “cause if I’m dead to you why are you at the wake?” this lyric becomes especially important in the final verse but essentially those who publicly distanced themself from Taylor still showed up when she was thriving again and/or because they actually truly loved her *uhmm karlie uhmm*

- “cursing my name, wishing I stayed” either at Big Machine or with Karlie/Taylor.

- “some to make a diamond ring” > firstly we still have never understood the ring image from the LWYMMD and ME! videos, it is entirely possible this is a continuation of that same symbol/image. Second, I think this hints to Karlie getting ‘engaged’ while still being with Taylor, the rock for the ring in the song was found by the two people gathering stones after all.

- “you know i didn't want to have to haunt you” both Taylor and Karlie have big reputations all over the world that follow them everywhere. For either one, they will always be haunted by reminders of each other.

- “you wear the same jewels that I gave you as you bury me” - on the Big Machine side, Taylor made the label professional and big, she is literally the sole reason it succeeded in the music industry so she handed Sco** his fortune and reputation which he still had when he sold her music to Scumbag and got into a very dirty bed with him. From the Karlie side, many people have noted that not only does she wear her black cartier necklace, which is assumed to be from Taylor, but to her ‘wedding’ wore a necklace she’d worn before with Taylor.

- “when I’d fight you’d tell me I was brave” could refer to Sco** encouraging her in 2016 to defend herself. Could refer to Karlie supporting her behind the scenes.

- ‘and I can go anywhere I want, just not home” seems like a continuation from exile, as in she’s lost the place she called home because her lover is no longer there but could also mean she can’t go back to her other albums and the house (see the lover music video) that they created as her musical home.

- “you will still miss me in your bones” could be about Sco** losing his money and label without her there to physically support and carry it or about the fact that the love Taylor and Karlie had is so ingrained it’s in their bones forever.

- “and i still talk to you when I’m screaming at the sky” this lyric has a lot of possible interpretations (i’ve seen one about cursing out God?) but i think it’s similar to “asking the traffic lights if i’ll be alright” as in, it’s Taylor asking the universe to help her make sense of things.

- “when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullabies” suggests a) sco** + scumbag is still haunted by the music they stole from Taylor because it was literally the backbone of the business which is now practically worthless and b) that Karlie is kept awake by the songs Taylor has written for and about her over the years which again were stolen away by the jackasses at Big Machine.

- “you had to kill me, but it killed you just the same” again, same idea - big machine will never be profitable without her/while they hold her masters hostage. BUT Karlie wise, breaking up with Taylor broke her too?

- this is where the song changes. it shifts from Taylor’s story to someone else’s, personally I think Karlie.

- “you turned into your worst fears” as in she settled for the money and sold her values off by marrying Josh. Also, Karlie was under Scumbag’s management for years (part of Taylor’s hatred of him was him keeping the girls’ from doing as they pleased) so by being completely controlled by him, she turned into this completely fake person. Contrast 2014/15 Karlie with 2017/18 Karlie and it so much more all about PR and money.

- “you’re tossing out blame, drunk on this pain, crossing out the good years” - sco** and scumbag have made so many false excuses for their behaviour and completely erased the good relationship between the Swifts and sco**. Not sure yet what the Karlie side is here but it’s here somewhere.

- in conclusion, this is about Big Machine and Karlie. As the first song Taylor wrote for the album, I think it’s clear just how incredibly multi-faceted this album is. ☕☕☕

mirrorball

- first off, we can never forget about this and this look from both girls. ✨✨

- “I’ll to show you every version of yourself tonight”, the public and the private sides to them both. this is big glass closet energy in my opinion

- “and when I break it’s in a million pieces” is so personal and heartbreaking. 2016 and Kaylor breakup vibes. I cannot elaborate at this time.

- “when no one is around my dear” = the secrecy, forbidden love motif returns and again, if she’s in a hetero relationship, what’s to hide?

- “you’ll find me on my tallest tiptoes”, Just an fyi, Karlie, a giraffe, is 6′2″, Taylor is 5′10″ -- thats a big difference. 🦒🦒🦒

- “i know they said the end is near” = end of the relationship or the end of hiding it, either way, it’s a romantic last private moment together, swaying as the room burns down.

- “i can change everything about me to fit in” = Taylor when she was starting out was forced to create this all innocent, american-girl image of herself. She has had to hide herself to succeed, as she said in Miss Americana, she was muzzled.

- “you are not like the regulars, the masquerade revelers” = Karlie is different to everyone else, or any other ex, ‘masquerade’ implies masked or hidden figures at a party, very Love Story

- “and the called off the circus, burned the disco down” = the ‘circus’ could be the media/public, or all the illusions Taylor has cast in order to appear straight. The ‘disco’, and Taylor is the ‘mirror ball’ to her lover means that this isolated existence of just the two of them.

- “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything” for now, she’s still closeted, she’s still trying to have the best of everything.

- “I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why” believer in everything working out perhaps, or perhaps believing it’s better if she’s in the closet and it’s only the two of them.

- “never been a natural” = she has completely created herself through years off trying to be what people want, not who she naturally is.

seven

- “picture me” implies this is retrospective of Taylor, she’s reflecting on her childhood/youth.

- “I hit my peak at Seven” could either refer to the age 7 or album 7, ‘Lover’ which many critics argued was her best work.

- “Over the creek I was too scared to jump in” = fear of jumping is something Taylor has discussed in many songs but this is different, the creek represents something she fears will drown her.

- “High in the sky with Pennsylvania under me” = obviously, Taylor was born and raised in rural PA, so this truly is a childhood memory unearthed and explored. It’s personal to Taylor, it’s her story. 👏🏼

- “Are there still beautiful things?” Recognizing the world isn’t all daisies and rainbows

- “cross your heart, don’t tell no other” = again, secret keeping and hiding something is a big queer image, ‘cross your heart’ is a quite childish phrase but it’s adult equivalent in Taylor’s world is an NDA, ie swearing people to secrecy is something she's always known... 🔐

- “Although i can’t recall your face, I still got love for you” = this childhood love has faded with time to memories, this girl simultaneously forgotten and remembered.

