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licorice-lips · 1 day

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Hi, everyone! So, I know there's a lot of controversy about Rhys's behavior Under the Mountain (at least in Brazil fandom it's a hot topic), a discussion that is valid and definitely needs to be had, so I did a lot of research on the subject and compiled the three texts that influenced me the most into a compilation that I'll share here — along with my thoughts and additions.

These texts that serve as my supports were made here on Tumblr and can be found under the following titles, although the third one is the most comprehensive of them all:

*Rhysand's Defense Post (The author had only read A Court of Thorns and Roses when she wrote this).

*The Difference Between Tamlin and Rhysand: The Man on the Throne and the Man in the Arena — Acotar and Acomaf's Excerpt Analysis (The author was following the small teaser quotes for A Court of Mist and Fury and analyzed them).

*Understanding Tamlin and Rhysand — A Post-Acomaf Reconciliation of Rhys's Actions Under The Mountain in a Culture of Defeat.

In addition to discussing Rhys's behavior, however, I'm also going to discuss Tamlin's behavior and compare the two. It's going to be quite fun… Just a heads up that I don't want any hate messages. Do you want to share your thoughts agreeing or disagreeing? That's fine, but with respect. Any offensive comments will be deleted.

Now here's my defense post for Rhys:

Leadership is a heavy burden. When you're a leader, especially when it's not your choice but comes to you because of the family you were born into, for example, responsibility can be a burden. But when you're a leader, there's something very important to consider when making a decision: those who follow you.

All of Rhys's actions as High Lord of the Night Court must be thought of to put the well-being of those he is responsible for first. And when he, Tamlin, and the other High Lords are Under the Mountain, he decides that he will be Amarantha's whore to ensure that his Court is in the best possible condition within the situation — he lets himself be raped to ensure that his people and his family remain safe when he could have done nothing.

But from the moment Feyre strikes the deal with Amarantha, he is the only one who is truly in a position to make a difference: the other High Lords do not have enough of Amarantha's trust for her not to suspect anything if one of them tried to bargain with Feyre as Rhys did, for example. If any other High Lord — Kallias, Thesan, Helion, etc. — tried the same thing as Rhys, Amarantha would have been suspicious.

So in this case, he is the only one who can truly act.

But he doesn't have to. The point is that his Court is reasonably safe because of his role in the court Amarantha built, so Rhys doesn't really need to help Feyre win. But he does it, not because he wants his power back, but because he's the kind of leader who will do everything achievable to change — for what he believes is the best — the lives of his people.

And I'll talk about how admirable that is later on when we're talking about the culture of war and defeat, and about Tamlin's behavior. So, he decides to act, and he tells Feyre in A Court of Mist and Fury:

"I decided at that moment that I would fight. And fight dirty, and kill and torture and manipulate, but fight. If there was any chance of freeing us from Amarantha, it was you." (A Court of Mist and Fury, page 550, Brazilian edition)

He knows, then, that the fight he would have to wage was not the beautiful, heroic, noble thing we're so used to seeing: Rhys knew that his actions to ensure victory — for Feyre and Prythian as a whole — would be horrible and would probably haunt him for the rest of his life. He knows that. And he doesn't excuse himself for a moment. He doesn't invent, he doesn't embellish, he doesn't paint himself as a hero. He knows he's not and he really isn't a hero.

A hero is someone who sacrifices themselves in a grand gesture to save the entire population, a true hero doesn't really sacrifice one person to save others. And while Rhys does have his own share of sacrifices, that doesn't excuse him from the horrible actions he took Under the Mountain:

So, the first part of his questionable behavior in Under the Mountain comes to light: the moment he twists Feyre's injured arm to convince her, to scare her enough to accept his bargain. This is a minor moment and my description alone makes it understandable: he does what he does to keep her alive and charges an insignificant price (which he planned to release her from later, as he himself says) to keep up appearances.

And Rhys needs to keep up appearances because his whole game to defeat Amarantha depends on how he appears to her and to other people: no one can notice while he moves the pieces on the board to bring the advantage to them. No one, not even Feyre, who is the "lamb to the slaughter," so to speak. And she can't know for several reasons:

Feyre is not in a mental condition to act and pretend to hate him as much as he needs her to pretend. So if she knew what he was doing, she would probably let something slip, or wouldn't be convincing enough, because honestly? Who could?

Rhys spent the last 50 years fighting alone and being surrounded by people who constantly despised him for being Amarantha's whore or for those who tried to ingratiate themselves with her through him, so he doesn't trust others easily, even though he was falling in love with Feyre, as he says in ACOMAF.

He couldn't trust that Feyre wouldn't trust others — Lucien and, therefore, Tamlin — with this knowledge. With their mutual hatred, they would surely end up messing things up.

Feyre was there to protect the High Lord who killed his mother and sister — and Rhys didn't know that Feyre didn't know the history behind his and Tamlin's relationship — so, in theory, it made sense that he wouldn't want to show his "true face" to her.

That's exactly what the book is about: like a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, the book is about how appearances deceive. If Feyre found out that Rhys is a decent person right away, it would be the same as throwing the whole intention of the story out the window.

So we have the second — and most controversial of all — point: the dance and the wine. I'm not going to mince words about this: It was sexual harassment. Period. But with this, Rhys manages to:

Get Feyre out of her cell, which is driving her crazy, as she says in this part: "I was alone, locked in silence — although the screams in the dungeon continued day and night. When they became unbearable and I couldn't ignore them, I looked at the eye in my palm." (A Court of Thorns and Roses, page 356, Brazilian Edition). And let's face it, anyone would go crazy in an environment like that.

Keep an eye on Feyre so that no one else could harm her — something he disguises with a comment about not liking others to touch what's his — and that's a curious thing because Feyre never expresses concerns about being abused by others after Rhys starts taking her to these parties (it's also interesting to note that despite the various traumas of what happened Under the Mountain, Feyre never showed any signs of trauma from sexual abuse, as far as I know — and again, not that this excuses Rhys, it's just a factor to point out that maybe she understood his game better than we did).

