#grisha discourse

[howtostandinsilence]

darkling fans: in depth discussions about the harmful depiction of persecution in the novels and the racist and antisemitic ways the darkling is written, highlighting how the darkling could have still been a villain if the grisha as a persecuted and marginalized people had been handled better and the story was more aware of itself and the problems it was discussing. detailing where leigh bardugo’s inability to understand politics and oppression led to a damaging puritanical framework for her story that flattened her characters, distracting from the message she was trying to tell and forcing her to rely on ‘tell don’t show’ to convey themes she had no real grasp of.

explaining how they sympathize with the darkling’s efforts to achieve freedom for his people, even if they don’t agree with his methods, and see themselves in the suffering he’s faced at the hands of his oppressors. saying they like the potential he had as a character even as a villain if the story had only been better written.

finding fault in a narrative that champions the return to the status quo and the support of an oppressive monarchy. citing the canonical ways the grisha suffered worse after the darkling’s death and talking about how zoya’s depiction as queen was even more harmful for it’s shallow dismissal of how bigotry and persecution actually works within a system and the very real harm that was done to her people for thousands of years. providing detailed analysis of racism within the grishaverse and how leigh bardugo inadvertently ends up championing forced assimilation for her persecuted fantasy race.

antis, with reading comprehension so fatal they can’t even understand basic literary analysis and critical thinking: darkling fans think of the darkling as a left wing hero! shadow and bone is so so subversive. he represents the most evil men and he is the worst there is! people only like him because he’s so hot... even though mal is also described as hot, and nikolai is too... 

#shadow and bone #the grisha trilogy #anti darkling bs #anti darklina bs #anti shadow and bone #the darkling #sab discourse

[theweeklydiscourse]

It feels like beyond the pro-darkling/darklina sphere, it’s kind of rare to see Shadow and Bone fans truly cut to the bone about the underlying issues in both the trilogy and Leigh Bardugo’s subsequent spinoff series.

Honestly that could just be because I’m thinking of specific areas like YouTube or TikTok where this brand of critique is few and far between, but for a series as old as this one, I’d expect there to be a little more in-depth reflection on it’s flaws.

We’ll see a few similar points that are brought up frequently, but you’ll find that the critics who raise these points do so on a surface level. For example, the most common criticism of the series is the fact that it felt wrong to have the heroine lose her powers at the end, but it’s more common for people to just leave it at that instead of digging deeper into why it felt that way. Even then, you’ll have the odd contrarian piping up to argue that the people criticizing that aspect of the series just didn’t “get it” the way they did and that it was perfectly fine storytelling.

Inversely, you will hardly see any content that discusses the issues of the Grisha persecution storyline even on a surface level unless you delve into pro-darkling circles. Despite materials like Demon in the Woods and the Nikolai duology that display the Grisha’s plight in vivid detail, it isn’t a common topic of discussion among fans. When pushed to the limit, you’ll even see fans denying that the Grisha were ever oppressed at. On some level it makes sense why fans wouldn’t exactly be keen on discussing the flaws of their precious books, but it almost feels as though the fandom actively discourages discussions like this.

It could be that I’m just not searching hard enough, but I hardly see any YouTube videos or TikToks that discuss these things or try to dig into the issues with the series. You have the usual suspects like it being built on cliches, annoying heroine, annoying love interest and a terrible ending, but I feel like I need more.

#fandom discourse #grishaverse fandom #pro darkling #the darkling #alina starkov #Grisha persecution #s&b critical #lb critical #shadow and bone #aleksander morovoza #shadow and bone season 2 #shadow and bone netflix #grishaverse #demon in the wood #king of scars

[greensaplinggrace]

“but the otkazat’sya are suffering too!” girl the otkazat’sya have one thousand safe havens to choose from. because it is their entire country and they are the privileged majority. they never have to fear that they are alone or isolated or vulnerable in a land that caters directly to them. do you understand. the grisha have one safe haven in a land that fucking hates them and seeks to strip away their basic human rights at every second. they are not the same.

Wdyt about Israel Palestine

i think that anybody trying to bring a real life attempt at fucking genocide into petty fandom bullshit maybe needs to take a step back a little. what the fuck is wrong with you people.

i think that i don't know nearly enough about the situation to make a statement about anything, but it's pretty damn obvious that israel is making an attempt at wiping out palestine. next person to bring this subject into my ask box as fandom discourse is getting blocked by the way. there are people fucking dying out there right now.

i also think that it's fucking ridiculous to take a statement out of context and try to spin it in some accusatory direction, considering the context is that the otkazat'sya hold irrevocable power within this fictional universe and seek to cull the grisha despite their safe haven. which is genocide. last I checked genocide is bad. it really shouldn't have to be stated that this is fucking fiction versus reality, though. literally what the fuck.

#shadow and bone #grishaverse #i cant believe ive actually been seeing this discourse in the tags #antis need to shut up #what on earth is wrong with you #it also doesn't help that the grisha were based on and parallel american jewish ghettoization #based on what the author has stated #like can you all stop to think for maybe two seconds #genocide tw #persecution tw #sab salt #shadow and bone discourse #sab discourse #anti sab #negative #fandomcourse #i guess #yeesh #what's next #anon #asks and answers #myramlings

[darklesmylove]

as someone who has been in the six of crows and shadow and bone fandom since it came out ten years ago it’s so weird seeing people that are such big fans of the netflix series that haven’t read the books. there’s so much complexity to the characters that you just can’t capture on a screen and though they’ve done a great job so far, there’s much to be said for getting to know characters on paper before they’re actualized in film.