- “Your braids like a pattern” = definitely about a girl (1996 rural Pennsylvania was not the kind of place where boys had braids), specific use of YOUR pronoun not ‘my’ or ‘our’ suggesting again it’s about a girl. Very obviously about a first girl crush. 🌈

- “passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long” = firstly, reference to Neruda’s poem Taylor used in the red prologue. second, folksongs change slightly from generation to generation but the heart/melody remains the same meaning that in Taylor’s mind, the story of her first girl love has changed but it’s still the same song/story all the years later. also, clearly a reminder of the setting of the song and the album as a whole being folklore. 💛

- “your dad is always mad and that must be why” feels a lot like Love Story and forbidden love, also again rural Pennsylvania in the mid-1990s was not the most liberal place so I can imagine a lot of homophobic ideas that perforated Taylor’s childhood.

- “I think you should come live with me” is such an innocent image of someone in love and wanting to just fix things by bringing them home, it also is like a baby gay version of uhauling

- “we could be pirates” = pirates are not just a childhood image/motif but also one historically seen as gay, gangs of pirates often had ‘mateolage’ agreements that basically were like widow’s benefits. See John Swann. ☠️

- “you won’t have to cry, or hide in the closet.” = I think this one is explicitly clear but just to be sure, Taylor could’ve said “hide when he lost it, hide if you wanted, hide in the woods too” etc. Read this for a full understanding of why it such a LOUD image to use. It is VERY DELIBERATE PEOPLE. 🌈🌈🌈

- “just like a folk song, our love will be passed on” = different from the first bridge but deliberate again. Their story, aka Taylor liking girls from a young age will always be talked about, AND their love lives in this song she wrote.

- “picture me in the weeds before I learned civility” = again, given the homophobic attitude, ‘civility’ and straightness should be read as the same so Taylor is saying when she was a child, free in the grass and herself, she wants to always be.

- “I used to scream ferociously any time I wanted” = she wasn’t muzzled as a child, she could say and be who she wanted, screaming it aloud for everyone to hear but that changed as she grew up.

- “pack your dolls and a sweater, we’ll move to India forever” = ‘dolls’ again would imply it’s two girls running away together and India is this exocitc far off place to a child, a place where they can be together without anyone knowing them or controlling them.

August

- Karlie Kloss is born in August. Karlie Kloss posted yesterday about being a Leo (an August born). August belongs to Karlie Kloss. 🦁♌

- “rust on your door” = image of something well-worn, perhaps someone who’s been here too a few times before?

- “whispers of are you sure?” = obviously there is the sexual connotation, but beyond that, what if it’s about Taylor and Karlie going public etc.

- “never have I ever before” = see above but also the game ‘never have I ever’ evokes youthfulness and sounds almost like a reminder of a fun night with friends.

- “I can see us lost in the memory” = implies they’re still together, losing themself in the memory together

- “I can see us twisted in bedsheets” = again, sexual imagery but also the intimacy of sharing a bed with the person you love after sex

- “Like a bottle of wine” = matures the song a bit, the youthfulness of earlier is now more adult. 21 is America’s drinking age, 20s were mentioned early etc. 🍷

- “Cause you were never mine” = the whole of Taylor and Karlie’s relationship, Karlie has publically been dating Josh so she was never solely Taylor’s.

- “Will you call when you’re back at school?” = Karlie attended NYU in 2015, the height of Kaylor.

- “back when we were still changing for the better” = instead of changing to adapt/survive or keep up appearances.

- “wanting was enough” = wanting Karlie without labels was enough, rather than having to go public etc. Many have said for a long time that Karlie and Taylor fought about coming out or not.

- “cancel plans in case you would call” = sounds like a very love-sick Taylor Swift thing to do. Also waiting on a lover’s call when they constantly are travelling like both Karlie and Taylor do makes sense. ☎️

- “so much for summer love” = cruel summer echo? Summer 2015 was again, peak Kaylor so this could be a specific reference to that period

- “Do you remember? Remember when I pulled up and said ‘get in the car’” another specific reference, comes up again later in Betty, clearly is something personal.

- “Back when I was still living for the hope of it all” = back as in the past when everything was happening, hope of it all being the hope they’d still end up together.

TO SUM UP PART 1:

BENEATH ALL FICTION OR MYTH IS FACT & FEELING. Taylor is no longer hiding. Yes, some of these songs are about stories and people not her but there is so much of herself and her own story layered in too. PAY ATTENTION!!! Obviously, these are just my opinions, I’m not Taylor so I cannot know exactly what these songs are about but I think, after years of analyzing her music, these images/themes and deliberate word choice are well-versed in this part of the fandom. It is entirely possible this is the beginning of Taylor’s full, public coming out journey.

I’ll be back with Part 2 tomorrow. Stay Tuned!

#ts8 #taylor swift #taylor swift gay #taylor swift karlie kloss #Kaylor #kaylor proof #gaylor swit #Gaylor #GAYLOR RISE #karlie kloss taylor swift #Karlie Kloss #karlie what you want #tasloveskk #folklore #folklore taylor swift

195 notes · View notes

metawatts · 4 years ago

Text

When I’m With You, I’m at Home- a Freezerburn Thesis

Table of Contents

Introduction

Tell Me Can A Heart Be Turned to Stone?

Any Remarkable Heart Has Gone Through the Hardship and Shame

Goldilocks and Snow White- The Freezerburn Dynamic

Snowflakes, Sunlight, and Songs- Symbolism Surrounding the Ship

Counterarguments and Refutations

Conclusion

Let’s get this show on the road.

1. Introduction

RWBY has had multiple attempts at diversity throughout the years, from the good, to the bad, and an entire spectrum in-between. Some of this involves LGBT+ couples, which are a favoured ship in the RWBY fandom. The most popular of these wlw ships are generally involving pairs between the main four girls, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang. In this thesis, I am going to discuss the characters of Weiss and Yang, the storytelling and development of their relationship, and why this ship is top-notch.

