#poc tog

[lucien-calore]

you won't be able to pry jewish and indian chaol westfall from my cold, dead hands !!!

[bookfandomtalk]

So I got to thinking about Throne of Glass for reasons, and specifically the way one of the main themes throughout the series is guilt and responsibility.

The three main characters in Throne of Glass are Chaol, Dorian, and of course Celeana/Aelin. In a way, Chaol and Dorian are both foils to Aelin, and that is what causes most of the conflict between them.

In the first book, all three of them work together, but Dorian and Aelin both work for their own benefit, whereas Chaol spends the entire book basically ensuring the other two have their success. Dorian is Aelin's sponsor, but Chaol is the one who ends up actually having to do everything, where Dorian stands to gain the most. During this book, while Aelin starts off disliking both of them, and they both dislike her, they grow closer together. Aelin forces them to see her as human, rather than some abstract monster, and she succeeds with that with Dorian first, partially because he only sees her when she's not doing anything to do with her alias as Celeana. With Chaol this goes slower, he has to be more careful around her, keeping her in line is his job, so he can't afford to see her as human. It's also interesting that she mostly goes about life as Lillian Gordaina during this period. It's the third alias she has, but it's the least provocative, the only one that doesn't come with a heavy load of trauma.

Then in the second book, she's fully Celeana again, and this is where things get interesting. Because Chaol knew this side of Aelin well. He'd gotten to know her as the killer Celeana Sarthothien, and it wasn't strange for him. Dorian, however, suddenly kept away. He'd only allowed himself to see Celeana's soft side, and now he was confronted with the fact that she was more complicated than either a good or a bad person. As a guard, Chaol understood that serving a kingdom comes with getting your hands dirty, that sometimes you have to shed blood to keep the peace. As a prince, Dorian had been spared from ever having to get his hands dirty himself.

Then they realize she's Aelin (First Chaol, then Dorian), and things change. Now Chaol is the one who simply cannot understand Aelin's motivations anymore. He's always been a simple person, he's loyal to Dorian and only him and he protects the people he cares about. Even when Chaol realizes that serving the king is not protecting anyone, and he's been serving a tyrant, he simply turns against the king but maintains his original logic. And so he cannot understand Aelin, whose plans turn out to be really complicated, and whose loyalties are not exactly straightforward either. Celeana might've been dangerous and no fan of the kingbut she wasn't a threat to Adarlan as a whole, but Chaol's been told his whole life that he has to protect Adarlan against outside threats, and Queen Aelin definitely classifies as an outside threat.

Dorian, on the other hand, actually starts understanding Aelin again. This type of big picture thinking, putting your country first, making plans in which other people do a lot of the work for you? That's the way Dorian was raised. He still doesn't fully trust Aelin (he only just found out she had get another facet to her identity) but he gets along with Aelin much better than he did with Celeana.

Now, if you've read this whole thing, you might be wondering, where do guilt and responsibility come in?

I've kind of already alluded to it, but they're opposites, and their flaws are opposite.

While Aelin is living as Celeana, she spends most of her time avoiding her responsibility. She just wants to be free for once. However, she's always carried the guilt with her. She knows she's been avoiding her people's plight, and with every moment she does that, it becomes harder to pick up the responsibility, because the guilt keeps growing.

Chaol and Dorian both spend their entire life devoted to a goal. In the case of Dorian that goal was to become a great king one day, and in the case of Chaol, he rejected his responsibility as lord to instead be Dorian's right-hand man. (Which again comes into my earlier point of Chaol putting individuals first and not trusting Aelin the second he suspects she might put her country first instead of the people she cares about, but I digress) For them, they have the responsibility, but they were proud of it. Their journey was about accepting that their dedication to their country had caused harm.

And this too contributed to all of the tension between them. Because in order for Dorian to accept that Celeana might not that bad, he had to learn that getting your hands dirty wasn't the only way to get blood on your hands, but making the calls was just as bad.

Where for Chaol to understand that Aelin had good intentions meant he had to learn that the way he was serving his country and his royalty with all the devotion he showed made him culpable to the atrocities committed, that the country he'd served so proudly had caused serious harm, and he couldn't shield people from accountability just because they had loyalty to their country.

Basically, in order to accept all sides of Aelin for who she was, they had to accept that there was blame laying on their shoulders, and that just resulted in them both initially going the complete opposite way, and once vilifying her. Because the worse they made Aelin out to be in their own heads, the easier it was to look themselves in the mirror.

[witchthewriter]

I hope this isn't a weird question but do you have a list of sjm characters that you headcanon as poc? Because I want to see what you think and if they line up with my own. I had never seen manon fan casted as asian, but im in love with it!!

I love this question! I've been re-reading the three series, getting ready for CC3 to come out. I have so many things to say, but I'll leave all that to another post - also thank you for this question, it's awesome. Please comment how you feel/what you think in the comments xx

𝐀𝐂𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐑

First of all, the Bat Boys are NOT white. If I see another person fancast Matthew Daddario as Ariel, I will implode! I know it's difficult getting the perfect cast for a story we all adore.

Another point, the Bat Boys are Illyrian, and they are actual real people. Their usual features are tan skin, brown eyes and brown/black hair.

Also, Lucien - who I have fancasted in the past with Martin Sensmeier. I thought it was an interesting idea for a Native American to have that role.

And Amren is MOST DEFINITELY Asian. Without a doubt. There is no ifs, buts or maybes about it. She is most definitely Asian, and I will take offense if someone thinks otherwise.

Also, I don't want the Archerons to be so conventionally pretty, or petite. That's why Alycia Debnam-Carey is my Feyre, Dagmara Bryzek as Elain and Jessica Brown-Findlay as Nesta. I want women who aren't models!

