#but he was by no means unaware or insert. His backing was necessary to build up Richard's power and he was clearly involved & invested

[wonder-worker]

"Because Richard (III) usurped the throne, his retinue is inevitably seen as inimical to the crown and therefore in an important sense independent of royal authority. In the context of Edward IV's reign, in which the retinue was created, neither assumption is true. The development of the retinue would have been impossible without royal backing and reflected, rather than negated, the king's authority. Within the north itself, Gloucester's connection subsumed that of the crown. Elsewhere, in East Anglia and in Wales, that focus for royal servants was provided by others, but Gloucester was still part of that royal connection, not remote from it. In the rest of England, as constable and admiral, he had contributed to the enforcement of royal authority. When he seized power in 1483 he did not do it from outside the prevailing political structure but from its heart."

-Rosemary Horrox, "Richard III: A Study of Service"

[otakween]

Digimon Tamers - Episode 24

This episode was fantastic, so many emotional moments. And we got a new ED (and slightly modified OP)! Going into this episode I was a little annoyed knowing they wouldn't actually be going to the digital world yet, but they did such a good job building up the hype that I think it ended up being very necessary to have one last human world episode. So pumped to see how the next arc plays out!

Notes:

When Takato is like "our town..." in the opening monologue does he mean Tokyo? Shinjuku? Just struck me as kind of funny to call that area a town, but what do I know

Seeing the various ways the kids tell their parents about their journey was super fascinating. I like how they all did it in different ways with varying levels of directness. Honestly I think the "I told them it's a school trip" option made the most sense to me. If this was real life there's no way in hell a parent would allow their 10 year old kid to go off into some dangerous, alien world.

Something about Jian's dad interacting with Terriermon is really cute. It would actually be cool to see a Digimon series with adults as the MCs since they have a different perspective on the world.

Juri mysteriously dodged the question about how she told her parents about the trip. I wasn't sure how to interpret that. Did she just not tell them at all? Does she actually not get along with them?

I think Ruki's departure from her family was probably the most interesting. Her grandma has this sort of sage understanding of the situation while her mom is blissfully unaware. The scene where Ruki dresses up for mom to leave her on a high note was really sad.

Suddenly Culumon is in a lantern-shaped cage. Lol where did that come from?

Some interesting Yamaki moments. I guess he's realized the error of his ways and is now on the kids' side? Kinda abrupt, but I can dig it. (Also, he was more handsome than usual this episode teehee)

The scene with the teacher was insane! The kids just flat out tell her they're leaving school and she's like "wtf?? what am I supposed to do with this knowledge!?" In America at least, teachers would probably be expected to report something like this, but they did already tell their parents so...I understand why this kind of breaks her. Like...how is she supposed to just carry on like normal? Moumantai my butt!

Takato's dad's support kinda had me sighing and rolling my eyes, but oh well. Can't project my real world context onto things I guess

^The appropriate reaction. I feel like if the parents had witnessed some digimon battles and saw what their kids were capable of, I might buy it a little more. But Takato's mom & dad just found out that Guilmon exists!

lol @ Shiuchon just kind of rolling with it when she finds out that Terriermon is real. It was nice to finally see them talk to each other. Hopefully Terriermon can set boundaries with her now when he gets back.

Yamaki at the end being like "I'm jealous" is the stand in for me, the 31 year old watching this and being like "why can't I be a 10 year old going on adventures instead of working my 9-5!"

So pleased that I'm watching this at the perfect time! They kept emphasizing how this is taking place at the end of summer. Love it when things work out that way.

Lots of insert songs this episode + the new ED. I can't wait to listen to them all on their own and soak in the lyrics. I like that the ED has a more mature, somber tone compared to the first one.

Side note: I've been calling Culumon "he," but then saw someone on MAL use "she." When I google it I found that Culumon is likely genderless (unfortunately I also saw some spoilers while googling boohoo). Guess I'll try to use "they" now...

[thewritetofreespeech]

I LOVE ur blog SO MUCH!!!

Thanku fr Writing amazing hcs!! Keep it up!!!

If you don't mind...

(Kuroko no baske)

Thanku so much!! Lots of love xoxo

(reader insert may not be necessary!😉)

Awwww!! Thank you!! I’m glad you enjoy and appreciate them ( ´ω` ). Went a little off the rails with this as I was feeling inspired and did full scenarios. I hope that’s ok!

GOM Boys + Sending their kids to school (prompt)

Akashi

“Why don’t you want to go to school?” Akashi asked, holding his son’s hand, as they arrived at the building.

His son, looking positively adorable in his little blazer & tie, looked up at him with big, bright, golden eyes before looking back down. “I don’t want to go.” He repeated quietly. “It’s scary.”

“Scary? How is it scary?” Akashi asked. “You were fine when we did the tour the other day. It’s just like that.”

“But you won’t be with me Papa.” He replied in a soft voice. Worrying his bottom lip and eyes starting to get very wet. “I’ll be all alone.”

Akashi sighed as his son began to sniffle and knelt down in front of him. “Stop crying. Akashi men don’t cry over things like this.” He pulled out his handkerchief to clean the few tears that had fallen. His son giving a small hiccup as he stopped crying. Then Akashi smiled at him. “You won’t be alone. You’ll have a whole room of classmates to keep you company. I was like you when I was little. I was scared I wouldn’t make any friends, or that the other students would hate me. But that didn’t happen. I made friends. I got to spend time with people outside of the house. Uncle Kuroko and Mama were all people I met at school. Don’t you want to make friends like that?”

His son beamed and nodded once before looping his arms around Akashi’s neck to hug him. They then finish walking into school and dropping him off at class. He then walked back to his car alone. Sliding into the back seat when the driver opened the door for him.

“Shall we head to the office now sir?”

“In a minute,” Akashi replied. Leaning back in his seat to rest his head back against the rich leather. A hand over his eyes. “Circle the block a few times. I don’t want to leave them alone just yet.”

Aomine

“Hn? You don’t want to go to school now?” Aomine asked as son stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Digging his heels in about not wanting to take one step further. “But you have to go to school.”

“No I don’t! And you can’t make me!” The mini-Aomine yelled back. His father sighed.

“Yes, you do. It’s the law and, I would know, I’m a cop.” He pointed his thumb to himself, wearing his uniform, as this was supposed to be a quick drop off before he went in for his shift. “Do you want me to arrest you on your first day of school?”

“You wouldn’t do that!” The little boy replied. All bravado like his father, before his shoulders sank and his bottom lip stuck out. “I don’t want to go. School is boring. And what if the kids are mean to me. I’d rather stay home with Daddy….”

Aomine sighed and rubbed the back of his head. He couldn’t really argue with the school being boring part. He hated school when he was a kid, but he had to go. “Listen, Daddy can’t stay home with you today because he has to go to work. And you can’t come to work with me because, if you do, we’ll catch all the bad guys and then what will I do for work the next day.” The mini-Aomine snickered.

Aomine then leaned down to get eye level with his son. “I’m sure the kids will be nice. There’s bound to be one good egg in the bunch. Maybe you can even find someone to play basketball with.” His son’s eyes sparkled at that. “But, if any kids are mean to you, you tell me and I’ll come back and arrest them.” He held out his handcuffs to make a point. “Sound good?”

His son giggled again and told him, “deal!” before they both walk into the school for drop off. Thankfully, no one at the school was arrested that day. School was his son’s new favorite place. At least for now anyway.

Kise

“Are you sure they have to go now? Maybe we could keep them home for another year??”

“Ryo….” His significant other warned as they got their daughter up to the school, each holding one of her hands, for drop off.

“Don’t worry Daddy! I’ll be fine!” The little girl chirped. Practically skipping the whole way there she was so excited.

“Really? Are you sure princess? Because, if you want to start school tomorrow, Daddy would be totally fine with that.”

“Ryouta!”

“No, that’s ok Daddy.” She replied with a big grin. “I want to go and make new friends! I’m excited to show everyone my new dress you got me.” His princess did a little modeling twirl they had practiced, and Kise’s heart broke into a thousand pieces only to be reformed instantly again with love. “I’m gonna go inside now. See you after school!”

“Do you want Daddy to walk you to your classroom?!”

“No!” His daughter called back. Unaware she had just stomped on her father’s newly reformed heart.

“They grow up so fast….”

“Honestly Ryouta.” His s/o said, shaking their head, as they offered him a tissue. “It’s the kids that are usually crying on the first day. Not the parents.”

Kuroko

“Sweetheart….you have to go to school.” Kuroko tried to reason with his daughter, who was holding her backpack and her breath until Kuroko ‘gave up’.

Of course, she couldn’t hold it that long in the end. Her lungs were very small.

She let out a gasp of air, quickly inhaling new breath into her lungs as fast as she could fill them, but still pouted. “Why can’t you be my teacher Papa?!”

“Because,” Kuroko reasoned, as if they haven’t been over this a hundred times, “you need to have someone else be your teacher. It’s not fair to have Papa be your teacher.”

“But it’s not fair that other kids have Papa for their teacher!” She argued back. “I don’t want to go if I can’t see Papa and have to share him….”