2. Tell Me Can A Heart Be Turned to Stone?

Weiss Schnee, first appearing in the White Trailer on February 13th, 2013, is the second character who appears in RWBY canon. In her trailer, Weiss’s main theme song, Mirror Mirror, characterises her as a lonely individual who fears that she has become so closed off from the world that she’ll never be able to make any connections or open up to others again.

Heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, Weiss is characterised as a prim, proper, snobby brat when we meet her in volume 1, her haughtiness getting her into spats with her teammate and partner Ruby, and eventually causing friction within the group when her racist and discriminatory attitudes collide with the rest of her team. While we don’t get a proper resolution in the form of actual apologies for her actions, this part of her characterisation is quickly dropped throughout the rest of the show and Weiss later becomes the main person to stand up to racist actions in the cast.

Weiss, from volume 2 onwards, is characterised as a defrosting Ice Queen, cold, proud, and thorny to everyone, but slowly warming up to her team. She proves herself to be loyal, brave, and compassionate to her teammates over the course of the rest of the show, consistently offering support and kindness where she can. She fits rather well as a support fighter within the group, consistently buffing her teammates with her semblance, and using her elemental dust for combat effect. She has consistently been a caring, supportive individual to her allies, despite her overarching motif of ‘loneliness’.

3. Any Remarkable Heart Has Gone Through the Hardship and Shame

Yang Xiao Long, first appearing in the Yellow Trailer on June 2nd, 2013, is the final member of the protagonist team to appear. Her debut song, I Burn, is all about her love of fighting, and her supreme self-confidence in her skills. What is interesting about the trailer version of I Burn is that it carries through the other songs from the rest of her team, depending on what stage of her battle she’s fighting.

The older sister to main character Ruby Rose, Yang doesn’t get much characterisation in volume 1 aside from being generally nice, supportive of her sister, and hints to some staggering anger issues and impulsive behaviour. This personality is in place throughout volume 2, where she gets more information given on her backstory and begins to show the flaws in her character, specifically how her abandonment issues from Raven drive her, her aimlessness of purpose scares her, and how her reckless temper puts her in more danger then she can handle.

Volume 3 puts Yang through a physical and emotional wringer, starting with being framed for attacking Mercury and ending with her desolate in her bed, having lost her right arm to Adam. The rest of the show attempts to tackle her storylines of depression, PTSD, disability in the form of amputations and prosthetics, the neglect and abandonment from her deadbeat mother, trauma surrounding Blake and Adam, and her anger issues. Despite it all, the core spark of Yang’s warmth is still available for her teammates, with her welcoming each of them with open arms when she reunites with them.

4. Goldilocks and Snow White- The Freezerburn Dynamic

Weiss and Yang have the healthiest friendship of the four main girls in team RWBY. They have excellent synergy when they work together, as implied first with their team move in Painting The Town, further fuelled with the two of them planning the Beacon Dance and having it go without a hitch, and confirmed when they go into the Vytal Doubles Round together. Weiss and Yang have complete trust in the other during combat, consistently protecting each other in a way no one else in team RWBY does. A good example of this is Weiss willingly throwing herself into a lava spout to protect Yang from an attack from Flynt. Even outside of fights they are always pushing the other to be their best. Eg. Yang confronting Weiss on her attitude towards Blake in volume 1 and Weiss supporting Yang throughout volume 5

While they don’t get as many scenes as some of the other bonds in the show, their rock-steady faith in each other is especially prominent after Yang kneecaps Mercury, with Weiss immediately declaring with full confidence ‘Yang would never do that’ and ‘Yang would never lie to us’ when Blake doubts Yang in the same scene. Yang, meanwhile, shows an incredible amount of emotional maturity after the Fall of Beacon when she recognises that Weiss did not choose to leave her side, having been forced to return to Atlas by Jacques.

When they reunite in the Branwen camp, they once again immediately have each other’s backs, with Weiss’s knight acting as a guard for their backs while they face off against Raven. Yang, despite her conflicted feelings towards Raven, instantly shows anger and horror at the fact that Raven kidnapped Weiss, showing how her bond with Weiss is much dearer to her. Weiss, once the danger has passed, throws her sword away without a shred of hesitation and bodily flings herself into Yang’s arms, hugging her close while proclaiming ‘I missed you so much’. Yang returns the hug, but not before looking stunned at Weiss’s actions, and returning the sentiment with ‘I missed you too’. In one of the more beautiful bits of animation in the show, Weiss’s knight fades out of existence behind them.

Throughout the talk with Raven, Weiss and Yang’s main roles are relegated to asking questions to allow for more exposition, but Weiss stands up for Yang quite a lot against Raven, specifically calling her obnoxious when Raven tries to start on a delaying tactic. Weiss also grounds Yang when Yang’s temper threatens to get the better of her, taking Yang’s hand and calming her down when Raven insults Taiyang to get a rise out of Yang. The two ride off on Bumblebee together, and when Yang reunites with Ruby, she shows no hesitation in inviting Weiss into the hug as well.

In Alone Together, we get Weiss and Yang talking in a scene where Weiss allows Yang to vent out a lot of her frustrations about Blake and her abandonment from family before she opens up about some of her own homelife, in an attempt at empathy about them both having experience with extreme loneliness. Weiss states ‘I don’t know loneliness like you do. I have my own kind’ and finishes the scene with ‘I’m here for you too’ to Yang, offering a measure of support that Yang has not been offered by anyone since she left Patch.

While Yang and Weiss don’t have much time together during the Haven fight, they are generally aware of each other, particularly when the other is in trouble. Yang’s expression when Weiss is impaled is horrified, meanwhile when Blake is standing in front of the rest of the team, Weiss’s eyes are on Yang to wait and see what Yang wants to do. It is only when Yang chooses to agree with Ruby that Weiss offers the hug to Blake, since she is aware of just how much Blake hurt Yang.

It is this trust and support that makes up the backbone of Freezerburn’s dynamic as a ship, with the two of them near-eternally supportive while also being willing to push the other to do better for themselves. Both with their own experiences of loneliness and with trauma, they also have never pushed their pain onto the other and have instead showed mutual communication, understanding, and warmth to each other.

