thecheshireninja

[thecheshireninja]

i know it's been done before but an eah x twst au has been living in my head rent free and it was born out of a dream i had a few weeks ago of a gender-swapped LM retelling with jade as the little mermaid set during a summer camp with NRC and like a female version of RSA with girls twisted from disney heroes and idk i think it'd be really cute

[thecheshireninja]

OMG THIS IS THE CUTEST

I've been trying a new artstyle

ILOVEEVERAFTERHIGHOMGOMGOMFOMG

[thecheshireninja]

raven and vil this, briar and silver that.

but if jade met ashlynn ella.

[thecheshireninja]

now that i’m back in my ever after high phase, i have a little rant to go on, because i still get frustrated every time ever after high is brought up and people jump straight to apple white bashing.

apple white is not the villain. apple white has never been the villain.

and believing she is the villain is a fundamental misunderstanding of her character as a whole, because how in the world can you look at a fifteen year old girl who was manipulated by every adult in her life, and truly believe that she was to blame? and on the opposite side of the coin, raven queen being scapegoated for daring to question tradition and for daring to want more for herself, she is not and never will be the villain either.

it isn’t wrong for either girl to want to live their lives in those ways—for apple, her destiny is her comfort. she has grown up believing that her life was already planned out for her, and she didn’t handle the anxiety of it not being that way well. raven didn’t want her life mapped out for her, especially because she knew that she would only be handed the short end of the stick, and that was not wrong either.

the entire point of both of their characters is to show that you can want something different (or you can want a lot of the same)! the entire point of apple white specifically is to show the direct result of manipulation, scare tactics, and abuse of power by every adult around her to make sure that she conformed and to make sure that she placed that same pressure on raven. after all, pressure, conformity, and destiny are literally all she knows.

anyway, tldr: apple white isn’t the villain for being a victim of manipulation, and raven queen isn’t a villain for wanting to forge her own path. despite there being continuity plot holes between the show and the books (and honestly just between each special), there’s still a special complexity to both of them and it drives me crazy when people ignore the layers that apple especially has in order to bash her for what they think she’s supposed to be.

[thecheshireninja]

congratulations!

[thecheshireninja]

as someone who has adored Ever After High since childhood and was hyped for (but disappointed by) Disney Descendants, I cannot describe how utterly excited I am that Twisted Wonderland is getting an anime adaptation!

also I lowkey wanna do a first impressions-ish post for the characters cuz they genuinely are so fascinating lol like how do you just transform classic Disney villains into anime pretty boys. they're so weird. and I have opinions

I know a bit about the game but don't play it so never really got into the fandom... and now I have an excuse to oop

[thecheshireninja]

thank you, Lorenz.

[thecheshireninja]

𝐴𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐼𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑎 🌹

[thecheshireninja]

holly o' hair. let's talk about her.

i just find it so interesting that they chose to make a die-hard Royal a writer & lover of stories, and it's so sad that they didn't go further with that concept. it's such an ironic position for her to be in, which makes me wonder about all the different directions they could've taken her.

and yes--i did read the suzanne selfors book on her, but i unfortunately don't remember much about it, only that from what i know of it holly's basically a confirmed people-pleaser. any bit of wildness she could have possessed seems to have been passed to poppy (who... isn't that wild anyway...?). there could be something juicy there. writers are always the first to speak up in a troubled society, in one way or another, and the one writer in this universe is also someone completely boxed in by Royal norms, completely in love with being a Royal, and very close to someone struggling with her own identity. PLUS. plus. rapunzel is a story about a girl stuck in a tower for most of her life, unaware of the reality of the world around her. *gestures wildly* do you get what i'm saying.

i'm not saying she's a deep or well-written character (i honestly don't remember enough of the books to say, and she certainly isn't developed much in the cartoons), but if we're out here dreaming of the possibilities... that is something to think about.

[thecheshireninja]

Himeko: Would you say you're independent, Sunday?

Sunday: [looks at Welt]

Welt: [mouths "Yes, you are"]

Sunday: Yes, I am.

[thecheshireninja]

Perhaps in some perfect future, they meet again... Perhaps in some life, they are but Amicassador and Galaxy Ranger exploring the universe together...

Thank you to @CyYuVtuber for your 2.7 gamestream. Jesting aside, it reignited my love for this rare pair.

[thecheshireninja]

4ggravate found a cool stick

this piece only existed bc of this occurrence...

[thecheshireninja]

yes 4ggravate is hilarious but how concerned about cyno do you think alhaitham actually was to have woken up and left the comfort of his bed in the middle of the night? to spend the day searching for books on the temple of silence? with kaveh?

[thecheshireninja]

yours, mine, & natlan's: a terrible au

or, Capitano marries Mavuika and their respective children revolt. Ft:

Il Capitano, the First Fatui Harbinger, as the strict, disciplined single father with a very respectable but not emotionally vibrant family.

Mavuika, the Pyro Archon, as the warm-hearted mother of Natlan's six most headstrong up-and-comers.

when the two decide to join themselves and their families in union, their children are absolutely horrified. Add to that the fact that both parents have quite the opposed extended families, and you have yourself a wedding that even Chief Justice Neuvillette isn't gonna want to miss out on.

picturing a modernized setting for this. the oldest kids can probably be in uni.

it's not that they don't want their parents to be happy. it's just that... does it have to be that family??