Kuroko sighed before offering them a smile. “We’ll still be at the same school. So I’ll see you at lunch time or on the playground. Ms. Himora is really nice too. You’ll like being in her class. I’ve told her all about you and she’s excited to see your drawings.”

His daughter perked up at that. Art and drawing being one of her passions.

She agreed to go, but only on the condition that she wanted to see this other teacher’s art supplies. Ms. Himora of course showed them to her, and let her color the whole afternoon. Kuroko tried not to seem irritated that by the end of the day his little girl was calling her her favorite teacher.

Midorima

“Do you have your notebook?” Midorima asked as he walked his son to school. “Pens? Paper? Pencil?”

“Yes Dad…” His son replied sullenly, walking beside the taller green haired man as they come up to the school. When he saw the brick building, however, he tightened the hold on his hand.

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

“Dad I….I don’t want to go to school.” Midorima gave a surprised ‘hn?’ in response, but his son just looked down. Fidgeting with his glasses. “What if….what if the teacher is scary? What if the other kids don’t like me? What if no one wants to play with me?” The young boy began to spiral and sniffling, thinking about all the things that could go wrong.

His father sighed and knelt down in front of him. “What do we always say?”

“Man proposes, God disposes.”

“Right.” Midorima replied. Not seeming phased by how his life’s motto sound so much less intimidating coming from such a cute, small voice. “We have to do our best to make sure things work out. We can’t worry about what could go wrong. That’s God’s job. We focus on the now.” He pulled a key chain out of his pocket and handed it to his son. “Take today’s lucky item with you. It’ll keep you safe.”

“But Dad! What about you?!”

“I’ll be alright. You just make sure you get to class on time and have a good day.”

His son came home later that afternoon to tell him all about the amazing day he had at his new school. His teacher was nice. His classmates really liked him. They even served his favorite in the cafeteria!

Midorima was happy for his son, and choose not to tell him that he had had the day from hell without his lucky item. From that day forward they each got their own.

Murasakibara

“Eh…? You don’t want to go to school?” Murasakibara looked at his daughter as she shook her head. Scuffing her new shoes on the sidewalk. “How come? You have to give me a good reason to skip your first day.”

“I…I don’t want to go…” She replied softly. His little girl incredibly shy. “What if the other kids make fun of me?” Murasakibara hummed a little. He supposed that was a good reason.

For better or worse, his children had inherited his height. It wasn’t so bad for her older brothers. Being tall was an admirable attribute for boys. For girls though…..well….it just made his angel that much bigger of a target.

“If the kids make fun of you, tell them your dad is even taller and he’ll stick them in a tree and leave them there if they make fun of you.” The little girl giggled, clearly picturing the image, but still didn’t seem convinced to go. Murasakibara knelt down so he wasn’t towering so much over her and patted her head. “School is important. You need to go so you can be smart like you Mom. Not a dumb dumb like your Dad.” He smoothed out her hair from ruffling it. It had taken them a while to get it right, and he didn’t want to ruin it. “But, I’ll be here when you get out today and we’ll go get ice cream as a reward. Our secret.”

His daughter beamed at the promise of ice cream and nodded eagerly. She then went off to school without any complaints. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. You could get him to do anything for ice cream too.

[charliejrogers]

TENET (2020) - Review & Analysis

It’s hard to write about this movie without spoilers… so… fair warning… spoilers ahead. Though they don’t start til like halfway through the review.

One of my friends recently asked, “So how was TENET.” My answer: “When I read about the plot after I watched it, my mind was blown.” Therein lies the problem. This is a classic, “It’s better the second time” kind of movie, something Christopher Nolan isn’t a stranger to (I lovingly saw Inception twice in theaters and The Dark Knight a whopping three times in theaters… and both countless times since). The difference is, both of those movies were great the first time around too. They just got even better with subsequent viewings.

My personal problem too is that with rare exception (and especially as I’ve gotten older), I don’t like watching movies more than once. While there’s too much out there that I know I’ll never see, I still want to do my best and see as much as I can. Therefore, I don’t put too much credence into “It’s better the second time.” If it’s not good the first time around, I don’t care if might be better the second time.

TENET continues Christopher Nolan’s fascination with toying with time. It’s a theme and gimmick that’s been a staple since his ground-breaking major debut with 2001’s Memento, but featured heavily in both 2014’s black-hole-time-warping space opera Interstellar and 2017’s timeline jumping war epic Dunkirk. In some ways, this is Nolan’s most straightforward manipulation of time, it’s just time travel. Here, the central conceit of TENET is that scientists at some point in the distant future have figured out a way to get objects (and people) to travel backwards in time, and to do so in real time. In other words, whereas in Back to the Future, Marty and Doc flash back from 1985 to 1955 in a millisecond, in the world of TENET that time-travelling would occur only after Marty and Doc wandered about Earth for the equivalent of 30 years’ time. And, importantly, during those thirty years, Marty and Doc would exist in the same plane and realm as all other “forward-time” people. They can even interact with the world like anyone else… just the interaction would be… interesting to say the least. The backwards-time person would appear to be moving in reverse from the perspective of the forwards-time person, and vice versa.

This idea leads to the most interesting part of the movie: the visuals and effects. Characters in the movie hold guns that don’t shoot out bullets so much as just absorb bullets from environments which travel with the same momentum as if they had been shot out of a gun. Bombs that blow up a building in the world of the forwards-in-time people, are experienced as fallen buildings that spontaneously reassemble from the perspective of the backwards-in-time people. The result is a movie in which the director clearly relished the opportunity to create little clever puzzle boxes of scenes. I’m sure there are countless of YouTube videos that will happily show you why this movie is a masterpiece, and I agree from a design and plotting perspective, it was satisfying to watch many of the same sequences (a car chase, a vault heist) from two perspectives (one forward-in-time and one backward-in-time) and to notice all the little details about how actions in one timeline ultimately affected the other.

That said, my head legitimately hurt as I watched this movie. As Clémence Poésy puts it in perhaps the movie’s most famous line, “Don’t try to understand it; just feel it.” I wish I could. The temptation to try to wrap your mind around what is happening on screen is too large.

Perhaps what most threw me off (and both impressed and annoyed me) is how it deals with the central paradox of time travel. Namely, what happens when you change the past… and can you even do that? To put it briefly, it tackles this subject head-on without trying to cut corners or introduce alternate universes.  Other films, like Avengers: Endgame address this issue by just explaining that each time characters go back in time and mess with the past, they are creating an alternate and parallel universe. This makes sense to me… as much as time travel can make sense that is. But the parallel universe solution means that truly whatever happened happened. The Avengers can go back in time and stop Thanos, but there will always exist a timeline where he wins.

This movie doesn’t subscribe to the parallel universe theory. It outright rejects my linear understanding of time and seems to subscribe to the same circular notion of time that was (not introduced but) made popular by the 2016 film Arrival. In this view of time travel, someone can go back in time and influence the exact same reality the live in. AND furthermore, the fact that one has traveled back in time makes it so that it has always been like this. In other words, traveling back in time erases any previous universe where one hadn’t traveled back in time. I think of it this way. Imagine someone poisons my Mom’s box of Cheerios. She dies. I manage to go back in time and throw away her poisoned Cheerios before she could eat them. In the Avengers view of things, my mom would still be dead in the original timeline, but I created a new parallel universe where she’s now alive, having never been able to encounter the poisoned Cheerios. In the TENET view of the world, by travelling back in time to throw away the Cheerios, I effectively undo the fact that my Mom was ever in danger. Though I as a time-traveller may remember my harrowing Cheerios journey, she has no memory of the experience since I went back and prevented that reality from ever happening. What this does mean though is that as soon as I time-travel far back enough to get rid of the Cheerios, there are now two of me in the world. There is one who time-travelled and one who is unaware that his Mom was ever in danger. Time-traveller-me now cannot simply return to his home and normal life… as the other-me is living his life unaware that time travel was ever necessary (creating a Prestige-like scenario where maybe the time-traveller is better off just offing themselves, and honestly I wouldn’t have minded Nolan retreading themes from that superb movie).

It’s that last part about the time traveller being unable to return to his old life that marks the biggest difference from time travel in the vein of Back to the Future. In the Back to the Future model, after throwing away my Mom’s poisoned Cheerios, I can zap back to the moment in time I initially decided to time travel, and insert myself back in the correct time (technically there could still be two of me... but we’ll ignore that for now). However, in the TENET model, you cannot “zap” back to the future. The only to go back to the point when you first went backwards is just to live that amount of time. That’s why two of the same person will have to essentially co-exist. And since the movie stipulates that two of the same person cannot come into contact, the time-traveller is likely to live a life of exile.

