#while such characters should be held accountable for their actions that doesn't mean they aren't deserving of pity

[isekyaaa]

I hate reading bad takes on manhwa and yet the comments section are the things I just find myself going to.

[sokumotanaka]

I don't agree with Spinner actions (Which weren't even his) but I think the issue with Horikoshi's "message" is that it places the onus to change on those mistreated and oppressed instead of those who mistreat and oppress.

the world treated mutants bad before they started to rebel against it, not because. shoji isn't wrong per se since this should be viewed situationally but on a grander scale, his focus shouldn't be on reprimanding oppressed/discriminated for reacting to being oppressed/discriminated but on those who oppress/discriminate.

This is the shit I write in the RWDE tag

All for one also hypnotized spinner into attacking, his brain when he's hulked out is focused on one directive, similar to AOT's titan Eren- Move the rock, Protect etc, and AOF installed attack that hospital in him, with the ACTUAL context you know that this has nothing to do with mutants- but because they are people zero'd in on that!

A. You mean like the humans with deadly weapons attacking innocent mutants on the streets, or the ones that murdered kids?

B. Mutants aren't a race...really says something about you- Similar to POC the mutants were killed and treated like shit with zero retaliation and now people are siding with the bigots. Mutants aren't attacking blindly like the humans are, they're going after heroes and trying to topple the governmental structure. But they're being fed lies by AOF who is USING THEM!

Media literary is truly dead.

Again you don't gotta agree with spinner, but people should see something really wrote with a prejudice plot that does nothing- till the tail end of the series and people flat out ignore the humans loaded with guns, swords, etc barring off shelters- turning away mutant kids but dragging the parents into the shelters if they look "normal" enough; literally attacking unarmed mutant civilians on the spot. (And hori doesn't have Deku destroy or take their weapons btw, in fact Deku says: Oh the armed guys that called you a monster are probably scared!) MHA's a deeply stupid person's take on racial politics and prejudice!

Horikoshi wrote a story about the struggles of people mirroring POC and wrote how they're in the wrong, how nothing gets solved, then magically a character who had no character literally gets used as a mouth piece.

It's not about the context, they're villains and they're clearly in the wrong, it's about the SUBTEXT that marks them as evil for being tired of being attacked, killed and their loved ones killed- and no normal puritans are EVER held accountable, only other mutants are. It be nice if say Todorki or Deku said something to normal people and called out their prejudices and helped as well. Instead they get told to quiet down and wait; and during the time-skip magically prejudices are gone! That's some wishful thinking, more POC should....just take it when their loved ones are unjustly killed, jailed, racially profiled ETC!

But instead the message is "Solve it yourselves, the oppressors aren't bad." And it really says something about these "fans" takes on things.

LOOK AT THE

MINDSET OF THESE FUCKS!

They feel justified saying all this when the icon on twitter is a black man who they can "pretend" to side with and respect while saying the quiet part out loud!

[thatbostonbooknerd]

musings on elain archeron

I was thinking lately about what bothers me about Elain, and something that occurred to me is that the main problem is not her character itself, but how SJM has portrayed her.

The way the people around her interact with her

There is a tendency from Elain's friends and family to infantilize her. This annoys me, because I feel that the only reason they infantilize her so much is that she is soft spoken and feminine, neither of which make her less capable of independent thought. She isn't actually much better than Nesta in the early chapters, but she is repeatedly given a free pass from others, which then creates resentment in some readers (myself included), asking, "why would she get a free pass on not being held accountable?"

This infantilization in turn robs the reader of information about who Elain is and her motivations

I think a lot of readers started warming up to Nesta after she reveals that her inaction was actually her being angry that her father was letting them starve and trying to force him into action. While we may not support the choice, it made her understandable, it made her human. Elain has a lot of choices where she is given a free pass--and because of that, she never has to defend herself, which would give us a window into her thoughts (as we got with Nesta, when she is confronted about some of this).

For example, it's odd to me that no one ever brings up issues like why she did nothing when Feyre provided for them. There are many possible reasons - for example, perhaps everyone infantilizes her based on her beauty and femininity to the point that she believes herself incapable of providing and is filling the role that appears to be carved out for her? - but we aren't given any of them.

And her engagement to Grayson, despite the fact that at that point Feyre is a Fae and she knows he would happily put her to death - maybe she had an interaction where Grayson showed her kindness and she felt abandoned by Feyre, so she clung to this person who presented her with protection. Or maybe she has seen glimpses of empathy and believed she could change him if he got to know Feyre. Even their love story itself, independent of Feyre and how that seems to conflict with it - we see the manor is a dreary place, and she quietly says something along the lines of it needing a woman's touch. Did she perhaps bond with Grayson over the loss of their mothers? Did he tell her how he was expected to fill the role of eldest son?

