#why was it so subversive that he still love her when shes not a beautiful human woman

[arolesbianism]

Sometimes I just look at Isabeau and just know that if isat came out and I got into it when I was like 16 he would be my favorite character and I would've gone absolutely buck wild over this man and feel like he was laser targeting me. But alas Odile has a grip of steel on me rn due to her virtue of being a middle aged woman

[aeimygdala]

man. i never comment on posts, but im going to be insane for a minute, ok? Ok. So people in the notes are talking about the first Shrek and I think that's kinda stupid ngl, always have. like the ending in the first one where she stays an ogre yes is good and I think applies to this but like.

the thing is that Shrek is ALSO an ogre? why would it be strange for him to find ANOTHER OGRE beatiful? it was a really nice twist that she stayed an ogre, but the point would've worked better if she was some different kind of magical creature seen as "ugly" instead. and if she ALSO stayed looking like that creature. but not ANOTHER FUCKING OGRE? which like of course shrek would find beautiful?? he's a fucking ogre?? now she's just the same species??

how is it subversive or strange that he'd find her beautiful. when I first saw the movie as a dumb kid, I 100% thought that the idea was that she was supposed to take the form of the species of person that loved her, and that's why she stayed an ogre, because it's that fucking stupid that it's apparently strange for him to "still" love her as an ogre, which he also is

people give that dogshit plot too much credit. she should've been some weird monster and stayed that way. but its like why praise the movie for how he loves her when she isnt a beautiful Human Woman when it would actuslly be Weird if he didnt like her as an ogre? you just Know DreamWorks wouldn't have let her stay a "monster" if she wasn't the most conventionally attractive an ogre can get and it sucks

Shrek 2 is better and actually fits the post nicely etc etc etc

too many stories about turning yourself into a monster as a metaphor for pretending to be something you aren't and losing yourself in the process. not enough stories about turning yourself into a monster as a metaphor for choosing to openly embrace yourself even if it's strange to other people

[loofwoof]

Fave LIs from RC, SHS, and LOD???? 💖💖

Oh boy I have a lot so be prepared!

RC:

Jonas (PSI): I tend to stay away from childhood romances because they always hinge on the past and sometimes the LI refuses to see that the heroine changed (like Wyatt) but in Jonas case?

The relationship is addressed, Lou is hesitant because she is afraid to lose one of her most important friend so she fights so hard against her own feelings.

Yet you can't deny the chemistry and it ends with her succumbing to what she feels.

Jonas is snarky, wild, bold and his audacity know no bounds, but I will always love how he isn't afraid to disagree with Lou even if he loves her. They fight and believe in different things after all.

Friedrich (THE) is another LI I love: Arina can write beautiful characters and relationship and Friedrich is a good example of it.

He is the epitome of too good for this sinful earth but what I especially love is how despite all the things he went through, all the abuse he endured, the many times he struggled with the things he believe...

He is still gentle and willing to help.

Greg (HS:R): Sasha shitty treatment aside, Greg is my fave because he is like a mix of Jonas and Friedrich: Friendly but willing to disagree with the heroine if she is doing something she shouldn't.

What the squad did is always the rough part of his route, but I love how he is willing to make amends even when he isn't your LI. He is always around Lane corner supporting her, making her comfortable and S2 shows he can be a capable leader when Dmitry was unable to lead the squad.

If only Sasha could see his potential...

With LOD:

Caleb (SON): My first LI! this sweet necromancer is a good subversion of your typical person dealing with death: he is cheerful, make good jokes, supports you even if he is dead, and is willing to do everything for his friends.

The wait for him is worth it.

Casper (LOB): Oh god, what can I say about him? Casper is a nutso who scares me Scarlett and is always someone who ends bickering a lot with her.

Yet this guy is willing to go against his own boss to defend his friend and the annoying woman who always occupy his thoughts...

His backstory made me cry a little, no matter what he thinks, I think he deserves love too.

Luther (PS): Superman but edgy is what I used to said about him but damn, what a rough hand Luther is forced to deal with: from everyone hating him because he lost the control of his powers, to losing his family, and now being a runaway, is no wonder why he fell in love with Amelia: she is the one person who supports him even if she doesn't approve what happened before and considering he might die thanks to the serum...

Life is too short to wonder about the what if.

SHS:

Vincent(DB): My bunny man! no matter how maimed, broken, hurt he is, Vincent will always help Robin and I still find hilarious the way she confessed her feelings towards him.

To think he wasn't supposed to be a LI...

Flock(Ragnarok Saga): He is a scoundrel who is willing to cheat and kill but his chemistry with Tsvia is insaneee!

They are the definition of partners in crime: they might bicker a lot, complain about what the other might want to achieve or the ridiculous things they want to do but in the end, they tend to gravitate towards each other...

Together? Together.

Shade (IOF): Ughhh!!! He is Chloe-ex who ghosted her and you shouldn't ever be involved with exes 😤😤😤😤😤!

Yet the chemistry is undeniable and Shade is one of the very few LIs who makes Chloe to lose her composure.

He is a bad boy but compared to your usual stuff, he wasn't abusive towards her: he always protected her and respected her boundaries, waiting for her to make the first move even if he makes his intentions very clear.

He is crass, swears a lot, is a smoker, a bastard, but he is willing to defend Chloe until the bitter end.

Plus, it was hilarious when he was sending his lyrics through text messages and Chloe wondered if he was drunk or what.

Thanks for the ask!

[storkmuffin]

Previous anon said "Your post about his aegyo and about how it reads as masculine to you rather than feminine because he does it specifically for attention and because it pisses people off really felt like it made something click in my brain." <- this is exactly it!!! It was really a moment of oh so THAT is what I'm looking at. Also out of selfish reasons (words words words!) I hope your interest in Wooyoung will last for a looooooong time <3

Wooyoung is so interesting. HE JUST IS. And I love that he's somehow such a spitfire still, when the Idol industry works so hard to sand down harsh edges. The definition of irrepressible.

You didn't ask this but I kind of want to go off about 애교 actually.

A very close friend that grew up right across the street from where the original SM Entertainment HQ offices used to be told me when I confessed that I'd been getting into Kpop (with a certain surprised judgmental look in her eyes ㅠㅠ) that two things had forever turned her off from Idol culture and Kpop music and everything to do with it : a) The girls who would chase after the Idols' cars, run into the street, and cause traffic incidents. I think they've mostly stopped doing that, because the fandoms began to police themselves. But back in the day, they looked deranged and pathetic to her, and she wanted nothing to do with them. b) The fact that the entertainment industry demands these 'aegyo" actions from only Idols. We don't force people who are actors to do them, nor comedians, and tellingly, former Idols who become actors and end their music careers are never asked to do aegyo, according to her. She finds the idea of a twenty something adult being asked to do that stuff grotesque in the extreme.

It's something I've observed about the way the extreme egalitarianism and obsession with correct form works in Korean culture. Rather than make the beauty standards more normal for women, we started to demand that men too have poreless, perfectly even skin (and wear BB cream and foundation and get eye brow augmentation etc etc). Rather than NOT assigning an arbitrary number like say, 49 kgs, the designation as a perfect weight no matter what for a woman, we now have a culture where the men too are constantly on some sort of diet, talk about calories, talk about body fat composition, talk about what they can and can't eat etc etc. SIGH. So, in entertainment, rather than stopping the bullying actions of forcing female Idols to do aegyo they don't want to do, the culture turned around and started it demanding it hardcore from male Idols.

WHICH (to bring it around to Wooyoung again) is why Wooyoung ramping it up to like a thousand when he does any sort of aegyo, pushing it to excessive levels of saccharine, to making his voice not just high but squeaky, and being relentless about it while his teammates cringe away from him seems both like a subversion and an act of aggression. He'll do it, yeah, because he's good at his job, but he will fuck up everyone around him as he does it and have himself a good time, besides.

Among the Stray Kids, Changbin (not coincidentally, Wooyoung's pretty close friend), who also has a pretty manly demeanor (his producer seat moments are 1,000% 형아미 and I love that about him) will do similar sorts of intentionally, subversively too-much types of aegyo. Compare contrast to Lee Know, who actually martyrs himself and makes himself miserable, in a different act of resistance by cooperation - wherein he does exactly what is demanded, even though clearly it feels to him like he's slicing his own lips off his face, and then collapse (literally) into a heap, throat and ears red, hiding his face, as the always kind Felix says, like he's at a funeral, "Wow, Hyung, you're incredible."

Because I got into Kpop unexpectedly and after a whole lifetime of not engaging with it, initially I think just accepted all these shenanigans as a (rather odd, sometimes uncomfortable) convention within the genre of Idol content. Obviously, I prefer the devious, shrug-it-off / blow-it-up types of choices that Wooyoung makes, to anything else- either sincere engagement, or suffering martyrdom.

[velvet-vox]

My top 30 favourite female villains of all time (10-1)

First part (30-21)

Second part (20-11)

Please, first read part 1 and part 2 linked above, don't click "Read More" without having read the first two posts in their entirety.

Number 10: Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty)

It's a tale as old as time.

For those of you who have been sleeping for 100 years, Maleficent is the main villain of Sleeping Beauty, and one of the most iconic Disney villains of all time.

However, before I go on to explain what I like about Maleficent, I'd first like to get a weight off of my chest:

I believe every single version of Maleficent after her first on screen debut heavily mischaracterizes the character, and makes her appear quite dull and boring in my opinion.

I'm not just talking about the versions of the character who deviate so much from the source material that they might as well be considered OCs (aka live action Maleficent and Descendants), no, I'm also referring to versions of the character that try to adhere to her original SB characterization but fall flat because they forgot something or changed a key aspect by accident/will without realising how that would throw off the entire character's equation.

The only alternative version of Maleficent who's mostly true to the original character is the one from The House Of Mouse and that's it.

Let me get something out of the way: Maleficent is an incredibly difficult character to write, and a prime example of why simple pure evil villains are as hard to write as complicated ones.

For starters, the crow that Maleficent carries around in the movie isn't just an accessory, but an important part of her character put there by the animators to fulfill a storytelling requirement:

Diablo gives Maleficent someone to bounce off her dialogue with, but not just that, Diablo is someone who Maleficent can open up with, he allows us to see a softer side of the draconic fairy, and opens up a lot of inferable depth and nuance for the character;

It's truly the small details that really make up Maleficent's character, things like her bored expression while she's sitting on her throne after she captured Philip, or the fact that, apparently, in the 16 years where Aurora was gone she couldn't sleep calm nights, small things like that add up to make Maleficent's character.

I know that this feels more like a critique of the modern Maleficent rather than a tribute to the character, but there's a good reason for it: her original debut was so good, that it speaks for itself, especially that final battle.

Like, girl shoots lightnings from her sceptre, creates a forest of thorns and turns herself into a dragon all the while the most epic gothic score in all of Disney plays at full bombastic strength, and the dragon's sound design is made up of the most weirdly fitting object noises and like...

That's PEAK.

I remember a younger me thinking this was the greatest action scene in all of animation before I saw the Kung Fu Panda movies, and I still hold it in high regards despite those and other movies'existence.

Unfortunately, I think Maleficent truly peaked when her career began; she started off with a bang, and then anything following that were just smaller explosions; but still: one of my favourite Disney villains of all time, and one of my favourite villainesses ever.

Number 9: Black Heron (DuckTales 2017)

I guess this is a spoiler to DuckTales fans for the male villain list, but thinking about it for a while, I really couldn't keep the couple separated, not when Black Heron is just that much of a b##ch in her own right.

Black Heron is a villain of the DuckTales reboot of 2017, who started out as a one time only threat before transitioning to a much bigger role later on in the show.

What I really love about Black Heron, is the level of unsubversive subversion present with her; in a way, she's actually even more of a twist villain than her romantic partner is.

When you first see her episode at the start of the series, you think she's just a "Villain of the week" meant to just serve as a threat for Scrooge, Webby and Beakley to bond over.

Her plan in this episode is rather silly, and it makes you underestimate her greatly, though it doesn't take away from how much of a threat she really is. At the end of it, she disappears, but there is room open to the possibility that she isn't dead.

She was a pretty fun One Time Baddie, and it'd be nice to see more of her.

She's absent throughout the entirety of season 2, and you forget about her existence; at this point, if you weren't fully enamored by her first appearance like I was, you probably are just like "Ah! Ok." when you see her again.

Then, she reappears in season 3, where she shows up a lot more often and plays a major role now.

And here... Is when you start to realise something about Heron.

As the story unfolds, it finally hits you: "Wow, this character really has zero redeeming qualities.", which is, rather astonishing, considering every other recurring villain of the show had at least one moment of humanity, but it's okay, since she really isn't the main focus of any other episode anyway.

Then, the show ends; this character's story ends in a very casual manner, but it's fine, since she was just a side villain, and it was a pretty good conclusion to her arc anyway, so you aren't bothered by the suddenness of it all.

But, as you sit back... and think about the show again... you come to realise that all of the bad events that happened throughout the show are kinda her fault too.

The twist with Heron is not that she's evil or a villain, the twist is that she is pure evil and tied with her boss for the main villain of the show.

And when I say that she's pure evil, I mean that she's really evil for the sake of being evil in the purest form of its meaning, as in that's the only reason behind her actions.

This may surprise you, but there are actually very few pure evil villains whose main motivation is doing bad: Big Jack Horner wants all the magic in the world. Chancellor Palpatine wants to become Emperor. They both fundamentally want UNLIMITED POWAA, but unlimited power is still a different motivation from evil for the sake of being evil.

But Heron, really seems to be doing what she's doing just to do evil; she doesn't even care about her squad's objectives, she just views them as a way to inflict as much damage as possible.

And that's what makes Black Heron so cool: it's extremely hard to make this type of motivation for villains work, but Heron makes it function effortlessly; I'd like to go more in depth on why that's the case, but I think I've made this section lengthy enough.

But what really pushes Heron over the edge into truly amazing villain territory is that she technically won in the end.

She got what she wanted.

Her main objective was to make someone snap and embrace their worst self, and that's exactly what she did.

How villainous.....

Also, her and her partner? Actually Disney's greatest villain power couple, screw concept Magnifico and Amaya, unless Shego X Drakken is that good, this is the only villainous duo I'll ever truly need in my life.

