#atrocious failure of a sister dynamic

[wolfnesta]

'The text clearly says Nesta is abusive because Feyre heard her voice—‘

Listen if the narrative says something remotely close to Nesta making Feyre feel bad it's not that hard to latch on and make the worst of it as if it’s impossible to question the narrative itself. Which is what we're SAYING. Reading feyre act like that is unserious to us not everyone and that’s fine because we know what it's like to have siblings who we'll trash talk to but also idk maybe go follow them to the end of a magical fairy wall should they happen to be abducted? Kinda like Nesta did? And still not act like the trash talking traumatized us like that? So stop quoting the story as if that’s not what we’re actively criticizing?

And then SJM contradicts herself when she tried to push this idea that Feyre ‘wasn’t perfect either’ and that ‘both’ were shitty to each other but then she also tries to not uncover her poor outlining from the first book where she made the sisters ‘the wicked sisters’ by throwing in measly lines about Feyre hearing Nesta’s voice. So unreal to me. I’m sorry go ahead and be upset about it but I will never take it seriously.

Like in an alternate universe how stupid would it be for there to be a some measly line thrown in about how much it affected Nesta that Feyre thinks she's evil because she acts like their shitty mom. And so therefore Feyre is abusive. That’s all it would take, one line to be published on ink and paper by SJM, for it to be true and verified. Yea no, I’m sorry we are allowed to question things that don’t make sense to us.

Even if I chose to follow the text so religiously then I’d still make my peace with the whole mess since the sisters ‘made up’ because no Nesta wasn't as 'abusive' and even SJM herself tried to sell off as.

[barbiegirldream]

I am sort of obsessed with the way they write Diana in the DCEU. Like it’s atrocious just god awful nothing even sort of resembling Wonder Woman. But in its own contained universe.

The way she’s put as unquestionably better than all men so desperately above them but as undeserving as they may be of her she’s not worthy of being loved by them. The way she sits by time and time again until it’s too late. Everything Steve was is what she strives to be and she never manages to be him. It’s amazing. You can do nothing or you can do something one of the first things Steve ever said. And every damn time Diana tries nothing until she’s pushed into something.

And so she remains isolated. A punishment for her failures in WWI. Her failures in 1984. She hides herself away just the same as her sisters her mother away on that island. I’m like genuinely so amazed at how dynamic a character they made her probably on accident

[exeggcute]

I saw dear evan hansen a week or two ago and like... it was really bad and disrespectful and frankly just in poor taste. and the songs were pretty bland and the production value was mediocre. (yet somehow it won SIX tony awards and anastasia won zero. okay.) it was literally john green but for theater kids. if you don't know the plot, you can find a synopsis on wikipedia, but the gist of it is that one high schooler (connor, who is a Loner Problem Child who Smokes Weed) kills himself, and another high schooler (evan, who is Socially Awkward and Has Anxiety) pretends to have been friends with the now-dead connor in order to ease connor's parents' grief. in doing so, evan ends up becoming popular and well-liked, starts a fundraiser in "connor's memory," and ingratiated himself into connor's family and ends up dating his sister. the whole thing gets taken way too far, as expected, but there are very few consequences for evan's lying other than the occasional self-reflection of "oops, this is bad! I'm in too deep! but I have Social Anxiety and therefore I'm not really responsible for my actions" and the eventual slap on the wrist he gets when the facade comes crashing down. the show as a whole does very little to even attempt to condemn his behavior and there's sort of a wishy-washy "the ends justify the means" air to the whole thing.

there's a lot of stuff I could get into--the toxic faux-family dynamic where connor's parents end up adopting connor as a better replacement of their deadbeat dead son (which the narrative does very little to acknowledge as a bad thing in any way), the trope-typical "shy protagonist boy who feels a vague sense of entitlement/'love' towards this girl he doesn't know, so naturally they end up together as an organic progression of events" (compounded by the fact that evan gets close to this girl by pretending to be a friend of her dead brother. they kiss on her dead brother's bed. like...), the fact that evan's whole charity in connor's memory is founded entirely on lies and is a fundraiser for a cause that has nothing to do with connor (they raise money for an orchard, because evan likes orchards and therefore pretends that connor also liked orchards). we as the audience are basically expected to sympathize with evan, even when (or if) we know what he's doing is "wrong." there's very little exploration of how or why this is "wrong" other than a general sense of "lying is bad." (I could also go on about how the stage production is set up in such a way that social media and giant digital screens form a major component of the set, but the play itself makes basically no attempt to explain how or why this matters, instead expecting the audience to do the mental heavy lifting of "social media is like, bad or something.") but my main qualm lies in the absolutely atrocious treatment of suicide, suicide prevention, and mental illness in general.