5. Snowflakes, Sunlight, and Songs- Symbolism Surrounding the Ship

Freezerburn has a lot of good symbolism that is a shipper’s playground for the pair. From their first noticeable team-up being bookended with rainbows, to the very classic hot and cold dynamic that is very popular in a lot of important bonds in media. Yang saturates herself with fire imagery, to the point that it is the main tell of her semblance, and a recurring motif in most of her music. Weiss has the exact same saturation of her snow and ice motif, with her glyphs being snowflake-patterned. This provides a nice contrast both in and out of show for the two characters when it comes to their imagery.

Another, more subtle, piece of symbolism that threads through volumes 4, and 5, is Weiss’s knight being narratively tied to Yang. While one could make the argument that this started in volume 3, with Weiss first manifesting the Knight’s right arm in Heroes and Monsters, the same episode where Yang lost her own arm, that ties Yang’s traumatic experience into shipping fuel, which is a bad take and should not be done. Trauma is not romantic and holding up a disability and the event that caused it as the shining example of True Love is not a good argument for a ship.

Instead, we can talk about how Weiss first summoned her Knight in Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back, where Yang also takes her ‘step forward’ so to speak, listening to her father’s advice for their next spar, and how tying the two events as the ‘Steps Forward’ also comes into play when they first reunite in Lighting the Fire. Throughout the beginning of volume 5, Weiss has been using her knight as her comfort, and it is only when she is hugging Yang that she allows her knight to disappear. While this symbolism is a thin thread, it is still worth mentioning as a connection that exists.

Speaking of the songs, Weiss and Yang between them have the most singular character songs in the RWBY soundtrack, each of them stringing together to tell stories. For Weiss, her songs start, retroactively, with Path to Isolation, flowing into Mirror Mirror, Mirror Mirror Part II, It’s my Turn, and finally ending with the masterpiece This Life Is Mine, where she lyrically discards the mirror motif that has been with her from the start. Yang, meanwhile, starts with I Burn, quickly followed by Gold to show her softer side, with her number of songs diminishing over the events of volumes 2 and 3, before it kicks back into force with the triumphant Armed and Ready, the anger-fuelled Ignite, and ending on the heartbroken All That Matters, where Yang ruminates on how much Blake has hurt her, and will likely hurt her again in the future.

These two ‘song stories’, so to speak, are both currently at a pause until we get any further Weiss and Yang solo songs, but considering how we left with Weiss on a high note in her character development, finally freeing herself from her father’s abuse and ready to take her life for herself, and Yang at a low point where she requires the support of someone who has not hurt her the way Blake did, it is an interesting contrast . I would also like to talk about the significance of Home playing over the Freezerburn reunion, as Home upholds the same values of endless support and safety that is a running theme throughout Freezerburn as a ship. Specifically, the lines ‘I had you through it all’ and ‘A haven of safety where I’ll dry your tears’ are very emblematic.

6. Counterarguments and Refutations

Now, the main argument that seems to exist against Freezerburn as a ship is, well, Bumbleby. Now, I don’t mean to attack Bumbleby, I am not trying to start a ship war, but I would like to point out that Bumbleby, currently as it is written from volume 4 onwards, is based around trauma bonding and lacks any of the trust or open communication that Freezerburn has. An example of this is the talk in the truck in volume 7 doesn’t have Blake and Yang discussing anything of importance and instead features them dancing around their issues until Yang goes along with what Blake wants. Another example is the main Bumbleby fight scene in volume 6, where Blake spends most of it offscreen climbing a wall, letting Yang take the brunt of the fighting, and doesn’t make any moves to truly protect Yang from her ex.

I would also like to state that Bumbleby, going into volume 8 this weekend, is not canon yet, and should not be taken as canon. If RWBY can confirm relationships with things like ‘this is my wife, Terra Cotta’, or with kiss scenes, then it can do the same for Bumbleby. And should Freezerburn become canon instead, then it is a good milestone for LGBT+ representation in media, as Freezerburn is also a wlw ship, and would not devalue the show’s attempts at inclusivity.

7. Conclusion

To finish things up, Freezerburn is a great ship. This ship is an overall positive development for Weiss and Yang, character-wise, as it brings out their best qualities rather then their worst qualities. Freezerburn has a healthy amount of trust, respect, and communication, never feeling like the other ‘owes’ them anything, and they are endlessly supportive in a variety of ways. It’s good, what else is there to say?

#rwby #yang xiao long #weiss schnee #freezerburn #rwby-meta #ship-meta #thesis #mod watts

39 notes · View notes

inhonoredglory · 5 years ago

Text

Frozen 2 Thoughts!

Okie dokie, finally got a chance to sit down and talk about Frozen 2. Spoilers ahead!!

First of all, I cried, like A LOT. They say Frozen 2 is darker, and they’re absolutely right: The songs have a sadder, slower vibe to them and the first outing showcases that right up front.

At the same time, the humor was ridiculous. Like, I feel as if Tumblr got a nod in Frozen 2 with Olaf’s summary of Frozen 1. I feel so proud of fandom. That shit had me cracking up like nobody’s business.

Also, Kristoff’s 90s music video. Oh my freaking gosh.

This movie has SO MUCH SISTER LOVE in it. Like, it’s getting close to HTTYD levels of relatable-ness for my sister and me. I tend to relate more to masculine bonds––maybe because I never went for all the girly-girl type stereotypes mostly given to female pairs; maybe because we just don’t get good female-pair representation anywhere; maybe because I don’t relate to ‘real world’ drama stories, but much prefer fantasy/adventure, and in those genres, we’re sorely lacking in female pairs. ANYWAY, Frozen 2 is different, because we get a story ABOUT a relationship (and said relationship isn’t romantic) and that relationship is about FIERCE LOVE (look at all these HTTYD vibes). There’s a line in the film that I’m championing. It’s about Anna and Kristoff, but I feel like it’s something I wish HTTYD3 emphasized more: “Our love is not fragile.” Like, FRICKIN’ YES. You can love your sister/best friend to the ends of the universe, and STILL have a solid relationship with your romantic partner. There’s NO jealousy AT ALL in the Frozen group, and I appreciate that to high heaven. Anna telling Olaf “I love you” is right in step with Hiccup’s “I love you” to Toothless. Yes, you can LOVE your best friends. LOVE is not restricted to romantic pairings only. HELL YEAH. *gets off soapbox*

Also, two grown-up sisters sleeping together and comforting each other so intimately. I have never seen a more literal snapshot of my sister and me on film before.

