#I don’t care what you anti elain people say she is amazing!

[nightcourtlady17]

I can’t wait to see more of her personality. I bet she’s actually hilarious and full of interesting thoughts we haven’t gotten to see yet

[gimme-mor]

ACOTAR THINK PIECE: ELAIN ARCHERON, UNTOUCHABLE

*DISCLAIMER*

This will be a long post.

Please take the time to read this post in its entirety and truly reflect on the message I am trying to send before commenting. My goal is to use my background in Gender and Women’s Studies to deconstruct the comments I have seen on Tumblr and Twitter and bring awareness to the ACOTAR fandom.

The reason I am tagging “Elriel” in this post is to call attention to the arguments in the Elriel fandom that: weaponize Elain’s femalehood to shame real life people for their opinions about Elain’s character and her relationship with Lucien; victimize Elain’s character in fandom discussions; and coddle Elain’s character, which limits fandom discussions about her narrative development and prevents the ACOTAR fandom from holding Elain accountable for her actions and inactions in the same way that the fandom holds other characters accountable for their actions and inactions. It is for these reasons that I WILL NOT remove the “Elriel” tag from this post because all of the above points contribute to the toxic discourse surrounding Elain’s character.

I urge those who use these arguments to understand their implications, why they are problematic, regardless of intent, and reexamine their contributions to the ACOTAR fandom. I WILL NOT tolerate anyone who tries to twist my words and say I am attacking people and their personal shipping preferences. In fact, I AM CRITIQUING THE ARGUMENTS THEMSELVES NOT THE PEOPLE USING THE ARGUMENTS.

Also, I highly encourage the Elriel fandom to read this post because it addresses how the concept of choice as an argument enables arguments to exploit social justice and feminist languge in order to vilify Elucien shippers, among other problematic things.

Elain Archeron is one of the most polarizing characters in the ACOTAR fandom. Though opinions about Elain vary, arguments in the Elriel fandom cite society’s perception of traditional female characters in comparison to non-traditional female characters as the reason behind the hate, and this belief is used to provide an explanation as to why other characters in the series are favored over her. In the series, Elain is portrayed in a wholly positive light and this image carries over into the Elriel fandom, painting her character as a good and kind female who has been unfairly wronged and a victim of circumstances that were out of her control. When arguments in the Elriel fandom oppose other viewpoints in the fandom, they fall into one of three categories:

Category 1: Weaponize Elain’s femalehood to shame real life people for their opinions

Maybe people who hate Elain are just jealous of her in a weird way similar to when someone hates the pretty, nice, and charming girl in school just because she is too perfect

Disliking Elain is misogynistic

What happened to feminism? What happened to women supporting women? What happened to she can say no? All of that disappears the second you force Elain to be with Lucien

Elain antis are misogynistic

All Eluciens are Elain antis

Antis claiming they’re feminists when in reality they hate on Elain and Feyre but love Nesta

Elain antis are such sore losers. Y’all were that bunch of people who could not get over being rejected from hanging out with the cool kids so y’all are projecting your hatred towards pretty people now to get validation

I don’t get how Elain’s love for gardening equals boring for some people. I’m sorry your misogyny finds traditionally feminine activities boring

Why are you attacking a female? What did Elain do? Where are your feminist voices?

The fandom is misogynistic towards Elain

If people loved Elain they would ship Elriel

If you hate Elain it says a lot about your feelings toward women

If you hate Elain because she has no “development” then you must hate Azriel because otherwise you’re misogynistic

Eluciens are turned off by the idea of a woman that has the autonomy to reject a man for the simple reason that it is her choice

Eluciens are all about feminism and “it’s HER choice” until it comes down to females not wanting a male

Eluciens don’t respect Elain’s feelings when they ship her with someone that was part of her trauma and makes her feel uncomfortable

The way some Elucien shippers completely disregard how uncomfortable Elain is around Lucien is so hilariously not funny. Prioritizing being mates over Elain’s feelings is just regressive

It’s hard as a fan of Elain to see someone ship her with a person who makes her physically uncomfortable to be around. Wouldn’t you want both characters to be happy to be around each other

Imagine if SJM saw all the awful things her “stans” had to say about Elain

It’s true that we know comparatively little about her, but is she really boring or do you just not value stereotypically feminine traits?

So y’all are just gonna tell me you prefer Elucien over Elriel? Even though Lucien treats Elain as if she’s something that belongs to him? The only reason he wants to be with her is because she’s his mate, he doesn’t respect her, doesn’t treat her as his equal, even though that’s what mates should be? He doesn’t bother to look past what’s on the outside to see her for who she is. And Elain is obviously repulsed by the idea that she should belong to anyone or have no choice in who she can be with. Azriel is her friend and the only person who sees her quiet strength. He has so much faith in her, in her abilities; he’s the one who kept her company when no one else did, he’s the only one who bothered to see her for more than her brokenness. You’re going to tell me you still prefer Elucien over Elriel?

The more I see Gwynriels that ship Elucien out of their hate for Elain, the less I can understand Elain stans that ship Elucien. Pls Elain has made it very clear that she doesn’t want Lucien, why would you ship her with him? Do you hate her too? Smh

The real question would be, if you care and understand Elain why would you ship her with Lucien (where she canonically shrinks when he is near)?

People crying over Helion and Lucien’s mom not getting to be with each other and her being forced into a relationship she didn’t want, but also ship Elucien? Just say you hate Elain

When Elain’s book is out, Gwyn stans will look like clowns and I will laugh because they set her up by shipping her with Azriel just because they hate Elain. Watch them play the victims now because Elriels are clapping back the hate they’ve sent towards Elain

As romantic as wanting girl who is visibly uncomfortable around a guy who caused her trauma to end up with the said guy. Guess their standards for romance are in hell

Category 2: Victimize Elain’s character

Gwynriels only want Gwyn with Azriel because they despise Elain

Gwyn stans and Gwynriels are Elain antis

No one in the books dislike Elain, so why are there so many people who do?

Elain hasn’t done anything wrong or questionable to warrant the hate she gets

Not having Elain’s POV makes it easy for people to be swayed a certain way about her character if you already don’t relate to her in some way

It’s been years since this series came out and we haven’t gotten a lick of an Elain POV, but people still hate her for what? We don’t know her thoughts, dreams, or aspirations

We haven’t even had Elain’s perspective yet and people are passing these judgments off on her

Elain antis who say she’s boring are just cruel when she has obvious symptoms of PTSD like Feyre and Nesta

Gwyn is one of the most overhyped characters and that’s only because most people hate Elain and they couldn’t wait to find a random girl to ship Azriel with

Nesta was abusive to her sisters but Elain (who has only ever been kind) is painted as the villain

From the text we know that Elain is the epitome of feminine stereotypes (gentle, gardening, baking, non confrontational for the most part). Yet people still call her boring or deny that she has any interesting character traits?

You can’t love Nesta and hate Elain

People hate Elain because of internalized misogyny and lack of taste. All the girl does is tend to her garden and mind her business and they treat her worse than Tamlin

Does Gwyn deserve all this support? Of course yes! She is amazing! But where’s that support when Elain was in the same situation as she? Where’s that support for her right now? Why do they idolize Gwyn for her interactions with Azriel and hate Elain for having any interaction with him?

It’s not even a ship war anymore, they just hate Elain

People hate Elain for no reason

Some of y’all don’t like feminine traits and it shows

We know less about Eris and Helion but people don’t call them boring. Why would rejecting femininity make Elain more interesting?

Elain has had a lot forced upon her

The main reason I believe most people love Gwyn so much is to get Azriel away from Elain. It’s not a secret that Elain has been a widely hated character for years so suddenly we get a new female who has a minimal amount of interactions with Azriel and BOOM. New ship that once again doesn’t make sense (just like Azriel x Emerie after ACOFAS)

Elain hasn’t done something so terrible for her to get this hate. At this point some of you are just being misogynistic and you don’t want to accept it. Don’t call yourselves feminists and then say bs like this, it’s embarrassing. She’s pretty and everyone agreed to hate on her

Just a personal feeling, but I feel like a lot of the Elain hate stems from internalized misogyny. That to be a strong female lead, you need to pick up a sword and fight. That to be strong, you need to adapt traditionally masculine traits

Elain is feminine. She is beautiful. She loves to bake and garden. She is docile, quiet, observant, and a people-pleaser. All traditionally feminine traits. Yet for some reason, she’s like the worst in these people’s eyes?

I think also maybe a lot of people can’t relate to her femininity? That her being so beautiful and quiet doesn’t allow for the people who dislike her not to self-insert? Most of the hate stems from people not wanting Elain to be with Azriel. It’s mean, but maybe the people who hate Elain literally just can’t self-insert if they have a story and that’s why they’re vehemently against it?

Poor Elain. The Cauldron dealt her a bad deal. Upon emerging as Fae, she is immediately declared by Lucien as his mate, never mind that she was already engaged to a prick. Her love life is not good

It blows my mind how they really think that they can compare all the shit that Elain gets with some dumb jokes about Gwyn on Twitter (and yes, the “hate” towards her started mostly because Elriels are clapping back, it was bound to happen)

I would think of it as anti-feminist with Elain and Lucien because she has consistently stated that she does not want him so if she was forced to embrace the bond that would be taking away her right to have a choice but with Az she feels comfortable around so if they were mates then Elain would be happy and feel safe which again should be the priority for women to feel safe in their relationships with anything and to not be forced into any type of situation aka the mating bond in this

Category 3: Coddle Elain’s character

Elain has value the way she is, in all her domestic girly glory. Not every character has to be badass

We don’t speak of Elain’s flaws frequently because everyone else already speaks badly of her, mainly in an unfair way

There is definitely something deeper going on with Elain but by no means will she ever be evil or any less feminine. That goes against everything we already know about her

It’s ok to critique Elain because she needs growth but y’all keep forgetting the shit her and her sisters went through

The last “bad” thing Elain did in ACOTAR was not help Feyre when they were impoverished and I’m tired of people acting like she’s a terrible character when it was their father’s responsibility. It happened 4 books ago and Feyre has forgiven both Nesta and Elain

Elain’s character and the evil Elain theory are a great example of the trend where people only consider female characters interesting if they reject femininity

We don’t know enough to hate Elain

Many people want Elain to turn evil (which in my opinion seems to come from a place of internalized misogyny)

However we don’t tend to talk about her faults, at least not publicly, as that has been, and still is, done to death, and I--personally, at least--find it much more fun to theorise about potentially interesting aspects of the overall plot, than dwell on negatives

And ultimately, I would be shocked if Elain has a more karmically-charged story than Nesta, considering that Elain’s “wrongs” are so much less severe and bad than Nesta’s, and Elain has already apologized for them (or paid the price in other ways, like through what Graysen did)

I guess I also think Elain has suffered and been punished enough. I hope her story is about finding hope in terrible situations, and learning to love her new life, and choosing her own path after everything that has been done to her. I don’t think she needs to be punished anymore or face any additional trauma

Also, why is she being judged on her decisions as a human at all? Fae are monsters to humans! They enslaved them for thousands of years, and the Wall was erected to keep them out

Like I’m sorry, but think Elain would want to leave her ONLY FAMILY AND FRIENDS for the Spring Court where she has no one because--oh look, lots of flowers!--is the craziest thing I have ever heard

Her sisters are in the Night Court. Her nephew is in the Night Court. Her closest friends (Nuala and Cerridwen) are in the Night Court. Her love interest is in the Night Court. Her extended family is in the Night Court. Her home is in the Night Court

SJM isn’t going to keep two sisters together and split up the third. Especially not keep Feyre and Nesta together and separate Elain. They were either all going to end up in separate places, or together. Not 2 here and 1 there

Compared to the other female characters in the series, Elain is the only character whose femalehood is at the center of conversations; this is because arguments in the Elriel fandom fixate on it when discussing her character. While Elain, Feyre, Nesta, and Mor are all representations of white womanhood and white beauty, Elain epitomizes the most fragile version of white womanhood. It’s easy to blame society’s perception of traditional female characters in comparison to non-traditional female characters when it comes to the discourse surrounding Elain’s character because it: falls in line with the fixation on Elain’s femalehood to silence opposing viewpoints; is a simplistic explanation that fails to tackle the underlying issues with Elain as a character, the same issues that are downplayed in-universe; absolves Elain of her wrongdoings; prevents the ACOTAR fandom from holding Elain accountable for her actions and inactions within the series; and diminishes the impact Elain’s actions and inactions have on those around her. It’s not that Elain is hated in the fandom because she’s a traditional female character; it’s the fact that arguments in the Elriel fandom deflect a critical analysis of Elain’s character because she’s a traditional female character who embodies the ideal white woman in need of protection. White fans and white-aligned fans of color, especially white women, have a tendency to vehemently defend, gatekeep, and coddle white female characters in fandom; this makes it difficult for other fans to engage in critical discussions about these white female characters because they’re viewed as flawless and all around perfect characters despite evidence to the contrary. Since Elain is viewed positively by the other characters in the series, it has rendered her character untouchable to any perceived slight or criticism in fandom discussions because those negative opinions challenge what has been said about her character thus far. And as a result, her character has been placed on a pedestal and implicitly hailed as the epitome of white womanhood; and when she’s criticized, it’s seen as a direct attack against white womanhood. Arguments in the Elriel fandom: exploit feminist language and perpetuate white feminist tactics under the guise of defending Elain’s character; center Elain in conversations about female oppression in the ACOTAR world and uphold white feminist ideologies in their critique of ACOTAR’s patriarchal society; and use the fragile white woman narrative to victimize Elain in Lucien’s presence, playing into racial biases that are associated with white supremacy’s defense of white womanhood.

