#Subjecting acotar characters to my practice process

[arlathavellan-acotar]

I am firmly on the side of "ACOTAR should be animated, not live action" and here is my (arcane-inspired) propaganda

[acourtofthought]

Hello, how are you?

Following your last post about Gwyn. I have a problem with the fact that she can manipulate situations or something because she's a lightsinger. I think this is a loophole to justify the abuse she suffered.

Let's see: Lightsingers are seducers, Gwyn may not have control of this and nor intention, but in her situation it is practically justifying that she was raped because she seduced her aggressor.

I think in making a character a victim of SA the author has to be very careful when approaching such subjects, because the last thing we need is a woman being tainted in a place where she is the victim.

About Gwyn and the darkness she seems to relax about it. In chapter 15 of SF, Nesta talks about the darkness following her and her looking uncomfortable, while Gwyn parallels a curious cat (theories of being Aidas).

Anyway, I got a flea behind my ear when Gwyn tells her friends that there are dark things in her past, a lot of people think it's because of the fights with Catrin, but I think it could be something more... Yours twin pulled the more nymph part, she must have pulled the more masculine side of the family...

What do you think?

I think that if it weren't for the situation of sexual violence that she suffered, I would love for her to be a light singer. Someone who controlled others without doing much.

If she's a fall girl, I could very well envision her going up against her own mate and NC because of their family bond (ignoring Beron who sucks).

"Hey don't mess with the Vanserra" I can visualize this.

Hello!

If Gwyn were a lightsinger, I think it would be a horrible take for Anti's to claim that it was somehow her fault that her SA occurred, simply because of a power she had.

That's like people claiming Rhys wasn't SA because he asked for it so he could stay in Amaranthas good graces 🤦.

Anyone who ever claims a victim asked for it because of this, that or the other thing needs to seek out some literature on the topic so they can learn to stop blaming the victim.

But I get why that's a concern because you and I both know that's what some would do.

The thing is, lightsinger and shadowsinger have a beautiful ring to it. But I realize that canon lightsingers don't actually sing (as Gwyn does and she seems to have a siren aspect to it) so maybe there's nothing there.

But..... Maybe there's some missing information regarding lightsingers. And maybe they're misunderstood. The version they spoke about is the bad, evil version who makes innocent people their victims.

Do you remember in ACOTAR, how when Feyre was human she mentioned how they feared the Fae and that one could even turn people to mist?

Sometimes these dark powers are dark for a reason, depending on who has them. But not everyone with a dark power is bad so they don't fit the mold that the other villains get put into and it's not fair that they get judged for having the power when they only use it for good. Just like Rhys being a good daemati and the twins being bad.

And if Gwyn is a fraction lightsinger than she's not going to have the same drive a full lightsinger might.

But I think if she felt driven to use her powers on people who deserved it, she'd still struggle because of choice being taken away from her in the past.

It's not the same thing because she was innocent when they attacked her whereas she'd be using her power for revenge (as we witnessed Az and Cassian do to people in their pasts). But it's something she might need time to work through. Maybe she even discovered the power in the Rite and used it to lure the beast to the other warriors (or maybe she actually used it to lure the warriors to the beast. She claims her timing was just good luck when she lured it to them but that's not normally a thing in these books, "Luck". And maybe that's why she felt the need to return to the library and not attend Nesta's mating ceremony, because she's processing what happened.

So I could see how it might fit in to the story and Gwyns past but I am positive it will never lead to Gwyn using it against friends or family.

Or, maybe she has a different power like you said. Az's shadows are often referred to as "the darkness around him" and if Gwyn has a power related to darkness, it could explain her reactions to what they felt below the library and the fact that the shadows are playful towards Gwyn.

I'm actually getting excited at the thought of Gwyn and Az being the heroic dark power duo of the IC. Rhys put on the mask of being dark but wasn't actually all that dark in the end. I feel like Az and Gwyn could finally be the Dorian and Manon book we never got (but with Az being the Manon of the two since he's definitely darker and Gwyn being Dorian who only developed a little bit of darkness after he was infected by the Valg but was canonically good and light before that).

Or maybe SJM will take Gwyns power in a completely different direction. She's been likened to a summer storm and had a crackling energy. Maybe there's a connection to lightning.

SJM has left a lot of possible clues for the powers Gwyn might eventually manifest but regardless of what those are, she's still going to be Nesta and Emerie's best friend at the end of it all as well as a SJM heroine getting her happy ending.

[gimme-mor]

ACOTAR THINK PIECE: VISIBLE TO INVISIBLE

*DISCLAIMER*

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 social media, bring awareness to the ACOTAR fandom, and encourage critical thinking and self-reflection. I WILL NOT tolerate anyone who tries to twist my words and say I am attacking real life people. In fact, I AM CRITIQUING THE ARGUMENTS THEMSELVES NOT THE PEOPLE USING THE ARGUMENTS.