It’s the sort of head-scratcher that makes sense on paper (and hopefully I clarified something for someone), but when watching this stuff play out on screen it made for a very unsatisfying movie. WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! We as the viewer are used to seeing things as they unfold in real time. What this movie doesn’t allow us to see are the countless times various characters fail to do something and going back to undo their mistakes. Instead, we are experiencing the new reality created by past timetravellers, unaware (til the end of the movie) that they were previously realities that were erased (or prevented from coming into existence). We learn at the end of the movie that our Protagonist (John David Washington who’s cleverly named just The Protagonist… ugh) is actually the founder of the elite, global para-military force called TENET which is designed to thwart efforts by the future to erase the past. Setting aside how illogical the future’s plan is (something which the movie acknowledges… which doesn’t necessarily help matters), the reveal that The Protagonist is the original founder of TENET means that there’s a whole lot more to the plot we don’t see in the movie. The original Protagonist clearly had a long life with life events that were very different from what we see in this movie. Namely and most importantly, he at one time lived in a world without TENET. Presumably, the initial Protagonist discovers the future’s scheme and fails to stop it. In order to undo his failure he goes back in time to form TENET. In doing so, he completely erases the TENET-less reality he had actually experienced. And interestingly, the Protagonist involves his younger self in his plan for the eventual of TENET. So as I said, the Protagonist we follow in this movie is NOT the original Protagonist, but instead one who lives a reality that was manufactured by an older version himself.

What I think is crucial, (and maybe I’m dead wrong here, who knows?) but at the end of the movie when it is revealed that the Protagonistis the founder of TENET, it is implied that our Protagonist (the one we follow in the movie) will go on to do the same acts as his prior self (namely, as an old man, he will travel back in time and found TENET again). But I don’t think this is true, and it’s here I think the movie approaches time travel in a unique way. A figure has already founded TENET, so there’s no need to do that again. What’s happened, happened. In essence, the Protagonist we see at the end of the movie is free to do whatever he wants. What’s happened has already happened and the TENET-founding Protagonist has already done his thing.

What I like about that is that it avoids the weird, paradox circular shit that infects time travel fiction. Take the third Harry Potter, for example. Harry is about to get destroyed by Dementors until a Patronus spell is fired. As we discover later in the movie, it was actually Harry who cast that spell. But how is that possible? If a future Harry is the only way to save Harry… then how does he get saved the first time? Maybe there’s an alternate reality we don’t see where Ron saves Harry last second and Ron dies so Harry goes back in time to prevent that reality from happening and we just never see that. Regardless, it’s a large plot hole that is unexplainable. What I give credit to Nolan and co. for is crafting an incredibly complex time travel tale that avoids any obvious plot holes and time paradoxes. We are left with a fairly intelligent piece of science fiction. Also it doesn’t chalk it all up to, “aliens think and speak in circles so time is circular”… you know that bullshit that Arrival pulled.

That’s more than I intended to write about the plot. The point is, as I said at the beginning, reading about and discussing the plot is superbly interesting and hats off to Nolan and crew for putting it together.

Watching the plot is a different story. Nolan is needlessly confusing in this picture. The fact that reading about the story offers a great deal of clarity should be a red flag. Not that every movie needs to or should be clearly understandable immediately… but it shouldn’t be so confusing that your head hurts.

I think the most disappointing thing is that I would be willing to set aside the confusing story for the pleasure of some well-choreographed, mind-bending action sequences. While the previously mentioned car chase is one such sequence, the grand finale invasion/battle was (for me) incredibly hard to follow. Shot to show two simultaneous operations, one team moving forward, one moving backward, I had no fucking clue what was happening.

And then once we start to actually think about the characters and humans who make up this story… it’s clear more work went into designing the action/set pieces than in developing the characters. I hated… HATED John David Washington’s performance as the Protagonist. He was written to sound like a quick-quipped, witty, charming Bond-like hero, and this just isn’t the movie for that. Though a former CIA agent, he’s not in a spy-thriller. And when the dialogue isn’t a showcase to show off how witty our hero is, it is just an excuse to explain boatloads and boatloads of exposition. I’ve become a real stickler as of late for how films do this. Classically, films use a newbie character as a stand-in for the audience as an excuse for other characters to explain the particulars of the world to them. It’s a little trite, but it’s perfectly functional. What isn’t functional is what this movie does. Half of the dialogue is the The Protagonist meeting someone and them asking him a question like, “What do you know about this Russian base?” and the Protagonist responding, “That Russian base? Well it’s… blah blah blah” and proceeds to talk for a minute answering the person’s question exactly. They reply, “Correct.” And the movie proceeds. It just doesn’t do much to make me care about any characters.

And then, yes, we have to talk about it, the way Nolan’s film deals with its lone female character, Kat Barton (Elizabeth Debicki). She’s the wife of the film’s villain, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Brannagh, doing his best impression of a Eastern European maniac since the last time he did this for 2014’s Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit… which admittedly he does a good job of). The men in this film just don’t give a shit about this woman. But that would be OK if the movie was honest about this, or in particular made the Protagonist feel guilty about how he uses Kat, discards her, and gets her unnecessarily involved in her husband’s affairs. If you can’t tell, I hated the Protagonist, which is never a good sign when watching a movie. I didn’t much like Washington in BlacKkKlansmen either, so maybe he’s just not my guy. In both movies, he seems to have a confident swagger about him that doesn’t match the characters he plays.

Robert Pattinson is in this movie too. He’s good. I don’t know. Nothing special here from him. He doesn’t detract from anything, but he’s not a great addition. Same goes for the performance from Debicki. Branagh as the villain is good. He’s a good actor even if his beard/facial hair just looked off the whole time. Maybe a larger make-up budget would have helped? At least he was an interesting character, even if deeply flawed and the movie goes a bit too far to make him sympathetic.

So it’s not the complete mess that some people say it is online, and while I understand and appreciate and really like the complexity of the plot and time travel mechanics on paper… they are certainly not a joy to watch. If you do watching, then be prepared to do boatloads of mental gymnastics or just resign one’s self to not understanding what’s happening. While I’m happy to hand-waive some shady plot points or time paradoxes from a movie, when the whole movie is a time paradox, that becomes hard to do. Alas, this is still the best Nolan film for me since Inception, but still a far cry from the highs of his 2000s run of The Prestige, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Inception. If some of the character moments were better developed, this would have been a better film. Instead, really, don’t try to understand and just be awash in this time-loopy, messy, but clever film.

**/ (Two and a half out of four stars)

[81scorp]

My thoughts on Frozen

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

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

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

[sparda3g]

Tokyo Ghoul:re Chapter 139 Review

The series doesn't want you to relax for a moment. It wants you to be succumbed by horror. We are not done with this arc but it has gotten worse in the situation. This chapter is an all-out action that leaves a terrifying cliffhanger that can go to many places.

The series is drawer near to the end of the volume, though I don't know if the arc itself is ending by then. It can go to any route from this moment; it can either end on a relief or suffering. Last chapter felt like bless because of how it was rewarding and despite one death, it was uplifting. Now, we are screwed over with another roller coaster of emotions.

The chapter begins with a map of Information and there were plenty. It's a necessary and interesting idea to use because we need to understand the time and position of each of these characters. It's interesting to note that the CCG retaliation happened 6 hours before the current event at 24th Ward. It leaves a lot of opportunity for any surprise, like Hide and Urie will help GOAT, or Furuta set a different plan in motion based on what happened. It's anything goes.

It's really good to know nearly everyone's position, so we can know where they're at and lessen the thought of their rescue or destruction. It's a shame that the Qs Squad is left behind at their rooms. I'm still hoping that Urie brings them alongside, so it can be a complete family runaway. Maybe it can still happen. Other than that, everything that we have seen earlier is the same as before. Yomo is still fighting against Mutsuki and Aura, Hajime is confronting the former 0 Squad, and unfortunately, Kaneki and others have no idea that they're in trouble.

The chapter is pretty engaging and clearly drawn to follow. It's a lot more intriguing with different sides of the combatant; whether it's Ghoul versus Ghoul, Human versus Ghoul, or even Human versus Human. It offers a lot of varieties to be thrilled. That's why this chapter got me in an adrenaline ride with plenty of solid action.

It also provides inserted emotional conflicts. I like Yomo's battle is thought-provoking, producing strategic play, understanding the surroundings and powers they have. At least Mutsuki understands that Yomo has better experience than her, so she relies on her twisted emotions to overcome him. Her quinque or knives came at a perfect timing; nailed the image of her insanity. She is seriously twisted; I feel that this battle will determine if she must die.

Shifting focus to Hajime and 0 Squad, we finally get to see Ui and he's really in a rough shape. I too think that this will determine his state as a character. I think he should not kill any of them in order to stay in the "safety" zone. Otherwise, his path is definitely death in a dreadful way. Granted, he can still die here, but it's the right time to learn his errors of his way. This is the perfect time, though it's not looking good with him attacking Hirako first.

It's pretty entertaining to see a different terrain of combat with all of them aside of Hajime, so a strike to the body will hurt significantly. There is plenty of maneuvers and evasion, it justifies that one hit is all it takes to lose. Hajime does enter the fray and his is more challenging since it's more like fighting a Ghoul than anything else. Even Hirako pointed this out.

It's still thrilling to see another Human versus Ghoul, providing a different strategic move. Hajime was trying to distract Shio and catch him by surprise. Think it as a mind game. Shio got hurt just by touching Kagune rather than tanking it. They did suggest that they have a past history, so it's clear that they know each other; possibly a flashback in the future. All battles are only going to get intense.

Just when I was hoping the parallel would stop, this chapter returns with another one and now, I'm really worried. Touka and others are getting close to Route E14 so they can avoid any followers for conflicts. Touka has gotten so far. Out of nowhere, a dagger is tossed right at her shoulder. Now we are in deep shit of trouble. Recall that Kaneki was stopped at V14 by Arima; now it's Touka's turn at E14. How freaking cruel, Ishida.

