acourtofkinksandstraightpeople

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

i think the thing that bugs me the most about Eris is… he really tipped the scale for me, in terms of illuminating how much of a double standard exists in SJM’s mind re redemption, and overall complexity/agency as an extension of that.

What I mean is this: Rhys and Tamlin and Eris and Jurian and Papa Archeron all got some form of redemption by retcon: a “no no, listen, i know he did Bad Things and looked like a really awful dude and was generally implied to be a scumbag, but he had reasons for it! He was working for the greater good! You don’t know what it cost him!” (or in dad’s case, “look, he was the worst but he gets this AWESOME REDEMPTIVE GESTURE! OUT OF NOWHERE WITH NO SET-UP OR BASIS IN CHARACTERIZATION!”) All of their individual arcs are a little different and succeed, on a storytelling level, to differing degrees: Tamlin’s is super uneven but he ends up in a realistic moral middle ground, Rhys’s was exhausting but at least it was well-thought out and very intentional, Eris’ is slapdash and stupid, Papa Archeron’s was a ridiculous deus ex machina but at least he died quickly, Jurian…. exists, I guess

But whatever your feelings are on each individual character, it’s a fact that they all benefit from the same kind of characterization backtracking, a sort of similar strain of quasi-redemption that allows them to flirt with moral ambiguity. (moral ambiguity in general is not handled well in this series which is why i say “flirt with” but that’s another conversation.)

Would this ever happen with a female character?

Could you see an ACOWAR in which Ianthe only sexually assaulted people to ~cover up her true motivations to bring down hybern? Or an amarantha who was only so awful because she was protecting her hidden family who were sequestered somewhere safe, and Angsted every night about the horrible things she was forced to do, the people she had to hurt on her journey for the Greater Good? “WTF, that’s gross and awful! Why should we spend time explaining away such nasty characters when they hurt so many people?!” yeah well y’all swallowed it whole when it was male characters.

Look, over and over again, the ACOTAR series gives us men who make hard decisions, who have Masks and get morally ambiguous arcs and work for the greater good and suffer for their people or their goals. And we get women who either are Good and help them or are Evil Nasty Sluts Who Want to Steal Your Boyfriend. Sure, Amren and Mor (and Elain and Nesta) have all this power on paper, but the narrative does not give them the kind of large-scale agency Rhys or Tamlin or Jurian have– i’m not criticizing the actions of characters individually, here, i’m criticizing the larger way they’re all framed and used by the text. Women (except for Feyre, and even then, it’s kind of questionable) do not get to play the larger game in SJM’s world. Nesta and Elain got to kill Hybern, yes. Amren got to go Beast Mode. Viviane got to stand with Feyre at the high lord’s council. But these are shallow moments, boxes labelled “GIRL POWER” to tick off that don’t mean anything on a deeper level when you take into account that over and over again, the grand machinations of the world and plot SJM constructed are all driven by men, in a way that even the in-world misogyny does not excuse or explain.

Like, there’s a whole multifaceted argument to be made around how shallow the feminism is in this series, but that mediocre men are constantly being redeemed and having the morally questionable side effects of their ambition/ instincts/ goals excused in ways that, demonstrably, none of the womens’ would ever be, is a big part of it, for me.

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

key ingredients of a shitty YA fantasy novel

conventionally pretty white girl heroine who remains improbably attractive and curvy “in all the right places” even when she’s poor/a slave/living in the woods

of course she can’t acknowledge she’s pretty because then she’d be a slutty mcslutface so u gotta have some faux-modest “i’m so uglayy… my right nostril is 1 picometer bigger than my left and my cheekbones are too well-defined and my lips are so PLUSH and KISSABLE god i hate myself”

also the protag? is a horrible person. the fuckin w o r s t. but everyone loves her and cries abt how amazing she is

at least 2 love interests… the sweet actually decent guy who deserves better but is vanilla af and will probably die for angst, and the endgame fuckboi elf/fae/unicorn/whatever who shoots fireballs out his ass and is a toxically masculine douchebag