To leave Tamlin full of anger — which he claims is the main reason for all that theater during A Court of Thorns and Roses — so that he wouldn't hesitate if he had the slightest chance to kill Amarantha in the end or between challenges, no matter as long as he didn't hesitate. Because from Rhys's perspective, Tamlin is the noble golden prince who might spare Amarantha's life to demand some kind of trial or something. Which I consider he might have been dumb enough to do too.

Divert Amarantha's attention, as, thinking that Feyre was already humiliated and abused enough during those nights, she wouldn't give Feyre those ridiculous tasks anymore (like cleaning that filthy hall or collecting lentils from Rhys's fireplace). And if you reread ACOTAR, she really never gives those small tasks to Feyre again after that.

Send a message to those who could read, as Rhys himself says: he crowns Feyre every night, and for the cruel ones, this would be a subtle kind of mockery, but for those who could see beyond the evil, Rhys was declaring Feyre the champion of them all. He declared that he believed in her and in her potential to free them all.

Convince Amarantha that he's still playing on her side — a belief that was shaken by Rhys betting on Feyre in the first task and closing that bargain to heal her arm. This might be the most fundamental of all points: the one that allows the game to continue toward victory. He needs to prove to Amarantha that he's doing it for fun, out of cruelty, considering Feyre as the whore of the whore, someone lower than the lowest of courtesans. Thus, Rhys clears the way to act when the time is right.

By taking Feyre with him to those parties, he moved not one, but six pieces of the game to be in his favor. He killed six birds with one stone. Strategically, it's an incredible tactic, by the way. But morally, this act leaves something to be desired.

So why the wine and the dance? Because Rhysand plays with appearances. Everything in his game depends on it.

Feyre wouldn't play the whore of the whore while conscious, no one with a shred of self-respect would accept that without knowing the reason behind it, and Rhysand, for the reasons I mentioned, wouldn't tell her anything. So he makes her drink the wine to keep the whole purpose of that show and keeps her close to prevent her from being touched by anyone other than him.

But besides that, the wine is a form of escape, a way to forget about the horrors, as Feyre herself says at the end of the chapter where all this happens:

"[…] and I began to long for the moment when Rhysand would hand me the goblet of faerie wine and I could let loose for a few hours." (A Court of Thorns and Roses, page 381).

In fact, Rhys sees it this way: when he is forced to kill the High Lord of the Summer Court (not Tarquin, but his cousin from whom he "inherited" the title, Nostrus), he himself drinks the wine with Feyre — it's an escape from the character he so carefully plays because not even Rhys can bear everything without letting the facade fall, even if only a little.

Note: not that I'm saying this would be a healthy way to deal with all that trauma and accumulated stress, but considering the place they were in and the situation, perhaps it was the most… effective way.

I have to say, however, that all of this doesn't justify what he did: it was still sexual abuse and it's still very bad and very serious. However, I need to point out to you: what we do to survive often does not reflect what we would be in a normal situation (normal being their everyday life without Amarantha, in this case).

When we are confronted with a situation like this, where to survive we end up needing to do something horrible, many say they would never do and would take the noble path of dying before giving up their values and principles, which is great, it proves that you have a very good character. The problem is that Rhys doesn't have the choice to think only of himself and how much this abuse will cost his dignity and principles because every decision he makes affects his people.

So here's my question for you: could you love someone who chose to preserve you instead of saving thousands of innocent — children, women, and men — who are under their responsibility?

Because I couldn't love someone who did that. And that's how I make peace with what Rhys did to Feyre Under the Mountain: I couldn't love someone who condemned the world to save me from abuse that I know I can endure — even if it causes me terrible harm.

Of course, it's entirely valid if you decide not to forgive him for what he did, because, after all, it's a morally gray action when you consider the whole situation they were in and what Rhys did. So, no one is really wrong for not forgiving Rhys for what he did, but those who forgive him aren't wrong either. It's very important that we understand that.

Now, an argument that is often used and that annoys me every time I hear it is that Sarah "changed Rhys and Tamlin's personalities because of shipping", so she ignored everything Rhys did Under the Mountain to make him the hero just because fans liked him. There are so many things wrong with that that I don't even know where to begin, but let's analyze all of Tamlin's, Feyre's, and Rhys's behavior throughout the ACOTAR and ACOMAF stories and show why I know Sarah did absolutely everything with careful consideration:

There is a trait that is very striking in Tamlin from the beginning of the ACOMAF story and is especially explicit when Alis tells the whole story about Amarantha, Tamlin, and the curse, which is the fact that Tamlin can't deal with the consequences of his actions:

The first time he does this is at the beginning of the curse when he gives up sending his soldiers to die for him, thus Tamlin simply gives up not only freeing himself but all of Prythian, all the people who live there, and still condemns the human lands in the process. He only started sending the soldiers out of desperation after 46 years, look at Alis's speech:

"For two years, he sent them, day after day, needing to choose who crossed the wall. When there were only a dozen left, Tamlin was so devastated that he stopped. He canceled everything." (A Court of Thorns and Roses, page 294, Brazilian Edition).

The second time I can point out is Feyre herself (this because I'm ignoring the events during her stay in the Spring Court, as I don't remember what happened): he takes Feyre to Prythian with the intention of making her fall in love with him, but at the first glimpse of direct danger from Amarantha — in this case, the scene where Rhys makes him kneel — he sends her away.

He gives up saving Prythian because he can't stick to the decision to put Feyre in danger so that she could break the curse, so much so that he condemns himself for it, because Feyre only doesn't say that she loves him — and breaks the curse — precisely because she's leaving:

"— I love you. — He said, and stepped back. I should say — should say those words, but they got stuck in my throat because… Because of what he needed to face, because maybe he wouldn't find me again, despite the promise…" (A Court of Thorns and Roses, page 261, Brazilian Edition)

These are the main events, and perhaps I could list more for you if I reread A Court of Thorns and Roses. But what does this show us? That every time Tamlin makes a decision, he freezes and backs down at the first sign of an obstacle. He retreats and avoids anything that shakes him.