These are all just examples, there's a million possibilities. But because we don't get any of them, we aren't given the chance to connect with Elain like we do with Nesta and Feyre.

Telling, not showing, her good qualities

The final issue is that, in my opinion, SJM relies too much on telling us about Elain's good qualities and never showing them.

Now, I do think "show don't tell" is often overused - I see a lot of people use it to mean that you should show the minute facial expressions of a character rather than saying they're angry. Like, I'm a big proponent of just saying that they're fucking angry.

BUT where I think "show don't tell" is critical to a good story is showing the traits of a character. For example, for readers of The Poppy War, Rin is shown in her lessons at Sinegard to have ruthless strategy, so her later acts make sense because we know this about her.

We are constantly told Elain is so good, that she is given the power of being a seer because the Cauldron saw how good she is, but we don't actually see her do that much good. She hasn't done much that's objectionable, but she also doesn't seem to have many moments where she is actively trying to help people. And that's fine, not every character has to be a saint! But if a character is established as The Good One, The Kind One, etc you gotta show how exactly they are set apart from others as more "good" other than just ... refraining from being rude. It seems like a lot of it is that SJM has her in her head as having this quality and didn't bother to show it, because most examples we have are more along the lines of Nesta fighting Elain's battles for her, but that just shows Elain isn't super mean or confrontational, which is different from being a particularly good person. This didn't need to be part of her character, but if it is, we have to see it in action or at least hear some examples where she is showing this trait, and not just relative to Nesta's actions.

bonus: more infantilization

Also, there's scenes that just feel like they don't play well in terms of visualizing it. Like it seems weird to me to infantilize her to the point that her being captured - and not physically harmed - feels like it's treated as worse than a girl who is described as having been tortured to the point that her clothes have been almost entirely burned off her and are in tatters.

And Azriel is carrying Elain, but this girl who has apparently suffered torture on the level of a Hostel scene is walking?

(Look, I'm just saying, it's a goofy visual and if I was that girl I'd be pissed...)

All of this to say, none of these things are actually born of actions or traits of Elain, but how she's been depicted so far - for that reason, I'm hoping we learn more about Elain so that I can really connect with her ESPECIALLY if Elucien is endgame. I have a lot of thoughts about why Elucien makes so much sense to me, but I'll save those for a future post. But I actually don't mind how she reacts to Lucien, because it's one of the few times we see something about her (her resentment of being told she must want someone - even though I feel for our boy, that at least is something I can connect with).

But I am wondering if we will have a chance to better understand Elain through her having POVs in an upcoming book. At this point, I'm pretty neutral on Elain - but I hope that SJM can really dive into her character in a way we haven't seen so far.

I really love feminine, soft spoken women who are given a fully fleshed out character, so I think Elain actually has a lot of potential to become one of my favorites. But for that to happen, I'm going to need to feel like I know who she is...and right now I just don't feel like I do.

[bookofmirth]

i know a lot of people dislike nesta. but honestly as a fandom who are (most likely) majority women we should come together to discuss WHY ON EARTH nesta was made out to be the big bad villain in the pregnancy situation

it’s actually just unacceptable and sjm needs to talk about what possessed her to have rhys and cassian laugh about punishing nesta with that death hike and blame her for everything while rhys is … never held accountable for anything

i know rhys is her favourite bla bla bla but reading that hike scene made me so disgusting. are we just going to allow sjm to put NO BLAME on rhysands horrid behaviour and blame everything on nesta?

idk i need more people to be talking about why a woman was once again blamed for a man’s own actions. do i think nesta told her the right way? ABSOLUTELY NOT. and obviously she needed to be held accountable for that

but the way she was just humiliated, degraded and punished on that hike while rhys laughed with cassian over it was honestly vile and misogynistic

nesta told her in an awful way. she lashed out in a moment of anger. but she is not the villain in that situation and sjm trying to push that narrative for even a second is so disturbing when she has rhys come out squeaky clean. no one blames him for anything. no one reprimands or calls him out.

everyone head canons that feyre yelled at him or whatever but they were absolutely fine the next time we see them. he probably just gave her another sob story and she forgave him

i dont hate rhys at all really. he’s one of my favs. i think his treatment of nesta in acosf doesn’t make him a villain

but sjm making nesta at fault in that situation is just horrendous and we need to talk about sjms internalised misogyny as a fandom more and why acosf is praised as some sort of feminist book when the blatant misogyny is always so clear every time nesta is made as if she is some sort of horrible evil person that kills children in her free time while the inner circle are always so righteous and amazing and kind

idk sjm needs some objectivity in her writing and she immediately needs to get rid of that horrid bias towards rhys

I've been putting this off until I reread acosf, but it's been months so... fuck it.