cartoonish bad guys who are so 1-dimensional and EVUHL that the more villainous things they do the funnier it becomes. they eat a baby, i’d better have tears of laughter streaming down my face

also every female villain is either a beautiful slutty mcslutface who uses her womanly wiles to achieve her ends or an old hag who hates the protagonist for being hotter than her. bonus if they’re evil lesbians

worldbuilding is for chumps. consistent magic systems? weak. take a few real-life mythologies. throw them on the floor. mix all the broken pieces together. bam there’s your lore u ho. make tolkien’s ghost cry,

plot?? PLOT??? who needs plot when there’s LoVe TrIaNgLeS to be had???? hyuk hyuk

not only is ur protagonist beautiful and everyone falls in love with her, but she’s gotta have some BADASS TITLES! bonus points will b awarded if u manage to include the words “fire”, “heart”, “queen” or “spell”

just fuckin. fuckin puke those em-dashes. colon? use an em-dash instead. ellipses? use an em-dash instead. space? use an em-dash inst

gays?? i only read abt str8 ppl. also the poc have gotta die for ur white protag’s angst bc thats what diversity is really about

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

I’m not 100% caught up on the drama with sjmaas and other YA authors, but on twitter I was just notified that leigh bardugo and susan dennard just followed sjmaas. what do you think?

hahahahaha yes okay i checked this and it is confirmed they do not follow her anymore. alexandra bracken, renee ahdieh and victoria aveyard also do not follow sj/m on twitter anymore either and sj/m has dedicated a book to alex, so it seems like she has burned a few bridges

as for leigh and sj/m i dont know of any actual beef, it could be due to dunyasha but i’m not sure (check my previous post for that). 

but back to the main thing- susan and sj/m

in 2016 susan posted a twitter thread where she posted about recognising toxic people and standing up to bullies, i assume this is about sj/m 

susan is also quite vocal on twitter about other issues, she has posted about how harmful it is to normalise toxic masculinity and how it sickens her when authors with large platforms don’t speak up 

sj/m is known for not responding to criticism and speaking up on issues whereas susan is known to be vocal 

susan has also posted about the importance of listening to critiques, employing sensitivity readers for stories and that kind of thing 

other rumours are that sj/m is just not a good person behind the scenes and has been “possessive/catty/demanding”

i think that it’s fair enough that author’s who have taken time and effort to respond to criticism and better their works, include diversity and employ sensitivity readers are unable to stay friends with an author who does not put the same effort into their books and is arguably bringing down/making the genre look bad. it is hard to maintain a friendship when you disagree on such fundamental issues especially the kind of issues that are directly related to the field you both work in, as it is going to come up time and time again. 

it wouldn’t surprise me that the more and more sj/m has ignored criticism and refused to make positive changes to her work, the more other authors have been unable to ignore it and have stepped away from the friendship 

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

Hi! I saw someone talking about how Dunyasha is basically criticism for Alien, calling Dunyasha ‘Discount Alien’. I heard it’s because of some kind of beef between Lbardugo and SJM. Is it true? I’m not a reader of SJM, but like SoC, so I’ really curious

I’m not actually aware of like proper beef between S/JM and LBardugo (admittedly i haven’t really been keeping track) but am also a fan of Lbardugo and not s/jm.

here’s what i do know: 

apparently leigh answered a question in a q&a confirming what a lot of people thought (well what i’d hope most people thought, apparently not the more i look) about dunyasha being a parody of the typical YA chosen one. leigh didn’t necessarily write her as a “parody” per se but apparently more of an examination of what it means to be a “chosen one”. 

i obviously don’t know all the details but what i would assume is that leigh was criticising and analysing the traditional idea of the heroine, white, glorified chosen one in YA literature that is so common and showing the flaws in that idea in really a cool and unique way. alien just happens to be the prime example of that and is a particularly poor heroine as she is a mary sue. 

i don’t think leigh would have written a character JUST to beef with s/jm only but i actually don’t know, i think she put a lot more thought into it than that and dunyasha acts as a really interesting foil to inej’s character before she also is that parody of the chosen one. i have a feeling that leigh is not the biggest fan of s/jm anymore taken from the fact that at some point leigh unfollowed s/jm on twitter. considering the different approaches they have taken with responding to criticism and writing inclusive novels (to scratch the surface) it wouldn’t surprise me if leigh has problems with sj/m, but again i don’t know of any “beef” between them more than that and i don’t see leigh as that petty. 