Mavuika's kids are ofc the six heroes of Natlan. I imagine Iansan to be working while the next 3 are in uni, with Kinich & Mualani being in the last two years of high school respectively. remember, they gotta be immature for this to work

not sure about Capitano, maybe he picked up Childe off the street and now there's Tonia and Teucer too. but for the sake of keeping everything fun and lively, Aunt Arle has sent her kids to live with them for a while so they can be in on the drama

yes the harbingers and the archons are their own extended families

weirdo Cousin Wanderer comes over every weekend; he's technically adopted by Auntie Nahida but for some reason the harbingers know him very well too

Chasca keeps her anger issues but they're related to her dead father now. how dare Capitano try to replace him when she's barely recovered from his loss.

Mualani, who's into throwing parties, finds herself at odds with the orderly Capitano

Ororon, to Granny Citlali's great dismay, probably set Mavuika up with Capitano in the first place... which is gonna go over well

Childe is always picking fights with Ajaw and it drives everyone up the wall (literally, in Xilonen's case)

extended family reunions with archons + harbingers? mannnn

Anyway, there's so much potential for wholesome (emphasis on wholesome) family comedy chaos here and we're only getting started. If I'm lucky someone here will actually want to write it... tumblr help??

[thecheshireninja]

kinich: *says something* mavuika: nope, nuh-uh, no way, I don't think so, zilch, nada

[thecheshireninja]

um, so what is up with the temple of silence?

After just finishing Cyno's second story quest, I have mixed feelings. And because he's my favorite and I'd been waiting for that story quest for ages, I might as well rant a bit... (Warning: disorganized thoughts to follow.)

The whole "reawakening Hermanubis" thing did not quite sit right with me. I understand their motives for doing so, but the story at no point tries to justify how they did it. They themselves called it an experiment. On human children. *scratches head* I dunno, it all just seems lowkey unethical to me. Especially since they admitted adults could not withstand the power, which means... people might have died? (They didn't find it necessary to clarify.)

Even though they did succeed, the ends definitely don't justify the means because Cyrus then ran off, ruining everything. Which, can I just say, GOOD ON YOU, Cyrus, taking a child away from a human experiment where he could grow up with at least a semblance of normal life. But why did the man feel so guilty about it?? The emotional betrayal I understand, but he--and everyone else in this quest--made it sound as if he was fully in the moral wrong.

Perhaps we can give the Temple the benefit of the doubt and say the adults who could not withstand the Ba fragments willingly gave themselves up to the experiment. But Sethos and Cyno were children. I don't think they had much choice. I especially don't think Cyno had much choice given that he was sold by his own parents for this purpose.

Yet upon learning this no one so much as batted an eye. Cyno, the General Mahamatra, who goes on long and heavy about the principles of justice he dedicates his life to upholding... Genshin, what are these inconsistencies?? Drawn all the sharper when you think about the next major story quest they released after this one--Arlecchino's, which also features the subject of human experimentation on children? Now obviously Dottore is on another level because the mental and physical trauma his research inflicted are undeniable where Cyno and Sethos turned out all right, but you know. I'm just seeing some uncomfortable parallels here, is all.

In the end, I think it's because the writers chose not to address any possible consequences for Bamoun's work. Maybe something like "he didn't end up harming anyone in the long run anyway so he can get a pass, unlike Dottore." Cyno survived the discomforts he endured after absorbing the fragment, after all, and now he's doing just fine. Sethos finally gets the freedom to find meaning for his life outside the burden that was pushed upon him as a child (and yes. Yes, I know this is meant to be an allegory, or at least can be construed as such, but I dearly wish they had used a different method to convey it). And let's assume the people who couldn't withstand the Ba fragments either survived or, if they did die, sacrificed themselves willingly. Either Bamoun was making a lot of optimistic predictions that paid off in the end, as was alluded to in the story, or the writers just couldn't be bothered to dive into the potential side-effects of these major revelations.

Cyno is written as a strong-willed, confident, and mature character. It's fair that the writers wouldn't want to give him an existential crisis at his age (he's clearly older than the type who usually do--barring the immortal not-quite-humans who never age out of existential crises). It's not that we don't get to talk about trauma that I mind, so much as we don't get to see him express his moral opinion on things. Almost every time we've come close, he only talks about the rules of the Akademiya. It would have been nice if he could say more in this quest, but oh well. Honestly, I was happy enough to see more dimension to Cyno's character and of COURSE, his relationships. I'm SURE people have discussed all this before and I'm just late to the party. And I could have missed something, but I figure if it was small enough to be missed it probably wouldn't have changed my opinion.

I suppose a Cyno story quest part three would be too much to wish for, anyway...

[thecheshireninja]

Tighnari: You are now one day closer to eating your next plate of nachos.

Kaveh: That's the most hopeful thing I've ever heard.

Alhaitham: But what if you die tomorrow and never eat any nachos?

Cyno: Then tomorrow is nacho lucky day.