Number 8: Mane Girl (MARVEL) (Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur)

BEHOLD!

You thought my tastes weren't weird enough yet?

Check this out!

Mane is... a very peculiar addition to the Marvel/Disney series of Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur, and the main antagonist of one episode.

Mane is, quite frankly, one of the most creative takes on an arch nemesis I've ever seen, and is tied with Dark Vlad from Wakfu for favourite one-shot villain ever.

This was the show's most talked about episode before season 2 came along, and for good reasons: this episode tackles the prejudice that African Americans face for the way their hairs look.

Without talking too much about the episode itself (there's already plenty of great analyses on YouTube), where the episode truly shines for me is with the inclusion of Mane as a living representation of Lunella's self hatred coming to life in order to harm her.

I don't know how many fans of Mane there are out there or if she's secretly the star of a hidden cult inside the fanbase, but for me, this is my favourite character in the show and I'm so obsessed with her.

In fact, I was even thinking of making her my new profile picture on this site too, since I already use her for my Reddit and YouTube accounts, so that I could officially brand her as my version of Tamatoa.

First of all: the animators did a stellar job bringing this delightful mass of strings to life; her body fluition and every single face she makes is immediately iconic, WHERE ARE MY MANE MEMES AT.

Second things second, Mane is the textbook definition of a dumb idea executed perfectly, which is my favourite type of idea: somehow, she manages to be the most personal threat Moon Girl ever faces in the first season despite having almost zero buildup and barely being on screen for more than 5 minutes; it may even be a stretch to call her Lunella's nemesis since she's not very evil (despite attempting to take over the town), but when you think about it, Mane is just her version of Venom, aka an antagonist accidentally created by the hero due to a flaw in their character.

I truly believe Mane could have been the main villain for an extended arc in the show, as the way she executes her schemes in this episode almost make her look like an S tier super villain, and the action scene at the end of the episode is super epic and also my favourite fight scene of the whole season: the music, the animation and the story all come together to create such an impeccable work of cinema, brilliantly showcasing the interior struggle that Lunella has to go through in order to overcome herself.

I'd honestly be down to doing a 1 hour long analysis of Mane on YouTube if someone asked me; I doubt I'd ever make it for real, due to me already struggling as much as I do to realise my ideas, but I wouldn't be OPPOSED to it.

I wouldn't say this is my favourite episode of the show, but it's definitely the one that impacted me the most, and honestly, this description perfectly fits how I feel about Mane herself.

I don't even think you need to be of colour to love it as much as I do: the themes of self hatred and body shaming make it universal to pretty much every one who wants to check out the show.

Oh, and with that said, check out the show, but not on Disney plus, don't support the company, go on Streaming Community or any other pirate site that you can find.

If you are a fan of Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, Amphibia, The Owl House, The Ghost And Molly McGee, or any of the other great Disney Channel shows, you should like this one too; just be aware that this may be the last truly great Disney animated series before Corporate shuts down the Creative side of things on there too.

Number 7: Jacqueline de Bellefort (Death On The Nile)

While I was a big fan of the 2022 Death On The Nile movie when I first saw it, after reading it, the book is just so much better.

Reading the book after watching the movie is like looking at the moon while the sun is rising: you just can't see the moon anymore.

Though much like our titular couple, that love for the movie is still right there, it's just hidden under the sun's light.

Back to the point, do you wanna know what is the main highlight of both the book and the movie alike?

But why?!? It's Her of course! The mad lad herself:

Jacqueline de Bellefort!

I just love Jackie so much, my brain immediately activates whenever she is just mentioned, she's one of those characters who immediately jumps at you when they pop up.

She's the reason why I still like the movie despite all of its flaws, and why I picked up the book in the first place.

She's just so energetic; especially in the book, you can feel that this is not a character, but a real, living person, which is exactly the feeling that Agatha wanted to give when writing Jacqueline.

What makes Jacqueline better than most other murder mystery twist villains, is one writing decision from Agatha that differentiates her from her peers:

She's insane and antagonistic from the get go.

The very first piece of description that we get on her in the book is that she pierced a guy's hand with a pen because he was bullying a dog and refused to stop.

The contrast between her personality in the prologue and the rest of the story is quite literally night and day, and the lengths that she is willing to go to scare the woman that stole everything from her are quite impressive, if for entirely different reasons.

The insanity makes her so entertaining, that she kind of has to be the villain, otherwise all of that chaotic energy would be wasted, but that's fine, since the twist with Jackie is not that she's the murderer, but that she had a different motivation from the start.

But what is more manic than anything else about Jacqueline is the way she talks, her speech pattern is so erratic that it always keeps you on the edge of your seat; all of Jackie's lines and facial expressions both in the movie and the book are so interesting, they do a great job at making you wonder what the character is feeling at all times and if they are genuine.

Speaking of expressions, I must give my greatest compliments to Emma Mackey for her performance as the character; it's sad to say, but I truly believe that if the movie wasn't so centered on Poirot and she had more screen time, this would have definitely been her performance of a lifetime, the one that immortalises her.

I unfortunately haven't seen the Poirot or 1978 renditions of Death On The Nile and their respective takes on Jacqueline de Bellefort, but I'll still give a shout-out to Emma Griffiths Malin and Mia Farrow performances as the character in case they are someone's favourites.

I highly recommend reading Death On The Nile to anyone who's willing to sit through a detective story.

The movie, despite not being quite as good, can still give you a fun time in my opinion, and Jackie's existence and impact in it definitely enhances the viewing experience of the third one.

Before reading the book, I feared that Jacques (movie) was a rather simple character and not-that-good of a villain, just someone I saw too much into; but after ending the book, I'm extremely confident in saying that Jacqueline de Bellefort is a terribly overlooked character, and one who should definitely be talked about more for the great villain that she is.

Number 6: Julith (Dofus)

Skip this part in purple if you find it boring.

And here, we arrive at the character who's solely responsible for restructuring this top 10 into a top 30, because that's exactly what happened:

Originally, I already had written down all of the top 10 villains that I loved before watching the Dofus and Totò Sapore movies, and while Vesuvia was shockingly great but not enough for me to consider her one of my favourites, Julith, as many other villains from the Wakfu franchise, completely blew it out of the park for me, and therefore, I knew that I had to rewrite this list in order to include her.

The problem was that Halojack, who was previously at number 10 before I moved everyone down a spot to make space for Julith, is a character that's too important for me to disregard as just an honourable mention, therefore, I expanded this project into a top 20.

And then... I also really wanted to talk about Gothel, and at that point the blame is on me for overworking myself (I blame the Other Mother though. Stupid spider b###h).

Julith, titled "The Butcher Of Brakmar", is the main antagonist of the movie Dofus - Livre 1: Julith (2015), based on the animated series Dofus: The Treasures of Kerubim, taking place in the Krosmoz, an extended universe created by the French company Ankama that also includes the likes of Wakfu and other projects.

This franchise (the "Wakfu" franchise, just so we can all have an easy point of reference) is notorious among the fans for almost consistently writing great tragic antagonists, the best of which dunk all over the competition due to the amazing execution of their concepts, and Julith is not an exception to the rule.

While Julith is not my favourite villain in the Krosmoz, I must admit, I'm seriously astounished by how much complicated and multilayered she is with her limited screentime;

By comparison, the main villains of the first and second season of Wakfu are just as much complicated as Julith is, with the main difference being that the formers had multiple episodes and a lot of extra scenes in order to develop, while Julith only has a two hour long movie in which she's not on screen for even half of it, and yet somehow, the movie still manages to convey just how complicated and faceted she is while still making it totally believable at the same time:

Julith is a truly complicated character,

She's a caring woman, a wrathful villain, a heartbroken wife, an ex-warlord, an innocent victim, a cold blooded terrorist, and a mother, all at once.

Our perception of who she is changes constantly throughout the story's runtime as more information and backstory is revealed about her, and the writing does a great job at adding up her new layers with her previous scenes without contradicting or downplaying just how awful the actions that she took were.

Julith's fashion sense is immaculate: this screenshot doesn't do justice to how beautiful she is, her cape is so multitasking it's insane.

Despite falling short of my top 5 by one spot, I admittedly think that, out of all the remaining villains, Julith is the most consistent when it comes to the quality per quantity ratio.

All of the next villains have some very good appearances/portrayals mixed with some poorly written ones: Number 5 has different writers handling her in the comics, thus, she ends up getting some less than stellar moments as a result; Number 4 has some weak moments here and there; Number 3 already had some people second-guessing her legitimate quality before a certain story arc in which she was brought back in stained her legacy forever; Number 2 is........ Number 2, and Number 1 has many different interpretations of various levels of quality, both good and bad.

Julith has no major problems or noticeable writing hiccups: she only has two appearances, the first one in the Dofus movie and the second one in the Wakfu manga, and she's a well written character in both instances (jury is still out on the manga, as it has yet to finish as of now).

She has a very simple but incredibly memorable design (as shown by the fact that she won the Tumblr Krosmoz sexy woman event), an incredibly inspired power set, a rich story with deep themes, and a huge impact on the life of two of the main characters.

I also think that her movie is the best way to get into the Wakfu franchise, as, despite the fact that I largely prefer that TV show over this movie, a common problem for people who want to get into the franchise is the massive amount of filler episodes present in the first season.

The best way to watch the movie is to write f2movies on your browser's research tag, click the link of the green F inside a black square, and write the name on the movie on the research engine of the site.

I HIGHLY recommend watching at least the first two seasons of Wakfu; this franchise has, at least in my opinion, one of the best rogue's galleries in all of fiction, and the very best villains of this bunch are in my opinion some of the greatest of all time.

Number 5: Azula (Avatar The Last Airbender)

When it comes specifically to the female category of these types of ranking, I feel like a lot of people would agree that there isn't a single more picked up candidate than Azula from Avatar The Last Airbender.

With Azula, here, we're talking about the literal poster child for well written, complex female antagonists.

And with that said, I'm just gonna come out and say it: I'm kinda disappointed.

When I first heard that Azula was an evil teenager, I, you know, actually expected her to be really fricking EVIL, or at least on par with Hama; like, an actual psychopath who takes pleasure in causing pain.

Not just the most accurate portrayal of a child soldier I have ever seen.

There's not a single action that Azula makes throughout ATLA that I couldn't see any other Fire Nation general doing.

Even locking up her two best friends and attempting to kill her own brother are things that I could easily see Zhao pulling off.

I know that this makes me sound like an Azula apologist, but can you blame me?

Like yes, Azula is pretty evil, but considering how much some fans like to parade around this aspect of her character, and the fact that Azula is one of the most popular female villains of this century, I was rightfully, you know, expecting more "Evil".

Is this what the golden standard for what an irredeemable evil child looks like?

Pathetic.

Now, let's set aside all of the years of misconceptions that I've heard before actually sitting down and watching not blue Avatar for the very first time in my life;

With all of that said, is Azula actually overrated and is she not as good as she's made up to be?

No.

Not at all.

I came into Avatar as someone who had spent years consuming analysis and video essays for the show despite having never watched it, I already knew what to expect from Azula, including most of her story beats.

And yet that alone could not have prepared me for the astronomical levels of quality that I was about to witness.

This list was always going to be entirely subjective, it was never even a question, but if there is an opinion that I want to express and pass off as a fact, then I'd say that until someone in the upcoming 75 years rises up to the challenge, Azula is THE female villain of the twenty first century.

I don't think any other character quite reaches the same level of iconic that she has, and even if you don't know who Azula is, I still stand by this statement.

I'm not sure what I can say about Azula that hasn't been said already in one of dozens upon dozens of video essays; all of her scenes are just that brilliant and well constructed.

I love The Beach, like anybody else does, and I find her introduction scene extremely memorable.

I guess the best thing I can do is point you to some of those videos, so that they may gush over Azula for me.

Sage's Rain

Rockotar

Hello Future Me

But despite all this praise, one may ask: "Why is she only number 5? Doesn't she deserve number 1 or 2?", and to them I say, one thing that I didn't mention during the number 5 segment of my male villain list (because I was too busy writing poetry and fangirling over him) is that the character I was talking about there had been my favourite male villain of all time for 10 years.

Let me say that again: 10 YEARS.

If I had watched Avatar when it was intended to and not relatively recently, Azula would have been my favourite female villain ever for a comparable period of time.

But alas, with the passage of time, came new baddies or I (re/)discovered some old ones that altered my brain chemistry more than Azula did, so, just like HIM, she fell off in autisticability.

With that said, even when contrasted with Julith, if I tried to make this list more objective, Azula would have definitely been number one or two, as she has by far the best and most consistent writing out of any character present here, with really only the Other Mother and Jobu Tupaki competing in that regard, but even then, they don't have to keep it up for two seasons of TV show like she has to.

She really could be summed up with perfection... if she hadn't massive problems in the comics that I'll be briefly touching upon.

Yeah, this is what I was talking about when I said that Julith was the most consistent character left.

I would like to give my two cents to the conversation, but I think that would be an annoying side tangent, so instead, I encourage you to check out some comics discussions on your own free time.

TLDR: Azula is the goat-bear and go watch Avatar, but the one with Asians.

Also stay AwAy from the comics.

Number 4: Magica De Spell (Duckverse)

(I know that the image on the left belongs to the old DuckTales TV show, but I never saw it, so with that image I'm actually referring to comic book Magica, and not her 90s counterpart)

I remember when I was little Magica De Spell was my favourite villain ever: seeing an Italian sorceress being the number one archenemy of a famous Disney character filled me with so much pride; Flintheart Glomgold doesn't exist in Italian comics, we have Rockerduck in his place, and although I loved Rockerduck just as much as Magica and wish he got represented better in the Reboot, I can't deny that Amelia Che Ammalia (that's her Italian name) had always been my favourite DuckTales villain.

Growing up though, I unfortunately lost touch with the comics and their characters, and so Magica became a forgotten memory, a relic of the past, a lost artifact of an era now gone, waiting to be undug from her prison of dirt.

... And that's exactly what the Reboot did for me.

Hearing Magica speak in the Italian dub was the best moment of my entire life: no offense to Catherine Tate, she gave her best, but those who haven't or cannot watch the Italian dub of DuckTales 2017 don't know what they are missing; the Italian accent provided by Ludovica Modugno is just immaculate, and it makes the character 100 times more hysterical than she already is.