#anti sjm #anti tog

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

There’s no such thing as toxic masculinity

i wasn’t going to answer this because i really didn’t think it was worth my time but i feel like i can talk about it and if you sent this to me then clearly maybe i do need to address this.

firstly i am addressing this from the perspective of a member of a western society, gender presents differently in different cultures and has evolved and is evolving differently. 

let’s start just with the idea of masculinity. in it’s simplest sense, masculinity is the ideas, attributes and behaviours that are associated with presenting as a man in society (what it means to be a man). masculinity and femininity are just the concepts related to presenting as a man or woman (in a traditional sense in our society). whilst we are slowly moving away from rigid definitions of both of these and gender presentation is becoming more fluid, we still do have traditional ideas associated with masculinity and femininity. 

HOWEVER, just because these ideas are traditional it does not mean that they are all bad. whilst it is not necessarily a good thing that we have roles or attributes ascribed to us based on our gender, not all of these roles, attributes or behaviours are negative or “toxic”. therefore, not all masculinity is toxic. 

this is where we get to toxic masculinity. this is the part of masculinity that is centred around ideas, behaviours, attributes of what it means to be a man that are “toxic” or harmful. the central ideas are: 

Suppressing emotions or masking distress

Maintaining an appearance of hardness

Violence as an indicator of power

in key words: toughness, anti-femininity and power. 

it looks like

the need to aggressively compete and dominate others

sexual aggression towards women 

not engaging in caregiving behaviour

extreme risk taking

stifling emotions

misogyny 

ideas of men as “sex crazed”, “commitment-phobes”, 

if you still cannot agree that these ideas are toxic, then there is evidence in society about how enforcing these ideas what it means to be a man has been harmful to men as well as the people they interact with. 

these attributes lead to violence (and the overrepresentation of men in prisons), poor mental health, glorification of unhealthy habits (overworking in the gym, not seeking medical or other help heavy drinking). toxic masculinity also has different impacts on men of different cultures and ethnicities (but i won’t go into that here). 

i assume you asked this in relation to my references of toxic masculinity when referring to book characters and books. books in which the male character exhibits these characteristics, in particular using violence as a means to indicate or achieve power and the appearance of hardness and anti-femininity, and do not present some sort of critique towards this enforce toxic masculinity. when i say critique, it can be showing the negative consequences of this behaviour or making room and allowing for the reader to see the flaws in this behaviour, showing the damage it can do to relationships or contrasting it with a male who does not exhibit such traits. when the man exhibiting these traits is romanticised and glorified, it is particularly harmful and continues to enforce these stereotypes. it is then even more damaging to present that male character as a feminist especially when writing books for young women. 

#toxic masculinity #if anyone wants to add or critique me feel free to #long answer #ask me

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

T/og is boring

Okay, I know it’s unfair to even compare the two, but S/jm plagiarized Lord of the Rings so much that like … why not?

Ya wanna know why people like Lord of the Rings? It’s about a hobbit saving the world. With help from friends and a lot of internal strength, Frodo (arguably Sam tbh), a HOBBIT, saves the world.

Ya know what’s really boring? Reading about a character that has the power of a god saving the world. A/elin is soo boring. Like, she faces no interesting challenge because she can legit do anything. At least Aragorn (who I think she’s supposed to be a stand in for) overcame real challenges, at least he’s not invincible. 