connor's suicide is reduced to a plot point. he kills himself unceremoniously within the first twenty minutes of the first act. not once throughout the entire play does anyone wonder why connor killed himself--certainly not evan, who, despite crafting an elaborate fictional account of connor's life and inner world, makes no attempt to actually sympathize with the real actual connor or even slightly question what his real motives or personality were like. his death is one hundred percent just a means of advancing the plot. both in-universe and from a textual perspective, connor is, to be blunt, better off dead than alive. this is obviously a really great message to send in an anti-suicide musical, that your death will just be a catalyst for other, more important events and your own personhood is largely irrelevant. connor is by far the most interesting character in the show, and the show kills him almost immediately. (I will say that they make no mention of the method he uses, which is actually a good thing overall, especially given the show's teen audience and the nature of copycat suicides, but I doubt that it was a deliberate choice to be "tasteful" or anything instead of just a complete lack of attention given to connor's character, so I'm not going to give them a brownie point for that.) 

for a play supposedly about suicide and mental illness, it makes very few specific references to any of these things. evan has a therapist who is mentioned, but we never see or hear anything about them--having an on-stage session with the therapist would be tremendously interesting, in my opinion, but the opportunity is missed. evan talks vaguely about some corny journaling exercises that are basically just CBT lite but there's no explanation as to why he does this thing. evan's mom makes an oblique reference to evan's vaguely-defined "pills," to which evan says that he stopped taking them because he's "doing better" now that he's finally Cool and Popular. (this is played straight as a good thing on evan's behalf. no reference to the fact that like, not only are you supposed to taper off meds when you stop taking them, but also that you're supposed to keep taking meds when you're doing well because that means they're actually working. plus the general baggage of associating "going off your meds" with "finally being cured and totally fine now," but I digress.) 

mental illness is barely discussed as a contributing factor towards connor's death (to the extent that connor's death is examined in any capacity, which is none). dear evan hansen treats suicide as a result of simply "feeling like you don't belong" and not a culmination of so many cultural, social, and biochemical factors. nor does it ever really define what it means to "belong" bedsides a vague sense of "being popular and everyone likes you." (not to mention that, while connor is portrayed as being vaguely antagonistic towards evan and making evan seem like a defenseless victim of bullying, evan's friend actively taunts connor for no reason and tells connor that he "looks like a school shooter," and we as the audience are meant to find this funny, presumably. yet after connor's death there's no sense that his social ostracization or the failure to address his negative behavior might have contributed to his suicide, just that "oh if he knew how much we all cared, he certainly would still be alive!" because obviously, everyone cared about him, from his classmates who make fun of him to his parents who make no attempt to understand why their son acts out or has behavioral issues.)

the overall tone of the musical is either nauseatingly upbeat or gratuitously twee and sad. the "sad" parts are sort of a torture porn that demand to be seen as So So Sad instead of actually making any emotional impact that could be seen as sad. it reminds me of when the fault in our stars came out and everyone bragged about how much the book made them cry, as if being Emotionally Impacted by the (mediocre) story somehow made you more virtuous than your dry-eyed peers. the whole thing is so fucking self-congratulatory and a way of acting like you care about social issues without doing anything impactful (or in this case, supporting something that is actually actively harmful). 

