#ever after high epic winter

[xbomboi]

yapping about Briar. fellow Briar enjoyers assemble.

okay okay i don’t make it too obvious (or maybe i do, i wouldn’t know) but briar is my personal favorite character. i think about where the stories of all the characters would go and what their arcs would be a lot, but hers in particular is really important to me.

so i wanna talk about it.

first of all, she’s narcoleptic coded, right. we all know that. but her mom on the other hand reads to me, like, an alcoholic mother? and her dad is just willfully ignorant. either way, there’s a huge sense of neglect going on in that family. i mean go figure why briar would be the one doing most of the work raising her brothers. and of course she’s a party girl, because who’s gonna stop her? her parents? see yeah exactly.

so i don’t think it’s unreasonable to say she doesn’t have very strong parental figures in her life, at least not at home. but, and now you have to really hear me out about this one, i think baba yaga could take up a parental role in her life.

i know it isn’t much, but the seeds for her having at least a hint of a connection with baba yaga are there.

in the webisode “Stark Raven Mad”, baba yaga scolds briar for rambling about her party, and then as the commotion picks up she’s still exercising authority over briar in particular.

then there’s thronecoming, wherein, when briar is sulking at the dance, upon noticing the picture on the projector, she asks baba yaga for answers, who provides them.

and then skipping all the way to epic winter, after the girls become a little creeped out by her mannerisms and book it, briar is the one who makes sure to peak back in and give a parting remark.

so i think there’s potential there to be explored. her feeling neglected at home and then finding solace in another adult at school would be neat.

but the fact that it’s baba yaga is important, so just put a pin in that and we’ll circle back to it.

now, i think out of the core four, she was (at least at first) the hardest to actually pin-point what the future of her story could look like. with raven, i think it’s pretty clear her journey is just continuing to combat the prejudices of the world as she fights for change, apple is now pretty much on a path to figuring out her own future as ruler of a kingdom and what that’s going to entail, and maddie is the goofball that’s there to have fun and be supportive along the way.

then there’s briar. and, let me be clear, no, in my mind that girl is not sleeping for 100 years with where things are heading; in the main universe of the story, briar will be free of the sleeping beauty destiny.

but it’s like, if she’s not gonna sleep, what more is there to actually do with her? what direction COULD her life go in? because if she’s no longer fated to sleep 100 years of her life away, then she can’t just party like there’s no tomorrow anymore. she’d need to decide what she actually wants to do with her life.

and i think i have an idea.

i mentioned her narcoleptic coding at the start with intent to bring it up again. see, you might notice that a lot of the fairytale aspects of ever after high can be read as allegories for real-world problems. for example, hunter and ashlynn’s relationship is treated in their world the same way society may look at queer couples or biracial couples. or how raven’s mom being trapped in a mirror is their world equivalent to not paying child support.

with that kind of correlation in mind, i think treating briar’s curse as a condition could open up an interesting opportunity. i think, in their world, curses as a whole could be viewed as a separate branch of medical specialization, with briar spearheading this notion of thought.

we know briar is well-versed in chemythstry already. in the webisode “Briar’s Study Party” she makes note of the fact that she’s been studying forever-after, and she demonstrates enough knowledge in the subject to enthusiastically teach it to her friends, who all end up acing their tests on it as a result.

i think this is something she could potentially make a career out of. i think she could come to the conclusion that she wants to be able to help break curses for people everywhere, and could pursue learning to develop potions and elixirs to do so.

which could happen under baba yaga’s tutelage.

picture this: briar declares her newfound goal, to which baba yaga offers to teach briar all she knows in order to achieve what she’s set her sights on. briar—with an ounce of hesitance—accepts, and baba yaga officially takes her under her wing with the intent of mastering sorcery.

obviously, she wouldn’t lose who she is in this. she’s still gonna be an impulsive, adrenaline junkie who desperately needs a screentime limit on her mirrorphone. but in this process, she’d be rounded out by baba yaga and would in turn mature a bit from the experience. she’d get serious about life, but she wouldn’t let go of who she is at heart.

this could lead to her becoming the resourceful one in the main group. like on adventures, she’d be able to pull out a potion or whip something up (because i’m not going to let raven’s magic make her too o.p. she’s gotta have limitations) as a solution to problems. she could really have a role that proves useful and important to the story.

that’s my ideal pitch for where to take briar’s character.

[dianabutterfly11214]

Geryon, Hali y sus padres.

[hothotmiso]

[sure-i-exist]

Ok but consider:

After epic winter Daring tries to talk to someone who might kinda get the beast thing? It’s Ramona, I’m talking about Ramona. Him trying to talk to Ramona about being the beast that’s all I want. It would be so funny to see them interact, she would tear him to pieces with her words alone and I just rlly rlly wanna see this. I wanna see the furries trying to have a conversation it would be incredible

[creativewizardkid]

My 2nd gift for @mcurii

Part 2/2

Hope you have the most sweetest of Holidays!