At the same time, Anna and Elsa split ways at the end, just like Hiccup and Toothless. But at least they immediately showed them sending messages to each other about meeting up, so... it’s played as much less drastic and final. I’ll just be here, sitting on my fence of “why do these stories insist on loved ones parting ways???” while clutching my Gravity Falls plush.

Anna’s "The Next Right Thing” is the most explicit and heart-rending depiction of grief I’ve seen in a Disney princess movie. That was a thing a beauty and made me love Anna even more. 💜 I think we all knew Olaf’s dusting and Elsa’s death were temporary, but I appreciate them drawing out the emotions for all they were worth and giving us a song to comfort us in our own times of debilitating sorrow.

I came in expecting at least some nod to the LGBT community regarding Elsa. Disney pulled a double take and tackled some other controversial issue––namely, some hardcore environmental activism on the part of Anna. I was NOT expecting that. I was like DAMN that’s bold and awesome. Because if blowing up dams isn’t the exact vision of deep green environmentalism, nothing is. I was totally on board with that.

Similarly, I LOVED seeing a respectful and amazing representation of indigenous peoples, with their beliefs and feelings showcased as true and right. Where are we getting that in film nowadays?! Certainly in nothing as big and influential as Frozen has the potential to be, and for that, I’m hugely thrilled. These are the stories we need to change our perceptions!! Bambi helped people value the natural world back in the 40s, helping the environmental cause way back then. Stories matter.

At the same time, I wish they were able to make the use of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth a bit more original. As much as those are classic mythic elements, we’ve seen them a lot I feel. It made me realize how hard it is to build a bigger world in a sequel and not make it feel out of the blue vs the original.

Elsa as the Fifth Element? I feel like that’s just a buildup for the third film, where she’ll learn Fire, Earth, and Air powers...?

Going back to the LGBT thematics... I was highkey expecting some major flack from the fan community for this one. Didn’t they literally just tease us with a plot of Elsa “finding someone” by going into the unknown after the voice? To find someone “just like me” or telling the mysterious voice to “show yourself”/”you’re the one I’m looking for all my life”? It’s like the whole plot is leading up to her finding a “special someone.” Running through a ice tunnel of rainbow colors? Teasing us with Honeymaren? And then, twist ending, no! It’s herself she’s been searching for. So... thematic queerbaiting, no?

At the same time, I REALLY stan the theme of “you don’t need to wait for anyone; finding a romantic partner doesn’t make you whole.” So, maybe it’s commentary on the fan reaction insisting that she’s hooked up? Maybe she’s just not interested in romance. Maybe she has all the love she needs in her sister, her friends, herself? Maybe she’s ace? Maybe romance shouldn’t be the endgame for our stories? Anyway you slice it, it made me relate even more to Elsa.

The glacier island reminded me a little bit of the black hole in Interstellar. Was it Elsa herself making the voice she heard back in Arendelle? I need to see it again....

Elsa is a freaking badass in this film and I am all over it. The tornado sequence was visceral and delish. But I needed to have the scene of Elsa holding back the waters sit on the screen a second longer to give it that magnitude it needed (cuz that was awesome, if environmentally problematic). Guh! Sometimes I think the film suffered from HTTYD2′s problems: so much plot and new elements, and not enough screen time.

In the end, I really loved it, and I can proudly say I’m in the Frozen fandom too.

#frozen2 #frozen2 review #frozen2 spoilers #elsa #anna #kristoff #frozen2 screening #glory's journal

52 notes · View notes

g0lightly · 3 months ago

Text

virgin j*nsa shippers: sansa and jon are clearly hinted to be endgame bc of jonnel and sansa stark

chad queer sansa truthers: sansa is clearly hinted to be gay bc rhaena targaryen had a favourite named alayne royce

for the record i don’t think either detail “proves” shit, we are all equally right/wrong unless and until more books come out. i simply support gay ships’ rights to be as delusional as straight ships 💅🏼

also this is not even close to the strongest queer sansa clue, a development that would be great for the narrative, but i digress!

#anti jonsa #queer asoiaf #queer sansa stark #lesbian sansa stark #sansa stark theories #lesbian sansa #rhaena targaryen #a song of ice and fire #lgbt themes in a song of ice and fire #asoiaf crack #asoiaf shitpost

10 notes · View notes

skywalkersapprentice · 5 years ago

Text

mdzs novel review

Now that we’re in quarantine and I have an infinite amount of time on my hands, why not read a novel that’s 500k, right?

(Spoilers ahead.)

I totally fucked up my sleeping schedule by staying up for three nights in a row and sleeping four hours in the afternoon while reading it. worth it, though. Despite a few flaws that tripped me up close to the end, Mo Dao Zu Shi (The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) was a gorgeous story. Kudos to the translators for giving it to us in English.

I’ll start off by saying that this story is not for the faint of heart. The main character has very grey morals. There is self-cannibalism, gore, period-typical homophobia, corpses come to life, mentions of rape, incest, sexual content, straight up dubcon and disturbing themes all the way through. If I’d seen this tagged as such on Ao3, I definitely would have left it alone. Despite all this, there’s also some truly wonderful characters, a plot unlike anything I’ve ever read before, subtle pining, fantastic worldbuilding, magical music, found families, and!! canonly lgbt characters that get to experience all of this things in the one hundred goddamn chapters it takes for them to get together.

The Good:

Wei Wuxian. One of the most interesting characters I’ve ever encountered. How can one be so good, so happy, so giving, yet so incredibly fucking annoying? He’s so clever, but also a moron. He’s selfless, but only in regards to things and people he cares about. He has an absolutely terrible memory (god me too) and knows how to get under everyone’s skin and has killed literal thousands of people and also. He is my son. If I knew him in real life I think he wouldn’t have survived long enough to become the Yiling Patriarch but in fiction he is wonderful.