Lotr is about the smallest of creatures making a change in the world. T/og is about an all powerful blonde doing exactly what you’d expect her to do while everyone kisses her ass.

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

Fine, authors don’t owe me shit. They don’t owe me diversity, or a good plot, or healthy romances. But guess what?

I don’t owe them my money or respect. I don’t owe them a good review. So stop getting so upset that people are criticizing your favorite books. Like y’a said, we owe each other nothing in this situation, apparently.

Don’t give me representation. You don’t gotta. Will I trash the book? Fo shizzile, but that’s the game baby. This is freedom my guy.

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

I think that the “morally gray” character trope has been completely misused and taken out of context. Take Tywin Lannister (he’a a villain, but sometimes likable — which is probably credit to Charles Dance’s performance — but stick with me), he knows he’s a pretty crappy guy, understands that he’ll do anything to prolong his familial status and wealth, but is not cruel. He’s charming and authoritative, but he is still a villain. He is nice to Arya because she doesn’t represent a threat to his goals (as he didn’t know who she was), considering the fact that he spoilers: literally just murdered her family. He does nice things for her, feeds her, plays with her, but these acts of kindness do not change the fact that he is a villain. He is not cruel to those who do not earn his ire, but he is cruel to those who he feels deserve it. He killed her family, but in little moments that we see on the show, is not unnecessarily cruel. It made him compelling, even when you wanted to hate him.

Rhysand is a villain. He does bad things to further his goals. He aligned himself with bad because he wanted to keep his citizens safe. And yes, he went through trauma and hell doing so, but that does not take away his villainy. You cannot introduce a character, have him do villainous things, and then say he is actually the hero, not when he actually does the evil acts. How far does pretending go? Because I could pretend to slap someone, but if I slap someone and then say I was pretending, I still inflicted that slap. What difference does it make whether or not I meant by it? I can’t then go on and say that everyone else is bad, and become self-righteous when I am a horrible person my self. Rhysand never had a cathartic moment needed to be a tragic hero. He has never come to grips about the decisions he made during the Reign of Amarantha. He is not morally gray — he does not believe what he has to do was wrong. He never becomes a well-rounded character because the narrative refuses to treat him like a three dimensional human being. That is actually given towards more villainous people like Tamlin. Because Tamlin’s flaws made him more believable as a person. Rhysand’s flaws are nonexistent, no character calls him out on them.

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

me when I see someone defending Rhysand’s sexual offender actions saying it was for her own benefit and protection while hating nesta archeron for being a little mean to her sister even when feyre mentioned they were equally spiteful towards each other and she didn’t know who was worse:

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

Twilight is deeply Problematic but at least it doesn't pretend not to be. It doesn't hide its bullshit under a fake progressive and feminist veneer, like SJM.

Edward is garbage but he isn't "I'm going to claim I'm this great feminist while I assault you or manipulate you and lie to you" garbage.

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

Yall know that “toxic masculinity” refers to expressions of masculinity that are toxic, right? it doesn’t imply that all masculinity is toxic- it’s used to talk about like, how people will repress their emotions aside from anger in order to seem “manly”, and how they might act in violent or self-destructive ways because that is what society expects of men.

masculinity is not inherently toxic. it hasn’t been poisoned or corrupted. it is a neutral concept, a kind of gender presentation, and it doesn’t make you a bad, unhealthy, or toxic person to be masculine.

masculinity does not need to be “soft” to be acceptable, it can just be neutral. because it is not toxic, just sometimes expressed in toxic ways or for toxic reasons.