[randombook4idk]

yes, Daring is self-absored, cares a lot about his appearance, never leaves without his mirror in hand and flirts with girls BUT

Daring did not lose a bet on purpose, humiliating himself in front of the school for Lizzie's sake, ask Cerise's to win against the giants and then apologize to her at the dance, ignoring the other girls to dance with her, try to help his brother with his date with Raven, take Dexter, Bunny and Alistair to the library to help look for Darling, be happy to see Apple wake up despite seconds ago discovering he's not her prince, dance with Farrah to fulfill one of her wishes...

just so epic winter to toss it aside and made Daring out to be this oblivious dude who needs Rosabella literally explain the concept of caring and helping

[nexo-nex]

i have many problems with eah's soft reboot from around 2016, but one of my biggest gripes i have with it is the sideline of briar on merchandise/promo material when she is part of the main 4 core cast, tho she gets ignored or sometimes downright replaced by other characters like ashlynn or holly

[escapeaddict]

why I think Daring's destiny is not to become the Beast

In the first series he literally signs the book before Raven's turn at the podium when she tears out her page. He saw his future. "But the show canon is different" I'm aware. Still felt like pointing this out.

the whole point, the whole point of eah is that destiny doesn't define who you are. Daring's character was assassinated into being only selfish and vain (which he is, but imo he's also heroic and helpful and kind[my first impression of the characters is from the books]), so therefore he's the next Beast??? His personality, lack of interest in Apple, and forced interest in Rosabella dictate his legacy??? Fuck that, sincerely. He's the future Prince Charming of Snow White, but isn't going to be into Apple of his own volition, and he isn't picture perfect to fit the tale, because he's human and inherently flawed. Like, tell me you missed the point of eah without telling me that you missed the point of eah (directed at the writers, not the fans).

Daring would not lose all sense of self if he couldn't wake Apple up. He's skilled (like, there's a reason everyone thinks he's perfect and it's not just his looks) and he knows it. His confidence would be shaken, sure, but how invested is he really in being Apple's prince? Boohoo who am I now that I'm only handsome and talented and popular and not beholden to any one girl? Oh, the horror. And if he turned into a beast, he'd just found eah's furry community out of sheer charisma, let's be real.

Epic Winter sucks. End quote.

I said so.

[dumbdolphin333]

tbh I feel like I haven’t rlly seen a lot of ppl talk abt how Daring’s character assassination also negatively affected Rosabella? Because we all know that Daring was done dirty, and that he was not the selfish baby epic winter made him out to be. Just going based off of the Netflix show (bcuz I haven’t read most of the books and we barely even see rosabella in the webisodes) we see Daring act selflessly. We see him care about people other than himself. Yes we see his flaws, but we know enough about him to not absolutely hate him.

Rosabella does not get that.

So her whole thing in epic winter where she tries to fix Daring just makes her seem like a jerk. Instead of the caring girl who wants to help people become better, she becomes a girl who can’t accept that people are flawed. She becomes a girl obsessed with fixing Daring, when really he just needed a bit of a wake up call. He wasn’t selfish, he was self absorbed. Yes he had flaws to work through, but his previous characterization was not bad enough for his entire arc to just be Rosabella fixing him.

I also feel like it took away from Rosabella’s chance to be a fully fleshed out character, to me she just feels like a plot device to fix Daring, when she could be so much more! (I have ideas for Rosabella’s character, but that’s for another time…)

This also reflects badly on Darabella as a ship. Instead of two characters who helped each other grow and in the process fell in love, it became “perfect girl fixed man baby and then he fell in love w/ her”

like JUSTICE FOR DARING. JUSTICE FOR ROSABELLA. THEY COULD HAVE BEEN SM MOREEEEEEE

[luc-elementix]

Ever After High Webseries banners from W. Scott Forbes website

Find more conceptarts about the Ever After High series on his website.

[blackbirdsnonsense]

I know a lot of people don't like Epic Winter on here, and fair it does have it's problems, but I do love the awkward energy in this scene.

Plus it has more Faybelle and that's never a bad thing.