The plot: Look. This novel is longer than the first four Harry Potter books combined. You can almost think of it as two books- one set in the past, one set sixteen years later. But although it’s the longest book I’ve ever read, it never really felt boring. It was definitely confusing at times (I’ve never had to take notes on a novel before to keep everything straight in my head) but I wasn’t bored. Things just keep happening- Wei Wuxian is back from the dead!! Now there’s a creepy hand!! Now there’s a statue that can move!! Now we’re in the past!! Now we’re back in the present and there’s a castle that eats people!! Now we’re in a ghost city and there’s some freaky stuff going down!! Time for the saddest flashback of all time, and now we’re starting to put the puzzle of this dismembered person together!! All of this is interspersed with worldbuilding and character dynamics and creating a full picture of the past and- whew. It was so hard to tear myself away to sleep or eat because I just wanted to know- what’s going to happen next?

The love story: Hello, slowest of burns in the entire fucking world. I live for the enemies-to-friends-to-enemies-to-friends-to-what-are-we-to-lovers love story that this book gave me. Lan Wangji, you poor emotionally repressed disaster gay. Wei Wuxian, you blind oblivious moronic disaster bi. Somehow, they’re perfect for each other. I was really, really hesitant to read this book because I know it has roots in that specific straight-girl-writes-gay-men type of culture that is often terrible and fetishistic. There were definitely things that I disagreed with that that I’ll talk about later, but largely, stereotypes were avoided and I have to give the author credit for this relationship that managed to be so many things. I relate heavily to the type of person Lan Wangji is, and I adored watching him fall for Wei Wuxian, through Wei Wuxian’s eyes, without either of them really even realizing it. They’re the definition of what I like to call a “Red and Blue couple”- the opposites, the fire and ice, the calm and the wild, the dark and the light, the red and the blue, who complement one another so well despite being so different. They balanced each other out wonderfully. Don’t talk to me about the WangXian song or the fact that they have a child or I will start crying.

Lan Wangji: Though I love Wei Wuxian, annoying traits and all, Lan Wangji is who I heavily resonated with. He kind of reminds me of Else from Frozen?? Anyone else?? Like, his whole thing is basically “conceal don’t feel”, except what he’s concealing is the fact that he feels things so deeply. He just wants to help people, to be essentially perfect at what he does (scooby doo villian voice: and he would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for wei wuxian) His character development from the past to present was lovely. I silently cheered for him whenever he broke the rules, or let the strict facade down for a bit.

The side characters: Literally how are there so many characters in this book who are so fleshed out that they feel like real people? Xiao XingChen, Lan SiZhui, Wen Ning, Jin Ling, Jiang Cheng and Jiang LanYi all especially stood out to me, but even beyond them, everyone had a fully explained reason and motivation for like, everything they did. Even if I hated the villains, they weren’t needlessly evil. We love a grey story.

But there were some things I didn’t like.

The Bad

The R rated stuff: Well. This is probably the weirdest critique I’ve ever had to make about a book, and maybe some of it was partly due to translation, but... the sex was out of character. I thought the general dynamic made no sense for the two of them as people and it just.... wasn’t super well written? Thankfully I was warned beforehand that the Incense Burner chapters contained content I wasn’t prepared to read, but yikes, I felt like I was reading about two different characters the second clothes started coming off. I haven’t finished the bonus chapters for this reason. The second I read the word “rape”, I had to stop. Consent is a pretty hard line for me, and I can’t do a dubcon kink. Obviously the author can do whatever the hell she wants with her characters, but I felt like she threw away their personalities for the sake of trying to write something hot (which- it wasn’t.) This is why straight people have no rights and also why I will be pretending those scenes don’t exist.

The Hatred Chapters: I do feel like all of the tension and action was sort of- let down at what was supposed to be the climactic showdown in the temple. It dragged on for so many chapters that I didn’t feel on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next.That could also be due to translation. I’m not sure. Maybe I need to read the Hatred chapters again. But I did feel sort of let down in the final 20 chapters of this novel. It wasn’t enough to seriously impact how much I love the general concept, but it was disappointing.

Semi related but after 100 chapter build up, that confession could have been better. Again- maybe a translation thing.

The Nie MingJue backstory flashback: just- honestly wasn’t interesting to me. It was the only part of the novel that I really had to slog through.

Lastly - this isn’t the novel’s fault, and I am certainly grateful to the translators for all of their work translating this gigantic novel, but there were some consistent grammatical issues surrounding the dialogue tags that bugged me. I’m not sure how it is in Chinese, but in English, writing “Wei WuXian, “Nothing.”” just- isn’t correct. At the very least, you need a verb like “said”. I usually read fast enough that my brain tends to insert the word even if it’s not there, but when reading slowly, this did frequently jar me out of the story. I’d be willing to edit the entire novel just to fix these errors. But it says a lot about how good this novel is that I continued reading despite errors like this because something like that in a fic would have me closing the tab immediately.

Alright, that’s all.

Overall:

There are so many small things, little moments and lines that I loved about this story, it would take me days to list them all. The dialogue patterns from character to character were distinct. Things like the forehead ribbon were endlessly entertaining. Side plots like the A-Qing one had me in tears and I was laughing a few chapters late from drunk LWJ. The novel was just fun to read. There were errors, yes, there were disappointments, sure. But it made me feel so much. I’ve been through the entire range of human emotion while reading it, and it’s so rare to find a book that just yanks you into the universe like this one did to me. I really needed an escape this week, and this was absolutely a welcome one. If I go read it again, I’m sure I’ll find a hundred more things I like about it. Heed the warnings I’ve given, if you read it, but I absolutely adored most of this book and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

9/10.

#mdzs #mdzs novel #Right okay time to finish the donghua

4 notes · View notes

justgottafinishthischapter · 6 years ago

Text

Writing Prejudice in a Fantasy Setting

There are a lot of aspects of culture strongly impacted by the world in which they are cultivated. While some Fantasy settings are a bit closer to home, others are completely foreign to our earthly world, and those changes to the world, history, and culture will impact social policies and issues. Due to my extensive study of homosexuality in history, I’ll be using that as my topic, but these topics can be applied to other prejudices.