In general it's just great seeing the impact of Duck comics on our country, where characters like Fethry and Rockerduck are much more popular than they are anywhere else.

However, I'd be lying if I said that the Reboot version of Magica De Spell was perfect.

I think there's a big tone issue with DT17 Magica, the show after the first season seems intended to fit her in a "Villain of the week" archetype, probably because that's what she was in the comics, but it undermines its efforts to do so because the show writers keep playing up the "realistic portrayal of an abuser" angle that they introduced with this version of the character, making it sometimes hard for me to take her with the levity that I'm probably expected to.

I also have some grievances with the niece OC herself; despite Lena being in my top 5 favourite Duckverse characters, I don't like how the two get glued together even after the season 1 finale, it feels demeaning to both Lena and Magica alike, I thought it was fine in Friendship Is Magic and Nightmare On Killmotor Hill, but at Phantom And The Sorceress is when I draw the line.

Magica's best post season 1 episode is the one where Lena's absent and she teams up with the other villains, as it removes the tonal problems that she had with the "realistic portrayal of an abuser" angle and treats her with the level of respect befitting of her character, even if at this point in the story she lost all of her powers.

That said, the thing that really sours my opinion of DT17 Magica, is her onscreen relationship with Scrooge McDuck, or lack thereof, which ultimately leads to Magica lacking some depth that her comic book counterpart has.

You see, in the comics, Scrooge's and Magica's dynamic is far more intense and complicated, because, although Magica is the villain, most of the time, Scrooge goes to way further extremes than her, making him not exactly a paradigm of goodness.

I could go on and on about the way their rivalry is done in the comics; just so you know, the Number 1 dime there honestly feels like a character of its own, similar to the Lost Arc in the Indiana Jones movies, it's this mysterious embodiment of Scrooge's and Magica's obsessions, driving them against each other, and in return towards insanity, though at least Scrooge has his family to distract him from time to time, Magica, instead, has nothing else to do except try to steal this golden coin over and over again.

The relationship between these two is so interesting, that's why I'm so upset.

Anyway, most of you may be asking why I'm bashing on Reboot Magica so much when I apparently like her more than Azula, and the reason is, in other aspects, 2017 Magica is peak.

The Shadow War 2 parter is amazing, that goes without saying, and some sequences where the character is in centre space go really hard.

I don't think neither comic book nor show Magica are better than Azula on their own, but together, they make for a much more complete package.

Comic book Magica is the much more compelling and nuanced character, while DT17 Magica has some of the character's best moments in history, so together they balance each other out.

Also, Magica gets one extra point for being Italian, because we love bias in this house.

Before I move on to the final three characters, one final warning: I'm going to spoil the s##t out of these last ones, especially number 3 and 1, so in case you don't really know the characters that I'm going to be talking about, I suggest you to maybe check out the series in question by yourself before reading this, or if you need an incentive, then look them up once you're done with this post.

Actually, I encourage you to look up every single character mentioned in these three posts, because I genuinely believe all of these stories deserve to have more people take a closer look at them, even the ones that I've barely talked about or that I've randomly name-dropped.

Finally, some last minute honourable mentions:

Ambessa Medarda (Arcane): I'm going to keep it brief with Arcane spoilers, but if I were to re-do this top, I would have put her at number 30; also I would remove Jinx from the honourable mentions since I thought that she was going to fall deeper into her villainy during season 2, instead, her character went into a direction that I didn't expect.

Also, shout-out to my silly little mew Maddie, she's so worthless yet so funny at the same time, she is as close to the primal definition of "serve cunt and die" as a character can possibly get; I guess this is kind of a major spoiler, but honestly, it's better if you go into Arcane season 2 with zero expectations for Maddie whatsoever, trust me, it's for the better.

Agatha Prenderghast (ParaNorman): Very recently, I've rewatched my favourite Laika movie ParaNorman, and this time around, I've realised something about it that I always knew on a subconscious level, but I hadn't quite realised yet: the villain kind of slays.

The movie honestly wouldn't be a masterpiece without her; she's such a well constructed character and the animation of her final form was the thing that I remembered the most about the movie for good reasons.

Dare I say it: Aggie's vengeful form is the peak of stop motion animation, and probably one of the best animated characters I have ever seen; maybe even the best, to be completely honest.

I'd put her into the honourable mentions: I don't have very clear thoughts on her, but she's very cool.

Honestly, just go and watch ParaNorman. I'm not even going to make a sales pitch for it, the movie is ten times better if you go in completely blind.

It's a masterpiece, and even if you end up disagreeing with this statement, I'm still sure the movie's heartfelt message is going to stick with you for a while.

Princess Audrey (Descendants 3): So, back in October, since I had some free time in my hands, I decided to marathon all three of the Descendants movies one after the other, which meant that was the first time I ever saw the third DE, as I had watched the first two back when they released; imagine my shock, while watching the movie, in realising that the song from that Miraculous animatic that I kept replaying over and over again actually came from here; I was like "Wait, is this the movie where that song's from?!?"

Anyway, Audrey as a character is closely tied with Harry for my favourite in the series; while watching the second movie after the first, I straight up forgot she existed, which made it even funnier when she became the main villain of the third one.

She's a character whose traits seem intentionally designed to garner my attention: spoiled, bratty teenage girl? Mean cheerleader? Forgettable background character turned main villain? Check, check.

Unfortunately, she's not as well written as the villains of the first two Descendants movies, but much like Kai from KFP3, if there's one thing that I can definitely give Audrey credit for, is that she is definitely the biggest threat that our protagonists have ever faced throughout their journey.

So yeah, she's cool, very stylish, and I'm such a sucker for wasted potential that I can't help myself from putting her at number 24 if I were ever to re-do this list.

And... yeah, that's enough. I need to talk about what carries Audrey so high.

Queen of Mean... Is a completely different experience.

When it comes up at the beginning of the story, it feels like you are watching an entirely different movie all of a sudden. Not because the music style has changed dramatically like in Evil Like Me, no, this is still a Pop song, but because of the story that it tries to tell and dark themes it goes into.

This song, gives me the same vibes, as BIGGERING, and HELLFIRE. (except way toned down, let's just say this is baby's first fall from grace villain song)

As if the jumpscare of learning this song comes from this franchise wasn't enough, this song being in the movie and coming out of nowhere gave me massive tonal whiplash, of the best kind though.

I really hope somebody has made an in length analysis of this song, because I'm this close to making one by myself.

Sofia Gigante (The Penguin): So, ever since the Penguin's episodes were beginning to air, I started to develop feelings for Sofia, but I never allowed them to blossom because I was afraid she was going to be a disappointment.

She never disappointed.

As you can imagine, I have so many thoughts about Sofia, I'm probably going to be rewatching the show during Christmas to solidify my opinions on her, but for now... I'd say she's my new number 8.

All in all, probably one of the best modern female antagonists.

Also I guess now is the perfect time to reveal that I've never watched Trolls 3 or Hazbin Hotel, so no, Velvet (Trolls 3) and Velvet (Hazbin Hotel) were never candidates for the list for this, and this reason alone.

As to why I'm revealing all of this now instead of establishing it in the intro segment of part 1, well...

It's entirely because of how they are named.

So, because I've been hearing the songs of Trolls 3 more times than I can remember, and because Velvet (HH) is inadvertly responsible for the names that I use online (it's a weird story), I thought that I'd pay tribute to both of them by putting the link to their songs down here, with my respective favourite cover for each.

Mount Rageous (original scene)

Mount Rageous (annapantsu)

Respectless (original scene)

Respectless (literal version)

And yeah, the Fairy Godmother from Shrek 2 and Queen Grimilde from Snowhite are not here because I don't care enough about them, in case you were curious.

Number 3

Harumi Jade (LEGO Ninjago)

Harumi IS gaslight gatekeep girlbossery personified.

You don't know what being a hater means until you've finally met Harumi.

For the longest time, I was fine with Azula discourse describing her as an evil teenager.

Then I sat down and watched the entirety of the Oni Trilogy in a short amount of time, and going back to the Azula discourse, all I could think was: you think Azula is an evil teenager?

LOOK UP HARUMI! THIS IS AN EVIL TEENAGER.

In case you don't know, Harumi Jade is a character first introduced into the eighth season of LEGO Ninjago, "Sons of Garmadon"

...

AND SHE'S MENTALLY DERANGED.

While I think that Julith, Azula and even Magica are on average written much better than her; to me at least, the highs of Harumi's are not only some of the biggest highs of female villainy, but also some of the greatest peaks of antagonism in general.

Like, Harumi doesn't blow up a planet, she doesn't conquer a dimension, she doesn't succeed nor try to reshape the entire multiverse in her image, but the ludicrous amount of batsh#t insane stuff that she pulls off despite literally being an absolutely normal 17 year old with no powers is such that it makes all of these higher than life baddies look uncreative by comparison.

And I really need to highlight this: Harumi does some of the most absurdly cruel s##t I have ever seen a villain do in a children's cartoon, I swear to god her laundry list would make many Batman villains do a double take, including THE Joker.

To give you just an idea on who we are dealing with, her very first major crime on-screen, after organising an heist in the intro of the episode and starting a cult/terrorist organisation/biker gang off screen, is to steal another priceless artifact, while blowing up the royal palace with at least twenty guards still inside it, and to burn her adoptive parents, the Emperor and Empress of Ninjago, ALIVE, meaning that in one fell swoop, HARUMI COMMITS:

Murder

Grand Larceny

Arson

Treason

Terrorism

Patricide

Matricide

Regicide

And More,

Right after being introduced, IN THE VERY FIRST EPISODE OF THE SEASON.

And while she arguably never hits the same heights of scale x absurd cruelty ever again (emphasis on "ARGUABLY"), she somehow still gets worse right after that.

Do you know Lord Garmadon?

Father of Lloyd Garmadon, one of the most important characters in the series?

Back in season 4, after/while completing his redemption arc, he sacrificed himself in order to save Ninjago and died, going to the Departed Realm and forever marking himself as a hero for doing so.

Well, fast forward to some time later and skipping over a lot of her atrocities, Harumi resurrects Lord Garmadon, and uses him as a puppet to physically and psychologically torture his son with.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, once she has fulfilled her goals and taken over Ninjago city, to consolidate her position of power, she manipulates Garmadon into adopting her; meaning that she and Lloyd have now unofficially become siblings, and she uses this newfound family dynamic with Lloyd to torture him even further, saying that HIS father prefers her, more than he prefers him, and earlier into the episode, before revealing this information, SHE WAS STILL FLIRTING WITH LLOYD, TO GASLIGHT HIM INTO HARMING HIMSELF EVEN FURTHER.

SHE IS SUCH A TERRIBLE PERSON!!!!!!!!!

DID I MENTION THAT SHE'S 16/17?

She also fricking wins in the end, because she's just that much of a girl boss.

There's no other character in this list who I can point to for the line: "She did everything wrong".

Don't get me wrong, Harumi is a very complex and tragic character too; I know that I've been painting her as some unredeemable monster, but she's also quite sympathetic.

It's just that, unlike with characters such as Azula or number 2, to me, personally, the most interesting thing about Harumi is that, despite having way more support and chances to grow than these other characters, that still didn't stop her from becoming a complete and utter monster.

This girl's ability to dodge every single safety net given to her is unmatched; it'd be one thing if she was given an olive branch once or twice, but the story and characters give her chances upon chances to scram, AND SHE STILL CHOOSES EVIL.

However, it'd be wrong to say that Harumi is a perfect character without any flaws.

I'm not going to say them, I just hope to have hooked someone into watching the show for themselves, but they are there, even if they can be explained with some leaps in logic.

... But I think it's time to finally mention Crystallized.

You see, season 16 of Ninjago, named Crystallized, is notorious amongst fans to be... "Not that great".

Some of the characters, unfortunately for the viewers, have been mishandled, and Harumi, as you can imagine, is one of the characters to end up on the bad side of the writing coin.

This season damages Harumi.

..... Which is why I never watched it!

Listen, I went very in deep when making this list, I bought the book of Death On The Nile just to see if it improved my opinions of Jackie, but LEGO Ninjago is not a franchise that I'm as closely attached to as Wakfu, Kung Fu Panda, and DuckTales;

I'm pretty well informed about the lore, I remember season 1, 4 and 5 pretty well, I saw some pieces of season 2, 3 and 7, and I watched season 6, 8, 9, 10 and 15 in full, and I constantly keep up with Dragon Rising news, but that's about it.

I only watched the colloquially good stuff, and I don't go out of my way to check out the rest, so when I tell you that season 16 of Ninjago fumbled Harumi badly take it with a grain of salt.

I saw some people that I trust saying Harumi was good, and I decided to check her out to see if the voices were true. She delivered, but I also heard about her mishandling in season 16, and I peaced out from watching that.

With stuff such as Ralph Breaks The Internet, Kung Fu Panda 4, The Incredibles 2 eccetera coming out often in the last couple of years, I started to get increasingly more burned out by follow-up to stories that end up subtracting some of the impact from their original tale;

I think Harumi is an extremely cool character and I really didn't want to ruin her for me, and since LEGO Ninjago isn't an hyper fixation of mine, I'll hopefully never have to sit through Crystallized and instead I'll skip directly to her iteration in DR if she ever makes a comeback in that (only if she's good though, however, with the current quality of DR, I'm sure the writers would handle her just fine if they were to use her).

If you know a lot about Ninjago lore and have seen the most important story beats of the previous seasons, I'd honestly recommend giving season 8 a try, though I'd probably ask a long time Ninjago fan what they think of it, as the emotional impact of the Oni Trilogy is dependent on how many seasons of Ninjago you consume I'm afraid, cause you really need to get attached to the characters in order for the story to hit you quite as hard, noticeably Lloyd and Garmadon in the particular case of Harumi.

Also, now that I've done the Harumi entry, I guess now it's the right time for me to reveal that no, unfortunately I haven't seen LEGO Monkey Kid, sorry Lady Bone Demon fans, she's cool, but I haven't experienced her in the show.

By the way, LEGO writers are surprisingly good at writing female villains.