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

small brain (T0G-H0F): whites and straights only; any poc or queer characters are killed or non-existent

expanding brain (H0F on): inclusion of the mating system and all of its aggressive transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny

sparkling brain (Q0S-T0D): retconning a previously main character into an entirely different characterization, not including him in the next book because he is disabled and has a girlfriend of color, magically healing his disability and making him cheat on his previous girlfriend

glowing brain (E0S-AC0WAR): canonically destroying kingdoms and cities overwhelmingly populated by poc, comparing bisexuality to sex work, making the main characters consider colonization, randomly adding in hypersexualized walking stereotypes of poc and queer people who are only included for like 30 pages of the third book

galaxy brain (AC0WAR-K0A): retconning characters who have been white for 1 book (in the ill/yrians’ case) or 6 books (in man0n’s case) into poc without any consideration of the implications

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

sjmess in 2012: predominantly straight and white cast, average writing style, average worldbuilding, subsistent characterization, regularly interacted with fans

bardugo in 2012: predominantly straight and white cast, average writing style, average worldbuilding, subsistent characterization, regularly interacted with fans

sjmess in 2018: predominantly straight and white cast aside from blatantly obvious and stereotypical retcons of previously straight and white characters into queer/characters of color; vast majority of poc are either violently murdered, sidelined, or introduced 2/3 of the way into the story as irrelevant side characters; repins and reposts depictions of her supposedly “poc” or “queer” characters that are white and cishet; created a magic system that necessarily excludes any sort of queer identity and used it in both her series; almost unreadable prose filled with sentence fragments and plot holes; nonsensical, unoriginal, and inconsistent worldbuilding; endless retcons to make sure failsand and ratalien take precedent over everything else in the story; barely interacts with fans except to promote her books

bardugo in 2018: makes efforts to diversify her cast with humanized and 3d characters of different body types, ability status, ethnicities, and sexualities; only supports artwork that accurately represents her characters’ ethnicities, ability status, and body types; established firm and logical magic rules; successfully distinguished multiple cultures, cities, clothing styles, and histories within her world; balances and differentiates six 3d povs that all justify their presence as narrators in one book; publicly and repeatedly addresses the issues in her work; talks to fans to see how she can make it better and give them rep that works for them

sj/m stans: antis are mindless haters who hold sj/m up to a much higher standard than lbardugo for literally no reason. if lbardugo did something that mess did, they would praise her for it instead of tearing her down,,

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

one thing that struck me while i was reading six of crows was how different nina and alien’s liking for food are. like, nina, matthias explicitly states that nina is full of joy, and though she was well bred and well fed she enjoys and savours everything she gets. for alien it’s literally just a way to make her seem even more unlike other girls smh. nina eats well, and has a figure to show for it, and that is not anything inherently good or bad, it just is. for alien it’s a gUilTy pLeAsUrE

i think the key thing here, too, is how each author views fat people: Leigh sees them as people, bc duh, whereas sj///m finds them inherently ugly and evil, which therefore means that alien can like food but she Must Stay Skinny

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

rhysand/rowan/past white boy: I think men should treat women with basic human decency

stans: wow 😍😍 feminist icon 👏👏 give me one of those 😋😋 why settle for a *pasty white boy* when i could find my *other pasty white boy* ❤️❤️

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

me: I don't like S/JM's books, and here's why I—

s/jm stan: Stop hating!! Stop spreading hate!!!!

me:

me: So as I was saying

[acourtofkinksandstraightpeople]

I would just like to thank the anti-SJM community…

Bc there is no lying, I was a total stan who loved SJM and was high key shocked to see all this hate for her and her books. Then I spent a bunch of time on anti-blogs and a lot of y’all were amazingly sweet and took time to talk to me about her crap books.

Y’all legit made me see a lot of things in her books I hadn’t before and made me realized exactly why certain things that I read made me uncomfortable. Y’all are the best.

I’m not going to finish ACOTAR bc after realizing how terrible it seriously is, I don’t think I’d be able to handle the level of salt I’d feel. Ima finish TOG bc it’s only book and I’ve invested too much time in that series to quit now but I’m not going to go into it blind anymore.

Anyways! Thanks for being awesome and helping me see the error of my ways! If your a SJM fan, you should pay attention to some of the stuff that the antis have been saying. Even if you don’t agree with it all, they make some really good points! After all, no author is perfect.