Feminism is a social movement that seeks to promote equality and equity to all genders, and feminists work toward eradicating gender disparities on a macro-level, in addition to challenging gender biases on a micro-level. As feminism became more mainstream, a flat and oversimplified version of feminism emerged: mainstream feminism. The mainstream feminist movement is meant to represent all women, but rarely does it center conversations around issues that concern most women. The problem with mainstream feminism is that it’s just a popularized version of white feminism. White feminism has relied extensively on an individualized understanding of women’s oppression, exclusively from the lens of privileged white women. White feminism only focuses on the oppression experienced by white, able-bodied, affluent, educated, cishet women; and it views gender as the key mode of privileged white women’s oppression, isolated from the privileges granted by their other social identities. White women can be and are oppressed under the patriarchy but only because they are women; their identity as women does not exempt them from the privileges granted by their whiteness. The term white feminist does not mean any feminist who is white, but refers to feminists who prioritize the concerns of privileged white women as though they are representative of all women. However, the term is not exclusive to white people. Because white feminism is so pervasive, people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds often buy into white feminism, believing that if they work hard enough, they may be able to reap its rewards.

Just like white feminism, mainstream feminism only recognizes the identity of being a woman, assumes that all women share common experiences of gender oppression, fails to address other social identities in relation to overlapping systems of oppression, and disregards privilege in relation to various social identities. Just like white feminism, mainstream feminism is palatable because it doesn’t seek to challenge the systems in place, instead its goal is to succeed within them. Essentially, mainstream feminism and white feminism are extensions of performative feminism. Performative feminism is a type of performative activism that’s used to describe feminist views that are surface level and solely for the benefit of one type of person. It’s a pretense which often has nothing to do with genuine activism. Arguments in the Elriel fandom normalize and promote performative feminism because the topic of feminism is only referenced when discussing Elain. This indicates that these arguments are engaging in disingenuous discourse to push a personal agenda within the ACOTAR fandom, and it becomes more apparent when they use white feminist tactics to shut down opposing viewpoints:

White feminists weaponize and exploit feminist language to silence the opinions of other women, especially when they’re called out for their problematic behaviors

White feminists use the phrase “Women supporting women” to defend other white feminists who exhibit problematic behaviors instead of holding them accountable 

White feminists weaponize phrases like “Women supporting women” and “You just hate women” to attack other women who disagree with them on any given topic

White feminists use phrases like “All women face challenges” and “Stop pitting women against each other” to sidestep conversations about privilege

White feminists divert conversations away from privilege and towards the Trauma Olympics to equate their struggles to the oppression of marginalized people 

White feminists skirt around the realities of other forms of oppression and discrimination, downplaying the experiences of marginalized people

White feminists diminish or ignore the ways in which gender oppression affects other marginalized people

White feminists paint those they harmed as aggressive, mean, or divisive when confronted with the ways they have harmed a marginalized group

White feminists deflect criticism by focusing on the anger or emotions being expressed rather than the issue that is being discussed, invalidating the concerns of marginalized people

White feminists speak over marginalized voices in an attempt to sound “woke”

White feminists get defensive and insist there’s no way they could be a part of the problem because of what they’ve done to help marginalized groups already 

White feminists say they don’t see color in an attempt to obscure racial issues that need to be addressed

White feminists center and victimize themselves in conversations about racism, which derails necessary conversations from taking place

White feminists who are white weaponize the intersectionality of their race and gender to avoid accountability

Feminism is not meant to be approached from an individualistic perspective nor is it only about addressing the experiences of privileged white women, it involves addressing the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, and other social identities as well; and it involves addressing how these social identities relate to privilege. Moreover, feminism is not about women upholding complete loyalty to other women because of a shared gender identity, and to claim that it does implies that women should be held to different emotional standards than men. If men are able to dislike and criticize other individual men, real or fictional, without their characters being compromised, why aren’t women granted that same privilege?

It’s clear that SJM set up the ACOTAR world to mirror a patriarchal society, and that the imbalance of power between males and females stems from sexism. Arguments in the Elriel fandom analyze the ACOTAR world through a feminist lens to show how ACOTAR’s patriarchal society, to which the mating bond is innately tied, contributes to female oppression and limits their agency. When choice and free will are emphasized as part of Elain’s arc, they imply that Elain, through the mating bond, experiences female oppression under ACOTAR’s patriarchal society because of her identity as a female with that identity being the focal point of her oppression in the world. Elain is one of the most privileged characters in the ACOTAR world: she’s High Fae; she’s the sister of the High Lord and High Lady of the Night Court, which gives her access to wealth and political influence because of that connection; she’s able-bodied; she was magically blessed by the Cauldron; and she lives in Velaris, a place that grants females autonomy and power because of the beliefs of Rhysand and Feyre. Arguments in the Elriel fandom trivialize female oppression in the ACOTAR world because they disregard the fact that Elain’s privileges prevent her from experiencing female oppression in the same way that other marginalized females in the world do. The mating bond being one such example because those around Elain are not forcing the bond on her, instead they’re allowing Elain to reach a decision about the bond for herself; a privilege that other marginalized females in the world probably wouldn’t have. Just because Elain has endured hardships in her life and is a female in a patriarchal society, they do not erase the privileges she holds within the ACOTAR world. The failure to include Elain’s privileges in discussions about Elain being a female in a patriarchal society feeds into white feminist ideologies because white feminism operates from a very narrow perspective; it doesn’t take other intersecting identities into account when it examines gender oppression, leaving no room for discussions about privilege (or lack thereof) in relation to those intersecting identities. When discussing oppression in hierarchical societies, it’s imperative that privilege is also included in the conversation because privilege and oppression are not mutually exclusive; they equally affect the ways in which people navigate those societies through their social identities.

Rather than attributing Elain’s uncomfortability to her new life as a Fae female or the mating bond itself and her trauma to the Cauldron, the King of Hybern, or Ianthe, they’re placed on Lucien to cast his character in a negative light. Moreover, fandom discussions portray Lucien as a possessive character to further emphasize Elain’s discomfort despite the inaccuracy of this characterization in canon. Arguments in the Elriel fandom play into racial biases when it comes to Lucien (a male character of color) because they mischaracterize his character in order to victimize Elain (a white female character), placing her character in the role of the white damsel in distress. In Western society, the concept of womanhood has been conceptualized from a Eurocentric perspective with femininity and feminine attributes favoring white women. It’s the idea that a certain type of femininity is only inherent to white women as they are seen as the embodiment of an ideal womanhood. White womanhood has been a symbol of innocence and purity, and white women have been viewed as fragile beings in need of protection. The reason white womanhood functions within white supremacy is because it’s the same idea that has motivated white men to kill and beat black and brown men. The so-called protection of white women has been used as a justification for the horrific violence committed by white men because black and brown men were stereotyped as aggressive and seen as a threat to the virtue of white women. The white damsel in distress trope considered white women as worthy of protection because of their perceived innocence and purity; women of color were not granted that same treatment because they did not fit into the ideal image of womanhood. Over the years, this trope became a means for white women to exercise limited power in a patriarchal society with white women weaponizing their status as the damsel much to the detriment of black and brown men. It’s through the white damsel in distress trope that white supremacy sustains its dominance in Western society. The misrepresentation of characters of color in fandom, the dismissal of their importance to the overall story, and using them as tools in arguments centered around white characters are the foundation of fandom racism; they’re examples of how racism moves silently in fandom spaces. Instead of examining their behavior and taking constructive criticism from fans of color, white fans will often double down on their bigotry and center their uncomfortability in the conversation when confronted with their complicity in fandom racism. White fans expect fans of color to swallow fandom racism in its many forms in order to not ruin the experience of fandom, dismissing the fact that racism is prevalent in nearly every aspect of society. This mentality ensures that no one is held accountable for the harm they caused and alienates fans of color in fandom spaces.

To reiterate what I mentioned in my first think piece: terms like “oppression”, “the right to choose”, “feminist”, “feminism”, “anti-feminist”, “anti-feminism”, “internalized misogyny”, “misogyny”, “misogynist”, “sexist”, “sexism”, “racist”, “racism”, “classist”, “classism”, “discrimination”, and “patriarchy” are all used in specific ways to draw attention to the plight of marginalized people and challenge those who deny the existence of systems of oppression. Yet these words and their meanings can be twisted to attack, exclude, and invalidate people with differing opinions on any given topic. When social justice and feminist terms are thrown around antagonistically and carelessly to push a personal agenda, it becomes clear that these terms are being used to engage in disingenuous discourse and pursue personal validation rather than being used out of any deep-seated conviction to dismantle systemic oppression. Being an ally, activist, or feminist is not an identity, it’s a practice. It requires: ongoing self-reflection; holding ourselves accountable; listening to marginalized people; educating ourselves; dismantling implicit biases; challenging those around us who are exhibiting problematic behaviors; and action behind our words.

It’s important to be aware of the language that is used within the fandom when defending or critiquing characters and ships. It’s also important to question how an argument is framed and why it’s framed the way that it is to critically examine the intent behind that argument: is it used as a tool to push a personal agenda that reinforces problematic behaviors, or is it used as an opportunity to share, learn, enlighten, and educate?

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Tagging: @spell-cleavers @bookofmirth @m0bulidae @ilya-boltagon

[bookofmirth]

Hi I am another Elriel shipper that genuinely loves reading you thoughts. While I don’t agree with everything you say I think they are very insightful and thought provoking and I enjoy them . Before I get to my point I just want to say that I am truly sorry on behalf of the Elriel fandom for all the negative that has been going down as of late. As someone who yearns for peace in the fandom and cannot tolerate seeing honest people being torn because of a ship.. seeing this shipwar pains me . I am fairly new to this fandom and I follow many Elriel blogs and pro Elaine and pro Lucien blogs. Some happen to be Elucien shippers too and I find myself gravitating towards them more as people rather than of my fellow Elriel shippers. Don’t get me wrong I still adore Elriel . But I just don’t want to surround myself with certain type of people no longer . My question is , Do you know of any blogs that lean more towards neutral shipping or don’t care about shipping at all?

Hello lovely person!

I'm glad you don't agree with everything I say - I'd assume you weren't really paying attention if you just nodded along like you had a blank smile on your face. I'm sorry the fandom isn't a great experience for you right now. I hope that it changes soon 🤞 In the meantime, ship whatever your heart desires!

These blogs do share similar ships with me, but I know that they either don't participate in the ship war and/or they just vibe. If anyone else wants to recommend their blog as well, feel free! I am not good at going through my dash and I talk so much with people in comments or on discord that I can't remember who is actually active on tumblr.

@cassianandfenrysaremyboyos Lisa and I have been mutuals forever and while we share ships, she's good at just ignoring the BS and doing her own thing

@aelin-godkiller Lou is also a long-time mutual and while she doesn't post quite as much anymore, when she does it's 🔥 she's so smart

@eyllweambassador Ezra is more into ToG, but is a devoted multi/rarepair shipper

@feysandfeels the Lady Lulu to my Lady Lele. She doesn't put up with any anti sjm BS and is a positive space.