Obviously, Harumi and Lady Bone Demon are the two obvious standouts (at least to me) for different reasons, but there are some other solid ones there too (I never saw the show, but I saw a compilation of Lady Bone Demon scenes, and I'm already sold on the character hype).

I've already talked about Brainfreezer in number 30, but then there's Naare from LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, Crooler from LEGO Chima, the Spider Queen, many versions of LEGO Harley Quinn, the spectacle of a character that is Queen Whateverwannabe but also smaller characters like Ultra Violet....

Oh right.

Aspheera is there too.

REVENGE!!!!!!

Number 2:

Doll (Murder Drones)

(I chose this picture because loving this character is like staring at a loading screen waiting for something cool to happen, except it's just a picture and it's never gonna change).

If you've seen my male villains list, you know that number 2 is the spot that I reserve for the "I really wish I could put this entry as my number 1, but I can't, because objectively and subjectively, they don't deserve it" entry.

I don't care: Love is Love, Obsession is Hyper Fixation, and True Love is Pure, Unfiltered, Rage and Hatred when it isn't reciprocated.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show or this blog, Doll is a side character in the indie series Murder Drones, made by Glitch, who, depending on your personal view point, may be considered the show's side antagonist.

Simply put, there hasn't been a character who has impacted my personal life quite as much as Doll.

The very existence of this blog hinges on her and the impact she had on me, and if even sometimes I despise how much I'm still mourning her wasted potential and fumbled (insert every single aspect about the character that you want here), I can't help but still think about her all the time.

I don't know what else to say that I haven't already said through the massive amounts of reblogs and analyses I've made for the character, but I'll try anyway:

I love how much I'm still discovering about Doll; it may just be the messy writing, but my perspective on Doll has changed drastically over time, to the point where the character feels entirely different from how I viewed her a couple of months ago, every single day, I'm discovering something new about her that I never considered before, or I'm revaluating a previous notion that I had about her, she's like a pit with no bottom, a tunnel with no end; she scratches the same hitch that number 11 did for me, that being of a weird yet complex villainess, and I appreciate her even more for it.

And yeah, Russians are cool.

There's no better way to show my love for Doll than to put the link to my so-called "Master guide" of Doll media here, I hope other Doll fans who haven't seen it before can get a kick out of it.

However, it's at this point that I must open an entirely unrelated, yet necessary side tangent.

You see, I assume many people who are going to read this post will use it as a sort of "recommendation guide" for cool shows/movies/games to consume, and they expect the villains placed higher on the list to be more worthy of the hype compared to those who ranked lower.

Now, if you are looking for who I think the objectively best villain in this list is, it's probably Azula. The Other Mother, Jobu Tupaki, GLaDOS and Julith are close seconds for me, but if you preferred either of them over Azula, I wouldn't be surprised. Jacqueline is underrated, and totally worthy of much more hype, but she's not THAT good. You can definitely prefer/not prefer all three versions of Magica over Azula, that's up to you. Number 1... is also up to you, and although Harumi is clearly not on the same level of quality as Azula, Harumi's best moments are so good, that I can imagine them being what puts one over the other in some people's eyes.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to get at, is that I can see arguments to be made for all the aforementioned characters to be the best female villains of all time and people buying it, it's entirely within the realm of possibility.

Doll?

OH, LET'S NOT KID OURSELVES, SHE'S AWFUL.

I'm not joking when I say that what puts Doll so high is sheer hyper fixation alone: this, even more than Halojack, is the reason why the whole top 30 is completely subjective, and should only be viewed as a random person expressing their love for their favourite characters on the internet.

Disregarding the idea that, depending on your interpretation of the character, she's not even a villain, even then, she's not a character to be excited about.

The show hyped her up, accidentally or intentionally, and the pay off was abysmal.

NEVER, watch Murder Drones expecting it to be an amazing show, you will be disappointed; the show, much like Doll, is great at getting you hooked, but much like her, it fails to provide any significant payoff for that initial hook.

Other than that... it's a pretty fun show, give it a watch.

With that said, I still LOVE Doll, and I feel like my attraction to the character is still going to impact many years of my life to come.

And yet, despite all that, there's a character that I still like even more.....

Number 1

Number 101

It's Cruella De Vil, baby! (101 Dalmatians franchise)

You don't understand.

I love Cruella De Vil.

I LOVE HER!!!!

I'm a massive fan of the 101 Dalmatians franchise, which is weird, since it's the only one of my hyper obsessions that I can keep a secret.

I've consumed almost every major piece of 101 Dalmatians media (and by that extent Cruella content) that exists. The only things I have yet to check out are the 90's TV show (which I plan to correct as soon as possible), Disney's Twisted Wonderland, Cruella's Chills book, the tie-in videogames, and those obscure comics.

And as you can all well imagine, the reason for my hyper fixation comes from my deep obsession for this puppy skinning psychopath.

You better believe I've listened to Selena Gomez's cover of Cruella De Vil on the ride back from my birthday.

If you are a female villain, you can have the most well written backstory ever, you can have 100 shades of depth, you can have as many great scenes as you want, but if you can't bring me as much unfiltered joy and weird autism juices as this psychotic fur obsessed maniac, then you clearly aren't worthy of my praise.

Most of the characters that I've covered up to this point had very big ambitions and larger than life goals to go along with it.

Some wanted power; they wished to rule over something, to be obeyed, to subjugate, and would go against the competition in order to achieve that.

Others wanted revenge; those who wronged them, the societies, the individuals, and the world alike needed to feel the full force of their wrath, and if an innocent happens to be in the way and gets hurt, that was his mistake.

Others were just broken, and acted out on it; they tried to fix themselves, or the world around them; their brokenness, source of pain and sorrow, meant that they had to change their current predicament, by any means necessary.

Some others, wanted Nothing, but to impose their view of the world on everybody else.

And most were a combination between all four and more.

Cruella?

She couldn't give a shit about any of that, she just wants to skin some Dalmatian puppies and wear them as a coach. She doesn't have any big dreams of grandeur, weirdly enough she doesn't even care about money: she is perfectly fine in her own little world, living her own little adventures, and trying to make her coach, at any cost necessary.

I'm admittedly someone who likes to complicate classic pure evil villains a lot, explaining why they are actually complex and have a lot of depth; but with Cruella, I actually don't do that.

This is not to say that Cruella doesn't have depth (I would never say such a thing), but I don't feel the need to explore the character in depth to feel comfortable with them in the same way I do with other baddies.

And I really like that; it brings me comfort to have a character that I can enjoy in the same way as anybody else does, as it makes me feel way less alien about my favourite type of characters, and I don't get that a lot.

And I think it's fun for me to also have a villain who I don't need to deepen and just have as a one dimensional unredeemable asshole.

The reason why I almost never talk about Cruella to anybody except people that are close, is because she's a deeply personal character to me, in ways that not many would understand.

I relate to her a lot, in the sense that I can also get invested too much into my silly hyper fixations that I forget about the morality of my own actions.

I know this sentence is going to get me many concerned looks, but it's the truth, it's how I feel, and there's nothing I can do about it.

I don't condone any of her actions though, I just empathize with her more than others since we are so similar.

Anyway, Cruella has such a weird place in mainstream culture, she's super popular but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone other than me who considers her their favourite Disney villain.

She's kinda like The Penguin of Disney villains - and the Joker too, except her movie went into production first, so he's the one who ripped from her and not the opposite - much like the Penguin, every version of Cruella De Vil is different, to the point where the character almost becomes a blank slate for the artist to tell the story they want to tell.

For example, did you know that Cruella was originally meant to be the main villain of the Rescuers Down Under, instead of Madame Medusa? And she was meant to have a jacket of crocodile skin?

And that her book version is quite different from her movie version?

It seems that as early on in the character lifespan, she was always meant to be different, like it was hard coded into her that she was a character bound to be changed, while still remaining the same at her core.

Because, to be completely honest, what's more memorable than Cruella herself is her fashion design.

In that sense, the 101 Dalmatians franchise is much more similar to the Alice In Wonderland one than anything else, where the iconography of the series is more important than the actual canon; that being 40s London, dalmatians, its art and fashion design, the number 101, Cruella De Vil's styled clothing and mannerisms, eccetera.

Speaking of her career, unlike Maleficent's, who peaked early on and then was never quite as good as her very first on screen debut, Cruella's career, in my opinion, only improved after her very first on screen debut, and it's still getting better to this very day.

One day, it could be fun to rank all of the different versions of the character in their own separate list, but for now, here are my opinions on almost every single iteration of Cruella:

One Hundred And One Dalmatians:

Starting off with a controversial opinion, the Cruella De Vil from the original 1961 movie is actually one of my least favourite iterations of the character, which is a bold take, since it's the version who popularized the character in the first place.

While I appreciate the original 60's movie for having some of the most iconic moments in her entire career, I must admit, I feel like she's not as interesting of a character as she is in some of her subsequent portrayals or in her original book version.

More than anything, I appreciate this movie's take on Cruella for being an incredibly solid foundation for the character, and if it didn't exist, then most likely there wouldn't have been all this many talented artists taking their own short at their unique take on the character; art is a very important thematic element throughout the 101 Dalmatians franchise, but it definitely wouldn't have been as recurrent if the 1961 movie didn't exist to establish its presence.

The One hundred and One Dalmatians:

Now, the original book version is about as good as the final movie version, however despite the two portrayals being very different from each other, I think book Cruella is slightly better than her movie counterpart; you see, the way that I would describe how book Cruella differs from her movie counterpart is that book Cruella feels like a character written by Tim Burton;

She is very similar to the leader of the witches in Roal Dahl's Witches, almost described as a supernatural force and has a lot of unique lore details that are absent from the movie, like the fact that she only eats food with pepper in it, including ice cream, and the fact that her skin tastes like salt, hence why the dogs cannot bite her; the only thing holding book Cruella back is that she doesn't have that iconic and absolutely deranged car chase sequence at the end of the movie, otherwise I'd say that with full confidence that movie Cruella is a downgrade compared to her book counterpart.

But honestly, "downgrade" is an over exaggeration, the movie version is very good in her own right, and just as important as the book, so I'm definitely glad for its existence regardless.

Also shout-out to Cruella's husband in the book, Mr De Vil, since he needs more recognition within the fanbase. He's a character that doesn't exist in any other version of the story, but he's interesting regardless: he's kinda like the protagonist of Helltaker but with none of the wits and muscles, he apparently just summoned Cruella from the depths of hell to be his wife in exchange for his skills and then just allowed her to step all over him.

One hundred and one Dalmatians 2 (Patch's London Adventure):

One of the best direct to DVD Disney sequels, and my personal second favourite after The Lion King 3/2, already this sequel gives an interesting continuation to Cruella's character at the end of the first movie, and that's by making her deal with aftermath of her crimes and introducing the character of Lars, this polkadot artist who has an interesting dynamic with Cruella; the best way I've seen anyone describe their dynamic is that it's as if Gargamella fell in love with someone who loves the colour blue, and I think its a rather accurate description.

Once Upon A Time:

Sympathy for the De Vil is peak television and I won't accept any rebuttal about it. While her time on the show was short (thankfully), Victoria Smurfit ate her role as the character, and from what I've seen, this is definitely the darkest version of the character, being a cold hearted serial killer with a lust for blood and harming others. This version of Cruella is so violent, that is actually one of the very few versions of the character to die, which I don't exactly love, but it's definetely an interesting change of pace.

Once upon a studio:

Cool background cameo. Love the little faces that she makes.

Funko Pop Cruella:

I don't like my Funko Pop Cruella very much. She's too angry, and I feel like they could have used a way better pose for her, like when she smokes the cigar, though I bet Disney is trying to not remind you of that.

LEGO Brickz Head:

I prefer the constructible Cruella figure over the Maleficent one, even if the latter has the foldable horns. It has to do with variety: the bricks you use for Cruella have way more different shapes and colours that help keep the construction process fresh.

Simpsons:

Straight up, Cruella was a last minute change to the episode, since they couldn't use Maleficent for god knows whatever reason and had to redesign all of her scenes. They didn't even bother to change her lines, how is modern Simpsons so stupid!?

Twisted:

10 out of 10 cameo. It's so good that, despite it being a single line of dialogue, I could write an entire essay talking about its huge importance for the overall narrative of Twisted, and its brilliant understanding and use of Cruella. Team Starkid did such an amazing job with this musical, there's so much heart, care, and two Ds poured everywhere. Twisted is an impeccable theatre production, I encourage everyone to at least check it out for free on YouTube. I promise, it's going to be one of the best Disney movies you'll ever see in your life, especially since Disney won't gain a nickel from it.

Disney Mirrorverse:

This game, is a travesty; one that does not deserve to be forgotten by time, but that instead should go down in history as one of the greatest atrocities ever committed by the gaming community.

I played this game, A LOT, in fact, I was a member of the number 1 ranked Italian alliance in the game, and let me tell you, it was a slog.

And yet, it still has a pretty good version of Cruella De Vil... conceptually. I really like her gameplay, and the trick that you could pull off early on by hitting the enemy with a second heavy attack just as the first root effect expired to give them a second root was so satisfying to pull off (I gave it the name of "Coyote Timing")

But what I really LOVE about this version of Cruella is that she does something with the character that I always wanted a Disney property to do: make Cruella a crime lord.

Every new version of Cruella has always been slowly adding mobster features to her, but this is, as far as I'm aware, the very first version of the character that has made the full jump to the role of Kingpin of her respective universe, and just for that alone, I'm glad for this game's existence.

Descendants:

Descendants is great because it's cringe, and it fully embraces it.

This series knows exactly what it is, and isn't ashamed of it in the slightest.

Some context for those who aren't in the know: Descendants is a Disney Channel's original franchise, that kept its cultural relevance thanks to its extremely catchy songs, focused on the offspring of the most popular Disney villains+some other character, who in this universe exist in the same time period and live close to each other.

The franchise takes many creative liberties with the characters that it chooses to adapt, with a very divisive track record of success; however, it then comes as no surprise that a character as suited for drastic changes as Cruella was left mostly unharmed by the transition into a new interpretation of the villainess.