for example, kaz’s inner monologue. there’s no way to really dive into the depth and complexity of his emotion in tv without verbalizing it to some extent, which would defeat the purpose of this silent inner turmoil he rarely externalizes (particularly regarding inej). don’t get me wrong, freddy has done a stellar job so far, but there’s that extra layer of inner monologue that’s missing that added so much in the duology.

another example is the skipping over of alina developing relationships with the supporting cast like zoya. the payoff of zoya betraying the darkling and following alina is undermined by the fact that there was next to no interactions between them in the series up to this point besides the initial fight. taking out zoya and mal sleeping together was also a strategic choice to make the malina dynamic healthier in my opinion, but it then removes that extra antagonism between the two that again leads to the payoff of them becoming friends.

this is just my two cents, and a hopeful attempt at getting more people to read the books because they’re fantastic, particularly six of crows! and season two is going to be absolutely stellar with all of the characters finally together!

#im like an old hag in fandom even though im 22 lmao #i stepped away from things bc i hate discourse and popularity equals fighting #but im here! #s&b #shadow and bone #shadow and bone netflix #tgt #the grisha trilogy #soc #six of crows #alina starkov #jessie mei li #the darkling #aleksander morovoza #general kirigan #ben barnes #genya safin #zoya nazyanelsky #nikolai lantsov #kaz brekker #freddy carter #inej ghafa #amita suman #nina zenik #matthias helvar #jesper fahey #kit young #wylan van eck #jack wolfe

[rist-ix]

The sparxshipping teasing from Iginio got me wondering.... if we ever did get canon sparxshipping explored, whether in a reboot or new adaptation, how would you like it for it to be done?

I'm gonna try to answer both of these in one post cause they overlap a little, but first of all thank you!

Buckle up fellas I'm bringing discourse.

This is gonna be a bit of an unpopular opinion I think, and it’s that I don’t want sparxshipping to be canon at all.

Feel free to get the pitchforks, but until then imma talk. I have villainships that I think not only add something to the overall plot, they kind of define it too. Reylo for examples, with its themes of redemption, masks and compassion, or Darklina and how important their relationship is to the war and Grisha oppression, or Lotor and Allura with its symbolism of breaking the cycle of abuse, making peace, reclaiming a heritage thought lost and so on.

To put it very briskly: an established Sparxshipping relationship adds nothing to the plot. It would have to be a plot of its own, and while there are tons of fascinating plot threads you could weave back into Domino, Bloom's family and the war before the Fall, it is simply, plainly, and rightfully so not the story Winx Club is telling.

Winx Club, at its core, is about the girls and their friendship. That is the show I love, and that is the show I am invested in. Fanfiction is a separate thing, I’ll get into that later. But canon, commercially produced and globally aired Winx Club is what we are talking about now. And the one defining truth of Winx Club is that it’s about the Winx. Their boyfriends are the side note, the Kens to their Barbies, to cement them as the cool popular teenagers younger kids are supposed to see them as. If Bloom and Valtor had a lasting serious relationship, Valtor would inevitably have to be shoved into that category as well, and that would ruin the entire appeal of him.

To boil it down even more: if sparxshipping were canon, either Winx Club would have to shift away from its intrinsic premise and formula, or Valtor would have to be diminished beyond recognition. So my longstanding opinion has always been: don’t make sparxshipping canon. Just don’t.

What I, personally, would do if I were ever to gain access to the mythical and likely overcrowded writing room at Rainbow SpA, is this:

Tease the fuck out of it.

Lean into their fucked up little hate-obsession. Every time they share the screen they have to be radiating unresolved sexual tension. Their chemistry has to be so off-the-charts it sparks a million fanfics before the season even ends. If there aren’t so many crappy amv's set to angsty Taylor swift songs it brings down the YouTube servers by midnight you have failed. Because canon is bound to certain limits, but fanfiction is NOT. The goal of any show should be to create something that will awaken an inescapable need to build on it, to continue where it left off, or to wonder but-what-if? To make people text incoherent keysmashes to their fandom buddies with shaky hands in the middle of the night and be unable to sleep until they’ve confirmed their buddy has seen it too.

I would want to see Bloom go fully I-have-lost-sight-of-everything-but-revenge until her friends manage to pull her back, I would want them to fight so vehemently the structures around them collapse and they don’t even notice. They should be in situations where they are UNDENIABLY going to die if they fight on and they still do it, they literally CANNOT stop, they don’t care to. To the point that everyone around them is seriously concerned and talking about their terrifying obsession with each other, more or less out in the open. And after a season full of epic fight scenes, high stake conflicts and frankly obscene tension between them, I would want Bloom to kill him.

Straight up.

Give her that moment of calm self assurance, at peace and perfectly in control, while Valtor tries to gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss his way out of this, contrasting the way her support network and genuine, unconditional friendships strengthen her while Valtor, who is always sabotaging everyone around him, is forced to confront his own powerlessness in the face of the power that created him. His manipulation attempts have nothing to latch on to. They have one last exchange where Valtor is visibly furious at her denial of him / his own failure — to really drive home that this is Bloom's triumph — but the last words they exchange are cordial. Maybe a comment at her growth, or a warning about his mothers, or another way to foreshadow future threats — if he couldn’t defeat her, no one should. He ends on a high note, but he does end, and it’s at Bloom's hands. She retakes the corrupted spark into the Flame she is guarding, and that is that.

And then, and this is important. He fucking haunts her for the entire next story arc. The next season, the next two seasons maybe, because she has learned a fuck ton of things from him and it is really, really difficult to move on knowing everything she does, knowing everything he implied or hinted at, or simply knowing so many really, really cruel ways to get her way now, which isn’t who she wants to be, but it would be easy, quick and effective for the greater good, right?