@moononastring Yes Gigi is very much an elucien, but she tends to stay away from the drama

@writtenonreceipts lots of fanfic, no drama

@separatist-apologist MB just vibes with whatever she likes in the moment and I appreciate that about her

@gimme-mor is a multishipper - despite being critical of certain portions of the fandom in the past. Can you ask for more?

@ruhncervos Tati just vibes with what she likes

@elains makes lots of lovely aesthetic things

@sjmkinkmeme yes this is my side project with a couple other people, but we only post creative works - no ship war stuff allowed

@tangledraysofsunshine idek if Alex posts that much lol but she is probably the sweetest person you will ever meet in this fandom, and I've known her for a few years. I know. Trust me. The sweetest.

@rayonfrozenwings Renée is the original theory queen

@feyre-cursebreaker Carley always has interesting thoughts

@yazthebookish obviously Yaz has Gwynriel feelings but she has been doing a lot of great theory lately and making posts sorting out all the lore. And if y'all had any idea how much restraint she has shown with this ship war...

and some others for funsies: @darling-archeron @shyvioletcat @starseternalnighttriumphant

I know there are other people who are amazing humans and funny and smart and don't have time for this nonsense, but they may not post much so I might have forgotten to include them.

[heyovivi]

THIS IS EMBARRASSING

Okay this is...troubling. Only because I know from @yazthebookish that this specific user is especially problematic within the ACOTAR community. So this comment was made on a Gwynriel TikTok (cardans.tail (lmao the name 😂)). So basically, the TikToker made a video using a sound and comparing that sound to some of the colorful language that some E/riels call her, not the good Elriels but the toxic E/lriels. And then this specific user commented this ^.

And wow. Like I had no idea I was a racist or a misogynists. I also had no idea that that any of mutuals were because honestly my mutuals seem like very lovely people.

Now this comment got over a hundred comments already and most of it is this toxic E/riel trying to defend herself against Gwynriels. And her defense is also toxic.

Now I do appreciate those who stood neutral in this conversation, and agree that both sides have their own share of toxicity, but that isn't to say that all sides are bad. I know for a fact there are good Elriels out there and I will respect them as they respect me. But when I see posts like this:

Like I personally don't have a problem with the fact that this person is not Brazilian. Like I don't think that has anything to do with me, it feels like that kind of a heritage thing and doesn't have anything to do with this fandom. But I did hear that a few E/riels did call the Gwynriels from Brazil "mutts" so I suppose if this specific anti weren't apart of the legion of haters then they shouldn't warrant such hate. But also, as this person commenting against this anti said that this person has a habit of hunting through social media and attacking our side of the fandom relentlessly. And even if they aren't active on Tumblr they didn't deny that they still attacking Gwynriels on Twitter.

And even if this person is not playing victim (which they kind've are) their "truth" is their opinion. Their vicious opinions that result in harassment against a certain party of mutuals.

Oh this poor, misguided soul. Kudos for this user for keeping up with the argument, I'm amazed how you can deal with such...troubling people. This poor, lost, confused anti must've been blind to all the hate comments that Steph received. The whole point of the live was not to confirm their ship (like how a bunch of E/riels wanted) but it was mostly to catch up and discuss the new release of Crescent City 2. Yes there were snippets of Azriel and ONE question about Gwyn (because again, toxic E/riels are convinced that Gwynriel is a pedophilic ship), but you shouldn't be pressed about there not being any questions about Elain. Elain was a present in four books prior so I'm sure in the lives for those books there were plenty of questions about her. As for Gwyn, she is a completely new character and I can't believe that instead of getting insight into her character Steph and SJM felt the need to confirm her age so Gwynriels could feel like their own ship was less problematic.

This kinda explains itself so no further word on this argument.

Yes, there are many sides to this fandom that are extremely toxic. All the Gwynriels I found on Tumblr have been extremely nice and caring people. They are very supportive and protective of their ship and as long as you don’t poke them there shouldn’t be a problem. But if you poke them then they come at you with textual and cited evidence. And believe me there is enough evidence to prove that this anti is a bully and harasses many Gwynriels and Eluciens

The fact that their only argument is that Gwynriels are racists and misogynists probably means that they don’t have any real argument and this is a more personalized matter. Because no, on this side of the fandom we are not misogynists. We want both Elain and Gwyn to grow into beautiful empowering female characters. Elain can branch out into her own person. She isn’t just Feyre’s gardener she can expanse into being more than that. She has potential. And Gwyn isn't Azriel’s booty call. Her existence isn’t simply tailored to being Az’s love interest for us. Gwyn stans are all interested in her journey of self-healing and self-discovery. It was hinted multiple times that her part in the books is bigger than what we realize and who knows. Maybe her role is going to Spring Court and bringing Tamlin back to his senses. Or maybe her role is finding her family in Autumn Court. We don’t know. It’s not misogynistic to think that these beautiful female leads can grow into strong and independent characters. They aren’t just Azriel’s love interests they also have their own journeys ahead of them as well

I try to stay away from the E/riel side because, well, it’s what I expect the Court of Nightmares to be amongst this fandom. But never have I once came across E/riels who try to defend Gwyn’s assault. Instead I see them arguing that the fact she went back to the library after the Blood Rite is a sign that she and Azriel aren’t going to be endgame. Ummmm Gwyn risked her life in a vicious trial where she had to be kidnapped, drugged, and then had to fight for her life in order not to be killed and raped. Of course she went back to the library. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t going to get her own healing journey. And just because we ship her with Azriel, write NSFW fan fiction and draw NSFW art doesn’t mean we are invalidating her trauma. A large part of why I ship Gwynriel is because I see the tremendous potential between them. Though I’m not against them have their own separate journeys of healing I also feel like they can help rise each other up.

And also it’s not like SA survivors can’t heal from experiences and have sex ever again. In fact, a lot of survivors find healing in sex because it’s a sign that they refound their own control of their bodies and accept themselves and can move on healthily. Many Gwynriels can identify with Gwyn and this ship because of their own experiences in their lives and artists such of myself incorporate the more intimate parts of this ship because we identify with those moments and like to envision that moment where Gwyn can finally accept herself and her more intimate side.

The rest of the comments are just back and forth arguing but for the most part it is clear that this fandom needs to grow up. Stop the bullying, stop the hate comments, stop everything. The post on TikTok was to show that this person was being bullied for simply liking a ship and how did it end? With both sides trying to justify themselves. Bullying and harassment shouldn’t be justified. I shouldn’t have to see why talented artists like @vmiae have to explain themselves or why an entire community are being accountable for one or two people’s actions. One person doesn’t speak for all. This person clearly did not get the message and we can only hope that they learns the truth and isn’t just speaking from their own opinion.

[maxmundan]