The Valkyries;l Emerie is described as brown, as she is an Illyrian woman. And I'm completely fine with Gwen being red-haired, freckled and pale.

I'm curious about Mor, her physical features are fine - but her 'power' has yet to be revealed. Because it doesn't make sense???

𝐓𝐎𝐆

There are a lot more cultures in this series than the others. For me, it was so interesting because I'm desperate to know how different countries/continents, experience magic.

Learning about the Ruk's, with Nesryn and Sartaq, that was amazing.

I thought Manon was Asian, I always thought she was?! I mean from that link, that's how I imagined her. Whenever I see fanart where she isn't Asian, I just don't see them as Manon.

I definitely think the Cadre could be more than "tanned from hours of training in the sun." I think Lorcan could be a black man! And I def think Fenrys is half-black. Maybe with a white mother though. I hope I'm not coming off as insensitive! Please tell me if I am, because that isn't my intent.

Honestly, I don't care about what's 'canon,' I think there are way too many white characters in every part of literature. I know about history and when it comes down to fantasy worlds, I think black people should be allowed to indulge themselves as much as they want, without having to think about their awful history and what their culture has gone through.

𝐂𝐂

I actually thought Danika was black, it was a surprise to see fanart and she isn't??? For some reason, it doesn't sit right with me to have a white Danika.

Again, I feel like there aren't enough people of colour. We have little fire sprites, we have a lion-dog pet, a serpent queen, angels, and barely anyone who isn't beyond tan.

I don't think this series has a black character ... other than a few background characters that are only mentioned here and there ... if anyone wants to weigh in - I'm still learning about cc, I forget A LOT.

But in no way has SJM been as horrible as J.K. Rowling. Not only was she racist, but cliche', and a pick me. There was too much pick-me energy among the female characters. I'd like to think that at Hogwarts, the girls stick together no matter what (for me, female friendships are so important. It's sisterhood).

[olderthannetfic]

I was watching a video about Dan Bilzerian, the trust fund baby who ended up wasting the millions of dollars his IRS-escaping daddy left him with, and a part of what brought him to ruin were the outrageous stories he'd tell about his past (he'd say that he had joined the marines, broke both his legs, and then they made him run two miles on them anyways; he made all his money through poker; etc), because people realized they were just too outlandish to be true and started to do detective work to find out the actual truth.

And isn't this what causes all people who fake their backgrounds to be caught, even in fandom? They come up with these stories of abuse that rival both Greek and Shakespearean tragedies put together, and of course people get curious and nosy when they notice that these people, who keep alleging they spend their entire lives suffering, do nothing but blog their days away and harass others under the guise of "I am X and Y and Z, and I think you should go kill yourself for this fic you wrote and if the people who are reading this don't agree with me, then they should know they're white supremacists and when the revolution comes I'll hang them myself in front of their families."

I started this ask by writing a write-up of Tumblr's most infamous fakers (the TOG one, HIVLiving, Discorseprincesa, etc), but then it quickly became paragraphs and paragraphs of words that barely made any sense put one next to the other, and all their stories sound exactly the same.

They are of mixed nationalities, never white, never straight, never Christian, raised in extreme poverty in very poor countries (except for the second fake character of HIVLiving, who was supposedly raised in the US before being trafficked in India), supposedly working minimum-wage jobs because they're minorities and that's what minorities do, even in the countries in which they're not minorities, but always with plenty of time to "educate others" about their identities, except when someone who clearly knows more than them steps into the scene and challenges them, which causes them to bring out the good ol' "Women/LGBT people/POC aren't here to educate you, stop feeling entitled to my time, you misogynist/homophobic/racist piece of shit!"

I don't know, guys, but if you want to fake your identities, maybe, just maybe, you should come up with stories that are a bit more bulletproof and a bit less outlandish (and definitely with more documentation behind them, because going through the write-ups of how these people got caught, it's always something stupid that caused the true investigative work to begin, such as them naming the wrong fruit or asking for donations through the wrong app.)

--

[wingsdippedingold]

So I don't recall if you've read the ToG series but if you have apparently Yrene was supposed to be POC? Idk if that's a retcon (probably is) but I don't remember ever reading a description that made her sound POC. And her name is Yrene (pronounced Irene) so all SJM did was give her a typically white woman name with a quirky spelling, also I think she has red hair or smth? None of that is typically POC and it enrages me how she's made out to be a super powerful POC when she clearly wasn't supposed to be in the first place. SJM at it again with her super diverse cast of characters🙄

To my knowledge she was written as an ambiguous darker woman but never clarified as actually black

I also remember someone talking about how Yrene is literally just a mix of the black magic woman and modern mammy stereotype - with Chaol or whoever it was relying on her magic and power for his livelihood. Not to even mention her killing Nehemia only to give Aelin some kind of motivation

But thank you!!! This raises my point about SJM and other authors doing the bare minimum of giving a character a different skin color and calling it representation. And all the fans eat. it. up. It’s just lazy writing and a quick grab at “diversity” when they’ve put no actual effort into making it. We POC in fandoms seriously deserve better and need to stand tf up, cause this isn’t it

[korkiekenobiconfirmed]

I'm on a roll with the s/j/m hatred tn so I'm going to compile a masterlist of all her shitty lgbt/poc representation and why it sucks booty cheeks. it should be noted that none of this is meant as shade on any of the characters themselves... I actually happen to like quite a lot of them

EDIT: there are some nice additions to this post in the notes you can check out

LGBT rep

Aedion (Bi/Pan)

Literally known as “Adarlan’s Whore” (a nickname that references both his allegiance to the king and his tendency to sleep around)

His only same-sex relationship is with a vaguely-mentioned unnamed lover from the past (it’s not even said straight-up that they’re a man, but I’m assuming they are bc they’re mentioned to be a commander of the Bane)

He’s shown being attracted to women and only women for two and a half books. He’s a womanizer retconned into the slutty bisexual stereotype

His liking men & women is compared to prostitution

It’s insinuated in koa that he slept with an ex while he and Lysandra were fighting (because the cheating bisexual trope is such a new & creative one!)