It’s no secret that SJM struggles with diversity, often opting for ambiguous words like “tan” or “golden skin” to describe her characters. But over the course of her writing career, she has made efforts to write inclusively; and though her representation falls on the side of bad representation at times, she has made it clear in the text if characters are non-white, describing them with varying shades of brown skin or having dark skin in general. As it stands, the ACOTAR world has a limited number of characters of color, so it’s confusing to see them whitewashed in fanart, fancasts, and fan edits. When whitewashing accusations are brought up in the fandom, they are dismissed with statements like:

It doesn’t matter

Don’t like it? Ignore it and move on

This is art and it’s open to interpretation

As a person of color, you don’t see me complaining

This is just how I imagined the character

The text doesn’t say the characters have ethnic facial features

Fans can cast whoever they want to portray fictional characters the way they imagined them

It’s just fancasting, it’s not that deep

Not everything is about race

If you want people of color to be depicted in the books, go read books specifically about characters of color

Fancasting characters of color as white is not erasing anyone’s race because they’re not real

They’re fictional characters regardless of the book’s description, so who cares if people imagine characters of color differently

Western society has grown so accustomed to the media being dominated by white representations that envisioning a character as white becomes the norm, even when faced with evidence to the contrary. Although nearly all of the characters of color in the ACOTAR series have been subjected to whitewashing, only a handful of illustrations accurately depict Vassa as a woman of color. It can be assumed that because Vassa has features society deems as inherently white (i.e. having red hair, blue eyes, and freckled skin), it is acceptable for the fandom to imagine her character as white despite her having golden-brown skin. This mentality is harmful because it suggests that naturally colored hair, light colored eyes, and freckles are exclusively white features and that people of color with these features don’t exist. The act of whitewashing characters of color in the ACOTAR series marginalizes fans of color in a space that is inherently rooted in white-centeredness, and downplays the impact whitewashing has on fans of color. The continued erasure of characters of color in the series not only normalizes the belief that fandom is a space for white people primarily and people of color secondarily, but it perpetuates the notion that whiteness is better and more palatable in visual media.

From employment to education to healthcare to media, race and discussions about race are inescapable because racism affects everything in society. The media has a history of prioritizing whiteness and white narratives often at the expense of people of color. Racebending, which can be understood as changing the race of a character, occurs not only in fanworks such as fanart, fancasts, and fanfiction, but even in visual media. It allows characters that have been traditionally white to be reinterpreted as people of color in an effort to diversify casts and counter whiteness as the default in both visual media and fanworks. Unfortunately, racebending itself gives way for problematic justifications and assumptions. Whitewashing is a form of racebending that erases characters of color from media and replaces them with white actors. The act of whitewashing characters of color is commonly excused with declarations of artistic or personal interpretations of characters despite the text stating they are not white, which ultimately diminishes the impact whitewashing has on people of color. Aside from that, racebending traditionally white characters as people of color has been framed as an issue that is just as offensive and bad as whitewashing characters of color. In the article “8 Things White Fans Can Do to Make Fandom More Inclusive”, it states:

“. . .You could argue that people often reimagine white characters as characters of color (popularly known as ‘racebending’), so why not do the opposite? The short answer is this: When people racebend a character, they create more diversity. If they’re fans of color, they do so to see themselves in the fictional media they love. When people whitewash a character, they decrease diversity. They’re erasing a character of color and, whether consciously or unconsciously, sending the message that they’d relate more to the character if the character was white. . .” (https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/08/making-fandom-more-inclusive/).

The belief that racebending traditionally white characters as people of color carries the same racist implications as whitewashing characters of color is equivalent to arguments that proclaim the existence of reverse racism. Racism and prejudice have often been used interchangeably in society, causing racism to be simplified as one group not liking another. Racism involves the marginalization and oppression of racial groups based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy and it combines with socialized power to carry out systematic discrimination through institutional policies and practices. White people can be victims of prejudice but never victims of racism because, unlike people of color, prejudice against white people doesn’t lead to structural, systemic, and lasting disadvantages in education, healthcare, career prospects, and other societal structures. When the element of power is removed from discussions about racism, the definition of racism becomes overly simplified and ignores the real and damaging impact it has on the lives of marginalized people. The impulse behind reverse racism proponents and arguments against racebending traditionally white characters as people of color are motivated, consciously or unconsciously, by the desire to center whiteness in the media while marginalizing people of color in the process. Whitewashing characters of color is incomparable to racebending traditionally white characters as people of color because whitewashing contributes to the continued erasure of people of color in the media. Moreover, racebending traditionally white characters as people of color would only have the same societal effect as whitewashing characters of color if white people faced the same systematic and institutionalized mistreatment experienced by people of color. 

It’s important to be aware of the ramifications of whitewashing and to not view it as insignificant because whitewashing characters of color is rooted in racist ideals and is a method of preserving white dominance in the media. Whitewashing characters of color in a society that favors whiteness is extremely problematic because: it implies that characters of color are inferior to white characters and aren’t as relatable as them; reinforces colorist views that deem brown and dark skin as unattractive; and feeds into the notion that eurocentric standards of beauty are superior to ethnic features. SJM isn’t always clear with her character descriptions in relation to skin tone but when she is, the ACOTAR fandom should take notice because when characters are described as not white then they’re not white.