I think there is a difference between how the characters interpret one another's actions, and how the reader does. We have the benefit of relative objectivity, especially when the narration is third person. Of course Rhys is going to be angry because Nesta made him look like the asshole (now I'm imagining him posting this whole scenario on AITA), but his anger is misplaced, and we the readers don't have to agree with his anger. We don't have to agree with anything that the characters are feeling, nor do their feelings necessarily mean that sjm condones them. I think it's a good idea to separate our feelings from the characters' feelings, as well as from the author's feelings. Those aren't the same, and one doesn't have to influence the other.

And tbh... I don't fault people for being mad at Nesta telling Feyre the way she did. She came in swinging with the intent to wound. It wasn't about fearing for her safety, or being concerned for her autonomy and agency. Nesta was pissed off and wanted to make someone else hurt. Even if the end result was that Feyre had knowledge about what was going on with her own body, Nesta did it with shady as fuck intentions. So yeah, that's an issue, like you said, but it's an issue that stems from her habit of lashing out, so it was On Brand for Nesta to have done something like that.

HOWEVER. Rhys is clearly at fault for getting this ball rolling in the first place. He's 100% a dick for hiding that information, he's 100% a dick for making everyone else hide that information for him, forcing them to choose between their High Lord and Lady, their High Lord and sister/bestie. (I still want to pay closer attention to who knew, in acosf, when I reread.) He's a dick for prioritizing his own fear above Feyre's ability to make informed medical decisions.

The IC also fucked up for keeping that information from her for Rhys's sake. No one came out of that situation looking like a saint, but I don't think that sjm intended for them to? Otherwise it wouldn't have been a conflict, it wouldn't have come at the climax of the story, and it wouldn't have worked as a way for Feyre and Nesta to reconcile, which is why I think it was done, personally. I don't think the main reason was to make Nesta into the asshole, or Rhys, that was just incidental as sjm was making her merry way along the plotline of "I need Feyre and Nesta to reconcile but idk how".

(I do think they could have reconciled without all this bullshit tho. It would have been so easy for Feyre to have KNOWN and decided to not shift and still end up almost dying. Or it would have been so easy for them to think the whole time that the pregnancy was fine and then have the birth be traumatic, and have Nesta enter and save them. We didn't have to go... there, making every character do shit that is so out of line with how they've treated each other before.)

Anyway, my point is that I think enough readers have interpreted Rhys as indeed being the asshole that we can question whether Nesta was intended to be "the bad guy" in that situation. I wish to fucking hell that we could see Feyre being mad at Rhys, I wish that we could see Mor/Cassian/Azriel tearing him a new asshole for putting them all in that shitty position. But that's the nice thing about being readers, we don't have to take things at face value, and we can also say "hm, I think the author intended X, but i'm gonna interpret Y." (As long as there is actual evidence for it, let's not get crazy.)

If anything, I think that acosf did Feyre dirty, which is really disappointing considering everything she's done for all the people around her.

[wolviecore]

hi, I just wanted to ask something. This has been bugging me for a while, but how come you're not as mad as Archie as you are at Betty? it takes TWO people to kiss...

Why hello!! I'm more than happy to rant about this because it's been on my BRAIN, just sitting there, so thanks for giving me an opportunity :D

So, I'm going to assume you're asking why I don't hold Betty and Archie to the same standard when it comes to bringing up the b*ghead break up/the infamous double judas kiss that started it all. To be as frank as possible; It's very much favoritism. But the justified kind, so lower your pitchforks.

Just by a quick scroll to my blog, I think it's unmistakably evident I like Archie over Betty; Like a red dot in a white room. You can't miss it. It's there. And as third party viewers, our individual feelings, opinion, and attachments we form towards these characters motivate the moral standards we set for them.

Take a generous majority of Betty stans, for example; Despite being united by the same romantic relationship in the show, they have a direct connection in strongly disliking the male half of said relationship; Jughead.

Betty is very much the golden child of B*gheads, so I figured it was fair game. Arguably, you can say some of them maintain some objectivism, but not enough for me to consider it valuable.