So it makes sense that Tamlin's reaction Under the Mountain is paralysis — a common behavior among leaders in times of war and defeat, by the way, which aligns not only with Tamlin's personality but also with the reaction of a true leader in such a situation.

Alright, let's stop there and go back in time to analyze Feyre's behavior:

Right from the start, we learn that, even being the youngest of three sisters, Feyre was the one who, when they were starving, took action and sought a solution, which shows us right away the kind of person Feyre is: she's the kind of person who acts when forced to face danger, whether it's something intangible, like death by starvation, or tangible, like Amarantha.

This is proven repeatedly throughout the books: when she seeks answers with the Suriel, when she tries to fight off the bastards who tried to rape her at Calanmai (because paralysis can also be a reaction to abuse of that kind), when she goes to Under the Mountain to fight for Tamlin without even hesitating, when she heals from the traumas of Under the Mountain as soon as she has something to focus on, something to dedicate herself to.

And this is one of the fundamental differences between Tamlin and Feyre: while he paralyzes, she acts, and whether we like it or not, differences create friction. Especially with what happened Under the Mountain because she and Tamlin were separated, and neither of them experienced trauma together. Paralysis generates a different trauma from the trauma of someone who is acting, so the end of their relationship begins when she goes to save him Under the Mountain — and Tamlin freezes.

Then we have Rhysand, who is exactly like Feyre: he acts when confronted with danger or defeat and has thousands of actions of his that exemplify this:

As soon as he becomes High Lord, he bans the wing clipping of Illyrian females regardless of the reaction of the Illyrian lords or what they thought about it. It's not that he doesn't care: Rhys, unlike Tamlin, is willing to pay the price that comes when a decision is made.

He becomes Amarantha's whore to protect his people from her getting too close to them. He doesn't care about the cost to himself simply because Rhys knows he's doing some good for his own people by letting himself be raped.

When he sees in Feyre the chance to do something to free all of Prythian, he goes all in knowing that that game would be total defeat or victory. He acts.

When Hybern starts threatening Prythian, he is willing to do whatever it takes — lose a potential friend, hand over the city he loved with all his heart to horrible women, give up his own life — so that they wouldn't fall into slavery again.

When the war comes anyway, he faces it head-on and uses every card he has to stop the King of Hybern: monsters of all kinds, all his power, his own life, and the truth about himself, about who he is.

And these are just a few examples. The fundamental difference between Tamlin and Rhys, just like between Tamlin and Feyre, is how they respond to situations and traumas.

Quoting Teddy Roosevelt (btw, this is a direct translation of the Portuguese version of the quote, so it can be different from the original):

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Feyre and Rhysand are the ones in the arena, they are the ones who fight to be able to act in the face of evil — Amarantha. And it's interesting to note that those who condemn Rhys for the dubious actions he took Under the Mountain never say anything about Feyre committing murder there as well, which is a crime as heinous (or at least should be when it comes to innocent people) as Rhys's.

I'll tell you why: when we're faced with a gray and complex character like Rhys — and we don't know his heart, instead we're "infected" with the main character's partial view — we tend to connect him directly with evil, instead of understanding that this character is neither wholly good nor bad. We forgive soldiers for killing people in a war — that's also a combat in Under the Mountain, so why can't we forgive both Rhys and Feyre?

We forgive Feyre because we know how sorry she is, we know her heart, and we love her. But Rhys? He's the High Lord of the Night Court — which alone triggers some unconscious alerts within us — and he's playing dirty, hiding, and being a horrible person, so why should he be forgiven?

That's what our brain unconsciously thinks sometimes, and it makes us judge some characters more severely. Understanding the duality and complexity of a character is not an easy task; it requires a lot of empathy and an open mind.

But why am I saying this? Because it's important to understand: Rhys and Feyre are extremely similar, and they understand each other at a fundamental level because of that. Tamlin, on the other hand, has a completely different personality. He's the one who freezes, who paralyzes.

Rhys and Feyre experience the trauma Under the Mountain together, so Feyre and Tamlin are separated, which, combined with the glaring difference between the two, makes it difficult — perhaps impossible — for them to heal together because, out of loyalty to the character's nature, Sarah can't make Tamlin talk about what's happening like Feyre needs.

Even after Under the Mountain, Tamlin's instinctive action is to freeze. So he doesn't talk about Feyre's nightmares, he pretends not to see her despair, he turns away from her need to talk about the subject — because looking at her trauma would be the same as acknowledging his own.

And he can't do that because it's part of his nature to freeze. But this isn't healthy, hence the explosions of anger, and hence he locks Feyre up the moment she tries to assert herself: these are the consequences of forcing someone who deals with PTSD by freezing to actually deal with their traumas (that and the fact that he's horrible).

I can understand that (not in his relationship with Feyre, I'm talking more generally here, about him as High Lord, he can rot otherwise) but I can't forgive it like I did with Rhys because, unlike the actions Rhys took, paralysis only allows evil to continue to grow and end up imprisoning us (this is, in fact, one of the reasons why Tamlin didn't try to fight like Rhys while Amarantha was killing Feyre: his lack of previous action left him unable to take action when it was time to "put up or shut up").

While Tamlin's paralysis pushes us down while doing us harm, Rhys's actions, as horrible as they may be, are done in the hope of something good, they're done to move us forward. I can forgive him because I'd rather be someone who does horrible things in the hope of creating something better than be someone who allows evil to continue to grow until it imprisons me.

It's that simple.

And Feyre is exactly that kind of person. She needs to act, she needs to talk about it to heal. She needs to have a purpose, not be coddled like Tamlin — and his trauma — wants her to be.