The dagger is 1/56, which only means Suzuya is behind that attack. I remember there was a poem by Ishida a while back and it does eerily fits in this scenario. If that's the case, then we can expect the worst and if he's the one to kill her, this would be a terrifying and most messed up development. It's like turning someone bad to the beloved character of a series; TV, comic, etc. No one would want to hate Suzuya for his wrongdoing that can happen to Touka.

On top of that, she still has something to lose outside her life and friends: her unborn child. A miscarriage can occur if she continues to get hurt and I can see that way to build tension for the audience. No one in CCG knows that she is pregnant, so they can’t prevent themselves from killing her by whatever reason, but they can still kill her child. I wouldn't ignore this thought in this type of series. Anything goes and anything tragic is a win in Ishida's eyes.

The visual continues to be very solid and easy to follow, which could be surprising to those who complained about the action being hard to follow. It's clear, eventful, and plenty of nice maneuvers. The image of Mutsuki thinking about her feelings for Sasaki is disturbing as it should be. It's her pathway to be psychotic. Ui looks rough; hopefully he gets help here.

Touka taking that stab is a shocker and terrifying note to end on. I think there's a Roman numeral 6 written on her face in the last page. According to the tarot card, it's for The Lovers, and the last page also restated that Kaneki has no idea on what's going on. That's not a good omen at all.

It's a pretty gripping chapter in many ways and the information in the beginning helped in a good and bad way. It helps to understand the scenario, but frightened for their unawareness. The action is plenty of fun from mixture of varieties. The last page is a cruel way to end on, leaving us in heavy breathing state for her safety. "He laughs." Who? Ishida? Oh, I'll bet.

[rogueimagination]

A Misunderstanding (part one)

PART TWO

Pairing: You x Jimin

Summary: Your best friend Yoongi finally got you to expose your crush on Jimin and now he’s determined to play matchmaker but you aren’t having any of it - not until Jimin starts believing you hate him.

Genre: ANGST 

Word Count: 2336

Authors Note: so it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything because of school and work but I’m back now! Hooray! Also, feel free to send in requests!

[text message received at 6:43pm from Min Yoongi] "come over"

[text message sent at 6:45pm from you] "no"

[text message received at 6:45pm from Min Yoongi] "jimin is here"

[text message sent at 6:46pm from you] "That is exactly why I'm not coming"

Instead of a the buzz of a text message notification, the ring of a phone call played through your phone. You looked at who was calling and wasn't surprised to see Yoongi's name. You sighed and reluctantly answered, "I'm not coming over, Yoongi."

"Don't lie to me Y/N. You want to." Yoongi demanded. "No. Ever since I let my crush on him slip you won't stop insisting I come over." He had done this regularly for the past few weeks and it was beginning to become tiring. "Stop trying to get us together." You added, peeking around the corner to see if your roommate Sunyoung was anywhere near. She fed off gossip and if she overheard she wouldn't be able to keep her mouth shut about it. "I knew you had a crush on him forever. You only confirmed it." He insisted and you rolled your eyes. "Don't lie, Yoongi. No you didn't." How could he? It wasn't like you were obvious or anything.

"Y/N you are so obvious! Just come over. Jimin is starting to think you hate him." His words spiked the fear within you, "He is??? Why? What did I do?" You practically shouted. You didn't care if everyone on earth thought you hated them - everyone except for Jimin. "Think about it. You reject my offer to do something with Jimin and I every time but accept when its with any other member. Jimin has noticed and the poor boy thinks its because you hate him - not because you love him."

"I'll be right over"

--------

When you arrived,  you were surprised to see more than just Yoongi and Jimin. Taehyung and Hoseok were sitting on the floor trying to keep their eyes open while Yoongi and Jimin were seated on opposite sides of the couch behind them. There was a seat waiting for you in between Yoongi and Jimin. You had your suspicions that Yoongi planned the arrangement and everyone went along without questioning it. "Y/N!" Taehyung cheered when he noticed your arrival. "Just in time for the movie to start!" He added as you took your designated seat.

"What movie?" You asked Taehyung, who was sitting directly below you. "I don't know actually.... Jimin picked it." Taehyung spoke brightly and you reluctantly turned to Jimin. You were avoiding a confrontation about how you had been avoiding him and you hoped it would pass by without being discussed. "Sorry Y/N. I didn't think you would come over so I picked an action movie. I know you always weirdly fall asleep during action movies." Jimin said shyly. Your mind repeated "why does he have to be so cute when he's shy?" until you remembered you had to respond. "That's okay, I'll try to stay awake!" You said enthusiastically to cover up how unusually long it took you to respond. You could hear Yoongi's chuckle on the other side of you but you ignored him.

Unsurprisingly, you fell asleep. About half way through the movie your eyes were tightly closed, your neck had fallen directly backwards to uncomfortably lay against the top of the couch, and your mouth hung slightly open. Of course you were unaware of your position but all the boys found it hilarious, except for Jimin. "Just let her sleep. Watch the movie." Jimin ordered, keeping his eyes away from you and locked onto the screen.

Yoongi was particularly ruthless towards you - he always was as your designated best friend. "Why is she like this? She passes out the second the action starts. If a war started right here, she would probably fall asleep right then." Yoongi joked and Hoseok collapsed in stomach-grasping laughter. "Imagine that! Y/N asleep in the middle of a battle." Hoseok shouted in between laughs and Yoongi joined him. 

"Someone needs to watch out for her, she could get herself killed with her sleep patterns." Taehyung laughed. "Yoongi watch out for her. You're her closest friend." Hoseok said, looking up at Yoongi but he only shook his head."Jimin can watch out for her. He's the one in love with her." Yoongi spoke with a smile looking over at Jimin. "Be quiet. Watch the movie." Jimin grumbled, staring at the screen and away from the teasing boys. "We made Jimin angry." Taehyung teased but obeyed Jimin's demands and everyone continued on watching the movie.

A few minutes later, your head slipped down to your shoulder. Shortly after, the strain on your neck caused your neck to slip off your shoulder and onto Jimin's. Jimin stiffened at the contact and his eyes darted around the room to see if anyone noticed. No one had. Jimin eased up and decided to enjoy the moment.

When he sensed the ending of the movie, Jimin quickly went to wake you up to prevent any teasing from everyone. "Y/N.. Y/N....." Jimin whispered against your head that comfortably resting on his shoulder. He whispered your name into your ear and the rush of butterflies throughout your body woke you up. You lifted your head and looked at the source of what woke you up. Jimin's eyes stared back until both of you awkwardly stared straight forward, ignoring the 'moment' that just happened.

You anxiously waited for the credits, not daring to turn to look at him. As you felt his eyes on you, you remembered Yoongi's words about him thinking you hated him. Ignoring that you fell asleep on him would definitely contribute to that. You had no choice - you had to stop avoiding him. When you turned to him, he quickly looked from you to the movie and pretended to have been watching it all along.

"Sorry for falling asleep on you. I don't know why my body does this." You gave a hesitant chuckle, hoping he would feel no hatred in your actions. He turned back to you with a gentle expression "You can fall asleep on me any time." He looked down shyly as a simple "okay" fumbled out of your mouth.

Knowing the interaction was dying out, you attempted to hold it together. "I'm sad I haven't seen you in awhile..." You were hesitant because of the doubts swarming your mind as you spoke. "Why haven't you? It feels like you're avoiding me." Jimin whispered as the credits began to roll down the screen. You wanted to respond but Taehyung and Hoseok started talking and you knew Yoongi was watching the two of you. In addition, it felt like this was a conversation that should be private - mostly because you didn't want everyone else inserting themselves in it.

"I liked the one scene where they smashed into the building! Did you like that one Jimin--oh Y/n! You didn't sleep through the movie!" Taehyung said with full surprise. You awkwardly scratched your head, "not really... I just woke up." You turned back to Jimin who wasn't looking in your direction as you hoped. You knew the attention from the others regarding your relationship with Jimin was something you didn't wanted but it felt necessary. "Jimin? Can we talk privately?" You asked calmly, knowing fully that everyone was watching. Jimin's simple nod signaled you to stand up and take the lead into finding a place to talk. You walked out of the room and waited for Jimin to join you. The way his head hung down as he met you in the hallway made it feel like you were a mother about to scold her child.

"Are you going to tell me what I did to make you angry with me?" Jimin questioned when the two of you were away from the other boy's sights. "I'm not angry, Jimin. You didn't do anything." You avoided Jimin's eyes, being too afraid that he was angry with you instead. "Then why have you been avoiding me?" His voice was boarding heartbroken and in return it broke yours. Except, you didn't want to tell him the truth. You didn't want to tell him it was because you really really liked him or that Yoongi found out and wouldn't leave you alone about it.

"I'm sorry. I didn't intend to. Will you forgive me?" was all that left your mouth and you looked to him in anticipation of his answer. "Of course I forgive you. Y/N, please don't ignore me again. I thought we were becoming good friends." Jimin's serious gaze pierced through you. "I promise I won't. When Yoongi told me you thought I was mad at you, I knew I had to do something about it." You said as you leaned against the wall, keeping your eyes on him.