Boom, character conflict for the next season established, lots of potential for future flashbacks or visions, Valtor stays on his high horse of forever-the-juiciest-fucking-villain-of-the-franchise and the story can move on.

The End

Cue three decades of mind-blowing fanfiction. We all say Thank you Rainbow and cry ourselves to sleep thinking about what could have been.

#sparxshipping #asks #the ugly truth is that a perfect piece of media that gives everyone what they want is not a piece of media that inspires a lot of fan works #fandom to me is so much more fun there is that gap. that whole of teased-but-unexplored potential #with enough canon material to sustain it and go of #but even more questions and what ifs and theories and fuck it I’ll do it myself #you feel me?

[mihrsuri]

Tell People About Your WIPs

I kind of came up with this one myself + was inspired by others but: make a list of all your WIPs with a brief description of each and then people can ask you questions about them and then tag other people.

So uh, mine are below.

I am tagging: @miabicicletta @onekisstotakewithme @unseenacademic @emilykaldwen @naurielrochnur @doomhamster @dr-dendritic-trees @sarking @bessemerprocess @nocompromise-noregrets and anyone who wants to do it.

The Big Active Ones

Crown Of Ashes: What if you get everything you think you wanted and it Fucking Sucks Actually.

Rewrite The Stars 2.0: What if hot Thomas Cromwell and a bi triad marriage caused the kindest possible world.

Grishaverse Hunger Games: Darkling going to Darkling. Unfortunately for everyone around him. The Grisha-Crows-Nikolai poly found family is extremely real.

Tortall Found Family: Jon of Conte is a man stealing two faced skank says Emperor Ozorne.

The Ones That Are OT3 Verse Ideas

Dance Rehearsal Content:

Unmasked Part I and II fandom reactions

Norwich Fandom Discourse

Tudor Ships + Taylor Swift

English Civil War: AU edition

Some things that will be going into the OT3 verse main story rewrites eventually

Helen Norwich

Robert proposes to Elizabeth

John and Jane Dudley

Gregory Cromwell has some feelings

hot Thomas Boleyn rights

Misc

Tristan Staghorn deserves this workplace frankly

Multifandom Sex Slave AU (aka ‘that is yours, I am not’)

President Joanna Bartlet and her wife Abbey

Robert Dudley Travels Back In Time

TWW Ballet AU

Persian Jewish Sara Crewe

Race Bent LOTR graphics

Jed/Abbey/Leo OT3 where the “scandal” is their relationship being found out rather than the MS

the oh god we are actually dating Leo/John Marbury that might end in an OT4 with Jed and Abbey.

District One in the Hunger Games as inspired by @lorata world building.

Vulcan!Amanda and Human!Sarek

Mirror Verse Girl Saves Boy

#meme

[stromuprisahat]

Do you think there's discourse among the grisha

Like the younger Grisha fight over the words bloodletter and witch and if Grisha is outdated/a slur and we really should be using odarannye

Meanwhile Ivan is off somewhere to the side like 'I cannot WAIT until you lot go off to the front, let's see if you're still worrying about fuckin WORDS while dodging Fjerdan FUCKIN axes'

Absolutely!

If not in general, officer brats definitely do shit like that. I mean:

The servants sprang forward to pull our chairs out and clear the dishes. I doubted I’d ever get used to being waited on this way. “Ne brinite,” Marie said with a giggle. “What?” I asked, baffled. “To e biti zabavno.” Nadia giggled. “She said, ‘Don’t worry. It will be fun.’ It’s Suli dialect. Marie and I are studying it in case we get sent west.” “Ah,” I said. “Shi si yuyan Suli,” said Sergei as he strode past us out of the domed hall. “That’s Shu for ‘Suli is a dead language.’” Marie scowled and Nadia bit her lip. “Sergei is studying Shu,” whispered Nadia. “I got that,” I replied. Marie spent the entire walk to the stables complaining about Sergei and the other Corporalki and debating the merits of Suli over Shu. Suli was best for missions in the northwest. Shu meant you’d be stuck translating diplomatic papers. Sergei was an idiot who was better off learning to trade in Kerch. She took a brief break to point out the banya ... then launched immediately into a rant about selfish Corporalki overrunning the baths every night.

Shadow and Bone- Chapter 9

While Alina isn't the most reliable narrator, she might be onto something, when she has her super powerful re-organisation speech:

“The Darkling has changed. If we have any hope of beating him, we need to change, too. Two Grisha from each Order,” I repeated. “And the Orders will no longer sit separately. You’ll sit together, eat together, and fight together.” At least I’d gotten them to shut up. They just stood there, gaping. ... “But … but it’s always been this way,” sputtered Sergei. “You can’t just overturn hundreds of years of tradition,” protested the Inferni. “Are we really going to argue about this, too?” I asked irritably. “We’re at war with an ancient power beyond reckoning, and you want to squabble over who sits next to you at lunch?” “That’s not the point,” said Zoya. “There’s an order to things, a way of doing them that—” They all started gabbling again—about tradition, about the way things were done, about the need for structure and people knowing their places. I set the cover back down on the dish with a loud clang. “This is the way we’re doing it,” I said, rapidly losing patience. “No more Corporalki snobbery. No more Etherealki cliques. And no more herring.”

Siege and Storm- Chapter 14*

But then looking at this, they seem to be more likely screaming about Grisha being traditional name, oddarenye innovatory bullshit and zowa foreign nonsense.

It's like watching US movie about those university fraternities. Wording and notions are the same. Traditions, order of things, enmity between "different" groups and spiteful actions. Pretty sure we could extrapolate a little and add creepy/humiliating/kinky initiation rituals etc.