I don’t know how to keep my mouth shut. I am a smart ass through and through, and many times this inability to know when to speak and when to keep quiet and who should or shouldn’t be told to their face that they are an idiot has gotten me into big trouble. In junior high school I had been regularly beat up and shoved into trash cans due to my habit of making sure every meathead there knew exactly what I thought of them and their intelligence level at all times. Later, I would decide that it was better to be feared than crushed, and I would start telling everyone that I was Hitler’s grandson. They tended to stay away from me after that. Hitler never had any children, of course, and thus was unlikely to have any grandchildren, but most of the guys at my school were in no danger of making the debate team or winning the spelling bee any time soon, if you know what I mean. Junior high school had been very hard on me, and I feel like I just ever so barely made it out with my life. I’ve learned a lot since then, and I’ve made a concerted effort to not mouth off to people I don’t know very well, or whose ability to control their temper I have been unable to gauge. Here’s the problem though. I drink. I drink a lot. I drink to excess, among other vices that I’ve cultivated, and when I drink, my control over the time delay between some insulting thought entering my brain and that same ugly thought popping out of my mouth becomes pretty nonexistent. I can say some pretty nasty things. One time I was on a blind date with this young lady named Elaine. She was the friend of a friend’s wife, who had set us up together, thinking that we were both fiercely proud of our intelligence and that, because of this, we would be perfect for each other. It was a stupid thought. I took her out to dinner at this nice Italian restaurant and we fought the whole damn time. About everything. We fought about art and science and music and movies. We couldn’t agree on a single thing. And the more I drank, the more insulting I got. I went from disagreeing with her to telling her how unbelievably moronic I thought her opinions were. I ended the date by telling her that I would rather fuck a man than her. She burst up from the table, throwing her full glass of red wine directly in my face and stormed out of the restaurant. What had gotten into me? What a terrible thing to say. Here’s the weird part, though. It wasn’t even true. I had thought she was pretty hot and, until that moment, I had been hoping we could get past our differences and I was going to get into her pants. That shit about fucking a man had just popped into my brain and out of my mouth without even a moment’s thought. The more wasted I get the greater the chance that I am going to say something that will just burn it all to the ground. This brings me to a night I spent doing way too many drugs and drinking far, far too much alcohol; a night I got lost and beaten and bloody and wet and ended up sleeping it off in the local holding cell; the night I met the inbred hick fucks. I like to party. That much has been established. I like to drink, and I like to drink to fucking excess, and if you invite me over to your house and pour me a glass of wine, or a beer, or a shot of whiskey or tequila, you are not getting me out of your house until every drop of alcohol you have has been consumed. That’s just the way it is. Don’t invite me over if you are saving your alcohol for a different, special occasion. It doesn’t even matter if you hide the alcohol from me. When you are out of the room, say going to the bathroom, or paying the pizza delivery man, I will go through all your cupboards and look under your bed and behind the old photographs in your closet to find it. I am going to have your alcohol, that’s just all there is to it. If you don’t have a lot, chances are that we are going to be taking a little trip to the store to get more. You’re going to have to pay, of course. I’ve been out of work for a while now and I can barely afford to take care of myself. You wouldn’t expect me to go without food or shelter, would you? I’m sure you don’t want me to stop feeding myself, am I right? So, you’re going to have to pay. We might very well get bored of the alcohol at some point and decide to move on to something a little more challenging and exciting, like cocaine or crystal meth. That would be fun. Don’t you think that would be fun? What about a little heroin? We could do speedballs for the rest of the night and really get fucking crazy. That would be something, wouldn’t it? Angel dust? Did someone mention angel dust? Damn, I’d sure love to do a little of that. It’s been so long. Do they still even have angel dust? Of course, it goes without saying that you’re paying for this too. I can’t afford that kind of shit. It’s expensive. We talked about this. I thought you understood. If I pay for this little bit of fun for the two of us, then I have to go without one of life’s essentials. Do you want me to be homeless or starve to death? Of course you don’t. So just pay for the coke and smack already and we can get this party started. The particular night in question, I was going to a cast party. You may have guessed already that I am an actor, due to my savoir faire and barely controlled narcissism. Yes, I’m a struggling actor. You say that like it’s a bad thing. Of course, I’m a struggling actor. I think I’ve made $10 doing it my entire life and that was when I played Twinkie the Kid at a grocery store opening for a half hour when I was 17. That’s a story for another time, though. The night of the inbred hick fucks was a cast party. I was doing a show called “The Feeling Child.” It was an amazing piece of shit, I’ll tell you that. You know “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood? Well, this was sort of the opposite of that. It was a science fiction play about a future world where abortion was mandatory. The evil commie lefties had taken over and placed a strict limit on the number of babies people could have. They had convinced everyone that the lie of climate change was in fact true, and this new law was necessary to cut down on the out of control overpopulation that was depleting the planet’s resources. So, this evil, leftie government was forcing good, god-fearing, Christian parents to kill their fetuses. I played the leader of the anti-abortion rebellion who had been arrested protesting at one of the abortion mills and was now being tortured by the authorities for the crime of just wanting babies to live, damnit. It was written by a born-again right-winger. I guess that goes without saying. Only a born-again right-winger would write something so fucking stupid. The play was a disaster from the get go. I have no idea why I even agreed to do it in the first place. I must be a glutton for punishment. Either that or I have absolutely nothing going on in my life, and I will sign on to any piece of shit that will get me in front of an audience, where I can feel the adulation and hear the applause. Nothing else, not even the drugs, can quiet the voices in my head of crippling self-doubt and self-loathing like adulation and applause. It got even worse. The director was under no illusion that this piece of shit was going to Broadway and was afraid, I think, that the audience was going to laugh instead of cry or become outraged when they saw it, so he decided to do this thing Kabuki style. That is right, Kabuki style, which is an ancient form of Japanese theater. So, me and the rest of the cast had to perform in a very stylized physical way. We also had to hold paper cut-out masks in front of our faces the whole time. There is a scene where my tongue gets cut out because I just can’t stop talking about how fetuses were meant to live, and god would hate us for what we were doing. The director decided to symbolize this by having a red ribbon attached to my mask. When the big tongue cutting scene happened, which was the climax of the whole atrocious play, I just pulled the ribbon through the mouth of my mask and let it drop all the way to the floor. Needless to say, it was a hoot. The opening night of the play, about four or five minutes in, the audience started laughing. They started to laugh really loud. They didn’t let up. They thought the play was amazing. They thought it was a comedy. Hell, they thought it was a really terrific comedy. Now, I’m no idiot, so when the audience started to bust up laughing, I decided to go for it. I played it for laughs. I started exaggerating my movements and holding for laughter and using my comedy training for things like double takes and physical theater bits. I even did a spit take at one point, shooting water through the mouth hole of my mask. The audience loved it. They ate it the fuck up. When it came time for the curtain call, every last one of them got up on their goddamn feet and gave me a standing ovation. I shit you not. A standing ovation. It was one of the crowning achievements of my acting career to this point. I mean it was fucking amazing. It felt great. I felt like a star. Of course, the writer and director were a little pissed about the whole thing. More than a little pissed, actually. they were furious. They refused to talk to me, or even look at me, after the show. To this day, they still haven’t ever talked to me. As far as they are concerned, both of them, I am persona non grata. This was the party after the performance, though, and I was riding a pretty great high, so I was bound and determined to get wasted. I started off slow, just getting my game on, with a couple of Mango Wheat Brown Ales or some such shit, I don’t really remember. Then, a bit later, someone produced a bottle of Stolichnaya from the freezer and man, was it on. I can drink straight vodka all night. I just started pounding shots. I couple of cute girls came into the kitchen where I was and started egging me on, so I upped the pace a little and began chugging straight from the bottle. By the time I reached the bottom of it, though, the chicks were nowhere to be seen. What the hell happened to those girls? They must have disappeared when I wasn’t looking. I didn’t have long to wonder about the whereabouts of the girls before my friend Sycamore Taylor walked in holding a big blunt in his fingers and asked if I wanted to take a little toke. Well, of fucking course I wanted to take a goddamn toke. Who the hell did he think he was talking to? Sycamore was as big a stoner as me, if not worse, and he was always rolling these big, fucking bomber joints that were half weed and half tobacco. It took like ten rolling papers to make one, and goddamn they wiped you out. The one this night was a particular monster and just the first hit off it gave me cotton mouth so bad I had to get something else to drink to go with it. There was a bottle of Somrethingorother Cabernet Sauvignon sitting unopened on the counter, so I grabbed that and started rifling through the kitchen drawers to find a corkscrew. I couldn’t find anything, so I handed the bottle to Sycamore, thinking, “What the fuck is wrong with these people that they don’t have a corkscrew? Isn’t that the bare minimum if you’re going to throw a party at your house?” I was throwing open all the cabinets and even looking through the trash. There had to be some way to open this fucking bottle of wine. Sycamore was just standing there, looking at the label on the bottle, not helping me in any way, when he said, “Shit, man. Check it out. This bottle is a 1996. I don’t think we should drink this. It’s probably pretty valuable.” “Are you some kind of fucking idiot?” I asked him, snatching the bottle from his hands, “If they didn’t intend for people to drink it, they would have never brought it to a goddamn party, right?” Sycamore acquiesced and agreed that this was pretty logical thinking on my part, but we still couldn’t open the damn bottle for the life of us. I ended up just taking a big steak knife and carving my way through the cork till I could finally get my lips at the delicious wine. Fuck, that tasted good. By this time the blunt had gone out and we needed to relight that sucker and give it a good smoking. By the time I had crushed the tiny butt out on the kitchen floor with my boot, Sycamore had disappeared too, and the bottle of wine was empty. I was completely alone in the kitchen, leaning up against the refrigerator. I decide to go in search of more alcohol and lurched forward with that intent. I was a lot drunker than I had given myself credit for, though, and my legs didn’t operate in anywhere near the fashion I wanted or intended them to, and I fell flat on my face instead. I banged my chin pretty goddamn viciously on the kitchen floor so that I bit down hard on my tongue. I could taste blood in my mouth. I decided the best thing for me to was to stay down on the floor like that. I might really fuck myself up if I tried to get back on my feet. I don’t know how long I was there, but eventually someone, I don’t know who, came in and lifted me back up. I must have blacked out around this time because the next thing that I remember was sitting on the couch in another room with a glass full of whiskey in my hand, watching John Waters “Pink Flamingos” on the TV. It was the part of the movie where Divine buys the piece of meat at the butcher and shoves it up her dress between her legs as she walks. I was having black out experiences a lot these days. I would be missing hours, sometimes entire nights. The worst was when I would wake up in the back seat of my car and realize that I must have driven from some party or other to wherever it was I found myself in the morning but had no recollection of getting there. I could easily kill myself or someone else in one of these blackout experiences. At a certain point, I realized I needed to give up drinking and driving before something terrible happened. I decided to sell my car. I polished off my glass of whiskey and looked around the room. I was the only person there. Well, not the only person. There was a shirtless guy passed out on the couch next to me. Someone had drawn cartoon penises all over his chest. “That’s totally fucked up,” I remember thinking. “Where had everybody gone?” I wondered. I pushed myself gingerly off the couch and went in search of more alcohol. “There must be something here,” I thought. I wandered back through the kitchen where a whole bunch of people I didn’t recognize were laughing at some story I couldn’t quite figure out. I asked them if there was any more beer, but they just ignored me. I had no idea where all my friends had gone and by this point I couldn’t even remember whose house it was that I had been partying at. I pushed a couple of guys out of the way of the refrigerator and threw open the door. There had to be some alcohol inside. There wasn’t. I started to ask the guys if they knew where to find any, but they were giving me a particularly dirty look, so I slithered out of the kitchen to continue my search. There was nothing. I looked everywhere. I found a couple of half full bottles of beer, but they had already become party ashtrays. I even tried to drink one but got a cigarette butt in my mouth that I had to spit out on the floor. What’s more, there didn’t even seem to be anybody I knew in the house anymore. I ran from room to room, but I didn’t recognize any of my friends or anybody from the cast of the show I had just done. Where did everybody go? “I guess I might as well head home,” I thought. I stumbled out the front door with the intention of walking home. I was having trouble moving in a straight line, but I figured if I really focused I would probably be able to make it. A sort of jock looking dude about a foot taller than me stopped me on my way down the driveway. “Hey man,” he said, placing his hand on my chest to slow me down, “You’re really drunk. why don’t you let me give you a ride home?” “I’m fine,” I answered, belligerently, pushing his hand out of my way. “Seriously,” he said, reaching out for me but failing to grab my shirt as I dodged his reach, “You’re going to fuck yourself up going off like that.” “Don’t worry about me,” I spit back at him over my shoulder, “I’ve done this a thousand times. I’ve walked home drunk more times than you’ve masturbated, and from the look of you that’s a whole fucking lot.” “Well, fuck you then, asshole,” I heard him shout at me as I lurched from the driveway out into the road, just narrowly stepping out of the path of a pair of headlights that was rushing on me quickly. The problem was that the guy was right. As I walked off down the street, it occurred to me that I had no idea where I was and thus, no concept of the correct direction to choose to get home. I had only the vaguest memory of getting to the party in the first place. I know I had been driven there by one of the other cast members, but I was damned if I could remember which one. I’d had a few fucking drinks, okay? How the hell was I supposed to remember boring details? I hadn’t been paying attention to the streets either. I had just been laughing and telling jokes and otherwise making a spectacle of myself.   “God-fucking-damnit,” I thought, “Why am I always such a colossal fuck up?” I figured the best thing I could do was to keep walking. If I did, maybe I would come to a place I recognized, and from there, be able to find my way home. It’s wasn’t like I just moved here yesterday. I’d lived in this town for a couple of years. I’m not some newbie, wannabe poseur who just fell off the turnip truck.  