Without Christianity, there’s probably no Homophobia

Prior to the forced widespread practices of the Christian faith, a fair number of cultures and societies had little problem with homosexuality. Among viking men, they didn’t give a crap so long as the bottom was just as strong a warrior as his lover. In Ancient Greece, the Band of Thebes was an army made entirely of same-sex lovers under the belief that they would fight harder to protect and impress each other. In Native American tribes, there was nothing wrong with a man choosing to do the women’s work, and they were even sought out as the village wise-men. And up until around the 1800s, lesbian activities weren’t even really considered sexual at all by European and American standards due to the idea that women themselves had no sex drives. Even then, the actual reason that Christians were against homosexuality was due to the ideologies of the faith at the time. See, Christianity began to spread through the Roman empire in the 300s AD, but Homosexuality only began to be seen as a sin by the church in the middle of the 1200s AD, 900 years after it spread across Europe. And the source of this sudden shift? Again, it had very little to do with actually going against the Church itself. See, in this era of Christian belief, Earthly life was seen as sort of an awful waiting room, and the only thing that mattered was getting not only your own soul to Heaven, but getting as many other people into Heaven as possible, hence the historic tendencies of Christians to shove their beliefs down the throats of everyone they invaded at knife point. Because the only purpose of life was to lay it down in service of God and to get into Heaven, taking pleasure in Earthly delights was considered selfish and sinful. Because two men engaging in intercourse would not yield offspring and was thus only an indulgence in lesser Earthly delights, it was labeled as a sin because it wasn’t in service to the Christian values of the era.

So, why did I just write a long paragraph explaining why homosexuality is a sin? Because a fantasy world isn’t guaranteed to have Christianity existing within it, though some writers have equivalents, such as the Faith of the Seven in A Song of Ice and Fire which also derides same-sex relationships. Thus, if you’re planning a novel in a fantasy setting where one or more of the belief systems is against homosexuality (or anything else) this may help serve to inspire you to think about why these things are seen as a sin, how long ago these ideas became a sin, and if the culture has changed since then, are opinions any different now? Homosexuality became a sin in the mid 1200s, but by the time Chaucer started writing the Canterbury Tales in 1387, there were already stereotypes and derogatory slurs used to refer to homosexual men. Understanding the roots of these prejudices can be an integral part of world building and understanding your created world. Nobody really hates for no reason, as prejudices arise from differences in opinion. So ask where these prejudices come from, why do they hold these prejudices, what social, political, or cultural taboo might be being broken by these actions? Ideologies change, and what was offensive long ago might not be offensive now, but people are slow to change. Just because the culture is different doesn’t mean the mass population has changed at the same pace. Old grudges are slow to bury.

The LGBT Community is a Subculture, and thus should be fleshed out and treated like any other culture in your story.

Based on the culture, stigma, and social acceptance you established in the first part, this is where you expand upon it. Due to the need to keep gay romance or sex discreet, gay men developed secret codes to let other men know which team they played for. Whether it be wearing a red carnation in their lapel, wearing a green tie, or carrying a bandanna in their back pocket, there was usually some sort of discreet code. This also extended into dialogue, as phrases like “Are you a friend of Dorothy?” was a common coded way of asking someone if they were gay. Other themes and symbols associated with homosexuality include lavender, such as with the Lavender Scare which accompanied the Red Scare of the 1950s and 60s, or the Pink Triangle worn by homosexuals in Nazi Germany. Symbols could be connected to myths and legends, such as the notoriously bi/pansexual god Apollo. Apollo’s symbols could easily be reclaimed by a closeted shadow society of LGBT people. Phrases such as “Do you weep for the Hyacinth?” could be a stealthy way of finding other homosexuals borrowing from this myth. Beyond these clues and coded messages, there are other aspects of LGBT culture, such as the rise of Shade and Reading with the popularity of drag balls. Most homosexuals moved to larger cities where their chances of finding a partner was better, and due to the higher population density, they were far less likely to be known by half the town, and thus gossip was far less of a terrifying factor. LGBT people would designate locations as safe spaces for them to gather, and many of these locations, including the famous Stonewall Inn were under Mafia protection for a price to be allowed to meet in peace. Subcultures also tend to come with their own language and beliefs, such as the unspoken taboo of outing someone else from the closet. Usage of terms like brownie queen, shade, reading, and twink started off as discreet terms used within the community, and some such as buns have become so widespread that they’re not even necessarily connected to the community anymore, but originate from coded messages used to talk discreetly.

While there are other contributing factors to prejudices in a fictional setting, I’ll wrap up the discussion here, but I can return to it some more at a later date.

#writing #writing tips #writing advice #writing gay #prejudice #fantasy writing #writing fantasy #fantasy tips

319 notes · View notes

81scorp · 5 years ago

Text

My thoughts on Frozen

(An editorial originally posted on Deviantart Feb 9, 2015)