Ivan's totally right. They truly need some hardcore reality vibe check.

_____

* I'll get into the S&S quote deeper, once I'll get to that chapter, because OHMYFUCKINGGODS, Aleksander "Eat, drink, dress the same like my subordinates" would surely tolerate such behaviour in his own ranks.

#reply #Grishaverse #grishanalyticritical #Second Army #Ivan Kaminsky #S&B Chapter 9 #S&S Chapter 14 #books #quotes #Leigh Bardugo

[rotzaprachim]

8 + one or two questions of your choice for the grishaverse :)

8) common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

the ken-dollification himbo-isation of matthias especially as it's used to kind of... flatten the mental processes of discombobulation and dissasociation and dislocation that come from being deradicalised from a cult? he thinks kaz is a demon but was he really wrong about that? i think matthias's character has a LOT more complexity in the books than people give him or the arc credit for and the way the very complex IRL psychology of how all-consuming and total the logic of cults and religious extremism are is flattened into big dumb dumb... dumb dumb... as well as the idea of matthias's ken-doll like ignorance around sex and whatnot as being some kind of light fun character trait instead of almost sometimes a write-off of the very real fact he was very much in a genocidal cult... idk man. it grinds my gears.

also! kaz's *distance* towards inej in the books! look he's not Nice to her and i don't want to excuse that but he has VERY good reasons apart from his own prudishness to keep that distance and that is that he is the boss and she is the employee! kaz keeping distance between himself and inej is the most ethical thing he can do in the most unbelievably unethical situation possible and i don't think a lot of fandom keeps that in mind esp during fics during the pre-soc era. THAT's why it's SO important he pays off her contract in CK it's literally the first step that possibly could happen in order for their relationship to progress in any ways.

what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

that person who plagiarized my fic and became a big name author in fandom sure grinds my gears/

worst part of fanon?

not a fan of a lot of the kanej content that kind of makes a sexual show of kaz being mean to inej or things that edge on straight up domestic abuse cause he's AWFUL it's JAIL TO KAZ FOR A MILLION YEARS JAIL like don't get me wrong he is REALLY awful, terrible even, i don't vibe with the tailorswiftisation of him either but like.... not to Inej he isn't. the reproduction of the if a boy is mean to you he LIKES YOU LIKES YOU thing but under new wording idk. anyway if he treated inej IN EITHER BOOK OR SHOW CANON like he does in a bunch of fics i'd literally want her to murder him no jokes

topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

the disk horse is always on the darkling being jewish and not a single. other. grisha. why are zoya tamar nina and jesper never jewish omg. why are the fics always the crows celebrate xmas and never jesper's crazy exciting fun hot girl purim party!!!!! why not that.

and finalllllyyyyyyy

a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

people can write matthias very aggressively controlling nina during sex but also i hate it and don't buy it. guys the princess and the fjerdan was a joke (and a commentary about eroticised xenophobia) for a reason. guys. his canonical sexual fantasy as of CK is about going down on her guys. the only way he's a top is if he's a service top or something y'know? anyway.

#shadow and bone #i think there should be more fic about nina lovingly deflowering matthias tho. like i think their should be #i dont' usually say this but i think the potentials for both of their characterisations to be expanded via the means of fanfic sex scene??? #insane #but it's like. the reyl0-isation of everything. #a vibe when reading helnik or kanej or rebelcaptain like this feels really wierd #(what's weird is the presence of a) breeding kink or b) men being creepy and controlling in ways kaz or cassian would NEVER BE) #and then you go look and the main thing this person wrote is reyl0

[v-arbellanaris]

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#mnav

[howtostandinsilence]

How do you get a detailed response about criticizing the racism in the Grishaverse and somehow come out thinking that person cares more about how hot the Darkling is? How do you see someone focus their entire argument on the incorrect and offensive portrayal of the Grisha and thus the Darkling as a character and think their only concern is how fuckable the Darkling is?

Nobody is trying to justify his actions. They’re trying to talk about how persecution and oppression operates within the Grishaverse, and how Leigh Bardugo incorrectly portrayed that. The Darkling is a large part of that discussion because he’s the main antagonist, and is subject to an extensive amount of stereotyping and offensive themes which practically make him a caricature.

Discussing how the Grisha are portrayed doesn’t preclude discussing the harm caused by the Darkling. But when every major theme ties Grisha traits to the Darkling, ties the entirety of their fight for their rights to him, and then turns around and makes him another badly stereotyped vilified revolutionary, people are going to want to discuss that.

You can’t separate the bad writing of the Darkling from the bad writing of the Grisha as a whole when the story works tirelessly to make the two things interchangeable. The Grisha revolution should be separate from the Darkling as a character, the problem is that it’s not.

#sab discourse #leigh bardugo critical #this is ridiculous #we're arguing the same thing #and the only thing we disagree on is seemingly that the darkling should not be analyzed under the same lens as the grisha plight #why should he be given a watsonian analysis whilst the grisha are given a doylist one? #the frustration is that you are criticizing the darkling's character on a different level from the overall writing as a whole #but the two are not separable #you cannot have a doylist analysis with a watsonian one #you're arguing two different things at that point #anti darkling bs #but it's not because neither of us is anti darkling #this discussion is circular

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Even Baghra points out that Aleks could have won Alina's love! Even her, validates the notion of love between them. If Aleks built an intimate relationship with Alina to the point that she envisioned a future with him, and he was able to get her love...