AND YET, despite Cruella being the most fitting character for dramatically different reinterpretations, she's arguably the non-original Descendants character that changed the least out of everybody, because all classic Disney characters, from the Beast to Lady Tremaine, have even a small changes applied to them, but Cruella

It'd also be reprehended to not mention her son Carlos, played by the talented Cameron Boyce, who unfortunately died sometime ago during the production of the third movie. My condolences to the family.

Carlos is my second favourite OC relative of Cruella, though from what I've seen of Cruella's niece in the 90s animated series, I doubt he'd remain as such if I watched that show; though one thing that at first I didn't like about Carlos in the movies is his relationship with Jane:

On a first look I thought the two didn't have much chemistry because they were too similar, but as the relationship progressed, I realised that wasn't the case and I started buying it more and more, because Jane is that christian household kid who has a massive rebellious phase once she grows, while Carlos is a street rat with a hard past and a soft heart that grows up to become the emotionally stable adult, so him and Jane are actually a pretty decent ship.

Cruella:

Cruella is a complicated case, in that this movie has two different versions of the character simultaneously: Estella and the Baroness, and each of them is great in their own separate ways; Estella is a pretty engaging and complicated protagonist, even if she does suffer from not getting enough backlash by Jasper and Horace for her villainous actions, and the Baroness is a deliciously psychotic antagonist that's more in line to the typical Cruella characterisation than Estella; the scene where she's torturing Estella and she doesn't even recognise who her mother is is hysterical and insane at the same time, truly a deranged woman.

I feel like what really carries this movie for me is the vibe though, this punk rock style is absolutely stunning, and once again, if there's something more immortal than Cruella herself is her aesthetic, and this movie brings that to a whole new other level.

So yeah, I like Cruella, it gets a pass for me.

I don't know what else you expected me to say; it may just be because I have consumed way more Cruella content than the average person and therefore I feel like I know the character better than anyone else, but Cruella De Vil hasn't been the same character for decades, and this being the second most recognizable version of Cruella after the 1961 movie one doesn't ruin her character, especially when 80% of all Cruellas out there are unredeemable b###es;

Evil versions of Cruella still exist and are still going to exist in the future; this movie's popularity and income mean nothing, grow up.

Cruella De Vil (book):

My favourite part was the beinning. One detail that I particularly liked is that they added Cruella's necklace from the book. For those of you who don't know this, in the original Dodie's book, Cruella wore a black skull necklace, that wasn't added to the movie's final design, I enjoyed that it popped up here of all places.

As for the rest... If you think Cruella (2019) is bad, don't read this book, it's even worse, despite me getting some ironic enjoyment out of it.

Cruella's motivation for skinning the Dalmatians here is to make her mother, who has been neglecting and spoiling her since birth, who has manipulated her (Cruella) into giving her (the mom) all of her (Cruella) father's possessions when that's not what he would have wanted, and who's probably responsible for the death of Cruella's husband, proud.

The best part is at the end when the writer reveals to us that apparently, she has been writing the entire story while inside Hell Hall, with Cruella by her side screaming into her ears what to write, and... yeah, the mental picture of that is very funny, especially with all of the implications present in the passage.

Trust me, if this was a Cruella centric post, I could keep going, and Going,

AND GOOOOOOIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGG,

But unfortunately, I need to restrain myself from going overboard.

While all these different interpretations of the character are great and all, there's one version of Cruella De Vil that I wanted to highlight and talk about the most,

The rendition of the character that singlehandedly made me obsess over her and the franchise that she's from, and turned her from a character that I rarely think about to my absolute favourite female villain of all time and one of my life icons;

The version of Cruella De Vil that I'm talking about is none other than the one from 101 Dalmatian Street, the show who Disney desperately tried to put under the rug yet that didn't stop it from gathering a small fanbase around it, with myself as an outskirts member of said fandom.

I had written down a passionate piece about this show's version of Cruella a couple of years ago; I'm not going to translate it, you can do that on your own, because I wrote a new one that you're just about to read, but here's the original one anyway:

Già lo sapevo che avrei posto questa come la mia versione preferita del personaggio, ma ammetto di aver vaccillato un po' quando ho visto la versione di Once Upon a Time, ma l'aver rivisto vari episodi della serie e non solo il finale, mi ha convinto di nuovo che la versione di Crudelia del quale mi sono innamorato per la prima volta è ancora la mia versione preferita; Questo è davvero il culmine della storia del cattivo e della sua follia, nonché una celebrazione; sebbene lei appaia in carne ed ossa un solo episodio, lei riesce a rimanere impressa nella tua mente anche più di altre cose riguardo la storia, e la ragione per cui riesce a installare questo effetto è poiché la serie ha un tono così comico che quando Crudelia fa il suo debutto ruba lo show e lo fa diventare qualcosa di completamente diverso. Una lettera d'amore finale davvero degno del personaggio e di tutto il franchise della "Carica dei 101", e possa questa serie essere un giorno trattata con il giusto rispetto che si merita.

Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatian Street feels like the climax of the character's personal insanity, the show does an amazing job at celebrating the huge impact that the character has had on pop culture by making the first part of the season finale play out almost entirely from her perspective.

But I have a lot to praise even before that:

I love how she was built up all throughout the show as this looming threat, from her shadow appearing every time in the background of the intro song, to the cameos of Hunter and his centric episodes, to the times where Cruella's voice is heard but her physique is not shown, to... JUST THE WAY CHARACTERS TALK AND BEHAVE ABOUT HER, gives out to the viewers the feeling that this character embodies Impending Doom, and that's exactly the last note that the episode right before the series' finale leaves you with.

The first three quarters of the final two episodes of this show are some of the biggest tonal whiplashes any animated property has ever made me experience; Cruella comes suddenly, with a lot of foreshadowing, but oh boy I was not prepared for what would happen next.

I'm not joking when I say that Cruella in these two final episodes feels more like a Slasher villain; she relentlessly tries to break the puppies down, so that she can come inside their house and kill them.

THERE'S ONE SCENE, WHERE THE DALMATIANS ARE DECIDING WHAT TO DO NEXT, AND SHE JUST CREEPILY LAUGHS AS SHE SCRATCHES THE WALL RIGHT NEXT TO THEM, FOR NO OTHER REASON BUT TO TERRORIZE THEM.

It didn't give her any tactical advantage, she gained nothing from doing it, she just did because she wanted to instill fear in their hearts.

I'm not going to reveal much else, since I want to keep some of the surprises a secret for those who got curious, however, there's something that happens in the last episode that I want to talk about:

In the first part of the show's finale, Cruella manages to capture all of the Dalmatian puppies, including the adults; this is the closest she's ever gotten to making the coach of her dreams, so how does she celebrate the news?

BY WALKING UP TO THE PUPPIES' PARENTS, TELLING THEM THAT THEIR FUR IS TOO HARD TO MAKE A COACH OUT OF SO SHE'LL TURN THEM INTO BAGGAGES INSTEAD, AND PROCEEDING TO FORCE THEM, BY LITERALLY PULLING THEM FROM THE EYELASHES, TO WATCH HER SUPER MEGA PUPPY SKINNING MACHINE BOOTING UP, AS IF TO SAY: "OH YEAH, I'M SKINNING YOUR CHILDREN AND WEARING THEM RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME, YOU CAN ONLY WATCH POWERLESS AS I KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND YOUR HEAD STILL BEFORE I KILL YOU TO AND TURN YOU INTO SOME SECONDHAND CONTAINERS FOR MY OTHER ACCESSORIES", AND THEN LAUGHS MANIACALLY.

Inconceivably evil; if these 101 dalmatians were humans - which is probably how they feel to the audience by this point due to how much time the show has spent on several of them anyway - this would have been one of the darkest things a villain has ever done in the history of ever.

And now, it's impossible for me to go on without also mentioning Hunter, Cruella's nephew, who helps her in her schemes (side note: Dalmatian Street came out before the second season of The Owl House, so no, our poor little miao miao hasn't copied anything from that show. If anything, the opposite happened).

Simply put, Hunter is fantastic, and Cruella's treatment of him is exceedingly cruel; ever since he was a child (and he still is a child by the end of the show), Cruella forced Hunter to undergo a very rigid training designed specifically to turn him into the perfect "Hunter", the one who would be bring her the dogs that she was seeking; she made him learn the language of dogs, so that he could manipulate the dalmatians into falling for a very cruel trap meant to optimise the quality of their fur, but then, once he failed and fell into the trap himself, she vocally abused him in a very terrifying manner, even making him cry during their first physical encounter.

That's even worse than what Carlos and the other Hunter have gone through; Cruella straight up treated her nephew as an animal, no different from the actual puppies that she was hunting down, and it's no surprise that he ends the show still being a bit mentally damaged.

If possible, watch the show one episode after the other, as the finale hits harder if you have seen everything from beginning to end.

Nowadays, I definetly enjoy Cruella more as an idea rather than a character, but this iteration still remains one of my favourites.

She is proof that to be a great villain, you don't need to be powerful, complex, or to have great goals;

Sometimes, to be an amazing antagonist, you just need to want something intensely, and be willing to do anything to get it.

[faithlesbian]

buffyangel gender roles transfem angel - when angel gets possessed by that girl ghost in season 3? insane and the guy ghost picks buffy to inhabit beautiful

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SEASON 2 EPISODE 19 I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU EPISODE OF ALL TIME!!!!!

for real this ep is up there among my whole show favourites because of how directly it engages with buffy's self-blame over angel losing his soul through, of all things, the medium of genderswapping ghost possession. this is gonna get Long just to warn you

the way this episode is set up is so so so genius. they could've made it a very simple story about an evil abuser and an innocent victim, but instead they recognised that the situation demanded more than that. real life rarely follows a simple story, and it can often be hard to recognise a relationship for what it is when it doesnt fit that template. buffy finds it very hard to think of herself as a victim, and she blames herself for "killing" the angel that she loved and turning him into the monster he is now, which is why she hates the ghost of this boy as much she does - she fears that she has done something worse than just murder her lover. she could have all her friends and family tell her this wasnt her fault and i dont think she would fully believe them, but through the possession she is told that if it was her fault, if she did kill angel, she would be loved and forgiven anyway.

the role that gender plays in this episode is Crucial. despite setting out to subvert the horror movie blonde cheerleader victim trope, btvs often falls into a pattern of men as monsters and women as victims. in this world, no male character is exempt from seeing women sexually, even gay characters like larry and andrew perform misogynistic sexual degradation of women that's played for laughs. it's just "how all men are". conversely, as evil as women can be on btvs, their sexual violence against men is never taken seriously (see all the times xander is assaulted that just never get addressed). this episode complicates the binary of men as monsters and women as victims as part of its overall complication of these roles by having the final possession play out the way it does. angel, the "man" who is textually a monster, becomes a woman who was a victim of a crime of passion, while still remaining the older person who got into a relationship with a teenager despite knowing it was wrong. buffy, the innocent young girl, becomes an angry murderous boy, while still remaining an emotional teenager making rash choices in the name of love. the disruption of these concrete ideas of monster and victim (and their gendered natures within the show) allows buffy to realise she needs to forgive herself.

obviously this whole plot is doing fascinating things with gender, but the ending stands out to me specifically because of how angel reacts. textually he feels disturbed by the reminder of his humanity and feels the need to go out and do evil vampire things to feel affirmed in his monstrosity, but i also think its interesting how buffy, who often feels robbed of her sense of girlhood by her role as the slayer, isn't perturbed at all by briefly becoming a man. the subversion of gender roles was central in their relationship prior to him losing his soul, with buffy being the strong capable hero, and angel her damsel in distress -- buffy has for the most part reconciled with the perceived masculinity of her strength and doesnt feel that it makes her any less of a girl. angel, on the other hand, who has now had to take on a more masculine role as patriarch of the vampire family (in darla's absence) is freaking out not just because of the reminder of humanity but bc he was briefly literally buffy's girl -- something he wants more than he can let on, soul or no.

[horizon-verizon]

I'm a bit confused as to why some people say Rhaenyra idealized Visenya? Because she wore the same hairstyle and wanted to name her daughter after Visenya? I think Rhaenyra didn’t even know anything about Visenya’s hairstyle, it’s unlikely that she was told about it in the lessons, it was information for the author of asoiaf portraits.

Rhaenyra had no interest in martial arts (at least she didn’t practice it), she loved music, feasts, beautiful dresses and jewelry, courtship and handsome men, she loved being a mother and even though she married Daemon in the valyrian tradition, she still had some respect before the seven on personal level, otherwise she would not have forced her sons to swear solemn oaths upon a copy of The Seven-Pointed Star. It wasn't made for public, but for her peace of mind that they would be in safe. We know that Mysaria drove Rhaenyra crazy, so we can’t say how she felt about dark magic as a child, but I think she wasn't interesed in it anyway, but Visenya, as some said, dabbled in dark sorceries.

I think that she could associate herself in some way with Visenya, since she was the elder sister and she ruled the seven kingdoms almost on a par with her brother and had no less rights than he did (there is a whole huge theory that she actually ran everything, but it is not in english language), and the order of succession from this point was somewhat messy, but not more than that.

*EDITED POST* (1/5/24)

We know that she wore her hair like Visenya through the So Spake Martin site HERE. That is what anon refers to.

To be honest, when I first read F&B and GRRM's description of Rhaneyra and her love for Visenya, I wondered what she found so inspiring, not because Visenya is incapable of being inspiring to anyone, but because I didn't parse out the appeal.

But once you look at the Dance through a feminist lens AND just reread it, it became very obvious to the point that I felt like slapping myself.

A)

Why wouldn't Rhaenyra know about Visenya's braid? Visenya was literally one of the Queens who implemented a whole new institution that the Westerosi monarchy still has today: the Kingsuard.

She conquered parts of Westeros alongside her brother-husband.

She is the one who flew up the Vale (Rhaenyra's mother Aemma's home region, which Rhaenyra's sigil incorporates into her own war banner [look below]) and got Queen Sharra to surrender the Vale.

All of this is recorded as well as all 3 of the conquerors' appearances, which is the simplest and most trustworthy note one can see in a record because it is a basic observation. We do not really have the beginning of the excuse of appearance until later when Baelor I orders the burning of books at the Citadel, two generations after Rhaenyra.