Now, am I saying Archie's a perfect angel who could do no wrong? That because he's the fandom's ' haha, big himbo Boi golden retriever stupid wholesome jock' means all guilt and responsibility should be absorbed from his part? No! Absolutely not.

I don't think there's anyone in this fandom who hates the " Archie is a perfect angel and our annoying but beloved protagonist " narrative more than I do;

Fuck. No. Archie is a violent, careless, emotionally inept douchebag, who wouldn't know what a non-dysfunctional relationship was if it spit in his eye. But here's a thing, Archie isn't the protagonist; He's the antagonist.

Arguably speaking, Archie's the most morally ambiguous/morally grey character on the show, in my opinion. Not because he struggles with separating dark from light, but because he chooses both.

I can't really look at a kiss and all that other shit he's done and be like ' oh YEA, kissing was definetly worse!' the same logic can apply to Betty, but here's ANOTHER thing; Archie didn't owe Jughead loyalty.

Archie wasn't his boyfriend; Archie wasn't the one promising he won't do it again; Archie wasn't the one who went behind his back. He's the mistress in this scenario, and mistresses aren't morally indebted to anyone.

Betty was. She was Jughead's girlfriend. She was the one who sang " you're the only man for me" and yet does the opposite, on quite clear multiple times. (There's accounts of consecutive emotional cheating as well) and she's the one who's actions hurt Jughead the most because SHE was dating him.

Hell, Archie and Jughead were barely even friends; I'll even argue to say a constant theme in the show is the constant construction and reconstruction of Jarchie's friendship. How they fail to be friends but still choose eachother, over and over again, because they're held together by memories and nostalgia.

Of course I can't hold the same bitterness for Archie when his involvement and presence in Jughead's life doesn't hold the same impact as Betty's. Archie never promised him anything. Betty did.

At best, Archie owes Jughead an apology, but his real target of compensation should be his actual partner. Veronica. Archie owes her remorse.

I'll even go ahead and say it - the varchie break up hurt more because their relationship was build on actual meaningful, mature grounds.

b*ughead is a middle schooler's relationship goals. Which is to be expected because they were 16, teenagers, yet! Archie and Veronica happen to be characters with more experience in romance, both by direct and indirect contact. (From multiple partners to their own parents separating respectively)

I don't necessarily like comparing emotional damage; I do my best not to cherry pick. However, I don't think I owe cheaters the courtesy of fair thinking.

There's no good reason to cheat. It's a destructive, cruel, abusive act of disrespect towards your partner, and I'm not at all moved by Betty's performative remorse, especially because she clearly doesn't feel it as much as the fandom pushes it.

But I'll say it once and I'll say it for as long as I can; If anti Barchies dislike barchie because they like Betty, I dislike b*ghead because I love Jughead.

[thetwominuteshate-blog]

Hello, cruel world.

I am exhausted with living on this earth.

I could throw literary quotes at you. I could tell you that society at large has become what the dystopian science fiction authors of yesteryear predicted it would. I could start this blog with a call to arms, urging you to riot in the streets and tear down the prison we've built for ourselves.

But the truth is I'm just tired. I'm tired of constantly living in fear. I'm tired of feeling no connection with the world around me. I'm tired of seeing so much suffering that spans continents, in "the greatest nation in the world", while criminals look down on us with derision from their ivory towers. I am tired of feeling as though, no matter what I do, my decisions are of no consequence. I'm tired of the world slowly eroding me until there is nothing good left in me. I'm tired of feeling alone, and I am so, so tired of seeing the world as it could be--as it SHOULD be--and always coming up so short I can't even see the finish line.

I've been rejecting the reality I've found myself in for far too long, escaping into worlds of my own making or the worlds others have created for the sake of escaping my own despair. But it doesn't have to be this way. I still reject this reality, the efficient brutality of a race that has been born into an environment so unforgiving that we fail to put our own violent natures behind us. I reject the notion that the world cannot improve. I have had enough.

Those of you who have read George Orwell's 1984 might remember the Two Minutes Hate. For those of you who haven't or have forgotten, the Two Minutes' Hate is a daily ritual put in place by a maddeningly restrictive government with the intention of directing the fear and anger of common individuals living in such a repressive society by placing them in front of a television screen that projects images of whomever the Party deems is an enemy. The Other. When I first read it, this excerpt in particular stood out to me:

"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp."

These days, most of what I see in the media is the Two Minutes Hate. Talking heads on two dimensional screens telling us who we should hate. Vicious propaganda that those who lack the will to fight the ones keeping them locked in misery buy into wholeheartedly. Instead of directing their rage at the ones responsible, people punch down, ostracizing people less fortunate than them.