Darklina love is literally involved in the dialogues of the series, in addition to their aspect of soulmates with light and darkness, yin and yang, as well as the other parallels that there are between them. Whether it is their relationships ; Luda / Mal. Their outfits / hairstyle ; Alina literally has her hair done like young Aleks during her stay at the little palace, and even their clothes are similar. Their shadows who kiss before them in episode 5. Their goals ; Save Ravka / protect the Grisha. The use of Merzost. Their talk/way of talking and holding each other in season 2. The point is that without the Darkling, Alina has no balance, which is basically confirmed by the fact that she literally gets her powers back at the end by using the same forbidden magic as him. Reasons why I can't believe Darklina won't have interactions in the future with such an ending. It would be highly unlikely.

So why the hell are there big debates in order to point out that Mal is Alina's true /great love ? It sounds so wrong with this kind of information. I don't deny that Alina likes Mal. He is her family, as well as her first crush thereafter. But he never made her feel like anything more than ordinary, special. And she confirms it well with Baghra by saying that it was Aleks who was the first to see that in her. By the way, it reminded me of the dialogue between the Darkling and Mal in season 1, when he talks to him in episode 7.

Besides, I'm very grateful that they didn't include in the series this stupid dialogue where Alina explains to Mal in volume 3 that they were meant for each other and that they would have found each other even if she had lived in the little palace... Bullshit... Instead, they gave us the fact that after getting rid of her firebird aspect, Mal, no longer feels that real north between them. So the notion of fate between Malina is literally erased and if they're together in the future it will be by choice and because it's fate or that backpedaling bullshit the author tried to do in the tome 3 by Grisha.

By the way, I hope that in season 3, Mal will get some real personality development. He passed in season 1, but in season 2... much less.

It is hard to see M*lina as this great love when you compare it with darklina who as, you've pointed out, the show has gone a long way to show as this fated pair, they've got the whole yin/yang, light/dark etc aesthetic and theme going for them, plus all the parallels. I think the whole discourse of people trying to argue that M*l is Alina's great love comes from the author as after her third book was released she gave an interview saying that the whole book story was always supposed to be about M*l and Alina the underdogs that nobody cared about, unfortunately this was true nobody did care about them including the majority of the readers. There is just no competition when you've got darklina there who have a really interesting soulmate type dynamic, as a result it just wasn't believable that m*lina were the ones fated to be together which is part of the reason why the ending was so unpopular. Honestly if the show does decide to go for a M*lina ending I think it would be a mistake as even in the show they just aren't that popular.

#darklina #anti malina #s&b season 2 spoilers #answered

[thesilverlady]

(a bit of rant) the Hypocrisy is truly the only thing that destroyed my enjoyment of hotd/f&b people take the whole team thing waaay to seriously as if we're rooting for footballs teams and not an interesting story that could be analyzed and interpret in many ways . not to talk about the moral police who attack you for enjoying problematic characters\ships but also go in their way to enjoy other problematic characters\ships. like the asoiaf fandom was become waaay worse than it used to be after GOT s7\s8 for some reason

I completely get it and I'm sorry they sucked the enjoyment out of you.

I'll admit I used to get frustrated over some people who would say "it's just color wars" or "they all suck so pick a fav criminal and move on" 'cause in my mind that meant they didn't understand or appreciate the story told from the book but after taking some time offline and touching some grass, I came to the conclusion that while I can't and shouldn't push my interpretations onto others I also don't have to put up with terrible takes I see.

I'll admit the fandom has become an extremely unwelcoming space: side 1: are the book purists who while I 100% can sympathize with wanting a faithful adaptation, I've often see them treating others like shit over crackships and toxic pairs, as if the entirely of asoiaf isn't built on that. The truth is they don't really care about "problematism" they just hate seeing a character they like being (what they consider to be) misinterpreted by others in fan content like fics, headcanon and arts etc.

Again I sympathize because I used to feel the same for another fandom (the grisha trilogy) but holding onto these feelings can only make you feel miserable. The two healthy solutions I've found are: either move on or create content you want to see - because I guarantee there will be others who want to see the same thing you do

side 2: show viewers who don't care about the book (which is valid. you can't force someone to read or becoming invested in the lore) but will also lose their mind over canon discussions because it doesn't match up with the version that exist in the showverse so that leads them to interpret the rest of the fandom as whining and lacking joy because "it's not that deep" and "why can't you just enjoy this"

side 3: is a mixed of both, which i consider the worst bunch because there's no victory with them. You show too much love for the book? Then you automatically hate the cast and you're -ist -obic. You love the show? Have you written 10 think pieces a day and support what is commonly accepted for the characters by the fandom? Because if you haven't you're a fake. You like a single green character despite not supporting their side of the war? You're obviously a misogynist. You ship non-canon ships? you're deranged. You ship canon ships? you're problematic and an apologist.

See?

the way I've come to treat asoiaf as a whole (including f&b/hotd side) is how I treat the star wars fandom (which consists of a similiar toxic fanbase):

a) don't. enter. discourses.

you'll never change anyone's mind and they'll never change yours. Only enter an argument if the person gives normal sanity vibes or is a friend and won't have a problem if you two have different opinions on something

b) treat it as a solo thing.

The way I view this account is basically. I throw a ball at a wall and maybe someone will hear the noise and come play with me. Can it lonely? Sure. But it pays off when someone sees the earning signs I've left on this account and still decides to interact on their own

c) Be the person you want to interact with

This one can be hard because emotions always have a way to get in the way, but try to be someone you'd want to hang out in a fandom. In the past, I've gotten asks that say even though they don't agree with some of my interpretations about the characters they feel welcome here in regards of "teams". That's something I've been aiming for myself.