Visenya saw herself as a protector of the Targ legacy/dynasty/family (as Daemon does) and Rhaenyra admires her for that as well as being a woman aware of and unapologetic about her own abilities and "oppositional" womanhood to the Andal ideal of subservient and demure womanhood. That singular purpose is compelling to Rhaenyra and people in the fandom because it is, as I said, unapologetic but also focused and passionate all at the same time. Visenya, ironically, takes on some traits of Andal knighthood that you and I know Rhaenyra admires: the warrior's devotion proven through the warrior's sword. Again, while being a woman (subversive)! She wasn't incompetent in politics, either, despite what people will say about her & Maegor--yes, Aenys was too weak for their needs!

It's an exciting & self-affirming thing to witness when you live in that sort of society.

Plus, Rhaenys dies young and Visenya, who outlives her AND their brother-husband, just gets to do more. There is more material for a young Rhaenyra to explore and find her inspiration/female role model.

It's not about "Oh, she was good with a sword" and finding superficial traits to relate to. Rhaenyra may have been proud, loved to dress up, and showed her status through clothes to assert her status in the face of those trying to reduce it and as just how aristocrats do, was "hyper femme", but her psychosocial development wasn't as simple as some like to think. And these traits and behaviors are not in themselves indicators of frivolity, stupidity, or inherent femininity & womanhood--the last so much as socially coded femininity and womanhood.

In the pool of people who prefer and admire Visenya over her sister Rhaenys, some of them are people who do not feel comfortable with the idea of using any sort of martial skills or violence. They might say to you that if they had been born in a medieval society, they would not want to pick up a sword and fight in battles or become someone's guardswomen/men even if they were able to. Or become a fencer or something. They'd probably think they'd be more scholars or politicians or spiritual/philosophical thinkers, artists, playwrights, or "reformers" if they went back in time.

But they admire Visenya over Rhaenys because Visenya is all of those things PLUS her self-confidence & blatant claim/use of power with no shame or trepidation that they wish they could access or have allowed for them--as Visenya comes from a lineage and culture that is less violent and restrictive against women than Andal culture. OR Visenys embody that spirit they have in themselves but prefer to direct into nonwarrior/militant pursuits.

Even with Valyrian culture/society not being as egalitarian about gender and sexuality as the Rhoynish culture. BUT she also is blatantly the type of person to fully take advantage of this background and live in her own power. She is the fulfillment of autonomous, competent, and powerful womanhood-subsumed-under-personhood.

B)

1.

You: "[...] she still had some respect before the seven on personal level, otherwise she would not have forced her sons to swear solemn oaths upon a copy of The Seven-Pointed Star. It wasn't made for public, but for her peace of mind that they would be in safe."

Even if Rhaenyra was publicly OR sincerely of the Faith as her father was, there is always going to be contention between faith in the Faith and being a Targ for her. All Alicent and other non-Targ women (noble or otherwise) have had since childhood--as a well of knowledge and guide to self-esteem or awareness--is the Faith and its teachings about gender, marriage, violence, motherhood, sexuality, etc.

Simultaneously, all noblewomen/royal women can exhibit more of an intellectual remove from the Faith's ideologies as absolute, sincere "truths" of reality than common-born women, because as noble women, they are more complicit and active in the machinations or politics that their male relatives and spouses lead. Or they advise them.. Or they themselves lead projects, wars, etc either not long after obtaining power or/and learning from thise male relatives' actions or their private observations. (post by mononijikayu) :

it is within the narrative to say that both in the east and in the west, power derives from the familial structure and that women were the leading figures that maintained these close, familial ties—from marriage, blood ties, and even friendships. these structures of close power proximity in early medieval life tell us that women are trusted with the growth of their family’s influence. mothers and wives advising the men around them are lauded because they speak to determine what’s best for the family. it is why we see women like olga of kiev influence her son in terms of policies that allowed religious freedom and goodwill with other christian nations that surrounded the territory of rus to flourish and develop. this was seen as a means to further what rus is and the standing of her own family within the state they governed.

Either way, these witness with their own eyes that their authorities or other adults (parents, older siblings, cousins, etc., even some maesters) understand, shape, and define the contours of power and identity and learn their methods. They'd definitely learn how those with power, or seeking it, use and twist the Faith's teachings for their own use. Thereby disillusioning, revealing, or making them sense of the Faith's teachings AS inventions instead of absolute truths...to some. Women of this class can see religion as a political tool in itself, just as Cersei and Jaehaerys I do. This doesn't mean that many will not continue to believe in the actual religion, though, as with Alicent or Catelyn or Brienne.

Rhaenyra herself has her sons swear by the book before their envoy missions yes. None of this actually means that she was as devoted to the religion as Alysanne or Alicent. Nor does it mean that she didn't see how the institution subtly and unsubtly has in the past, continues to in the present, and will continue to undermine her & her family's overall right to rule in the future. Because again, its teachings are very anti-female rulership, anti-dragons, and at its cultural-historical core, anti-Targ. It is rather her acknowledging & using the Faith's influence in the psychosocial framework of her society & family to inspire her sons to take their mission seriously and follow her directions. If only to compel them to show how well they take oaths/the Faith seriously to any/all who witnessed this swearing for both her sons, her own, & their entire section of the family's reputation. Kill two birds with one stone.

Visenya takes it upon herself to publicly (no sneaking around or attempt at subtlety over a decade or so, like Alicent, which isn't the superior tactic, it's just circumstance & resources) crown her son over her sibling's grandson and consistently vocalize her disapproval of Aenys' actions regarding the Faith, itself and institution that Rhaenyra would have had experienced supplying the rhetoric and rationale for why she shouldn't rule as a woman. There is a certain release of inner tension or stress just seeing & imagining that an admired past family relative also sees & treats the Faith as a threat specifically to them AS WELL AS to the dynasty. See how they dealt with them, learning from them & their successes or mistakes. It's very personal and intimate, this connecting.

2.

The Faith religion--as opposed to the institution, but eh--and a lot of its teachings cannot be fully eradicated w/o eradicating the sociopolitical system of feudalism as they know it because the Andals came and assimilated into FM culture or conquered swathes of "Westerosi" lands way, way before the conquerors actually set their eyes on Westeros. It is inside the psychological/sociopolitical framework of the "Westerosi" society even when they were separate kingdoms, like the proto-English kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria, East Anglia, etc. all sharing a specific religion and various Anglo-Saxon practices and ideals, yet simultaneously warring against each other for years.

The Faith institution--meaning its Septons and its hierarchy & cultural authority--has always been the main antagonizer of the Targs and their rival for dominance over Westerosi culture and society. As I said before, Rhaenyra herself grew up expecting to rule and had always felt she deserved to rule and continue her family's legacy.

In order to rule Westeros, the Targs basically decided to capitulate some. Though they had dragons and won the war, to actually rule a conquered place with many grumbling and possibly vengeful people and expect to maintain a dynasty for many generations, one has to have a stabler base while diminishing as much as possible the use of violence. Again, once one has already used violence and warfare to conquer said regions.

Maegor's battles with the Warrior's Sons and Poor Fellows were too direct an attack against the Faith and were seen as him being tyrannical. He flouted political monogamy and didn't even try to use subtler tactics to destabilize the Faith's/High Septon's word and acclimate the Westerosi public to his marriages + suppress the lesser backlash so he could be safer/freer to marry more than once. Jaehaerys I created a sort of compromise with the Faith through his use of several septons and septas to spread the Doctrine of Exceptionalism after Maegor's death and his own troubles with the Faith. AND by affirming male primogeniture both inside his family and in the public event of the GC of 101. Yet NEITHER of these men thought of ways or thought it worth it to try to think of ways to both destabilize the Faith AND incorporate women into their plans or seek to make their female relatives their partners. Trying to make use of the growingly smaller and smaller window of opportunity the conquerors opened for female leadership by working with their female relatives to gain more agency or ceding power to them to diminish the sense of female unfitness to rule. Rather, they even thought to suppress female leadership and personal agency as much as possible for their own claims.

The problem with that was now the Targs had a much smaller pool of possibly capable candidates for rulership and it encouraged resentment, emotional disconnection, misunderstandings of character or perception, & further abuse--which breeds disunity, internal distrust, and infighting.

How can you sit and think of ways to consolidate power for your house (or do it with full confidence and therefore produce more, innovative ideas) if you know or suspect that you will be ignored sidelined, or abused for doing exactly that? Not every girl/woman can continue to fight and resist such an uphill battle, and really that is what misogyny hopes for, and works toward. If most of what you think/feel from childhood (or what you experience) into adulthood is how your father, brother, sons, etc. wronged you--or if you realize even later in life all this and you contend with them as Rhaena and Alysanne did--then how can you really want to fully think about ways to be an untied front that collaborates together for the better of the entire house/family/unit?

We even see how much better it would have been for ALL women and children if Alysanne had just been as able as Visenya and Rhaenys to pass laws (and have them stick): the water in KL, girls being allowed into the Citadel, the abolishment of the right of first night and women's courts. To exclude and abuse nearly half of your population of the house is actually idiotic and unpragmatic. It comes back to bite eventually because no one/group can take constant oppression for very long, even if it takes a couple of generations (slavery rebellions, and not just in the U.S.). Yes, she manages to get Jaehaerys to agree by persistence...but again, is it really entirely her fault that her brother-husband didn't care about her ideas until she had to force him to listen, or have Septon Barth back her up?!

And Daemon and Viserys no doubt loved each other, but Viserys distrusted his own brother by:

not understanding Daemon's aims when he "acted out", seeing them as just rebellious/threatening to his own authority

thinking he had to please and make those outside of the family and mimicking Jaehaerys' policy of conciliation through his parties; displays of wealth and prosperity (that Alysanne and Jaehaerys are actually responsible for); and sticking his fingers into his ears when true conflict erupted between his family members

While he did confirm her position as the heir to the throne multiple times in the boo AND have Rhaenyra listen in on council meetings as she served as his exclusive cupbearer so she could familiarize herself and learn some ways a ruler can address and organize sociopolitical/economic needs, he also refused to:

stop impregnating Alicent. One boy wasn't enough for man to have AND a worry for Rhaenyra, his own chosen heir?! It's giving Rogar Baratheon and Alyssa Baratheon.

keep Otto out of the council

directly address the anger, entitlement, and plotting Alicent, her kids, and her faction had (and I say he knew that she was plotting at some level bc he himself said that Alicent only wanted Aegon to marry Rhaenyra so Aegon could be closer to having the throne)

not marry Rhaenyra off to a gay man instead of vowing to have her children with someone else marry a Velaryon or Velaryon scion

actually, make use of his brother and what he's capable of (that protectiveness he displayed at the GC), and marry him to his daughter to both make Daemon even more devoted to Rhaneyra's cause--bc if you truly think that he would undermine her or yourself, what better way to reduce that than by marrying her to him when you decide she is marriageable--AND working towards reinforcing her authority over his own before you die?! If you/he actually thought Daemons' actions were so rebellious instead of coming from feelings of disrespect?

ETC.

The point is that between brothers/two men we see how a refusal to listen to another in the family can affect a family. How much more when one of the parties is an abused or sidelined woman? And generation after generation who themselves are reading the long history of this fact as Dany has her entire Targ legacy back in Essos?! How does that affect a young Targ girl-older woman, to internalize the whittling of their agency & to not be able to dream bigger for themselves other than select roles of mother-wife-dowager?

C)

You: "We know that Mysaria drove Rhaenyra crazy, so we can’t say how she felt about dark magic as a child, but I think she wasn't interesed in it anyway, but Visenya, as some said, dabbled in dark sorceries."

Mysaria didn't drive Rhaenyra into her entire spiel of "madness"--which was not really "madness" but grief, elitism, and paranoia making her default to extreme self-defense. Rhaenyra had no known or recorded delusions or hallucinations and she was fully aware of her surroundings, she didn't perform absurd displays of cruelty. (If there were hallucinations like with Aerys--plus with how she is a woman and this text seeks to undermine her for it--they definitely would have found evidence of her going through that and emphasized or exaggerated it to make a point.)

Later-Rhaenyra is still not on par with Aerys II, who was actually driven slowly so mad from paranoia that he wanted to use wildfyre to destroy KL, had elaborate executions to mutilate people or drew out their pain and humiliated them before death with and without said substance, wasn't fully aware of how others perceived him and his appearance, was so out of it that he let his nails & hair grow too long, etc.

Mysaria gives her false information and triggers her final paranoid act, directing her already existing paranoia to Nettles & Daemon. But she does not inspire the actual paranoia. That came from the betrayal of Hugh and Ulf, the betrayal of the council people at the green council, her children's violent and painful deaths, the suddenness of her father's death compounded with her need to immediately answer the greens (inability to properly mourn him), the greens' usurpation, etc. One not taking long to follow the others.

And as I said above, actual magic and Rhaenyra's interest or disinterest in it had nothing to do with her admiration for Visenya. There isn't even any indication that Rhaenyra was interested in magic for herself, her accusations of magic against Nettles was purely driven by her desire to claim back some power she thought she lost.

Of course, none of this proves that she was totally against the Faith or was atheist or agnostic. What it indicates, however, is that she was not as devoted to, deferential of, or "respectful" of the religion as you may suspect.