I just happened to be in a strange part that I didn’t recognize. I walked for about fifteen minutes, turning frequently, but always trying to move in the direction that I assumed the center of town might be. I’m pretty arrogant about my sense of direction. Unfortunately, I was way off. I found myself at the bottom of a cul-de-sac I had been sure was going to lead somewhere, so I marched back in the other direction and turned the opposite way from the one I thought I had come. “This has got to work,” I thought. There were only so many directions I could go. I had to find the town center sooner or later. I was wrong again. I walked about a block and a half on this street before the houses started to disappear and I began to encounter bigger and bigger plots of land. “Oh shit,” I said to myself, slapping my own face with my hand, “I’m on the fucking Bottoms. How did I get to the Bottoms?” The Bottoms were what we all called the huge stretches of farmland on the outskirts of town. I was nowhere near where I had thought I was. The Bottoms were about a twenty-minute drive from the center of town, about thirty minutes from my place. It was going to take me for-fucking-ever to walk home at this point. I briefly wondered what time it was. It must have been after 2am. The party hadn’t even started till 10:30. It occurred to me that I might be really fucked here. I’d never spent much time on the Bottoms in the couple of years I’d lived in town. I mean, why the hell would I spend a lot of time in this area? I’m not a big fan of cow shit and there wasn’t fuck all else on the goddamn Bottoms. Why would anybody with half a brain even come down to this shithole if they didn’t have to? I’m not a frat boy into drinking two shots of Jägermeister and then drunkenly pushing cows over and I don’t need to pick magic mushrooms out of fresh, wet poop. I buy my mushrooms from the dealer like a respectable drug addict. I just kept stumbling down the road. I started looking around, hoping to see a car coming that maybe I could flag down and hitch a ride home. That seemed to be the best idea, but there was nothing, not a car in sight. This wasn’t exactly New York City. If it was as late as I thought it was, every goddamn person in town might be in bed already. “Jesus fucking Christ,” I screamed at the top of my lungs, so the cows could understand my pain, “could this be a bigger disaster?” Then it started to rain. With my luck, I should have predicted it. Oh, it had been misting for a while, but all of a sudden, the skies opened up and it started to pour. The rain was pounding down on the pavement and the marshy farm land the road ran through, splashing mud all over me. Within a few minutes, the original color of the clothing I had worn was impossible to distinguish, covered as it was with a thick layer of dripping clay. “Fuck,” I thought, “these were brand new duds I picked out specifically for the party.” I started to run as fast as I could down the road, screaming at the top of my lungs as I went. I have no idea what I was screaming and was pretty certain nobody could hear me anyway. After a few minutes, I slowed to a halt, realizing that running was counterproductive. I could easily be running farther away from where I wanted to go. I stopped in my tracks. “I’ve really fucked up this time,” I thought. I had no idea how I was supposed to get out of this situation. I probably should have accepted that ride from the jock dude back at the party. The rain continued to pour. If anything, it was raining harder than it had been a few minutes ago. “I guess it’s just never going to fucking stop,” I said to myself. Then I started to laugh. I just threw my head back and let out with as big a belly laugh as I’d ever laughed in my life. “I guess I’m going to die out here,“ I thought, and as I did so, I realized that the laughter had morphed seamlessly into tears, and I was bawling like a baby. I really committed myself to self-pity at this point. I plopped my ass down in the mud at the side of the road and cried my eyes out as the rain pelted me till I could taste the mud in my mouth as it rolled down my face. “What a shitty place to die,” I thought. Then I saw the headlights.   At first, I wasn’t sure that’s what they were, as they crept slowly down the long road. My mind could have easily been playing tricks with me at this point. After a couple of minutes, though, I recognized the outline of a vehicle headed my way. I jumped to my feet and started waving my hands hysterically and shouting. I must have looked a sight, a soaking wet and mud-drenched lunatic standing in the road screaming in the middle of the night. Nobody in their right mind would pull over and let me get in their car. The most likely outcome is that they would just drive on by and leave me there with my misery. I wanted them to stop so fucking badly, though. It could be the difference between life and death for me. I found myself praying for the first time in many years, repeating a mantra to myself over and over again, “Please God, let them stop for me. Please God, let them stop for me.” The car got closer and closer to me and it did appear that they were slowing down. I could see now that it was an old Galaxy 500 in pretty bad disrepair. Even through the driving rain I could see that this was one junker of a car that really had no business being on the road at all. It certainly wasn’t one of those beautifully restored models that real car lover guys often have. It looked like it had been driven non-stop from the 50s to this moment in time without so much as a tune-up. “Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers,” I thought. To my surprise, the car pulled over to the side of the road and the driver’s side window rolled down. Inextricably, the rain seemed to double in intensity at that moment, obscuring my vision, so I couldn’t make out any details of the head or face that looked at me from the open window. “Please God, let them give me a ride home,” I prayed silently, not moving a muscle. At that moment, the face in the window spoke. “Hey buddy,” it said, “are you alright there? You don’t look like you’re doing so good.” “I’m not,” I replied. I wanted to say so much more. I wanted to get down on my knees and beg for my life, beg for him to save me, to give me a ride home. Nothing came out, however, and I just stood there in silence for a minute or two. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the driver spoke again. “Why don’t you get in the car dude? We can give you a ride home.” “I’m soaking wet and covered in mud,” I told him, taking a hesitant step towards his car. “No shit,” he replied, “I can see that. It won’t make a difference in this car. Just get your ass inside and we’ll get you home.” I couldn’t believe my luck. A minute ago, I thought I was going to die out here, alone on the road, and now my salvation was at hand. “Thank you,” I said hesitantly, as I stepped towards the car and opened the rear driver’s side door. It was dark inside, but I could make out that there was already someone in the back seat. I looked towards the front and saw that there was another person in the front as well. I still couldn’t make out their faces, just the outlines of their figures. “Three guys in here,” I thought, “I guess that’s okay.” Now, I don’t usually hitch rides and I certainly never pick up hitchhikers. I’ve heard too many of the stories and half the people around here seemed like they walked out of a Manson family look-alike contest, so the last thing on earth I’d want is to share a ride with them. I was hesitating in a limbo between getting in the car and stepping back out onto the road. I was getting a really weird feeling that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and it was leaving me very unsure as to what I should or shouldn’t do. It was then that the guy in the back seat reached out and pulled me into the car. I flopped down on the seat beside him, spraying an arc of mud across the inside of the car as I did so. “Goddamn,” the guy in the back seat said at this point, “this fucker really is covered in mud.” “That’s okay,” the driver said, turning to look at me, “Would you close the door though, dude? A lot of rain is getting in the car.” “Oh yeah,” I replied, as I pulled the car door shut, “sorry about that.” “No worries,” the driver said, “Now where we takin’ you, Mr. Mud?” “Uh, I live in t…t…town,” I stuttered, “near the corner of 5th and G.” “Alright,” he said, “then let’s get on the road.” He and the other guy both turned their faces back towards the front of the car then and the driver pulled out onto the road. I could hear the rain pounding on the roof as we started to move. If anything, it was falling even harder still. “Thank God I’m finally out of it,” I thought. “Thank you,” I said to the whole car, as I settled back into the seat, resting my head on the cushion. I was still very fucked up and drunk. You would have thought the walk and the rain might have sobered me up a bit but that was far from the case. I turned towards the guy sitting next to me in the back seat and realized that he was staring at me. I had the distinct impression he was sizing me up. I hadn’t paid much attention to the way the guys in the car had looked to this point, but I noted now that they could almost be triplets. All three were blond, white guys with short, military-cut hair and camouflage hats like hunters wear. “So, what’s your story, Mr. Mud?” the one sitting next to me said, “You look like you’ve fucked this night up one side and down the other.” “What do you mean?” I answered tentatively. As I did, I looked over at him and noticed for the first time that he was very heavily tattooed. He was wearing blue jeans and a grey t-shirt and had tattoos all down his arms and up his neck. It’s possible he even had a couple on his skull that were showing through his short blond hair a little bit. In the diffused lighting inside the car, I couldn’t really be sure. Now, I have nothing whatsoever against tattoos. I like them, in fact. I even have a couple myself. One on my right arm of my dog, Oscar, and a Chinese Symbol that means freedom on my chest that I had gotten the first time I got sober. There was one on this guy that bothered me a bit, however, just below his left ear. It was partially hidden but still unmistakable as the double lightning bolt SS symbol of the Nazi Stormtroopers. “I mean all THIS, Dude,” He said, waving his hand at me, “All this mud and water and stench and the scratches on your face. You are one fucked up dude, am I right?” “Yeah, I guess I’m a little drunk,” I said, trying my best to sound confident. I turned to look at the guy in the passenger seat, who was now turning around staring at me. He was smiling the most hideous grimace of a smile I’d ever seen and there was nothing in his eyes, no life, no warmth. He was a killer, through and through. He had the same SS Tattoo under his left ear. I swung my gaze towards the driver to see if he had one too. Mercifully he was still looking forwards, towards the road, but he had an identical SS tattoo under his ear as well. “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?” I thought. I live in little town in Northern California called Arcata. Arcata is the most liberal town you are ever going to find in your life. My guess is that every old hippy left on Earth has ended up here and every young hippy makes a pilgrimage to be among their own kind. It’s my kind of place, full of vegan restaurants, political action committees, and hot hippy chicks. In the end, though, Arcata is just a very tiny, progressive island in a vast sea of redneck ignorance. Some of the dumbest, ugliest motherfuckers you’ve ever seen in your life populate the surrounding towns, like McKinleyville, Garberville, and Laytonville (which I always referred to as Satanville for its hellish, frightening qualities). The most conservative people in Arcata vote Democrat every time, but in the surrounding communities there are a pretty fair share of racists, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists. It was looking like I’d fallen in with three white trash mutants from outside Arcata. Now, I’m sure you’re probably able to guess exactly how I feel about motherfucking Nazis. You are correct, sir, I cannot fucking stand them. We’ve fought long and hard to cut through the moronic racism in this country and shame the drooling, KFC swilling, KKK hood wearing redneck pigs back under the rocks they originally emerged from. What’s more, we had gone to war in Europe not so very fucking long ago to eradicate these ridiculous, sadistic scum from the face of the Earth. Not only were Nazis and white power jerk-offs amazing assholes, but they were always history’s big losers, constantly on the wrong side of both victory and history. Why any human being would want to throw their hand up in a “sieg heil” and declare yourself one of this spineless, pathetic crowd is beyond me. Yet, here I was, trapped in a car with three of them. The driver kept his eyes on the road and without turning, he said to me, “I’d say you’re more than a little drunk, wouldn’t you, friend? I’d say you’re shitfaced, you’re two sheets to the wind, you’re one toke over the line, aren’t you?” This Nazi sure knew a lot of colorful terms for being wasted. “Alright, I’m totally fucked up,” I replied, just deciding to go with it now, “Is that a crime?” The one sitting next to me busted out laughing, and slapping me on the shoulder, said, “I think it might be. What do you guys think, guys? Isn’t getting fucked up out of your mind a crime?” The guy in the passenger seat turned towards me again and in the coldest voice I’d ever heard said, “Yeah, it’s a crime. I think it’s called drunk in public. Maybe I oughta make a citizen’s arrest.” This guy was the one I really needed to watch out for. It’s possible he could jump in the  back seat and slit my throat at any second. “Ha,” I said, laughing myself to try and join in their fun somehow, holding my arms out with the wrists turned up as if I was waiting for handcuffs to be put on, “you got me dead to rights. I’m busted. Why don’t you put the cuffs on and take me to the clink?” The guy sitting next to me grabbed my arms and pulled them towards himself so that I was spun around in the back seat. His grip on my wrist was tight, and he had long, rat-like fingernails that were now digging deeply into my skin. I couldn’t tell for sure by the light in the car, but it was possible that he was drawing blood. “Hey motherfucker,” he screamed at me, moving so his face was so close to mine that I could see the spittle from his pasty lips spraying off him at my mouth and eyes, “Do we look like cops to you?” “Uh…,” was all I could say in response as he continued to hold my arms tight. The one in the passenger seat reached back to grab me now too, leaning way over the back of his seat to wrap his arm around my neck and put me in a headlock. “Well?” the passenger seat guy screamed, “Do we look like cops to you, motherfucker?” “N…n…no,” I answered, trying to wriggle out of their grasp, “you guys do not look like cops.” Apparently, that was the right thing to say, as they both released me now and settled back into their seats. I looked at my wrists and saw that the asshole next to me had, in fact, drawn blood. “How fucking long are that guy’s nails?” I thought. “You got that right,” the guy next to me said now, “We ain’t no fucking cops. Maybe you ain’t so drunk after all. You can figure that out at least.” All three were guffawing now. They thought this was the funniest comedy ever. Nazis have a pretty lousy sense of humor, it turns out. Maybe that’s why there are no Nazi comedians I can think of off the top of my head. They just kept repeating “Ain’t no fucking cops” over and over and laughing at the top of their redneck lungs. Suddenly, however, the laughter stopped dead. I looked around the car and the two who weren’t driving were both looking at me with the fiercest intensity I’d ever seen. I could practically see the steam coming off the tops of their heads from the angry fire of their stares. The one in the passenger seat leaned a little closer to me and said, in a voice that could cut through steel, “What DO we look like, Mr. Mud?” Without warning, the driver pulled the car over to the side of the road and turned off the engine. He turned towards me also and asked, “Yeah, what DO we look like?” I said nothing and just looked around the car, from one impenetrable face to the next. “C’mon Mr. Mud,” the guy in the passenger seat said, “you can be honest. Tell us what we look like.” I realized later that I should have said “You look like nice guys” or “You look like cool dudes.” That would have been the safe and appropriate response.  When I get really fucked up, though, as I’ve been telling you, I get very belligerent and the time between thinking a thought and that thought spilling out of my lips becomes almost nonexistent. So, instead of saying something sensible that would help get me safely out of this situation, I opened my big, fat mouth and said, “Inbred hick fucks. You guys look like inbred hick fucks.” This was a mistake. Next thing I knew, the three of them were dragging me out of the car and out into the middle of a muddy field. I obviously do not know when to shut my big, fat, fucking mouth, because I just kept screaming “INBRED HICK FUCKS” at the top of my lungs. If I had had my senses about me I would have understood that this wasn’t going to improve my situation any. Inbred hick fucks do not like to be called inbred hick fucks. Go figure. They must have dragged me for quite some ways because this part seemed like it went on forever. “What they hell is going to happen to me?” I wondered. Were they going to kill me? Rape me? I’d fucking seen Deliverance, you know. The last thing on earth I wanted was to be made to squeal like a pig, not by these stinking scumbags.   Finally, the three of them came to a stop and threw me down hard into the spongy, muddy grass on the ground, so that my face became half submerged in muck. I tried to scream “INBRED HICK FUCKS” one more time but my mouth filled with filthy water and it was all I could do to spit it out before the beating started. The first kick hit me right in the crotch. I jerked in pain and tried to roll myself into a ball, but the kicks started coming hard and fast now, landing from all sides. My stomach, my back, my ass, my ribs. Kicks were landing all over my body and Jesus fucking Christ, it hurt. Those motherfuckers must have all been wearing steel-toed boots. They just kept kicking me and kicking me. All I could do was to put my arms in from of my face to at least protect that. “Please God,” I found myself praying, “don’t let them ruin my pretty face.” I was very worried that one good kick to my kisser would be able to knock out my teeth. I didn’t have the most attractive teeth in the world. I mean, I was usually a lot more interested in getting royally shit-faced than I was in going to the dentist or practicing proper hygiene, but I sure liked my teeth better in my mouth than lying on the ground with the mud and the cow shit. We must have been out in the middle of a field because I could hear the cows mooing over the sound of the still driving rain. The rain didn’t seem to be bothering the three assholes at all, though, or slowing them down a bit. They didn’t say a word while they did it, or even make a sound. They seemed totally focused on the business of beating the living shit out of me. Finally, the one who I think had been the driver shouted to the others, “Okay, that’s enough. We don’t want to kill this fucker.” And like that, the beating stopped. Thank God they didn’t want to kill me. It actually came as a bit of a shock. I didn’t expect Nazis with moral boundaries. I looked up at them, wiping the rain, mud and what I assumed to be blood out of my eyes. The three of them spit on me, and then the one who had been sitting next to me in the back seat kicked me one more time, square in the face and shouted, “Who’s the inbred hick fuck now, fucker?” “Well, it’s still you,” I thought, touching the bruise on my face where the toe of the boot had connected, “kicking my ass doesn’t change that.” I kept this thought to myself, though. For the time being, at least, I had learned my lesson. The three Nazis walked back to their car then and left me lying alone, sprawled on the ground in pain, soaking wet and covered in mud and blood. I tried to raise myself up to my feet, but my legs gave out and I immediately fell back in the mud. “Shit,” I thought, “those guys really fucked me up.” I forced myself painfully to my knees. I didn’t think anything was broken, but until I started to walk I couldn’t possibly be sure. I had no idea what hour of the night it was at this point. It could be four or five in the morning for all I knew. I couldn’t judge how much time had elapsed since those fucking rednecks had picked me up. I looked around, in all directions. All I could see was grass and mud and rain and cows. It occurred to me then that, the vicious beating aside, I was much worse off than I had been when the inbred hick fucks had picked me up. I had been lost to begin with, but now I didn’t even know what direction to go in to find a road. I was well and truly fucked. I plopped my ass down in the mud one more time and just started to scream at the top of my lungs. I don’t know