Anyways as to recent fandoms have become a bit of a nightmare with hypocrisy obsessive need for censorship and morality lessons as well as the quest of ending "romanticization" of anything, it has become a struggle for many. Try to combat it if you're willing because there are definitely other people other there who feel exactly the way you do.

Otherwise, a pause for personal space and to take care of yourself is never bad. In the end, I hope you can re-find some enjoyment for this fandom and if you ever need to vent more about it my asks & dms are open and judgement-free ♥

#ask reply #anti hotd fandom #anti asoiaf fandom

[southslates]

god that zk / d*rkalina post reminds me of why i left that fandom, i really hate how you can’t simply say you don’t like something without a bunch of people jumping on your back accusing you of ‘policing’ them or smth like how is me personally thinking something is gross affecting you? idk. esp since i’m black and they go doubly hard after me if i so much as imply that i don’t like something specifically because of racism / misogynoir.

it’s like when some atla fans get pissed off that not everyone likes aang. like he was never my favorite. after b3 / comics i actively dislike him. but every time i say i don’t like him i’m a monster who bullies 12 y/o and hates ‘non dramatic’ ships. like no, i… simply just do not like him. i never came for you. i just said i don’t like him and his (lack of) character development imo.

sorry for ranting in your inbox i am just sick of being demonized for not liking things by the so called ‘you do you’ crowd. ironically i feel like those white ‘fandom old’ types target people just as much as those they say they despise sometimes :/

right and the most annoying thing is that they claim they're all for you do you, but there's a difference between acknowledging something is unhealthy BUT fictional and romanticizing something that is unhealthy? some people don't seem to draw the line...and like i guess it's "you do you" and that's their business, but if we're going to state our opinions and accept that everyone's opinion is valid as long as they don't infringe upon other's opinions, then like....you can still be criticized

sorry you've dealt with misogynoir and racism in fandom, it really is sad how such a safe place ends up being a microcosm of the world that sometimes even amplifies its worst aspects in very insidious ways, because you leave your guard down when you're in fandom, you assume it's a safe space, and then...

i've always said i never dislike ships because of ships, but because of shippers. i loved darklina and i thought the dynamic was so cool to explore (as i said i've written several fics, like the first was when i was thirteen) but then the way i was harassed on twitter for disliking how people compared it to kanej in some form...ruined the ship for me. like, i never said don't ship it? i basically always said that darklina has a cool dynamic to explore but that i didn't want it to be canon because that is the normalization of abuse in its canonical interpretation. maybe there is a world where it could have been done and it being canon would not have been a bad impression on thirteen year old girls like me, the first time i read the grisha trilogy. but well, it isn't this one. i was there and i wish malina was better in the books lol so i would have found darklina less appealing.

but yes with the aang thing, too! i think the "you do you" anti harassment crowd has its extremes, especially when they defend racist and problematic behavior towards real life individuals in fandom as on the same tier of fictional interaction, especially because this defined "harassment" is not people venting on their accounts without instigating discourse. people will always have their opinions.

zk fandom has had a lot of issues with big name white fans conflating real problematic behavior within the fandom with general proship harassment. it's what drove me out of the fandom last year and i pray it will not happen again because it really really bothered me at the time

but anon i do empathize so so much with you <3 sucks that a supposed safe space like fandom still has so many complications--i just want to do my own thing, and that includes hating on things, in peace ✌️

#anon asks #anti darklina #dee rants #again not anti darklina. anti some aspects of the twitter fandom. but there are some zks who do ship darklina more so #for blacklisting #zutara fandom

[onwriting-hrarby]

Rotten Judgement - On your character's shoes and the fiction

Some days ago, I stumbled across a tweet that made me reflect on how people were seeing my work and what they searched in fiction. Although this isn't meant to be inspired as a reply, I do think that I have some thoughts about fanfiction and the power of fiction that I have been meaning to share with you all since Chapter 3.

When I published Chapter 3—the first chapter in which Eren delves into the past, and we see a glimpse of Grisha being racist, how Eren and Armin meet Mikasa and the internalized racism they offer, and how Mikasa is basically set apart from the other kids not only because of her race but also because of her economical status—I got anxiety over what I was writing, and how people would interpret it. I wrote the longest author's note ever.

I was afraid because I know racism isn't something people look for in fanfiction. One of the criticisms I've gotten is that I've made fiction characters take one stand they didn't embody in canon. Well, the critique is not something I share: I do fanfiction not to recreate canon again, but to use characters I love to explore other sides of the human psyche. I know Eren is not a racist in canon—or Grisha—but in my works, in this distinctive work in fact, I want them to be. It works for my plot. It's OOC? Yes. But the canon material stands, and exists, you're free to go check your Eren every time you want. I don't feel like I'd like to write fanfiction if I were to be constrained into a character's psyche just because it's canon.

Secondly, I know most of us want tropes, and happy endings, and use fanfiction to escape the life, difficult in itself. However, it was one of the main topics in Rotten Judgement because it is one of the main topics in all my fiction. I do not write fiction just to deliver good times—I am selfish myself, and I write about topics that mostly interest me. Even if RJ began as this kind of lighthearted attempt in bringing a 90s, sitcom-y feel to AO3, I couldn't keep up with that: this is not the writer I am. Race, social issues, economical issues, politics, are always embedded in what I write because this is how I live my life. (At the same time, it would be high-nosed of me to pretend that this is what I read—god, please, no. I read, mostly, those fics that make me happy. I'm not even sure I could read what I write in fanfiction, and sometimes I have to say that I skip over the angst fics or the ones that delve into serious topics, so I get the why people wouldn't read my fic! And very thankful if you're one of the ones who do.)