[jennegatron]

(spoilers for acoc below, just an untagged vent post to let me process my feelings about theopin, gooeybear, and the fandom surrounding d20 ships)

thinking a lot about theopin and why the pairing gets my goat. i guess a lot of it is because the versions of it that are really popular just have to fly in the face of canon. like theo talks about how he has an oath of chastity that he observes, so them having a sexual relationship, even one in the far past runs counter to that vow. i feel like theo's vows are really important to him which is why he resists gooey's flirts at times. i really like enemies to lovers as a trope, or rivals to lovers, which is also just what gooeybear is. theo doesn't trust lapin because he doesn't trust the church and he believes in the magic of candia and only comes to like and respect lapin when he starts to use his magic to serve the family, and that magic clearly doesn't come from the bulb. he protects lapin from calory because he sees lapin use his magic that way, and that his magic is the magic of lazuli, not of belizabeth. i get that people want a romance out of their dynamic, and because lapin dies, the only place to put it is in the past, but it breaks a lot of what is established as true about theobald in the episodes after lapin dies, a character that i think in his totality is beautifully complicated and wonderful. it feels like a disservice to him to have him compromise in that way without grappling with what that would mean to him, or at least explain why he would say that he had a vow when he initially is hesitant to get slammed down by gooey.

i think i also get annoyed at fans who get mad at players for not canonizing their ships. like people were SO weird about colin and deli not being canon last year during the ravening war, and you can pretty easily find people on here or on twitter who are extremely nasty about how much they hate(d) gooeybear (primarily because they wanted to ship gooey & saccharina, it seems.)

i read a theo/gooey fic recently and even that was actually about how theo is still in love with lapin and that they had had a relationship and was emotionally unavailable to gooey as a result. idk that just feels so alien to both theo & gooey for me as someone who has spent so much time thinking about those characters. gooey gets so little screen time but she makes it pretty clear in their interactions that she's primarily interested in just sex with him! she 'just needs to get it out of her system.' i think that could blossom into love, and most of the dumb fics i've written and then locked in a figurative drawer are based on that premise, and i'm even interested in what it would look like for gooey to fall first. she seems to me as extremely emotionally unavailable, likely traumatized by everything that lead her to a place where becoming a marauder made sense, so what if she's the first one to say i love you. that's deeply fascinating to me. and i think conflict in theo & gooey's relationship based off of theo wondering 'what if' is i think really interesting. or even just solo from theo's point of view 'what ifs'. 'fix it' fics where people write lapin as still alive don't really bother me, it's really the inserting theopin into the past that upsets me. i think i could really get down with some unconsummated lust/longing between the two of them. that the energy build up never was released in the form of hatesex, and lapin just took that to his grave. now that's a juicy tragedy waiting to be written

i think femdom gooey/malesub theo is such an interesting and novel pairing that is such a subversion of normal fantasy medieval roles. like the extremely restrictive views on top/bottom and dom/sub for heterosexual pairings means that theo and gooey are outside of the standard strict heteronormative expectations of sex, and i think that it's beautiful and surprising and if you spend 30 seconds thinking about it feels fundamentally true and inevitable. the knight who instead of bedding women throughout the land is deeply virtuous and chaste until a woman sees directly through to the soft center of him and knows that he wants to be bossed around.

i know it's not that serious, and mostly i get around it by muting/blocking people/tags so that i don't have to see it, but my compulsive tendencies on social media mean i encounter it sometimes. like this was spawned by art from an artist i really like that drew theo super hot but the piece as a whole was theopin. i don't like that it takes up so much of my brain or that i get so annoyed. i don't know why i can't just be normal about this. probably just another thing to add to the pile of things that what is probably ocd makes me do/think. ty to the 2 of you who might read this, i sometimes need a place to just dump all of my thoughts to help me process them and the longform capability of tumblr helps me do that.

[snobgoblin]

It's not your responsibility to be worried about people being offended by non-existent issues. You shouldn't have to private your own post because people candy read or understand narratives tbh

yeah, true, still ill private that post and explain AGAIN and better this time why I think it would be cool for Sedusa to be asexual

-asexual people are often infantalized. it's always refreshing to see asexual characters that are legitimately competent and dangerous, it's awesome! theyre always either seen, especially in fandom spaces, as "uwu soft smol innocent beans" or "completely cold and unfeeling" so it would be refreshing for Sedusa to be asexual. as she is neither of those things (kind of like how in fandom spaces the aggressive woman is usually a lesbian or the bisexual is also hypersexual- I think it's really stupid to assume someone's sexuality based on personality traits instead of you know, their attraction. your sexuality says NOTHING about your personality)

-against purity culture. on the other side of this, sometimes asexual people are seen as just pure, because they're celibate, and for whatever reason many people seem to think that sex has a moral implication, so someone that doesn't have sex must be good. Sedusa would subvert this, she is asexual, celibate, and she ISNT pure

-it didn't come out of nowhere. when looking at a characters sexuality, I pay special attention to any time that they might have shown attraction to someone (like with Ace, I said he could be attracted to women bc he called Sedusa hot (plus more) and also men because he grabbed a man's butt) but with SEDUSA... she's really cool bc she's kinda like Wario (which I love) in that her first priority? first and foremost- it's money and power. once she's reformed and doesn't steal anymore, she doesn't make any attempt to seduce ANYONE. she doesn't care about it! all she cares about is running her beauty shop. she doesn't need anyone else... the point here being, she doesn't have people fall in love with her because she likes love, she does it because she likes money

-it's subversive. it's much too easy to look at a character like Sedusa and go "she's hypersexual" but if you really look into it... she doesn't seem to care about it at all. she just uses it to manipulate people WHICH, ANON, does not mean I think asexuals are manipulative. just that Sedusa herself is manipulative, and her mode of manipulation is, usually, her sex appeal. she's just using what she's got to her advantage, like any villain. she just doesn't have guns and lasers

-it's in the spirit of the show. the whole show is just, subverting your expectations. the superheros? not even graduated kindergarten yet! the mayor? incompetent! the scientist in any other story would have been uncaring or maniacal toward his creations, but Professor Utonium never was. it only makes sense for the character built on seducing others is completely not attracted to anyone

so yeah there's my case 💪

[neutrallyobsessed]

EPISODE 5!!!!!!!!!! JOANFUCIUS TIME!!!!

WHAT THE FUCK BROOO

ajajajaaa but srsly the guy really stomped all over my joanpher but its aight, im a very talented artist, canon CANNOT stop me uwu~

OH SHIT IT IS FAKE DATING! I KNEW IT! I was right! Like I am! All the Time! Now, Joan you gotta kiss Topher on the lips and with tong-

oh so it was actually the valentines dance..... well, they could still go to space, thatd be neat i love space!

ok that was an excellent reference!

OH THERE SHE IS! AND I AM SO SCARED!!! :DDDD

honestly, this is the best subversion of this trope i've ever seen~~

Oh and there, she, is~~ cunty skunky poo~~ teehee :3c

TRY AND CATCH ME BITCH!

~L o v e r s~

oh shit they're just fucking at school with great animation and all, but ey i love me some massive yet realistic fantastical frozen time traveler age gap romance so good for them

hmm so i guess that beach coast is the new docks of thinking, right? GOOD because I FUCKING LOVE THE BEACH I LOOOOVE BEACHES!! BEACH>>>>>ANY OTHER DESTINATION Speaking of loving thing, where the fUCK is my beloved?? its been like 15 mins and he hasnt appeared yet... im getting uneasy tbhhhh

omg flipflop x america's funniest videos ship! thats so beautiful!!!

see?? SEE???? I WROTE THAT! I WROTE ABOUT JOAN WANTING TO BE HER INDIE LONELY GOTH GIRL SELF AGAIN and you know exactly which guy you should be with when you wanna be yourself like that again so wheRE THE FUCK IS-

OH NO THE CONTRACT!!

hmmm seems like Harriet and Malcom arent as compatible as they thought~~ also loving Harriet's new hairstyle♥!!

YOU SOUND LIKE A CUCK BRO there's a lot of cucking in this show in general lol, what is this? Naoki Urasawa's Monster? ahhaha speaking of, Inspector Lunge didn't appear much despite being this sort of protag/antag but when he did I got so happy!!! so um WHERE IS HE :)))))))))

oh so it FINE when you kill an old lady but when JOAN-

goddamn, why does JFK's counciousness bleed? WHY do they BLEED? Nevermind, Devil!JFK is the only survivor eh? eheheheheh OHOHOHOHOHOHHH

Awww that was pretty lovely ngl ^^

OHHHHH THE GIG IS UP, but what will happend next~~? And yeah, that's my neutral philosophy in a nutshell Things arent either good or bad, they just are~~

OH NEVERMIND THE GIG IS UP CAUSE NOW IT'S REAL!!!!!

RATING: 0/10 LIKE THE AMOUNT OF SCREETIME TOPHER GOT IN THIS EPISODE WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[the1975attheirverybest]

First off, loving Education! Amazing writing as always :)

Thoughts on Matty kinda adopting some accessories/style aspects of his partners/girlfriends while they’ve been together over the years?

Nothing wrong with it, just something I noticed. I adore all of the people he’s publicly been with and many have such a distinct style whereas Matty seems to change things up with each album cycle like many of his pop peers.

Hope you’re doing well 🫶

Omg thanks so much for reading 🥹🩷🩷

That’s such an excellent question. And, to the surprise of ABSOLUTELY NOBODY, I’ve thought about it a lot.

Idk….what do y’all think?

I sometimes think the two feed into each other. Like his partners have an influence on him a bit but also he’s attracted to them BECAUSE they’re cool/ have a cool style. OBVIOUSLY not JUST because they know fashion, but that’s one of the initial things. We all know how he feels about aesthetics and beauty. And how important visual representation is to him. So I think the though kinda blend together.

Plus, he’s always kind of been comfortable leaning into the feminine. (Which….king, tbh) and being a bit playful and ✨subversive ✨ it might have to do with him being around a partner who’s a model or artist and therefore needs to consider her look a lot of the time, so he kind gets that rubbing off on him a bit. Or it might be straight up closet diving and trying stuff on.

But, yeah, as you mentioned, Matty likes to evolve alongside the 1975 and the eras that they move through. Also, like, I think it has a lot to do with age. He very much dressed like a guy in his 20s back when he was in his 20s, and now….well, I’m still waiting to decide but I think he’s gone for mature. I do like that Gabriette seems to bring back that youthful sparkle to him. Whether intentionally or not. Like whether she sees stuff in his collection and goes “oh why don’t you wear this anymore?” Or if he’s watching *her* get dressed and thinking “why have I stopping wearing accessories? I should bring that back a bit.”

He did mock the Gallagher brothers for dressing in their 20s when they’re way past that hahaha. So makes me think he has this idea of maturing….that means less colorful whimsy? I hope his definition evolves over time. Not necessarily in a midlife crisis kinda way. But her an artist. He can afford to be a bit silly.

But hey the man is attractive no matter what. He could wear a kitchen trash bag and I would cheer and clap.

[bellamysgriffin]

Doctor Who :)

Favorite episode and why

vincent and the doctor <3 it's just such a warm aesthetic and it has a lot of what i love about doctor who. curtis' writing is just so great and i think the whole last act is just wonderful. it's also got some gorgeous visuals.

Funniest/crackiest/it’s-terrible-but-I-still-love-it episode/scene

oh man. i really love love and monsters and i don't care how dumb the alien is it's truly such a comfort episode for me

It’s-terrible-and-I-hate it episode/scene

oof there are a lot of moffat era i don't like. i hated day of the doctor i HAATE let's kill hitler, i hate girl in the fireplace and. i love u chibs but i didn't love the flux storyline

Best episode/scene for my favorite character

oh man. rose tyler has so many great moments but i love her monologue in the s1 finale where she says "it was a better life and i don't mean aliens and spaceships and stuff that don't matter. the doctor showed me a better way of living your life. you don't just give u;. that you don't just let things happen. you make a stand you say no!! you have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away and i can't --" all of that was from memory btw that's how much i luv her. and that's the ep she becomes the bad wolf so it's great for that reason too!

Best episode/scene for my favorite ship

ohhhh man. im pretty obsessed with nine's regeneration scene for him and rose, and i really love tenrose's last scene in end of time it's so gorgeous. and as sad as it is, doomsday is really a great episode for doctorrose.

Best episode/scene for a particular supporting character

so martha doesn't really count since she's for real a main character but.... human nature/family of blood is a GREAT storyline for her

Best episode/scene for a character I don’t usually like

oof i really dislike river song but her introduction episode is awesome. and part of why i dislike her bc how do u. see that much potential and do That

Most visually beautiful or interesting episode/scene

oh god doctor who has SO MANY that's really hard. u know what, returning to the van gogh episode i quite love when the night sky turns into starry night

Most emotionally affecting episode/scene

well i mean... doomsday obviously... but i think i cried the most during i don't want to go and wilfred its my honor. that was BRUTAL

Most powerful use of music in an episode/scene

murray gold is so wonderful he's just brilliant and i could never pick between his themes, but i kind of ADORE a dazzling end like instant chills when that bass line shows up whew

Episode/scene that changed my perspective on the show

dalek is kinda when it all changes bc it just gets so real u know!!!

Episode/scene where the acting stands out

oh wow i love the whole cast, there's really no main cast actors that i don't think absolutely knocked it out of the park. i guess i would like to mention jenna louise coleman's performance during face the raven, but tbh clara is a character i don't really love writing-wise but jlc is such a talented actress that she breathed a lot of life into what i thought was a somewhat poorly written character

Overall best-written episode

BEST written? that is so hard to do on a show like doctor who. i mean blink is blink and it's brilliant and i could never dispute that. but i might have to go with human nature and family of blood its so brilliant and subversive and well acted and structured

send me a show!

[arickaandherfictionalothers]

I’d live forever in this moment… If I could stop… time…

(Pre Aricka Charming x Harry Hook)

(Love at first sight; and so much more.)

*Harry*

Harry stepped out of the limo, hit by how bright everything was, squinting confusedly at first until his eyes adjusted.

As he got used to the light, he scanned the perimeter; and then he saw her.

Her.

She was real-?

“The princess will aid you; open your heart to her and she will help you discover the man you’re going to become. The two of you are destined to be great rulers together…”

The words of the Enchantress flooded his mind as he met her gaze. He didn’t even know her name, but he knew he had to get her to tell him.

Time slowed as she finally met his eye, and she froze too; the two of them moved closer, but everything else seemed frozen. Suspended in time.

“Time stops when suddenly you see her

Time stops, and what you thought you knew

Changes and life beyond this moment

Is better, bigger…” Harry thinks, reaching out to the girl, and she reached back, taking his hand, staring at him in shock and wonder.

“Time stops, but still your heart is beating

Time stops, though you don't take a breath

She's there and all you ever wanted

Is nearer, clearer…” he didn’t ever see himself as the romantic type, as the one who wanted a “happily ever after,” being from the Isle he’d accepted he’d probably never meet someone like that, that he would be a pirate forever. But this girl… didn’t even know she had already affected him completely and they didn’t even know each other’s names.

“I used to think the world was small,

Now I don't think that way at all…” he lifts his hand and she spins in a slow circle; still looking at him with shock, awe and something else in her eyes.

