#varian: you've called me so much worse but for some reason THAT makes me want to kick your ass AND cry so much more than anything else

[varibean]

thinking about varian only he doesn’t come out as trans until so much later. like, end of vat7k later and in tangled he just has a crisis of ‘am i a lesbian or am i bi. bi. i’m bi i definitely had a crush on flynn rider but...but it didn’t feel the same way as cassandra wait am i a lesbian then? it felt different but maybe it just feels different when you like boys and when you like girls. ok bi them. i’m a bisexual girl and there’s nothing else to question about myself i have it all figured out!’ 

then he goes on his journey through the seven kingdoms and meets hugo and gets another horrible dose of I Have A Crush On You and Gender Envy. Hugo calls him all of those lil nicknames as well as stuff like ‘lil lady (derogatory)’ and ‘princess (derogatory)’ and it’s the only ones that make him genuinely upset to the point where hugo actually stops using them and just says them to nuru instead. and he doesn’t know why until they defeat his mom and confess their love and later varian is just trying to sleep but his mind is buzzing and he’s going back through his entire journey and just shoves hugo awake 

“HUGO I THINK I’M A BOY!!!!”

“Can you not? Drop a bomb on me like that at two am? Please? Congrats on the gender, can I go back to sleep?”

hugo’s not surprised he’s like ‘congrats on being the last person to figure it out.’ varian shoves him out of the room bc he’s no help and tells him to go get nuru instead 

[neokonewman]

Honestly? I think what tangled failed to do was make sure characters had good chemistry as friends. Seriously Cass and Rapunzel where like crude oil and the ocean. One single match from destruction. Season one is bottom barrel because it goes out of it's way to excuse Frederick for his shit. Season two was actually really good because Rapunzel was still herself and was making tough choices left and right. Season 3? Ohhhh boy. Season 3 was a half good half bad because while I do applaud her trying to bring her friend back into the fold? Cassandra wasn't wrong when she said "this has to stop now. This thing where you THINK you've been my friend". Cuz as far as I could tell? They were never friends. Hell even when being a slow burn villain, Varian had better friend chemistry with Rapunzel. When the show expects me to swallow "Cass and I are besties.and sisters!" whole sale? I'm not buying it.

Oooooh boy! This ask is just dripping with potential rant power. Sorry in advance for how long this answer is destinied to be!

First things first. I absolutely agree with you on how badly TTS handles chemistry amongst the main characters. Cass gets the worst of it because she is shoehorned as Rapunzel’s BFF off screen and suddenly she has equal sway on Rapunzel as Eugene? Her character can’t even be allowed to breathe most of the time because the show is obsessed with sticking her next to Rapunzel to the point that she can’t grow any further away from her. At least other show original characters like Lance and Varian have an actual introduction and a place in the world outside of Rapunzel, but even then they suffer because Rapunzel is upfront and center and there is very little wiggle room for interactions that don’t have at least have some involvement with her. It’s here where our opinions differ however.

I would make the bold claim by sayin that S1 of TTS is by far and away the best out of the three. Yes it has the glaring flaw of bias for Frederic and against Varian that makes me question whether or not it should be considered “good” but it’s much better balanced than the other two seasons that follow it. In S1 we actually get character who aren’t Rapunzel more chances to shine without her stealing the spotlight away at the last moment. In S1 we actually have an actual conflict that drives the story forward and at least pretends to care about developing the characters. Even the obnoxious bias could have still worked out in the shows favor if they were ever properly addressed in story and not swept under the rug like they were in later seasons. Heck, I would go as far as to argue that the worst parts of S1 is the fact that S2 and S3 make it worse retroactively.