[xbomboi]

thoughts about Epic Winter, & reconciling its place in Ever After High’s story as a whole

i wanna talk about epic winter because it—arguably more than any other aspect of the franchise—is definitely ever after high’s ‘ugly duckling’ piece of media, so to speak.

now obviously, a lot of it has to do with being the final big installment in eah’s main story, its premise being a side quest that sidelines the main protagonists in favor of new characters who are comparably far less compelling as the show’s actual leads, leaving the audience without any actual closure to the story which they were following.

in isolation, epic winter isn’t that terrible (though i think most would agree its better parts are the ones centered around already-established characters as opposed to the new ones), but in context it leaves a sour taste.

i entirely understand why anyone rewriting the series would either heavily rework it, only keep more important story beats such as daring’s arc & faybelle’s side plot, or completely remove the outing altogether.

in my case, however, deleting epic winter isn’t an option; my intentions are to continue where ever after high left off, and organically finish what they started. that means epic winter stays in tact, sanity be damned.

with that writing handicap, i can’t edit any pre-existing media in the ever after high animated lineup, which has forced me to brainstorm ways to recontextualize the purpose for epic winter’s place in the story and make the time spent on its story retroactively feel, at the very least, a little more worth it.

and the solution i found comes from viewing all that is introduced in the special through chehkov's gun.

(if you're unfamiliar, chehkov's gun is a narrative rule that everything introduced in a story must be done so with a purpose to serve. i.e. if you give a character a gun, they must shoot it.)

what's done is done; if we have to go on this detour following crystal winter and the top of the world, so be it. but let's pocket it like a tool that can be used later.

so here's my idea: bring crystal and the winter kingdom back into the story later down the line when the events of the story have reached a far more grandiose scale.

basically, i think the best way to use crystal would be when the story reaches a point of confronting and opposing the ruling powers in the fairytale world. having become the new snow queen, naturally, she'd be included in a gathering of the rulers of the kingdoms in the fairytale world.

i want there to be a moment in the story where the ruling powers gather together, and we see familiar faces return (including ones that we'd be introduced to after epic winter but prior to this), such as snow white, king charming, the queen of hearts, and of course, crystal.

with her outlook that would most reasonably be more aligned with the students at ever after high, she could end up being one of-if not the sole person-those present to voice opposition to whatever unfavorable verdict the rest of the rulers have made, as it would serve as direct conflict for the protagonists. she'd find herself outnumbered and ultimately her voice holding little to no power to sway the decision (especially being disregarded for her rather young age). afterwards we'd see her reflect on her frustrations with her colleagues and their rule of the system, thinking about it in terms of what kind of ruler she wants to be, before seeing her find determination towards something, though we aren’t yet shown what she actually decides to do.

the next time we'd see her would then come a little later, the conflict reaching the most dire circumstances. all hope is lost for our heroes; raven, apple, and co. would be down on their luck against odds they're unable to overcome. and that's when crystal would show up to offer her support, providing the numbers of her kingdom as allies to help better the odds. (she wouldn't be the only ally to show up, as this would be a 'getting help from all the friends we made along the way' ordeal. she would simply be one of said friends.)

crystal's help would ultimately play a part in winning the conflict. and because the audience would be familiar with crystal and the winter kingdom to a decent extent way prior to that point, the inclusion of it in the present fight at hand wouldn't feel like an ass-pull or a deus ex machina of sorts; it would make sense and feel earned for the most part.

and i think that's honestly the best thing to be made of epic winter's main adventure. we can't change it or fix it as it is, but we can create a payoff for it all later down the line. think of it like begrudgingly doing chores that lack any enjoyment factor, only to find that afterwards, you're glad you did.

so, yeah, that's my idea for how to give epic winter a genuine purpose. but i'm just spitballing.

[dianabutterfly11214]

Lo vi en tiktok pero con un personaje diferente hablando al final, yo quise hacerlo con uno distinto.

[hothotmiso]

[silverthelovebug]

Faybelle will never hear the end of it

[astraeacupid]

Istg i hate Epic Winter. It literally sucks so much. I mean Rosabella is nice and all and she's a good person but i just don't think she fits with daring. Like she's only there to fix him, nothing more. And the most screentime she had was just in Epic Winter. I personally think she's just the 'i can fix him' character trope in movies. Also Daring does absolutely NOTHING to help Rosabella he doesn't help her to become more confident of herself, or talk more etc NO. The entire relationship was just Rosabella fixing Daring and then him falling in love with her. Kinda boring if you ask me

Also the narrative that Daring Charming is selfish. SELFISH?? MISS SIR THAT GUY AIN'T SELFISH YES HE'S NARCISSISTIC AND ALWAYS FULL OF HIMSELF BUT HE ISN'T SELFISH. ISTG I HATE EPIC WINTER SO MUCH. I was already SO INVESTED in Dizzie especially because of the books where they had A LOT of chemistry but then i saw Darabella kiss scene and i decided that my life has no meaning.

In conclusion i like Dizzie more than Darabella sorry guys i just don't think Darabella is good enough it's cute but again it's just the kind loving girl fixing messed up narcissistic guy trope. Thanks alot for coming to my ted talk <3