Frozen, an animated musical based on Hans Christian Andersen`s "The Snow Queen" made by Disney. It has been a critical and commercial success and some critics has considered it to be the best animated Disney musical since the studio's renaissance era. But is it really that great? Is it overhyped? Is "Let it Go" the most overplayed song in the world? Here are some of my (very subjective) thoughts on some of the things from the movie. WARNING: SPOILERIFIC SPOILERS OF SPOILERY SPOILERDOM. (That means that this editorial has spoilers.) Olaf When I first saw this character on the movie posters I got a bit of a Jar Jar Binks feeling about him. I thought: Why? Was this character really necessary? This was such an obvious case of a CEO saying "Let`s throw in a goofy, comic-relief sidekick to make this movie more marketable!" Couldn`t that job have been filled by Sven alone as a non-talking but emoting reindeer? Why can`t you leave well enough alone Disney? Then I saw the movie, and I didn`t hate him. Olaf works better in the world of Frozen then Jar Jar Binks does in the Star wars universe. The creators of this movie were well aware of what could go wrong with this character and managed to find the right balance between seriousness and humor. There`s something cute about a kindhearted, wellmeaning snowman who likes "warm hugs" and dreams of experiencing the summer, completely unaware of what it would do to him. Kristoff: I'm gonna tell him. Anna: Don't you dare! Even if he is just a character created to make the movie more marketable he`s at least a likeable one. Let it go Let it go, Let it go. The song that`s driving people maaad Let it go, Let it go. Some even say it`s baaad. From what I`ve heard this song has been played quite frequently on the radio in some countries. Others have kids or younger siblings that feel that they have to play it on repeat 100 times a day. That kind of thing can drive you from liking a song to hating it intensly. I can understand that there are people that feel that way about this song. I have myself heard songs played over and over and over again until finally "All [insert name of annoying song here] and no play make 81Scorp something something..." If it`s any consolation, the creators of the song has officially apologized for it`s earwormy catchiness. I have however been fortunate enough to not have gone through the same experience with it. I only saw the video twice on Disney`s official youtube channel and heard it twice on the radio before I saw the movie. And I have only heard it a few more times after that. So, from the point of view of someone who has NOT been exposed to it ad nauseum:... I like it. It`s a cathartic song about self-acceptance and testing your potential. You can also interpret it as a phoenix metaphor ("I'll rise like the break of dawn") (though in Elsa`s case it`s a rebirth in ice instead of fire). I read a comment somewhere on the internet that said that the song had a bad message, that it was about misantropy and isolating yourself from from others, and at closer inspection I can`t see I don`t see hints of those elements in the song. Then again, it`s understandable that it would have hints of those things since Elsa was originally going to be the villain. When the writers heard the song they realized how lonely Elsa must have felt her whole life and changed the story to add a little more emotional depth. I don`t know how much of the song was changed after the story rewrite (if it was changed at all). I agree that running away like she did was not a good idea in the long run, but an understandable reaction to her situaition at that time. It`s not as much aspirational as it is relatable. If you`re one of those who hasn`t been overexposed to it but still hate it, you and I are gonna have to agree to disagree. Sibling love and romantic love In the big climax Hans is about to kill Elsa but is stopped by Anna just before she turns into an ice statue. Elsa cries over the loss of her sister and her love saves Anna from an icy fate. This is something unusual for an animated Disney musical. It sends a feministic message that you don`t always have to rely on the man to save the woman in peril. Sometimes the damsel in distress can be saved by another damsel. Some people have also interpreted LGBT themes into this and others take this as a sign of a lesbian relationship between Elsa and Anna and love to ship them with each other. I want to nitpick a little here. First: Gay love and straight love are both romantic love. The writers of this movie wanted to explore the definition of true love. It seems to me that many are still stuck in the old mindset that it has to be romantic love that saves the day. What I take away from this movie is that it wasn`t that big love that everyone fantasizes about that saved them but the little love that we often take for granted. Second: Elsa and Anna are sisters. I have nothing against LGBT people or people interpreting LGBT themes into this movie (it`s easy to do that). I`m just not too crazy about this ElsAnna Shipping. If you`re gonna ship Elsa with someone I think it would make more sense if it is with someone she`s NOT related to. Like Disneys other ambiguously lesbian princess: Merida. (However, if you like to ship Elsa and Anna just platonically, as friends then I have no problem with that.) Which brings me to my next point. The LGBT themes** It`s hard NOT to see them in this movie. Besides Elsa and Annas moment that I`ve mentioned earlier, where two people of the same sex save each other through the power of love, there`s also the thing with Elsa hiding a part of who she is from others for most of her life. After she`s discovered and runs away she learns to accept this part of herself and just "Lets it go"*. Then there`s the shop owner (you know, the guy with "the big summer blowout"). When you see his family in the sauna there are a couple of kids and a grown up man in there. (Sure, it could be his brother or cousin, but it could also be his husband) Last but not least we have Olaf, a living snowman who, technically was created by both Elsa and Anna (at least the first version of him) which makes them his parents (Damnit! There`s that incest-angle again! Curse you ElsAnna-shippers! Curse you!). So it`s understandable why people makes these connections. Best Disney movie EVAR? I don`t think that Frozen is "so much better" than Disney`s other good movies as (I get get the feeling that) others seem to think it is. Sure, it has some new things that we haven`t seen before in a Disney animated musical. Like the earlier mentioned "girl saves girl" thing, quite unexpected for a movie company that follows it`s traditional tropes and formulas so strongly that it is pretty much mandatory. The revelation that Hans was the bad guy all the time instead of the more moustache twirling Duke of Weselton also falls under this category. Who would have expected him after he sang the love song with Anna? He even did that silly robot dance with her! (I didn`t expect him and Anna to end up with each other, their song was too early in the movie. But I didn`t expect him to be the bad guy.) Was it necessary for him to be the villain? Not really, it could have worked even without that twist. But still, it`s nice to see some variation in the Disney-villain formula. But besides these new things there are some of the old Disney tropes as well. One parent/ both parents dead? Check! The old "Oh no, they`re dead. No wait, they`re back to life again thanks to the magic of love." (Seen in Beauty and the Beast and Tangled.) There are also some other things that seem new but were used fairly recently. The possibility of LGBT and "Girl doesn`t need to end up with a man in the end.": Mulan. (Disney kind of had it`s cake and ate it too with Frozen by having two female leads.) "You can`t marry a guy you just met!": Enchanted. But nitpickery aside. At the end of the day, after weighing the good against the bad and adding it all up. What`s my verdict? I like it. It has great characters, songs and animation (just look at how they do the snow). It`s not above Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Hunchback of Notredam, Mulan or Tarzan, but on the same level as them. It is as good as good animated Disney movies usually are. Is it overhyped? Is Let it Go overplayed? A little yes, but not so much that it ruined it for me. I like it, I`m just not onboard the hype-train Now, with all that said. Who wants to build a Snowman?

(*: Sure, Let it go could be interpreted as a coming out song, but room for interpretation does not equal confirmation. For me it`s mostly a song about freedom in general.) (**Though technically it`s more of a subtext.)

#frozen #disney #editorial #81scorp

1 note · View note