However, and first thing I wanted to say: just because a fic doesn't have what you were looking for, it doesn't invalidate its quality. I'm not talking specifically about RJ (I don't think my fic is worth of the best), but in general —it's something I've been seeing a lot in this fandom, people thinking the story is going one way, or another, and when the author does what they please, they feel that it is not a good story or that is "a lot" (in the negative meaning). Authors don't owe you anything. Works do. There are plenty of good stories with the content you are looking for there. If you feel that the content is not suitable for you, just move on. What's important is that the work, as an independent narrative being, makes sense, and is cohesive and coherent. That's good work, and that's what the readers should strive for, independently of whether it is what they were looking for or not (again, I can understand they look for a certain thing). You don't need to cry it out loud: the content is not usually created for you, it's created as the content itself.

The second issue was to equal the content and the discourse of the work with the discourse of the author and with the politics of the work. We're falling into the same trap we were back in the 50s, and this is the reason why I have talked a lot about censoring books and censoring authors.

This happens because we are equalling the discourse of the work with the politics of the work. Discourse is what the work says, and politics, what the work brings into the mechanism of discourse (I'm sure I'm making this up so forgive me for using terminology out of the right places). For example: a work presents an older man trying to get a younger girl (Lolita). What the work presents: older men can fall in love and be obsessive with younger girls. Politics of the work? Nabokov puts himself in the mind of Humbert Humbert to make you feel uncomfortable, because the politics of the work are romanticizing pedophilia through an unreliable narrator—hence, t ends up criticizing Humbert's decisions. (This brought him lots of problems, as you may know). So the discourse is, in fact, a critique on men like Humbert Humbert.

In the discourse of the work, there's no conversation per se—the conversation arises when we get to the politics of the work. Not all works have politics, some works can be just straight up discoursive, and that's fine (I don't dig them, though). The lack of discourse, however, is when things get ugly, because the authors are not crafty enough to hold a discourse on their own, so they use their own discourse. In those cases, the work lacks discourse and politics, but the reader can see those cases very clearly—it just feels as if they are trying to sell something to you. It's a pamphlet, somehow.

If discourse and politics are done right, however, the work offers some insight into other worlds, other thinkings, sometimes away from hegemonic stands—and we should fight for those discourse and politics to make a better world, although not all of them do (I have a pretty good idea of some works who have shaped some fucked-up politics into real life because they were crafty enough to make readers change their minds while reading the work, but the change was not good per se.)

Now, another tricky thing is to equal the discourse/politics of the characters to the discourse/politics of the author (or the discourse/politics of the work itself, too!). This is even clearer to see in the work itself, since if discourse/politics is difficult to see in plain sight, what the characters think and do is on the outer layer of the narration. So, the fact that it still gets confused with what the author thinks stills befuddles me.

Some comment I've gotten in RJ is that I am racist. My characters do racist things, therefore, by the logic, if I write from the POV of my characters, I must be racist or have internalized racism.

I am, indeed, writing about racism, right? So I write about a boy who's 5 and grows up with a racist, so he is a racist himself. I write about a society fixating on someone's eyes because they have internalized racism, and they think that features make someone different from one another in a negative way, not to celebrate it. I write about a girl who has, herself, internalized those criticisms so much, she is in awe when she discovers she's been hired to work with a bunch of people who are, also, not whites. And if anybody feels that what the characters say, some scenes I write, feel "racist", is because they are meant to feel this way.

They say that it's strange that I am describing Mikasa's eyes, but they fail to see that I am describing them because we're seeing Mikasa through people who have internalized racism as they are young. When Mikasa thinks that is strange to live with a pair of lesbians, this Mikasa is not embodying my thoughts as the author: it's embodying the thoughts of a girl who was brought up in a nun convent and needed her best friend to lend her "The second sex" to understand other identities.

As an author, I strive to put myself in my character's shoes. I want to challenge and question the world, and to be honest, I already know, as a person, where I stand, so to question myself again would be kind of redundant. Selfishly, then, I take the characters and put them in some situations in which questions can arouse (mainly because I think it makes the characters interesting, and the work itself). I've said, again and again, that I am not interested in black/white characters—because people are not like that.

I strive for my characters to have a psyche that comes alive by itself in the plot, and what the characters do and the plot that arises—with its problematics, and their disputes—constitutes the discourse of the characters, which is questioned by the politics of the work, which creates a discourse of the work.

It's like as if one should approach fiction, now, saying: The opinions expressed in the work do not embody the opinions of the author. It gets tiring, isn't it? Aren't we passed that? The true debate about the works should be: do they feel cohesive with the discourse of the characters, what they want to say, how they want to say it? If you're going to criticize my work (please, do), I'd rather you focus on the mechanics of it—does it work the way I'm trying to do that, is it really coming off as my intentions show, or am I not crafty enough and therefore falling into the discourse of the author?. It's much more interesting than to debate whether the characters are racist or not (or if they should be), how that makes you feel, or your vague assumptions about what my ideals behind a piece of work are. Those debates are completely sterile when we speak about fiction and the fiction that I, at least, strive to achieve.

(Again—I understand that if one is not crafty enough, the discourse of the characters can come off as the discourse of the work. This criticism is completely valid, and I wish we could debate in those terms, and not whether what I write means something about me, which to be honest, is past the time we move on from the autofictional/sacred personal place of writing.)

So, even if I feel down when I receive this criticism, a side of me is also happy to be receiving it: it means that this work is striking a chord and that what the characters do and think is horrible enough for them to question whether their psyche is also the author's psyche. I could tell you it is not, but surely, I don't think it's fun to judge a work like this.