"Ah Yoongi... I've always wondered how the two of you became close...." Jimin trailed off but, happy for the change in subject, you followed. "What do you mean?" You questioned, watching him lean against the opposite wall to match your position. "The two of you are really good friends and it's a surprise to us all. I never would have put the two of you together." Jimin explained, staring off into the hallway. "You can be friends with anyone, no matter your differences. I only believe in compatibility when it comes to romantic relationships." You hoped he would understand where you were going with this. "You don't see Yoongi romantically?" Jimin looked at you curiously as he spoke. "No. Never." You laughed just at the thought of it. "Oh, well that's good. What do you do then when the two of you do something together?"

"Oh, many things... we listen to a lot of music and critique it. It's actually really fun." You shrugged and played around with your fingers, feeling the nervousness creep upon you. You always act normal talking to Jimin until your mind realizes what's happening. "Can you show me?" He pushed off the wall and walked towards you. You nodded your head with gentle smile across your face and reached into your pocket. You always had your headphones with you and promptly plugged them into your phone.  "Is there anything specific you want to hear?" You asked as you handed him one of the pieces.

"Your favorite song." His voice kick started the beat of your heart to a higher intensity and you could feel your hands begin to shake as you searched for the song. You put one of the pieces in your ear and looked up to check to see if he had one in his - he did. You were still against the wall and Jimin was directly in front of you. The unnecessary closeness between you two was causing your hands to shake more.

When you pressed play on your favorite song, you closed your eyes to fully grasp the melody. You let your phone slid into your pocket and your brain into the song. The intro rang through your ears and you could feel the rhythm run through your veins as if each cord was a surge of electricity. One ear was clinging onto the sound escaping the headphone while the other was searching for a signal of Jimin.  You reached forward and grabbed his forearm to ensure of his presence. Your eyes remained closed and you hoped his was too but you were too scared to check.

Just as the course hit, something unexpected occurred. The light on the other side of your eyes darkened and the heat rose. You went to open your eyes to see what changed but just as you did, Jimin's hand wrapped around your neck letting it rise to the connection between it and your ear and pulled himself towards you. With you now pinned against the wall, he pulled your head to his and collided your lips with his.

The combination of the harmonies dancing through your brain and the sensation of his lips made you feel like you have been transported to another galaxy. You kissed him back with an equal amount of passion as you wrapped your arms around him and in his hair. One of his hands grasped onto your face while another trailed down your body. Each touch left you feeling abducted and you absolutely loved it. You wished for him to be closer and your arms pulled him to reduce the distance further, although it was almost impossible. As the pair of you kissed endlessly, the pair of headphones were lost somewhere along the way but the hypnotizing kisses resulted in no one noticing their absence.

Then it was all ruined.

The buzz of your cellphone ripped the moment away and his lips were taken away from yours. Jimin stepped back as you reached into your pocket to look at your phone. It was your roommate Sunyoung. She never called you so you knew you had to answer the phone as it could be an emergency. "Hello?"

Unfortunately, you were right.

"Hello, you are assigned as Sunyoung's emergency contact. She was brought to the hospital earlier from a car accident. Can you tell me her relation to you?" You gasped and immediately answered, "I'm her roommate. She doesn't have any family here. Is she okay?" The pace of your heart remained the same from earlier but the reasons were far from similar. "Can you come down to the hospital? I will send you the location." The other line spoke. "Yes, yes." Your voice stuttered in fear. In fear for your friend. "Thank you. See you then" and they hung up.

You looked up at Jimin reluctantly who was looking at you with deep concern. "I have to go. I'm sorry..." You grabbed a hold of his forearm and looked at him not wanting to leave. "I'm sorry." You repeated and without another look you ran off to the door, leaving Jimin standing frozen in the empty hallway.

[ponyatta]

A (soon) comprehensive list of replies to antis when you have too much to do and can’t argue

I thought this would be nice to do for fans especially with all the goodies we are getting for 3B and anti’s are already coming with their negativity quickly. Its isn’t completed yet but you can still take a read, save it for future, use some of the arguments and tell me what I can add to improve it. I will leave this one up with a link to the updated one before the read more. There are links I haven’t found yet/arguments I haven’t added yet.If there are any mistakes then tell me. For example I can’t see if somethings that should have a link does thanks to the new layout so message me if they don’t. If there could be a point in an argument that isn’t as well then message me also.

Enjoy

Viewers/I don’t dislike Iris because she is black/she makes up an interracial couple/I want my white faves to be together

Interracial marriages were not legalized in the united states until 1967 so on June 12, it will be 50 years since our version of Iris being Iris West-Allen was even legal in a significant portion of where the show is set.

Even with 50 years passing there is still a large issue many have with interracial relationships.

In 2013 there was the huge amount of racist backlash to a cheerios commercial involving an interracial couple and their child to the point that the company had to disable comments from said video on youtube (but you can still see the gist of how terrible it was in the link).

May of 2016, there was an old navy ad on twitter featuring an interracial couple and it also got a flurry of racist comments with many saying they would never shop there again because of the image and just at the end of 2016 there was another incident with a State Farm ad on twitter collecting a large amount of racist comments with people saying how the image disgusted them and making the black man out to be a predator.

A couple was evicted because the landlord found out they were interacial while another were stabbed by a man after they kissed in public.

This is not just your neo-nazis, trolls on twitter and youtube or violent racist. There are also studies which have been done on the way people claim to be okay with interracial couples but may hold subconscious bias.

I/Viewers are not racist for not liking WA/Iris

How would you know? Here is a nice little paragraph from here that gives you an insight on why I ask.

“The problem with asking people to report on their own attitudes about sensitive topics like race and gender, however, is that people are often either unaware of their own biases or unwilling to report them. For example, although most white Americans self-report little to no racial bias against black people, they’ve been shown to possess robust implicit, or nonconscious, biases.”

Why are you attacking me for expressing my opinion?

The same way you are allowed to express your opinion, I am allowed to express mine on yours. You must remember that freedom of speech means that the government is not allowed to retaliate of censor you but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us cannot correct/argue. Attacked is a very strong word that carries a lot of implications. It is unlikely that anymore is happening than people expressing their own opinions about yours to you.

You said something that was wrong and you are being corrected. There is no need to get defensive about it. Realise a mistake and take to correction

Or

You stated an opinion as fact thus denying others theirs/said a blanket statement that doesn’t represent everyone involved.

Or

You said something that has racist undertones and you should acknowledge that then endeavour to fix that.

*Insert anger or defensiveness about the possibility of one being racist/acknowledging their racist action or tendencies*

“White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.”  A quote from this journal.

WA have no chemistry

Chemistry is subjective. That is why we have experts (in the form of casting directors, producers and critics) that bring together people or acknowledge those who have the best chemistry. David Rapaport casted most of The Flash’s main characters. When talking to buzzfeed, he said the following:

“That was a really hard role to cast,” Rapaport said. “We had seen Candice initially, but I think we were too early on in the process to cast her so we ended up testing Keke Palmer and this other girl, but they felt a little too young next to Grant. When building an ensemble, you have to do those chemistry reads to find out who works best together. We went back and looked at the tapes and Candice shines — when she smiles, it’s out of control — so we thought, Let’s do another chemistry read and we’ll bring Candice and one other girl in and it was just magic. Everyone in the room and looked at each other and we all just knew it. It just made total sense.”

So not only was she picked based on her chemistry with Grant, they went through a lot to make sure she was the right people and still after all that EVERYONE (which undoubtedly included the executive producers) in the room knew her chemistry with Grant was magic. To say that everyone in that room (including Grant who said once she left the room that Candice was the Iris West they were looking for LINK NEEDED ) somehow is so incompetent at their jobs that a subset of fandom knows better than them is rather insulting and very far fetched.

Furthermore the WA ship or their scenes have won almost all polls taken on various sites when polling the flash so even with how subjective chemistry is a large percentage enjoy the one WA has the most.

Various publications have put WA as one of the best relationships in one way or another. Also for the season 3 premier their chemistry was one of the highlights as noted in many articles. (add link to master post or individual ones) (Add tweets from write who loves westallen)

Even the cast and the people who work on the show love westallen with directors talking openly about how epic the relationship like Kevin Smith and consistently stating that their scenes are the best out of the episodes they direct. Executive Producers have said how much they enjoy writing westallen and Geoff Johns talk about the two of them almost anytime he brings up the show on twitter. (add links)

I like their platonic relationship more

How because they never had one. From the very beginning of the show We know that Barry Allen is hopelessly in love with Iris. During the pilot, He is trying to ask her out. The next episode he confessed his love for her but she just couldn’t hear it and in that same episode she admitted that Barry was one of the reasons that she had never had a real boyfriend before. We see her insinuate in flashbacks that she wouldn’t have dated Eddie if Barry wasn’t in a coma and especially if she knew how he felt about her. And in episode 13 we see that she had been unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession then we learn in the next episode that she always has had/still has these feelings but they just need something to make them come outwords. They literally went on movie, bowling and multiple coffee dates together. They have never had a strictly platonic relationship in the first place. They’ve always had a secretly in love relationship.