The relationship between her and Tamlin becomes abusive the moment he tries to stifle her feelings to maintain a state of paralysis. And that's something you'd expect from a character like Tamlin, that's how he was built. But this happens long before Under the Mountain: I remember that on the first day Feyre yields to the dresses Tamlin gave her in ACOTAR, I think it was the morning after Calanmai, she warns herself to be gentle, to be kind, when dealing with Tamlin and Lucien.

But after Under the Mountain, Feyre can no longer accept that her feelings be stifled simply because her traumas are consuming her from the inside out. So she fights back. And that's what completely ends their relationship.

But the point is: both Tamlin, Feyre, and Rhysand follow exactly the line of their personalities throughout the story. They are those kinds of people from start to finish. There's an evolution, of course, but it's an evolution of beliefs, opinions, and perceptions — their essences remain the same.

That's why Sarah is brilliant in these books: by being completely faithful to her characters' personalities, she created a story that discusses abusive relationships, the varied responses of certain types of people to trauma, and the various reactions of leaders in times of war and defeat.

But the point is: none of them were changed to fit a ship, simply because they weren't changed. All three of these characters act exactly the way they should within the limits of their own personalities.

Rhys is the High Lord who plays dirty to create a better world, and Tamlin is a leader who can't make a tough decision. And there's another fundamental difference between them:

While Rhys knows that, from time to time, he'll be forced to make decisions that will end up harming part of his people (and will choose the lesser of two evils), Tamlin still struggles with the enchanted vision of a superhero who saves everyone without exception. And when that doesn't happen — because it's never possible to save everyone no matter what you do — he prefers not to act.

I think the two things that illustrate very well the kind of person Rhys and Tamlin are is the Illyrian tradition of cutting the wings of their females and the Tribute:

Rhys risks a revolt to improve the lives of his people and sticks to that decision, willing to pay the price for it if the result is a better life for the Illyrian females, while Tamlin fails to abolish an extremely unnecessary tax because his inability to act makes him cling to archaic traditions like the Tribute.

So, yes, I forgive Rhys for what he did Under the Mountain, because I couldn't love someone who freezes and leaves me to die. I prefer to love someone who cares so deeply about something — a dream — that they're willing to fight and play dirty for it. And then go to battle to defend it.

Hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to point out points that I didn't comment on; I'll try to respond to everyone's comments!"

#acotar #rhysand #feyre archeron #feysand #rhys acotar #books #fantasy books #sjm #sarah j. maas #sarah j maas #cassian acotar #a court of thorns and roses #acomaf #a court of mist and fury #a court of wings and ruin #tamlin #tamlin acotar #morrigan

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licorice-lips · 4 days

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Okay, so I was thinking about Snape and although I'm avoiding like hell speaking online about Harry Potter, I think it needs to be said because it falls onto the rest of fantastical literature as well, especially those stories that have parallels to fascism/nazism/colonialism in their magical world.

I'd like to start by saying I don't like Snape for a variety of reasons, some of them because of Rowling, others because of the character himself, and others because of his fans, but today I'd like to talk about how Snape's Redemption Arc actually sucks and why, and also about how we're treating redemption arcs as a whole.

Okay, so let's begin by making a sort of timeline on Snape's life: he grew up in an abusive household, suffered bullying by the Marauders through school years, bullied other students as well, called his best friend a slur, "apologized", joined a fascist hate group that actively persecuted and hurt people for things they had no control of, acted on behalf of this group for years, turned against the hate group not out of morals but because their actions began to threaten the people he cared about (like they always said they would, how shocking), bullied his teenage students as a grown adult, acted as a spy against the hate group when it came back, died.

Right, so before I dive into all those things, what we also have to add is that Art isn't made in a vacuum. Just like science can never be done by a completely neutral party, our productions of art are completely based off of our views, especially when we're talking about writing. As a writer myself, I can see exactly how my experiences as a person in the context I was born and grew up in affect my writing and my production of art.

For example, it's very common that I find enemies calling themselves by their last names in American/European fiction but in Brasil, we don't normally call people by their last names unless it's very unique and as a nickname. So when I write enemies, they always call each other by their first names, simply because it doesn't feel right to me any other way. On a more serious example, most of the countries in my fantasy books have some history of colonization or dictatorship because it's a part of my history and I feel it's impacts to this day, so it's something that reflects my own thoughts and ideas in politics.

So when we talk about Snape as a character, we cannot escape the fact that Rowling created him. And as a European author, it's more than clear —and that's especially obvious to people who suffer under colonization to this day— that Rowling has a deeply ingrained colonizer mentality. The goblins in Gringots are a clear and problematic representation of Jewish people, the domestic elves LIKING being enslaved and not changing the status quo by the end of the books, and even Hermione being ridiculed for her militancy on it — these are all representative of how Rowling views the world.

Although there's more, all of those examples make it clear that, when she looks at fascist ideology as a whole, Rowling doesn't think the ideology itself is the problem: the ending is the depiction of them getting rid of the "bad apples" instead of making the "roots of the tree" healthy again is parallel to blaming bad individuals for a system that is corrupted and therefore corrupts. So basically, what the Harry Potter books tell us by the end is that it's okay for you to perpetuate a racist system, just don't do it so openly. The problem for her is not the system, but these people she considers "bad apples" which is basically right-wing ideology.

And my problem with Snape starts here: because Rowling sees purist views as an acceptable way of thinking as long as you don't kill people because of it (because for some reason that's a step too far — but when the system oppresses, beat down, and hates on marginalized people, that's okay) — in her mind and in her writing, Snape's ideological affiliation earlier on in his life is not that big of a problem, especially when he "changes sides".

Snape's active participation in a hate group is dangerously and irresponsibly downplayed both by Rowling and by Snape's apologists and fans when this is, in reality, one of the two greatest offenses his character has to compensate for in his "Redemption Arc". So when he hesitates at nine yo to say to Lily that being a Muggleborn doesn't make a difference (even when he knows it does in a practical sense of what's happening in the Wizarding World), when he despises Petuney for being a Muggle, when he says to Lily that what he, Mulciber and their "death eaters" friends did to Mary McDonald was "just a laugh (btw, I'm sure the Marauders also think what they did was "just a laugh" as well), all of this is not only extremely reprehensible, it's the kind of thing that makes a fascist, a fascist.