The work must work in itself. If it doesn't, it loses all kinds of interest for me—what we authors think is not that interesting sometimes, but what happens in our brain can be.

I hope you enjoy the second part of the fic, in which we will delve into more internalized racism (Eren trying to come to terms with it), Armin and Mikasa's relationship and secrets, Jean discovering what love is, and Historia and Ymir trying to decide if they are hypocrites or not.

#rotten judgement fanfiction #hrarbycraft

[perishs0ng]

about | 18+ only

hi, i like anime and ships, particularly the problematic ones. i dabble in writing, and i like to see fucked up scenarios play out, that are all kinds of wrong. so pls dont stay on here if you're not into that!

the content on this blog will be dark dark, containing the following themes, so pls consider this in itself a dead dove: do not warning:

underage

grooming

noncon

manipulation

humiliation

degradation

i’ll update this as the list goes on! my ask box is open for anything aside from hate ;)

i'm really into aot and i ship literally everyone. grisha is hot. i love him. so is zeke. so is jean. mikasa and historia are my babygirls. you get the picture.

i’m not here to discourse or get in anyone else’s business. and i strongly differentiate the content on my blog from morality irl.

twitter

tellonym

ao3

mind the warnings, and enjoy your stay!~

#about me

[aboutanancientenquiry]

Herodotus, poetry, and prose

” Aniek van den Eersten

Anchoring Prose via (or against) Poetry in Herodotus

Fifth century BC Greece witnessed a major innovation: the emergence of written prose as a new medium of communication, next to oral (or aural) poetry. This innovation is not a mere literary phenomenon but concerns society at large.

To beat the authority of the poets

Poetry, both epic and lyric, was the main repository of collective memories of the past and was consumed publicly at all kind of religious and secular occasions. When the ‘father of historiography’ Herodotus invented his new genre and chose the new medium of written prose, he thus faced a major challenge, one also faced by the later philosopher Plato: to beat the authority of the poets. Herodotus’ solution was to anchor his new genre and medium by posing as a new and better kind of Homer.

Anchoring prose via (or against) poetry in Herodotus

Whereas Herodotus’ invention of the genre of historiography has been amply studied, this PhD project aims at investigating his equally important, but much less researched, contribution to the development of the new medium of written prose (and its anchoring), from the shift of poetry to prose. This shift so far has been investigated mainly on the level of style (e.g. Haberle 1938, Dover 1997) or genre, i.e., the distinctive nature of historiographical prose as memorialization of the past, vis-à-vis poetry or other prose genres (Goldhill 2002 and Grethlein 2011). The first research question of the PhD-project is whether there are narratological differences between poetic and prose narrative. This question has not much occupied modern narratologists, who quite naturally, have focused on prose (the novel), and only recently have turned to poetic narrative (Hühn-Kiefer 2005 and McHale 2007). Classicist-narratologists have worked more on poetic narrative, of course because of the central importance of the epic genre, and on prose narrative, too, but they have hardly reflected on differences between the two.

The first poetic text to compare Herodotus Histories with will be Homer, i.e. passages that cover the same events (e.g. the story of Helen) or similar ones (e.g. battles). In the second place, stories told by both Herodotus and lyric or dramatic poets will be compared, e.g. the battle at Salamis (also told by Aeschylus in his Persians, see e.g. Pelling 1997) or Croesus on the pyre (also told by Bacchylides, see Segal 1971). Herodotus’ own explicit comments on poetic narrative, which usually are negative (Verdin 1977), will also be taken into account.

Some first narratological comparisons of Herodotean and Homeric narrative (Dewald 1987, Marincola 1987, Rengakos 2001, de Jong 2004, and Rood 2007 ) have shown that there are indeed differences, which partly flow forth from the difference in genre (the two issues medium and genre are of course closely related). But they have also brought to light continuities. Thus the second research question of the PhD-project will be to lay bare the tension between Herodotus’ criticism of poetry and actual adoption of many of its devices. One of the exciting outcomes may be that anchoring can also take the form of (ostensible) rejection.

Method, results, and valorisation

The main theory used will be narratology, which has been amply applied to Greek historiography (e.g. Rood 1998, de Jong 2013). Many of the stylistic innovations of Herodotus’ prose can be more fruitfully understood in terms of discourse linguistics (e.g. Allan 2006). Since another motor behind the early development of Greek prose was rhetoric, ancient rhetorical theory (Lausberg [1960]1998) will also be taken into account.

The results of the PhD project will in the first place benefit classics, increasing our understanding of Herodotus, one of the canonical authors of Greek literature and one of the core authors of the Dutch Gymnasium curriculum. Secondly, since intermediality at the moment is a hot issue in comparative literature (e.g. Ryan 2007, Grishakova –Ryan 2010 ), an in-depth study of an author who has ‘translated’ storytelling from the one medium, poetry, to the other, prose, will be of major interest to this group of scholars. Finally, our contemporary world, like Herodotus’, is also confronted with a media revolution (the introduction of electronic media). Its effects on society and culture (including literature) are massive and not unproblematic (e.g. Kress 2003). Understanding the anchoring strategies of the past may help to tackle those of the present.

Relation to other ‘anchoring’ projects and institutional embedding

This project is closely related qua corpus (historiography) and methodology (combination of narratology, discourse-linguistics, rhetoric) to the Postdoc project ‘Describing a changing world: Greek and Imperial Latin Historiography and the Discourses of Innovation.”

Source; https://anchoringinnovation.nl/projects/anchoring-prose

Aniek van der Eersten, University of Amsterdam

#herodotus #ancient greek classics #poetry #prose #aniek van der eersten