Helion (Bi/Pan)

He’s always trying to have 4somes with three of the main characters

Realistically he’s probably one of the most powerful/interesting High Lords but this gets sidelined in favor of him flirting with eVeRyOnE

All we really know about him is his name and the fact that he’s a bit of a manwhore… very 2-dimensional

He has an affair & a child with a married woman… just the Slutty/Cheating Bisexual Trope (Volume 2) :/

Mor (Lesbian? Possibly bi?)

She’s never shown in any real relationships (with men or women)

She had tragic off-screen relationship with a mortal queen a few hundred years ago

We get literally no hints that she’s gay throughout the series, she just randomly mentions she likes women at the end of book 3

She gets no happy relationship, she stays closeted to spare Az’s feelings (as though he’s not a grown ass man), she’s retconned into her sexuality most of the way through the series… just shitty shitty rep all around

Hasar (Lesbian)

She’s a villain, and a shitty one at that

Lesbian rep from a side character in one novella that half the fandom didn’t read? What’s even the point?

Thesan (Gay)

A very minor character & his unnamed “lover” who serve no narrative purpose whatsoever… thanks for nothing sarah

Emrys & Malachai (Presumably gay)

Oh look! More minor, background mlm that might as well not exist for all they do for the story :/

They are cute though, I’ll give them that

POC rep

Nehemia

First (and only) black main in ToG

She dies to fuel the white protag’s character arc… a very tired trope

She was actually a pretty well-written, likable character up until her brutal murder, which made it that much worse to hear about her organs strewn all over the room

Sorscha 

Described as “plain” (particularly in contrast to the white women like Aelin & Lysandra)

We know she’s POC because of where she’s from, but the way her features are described suggest she could still be white

Dark hair, gold eyes, “tan” skin

She really just fawns over white-boy Dorian every 2 seconds before dying a violent death to fuel Dorian’s arc…

…Aaaand I’m sensing a pattern here

Nesryn

Much of her character (especially in QoS) is reduced to her beefing with Aelin (and thus being villanized by the narrative) because of jealousy over Chaol 

Simply described as having “tan” skin (again). I think sarah is allergic to calling people brown

She is also described as plain compared to white protagonist

She has a (presumably middle eastern) family that only wants her to stay home and be a baker/someone’s wife

Yrene 

Once again very racially ambiguous to the point where she could even be white, with “tan/golden” skin, golden hair, and golden eyes

She almost immediately ties her literal life force to a white man she hated like a month ago. Seriously, can WOC not fawn over a hunky white man for once?

She defeats erawan in the end — considering she’s been a character for such a short time, this just feels more like a deus ex machina the anything really set up by the plot

Helion 

Not going to fully rehash what I said above but generally… he has great potential, but is basically not a character

Tarquin 

He’s portrayed as very nice and reasonable, if young and naive, yet he literally only exists to get manipulated/robbed by the main characters

He seems like such a sweetheart. He deserved much better than Riceman and Feyrug doing him dirty like that

I’ve heard rumors of a High King/Queen F*ysand plotline in later books…if that happens, Tarquin will likely be bending the knee and forgiving the people who fucked him over just a short time ago

Lucien

He’s described as very caring and loyal (yay!) which seems to always get him taken advantage of (damn!)

He’s portrayed (especially in ACOWAR) as someone we’re supposed to dislike when all his actions are perfectly reasonable

He’s literally retconned out of being white when it’s revealed Helion is his father instead of Beron. I’ve seen ppl get mad at “white-washed” fan art but it’s hard to expect much else when his original character description was straight red hair, amber eyes,  and “tan” skin (holy shit agAIN)

The people of the White Fangs from TOG

They’re described as having black hair, black eyes, and “tan” skin

They live isolated in the mountains (away from civilization) and are described as “savage” and warlike, always raiding villages in the mountains and stealing women away from their homes… 

Cain, who’s from these people, dabbles in dark magic/religion nobody else understands

This is feeling, intentional or not, like a horrible Native American caricature. Idk maybe that’s just me

[fantasyrantsblog]

Sarah J Maas

Why this will be the only post I make about SJM and the controversy surrounding her art.

Q. Am I a fan of SJM?

A. No, I am not. I have read her books starting with ACOTAR, moving on to TOG and finishing off with CC. The first ACOTAR book took me 8 tries and I barely made it through. The second book was okay but left a bad taste in my mouth at a key point that I will get into. I had a lot of people who told me I had to keep going and I had to finish everything and I did. Because I have read her books, I can confidently discuss why I disagree with much of the content.

Now moving on to my issues:

Obviously, the Breonna Taylor ACOSF post. No matter how you decide to frame the post in order to offer some forgiveness to this action, it has never been addressed and still remains up. There are large parts of many communities who find this offensive and hurtful, if you do not find this hurtful, you do not get to decide that other's shouldn't. MAYBE SJM was sitting heavy with Breonna Taylor's death and already had post her publisher asked her to make regarding ACOSF so she decided to add it in. But also, MAYBE she thought if she didn't say anything she would get eaten alive. Regardless of how you decide to interpret this action, the addition of Breonna Taylor's death to this post was in bad taste and reads as an afterthought.