“Time stops when dreams come true before you

Time stops when fantasy is real

I knew this moment was expected

But this good, who could?” The girl was beautiful; in every way a girl could be beautiful. And Harry was already wrapped around her finger.

He was doomed. He wouldn’t ever be able to hurt this little treasure. Ever.

*Aricka*

He was real. He was here. In front of her. And time had stopped.

Just like her dream said.

“That boy is staring and I feel a chill, I don't know why

That boy is staring and the world is still,

Not tumbling by

There's no one talking, but I can hear a thousand voices

What's going on inside me?” He spins her, and she follows, stepping closer to him, trying to memorize every detail of his face.

“That boy is staring, is it me he sees?

I can't be sure, if is he staring, should I try to please

Or be demure?

My hand is trembling, but in this moment nothing scares me

What's going on?” All her life, her mother said a prince wanted someone quiet, respectful; and demure. But this boy seemed so- different; so unique, not like any of the Auradon princes.

She needed him to be in her life, it didn’t matter if he was to be her True Love or her best friend. She just needed his energy.

*Both*

“I used to see what lies ahead..” Harry tugs her one step closer. Before the enchantress he was focused on the kids in the Isle and making sure they were safe.

“I thought my life might be a bore..” before her dream and what Fairy Godmother had said Aricka had worried she would be doomed to be a boring pink princess.

“Now I just see this girl instead…” now the princess he was meant to meet was here: and he knew he was forever bound to her.

“Surely I'm bound for something more-!” She gripped both his hands now, and they finally spoke to each other instead of being lost in thought,

“Time stops and troubles are abandoned

Time stops the minute she/he arrives

I've seen the future in this instant

Subversive, sublime…” The spell was ending, they could both feel time beginning to move again, but Aricka took a final step closer and threw her arms around him: still looking up at him, promising him the next words;

“I’d live forever in this moment

If I could stop-!” And Harry took a step back, though still holding onto her hands.

“Stop time…” and he walked backwards toward his group, feeling a knife in his gut as her fingers slipped through his grip, and the girl whispered a soft;

That boy is staring and I feel a chill

I don't know why…”

And then time resumed: and Aricka is stepping forward to greet them;

“Welcome to Auradon-! I’m Aricka Charming, I’m so excited you’re all here-!”

@astralshipper @rosieshipper @hyperionshipping @yeehawselfshipping @letsgofoletsgo @tsundere-selfship @sappy-secrets @rosepetalcharm @mariposalass

[a11eya]

TITLE: lights will guide you home

CHAPTER: 1

PAIRING: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

SUMMARY: Soul-lights aren’t as common in this day and age as they were in the past, before quirks, but they’re common enough that people do still find their soulmates.

At thirteen, you meet Bakugou Katsuki, and he lights up for you in orange and gold. You tell him he's your soulmate. He sneers and tells you that you aren't his. He makes your adolescence miserable until you part ways.

You meet again as adults, late at night, in a grocery store, over a pile of bok choy. He apologizes for how he treated you when you were children.

(In which you have a choice—to reject Bakugou's apology, reject him, or to let him show you the man he's become, to learn with him what it means to love and forgive.)

TAGS: soulmate au, trope inversion/subversion, slow burn, getting together, falling in love, fluff, aged up characters, pro-hero characters, eventual smut, mild bullying

NAVIGATION: Series Masterlist

Soul-lights aren’t as common in this day and age as they were in the past, before quirks, but they’re common enough that people do still find their soulmates, especially in the more urban areas. 

You meet Bakugou at thirteen, at Aldera, after school in a hallway empty except for you, Bakugou, and his friends. He’s not in your class, so it took some time before you bumped into him, and when you do, you wish you hadn’t. 

“You’re not my soulmate,” he sneers at you. “I'm not letting some dumb lights tell me I should let some loser hang around me for the rest of my life.”

His friends laugh and jeer, and your face pinches, sour. He's haloed in a strong, vibrant orange that graduates into a warm gold, and the colors are beautiful. He, at least, is your soulmate. You made the mistake of telling him so, blurting it out upon meeting him. It doesn’t sound like you’re his. 

And—good. Because he shoves you hard enough that you stumble, barely catching yourself, and then he turns to leave with his friends. As you stare at his retreating back, angry tears well up in your eyes, dreams of having someone as just yours and being someone’s one and only in pieces. You can’t believe you can see his lights. You can’t believe he’s supposed to be your soulmate.

Well, you don’t want him. You don’t want to be his; that feeling is mutual. You wish you’d never found him. 

Despite Bakugou’s vehement warning that you stay away from him, it doesn’t seem to go the other way. Because over the next two years, not a week goes by without you running into him and experiencing some level of unpleasantness. 

“That's your quirk?” Bakugou gives you an ugly look. “Completely useless.”

“Heard you rank eleven in your class. Pathetic,” Bakugou says, getting in your face. 

“Why is he so mean to you?” your friend asks, exasperated after helping you escape Bakugou and co.’s latest taunts. After a while, you grew immune to his mean little comments, surrounded by kind friends and supportive parents. But you’d be glad, graduation day. Even you know that Bakugou has plans to attend UA after graduation. You have no such intentions. 

You smile at her, shrugging. 

“No idea. He’s mean to a bunch of people, though. I’m not special.” After that day, you never told anyone you could see Bakugou’s lights. Not even your family. Bakugou and his friends seemed to keep the same silence. You think it’s because Bakugou doesn’t even want to acknowledge it ever happened. That’s how you feel, at least.

“Yeah, I guess…” she says, frowning. She tucks some hair behind your ear. “Whatever. Let’s go to that cafe I told you about. The one I saw on socials. I’ll treat you.”

After graduating junior high, you swear to yourself that you won't think of him ever again. He’ll disappear from your memory like what you had for lunch on Monday last month, like a bad dream when the sun rises. 

And you succeed, for the most part. 

There’s one time near the end of your first year of high school, when everything had fallen apart because of the war. 

Despite the chaos of everything, it’d been a normal day; you were helping your mom cook lunch in the kitchen. You were washing some vegetables in the sink, prepping them for chopping, when you suddenly felt your stomach plummet, and then something inside you frayed, like threads of rope pulling apart. You’d gasped, dropping the vegetables into the sink, and clutched the counter because it felt like your whole world was shaking, tremors. 

When you came to, you were on the floor, tears you don’t remember shedding streaming down your cheeks. Your mother was at your side, calling your name, calling for your father. 

The doctor chalked it up to a panic attack, anxiety, because of the day-to-day stresses caused by the war. Your parents fussed, worried, but it never happened again. 

You? You tuck the memory away for years, not wanting to look at it. It frightens you. You don’t remember what you’d been thinking about before or after the episode; all you remember is seeing a flash of a young Bakugou’s face, somehow. Not ugly, screwed up in a sneer, or mean, laughing at someone’s expense, the Bakugou of your memories. Instead, his face was—blank. Eyes emptied. Beautiful orange and gold lights—out. 

You see Bakugou again on a Tuesday, in your neighborhood’s grocery store, over a pile of bok choy.

[wilwheaton]

favorite goncharov character

Goncharov! Holy shit I haven't thought about Goncharov in YEARS!

I remember seeing it at the Vista theatre downtown in ... I want to say 1983? It was either 82 and I was 10, or 83 and I was 11. Now that I think about it, it must have been Spring of 83. I remember that Kimmy Mendini was my babysitter, and she drove my friend Ahmed and me all the way downtown to see Goncharov. She would have been at least 16, but I feel like she was a little older. I remember that she LOVED movies and just never stopped talking about European cinema.

Ha! I can still her her sort of roll "Cinema" out of her mouth. Movies were for the masses to watch, while sophisticated adults experienced Cinema. I'm just realizing now that she absolutely pronounced it with a capital C. She was like "you are so lucky to see a clean print of Goncharov!"

I had no idea what a clean print was, but I understood it was important and impressive.

She had read about this screening in the LA Weekly, which I didn't know at the time was TREMENDOUSLY subversive in our suburban part of Los Angeles County, and we were going to an old theatre in maybe not the greatest part of town, but Kimmy had been watching me since I was in second grade and was like my big sister. I knew we'd be safe with her.

That old theatre (which is now a fucking swap meet) was just so beautiful inside. 100 foot ceilings, box seats, gold paint and murals. It felt like a place you went to experience Cinema, but, like ... it had absolutely seen better days. I remember that I felt kind of bad for the place, a little embarrassed, like when I got a good grade and accidentally made eye contact with a friend who got a D.

Okay. This clearly hit a memory artery, and I appreciate you staying with me this far, when we finally get to the fireworks factory. We're walking up to the box office, and she tells Ahmed and me that we have to wait on the sidewalk, because *technically* it's rated R, and she's not our legal guardian, but what does this guy making two bucks an hour know about art anyway?

So we wait. She buys the tickets, and then we all walk in as casually as we can.

I remember how scared I was that we were going to get caught and they'd call the cops (that's how it worked in my anxiety-ridden brain), but literally nobody cared. The theatre wasn't even half full, and everyone there was a dude at least as old as my parents.

You know the story, so I don't have to recount all of it, but I can at this very moment remember how shocked I was when Bruno was shot. This was the first time, ever, I had felt an emotional connection to a character. I didn't cry when Bambi's mother was shot, I didn't cry when ET died, I didn't cry E V E R.

But when Bruno died? I didn't make a sound. I just silently wept. Tears just poured down my face and I wanted to roll back time, rewrite the movie, and get him out of that room.

I obviously understand now, all these years later why I connected to him and why his story meant and means so much to me, but at the time I had no idea. I just thought the actors were that good.

I can't believe that guy who played him died so young. I think he was like 40? I remember thinking that was old. Now I know different.

When the movie was over, Kimmy asked us how we liked it. Ahmed was obsessed with the photography (he grew up to be an illustrator), and I obviously had my Bruno Moment.

We got Thrifty ice cream on the way home and listened to Donna Summer in her Datsun.

I haven't thought about Goncharov or Cinema or Kimmy in FOREVER. Leave it to Tumblr to boost my nostalgia check to a natural 20.

tl;dr: Bruno. I know he's supposed to be that character we all hate, and there are so many valid reasons for that. But when I was 12 ... well, I was a different person.

Oh! And now that I know what a "clean print" is, having seen so many "dirty prints" in revival houses before they all turned into swap meets or churches (hey, two places where people sell you stuff and take your money!), I retroactively appreciate it in a way that would make Kimmy happy.

Thanks for the trip into the crumbling mall that is my childhood memories. I haven't been here in awhile and it was nice to visit.

[sneezemonster15]

heyy,

whay do u think about sasuke n naruto's sexualitys? lot of people says naruto is bi, but i don't think like that and i just wondered your opinion

Sasuke is portrayed as gay, and Naruto as gay as well, but closeted. ALL his interactions about women are layered. He either doesn't understand the interest in them (Funny how Kishi worded it, Naruto doesn't understand 'this interest in women'), or gets bored with het porn that everyone else (straight dudes) finds quite triggering, his crush on Sakura is consistently portrayed as a cover for his feelings for Sasuke, starting with chapter three. He gets bothered when Sakura shows interest in Sasuke but not when Lee flirts with her. One of these days, imma write an analysis of chapter three. And this is shown consistently till the end. He isn't interested in Hinata even after she confesses to him, he rejects Sakura's confession without a shred of guilt or sadness because he never loved her, he makes all his oiroke jutsu girls the same generic way, but his reverse oiroke jutsu men all have individualised looks, which look like they have been based on Sasuke, in the chapter homecoming, after Naruto arrives in Konoha and Sakura wants to know his opinion on her looks, he doesn't even notice any change. He categorically says that his reasons for peeping into the bath are to do with his pranks. He has internalized homophobia, which is shown on multiple occasions, which also stems from his closetedness. He often overcompensates for his tendencies of daydreaming about Sasuke, and backpedals when asked about it, as he is feeling ashamed of his gay feelings. A very common trope in media.

Everything above is CANON.

Also, Naruto is someone who just appreciates beauty. He notices people's looks. He likes Haku's looks, and says as much. He likes Sasuke's looks, and says as much, several times. He likes that woman's looks that Itachi uses to distract Jiraiya. He thinks his mother is pretty and tells her the same. Conversely, he notices Hinata's looks and calls her plain and weird looking. He gave Lee the name bushybrows. He is very curious about how Kakashi looks and it's one of the more famous inside jokes. His research for his pervy jutsu is quite consistent with his interest in noticing looks. (Honestly that's the kind of career I like to see him having in AU fics. Something to do with creativity and art even, but with his own brand of kookiness, remember the official picture that he makes the photographer take and later gets a scolding from Hiruzen for it? Lol, I thought he looked neat with the crazy Kabuki inspired face painting). Point is he is really good at visual tricks, and his character is written consistently to facilitate it.

His character is the unpredictable hero, the rapscallion, the troublemaker, quick on his toes and very adept at turning his bunshins to look like other people and even articles of weaponry. All of this is very consistent characterisation, if you make an effort to notice it, since I will agree that Kishi makes some of it not so obvious, given the limitations of this genre and Naruto being its MC. For those who still think that SNS is accidental, you think all this detail oriented consistency is unintentional? Lol.

Anyway. Naruto appreciates good looks, but Kishi makes it a point to show properly that where others have nosebleeds looking at their objects of desire, Naruto doesn't nosebleed at women a single time. Other men react to beautiful ladies, Naruto doesn't. Whether in real life or reading it in some erotica. In fact, Naruto HAS sexual arousal when Sasuke challenges him on the hospital roof.

I get why people think he is bi. Most fans who think so project on his character, sure. But like everything Kishi does, usage of subversion, subterfuge, red herrings etc, I can see people miss upon some of his subtleties, to see that Kishi wrote Naruto as closeted gay.

Naruto doesn't show any genuine romantic interest in any woman throughout Naruto and Shippuden. The fact that he is married to Hinata is a travesty because he is a gay man forced to live in a het marriage and when he is called bi, it just seems wrong and unfair to his character. And to gay narratives. I don't recommend it. A hell lot of people are labelled as bi when they are actually gay. Especially gay men who married women out of convention and fear for their lives. Some of them pointedly insist upon it too that they be considered gay and not bi.

I will give Naruto the same consideration and respect.