Moreover, they are still each other’s best friends while dating. They will still always be the most important person is each others lives. They can love each other in multiple ways at the same time.

Lastly why are you so against them becoming anything more than that? Might it be because you would like her to fall into the strong independent black woman who doesn’t need no man trope (x) (x)/mammy figure (x) (x)? This link is about the boxes that black women are thrown into in fandoms (written before The Flash even aired) and although there are many tropes and roles notice how so many have the prerequisite of her not having any romantic relationship and if she does it isn’t shown on screen more than necessary but can never have one with the main character. Have you fallen for this as well?

Barry doesn’t deserve her

Barry makes mistakes like any human being and she has forgiven him for them. Still it is still understandable to be angry at him but it doesn’t change the fact that he loves her and he makes her happy which is what you should want for her. As noted in this post Barry supports her a lot. We also see that Barry has been described to be willing to do whatever it takes to keep Iris alive in 3B so I think she is lucky to have someone like that.

This sentiment easily fall into the strong independent black woman who doesn’t need no man trope (x) (x). This link is about the boxes that black women are thrown into in fandoms (written before The Flash even aired) and although there are many tropes and roles notice how so many have the prerequisite of her not having any romantic relationship and if she does it isn’t shown on screen more than necessary but can never have one with the main character. Have you fallen for this as well?

Finally if you support an opposing Barry ship and you feel this way then why do you want to him to be with your fave if he doesn’t even deserve Iris. In fact why would you want to watch a show where the protagonist isn’t even good enough for the love of their life.

Iris doesn’t really love him: she’s just following destiny.

Here is a good post that explains why this is not true. Also in season 1 episode 15 “Out of time” Iris says how she was unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession in episode 9 and kissed him. Much before she saw anything about them being together. So we know she had been thinking about her romantic feeling for him since he confessed hers. This can be seen here. https://youtu.be/lbtn_KZmDWU. Also Fake!Wells told Barry in the next episode that she still had those feelings for him but that they were deep in her subconscious so needed something big to force them to the surface as seen here https://youtu.be/2MTzYDFxcYA?t=2m57s and asking her out at a coffee shop while she was still dating her boyfriend probably pushed them further down. So she we have known for absolutely sure that Iris has had feelings for Barry since 1x09. Linda only needed one conversation with Iris about Barry for her to figure out they were in love with each other. Even with, before the show had even started Cisco had only ever heard Iris talk to a comatose Barry/his social media page and already knew that Barry and Iris had was indescribable and was enough for Felicity to know she had no chance as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd4V2UiaT0. (add Eddie’s “It’s not about the future its about here and now speech)

In addition to what was said in the previous paragraph about Fake!Wells explaining that Iris’s feelings needed something big to make them conscious rather than subconscious. We also see that she keeps them subconscious so thats he doesn’t mess up the great relationship she already has with Barry because as we have seen, she doesn’t do well without him in her life. So she uses them being married in the future and Earth 2 to reassure herself that if she did try it out it wouldn’t end with them hating each other and never talking again. The same way that his possibly dying was enough for her to have the feeling coaxed out of her in 2x20.

Moreover, we can see that both Candice Patton, Grant Gustin, other members of the show/DCTV and the executive producers do not agree with this. They have all expressed in interviews that that Iris West does love Barry Allen. Aaron Helbing said in an interview “She just moved in with Barry, she’s madly in love with him…” recently in fact. And last year he also said “Barry Allen and Iris West are an iconic relationship. We set it up, at the end of Season 2, that they were going to get together, and then he undid it. But, these two are destined to be together. I would say to keep watching. As with destiny, things end up playing out the way you hoped they would.”

Finally if you don’t believe she doesn’t love him maybe you should look at this gif series which has tags that are a goldmine for understanding  their early relationship from valeriemperez also here are their scenes to gether in season 1 and season 2.

Iris doesn’t really love him: she loves the flash.

In season 1 episode 15 “Out of time” Iris says how she was unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession in episode 9 and kissed him. Immediately after that she found out he was the flash. So we know she had been thinking about her romantic feeling for him since he confessed hers. This can be seen here. https://youtu.be/lbtn_KZmDWU. Also Fake!Wells told Barry in the next episode that she still had those feelings for him but that they were deep in her subconscious so needed something big to force them to the surface as seen here https://youtu.be/2MTzYDFxcYA?t=2m57s and asking her out at a coffee shop while she was still dating her boyfriend probably pushed them further down. So she we have known for absolutely sure that Iris has had feelings for Barry since 1x09. Linda only needed one conversation with Iris about Barry for her to figure out they were in love with each other. Even with, before the show had even started Cisco had only ever heard Iris talk to a comatose Barry/his social media page and already knew that Barry and Iris had was indescribable and was enough for Felicity to know she had no chance as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd4V2UiaT0.

It wasn’t until he had lost his powers that she next confessed her feeling for him. She told him then that she didn’t care if he was the flash or not but wanted to be with him - Barry Allen. In season 3 she even tried to keep him being the flash out of their love life and told him he was perfect without his powers. What more do you want from her?

Candice Patton, who plays Iris West has spoken about how the reason we saw such intense attraction between Iris and The Flash was because The Flash was everything Barry was but more confidently. Also it allowed her to explore her feelings for Barry without her having all the restriction in her mind of her relationship with Barry Allen i.e. best friends she would never want to lose because without him she is miserable. I REMEMBER THIS BUT I CANNOT FIND WHEN SHE SAID THIS.

Finally if you don’t believe she doesn’t love him maybe you should look at this gif series which has tags that are a goldmine for understanding their early relationship from valeriemperez also here are their scenes to gether in season 1 and season 2.

Iris’s feelings came out of nowhere

In season 1 episode 15 “Out of time” Iris says how she was unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession in episode 9 and kissed him. So we know she had been thinking about her romantic feeling for him since he confessed hers. This can be seen here. https://youtu.be/lbtn_KZmDWU. Also Fake!Wells told Barry in the next episode that she still had those feelings for him but that they were deep in her subconscious so needed something big to force them to the surface as seen here https://youtu.be/2MTzYDFxcYA?t=2m57s and asking her out at a coffee shop while she was still dating her boyfriend probably pushed them further down. So she we have known for absolutely sure that Iris has had feelings for Barry since 1x09. Linda only needed one conversation with Iris about Barry for her to figure out they were in love with each other. Even with, before the show had even started Cisco had only ever heard Iris talk to a comatose Barry/his social media page and already knew that Barry and Iris had was indescribable and was enough for Felicity to know she had no chance as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd4V2UiaT0.

Even her boyfriend and her father knew that there was something more between them with Eddie knowing that he couldn’t never compete with it. It was his own words when he said that “There were always three people in this relationship.” MAY BE PARAPHRASED The show finds it hard to deal with the point of views other than white men but we see their more-than-friends-but-don’t-realise-it a lot in season 1. We see her struggle with her feelings for Barry a lot in with his confession, as she asks him if she should move in with Eddie and so much more that valeriemperez highlights so much better in these series of gifs called westallen by scene and the tags are a goldmine for understanding their relationship. You can see all of their scene that season here.

In season 2, their scenes are less especially before the winter break because they were selling Barry/Patty and she was grieving her dead fiance while Barry was feeling guilty about Eddie’s death as well. Still we see Iris parallel her response to him dating Linda in the way that she responds to finding out he is going on a date with Patty. She trusts him with her life enough to jump out of a skyscraper when he tells her to. She talks about her doppelganger having sex and them possibly getting married with him at a club. She tells him to come home (which we learn later meant to her) before going to earth 2. He helped her get closure with Eddie. She stopped seeing her rebound guy to spend time with him. She went to him about her brother first and he relied on him to tell her father about him. You can see these scenes and more here. And even them it wasn’t until next season that they became a couple.

ALSO ADD THE ARGUMENT ABOUT HOW IT MAY BE DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO EMPATHIZE WITH PEOPLE OF COLOUR. I’M LOOKING FOR A STUDY SO IF ANYONE COULD PROVIDE THAT WOULD BE GREAT. Therefore it might have been difficult for you to see her feelings manifest.

They are siblings/Iris and Barry are incest

It if very rude to people who have actually experience incest for people to be using their trauma wrong for petty fandom fights. Like incredibly disgusting. Like don’t do that. Ever. Stop. You don’t like them. Fine. Don’t call incest.

Why aren’t they siblings? Well a large number of reasons. One is that they never saw each other that way. In the very first episode they explains that they are not brother and sister but they just lived together. This is the narrative of the show that was set up at the very pilot of the show. They did not start their relationship from when they lived together like some who many believe to be in comparable situations but rather had a preexisting relationship as friends that they simply built up on. They were raised as friends - not siblings. We see how Barry treats Iris and how it is different to how Wally and Iris treat each other as to further highlight how they are not siblings. Nobody in the narrative has a problem with their relationship. In fact Joe was very supportive of them throughout season 1.