And it's not that I don't believe teenagers cannot change their minds and grow with more ease than adults, it's just that this alone would've been enough grounds to understand why Snape's redemption arc sucks. His beliefs from early on, even before he goes to Hogwarts, are extremely problematic and hateful, and they uphold the very corrupted system that is perpetuated against Muggle-borns in the Wizarding World.

Then we reach the point I wanted to make: it's very clear throughout the books that child and teenager Snape struggles with feelings of deep hatred against his parents (especially his father, who's a Muggle), inadequacy in social life even among his peers (wizards and witches) and isolation, all of which make a person undeniably vulnerable to extremist ideology.

And here's my first issue with Snape and his Redemption Arc: his trauma and feelings should not be an excuse for his bad choices and yet, they are used exactly as such. Yes, Snape was an impressionable teenager and yes, he was influenced by an ideology in his desperation to fit in and find solace in a community, but that doesn't matter.

None of it matters because, at the end of the day, his actions for this ideology are just as harmful, just as awful, just as cruel, as the actions of someone who joined the Death Eaters for thoroughly believing Muggleborns were scum. He harmed people just as much as Yaxley, Mulciber, or any other Death Eater who joined Voldemort for their hatred just for his support alone.

And more than that, even if Snape was in a vulnerable state and impressionable, he was still receiving other kinds of influences, influences that were contrary to the bigotry and cruelty of Voldemort — and he still chose to ignore those influences. There was still a level of choice to what he became as a young adult.

But even if there wasn't, Snape is —or at least he should be— responsible for his own choices regardless of influence. As they say in the Kingdom of Heaven film, when you're before God and he asks you why you did something, you won't be able to say that others told you to do so or that it wasn't convenient to do the right thing — it'll not be enough. And it's not enough because your actions matter more than your intentions. Your actions will be the thing that will determine what happens next, not your intentions. It'll be actions that will shape your path and influence or directly impact the path of others around you, not your intentions.

The older I get, the more I understand the power of action and how it says more than any intention or feeling ever will. At the end of it, Snape's actions are what matters, not his feelings or intentions. But as humans, we're so prone to empathize with others that we actually believe that, because someone feels guilty or regrets the things they did, that's enough to forgive them.

We forget that it's not.

Earning forgiveness must come with 5 major steps —

Accountability — do they acknowledge the way their actions hurt us? Do they acknowledge the way they hurt us? Do they acknowledge their role in our pain?

Apologies — do they apologize? Is their apology sincere? Do they hold themselves accountable in their apologies?

Acceptance — do they feel entitled to forgiveness? Do they accept the consequences of their actions? Do they accept the boundaries you impose on the path to forgiveness?

Amends — Did they take steps to mend what's broken? Do they make choices to prevent them from doing this again? Do they try to help without crossing your boundaries?

Alteration — Did they change the behavior that hurt you? Did they take steps to improve themselves?

Those steps are fundamental in a Redemption Arc because it'll exemplify to the (young) readers what is forgivable and how forgiveness is earned, not deserved. That's what grits me the most about Snape's "Redemption Arc":

There is no accountability, at least not for joining and upholding a hate group, and we kinda get accountability for what he did in his friendship with Lily, but in a fucked up way, let's see:

It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. “I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.” “I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just – ” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?” He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. “I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.” “No – listen, I didn’t mean – ” “ – to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

It's very important to me that we dissect this piece of dialog because it shows a lot about Snape and how every time he's tried to apologize, there's no accountability.

He didn't say he's sorry he said that slur (to LILY and only Lily, might I add, when at all would've been ideal but I'll have some leniency because of the situation) — he's said he's sorry, but not for what he has done, just for Lily. He didn't take responsibility for his words as he should — he says it 'slipped out' or that 'he didn't mean, again just to LIly.

He accepted no boundaries Lily tried to impose — sleeping outside Gryffindor? Really?

Most importantly of all, he took absolutely ZERO steps to alter his behavior so that he could never harm someone again like he harmed Lily. And that's very important, I cannot begin to explain how: when we regret doing something, the most fundamental step to take in change.

Change is fundamental to forgiveness but it shouldn't be conditioned by it. If we regret doing something harmful, the first thing to do is to change our behavior. Instead, Snape not only doesn't change his problematic behavior, he doubles down on it, joining the hate group Lily pointed out as one of the main problems in why their relationship couldn't continue, acting in the name of said group for years and only backing down on it when Lily is threatened.

And that reveals something about Snape's worldview: for him, since that day he called Lily a slur, the problem wasn't that he was a bigoted piece of shit (like Lily said it was), the problem, in his head, was that he hurt Lily. And that's not true. The problem is, one hundred percent, his bigoted behavior, and Lily says as much, more than one time. He just does not listen to it. He doesn't listen to her.

More than that, though, you can try to point out that he redeems himself by acting against Voldemort but I'm sorry: what Snape did is not enough. He was part — and believed in — a hate group, it's not enough that he changes sides not because of values, but because one person who is being threatened is dear to him (which was the whole prerogative anyway so I failed to see how he's even surprised by this). You can say that this is good or honorable or "love" but it's not cute to base your entire life around one person.

It's not honorable to prioritize one person over a whole world he was threatening before and not caring at all about them. Disregarding other human beings in favor of one is not as pretty as people think it is and Snape represents this very well: it makes you bitter, it makes you become abusive, cruel, a bully to everyone else. It's not pretty, it's not understandable. Be a fucking decent human being, it's actually not that hard.

But I digress again: my point is, that just because Snape regrets the things he has done for Voldemort (not even out of morals, which drives me mad) it doesn't mean he deserves forgiveness. He doesn't and he hasn't earned it, he didn't even try. Actually, he's so stuck in his regret, he's harmful because of it: guilt is a trap, babes. It sucks you in if you let it and makes you miserable as well as anyone around you. You'll be so remorseful and yet you'll hurt people because of it.