how long I sat there screaming. It could have been five minutes. It could have been an hour. It was impossible to tell. I was bleeding from multiple spots on my face and body and there was so much pain. Every part of my body hurt. Those stupid bastards had really fucked me up. Why the hell had I insisted on telling them what I really thought? At one point during my screaming, I looked over and there was a cow just a few feet away, looking absently at me. It must have wondered what this loud, obnoxious creature was doing out in the middle of its field. The cow didn’t look particularly menacing, more quizzical than anything else, but I did catch myself wondering if there was any way I’d be able to defend myself if the cow decided to charge me. Luckily, that never happened. I didn’t want the headline in the morning to read “Unknown Actor Trampled to Death by Cow.” I just kept screaming and screaming. I wasn’t doing it for any particular purpose. It was more that I just couldn’t think of anything else to do. If I got up and started walking; if I was, in fact, able to make it to my feet at all, I ran the risk of getting myself even farther from the road and making my chance for survival worse than it already was. I screamed for what seemed an eternity. “Somebody has got to hear me,” I thought. I decided I would scream and scream until someone, anyone, eventually showed up to help. “Please just don’t be more Nazis,” I thought. I was still screaming incoherently when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned half way around to see the flashing red and blue lights of a police car. “Oh, thank God,” I thought, “I’m saved. These cops will take me home.” You might not be surprised to know that I really don’t like cops. I hate them, in fact. As a general rule, they are never there when I fucking need them, but always manage to show up when I’m speeding, or running a red light, or transporting a shitload of heroin and hashish across state lines. Cops are not my friends any more than Nazis are. On this one occasion, however, I was overjoyed to see them. I stopped screaming completely at this point. I didn’t want to look like a total idiot. I’m sure I looked bad enough without the screaming. The lights were about a hundred yards away from me. Those fuckers had really dragged me far from the road. I kept staring at the lights to see if anyone was coming towards me, but for the longest time there were just the lights, no movement at all. “What the hell was taking them so long?” I thought. Couldn’t they see I was in trouble here? Finally, I started to see two tiny figures moving towards me in the rain. I stared at them as they got closer, trying with all my might not to start screaming again. It took every bit of my will power, though. In the end, I couldn’t fight it anymore and started waving my arms and shouting, “Hey, over here. I’m hurt bad. Over here.” When the cops got close, I could see that one was a guy and one was a girl. Rather than looking like they were happy to see me, however, they both looked like they were pissed that they had to get all wet on account of me. “Okay, quiet now,” the male cop said to me when he got within a couple of yards, “You can stop screaming now.” I stopped immediately. I hadn’t realized that I had still been screaming. The two cops stopped right in front of me, looking down. I got the distinct feeling that they were observing me like they might a bug they were about to crush. They stood that way for a few moments, before the female cop said to me, “Well, what exactly is going on here?” “Yeah buddy,” the other cop added, “don’t you think it’s time you left these poor cows alone?” “What?” I replied to them, trying to get to my feet, “These fucking Nazi guys brought me out here and beat the shit out of me.” “Hey now,” the female cop said, “watch the language. Is it necessary to have such a foul mouth?” As she said this, the other cop reached out with his foot and pushed me back down into the mud. “Why don’t you just stay where you are?” he said, “You can tell your story from there.” “They beat me up,” I answered, trying to get all the story out now in one breath so that they might believe and help me, “I was walking home from a party and hitched a ride from these guys with Nazi tattoos and they started giving me a hard time, so I called them inbred hick fucks, sorry but that’s what I said. I called them this name, so they pulled the car over to the side of the road and dragged me out here and beat me up. There were three of them and I tried to fight back and defend myself, but they were all attacking me at once and there was nothing I could do except try and defend my face from getting kicked.” “Wow, this guy’s really got a story to tell,” the male cop said, looking at the female cop. He then turned back to me and added, “How much have you had to drink, buddy?” “Uh…,” I answered, stunned, “what’s that got to do with anything?” “It has a whole to do with a lot of things,” the male cop responded, “There’s actually a law against public intoxication.” “Yeah, I’ve heard that somewhere before,” I said, looking from one cop to the other for some sign of compassion. I didn’t see any. I tried to find something else to say but nothing came to my lips. I was dumbfounded. I had told them the whole story of those violent Nazi scumbags and these two stupid cops actually thought that I was the criminal here. These fucking cops were proving to be as useless as all the rest. “C’mon now,” the female cop said as they both reached down to pull me up by my arms, “haven’t you bothered these poor cows enough?” “Yeah,” the other cop added, “maybe we should let them get some sleep.” Both cops started laughing then as they dragged me, tripping and stumbling, the hundred or so yards back to the police car. Every once in a while, one cop would look at the other one and repeat their hilarious joke, “Let them get some sleep.” Then the two of them would both bust out laughing. When we got back to the road and the police car, the female cop threw open the door and the guy cop tossed me unceremoniously in the back seat. “You’re going to get a little time to rest,” he said to me as he closed the door, “Don’t you dare vomit back there.” I must have passed out on the way back to the police station because I don’t remember any details about it at all. I remember being wet and filthy and uncomfortable but there is nothing else. The two cops could have laughed at me or taunted me the whole way, or they could have passed the entire ride in total silence. I have no way of knowing. I do remember arriving at the police station, because the guy cop pulled me so hard from the car that I smashed my head on the doorway as I came out. I thought cops were supposed to protect your head. Maybe that was only getting in the car, not getting out. Fuck, it hurt. I could tell I was going to have a big bump there on top of the damage that the inbred hick fucks had done to me. The two of them each held one of my arms to keep me steady as they dragged me up two flights of stairs. I was thinking the whole time about who I was going to bother when I got the one phone call they always give you. They carried me into a wide room with another cop standing behind a big counter at the end. I didn’t like the look of this one. He looked like a real asshole. In fact, he looked pretty similar to the fuckers I had been in the car with and who had beaten the shit out of me. He had blue eyes and short blond hair and that typical Nazi look of total condescension when his eyes met mine.  “Christ,” I thought, “the two who had arrested me and brought me in might be the nice ones.” Chances were that I was pretty fucked here. “What do we got here?” he said to the cops who brought me in. “Drunk in public,” the female cop said. “We found him crying and screaming in a cow field,” the guy cop added, “He needs a night in the drunk tank to sleep it off.” “Alright then,” the cop behind the counter said, “Let’s get to it then.” The two who had arrested me left me with the asshole looking cop then and disappeared back into the night. I guess they were off to arrest some other poor slob who had been beaten senseless by Nazis. The majority of the booking process that followed occurred in almost complete silence. The asshole looking cop may have said one or two words to me the entire time but that was the extent of it. He took my mugshot and my fingerprints, and I had to blow into some balloon like thing, I guess it was to measure my level of drunkenness. It was totally unnecessary. If he would have just asked I would have gladly told him how drunk I was. “Alright,” he said when we were finished with that, “I think it’s tank time for you.” “Don’t I get a phone call?” I asked him. I had been going over my options and I planned to call my friend, Satlin, who was a guy I’d known for a long time and who had been at the performance of the terrible play earlier in the evening. Damn, that seemed like a lifetime ago now. I’d been wracking my brain and Satlin was the only one I could think of who might be interested in me getting the hell out of here. It wasn’t that he cared so much about my wellbeing, but Satlin had a sick sense of humor and would want to make sure I was safe and ready to give another over-the-top performance of “The Feeling Child.” In response, however, the asshole looking cop just slapped me on the shoulder and laughed. After he had giggled and chortled his fill, he looked at me and said, “No phone call. Now, take off your clothes.” “Wh…what?” I replied to him. “I said give me your clothes,” he said to me, biting off the words right in my face, “You’re not getting in my tank wearing all that filthy, stinking shit.” “M…my clothes?” “Yes, your clothes. Go ahead now. I’ll wait.” So, I proceeded to strip naked in front of the asshole cop. He didn’t seem to be enjoying it, thank God. It wasn’t one of those things, at least. As I mentioned earlier, I naturally always think the worst of cops and It would surprise me not the tiniest little bit to find out they made a habit of raping and murdering the people they arrest. To be perfectly honest, though, it felt pretty good to take my clothes off. I had been wet and covered in mud for so long that I had kind of gotten used to it, but it was a bit of a relief to finally be rid of the clothes. When I got down to just my underwear, I thought of asking if he wanted me to continue but I knew the answer already, so I just stripped them off and threw them onto the pile of my clothes on the floor. “Okay, what now?” I said to him when I was finished, standing completely naked in front of him. “Now I say nighty-night,” He answered, taking me by the arm and leading me down a short hallway to a room with a very thick door and an extremely tiny window. I assume the window was for checking on what was inside rather than looking out. The asshole looking cop opened the door and I peered inside. There were two other guys already in there, sitting on the floor. For some reason, they had been allowed to keep their clothes. The walls and floor were all heavily padded, and other than the two guys, there was nothing in the room but a dirty toilet in one corner. “Home sweet home,” I thought. “Hey look, I got a friend for you guys,” the asshole looking cop said, then threw me roughly into the room. Luckily everything was padded because I smashed hard into one wall and slid to the ground. What was it with people throwing me around? The two guys didn’t even look at me. they were both in their own little worlds. Then the asshole looking cop slammed the door and left me alone with my new friends. I looked up from where I was now squatting uncomfortably against the wall. The excitement had roused the two other guys in the cell and they were now looking in my direction. Both of them looked like redneck guys in their mid to late 50s. They were wearing jeans, flannel shirts, and red MAGA caps, and both of them had long cracker beards, like the assholes on Duck Dynasty. They eyed me like a piece of meat. I was trying to figure out if they wanted to kill me or fuck me, or both. “Christ almighty,” I said to myself, “how many fucking rednecks does a guy have to deal with in one evening?” They were both the same evil person as far as I was concerned, so I don’t remember which of them spoke first. Maybe it was the one closest to me, maybe it was the other one. It doesn’t make any difference. One of them, however, asked me then, “So, what are you in for?” “I was arrested for being drunk in public,” I answered, feeling that I had nothing really to gain by lying about my situation at this point, and really, who gave a damn what these rejects thought of me, “but in truth I had the shit beat out of me by these three guys and I was left out in a field to die. The cops decided not to believe any of that, though. They think I did this shit to myself somehow and decided to drag me in.” The two of them sat up a little straighter against the wall, and this time I’m certain it was the one closest to me who said, “Those motherfuckers. They never fail to let the bad guys run wild in the streets and arrest the decent, law-abiding folks.” “Right?” I responded. I was pretty sure that when he said “bad guys” he meant immigrants and African Americans. I thought it best to keep that to myself for the time being, however. “What the fuck did they do with your clothes?” the other one said to me. “They told me to take them off,” I answered,” I thought they were going to give me new ones. “Those motherfuckers,” the first one said again, “Did they at least give you a motherfuckin’ phone call?” “No,” I said, feeling like I was starting to win them to my cause, “I asked for a phone call and they just laughed at me.” “Goddamnit,” the second one said, and the first one chimed in with another “motherfuckers.” “Yeah,” I told them, “It doesn’t seem right to me. Does it seem right to you?” “Hell no,” the first one said, “it does not seem motherfuckin’ right. You are owed one goddamn phone call, like everybody else.” “Those bastards are robbin’ you of your rights,” the second one added. Both of these were certainly insufferable redneck racists in real life, but I sure needed someone on the me-team at this point, so anyone was welcome. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, or some such nonsense, right? Never underestimate the comradery of shared whiteness. The two of them got up on their feet at this point and started pounding on the door and walls, shouting “Give this guy a phone call,” and “Everyone deserves a phone call,” and other stuff like that. I watched them in amazement for a while. I was pretty certain they had as good a chance of getting me beat up again as they did of getting me a phone call, but there was no way I was going to stop them. After a while, I got up myself and started pounding the walls and shouting with them. I was not unaware of how ridiculous I looked doing this, being naked and all, with my junk bobbing up and down every time I pounded the foam rubber wall. All this accomplished nothing, however. The cops never showed up and eventually, my two new friends gave up, sitting back down in pretty damn near their original positions and passing out. Mercifully, it wasn’t too much longer before I passed out myself. I was roused by a sharp kick in my already badly bruised and painful ribs. “Fuuuuuuuuuck,” I exclaimed, as I opened my eyes to see the asshole looking cop standing over me. He had my clothes in his hands. They were folded neatly, so maybe someone had washed them in the night. “Get up, buddy,” He said to me, “It looks like you’re in luck.” “What?” I replied, not understanding. “You’re in luck,” he said again, “It looks like somebody loves you. Now get your ass up and let’s go. I don’t have all day.” I looked around the room and my new friends were both gone. I wondered for a second what had happened to them, but then the asshole cop kicked me in the fucking ribs again, so I got myself up and followed him. He led me out of the padded cell and motioned silently to a bathroom just outside, handing me my clothes as he did so. “Why are they letting me go?” I wondered to myself, and what had the asshole looking cop meant when he said, “It looks like somebody loves you.”? I slowly got into my now clean clothes. It was difficult because of all the cuts, abrasions and bruises I had suffered from the night before. I had been hoping all that had been a bad dream. Apparently, it was all too real. I checked my poor, battered face in the mirror. “Fuck,” I thought, “Those inbred hick fucks really did a number on me.” I opened the bathroom door and the asshole looking cop was still there waiting for me. He took me by the arm and led me back to the very same room where this trip to the looney bin had begun. Satlin was sitting there, waiting for me. I should have guessed. Who else had enough riding on my continuing to breath air? He had an expression on his face that said, “What idiotic situation have you gotten yourself into this time?” It looked like he was having serious difficulty holding back a laugh. Satlin has always been fond of telling other people that they should only spend time with me if they want their entire lives turned upside down. Of course, this comes from a wealth of his personal experience. One time Satlin and I been walking together to the movies, when a car came screeching around a bend in the road and plowed us down in the intersection we were crossing. The car hit Satlin’s leg and spun him to the ground, but I jumped and and ended up on the hood, hanging onto the windshield wipers. The first thing Satlin said after the car had sped away was “This is all your fault.” I was pretty certain he was really enjoying seeing me like this. The asshole looking cop pushed me, not entirely gently, in Satlin’s direction and said, “He’s all yours. Don’t let him take you on a tour of any cow fields.” Then, he threw his head back and let loose with one last hideous guffaw. Fuck, I fucking hate cops. Almost as much as Nazis. Of course, there’s probably a lot of crossover there. On the way home, neither Satlin or I spoke a single word to each other. I wasn’t in the mood, with my head banging and pounding like someone was playing an NFL game inside of it. Satlin must have known it wasn’t a great time to give me any shit about what had happened. There’d be plenty of time to hear the whole story and to bust my chops later. When we got to my apartment, I got out of the car without saying goodbye and walked into my place. The first thing I did was to draw myself a hot bath and place my wounded body into the blissfully warm water. “What a fucking night,” I thought. I spent the rest of the day in the bath, not being able to pull myself out, wondering if I’d ever learn to keep my big fat mouth closed. The moral of the story, of course, is I should give my life to Jesus, and I should spend my days praying and imitating Norman Rockwell paintings so that shit like this doesn’t happen to me. If that’s too extreme for me to handle, then maybe I should go to an AA meeting and get a grip on my drinking problem, or at least learn how to leave a party while there are still drugs and alcohol waiting to be consumed. None of those things are going to happen, of course. The best I may achieve is to learn to keep some of my more unflattering thoughts inside my head where they belong, instead of blurting them out in people’s faces. At least around inbred hick fucks.

