“i Want Varian To Voluntarily Disclose His Past Villainy” “i Want Varian’s Old Enemies To Come

good things will happen 🧿

things that are meant to be will fall into place 🧿

very good analysis and i am honored you spent so long on it!

My critique with season-3 Rapunzel is that Cass hurting Eugene in “Cassandra’s Revenge” should have been the last straw, in my opinion. Or, if not that, then when she took over Corona. Or, if not that, then when she stole the Sundrop from Rapunzel.

It would have served both characters so well to have Rapunzel give up on Cass, even temporarily, so that Cass could realize that this is having consequences she doesn’t want. And so Rapunzel can display that polarizing mentality we’ve come to expect from her. And so little kids and tweens— and even teenagers and adults— watching this don’t walk away with the lesson that the person who’s hurting you has their better self “still in there”, and you just have to try hard enough to save them. That’s a thing I’ve heard from parents who stopped letting their kids watch after the third season.

just for clarification:

disliking parts of the way rapunzel’s character was handled in the show =/= disliking her.

movie!rapunzel means a lot to me personally, and i absolutely adore some aspects of her character in the show. i think she’s loving, creative, funny, intelligent, and she tries her best to help the people around her.

if i have a critique with her in the show, it’s because i believe that isn’t how she’d behave as someone who went through the events of the movie. or maybe i look at how she acts for one episode of the show, compare it to the foundation they’ve established in an earlier episode, and find that they contrast one another. my criticisms are for the inconsistent or out-of-character writing, not for rapunzel herself. i understand she has flaws; i just wish they were addressed properly and that she didn’t always have to be in the right.

you’re welcome to reblog this if you feel the same way.

disliking parts of the way rapunzel’s character was handled in the show =/= disliking rapunzel.

so weird to me that babies can laugh. you are 5 months old and you are cackling as if you already have evil machinations a-brewing within your fragile skull.

“Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated—with one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. “Folks,” he said, “I know you’ve had a rough day and you’re frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here’s what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight—just leave ‘em with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I’ll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?”

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who’d been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

Oh, he was serious.

At the next stop—just as promised—the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up—but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it’s extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it.

But what if you are the light? What if you’re the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?

That’s what this bus driver taught me—that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy “influencer.” He was a bus driver—one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagious—sadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.

No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated—one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.“

–Elizabeth Gilbert

With more and more Ao3 authors restricting their works to the archive (due to AI scraping), they're going to be losing guest interaction. And probably generally feeling down because. You know. AI is stealing their hard work.

So! Now is a great time to stop by your favorite authors/stories and drop them some comments! They really appreciate it!

imagine if NWHS actually hinted at ford being about to kill bill cipher.

like, we see this silhouette in the nightmare realm aiming a massive gun at the demon, see bill's one eye widen in the first fear he's felt in millennia, see the entire realm shaking before the figure leaps through the portal and stores his gun on his back again. then this mysterious man puts his hand on the journal and it fits

imagine how hype that would have been.

Already been done. Lil Bits, the kitten from Wander Over Yonder.

A character concept that I'm actually surprised I haven't seen more, now that I think about it:

A character with a tragic past who's beautiful in an unthreatening, pitiful sort of way, who goes "wait hold on, people think I'm cute?" and immediately goes drunk with power. Having a whole villain arc getting corrupted by the power of being just so tragic and pathetic that people can't be mad at them. Someone who's been accustomed to always being the one who's blamed and punished no matter whose fault the problem was suddenly discovering that actually they could get away with murder by being so big-eyed and sad.

And once they figure out that they can just Poor Little Meow Meow their way out of anything, they do. Going from being genuinely skittish and timid into pretending to do so merely as an act, manipulating the shit out of everyone and avoiding all suspicion because Look How Sad And Wet And Pathetic I Am, of course they couldn't do any harm to anyone ever.

And if one person finally does see right through that act and puts puzzle pieces together of how there's been just too many suspicious coincidences and accidents that only one person would actually benefit from, they confront the Tragic Little Act directly, one-to-one, to say "I'm fucking onto you and your shit"

And suddenly they completely snap out of their timid, pathetic presentation to give a big, wide, sickening smile like "no-one's ever going to believe you."

love when theres a character whose entire existence is spoiler tagged by default. go behind the curtain boy

someone I follow on the bird app just announced they're starting a very exclusive private fic server because they and a bunch of other people want to talk about how much they love the fics they're reading, and as an author can I just say that a really great place to talk about a fic you love is in the comments for that fic

I understand that people are trying to create safe spaces, but as the number of comments that I get on my fics dwindles with each passing year, knowing these spaces exist where my fics are being discussed, places that I am excluded from, makes me want to write fic LESS

I mean I guess who cares, right, because if I stop writing, there's 10,000 other people that will continue...but if you participate in a fic "book club" server and you say nice things there about a fic you loved, maybe copy and paste that into a comment on AO3?

the only thing fanfic writers are asking for in return for hours of hard work is attention. please don't rob us of the one thing that we hope for when we hit "post"

go on

Do you guys think that Hugo is actually blonde but light blonde is just not his natural shade? That he made his hair lighter to— …Nevermind.