Something I haven't seen a single person talk about and it was my biggest ick when I first read ACOMAF: When Feyre first meets the Inner Circle and is told about the Illyrians, she is told in the light of them being barbaric. They're already considered a "lesser" race because they aren't High Fae and now within the first introduction to the main character and the reader, they're called barbaric. However you believe their practices to be, they did not have to be a POC race. The did not have to be the first all POC race introduced in the entire series and then regarded as such. Not only that, but none of the character's address their racism when interacting with the Illyrians. SJM has managed to pull 3 men from the race, one mixed, and have them all deny the rituals and put them above everyone else. She made them more palatable to you as token POC by having them sympathize with those they are not in league with. As a white woman writing this, it may not have been intentional, but lack of intention is also hurtful. These are are personal biases that are presenting themselves front and center. This is what it means when you support an author and their views bleed into a story they are writing. She is STILL writing this series and utilizing these previously made biases to jump forward with her story. Barring all of the other issues regarding her clearer issues with writing POC, this is an example how even miniscule details can create molehills.

LGBTQ+ representation is next on the chopping block! Does her representation of the community encapsulate some experiences? Absolutely. Is she expected to encapsulate them all? No, not by any means. And yet, she still managed to oversexualize the community and represent a singular and tiny facet. She, like with the POC, displayed her biases and beliefs. This may be unintentional or not, we don't know, but what we do know is that her characters in the queer community are oversexualized and hypersexual.

Palestine: I often see many say that because she has not said anything about which side she supports, that means we cannot assume just based off of one article years ago. Yes, actually, we can. Why? Because despite controversy, she has not negated it! Additionally, the birthright trips to Israel are inherently Zionist. If she was able to proudly discuss that with her whole chest and then stay quiet when it's not longer in her favor, we can heavily infer that she either maintains her previous stance or does not care enough to negate it. Neither is a positive outlook on how she interacts with the community. Again, intentional or not, the hurt doesn't cease to exist just because it's not how you think people should react.

There are many other reasons and pieces of text that I can pick out over and over again but if you think reading shouldn't be political, pull out some highlighters and join my book club on Fable. Literacy rates in the Unites States are dropping drastically and it's a goal of mine and my fellow readers and writers to interact and dissect text. Reading is inherently political, the act of being able to pick up a book from the shelf and take in the words on the page is not a carefree activity. We, not just the U.S., have been fighting for education for centuries and whether you're reading smut or classics, both are equally political. If you're reading fantasy, you are reading about a world in which politics are involved, politics that reflect our world. Complacency is a killer of education.

[warm-cat-burrito]

This is legitimately just my spam blog. I have two other sideblogs, one for art/my OCs (@fennmeow) and one for therian/autism/ADHD stuff and general thoughts (@fennthetalkingdog). All I'll probably ever do here is reblog cool stuff I find, but the main reason I'm making this intro is just so I can organize all the tags I'll be using here. It'll change all the time (if I start to reblog something that requires a new tag, I'll add it here), so this will continually change.

For reference, though, I like:

Yu-Gi-Oh, Dungeon Meshi, and other anime/manga

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, Tower of God, and other webtoons/webtoon anime

Persona 5 Royal (both the game and the manga <3)

Wings of Fire

Warrior cats

FNAF

Spiderman

Writing

(Some) K-pop songs, Vocaloid songs (Ghost and Pals <3), and music in general

Alt stuff (especially poc alt stuff)

Autism, ADHD, and therian stuff (will be limited tho since some of it will go on my sideblog)

so I'll definitely be reblogging that stuff. And I occasionally have hyperfixations, so that list is also subject to change, lol. Also I'll be putting real life stuff into either the #real life tag or the #advice tag (depending on what it is). Other stuff will be organized in one of the tags attached here (hopefully).

Also here are the links for the daily clicks for Palestine/Sudan thing because I keep forgetting and maybe you did too:

Okay so it looks like I'm gonna run out of tags soon so I'll put them under a cut (I'll save the actual tags for important and relevant ones):

🐾--------🐾

(Note: If tags have another tag next to them in parentheses, that's their spoiler tag; I try my best to use only one. And related tags can be listed in bullets beneath a parent tag—in this case all posts with the specific tag will also be tagged with the parent tag. If two tags have a "/" between them, that means they're interchangable and all posts with one tag will have the other too.)

General Trigger Warnings:

#tw blood

#tw drugs

* #tw weed

#tw eyestrain

#tw sex mention (literally for anything that mentions sex)

* #spicy (spicy stuff that may imply/describe sex but don't show it)

* nsfw (full-on nsfw stuff - I shouldn't be posting that? But just in case)

#tw syscourse (most will only be reblogged privately tho)

#tw periods

#tw politics

* #international news

* #congo

* #gaza/#palestine/#free palestine

* #haiti

* #sudan

* #tigray

* #usa news

* #us presidential debate

* #us politics

General Art Tags:

#animatic

#character design

#comic

#cool art (for art unrelated to a mentioned fandom)

* #anthro

* #artfight

* #fennmeow/#my art

* #monster

* #oc art

* #scenecore

#human designs

#suggestive

Anime:

#dungeon meshi (#dungeon meshi spoilers)

* #farcille

* #labru

* #secret lab!au (also under #crossover and #scp foundation)

#jujutsu kaisen

#mob psycho 100

* #transfem mob

* #transmasc reigen

#oshi no ko (#oshi no ko spoilers)

#tower of god (in this category since I'll barely reblog ToG webtoon stuff probably)

* #tower of god anime

#welcome to demon school iruma kun/#marimashita! iruma kun

* #iruma kun mafia if story

#yugioh

* #yugioh gx

Webtoons:

#omniscient reader's viewpoint (#omniscient reader spoilers)

Videogames:

#deltarune

#fnaf

* #fnaf movie

#legend of zelda

* #breath of the wild

* #tears of the kingdom

* #wind waker

#off game

#persona 5 royal

#slay the princess

#the stanley parable

#ultrakill

#undertale

Books:

#stormlight archive

#virals

#warrior cats

#wings of fire

Other Media:

#actirangers

#crossover (a tag for crossovers - I've gotta go back and retag stuff tho)

* #secret lab!au (dungeon meshi x scp foundation)

* #twin runes (undertale x deltarune)

#gravity falls

* #after canon AU

* #fiddleford

* #billford

* #bill(ford)^2

* #the book of bill

#lackadaisy

#musicals

* #cats the musical

* #hadestown

#my little pony

* #equestria girls

* #my little pony friendship is magic

#scp foundation

#spiderman (almost each character has their own tag in this category)

* #into the spiderverse (#into the spiderverse spoilers)

* #across the spiderverse (#across the spiderverse spoilers)

* #meows morales/#spidercat

#total drama island

#what we do in the shadows

* #my familiars ghost

Relating to Me:

#alterhuman/#nonhuman

* #otherkin

* #therian

#college things

* #major stuff (stuff about my majors)

* #minor stuff (stuff about my minors)

#for future fenn

* #for irl friends

#languages

#music

* #video game music

* #vocaloid

* #hatsune miku/#miku worldwide

#neurodivergent

* #autism

* #adhd

* #intellectual giftedness

* #overexcitability

* #stimming

#plurality

* #tulpamancy

#pride (for queer stuff in general)

#writing

* #fanfiction

* #mha fanfiction/#Rowan Call and Toby (my own mha fanfiction)

General Tags:

#important

#advice

* #drawing advice

* #job applications

#cats

#friend interactions (things like chain posts with friends)

#mental health

#pretty people

* #drag

#real life

* #comedy

* #disability

* #fundraiser

#resources (only for linked resources)

#stuff for atlas (stuff for my friend Atlas btw)

#tumblr

* #historic tumblr posts

* #poll

* #tumblr folks doing the usual

I apologize profusely for any untagged or badly tagged posts—I reblogged a bunch of stuff before I began my tagging system and some past stuff is still untagged or weirdly tagged.

[1800naveen]

I take back everything I said about how the bat boys should be played brown actors. They aren't POC in my eyes anymore.

I don't say this as a hater. I don't considered them POC as a POC myself. If they were POC, SJM would describe them in a weird way. And when I mean weird, I mean racist. The Illyrians are written in a stereotypical way (savage, warmongers, live in camps instead of houses). I can't tell if that's supposed to be targeted towards Africans or the Indigenous and the stereotypes around us.

Look at how she describes Emerie (Who is Illyrian like the bat boys), Sorscha in TOG, Isaiah in CC, even Amren who is said to be plain. In ACOWAR, we meet Nuan and Feyre says that Amren's body must be from Nuan's line.

They should be played by Mediterranean men. It fits in my opinion:

SJM probably visualized Italian men. Wasn't her Pinterest account with her board for the bat boys filled of white men? Someone correct me if I got it wrong.

The real life Illyrians are from this area here:

Some say they're Greek or Albanian, it gets me confused which is the true one.

[halfmoth-halfman]

Wait why the SJM hate? Honest question I had no idea she was a bad person?

ok so i've gotten quite a few asks like this and i'm gonna answer them all here. sorry anon, i'm using your ask as my little soapbox for a moment.

explanation under the cut- fair warning it's long and talks about racism, misogyny, abuse, and rape/sexual assault

this is also gonna be the one time and one time only i address this because i'm a CoD writing blog and (and i'm gonna sound mean here) google is free and if a bunch of people, especially a large group of poc (and more specifically black people), have said an author is problematic and you don't take the time to at least listen or do your own research on that author that's your own fault and willful ignorance.

for some of the other anons asking who sjm is: sarah j maas is an author most famous for her throne of glass (tog) and a court of thorns and roses (acotar) series.

for people who want to say i don't like her because i haven't read her book: i was, at one point, a fan of hers and have read every single one of her books.

sjm and her works are presented as ya and for a lot of people, much like how harry potter and jkr were for my age group, her books were probably their first pick up at around 13 and their first introduction to the ya fantasy genre, to ya romance, or to sexy scenes.

the problem is, her books are hailed as "feminist" titles, when all she does is romanticize these extremely toxic and straight-up abusive relationships between her characters as romantic. the moment the dark, broody love interest is introduced, the female mc loses all agency. (this isn't just an sjm problem, but she's who we're talking about right now)

(tw: rape/sexual assault/abuse/misogyny)

you're given a protagonist who's supposed to be intelligent/capable/able to take care of herself, but as soon as the male love interest (who you can tell sjm likes far more than the female mc) swaggers in, and become a part of the story. the moment the heroine starts to fall, she becomes a side character in her own tale: all of her motivations, her purpose, her desire are now only about furthering this broody mystery man with shadow powers and his ambitions. it may be said that they're equals, there might even be a few tender moments of false hope that the heroine is going to get her spot back as the main character of the book, but it's all a façade. she is and always will be subordinate to the male love interest, and every other man she comes across. and sjm has a big problem with making it clear through her writing that really, it was never the heroine's story in the first place, it was always the man's.