And it's the same thing I've been saying since the beginning: we need to stop associating feelings with deserving forgiveness because you don't deserve forgiveness, you earn it. Either you earn it from someone else, from yourself, or from both, but either way, it's earned, not deserved. If I were to excuse my harmful behavior every time just because I regretted doing something instead of earning their forgiveness by taking steps to apologize to the people I've hurt, I would be compared to my father all the time. And THAT would've been an insult.

Anyway, let's just stop feeling sorry for characters, especially fascists, just because they regret something. Please, let us hold our characters accountable for the shit they've done adequately and make our writers actually put in the work to make them earn the forgiveness they crave instead of just wallowing in their own misery, stuck forever in a vortex of hurting and being hurt that sucks people in. It's not a good example for us readers, it's not a good example of behavior, it's not what a good person who did shitty things should strive to be and we shouldn't think it is.

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licorice-lips · 11 days

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I saw a post about How to Date Billy Walsh and how people wanted Sebastian Croft's character to be with Billy and how this was kinda sus in the sense that Charithra is a tamil actress who is the main love interest and she deserves her love story, which is cool, op had a valid, good point, I agree

However

When I tell y'all Charithra's character would've beem so much better off if Archie had indeed just fallen in love with Billy, I'm not joking: any girl deserves better than that incel-to-be that was Sebastian's character, specially Amelia (Charithra's character). She didn't deserve what Archie did to her and deserved way better than that half-assed apology.

And don't get me wrong: the actors were the highest point of the film, but not even those amazingly talented actors could've saved that script babes.

#how to date billy walsh #sebastian croft #billy walsh #charithra chandran #bridgerton #thoughts #movie review #comedy movies #film review #I'm actually traumatized #incel behavior

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licorice-lips · 11 days

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Okayyy, so I'm learning Mandarin/Chinese right now and I'm only a beginner HOWEVER I've learned that when they talk about the place they're from, they begin from the country, then province/family, then city. So I was thinking how we say in the West (city, then state, then maybe country) and how that's an obvious example of how culture shapes language and vice-versa, because it's clear to me how Mandarin/Chinese is shaped to reflect how community is thought first in opposition to how much more individualistic we are in the West.

I've seen a post about this some time ago but can't find it anymore so here I am to bring it back

#languages #learning languages #dark academia #academia #light academia #spilled thoughts #thoughts #chinese #culture #western culture #chinese culture #international relations #mandarin

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licorice-lips · 21 days

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This might be a controversial take, but I feel so bothered when I see some American reddit posts about children and weddings or even everyday life (and everyone can say it's American even if op doesn't say it bc the problems wouldn't happen anywhere but USA).

I'm not saying that I'm brothered because of those people life choices, that's not it. It's just that, as a Brazilian, I can sense the hyper-individuality at the center of the issue they are exposing and it's so gritting.

Like for example, when people complain about children behaving like the very children they are (crying, having meltdowns or just playing around really) in a restaurant, a plane, or a mall or something like that. It's so clear to me that those people just don't know how to deal with the very existence of children, some even throw so much hate on those children and I feel completely horrified.

Like, it's not even a consensus for them that children are part of society and, as such, they have a right to occupy public spaces!

And even the users who "understand", they comment "children are/can be annoying, but...", just baffles me because at least for me as a Brazilian, this was never even an issue! It was never discussed, or pointed out. I grew up going to restaurants, malls and other places with my parents and all the children there would be doing their own things and absolutely no one would bat an eye!

Even when I grew up, children making noises were just a background noise because it was never pointed out to me as an issue. Absolutely no one I know bats an eye when children are near making anything that isn't dangerous or inadequate.

And more than than that, I see a lot of people making such a fuss about "taking care" of "other's" children. For example, when I'm out and I see a child walking by themselves somewhere, it's just an instinct for me to look out for them until they reach their parent or somewhere safe, or if I'm looking out for my brother in a playground or something like that and another child gets hurt, in a fight or something, my first instinct is to help. I don't even think about it and most of the people I know wouldn't either.

But for some reason, for Americans (ofc, this is a generalization) something as simple as this seems to be the end of the world.

And mixing that with childfree weddings, it's just so confusing to me. Ofc, I won't judge people for making childfree weddings, it's their weddings and none of my business, they can make whatever choice they want. It's just that I don't understand their reasoning outside costs?

I mean, children are loud, and they can make fusses and all of that but still, I've been to so many weddings in my life with tons of children from almost every guest and I've never seen those children causing even one issue the entirety of those ceremonies.

(But I don't completely fault those people either, considering that the very infraestructure of their country is not fit for children, per my cousin's experience. In Brazil, for example, we have spaces destinated for children almost everywhere —playgrounds, toy rooms, changing rooms, and so on—, including malls, restaurants, wedding venues, my parents liked to go to a construction store that had a play area for kids even, and I know that's not so common in the US, at least not in my families' areas)

About weddings and day to day: I see a lot of it in AITA foruns, which, I understand, is not the norm, but still, there are somethings there that just makes me so genuinely confused.

For example, the whole concept of "outshining the bride" is so alien to me because to me people could go to weddings wearing chandeliers on their heads and it still wouldn't matter because the bride and groom are already the reason we're there to begin with??? HOW exactly do you outshine the REASON of the party?? Everyone is there for them, the whole ceremony and reception happens around them, what do you even mean with outshine?

And that is not to say I don't think there are things that are disrespectful to do at a wedding, I just don't see how one person can ruin the whole day because they caused an inconvenience? And going on that stream, why is it that that one minor thing can ruin your entire wedding day?