Max Mundan, Inbred Hick Fucks

© Max Mundan 2018

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[cleopatraas]

ACOWAR - Real Talk (SPOILERS)

I don’t like using a cut but this is a long post, so I’ll use it just this once. 

Everything aside, how I feel about ships, how I feel about characters, how I feel about everything, these are my thoughts. 

The diversity was so much better than in ACOTAR and ACOMAF. I went into this book afraid of so many things, of so many outcomes, of so many horrors, but...I was very pleasantly surprised. I could tell Sarah tried and honestly? Thank you. Thank you for trying, even all these years later, thank you for giving me this book. 

Thank you for giving me a bisexual black character. 

Thank you for giving me a black character in a position of power that wasn’t demonized (Yes. That happens)

Thank you for giving me a gay brown man (I’m not sure on Thesan’s race/ethnicity 100% and I want to do research but I think he’s Hindi). 

It’s not only Helion, Tarquin, and Thesan. It’s their entire Courts. Before ACOWAR, it was theories, rumors, fan casts, but now, it’s canon. It’s canon that three Courts are entirely people of color and even Kallias’s court, the WINTER COURT, has Fae of brown skin. 

It’s also canon that ALL THE ILLYRIANS are brown. Every last one of them, every last one. (There are a lot of thoughts on this, but this is not the time)

And a lot more people had brown skin! Like...almost everyone. I couldn’t even tell you how many times I cried, when all these characters...started to look like me. And that’s the best way I can describe it; this euphoria, this moment where everything just stands still....and you cry. 

SARAH ONLY USED TAN LIKE THREE TIMES. That’s a blessing in itself. 

AND SHE NEVER USED FOOD TO DESCRIBE US OH BOY. That was probably what I was most afraid of? Reading about Helion being “dark-chocolate” or Thesan being “caramel”. Even worse, someone thinking of them like food. It’s like...fetishizing us and its icky (unless you allow someone to call you a food nickname, which is a whole different thing). But she didn’t! She just used brown...deep brown, rich brown, etc. and I liked it. (She did use honey-brown, but I was okay with that). She also didn’t use the word exotic...bless. 

And she tried when it came to lgbt+ rep. As a straight person I obviously can’t say what needs to be said, but I can say what I thought. No, Nephelle nor Thesan’s lovers got names, but it was obvious that they were gay. I love how Helion, A BISEXUAL MAN, was never portrayed as a slut? He was never slut shamed? Yes, he wanted three/foursomes, but no one ever slut shamed him for it. No one ever looked down at him for liking both genders? Helion was forward with his attraction to Mor, Cassian, Azriel, Rhys, Feyre, AND THESAN. (The man has incredible taste)

I...liked Mor’s coming out story? Obviously there are things that....aren’t perfect. But I wasn’t really looking for perfect and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Probably one thing about it is I’m just sad Mor doesn’t feel like the Inner Circle won’t judge her, even when they don’t blink an eye at Thesan or Helion or Nephelle. So I hope a novella is about her, or she’s in the next series. Also the whole “me coming out would make Azriel sad” ??? 2+2=honey its your life who cares who it makes sad; just be happy. 

But I’ll leave that topic for people of the lgbt+ community to dissect and discuss.

Character wise...I don’t think anyone was really, completely OOC? I think there were moments where I was staring at the character like... “Okay who are you and what have you done with so and so?” (spoiler alert, it was Rhys)

Mor hating Nesta? I don’t like Nesta, but that was a bit harsh. I think you guys were robbed of that friendship. I can see how Mor was protecting her friend, her brother, Cassian, who she’s known for centuries, against this person she’s just met but....it wasn’t really Mor-like. Especially since it came off as jealousy. 

What Rhys did to Mor...was one of the most unforgivable things. I understand we’re at war, I do, but there is a line you have to draw for yourself. There is a line and bringing both of your cousin’s abusers into the same room, THAT’S THE LINE. Rhys and Azriel both betrayed Mor’s trust. And then took her safe place away from her. 

And then she had to work BESIDE Keir and Eris, no longer in control, no longer in power. I just...I’m still....not comfortable at all with this. Lines need to be drawn so stuff like THIS doesn’t happen. I don’t see Rhys forcing Feyre to work with Tamlin...and yet....he brings Eris and Keir right in front of Mor? And then kind of belittles and judges for being triggered? Next (and not entirely forgiven)

Nessian and Elriel. I don’t ship them, but I feel like you guys were robbed. 

Maybe it’s because I don’t ship them, but I don’t really see the set up for Elriel? I see them as the best team of besties ever. I see Elain as another sister to Azriel, someone who maybe can get past more barriers because he doesn’t like her like that. And as for Elain...guys let her breathe for a second. She’s still healing over Greyson, or whatever that miserable boy’s name is, and she still has to navigate a mating bond. I think they would be amazing best friends, because guys and girls can be best friends without them being related, but if you guys ship it....I can see it. That’s all I’m going to say. 

I think you guys were cheated out of Nessian. But I don’t think you guys were cheated at all....? I don’t like Nesta, but I can appreciate a character healing. I can appreciate a character who, as the fandom says, feels too much. I can appreciate Nesta’s PTSD and recognize it. But please, recognize Cassian’s PTSD, too, thanks? He almost died too; he almost lost his wings. And that’s why neither of them have thrown each other at the other. I think it’s very obvious they have some feelings...in a slow burn kind of way. And I think this slow burn could be really good so I’m really happy for Nessian shippers. 

And I don’t think Cassian was OOC. Everyone recognizes Azriel and his self-doubt, especially Moriel shippers. The main thing about Azriel and his mental block is that he think he doesn’t deserve to be loved. And I think Cassian feels that way, too, especially after failing to protect Nesta after he swore he would. 

He was willing to die to try to regain some of that honor and her trust. He almost did. Like....Twice! Yes, Nesta saw her father die, but....I think it’s reaching it to say it was OOC for Cassian not to go to her. He has his own internal struggle and Feyre herself said that they needed to give Nesta space. Sometimes going to a person right away....it’s not the best call. 

Jurian and Eris? No? Like I’m fine with Jurian...I can believe he was never the villain of their story. I can believe he has his own traumas and mental illness(es) and PTSD. Mostly because no matter how hard I try I can never remember what went down between Miryam, Drakon, and Jurian. I can barely remember how to spell their names. 

But Eris? No. Just...him being the “not the villain but also not the bad guy in the story, more like the anti-hero”, I wasn’t buying it. It came out of nowhere and it erases Mor’s trauma and Lucien’s. Eris didn’t deserve that little bit of ‘redemption’ he got, but Tarquin deserved more page time. So can I like...trade the two?

No?? Female?? Illyrians?? My heart still hasn't recovered. 

No one died? I’m not complaining, but I was sure Amren was going to die. 

There are so many winged creatures now I already forgot half of them. We have the Seraphim who I was already expecting to have feathered wings. We have the Peregryms...which reminds me of Miss Peregrine every time I look at it. We have whatever the FRESH HELL HELION TURNED INTO OH BOY I HAD A HEART ATTACK. Helion’s beast form would have me running for the hills. 

We have the “villains” who turned into “anti-heros”? I was more upset over the Carver and Weaver’s deaths more than anything in this book. Because their characters are always better. They only showed up to that battle to eat people, terrorize Fae, and get something out of it. The best™ kind. And then they....died. The Weaver’s death was so anti-climatic she deserved better. And Bryaxis YEETED so quick. Did we really think It would go back to that library? 

THE SURIEL. RIP Suri. You will be missed. The one death the entire fandom will never be over. 

Lucien. His trauma...wasn’t addressed at all. And I could let it slide...but there was time to address it. There was time before Lucien left the book to go find Vassa to address his trauma. For the love of god, Feyre saw what Ianthe almost did to him, she saw what Tamlin almost did to him...but Lucien ended up apologizing and being treated...horribly? Fix this. Immediately. Fox Boy deserved better. 