@happysharkintensifies put it best in this post:

It was never her story in the first place. It was his. She no longer makes decisions or takes initiative for herself; it's now for him. It's no longer about her mission or goals or desire; it's now about his. It's no longer about her struggles or pains or hardships, it's now about his. And it's not just her story that's stolen from her. Her personality, character and strengths are wittled away as well. If she's competent and skill at something, then she'll suddenly have the rug pulled out from beneath her by a man who inexplicably outclasses her. If she's confident, well-spoken, and respected, then she'll suddenly become tongue-tied, flustered and condescended to by a smirking man who's somehow more witty and eloquent than she is. If she has ambitions that don't immediately revolve around men or relationships, then she'll suddenly have her mind changed by a man who'll make her forget and discard her goals in favor of his. If she's disinterested in, or indifferent to men, she'll suddenly become infatuated with and softened up by an excessively attractive man almost instantaneously. And, worst of all, if she confronts him for his gaslighting/manipulation/violence/abuse, she'll suddenly find her anger and will crumbling as the story and narrative excuses and forgives him for his misdeeds. Worst of all, she'll be forced to admit that she's wrong."

and to especially add on to that last point, in the acotar series, feyre (the golden white woman) is raped and sexually assaulted by both of her love interests. and when it happens at the hands of rhysand (sjm's favorite brooding love interest) it's described and romanticized as an act of protection- he's doing this for her benefit, and it's not allowed to be brought up in a negative light because he's assaulted her for her own good. the amount of times women in her series are abused/gaslit/manipulated/killed and it is framed as romantic because she's either in a relationship with the man doing it or because he "likes" her is quite frankly disturbing and is a shit message for her majority teen fanbase who are reading these books and solidifying that same stupid rhetoric we all heard as kids that "if a boy hurts/bullies/is mean to you that means he likes you".

there's also the trope she seems to favor in her books of "only good (and mostly white) girls get to keep their powers".

good girls put their man first. they're modest and humble. they need to be saved by a big, strong, brooding man with a dark past. they would never wear revealing clothes and are so so scandalized when they have to be paraded around half-dressed for a plot point. they only fuck when they have to or are forced to because any sort of sexual agency is immediately looked down upon by their man and god forbid they disappoint their man. they're often mistreated by any man they meet and will take the abuse and thank the man for the treatment because they're a good girl.

they're not like other girls, the bad girls.

bad girls are too independent. they're too strong, too proud, too into their looks. they need to be put into their place. how dare they be seductive, wear revealing clothes, sleep with whomever they want.

@ekileh puts it well in this post:

feyre is the literal holotype of a good girl. she puts everyone else, especially her male partner, before herself. she is a little more selfish at the beginning of the books, but she undergoes a lot of character growth by acowar/acofas. in acowar i think it makes her compelling because she’s so recklessly brave that it almost sets her allies’ efforts back (it’s almost a mistake!) but everything always works out for her. but by acofas, when she’s wearing herself to the bone doing charity work, she’s become a martyr. she also is forced into wearing sexy clothes (by rhys) and they don’t do anything sexual until there’s, of course, only one bed. she’s so OP her powers eventually get nerfed for plot reasons (nesta, elain, and other side characters need a chance to shine, so feyre gets pregnant, shielded, and now has a baby to protect so she probably won’t risk herself unless anything threatens nyx), but her powers are still there. she still has control and agency over her powers. she’s just choosing not to use them or put herself in harm’s way because she’s now a mother. nesta, amren, and aelin are bad girls because they are selfish, proud, difficult to get along with. we don’t know much about amren’s sexual history but we know aelin cockteased rowan for months, and nesta made her way through velaris and jumped right into bed with cassian—not for love, but for a distraction—once she was confined to the house of wind. (i know feyre claimed her one bed moment with rhysand was for a distraction as well, but she wasn’t really in the same place as nesta where sex was an active self-destructive coping mechanism for her. and she later admits to rhys she was lying about wanting distraction to protect herself.) and yeah amren and aelin gives up their powers for the wars and nesta gives up her powers for……a wider pelvis. because bad girls can only be redeemed by sacrificing their power. good girls will gladly sacrifice their power and lives, but they are always spared. bad girls may offer their lives too (as amren and aelin did), but even if their lives are spared they never get to keep their power like good girls do. (and of course OP men always get to keep their powers.)

(tw: racism/homophobia/ableism/abuse)

before we get into this next part: i am black, more specifically a queer black woman living in america.

it's no secret that sjm's books are severely lacking in diversity. there's the illusion of diversity with the "dark" brooding love interest and his gaggle of equally broody assholes- the slight tan, or golden bronze, or light olive skin meant to placate readers looking for more representation. and sjm knows this, so she gives them a setting and culture that's a poorly picked apart and reduced version of real life non-white cultures without any care of thought.

and what representation people of color do get in her books are almost the same as most other popular fantasy novels (looking especially at you, game of thrones):

they're the dark-skinned savages, the uneducated and violent

they're the conquerors, the people who have been harassing our straight white girl main and ethnically ambiguous faves and need to be put in their place

they're the former servants or slaves who are rising against their oppressors but aren't doing it in a polite or kind way the mc's deem fit so their often valid points are immediately dismissed

they're the beautiful, strong seductresses who are in the way of the perfect white mc getting with her dark, broody man so they must die, often in an unnecessary or extremely violent manner

sjm says she supports the black lives matter movement, says that there is diversity in her books, and then in the same breath will prop up and praise art for her books that blatantly whitewashes what few characters of color there are, she will give the excuse that it was her publishers who lightened these characters skin without her knowledge because, of course this character who she's never described as anything other than tan with european features is actually supposed to be a character of color,

she will use the death of a real black woman murdered by police as a way to promote her next book (link)

it is exhausting and unbelievably hurtful, to have to watch as an author (especially a non-black author) who has shown no respect towards her black characters or any of the real cultures she boils down to basics for her books praise herself and let her fans praise her on having diversity in her books, blatantly and carelessly use a movement meant to bring to light and discuss the violent ways black people are murdered at the hands of the police to promote herself and her books where black and characters of color exist only to be killed and black and poc women are fridged for white pain.