And don't get me wrong, there are things that can ruin a wedding but the point is that just expecting 100-200 or even just 50 guests to make everything about your happiness is not just irresponsible, it's delusional. And it's not that I'm implying that people will get out of their way to make your wedding day difficult, all I'm saying is that expecting everyone to comply with your own expectations is unreal because not all of them are even in tune with what you're expecting, people have different backgrounds and ways of thinking and something that is wrong for one person can not be for another. It's not their fault, it will most likely be unintentional —unless they're those crazy Karens or Chads I can't even believe exist.

And, if you indeed go to therapy, you'd know that your expectations are your responsibility because they will inevitably be frustrated one way or another. Other people are not and should not be expected to cater for your expectations, even in days that are special to you.

And even more than that: why is it that they seem to want perfection for their wedding day when it's exactly the imperfections that would make it so special? I once saw a video of a little boy interrupting a wedding ceremony to ask the bride if she was getting married in such a scandalized tone it couldn't be more funny. And there were so many comments of people saying that something like that would ruin their day, and this is so confusing to me.

Again, I don't have an issue that people feel like that, they are allowed to feel whatever they like (although I still draw the line in blaming other people for your expectations), but it still doesn't make sense to me. As a person who has a huge family and grew up listening as the older members of my family remembered their past experiences, if something like that happened at my wedding, it would've been the highlight of the whole ceremony because 10, 20, 30 years from now, I can assure no one will remember "perfect" wedding ceremonies, not even the bride and groom themselves. But something like that? That is something worth remembering.

That is something that people (guests and hosts alike) will find joy in even decades from now, and children will love to listen to.

So yeah, I won't judge, but I definitely don't get wanting your wedding to be so perfect that in the end it'll be just a generic memory.

Oh, and about the day to day basis, I feel so weirded out when I see Americans finding problems in the whole concept of doing favours for their friends, like... ??? That became viral on TikTok this week btw.

At the same time, it's so clear to me that the center of all those problems comes from the extreme individuality that permeates American and other Global North societies — but specially the US.

I feel the center of the issues is that this extreme individuality got mixed with the rising mental health discussions, and it became so toxic. It's like anything that is slightly taxing or costly to do is somehow a threat to our "mental health", like anything that takes from our comfort is immediately wrong, like any minor inconvenience is to be avoided when mental health is not about avoiding pain, it's about dealing with it exactly because things like pain, discomfort, annoyances are inevitable. Mental health is about dealing with them the best way we can and focus on how we can do the best of those situations, or at least keep walking despite of them.

We will be put into uncomfortable positions, we will be in annoying situation or having bothering companies because we live in a society and because we need close relationships and those won't ever be emotionally healthy all the time and in every situation, doesn't matter how hard we try or what our own values are. And I think this kind of thing gets mixed up with real abuse or neglect in the minds of individualistic people — as in "it's always the other's fault I'm inconvenienced", or "I'm right because my values and way of life are the healthy ones", or "everything that bothers or inconveniences me is an attack against me and my mental health".

What I am saying is that being inconvenienced by someone or a situation is not a threat to our emotional health, it's just life.

So what I'm trying to say is that I see so much Americans acting like any bothering little thing is somehow the end of the world for them, and more than that, like other people have the responsibility of catering for their comfort.

And it always reminds of my grandma. My nana spends half of her life serving others: she goes out of her way to help her friends and family, she always does things that can be considered inconvenient for her with a smile on her face. For example, once she was expecting a construction worker to take a look on her house's roof but she still left it all to go get me at the bus station because I needed a lift. I could've called for an Uber, but she insisted on doing that for me.

And my grandma is the one person I know that finds her life to be completely fulfilling. She's so happy in doing these little things for her family, nothing that is so bothersome for us seems to faze her. I remember her taking care of me when my parents where working and it didn't matter how much of a mess I made, she was always gushing over me like I was the second coming of Christ (she still does that, btw).

And it's not like my gradma doesn't have her own things. In the midst of all of that, she finds time to do her dyi projects, to go to her Bible group and make get togethers with her friends. She goes to church and watches her favorite tv shows, and she is so generally happy. Of course, she has her own struggles, such as anxiety, but she herself always comments to me that she finds her life to be as fulfilling as it could possibly be.

So it's ironic to me that individualistic people seem to be so unhappy despite preaching about mental health and not inconvenience themselves with little favours they consider it would take from them — either time, money, both, or something else — and my grandma, who actually lives her life by very Christian principles of serving others, is so happy with herself.

Personally, I also find myself happier and overall with a higher quality of life when I'm helping my friends and family. I feel better with myself when I:

• do things for others

• don't expect anything from my experiences but company, affection and love from the people I want near

• prioritize community instead of me individually

And I genuinely believe that that's something we as human beings are wired to do. We thrive best — both as individuals and a community — when we prioritize building community over our own individual comfort. And notice that I say comfort and not mental health — if it really costs you your mental health, it's because you shouldn't be doing in the first place.

So Idk, I just feel so confused and/or emotionally exhausted when I hear some very American reddit stories. It's not that they're wrong or TA per se, it's just that I don't know why this is an issue in the first place yk?

Ps.: please be kind and know that that is a generalization, I don't believe all Americans to be like that, it's just that their extreme liberal economic position instigates the individualistic behaviour (New World Order, by Daddot and Laval) and they're the best example I can give.

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licorice-lips · 23 days

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You know, one thing that really bothers me about how people view Bunny and the whole point of The Secret History is that they seem to think that because Richard is an unreliable narrator, that makes him a complete liar and everything that he says happened to and with Bunny was completely twisted into portraying him as bad as Richard can to justify Bunny's murder.

Although that's truth to some extent, I refuse to believe everything about their interactions is a lie, because that would be just lazy writing to justify things you don't want to think about very hard instead of really putting an effort into explaining the open ends to your reader. And I don't believe Donna Tartt is this kind of writer.

Anyway, I saw a post here on tumblr where op says that Bunny is the person that connected the rest of the group to ground reality and that's why his death is so tragic. Even agreeing with this person, I have some thoughts I still want to vent to you guys.