Lucien suddenly being biracial. I’m not going to complain, at all, because Biracial!Lucien gave me new life, it resurrected me on the cross. But...Lucien looked exactly like Beron in ACOTAR and ACOMAF. It was just pushed so hard, that “Lucien has dark skin now”, that is was pretty obvious Helion was his father (especially when the book was suddenly screaming at us that Helion was Helion SPELL-CLEAVER). 

Tamlin...Just...Can everyone just ship a bottle of aspirin to me? If you all do it, I’m pretty sure it’ll be enough to take my headache away. Hopefully. Maybe two bottles from all of you, just to be sure. 

I also felt like there was a different writer at some points? And the story kind of dragged in areas? Did anyone else feel that way? 

That’s pretty much it. There was so much more than I could go deeper into, but I think this is just a nice over view. If you want my thoughts on anything, feel free to use my inbox. 

[raven-reyes-reads]

Metaphorical Rape in ACOMAF

Rape tw. This post is an anti, nit-picking one. So please, if you are just going to fight against it, don’t even read it, (especially if you are a stan who cannot see the ugliness in the clear rape). This has been tagged as anti! If I have a stan who comes here pulling the “it was in my tag” stuff, well—you’re utterly wrong, stop trying to get into fights with people who know how to enjoy a book and yet see it as majorly/minorly problematic.

So, I’m about to start a course on creative writing and it has been broken up into three different categories: romance, horror and science-fiction. And I’ve basically been reading all the given articles and essays that they’ve suggested will help us pass the topic. 

The current one I’ve been reading for the romance genre is solely focused on discussing the difference between “old school” and “new school” romances. Unfortunately, there is a whole heap of rape discourse in it that I’m having to claw my way through. 

After this whole issue in regards to the sexism/homophobia/racism portrayed in some of Sarah J Maas’ writings, her stories are the only thing coming into mind. I’m still having trouble finding ACOTAR/ACOMAF as bad as the t*g series... however, I did notice this one thing.

The article, by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan: A Brief History of the Romance Novel. 2009.

Though they suggest that the ‘rapist’ in old school romance has died, they also bring up the topic that—actually, it’s not gone from any of our romances. It’s actually moved on into more genres, especially that of paranormal (which you could easily add fantasy into). 

The metaphorical rape we’re talking about here is “...in which heroines are often changed or transformed without their consent, even against their express wishes, by the hero.” (Heroine being, generally, female. Hero being, generally, the knight in shining armour—some male character.)

At first I rolled my eyes, thinking how stupid a protagonist could really be to hate becoming an immortal vampire, (sure, you’d hate the fact you can’t go into sunlight... have to survive on blood...) But, then I realised this is exactly what happened to Nesta and Elain. It’s hard to say whether Feyre was in a similar situation, whether she was as apparent to hating the Fae—and I’m not going to make any assumptions as it has been a while since reading the books.

But Nesta hates the Fae. She finds her sister disgusting, from what I remember. To me, Nesta is that sister who would throw you out for dating someone that was a different race... which, she kind of does, in a sense. 

But Nesta herself, as well as Elain, both go through this ‘metaphorical rape’ or non-consented transformation that they truly expressed their hatred for. To reach, it mimics a person “giving themselves” to someone unwillingly in some metaphorical sense. If I’m going to prove my point about this fact—that yes, it may not be that they were raped by a man or woman, they were forced to become something they didn’t want, then here is some excerpts from the novel that show both Elain and Nesta did—not—want—this. (From the UK Paperback).

- Page 603: Elain was shaking, sobbing, as she was hauled forward. Toward the Cauldron. Nest began thrashing against the men that held her.

Hell, even Tamlin said stop. Even he could see that this was wrong—and since when does he seem to have cared about a woman..? 

- Page 604: Elain’s foot hit the water, and she screamed—screamed in terror that hit me so deep I began sobbing. Nesta was still fighting [as you would], still roaring through her gag.

- Page 605: ...all I could think of was my Father. What he would do, what he would say, when his most beloved daughter looked at him with a Fae face.

This one annoyed me the most, having to re-read it my immediate thought was how selfish it was for Feyre to think that. Her sister was just forced to do something against her will and yet, yet all she can think about was, “Boy, Dad is gonna be super upset.” Rather than, “Elain, I am here for you. Our father is here for you, and Nesta will be too.”

To have a plot move forward by the rape, physical or metaphorical, is absolutely disgusting and I’m upset with myself for not noticing it sooner. To say that the females in this book bring upon us some amazing feminism and storylines that go against the stereotypes, I can’t say I agree with that. Old school romances were built on rape of the virginal heroine. 

Unfortunately, Sarah J Maas has included it in her works as well. Whether it was intentional or not... I’m still disappointed, in all honesty.

[zipgrowth]

From Advocating to Letting Your Nerd Flag Fly, Educators Are Grateful For Lessons From Students

When all the stuffing, sauces, hams, turkeys, and pies are out of the oven, there is often a moment of peace during the holiday season where families sit around the dinner table and remember what they are grateful for. This year, we gathered with a community of educators during EdSurge’s Tech Leader Circle at the MakerDepot in Totowa, New Jersey to pause and have a similar moment of reflection.

For this EdSurge OnAir holiday special, we cut through the noise of the 3D printers to ask educators, “What is the one lesson their students taught them, that they are most grateful for?” From advocating for those in need to letting your nerd flag fly, it is no surprise that the lessons shared from these tech leaders will stay with them for many years to come.

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Listen to a complete version of the interviews below, or on your favorite podcast app (like iTunes or Stitcher).

To start off our special on the lessons teachers are thankful for, I tell a story of my own.

I was in the middle of teaching a class when I saw it. A relatively thick English book on the corner of this young Turkish girl’s desk. But I waited until the end of the lesson to ask her about it.

“What are you reading?” I asked.

“The Diary of Anne Frank” she replied.

I will never forget the goosebumps that came all over me when she said it. I looked at her intensely.

“Why did you pick up this book?” I hesitated.

“Because of your lesson,” she replied casually. “I wanted to learn more about her.”

I still get a bit flustered and emotional when I think about it. I taught English for three years overseas, in Istanbul, Turkey. That place, for a history nerd like myself, is truly one of the most mindblowing cities in the world. But when I first started teaching there, it was hard. I will never forget the fear and terror in some of the students’ eyes when they first saw me, pointing and running because I was the first black person many of them had ever seen in person or interacted with. Yes, it stung a little.

When I realized many of my students knew a lot about Ataturk but nothing about other famous figures like Nelson Mandela or Anne Frank, something inside me would not settle for just teaching these kids a language. I began to slip little anecdotes about these figures into my lessons. Who says the passage we read about in a grammar lesson can’t be from Martin Luther King, Jr.?

But the problem was, I never knew if any of it mattered to them, until I saw Elif reading The Diary of Anne Frank.

Which brings me to the lesson my students taught me that I am most grateful for. The power of education and exposure. Seeing her read that book changed me. I was thrust into teaching overseas after other professions I desired didn’t quite pan out, and was lost in the work. Seeing Elif reading that book to learn more about Anne Frank in a society where people made anti-semitic comments in public on a regular basis meant my work mattered.

Educators from the New Jersey EdSurge Tech Leader Circle. Photo Credit: Marisa Kaplan

This week I talked with other educators who shared their powerful stories: Elaine Mendez (an instructional coach from Belleville Public Schools) and AJ Bianco (a 7th and 8th grade Social Studies teacher from Harrington Park School)—who learned to make mistakes and show off their nerdy sides.

Elaine Mendez: My first year teaching, I spelled a word wrong. A kid pointed it out. That's the day that I learned it's okay to make mistakes in front of the children and use it as teachable moments.

AJ Bianco: The one thing a student taught me was to be myself. Don't put up a front. Don't try to be somebody else. One of the things that the student appreciated about me was the fact that I let my nerd flag fly. I let out my comic book personality and my love of superheroes. It doesn't look like that's the kind of person I am, but when this student found out how much I love Superman and the Justice League, we connected. We bonded. For the three years, he was in school with me, he came to me for everything and helped me create a whole bunch of different clubs and classes. So I'm grateful for him for allowing me to be myself.

It was not only educators who shared what they learned from students at the Maker Depot in New Jersey. Both principals and one member of our EdSurge research team also had stories at the event. Marisa Kaplan (a research project manager from EdSurge and former special education teacher), Jennifer Wirt (a principal from Glen Rock Middle School), Erica Ripston (a 3rd grade teacher from Memorial Elementary School), and Daniel Borghoff (a middle school MakerSpace and STEM Design Teacher from Hackensack Middle School, learned how to get out of the way, and not judge themselves so harshly.

Marisa Kaplan: I spent 11 years in classrooms in New York City as a special-education teacher, an ELA teacher and an instructional coach. One of my early teaching jobs was as a special-education teacher in a first-grade inclusion class, and some of our students had motor impairments, used wheelchairs and walkers. Our classroom was designed well to support the needs of all of our students, and so was the rest of our school, but the outside world wasn't. That made things like play dates and field trips really tricky for some of our students. I remember one of my first graders was having a birthday party at a bowling alley, and he was inviting everybody in the class. His mom came in one morning a little bit teary-eyed and said that her son had asked her to make sure that the bowling alley was wheelchair accessible so that his best friend could come and bowl with him.

She told him that she was sure that it was, but that she'd call anyway to double-check. When she did, she found out that it actually wasn't accessible. Her son was devastated. They spent a lot of time talking about it, and they worked together to make a bunch of calls and eventually found a bowling alley that was accessible to all of his friends. They changed the location of the party. I remember her thanking me, like somehow I had taught her child to care about his best friend, but I told her that he was the real teacher in that moment. He was a real role model and we should all aim to be a little bit more like him when we grow up.

It might seem like a small action, but in that moment, a six-year-old taught us all a lot of lessons. He made a bunch of adults realize the need for universal design. He prompted his family to consider a set of needs they hadn't before, and he demanded equity for his friend. For me, the lesson I'm most grateful for is that he taught me that age doesn't matter when it comes to making a change, that young people can make a big change that really matters, too. I tried to keep that as a mantra every year moving forward in my classrooms, and it's a lesson that I'll always be grateful for.

Jen Wart: When I was an administrator, I had a student who had gotten in trouble for something. He had been in trouble a lot of times for a lot of different things. So I told him I would make a deal with him. He was a very good artist, and I told him if he brought me a picture he drew, that we would waive some of his detentions. Kind of an art-for-time situation. He's not the type of kid that'd follow through on anything, but the next day, he brought me a picture that he had drawn and said, "Here, I want to follow up." The fact that he was willing to do that was impressive and showed me that you can work with kids in different ways.

Erica Ripstin: When I was first teaching, I met a little boy who was a little insecure. When we were at a presentation, and he told me that he wanted to change himself and be better so that he could be more physically active. I could tell that he felt bad about himself, but I loved him exactly for who he was. He was kind to the other kids. He let them go first in line. He would share his snack. It didn't really matter to me or to the other kids what he looked like. That's when I knew that I wanted to teach my students how to treat each other and how important it is to be kind and caring and to see somebody else's perspective. He taught me that, and I think it was really amazing.

Dan Borgoff: I'm most grateful for my students telling me to get out of the way. When I first started out teaching technology, I would teach them the standard way of teaching, in steps. My students would get really bored really fast and not be into it.

Then, one day, I said, "All right, you know what? I don't know if you're really getting this." Then they told me, "We are. We just are getting it faster than you're giving it to us." So I told them, "All right, you teach me now. You tell me what you know."

They knew 10 times more than what I was teaching them, so I just sat back and said, "All right. I'm going to give you an end goal. You reach it." Then they replied, "Yeah, no problem. We already did that. How about we give you an end goal?"

Then they gave me an end goal, saying, "All right, we want to learn this really cool stuff. We want to learn how to do this. If you could just help us get there, that would be great."

Lead, follow, or get out of the way is really what it turned out to be. They were in charge. Now, when I teach, I've learned this from them. On the first day of school, I tell them straight out, "I'm not here to teach you. I'm here to facilitate your learning and making sure that you don't cut anything off. That's it. I'm giving you an end goal and the tools to get there, and it's your responsibility to get there on your own. If you need help, I'm here, but other than that, you're on your own.”

From Advocating to Letting Your Nerd Flag Fly, Educators Are Grateful For Lessons From Students published first on http://ift.tt/2x05DG9