They do not share the same father as one of Barry’s storylines was him getting his father out of jail which was not Joe. We see him call Joe “Joe” or “your dad” when talking to Iris constantly. The only reason that Joe took in Barry was because he was his daughter’s best friend and when Barry was growing up they were not all that close because the only other person that believed that Henry Allen didn’t kill Nora Allen was Iris West before the particle accelerator accident. We can see how strained their relationship actually was before Joe started to help him find his mother’s killer in the pilot. Joe is Barry’s father figure and all of team flash is a family and especially so the west-allen clan but that doesn’t make them siblings. We’ve seen Iris interact with Barry’s father as well as she brought him in to help Barry and tried to get his medical license back. 

Moreover, they aren’t siblings full stop though because Barry wasn’t adopted by the West or his name would have changed to Barry West. So they aren’t related. They made it very easy to see the difference between them for the sparse viewer by making one black and the other white, ergo making them look nothing alike. On this note I should add that SB shippers sometimes use the argument that Grant and Danielle look so similar to each other as a reason why the ship should happen but outside small fandom circles that fact is never used against the relationship.  Legally there is nothing wrong with Barry and Iris’s relationship as noted in more detail in this post here. So the claim that they are sibling is wrong. The claim that they are “kinda” or technically siblings doesn’t make them that. It  is also wrong because you can either be someone’s sibling or not. It is a discrete variable. A yes or no. And the answer is no. There is no inbetween. You tick boxes to be yes not the ones you make up and they are legally, genetically and interpersonal connection. They don’t tick any of them. 

The cast see nothing wrong with their relationship and Grant and Candice don’t see them as siblings also. And the people who are making the show feel that there is nothing wrong with it either. In fact they have stated many times that they love writing their relationship evolve into a romantic one. And many other DCTV starts like Violette Beane and Caity Lotz have said that they love their relationship as well. Even the child that played young Barry loves their relationship as well. Directors that come for an episode at a time have also spoken highly of the two of them and their scenes together.

So not only are they not siblings as in line with the narrative of the show and nobody has a problem with their relationship in the world of the show but that they are legal and people who work on the show and make it have no problems with them and even love them as a couple.

I would also want you to note why you stick with this claim after almost 3 seasons? Could this be because of race? This link is about the boxes that black women are thrown into in fandoms (written before The Flash even aired) and although there are many tropes and roles notice how so many have the prerequisite of her not having any romantic relationship and if she does it isn’t shown on screen more than necessary but can never have one with the main character. Have you fallen for this as well? We see that Brotp or the exclamation that two people are like siblings is seen disproportionately with characters of colour as noted by many people here, here, here and here. So you many want to critically analyse your intentions of shouting this wrong claim.  

[ponyatta]

A (soon) comprehensive list of replies to anti when you have to much to do and can’t argue

I thought this would be nice to do for fans especially with all the goodies we are getting for 3B and they will be coming with their negativity quickly. Its isn’t completed yet but you can still take a read, save it for future, use some of the arguments and tell me what I can add to improve it. I will leave this one up with a link to the updated one before the read more. There are links I haven’t found yet/arguments I haven’t added yet.If there are any mistakes then tell me. For example I can’t see if somethings that should have a link does thanks to the new layout so message me if they don’t. 

Enjoy

Viewers/I don’t dislike Iris because she is black/she makes up an interracial couple/I want my white faves to be together

Interracial marriages were not legalized in the united states until 1967 so on June 12, it will be 50 years since our version of Iris being Iris West-Allen was even legal in a significant portion of where the show is set. 

Even with 50 years passing there is still a large issue many have with interracial relationships. 

In 2013 there was the huge amount of racist backlash to a cheerios commercial involving an interracial couple and their child to the point that the company had to disable comments from said video on youtube (but you can still see the gist of how terrible it was in the link). 

May of 2016, there was an old navy ad on twitter featuring an interracial couple and it also got a flurry of racist comments with many saying they would never shop there again because of the image and just at the end of 2016 there was another incident with a State Farm ad on twitter collecting a large amount of racist comments with people saying how the image disgusted them and making the black man out to be a predator. 

A couple was evicted because the landlord found out they were interacial while another were stabbed by a man after they kissed in public. 

This is not just your neo-nazis, trolls on twitter and youtube or violent racist. There are also studies which have been done on the way people claim to be okay with interracial couples but may hold subconscious bias. 

I/Viewers are not racist for not liking WA/Iris

How would you know? Here is a nice little paragraph from here that gives you an insight on why I ask.

“The problem with asking people to report on their own attitudes about sensitive topics like race and gender, however, is that people are often either unaware of their own biases or unwilling to report them. For example, although most white Americans self-report little to no racial bias against black people, they’ve been shown to possess robust implicit, or nonconscious, biases.”

Why are you attacking me for expressing my opinion?

The same way you are allowed to express your opinion, I am allowed to express mine on yours. You must remember that freedom of speech means that the government is not allowed to retaliate of censor you but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us cannot correct/argue. Attacked is a very strong word that carries a lot of implications. It is unlikely that anymore is happening than people expressing their own opinions about yours to you. 

You said something that was wrong and you are being corrected. There is no need to get defensive about it. Realise a mistake and take to correction

Or

You stated an opinion as fact thus denying others theirs/said a blanket statement that doesn’t represent everyone involved. 

Or 

You said something that has racist undertones and you should acknowledge that then endeavour to fix that. 

*Insert anger or defensiveness about the possibility of one being racist/acknowledging their racist action or tendencies*

“White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.”  A quote from this journal. 

WA have no chemistry

Chemistry is subjective. That is why we have experts (in the form of casting directors, producers and critics) that bring together people or acknowledge those who have the best chemistry. David Rapaport casted most of The Flash’s main characters. When talking to buzzfeed, he said the following:

“That was a really hard role to cast,” Rapaport said. “We had seen Candice initially, but I think we were too early on in the process to cast her so we ended up testing Keke Palmer and this other girl, but they felt a little too young next to Grant. When building an ensemble, you have to do those chemistry reads to find out who works best together. We went back and looked at the tapes and Candice shines — when she smiles, it’s out of control — so we thought, Let’s do another chemistry read and we’ll bring Candice and one other girl in and it was just magic. Everyone in the room and looked at each other and we all just knew it. It just made total sense.”

So not only was she picked based on her chemistry with Grant, they went through a lot to make sure she was the right people and still after all that EVERYONE (which undoubtedly included the executive producers) in the room knew her chemistry with Grant was magic. To say that everyone in that room (including Grant who said once she left the room that Candice was the Iris West they were looking for LINK NEEDED ) somehow is so incompetent at their jobs that a subset of fandom knows better than them is rather insulting and very far fetched. 

Furthermore the WA ship or their scenes have won almost all polls taken on various sites when polling the flash so even with how subjective chemistry is a large percentage enjoy the one WA has the most. 

Various publications have put WA as one of the best relationships in one way or another. Also for the season 3 premier their chemistry was one of the highlights as noted in many articles. (add link to master post or individual ones) (Add tweets from write who loves westallen)

Even the people who make the show love westallen. Executive Producers have said how much they enjoy writing westallen and Geoff Johns talk about the two of them almost anytime he brings up the show on twitter. (add links)

I like their platonic relationship more

How because they never had one. From the very beginning of the show We know that Barry Allen is hopelessly in love with Iris. During the pilot, He is trying to ask her out. The next episode he confessed his love for her but she just couldn’t hear it and in that same episode she admitted that Barry was one of the reasons that she had never had a real boyfriend before. We see her insinuate in flashbacks that she wouldn’t have dated Eddie if Barry wasn’t in a coma and especially if she knew how he felt about her. And in episode 13 we see that she had been unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession then we learn in the next episode that she always has had/still has these feelings but they just need something to make them come outwords. They literally went on movie, bowling and multiple coffee dates together. They have never had a strictly platonic relationship in the first place. They’ve always had a secretly in love relationship. 

Moreover, they are still each other’s best friends while dating. They will still always be the most important person is each others lives. They can love each other in multiple ways at the same time. 

Lastly why are you so against them becoming anything more than that? Might it be because you would like her to fall into the strong independent black woman who doesn’t need no man trope (x) (x)/mammy figure (x) (x)? This link is about the boxes that black women are thrown into in fandoms (written before The Flash even aired) and although there are many tropes and roles notice how so many have the prerequisite of her not having any romantic relationship and if she does it isn’t shown on screen more than necessary but can never have one with the main character. Have you fallen for this as well?

Barry doesn’t deserve her

Barry makes mistakes like any human being and she has forgiven him for them. Still it is still understandable to be angry at him but it doesn’t change the fact that he loves her and he makes her happy which is what you should want for her. As noted in this post Barry supports her a lot. We also see that Barry has been described to be willing to do whatever it takes to keep Iris alive in 3B so I think she is lucky to have someone like that. 

This sentiment easily fall into the strong independent black woman who doesn’t need no man trope (x) (x). This link is about the boxes that black women are thrown into in fandoms (written before The Flash even aired) and although there are many tropes and roles notice how so many have the prerequisite of her not having any romantic relationship and if she does it isn’t shown on screen more than necessary but can never have one with the main character. Have you fallen for this as well?

Finally if you support an opposing Barry ship and you feel this way then why do you want to him to be with your fave if he doesn’t even deserve Iris. In fact why would you want to watch a show where the protagonist isn’t even good enough for the love of their life. 

Iris doesn’t really love him: she’s just following destiny. 