S2 in my opinion is the dullest of the three, by a wide margin. With them never addressing what the mains left behind in S1 as well as taking the threat of the rocks away WAY too early, the conflict is particularly nonexistent. Not only that, but it does what I think is the worst thing a show can do during a season long journey. They never actually develop the world outside of Corona. They established that there are 6 other kingdoms in the alliance with Corona, but the most we get of any of them is the one throwaway line about them being close to the mountains of Koto in Freebird. Other than that we overstay in three separate places that end up being worthless to the plot as a whole. After spending three episodes in Vardaros right out the bat, we never return or what’s become of them afterwards. Them mains stranded on the Island is pretty dull and is only memorable to me because they had the guts of mentioning Varian again and established that Rapunzel STILL has an unhealthily delusional bias for Frederic despite of everything. The House of Yesterday’s tomorrow is just an excuse of shoehorning a bunch of magical hijink cliches that aren’t done very interesting. Heck, despite them spending a whole season getting to the Dark Kingdom, they only spend an episode and a half there and only a single night in universe. The rest of S2 is just filler that don’t even develop the characters or tell any interesting stories. Like, an enchanted forest episode even though the mid season finale takes place in another enchanted forest? A repeat of the first part of Tangled the movie with Cass replacing Eugene? Whatever the heck “Curses” was supposed to accomplish? The only thing interesting that S2 introduces is the Brotherhood, and we all know how little they are used afterwards.

I would also like to point out that at the start of S2, the mains just…. Stop developing almost entirely? Cass and Eugene never have any meaningful moments together like they do in S1, and are reduced to just taking potshots at each other to remind us that they have some sort of relationship. Lance is reduced strictly to comedic relief and in my opinion is just there to give Eugene something to do when he is removed from the plot because once again, the show is obsessed with making Rapunzel and Cass’ friendship be a thing that only matters. Hookfoot is just there to give his stand up routine about how marriage is terrible in the first episode of the season and just to exist afterwards, yet he SOMEHOW gets actual episodes focused on him while Lance suffers. Even characters properly introduced this season are cursed to never flesh out because Adira keeps pulling a vanishing act for no established reason, Hector is only gets any lines in his debut episode and never given any real focus again, and Edmund gets the same treatment as the other dads (except maybe Captain) by getting his entire character reduced to one trope later on in S3. Speaking of…

S3…. Ooooh boy S3. It’s not as boring as S2 for me, but that’s only because it’s a media equivalent of a train wreck that I couldn’t look away from. It’s like they took the two major issues of the past two seasons (the clear bias and shallow filler) and mashed them together while trying to savage it by inserting what worked in S1, (actual conflict) but completely missed the point why it worked in the first place. All pretense of caring about any other character other than Rapunzel and Cass is gone in this season. Even episodes that focus on anyone outside of Rapunzel, ends up ending with Rapunzel saving the day because she is the only one allowed to be heroic anymore.

They try to make Cass’ villain arc as complex as Varian’s but for some reason they think her blaming a literal baby for being kidnapped is enough grounds to go on a murder streak without one episode of hesitation. Lance is just there for bottom barrel dumb humor, yet the show thinks he is responsible enough to raise two kids on his own. Varian falls into the pigeon hole of just being the “kid character that hangs with the grown up mains” trope that he managed to avoid in S1 while also being just a plot device to not only give the mains access to tech, but also get shoehorned into scenes to keep the audience somewhat invested. Eugene is literal retconned in universe to be just a bland supportive boyfriend. Rapunzel, my gosh Rapunzel…. She treated is so painfully “perfect” to the point that she is completely unrelated. I’m not calling her a Mary Sue because they only ACT like she is perfect. She is still a hugely flawed human being, but the other characters just applaud her because she is “the magical, wonderous sundrop” and very little else. Also yes, Rapunzel being obsessed over Cass while playing off all the horrible actions her BFF as her being lost is the most frustrating thing ever. It’s as if she became Frederic from S1 and abandoned everyone else well being in favor of one person who doesn’t even want her attention, only worse because it’s made into a good thing. Again, S1 is made retroactively worse because of the seasons that follow it.

There is much more things wrong with S3 than S2, but honestly I find myself changing my mind a lot whether which one is objectively worse. Like making a show boring is arguably the worst thing you can do, but the choices, morals, and all around writing of S3 is just bad. Then again the writing in S2 is honestly pretty on par with S3 at times, so again, it’s a toss up.

Sorry again if this answer is a lot, but it was pretty fun at the same time. Thanks for the ask. ^^