But this isn't the reason why I chose to name this blog after the Two Minutes Hate. Because hate is a funny thing--when we don't let it eat away at us, it gives us the strength to fight without abandon. It causes us to reduce things to rubble and burn the remains so there is no trace of its existence. It can be a powerful tool. But it is fire, and most of us, if not all, aren't well enough equipped with the knowledge to know which things are worth burning.

I've been filled with hate nearly for as long as I can remember. Full disclosure: I'm a 27-year-old white, bisexual cis male. For most of my life I lived in a small town and have largely kept myself in seclusion due to bullying throughout my childhood into my teen years. I only recently became aware of the deepening aspects of my sexuality, but over the years I've faced baseless accusations of homosexuality to the point that a cowardly bully had his friend fight me. As a result, I faced suspension. My school district, like most, put on a public face that disavowed bullying, but enabled it when it occurred. The culture I was surrounded by swam in toxic masculinity, boys that pretended to be men through the ownership of trucks flying the Confederate flag and other meaningless, superficial displays of their own insecurities. My "community", which is so very important to conservative culture, treated me like a stubborn weed long before I could even grasp cruelty. I felt suffocated, unable to flourish because there was always someone watching my every move. As a result, I've come to loathe authority in all its forms.

That's just backstory, though. Over the years I've come to realize that my circumstances were relatively fortunate. I'm privileged; people have been murdered over the merest suspicion that they might be gay. There are people who face severe bullying on a near-daily basis, and that's in this country alone. The atrocities committed in our world's history dwarf mine to a subatomic level. I've had friends who have been raped, faced child and domestic abuse, and even now are in circumstances far more dire than my own. It's no longer for my own sake that I hate, it's for those who are beaten down and cannot fight back, whether on an individual or cultural basis.

I'm not here to play white, straight(ish) savior. In fact, I wouldn't even consider myself to be an ordinary person. I am on the verge of mental instability--for years I've felt the effects of severe depression, which is finally in check. For a time I was so suicidal that I abused substances on a daily basis because the only calming thoughts I had in sobriety were of my own death. I have a deep desire to hurt and destroy, to get back at the world that I feel cut me open and left me to bleed out. I'm a sadist and a masochist in the BDSM scene. I have twisted fantasies that run so deeply to my core and no outlet for them outside of the scene. I want to make others suffer for the injustices they inflict upon those who are undeserving of pain. Because whoever came up with the idiom, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" should have been tortured without cause, broken by suffering that held no ultimate meaning. Then he'd have a greater grasp on the state of the reality as it is.

Hate is addictive. Orwell was right; it spreads like a wildfire, and it's impossible not to be caught in the blaze yourself unless you sequester yourself with comfort and ignorance. And turning a blind eye to the problems others face, whether it's next door or on the other side of the globe, is possibly worse. Until now, I've feared the repercussions of acting against authority, the odds of my successful retribution stacked heavily against me. Even now, I fear the things I will express will draw fire from all sides, so I'm shielding myself through an anonymity browser in order to ward off potential enemies, whether they are a collective agency like the NSA or some alt-right IT cunt with internet access. Those of us in the United States have been officially granted a right to free speech, but we live in an era in which seizing that right can go so far as to get you killed, especially if you call for progress and your voice is heard by millions.

But my end goal is not society's complete collapse. There are pieces of this world worth preserving. I may only be useful for tearing things down, but someday I hope someone will build them back up into something better that works for all people. I long to help individuals understand that all people are just that--people. Not secondary or tertiary characters in your life, good-or-evil projections onto a screen for you to scream at. It's this mentality that causes entire populations to suffer, and I know my work will never be done until the most marginalized find a place in society.

But this is not a call to empathy. Part of recognizing each other's humanity is holding each other accountable for their actions. I believe no person can be perfectly good--we all do terrible things, myself thoroughly included--but there are those of us who are so mindlessly destructive in their actions that I honestly believe the world would be better off without them. This quality of malignance does not discriminate between race, gender, or age. We are among self-made monsters on a daily basis, and they deserve as much sympathy as they dole out.

Words without action are meaningless. I don't intend to sit here and tell y'all to start a French-style bloodletting while I sit comfortably in a downtown loft. This is a time for action. This is a time for violence. This is a time to stand up against the birth of fascism in the so-called "Land of the Free". This is a time for hate.

I am Winston Smith, and this is my Two Minutes Hate. This is my war. Will you join me?