Here is a good post that explains why this is not true. Also in season 1 episode 15 “Out of time” Iris says how she was unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession in episode 9 and kissed him. Much before she saw anything about them being together. So we know she had been thinking about her romantic feeling for him since he confessed hers. This can be seen here. https://youtu.be/lbtn_KZmDWU. Also Fake!Wells told Barry in the next episode that she still had those feelings for him but that they were deep in her subconscious so needed something big to force them to the surface as seen here https://youtu.be/2MTzYDFxcYA?t=2m57s and asking her out at a coffee shop while she was still dating her boyfriend probably pushed them further down. So she we have known for absolutely sure that Iris has had feelings for Barry since 1x09. Linda only needed one conversation with Iris about Barry for her to figure out they were in love with each other. Even with, before the show had even started Cisco had only ever heard Iris talk to a comatose Barry/his social media page and already knew that Barry and Iris had was indescribable and was enough for Felicity to know she had no chance as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd4V2UiaT0. (add Eddie’s “It’s not about the future its about here and now speech)

In addition to what was said in the previous paragraph about Fake!Wells explaining that Iris’s feelings needed something big to make them conscious rather than subconscious. We also see that she keeps them subconscious so thats he doesn’t mess up the great relationship she already has with Barry because as we have seen, she doesn’t do well without him in her life. So she uses them being married in the future and Earth 2 to reassure herself that if she did try it out it wouldn’t end with them hating each other and never talking again. The same way that his possibly dying was enough for her to have the feeling coaxed out of her in 2x20.

Moreover, we can see that both Candice Patton, Grant Gustin, other members of the show/DCTV and the executive producers do not agree with this. They have all expressed in interviews that that Iris West does love Barry Allen. Aaron Helbing said in an interview “She just moved in with Barry, she’s madly in love with him...” recently in fact. And last year he also said “Barry Allen and Iris West are an iconic relationship. We set it up, at the end of Season 2, that they were going to get together, and then he undid it. But, these two are destined to be together. I would say to keep watching. As with destiny, things end up playing out the way you hoped they would.” 

Finally if you don’t believe she doesn’t love him maybe you should look at this gif series which has tags that are a goldmine for understanding  their early relationship from valeriemperez also here are their scenes to gether in season 1 and season 2.

Iris doesn’t really love him: she loves the flash. 

In season 1 episode 15 “Out of time” Iris says how she was unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession in episode 9 and kissed him. Immediately after that she found out he was the flash. So we know she had been thinking about her romantic feeling for him since he confessed hers. This can be seen here. https://youtu.be/lbtn_KZmDWU. Also Fake!Wells told Barry in the next episode that she still had those feelings for him but that they were deep in her subconscious so needed something big to force them to the surface as seen here https://youtu.be/2MTzYDFxcYA?t=2m57s and asking her out at a coffee shop while she was still dating her boyfriend probably pushed them further down. So she we have known for absolutely sure that Iris has had feelings for Barry since 1x09. Linda only needed one conversation with Iris about Barry for her to figure out they were in love with each other. Even with, before the show had even started Cisco had only ever heard Iris talk to a comatose Barry/his social media page and already knew that Barry and Iris had was indescribable and was enough for Felicity to know she had no chance as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd4V2UiaT0. 

It wasn’t until he had lost his powers that she next confessed her feeling for him. She told him then that she didn’t care if he was the flash or not but wanted to be with him - Barry Allen. In season 3 she even tried to keep him being the flash out of their love life and told him he was perfect without his powers. What more do you want from her? 

Candice Patton, who plays Iris West has spoken about how the reason we saw such intense attraction between Iris and The Flash was because The Flash was everything Barry was but more confidently. Also it allowed her to explore her feelings for Barry without her having all the restriction in her mind of her relationship with Barry Allen i.e. best friends she would never want to lose because without him she is miserable. I REMEMBER THIS BUT I CANNOT FIND WHEN SHE SAID THIS. 

Finally if you don’t believe she doesn’t love him maybe you should look at this gif series which has tags that are a goldmine for understanding their early relationship from valeriemperez also here are their scenes to gether in season 1 and season 2.

Iris’s feelings came out of nowhere

In season 1 episode 15 “Out of time” Iris says how she was unable to stop thinking about him after his love confession in episode 9 and kissed him. So we know she had been thinking about her romantic feeling for him since he confessed hers. This can be seen here. https://youtu.be/lbtn_KZmDWU. Also Fake!Wells told Barry in the next episode that she still had those feelings for him but that they were deep in her subconscious so needed something big to force them to the surface as seen here https://youtu.be/2MTzYDFxcYA?t=2m57s and asking her out at a coffee shop while she was still dating her boyfriend probably pushed them further down. So she we have known for absolutely sure that Iris has had feelings for Barry since 1x09. Linda only needed one conversation with Iris about Barry for her to figure out they were in love with each other. Even with, before the show had even started Cisco had only ever heard Iris talk to a comatose Barry/his social media page and already knew that Barry and Iris had was indescribable and was enough for Felicity to know she had no chance as seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gd4V2UiaT0. 

Even her boyfriend and her father knew that there was something more between them with Eddie knowing that he couldn’t never compete with it. It was his own words when he said that “There were always three people in this relationship.” MAY BE PARAPHRASED The show finds it hard to deal with the point of views other than white men but we see their more-than-friends-but-don’t-realise-it a lot in season 1. We see her struggle with her feelings for Barry a lot in with his confession, as she asks him if she should move in with Eddie and so much more that valeriemperez highlights so much better in these series of gifs called westallen by scene and the tags are a goldmine for understanding their relationship. You can see all of their scene that season here. 

In season 2, their scenes are less especially before the winter break because they were selling Barry/Patty and she was grieving her dead fiance while Barry was feeling guilty about Eddie’s death as well. Still we see Iris parallel her response to him dating Linda in the way that she responds to finding out he is going on a date with Patty. She trusts him with her life enough to jump out of a skyscraper when he tells her to. She talks about her doppelganger having sex and them possibly getting married with him at a club. She tells him to come home (which we learn later meant to her) before going to earth 2. He helped her get closure with Eddie. She stopped seeing her rebound guy to spend time with him. She went to him about her brother first and he relied on him to tell her father about him. You can see these scenes and more here. And even them it wasn’t until next season that they became a couple. 

ALSO ADD THE ARGUMENT ABOUT HOW IT MAY BE DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO EMPATHIZE WITH PEOPLE OF COLOUR. I’M LOOKING FOR A STUDY SO IF ANYONE COULD PROVIDE THAT WOULD BE GREAT.Therefore it might have been difficult for you to see her feelings manifest. 

 They are siblings/Iris and Barry are incest

It if very rude to people who have actually experience incest for people to be using their trauma wrong for petty fandom fights. Like incredibly disgusting. Like don’t do that. Ever. Stop. You don’t like them. Fine. Don’t call incest. 

Why aren’t they siblings? Well a large number of reasons. One is that they never saw each other that way. In the very first episode they explains that they are not brother and sister but they just lived together. This is the narrative of the show that was set up at the very pilot of the show. They did not start their relationship from when they lived together like some who many believe to be in comparable situations but rather had a preexisting relationship as friends that they simply built up on. We see how Barry treats Iris and how it is different to how Wally and Iris treat each other as to further highlight how they are not siblings. Nobody in the narrative has a problem with their relationship. In fact Joe was very supportive of them throughout season 1. 

They do not share the same father as one of Barry’s storylines was him getting his father out of jail which was not Joe. We see him call Joe “Joe” or “your dad” when talking to Iris constantly. The only reason that Joe took in Barry was because he was his daughter’s best friend and when Barry was growing up they were not all that close because the only other person that believed that Henry Allen didn’t kill Nora Allen was Iris West before the particle accelerator accident. We can see how strained their relationship actually was before Joe started to help him find his mother’s killer in the pilot. The West did not adopt Barry. Joe is Barry’s father figure and all of team flash is a family and especially so is the west-allen clan but that doesn’t make them siblings. 

Moreover, legally there is nothing wrong with Barry and Iris’s relationship as noted in more detail in this post here. 

The cast see nothing wrong with their relationship and Grant and Candice don’t see them as siblings also. And the people who are making the show feel that there is nothing wrong with it either. In fact they have stated many times that they love writing their relationship evolve into a romantic one. And many other DCTV starts like Violette Beane and Caity Lotz have said that they love their relationship as well. Even the child that played young Barry loves their relationship as well. Directors that come for an episode at a time have also spoken highly of the two of them and their scenes together. 

So not only are they not siblings as in line with the narrative of the show and nobody has a problem with their relationship in the world of the show but that they are legal and people who work on the show and make it have no problems with them and even love them as a couple. 

I would also want you to note why you stick with this claim? Could this be because of race? This link is about the boxes that black women are thrown into in fandoms (written before The Flash even aired) and although there are many tropes and roles notice how so many have the prerequisite of her not having any romantic relationship and if she does it isn’t shown on screen more than necessary but can never have one with the main character. Have you fallen for this as well? We see that Brotp or the exclamation that two people are like siblings is seen disproportionately with characters of colour as noted by many people here, here, here and here. So you many want to critically analyse your intentions.