it is also hurtful as someone who is a part of the lgbtq+ community and disabled to have to sit through books that contain things like:

this woman identifies as lesbian, but she's going to be in a love triangle with men and will suffer unbelievable amounts of sexual abuse and violence at the hands of men so her lesbianism will disappear because sleeping with men is her trauma response

all bisexuals are threesome sex fiends

magical cures for disabilities because how dare someone not want to be "normal"

it's not abuse if it was done for your own good followed by the outrageous lengths sjm goes to in order to redeem male abusers and rapists like rhysand, and tamlin, and eris to the point where some of them get the best happy ending but then violently murder all female abusers in the most horrific ways

look, at the end of the day, sarah j maas is a popular author. she writes (imo) mediocre books that are really only for white women/teens/young adults to live out their tall, dark and handsome mystery magic man fantasy. but she's famous, and more than happy to let her fans speak over any valid criticisms black and people of color have brought up over her writing, and her acts as a person.

she will never go away, most likely never change or acknowledge or take responsibility for things she's said/done/written, her fans will probably never care or give a shit about these problems, and as long as people continue to support her and buy her books she won't give a shit either.

all i can do is curate the content i consume to ensure i don't have to see or deal with her or her writing.

if you're a fan of hers- fine, you do you. i know there are people who i'm sure are perfectly nice individuals who are fans of her and i'm sure there are people of color who enjoy her books- that's entirely up to them. i'm not going to go around telling people to not read her books, or go into spaces for her fans to scold people over their like of her. If you want to read her books and support her despite the harm she's caused and the criticisms poc have spoken about, that's on you and i have little respect for you.

i know i sound mean in some of this, but this is my blog and i'm sure there are hundreds of other blogs out there ready to sing sarah j maas's praises. so, if you're a fan of hers and don't want to see criticism of or any type of negative feelings towards her or her books, i am going to politely suggest that my blog is not the place for you.

[lucien-calore]

listen, if adarlan is inspired by the uk, surely there must be a tog version of the indians that were colonized by the brits? and surely there would be a tog version of the indian community in the uk?

following that train of thought, i like to think that anielle is the fantasy version of the indian community in the uk. therefore, chaol is indian.

no, i will not be taking any criticism.

[stargirlfeyre]

SJM is an awful writer. I stopped buying her books years ago. The way she treats POC people, specifically POC woman, in her books is so disgusting. The most despicable example of this is the fact that she killed Nehemia, the one of the only black women in the entire series, to further progress Aelin, the white savior. Not only did she kill Nehemia, but she did it the absolutely brutal way - which was just unnecessary and added nothing to the entire plot.

And now she has written entire paragraphs about Nesta’s and Gwyn’s beauty, but the only thing she said about Emerie was that she was kinda plain. SJM wrote Emerie, the only POC character in the Valkyrie trio, as the “ugly” one. In a series in which almost every single character is defined as devastatingly beautiful, why is Emerie considered “plain”?

I haven’t read a lot of ToG but I have heard about what she did to Nehemia. It’s one of the main things she’s criticized for. The backlash for that was huge and I wonder if her team ever addressed it or at least made her aware of how her writing when it comes to her poc characters was being perceived. Seeing as there’s still ignorance laced all over the poc writing in her books then I highly doubt it. She seems like the type of white woman who does not understand micro-aggressions and thinks that as long as you’re not being blatantly racist then you’re fine.

And it’s honestly just funny (not funny haha but funny weird) that Emerie’s appearance or physical attributes aren’t praised or given focus. The white women can have poetry written about them and their beauty but all Emerie gets is “she has a striking face but I wouldn’t call her pretty”…and what makes it worse is that she’s the only woman of color in the group. There was literally no reason for Sjm to write her this way when the Illyrian men are all described to be incredibly attractive. But the only Illyrian woman we meet is considered the “ugly duckling” of the group like please don’t piss me off.

[nightlyteaandpaper]

ACOTAR Vs. Racialize Stereotypes

I am not going to speak on TOG because I have not read it and have no plans to read it; I do not care. At all. However, some things in this series kind of...turn my stomach around and I really need to let them out before I spiral.

I understand that Prythan is located in what would be the UK, so I am not mad about the number of white people displayed, especially since this is a traditionally published (1) fantasy (2) female-lead (3) young adult (4) turned to adult (5) novel written by a white woman (6) from upstate New York (7) who has never seen poverty a day in her life (8, and I read her biography, so I know that for a fact.) I'm not mad about that, because in my own story, despite it being very diverse (and I mean very diverse), the majority of people are black or half black, with there being some Indigenous people and South and Eastern Asian people (and very little white people.) However, while I am not mad at what is being portrayed, Im annoyed about how it is being portrayed.

In this series, we meet our first person of color in the form of Alis, the maidservant. At the time, we didn't know she was black or black-coded. Still, we quickly find out because, for some fucking reason, the glamor Tamlin gave his people also changed the color of Alis's skin, and this was because he didn't want Feyre to freak out... so, either Tamlin is a racist or Feyre is (this is a joke, please laugh.) However, what is not a joke is that Alis is depicted as the magical negro-troupe, where she gives sage advice and aids our disastrous main character. This being one-off , would not have been an issue, but for some reason...it is not. Within the same book, we meet the shadow twins who are still coded as people of color with tan skin despite being underground for fucking 50 years. If Rhysand, for some reason, is pale as a fucking ghost, everyone really should be pale, but the maids were people of color. In the first book, all the Help were people of color.