dear evan hansen is actually a very good social commentary on the way social circles and the media at large (both in terms of news reporting and popular culture) treat issues of mental illness and suicide, but this commentary is completely unintentional and metatextual. it's not that it's an actual good critique of these issues, it's that the play is SO BAD that it serves of an example of these harmful phenomena. ironically, several characters within the play as treated as examples of people who are over-the-top in their supposed interest in these things (one girl who has never even met connor makes a show out of mourning him to the point that she pulls a muscle in her chest from crying so hard), but this is more of a comedic element than social commentary. both the audience and the characters turn connor's death into a chance to make a spectacle of their own support and grief rather than to offer forth any sympathy or support for him. when the charity in connor's honor goes viral online and we see shots of people making signs with hashtags to show their "devotion to the cause" (a cause which, to remind you, has nothing to do with connor's actual interests), this is supposed to be immensely touching rather than something between horrifying and laughable. at one point, the letter that evan pretends is connor's suicide note (but was actually a CBT journalist exercise written by evan himself) goes viral. A TEENAGE BOY'S (FAKE) SUICIDE NOTE GOES VIRAL, AND WE AS THE AUDIENCE SEE A BUNCH OF PEOPLE HOLDING SIGNS WITH HASHTAGS ON THEM, AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE TOUCHING INSTEAD OF, LIKE, THE WORLD'S CRAPPIEST GALLOWS HUMOR. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW ANYONE, ANYWHERE, COULD SEE THIS AND THINK THIS IS AT ALL ~DEEP~ OR EVEN LIKE, REMOTELY TASTEFUL.

it's bad. the songs sucked. if you want a musical about social issues among high schoolers,fucking mean girls (of all things) is a genuinely more moving and subtle social commentary, plus the soundtrack and production value are actually good.

[litnerdwrites]

What always confuses me when people try to argue that Nesta abused Feyre, because the books said so and they're gospel, is that, by that logic, Feyre abused Nesta too. They were just as bad as each other, according to the books, so if Nesta was abusive, so was Feyre.

Also, we learn Nesta had literal holes in her shoes and Feyre wouldn't let her buy new ones. Yet she was expected to go outside to cut firewood? Imagine how cold she'd be, with so many blisters and cuts, that would get infected from getting dirt in them.

It makes me wonder what state Elain's cloak and shoes were in? Were they intact enough to even function as needed? If Nesta or Elain complained about holes in shoes or something, did Feyre not at least check if there were or not?

However, if Nesta really has to repay her sister for her hunting, then she did so ten fold by the time she was thrown into the cauldron.

She encouraged Feyre to follow her heart and find happiness, before risking hers, Elain's and their father's reputation and lives by helping Feyre meet the Queens. Did nobody consider that by the first letter, The Mortal Queens could've had Nesta and Elain executed for helping the fae? Even after they agreed to meet with Rhys and Feyre, they could've arrested or executed Nesta and Elain for arguing with them and siding with the fae during their meetings.

None of this takes into consideration what Nesta did during the war. So, the bottom line, is that if Nesta was abusive, so was Feyre. Imo, Feyre has a few things, at least, to apologise and make up to Nesta too, which she hasn't done yet. I'm honestly convinced SJM doesn't know how siblings work. They'er your best friends and your worst enemies who you can count on to always have your back when it counts.

'The text clearly says Nesta is abusive because Feyre heard her voice—‘

Listen if the narrative says something remotely close to Nesta making Feyre feel bad it's not that hard to latch on and make the worst of it as if it’s impossible to question the narrative itself. Which is what we're SAYING. Reading feyre act like that is unserious to us not everyone and that’s fine because we know what it's like to have siblings who we'll trash talk to but also idk maybe go follow them to the end of a magical fairy wall should they happen to be abducted? Kinda like Nesta did? And still not act like the trash talking traumatized us like that? So stop quoting the story as if that’s not what we’re actively criticizing?

And then SJM contradicts herself when she tried to push this idea that Feyre ‘wasn’t perfect either’ and that ‘both’ were shitty to each other but then she also tries to not uncover her poor outlining from the first book where she made the sisters ‘the wicked sisters’ by throwing in measly lines about Feyre hearing Nesta’s voice. So unreal to me. I’m sorry go ahead and be upset about it but I will never take it seriously.

Like in an alternate universe how stupid would it be for there to be a some measly line thrown in about how much it affected Nesta that Feyre thinks she's evil because she acts like their shitty mom. And so therefore Feyre is abusive. That’s all it would take, one line to be published on ink and paper by SJM, for it to be true and verified. Yea no, I’m sorry we are allowed to question things that don’t make sense to us.

Even if I chose to follow the text so religiously then I’d still make my peace with the whole mess since the sisters ‘made up’ because no Nesta wasn't as 'abusive' and even SJM herself tried to sell off as.