This, combined with the depictions of the Ilyrans, who are pretty much thought to be middle eastern men, as aggressive, backward people, is CRAZY. It is INSANE that the mostly white, NC is the progressive court of all the fucking land, but they refuse to do anything about the situation literally within their borders. They do a lot of grandstanding when it comes to feminism (which is another topic) but...do nothing to stop it. Instead, they just shit on the Ilyrans and call them backward and aggressive, and it is not lost on me that the two full-blooded Ilyrians who escape, shit on their ethnic group whenever they get a chance, and the one who is even remotely proud to be a bat-thing, is also depicted as aggressive and cocky and so very much obnoxious. It is also not lost on me that the three bat-dudes who escaped, all found their sanctuaries in the arms of white women. Of the women in the IC, none of them are people of color (I thought Amren was Asian and Morr was biracial, but that wasn't the case, in fact, she wasn't even related to Rhys on his mom's side.) And it is also not lost on me that the "objectively good" and feminist bat-boy of the trio is also half-white.

We have two POC High Lords in the series (good, I guess) and both of them get a raw deal from the author. Helion is a man who does not know he has a son (I also don't understand why Feyre is the one to figure this out when she has only been in this realm for, at most, a year and had literally just met Helion three days prior. Lucien has been alive for almost 500 years, and NO ONE, not even Helion, figured it out? They half to look a lot alike for her to put it together that easily.) Helion (also the bisexual High Lord) is a fucking hoe who has a child he does not know about in a completely different zip code. No one else has that issue, which would you think would be the case since some of these have been alive for...almost a thousand you.

And now we have my darling Tarquin. He is the youngest of the High Lords at 86. It is known that he would have given the literal shirt off his back if he could be friends with ANYONE, and he wanted to be friends with Rhysand because he saw something in that guy that he liked. And instead of asking "Hey, can we...can we see your book" and then, if Tarquin said no, they steal it, they just steal the shit. Then they had the audacity to consider sicking Amren on them because Tarquin, who was betrayed, gave them blood diamonds, but they never have this energy when it comes to their white counterparts.

Here is what gets my goat--there is something so insidious about a white-coded woman telling a black-coded man what to do in his own house. Tarquin had every right to want to kick Feyre and Rhysand in the teeth and throw them out, but instead, he calmly bitches for a few seconds and then tells Feyre to leave. Upon this, Feyre refuses to exit this man's house, while choosing to approach knowing damn well that his entire life is destroyed because of the butterfly affect her shitty (war criminal) actions in the Spring Court had on his court. And when he looks at the man who he wanted to be friends with and says, "take your mate and leave," Rhysand says "She is the High Lady of the Night Court; she can do whatever she wants..." the amount of entitlement that seeps through those pages made me sick and made me look up a few of SJM's controversial takes. The real-life implication of this entire scene is...crazy. Not to mention that it makes it seem that being the High Lady of the Night Court was more important than being the actual ruler of the current kingdom they are standing in.

What made me even more upset was that...even after all that, Tarquin steal forgave them and helped...

I don't think I need to explain why that is problematic. We are all smart here.

[sincerleyren]

I'm loving the new Crescent City book but I'm forever side eyeing SJM as a white author putting Thunderbirds as a species of Vanir, and not even making the characters with those powers Indigenous?

I think she handles representation so poorly, from her pretty much discarding Mor's storyline since making her queer to killing off one of her few major POC characters Nehemia in TOG.

[olderthannetfic]

If it was just (or even mostly) my fellow white people staying that Stitch was harassing them I'd be inclined to think that it was yet another "white woman tears" situation. But so many POCs have said the same thing and so I'm listening.

--

Anyone whose primary output is negativity is to be avoided, no matter who their targets are.

But also, yes, the target pattern is highly predictable. They're all like this, from mega psychos like winterfox to top tier fandom predators like the TOG faker to wannabes we'll never hear of. The biggest enemy is anyone who could debunk them.

[writingsbychlo]

i dont know if i can say this because i don't really want to sound mean or ungrateful but azriel feels a little poc in sls and i get that it is a different kind of story so i get that. the dialogue gets me a bit out of it though, some phrases just seem too modern for the setting? and the clothes as well like the hoodies and the jeans, i think it's just a me problem but it takes me out of it a little. i do understand that these are fair details since it's your story and sjm adds stuff like leggings and canned soup even though it makes no sense

i do love the concept of the story and i like that azriel is finally getting a soft story because they're hard to find but these take me off it :/

I… don’t know what to respond here. I know you’re not trying to be mean or ungrateful as you said but like I really don’t know what you want me to put in response? do you want to say I’ll stop doing that stuff? because I won’t. I’m not trying to be mean when I respond here either I just really don’t know what your expected response was for this, I genuinely do not know what to say.

I put hoodies and such in because as you said, leggings and sweaters are canon in SJMs world. in ACOTAR itself, feyre wears leggings and a sweater. hoodies didn’t seem too far of a stretch for me, it’s just a sweater with a hood. I mean, jeans I guess are modern? but I don’t really envision them all wandering around all the time in tunics and baggy pants. I know they do in TOG but that’s also written with different concepts to ACOTAR too.

I mean, I guess all I can say is that I’d recommend not reading this series of it doesn’t work for you? you can still enjoy my other works, but this one is gonna have more of that stuff, and if that doesn’t work for you then this isn’t the series for you.

also, side note, if anyone can answer for me: i thought ‘poc’ was a shortened version of ‘person of colour��� but am I wrong? does it mean something else?