The point of TSH is that knowledge just for aesthetics is dangerous, but that's the thing: our characters have so much knowledge and they are still absolute idiots because they don't see their knowledge through the lens of reality. Their knowledge has no material grounds and therefore, it doesn't even occur to them to be aware of the things they are ignorant about because our minds have trouble understanding how much we don't understand.

(Which is ironic, considering Ancient Greece were the very first Occidental civilization to bring the notion of ignorance to the conversation, but anyways...)

But my point is, as much as Bunny is their link to their humanity, it's not like the humanity Bunny shows is anywhere near the kind of humanity they should be craving, sorry not sorry. From their very first interaction, I hated Bunny because although he's human in his rawest form, he's also just as ignorant as the rest of the group, just in a different way. My problem with Bunny as he's portrayed even early on is that he prides himself on his own ignorance and that, in my personal values, is way more worrisome then not understand how much you don't know.

Because the second case still has space to grow, to learn — albeit with mighty hardship, as exemplified by the very story — and the first one (Bunny's ignorance) is just stasis. And humans don't thrive through inaction, it's just not how we're wired. We are our best version when we're acting to be better — you can perceive this in Bell Hook's All About Love (Chapter 4), in psychology (my therapist has almost emphasize the need to act on my emotions instead of just feeling it and be locked up on them), Theodore Roosevelt has a speech about it too (the man in the arena).

So when I look at Bunny's character through the critical thinking of Richard being an unreliable narrator, it's still inconceivable to me to see him as some people do and be sad about his murder like he didn't deserve to die. Now let's be clear: he didn't deserve to die but it's not like the world is a worst place because of his death. Bunny is insufferable, entitled (although not because of the reasons Henry and the other point out later in the story to justify his murder), bigoted and overall just the epitome of a middle-class American white man (which to me is his worst characteristic), and his death is not that tragic in the overall sense.

His death is tragic because it brings the rest of the group back to reality, where what they do has weight and consequences. And don't even get me started on Julian and how much I hate his ass because it was his responsibility to provide these young adults with an education that was at the very least, grounded in reality. And let me be clear, when I say "grounded in reality" I don't mean common sense. He could still reflect upon Beauty and Terror and all of the stuff he wanted. The problem is that there's a why. We don't study things (specially not philosophy) in a vacuum, the things we do study are real, palpable, material. It has grounds in reality because science, Social Science in special, is about the truth of reality and how it's viewer and how it shapes our very foundations as individuals and as society.

But I digress, I'll do a commentary on Julian and his teaching methods later on.

So in a sense, Bunny's death was tragic because he was the anchor, even in death, of a reality none of the characters wanted to face. A reality that isn't pretty, nor it is good. So Bunny is not good, he was never good. He was just real. He was a real human being and he lived in the world the rest of the group avoided in a mistaken sense of arrogance, of being above "all that". And that's charming, but it doesn't mean Bunny represent anything near the kind of reality we should aim to live in.

Bunny, just like the others, was ignorant and arrogant about it. But as I said, he prided himself on his ignorance. He studied because he was killing time until he was ready to do something else, something he thought was the "real" thing. And that's just as dangerous, or even more so in a collective sense, than not being aware of our own ignorance.

To deny knowledge and the importance of it, to deny all there is behind the aesthetic, not because you don't see it but because you don't want to see it, is just as dumb as just seeing the looks and thinking there's nothing more to it. And in a collective sense, it's just as harmful. The reality he represents is a reality without knowledge, it's studying and not absorbing anything, not even the aesthetic. The one thing that makes me hate the rest of the group a bit less than I hate Bunny is that they at the very least allow themselves to be influenced by knowledge, although in a idiotic way. And that's not even completely their fault.

Bunny, on the other hand, is just, stasis. He's the same person throughout it all, and based on his family and his general behaviour? He could've been an okay person (the kind you tolerate in family dinners because it's not worth the drama), but he was very far from being a good person because to be a good person requires action, it requires the very knowledge he despises — because if you act without knowledge, you're just as blind as any ignorant (that's why we study).

So I don't get why people get so invested in defending Bunny because his death was just as meaningless as his life would've been. And I get that that sounds mean, but it's true exactly because Bunny's whole thing is his own brand of ignorance is inaction and no one changes doing nothing.

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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Say what you want, Victor Frankenstein is the OG absent father and The Creature is the OG abandonment issues kid

#the modern prometheus #victor frankenstein #mary shelly's frankenstein #Frankenstein #mary shelley #classical literature #romance books #horror literature

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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And more than that, we NEED to start talking about AI's effect on Art as a whole, but specially digital art and books.

I saw today the writing of an AI that was given a prompt for a mafia romance. The writing was atrocious but it was in line with what we see today in this fast food that the book market has turned into, a bit more time and some editing and it would be one of the many books on KU, for example.

And that's so worrisome, not only because people will start to use AIs to write their books for them (and take away all the human aspect that is FUNDAMENTAL for art), but those books will be cheaper and more accessible for the lower classes, which means they'll drown the market with them and writers will have to dispute their place with AI generators.

More than that: the price of real books, books that have real substance and meaning, will probably become more expensive, putting an end to the democratization the digital means brought when it came to Art.

(and notice that when I say "putting an end", it doesn't mean that the advent of AI-created Art will completely erase the place of authors and artists in the digital contents, it'll just make their lives even harder because they need a substancial profit, since they need to eat, but AI created art will be cheaper and more affordable, thus forcing artists to raise their prices in a vicious cycle in which only the artists will loose)

And of course, will find a way to make it more fair, like indie artists and piracy, but it'll still not be the same because the mainstream will alway rule, therefore a lot of people (lower class people) will end up losing the chance to afford or have that initial access to books and other types of art while the dominant class will still have the control over most of the "good" Art.

Honestly, I'm so frustrated with this topic and it shows

So today I watched Nilce and Leon's cut video from one of their lives and they were talking about AI and its avance from the last year to 2024. Spoiler alert: it's scary. It's still not good enough to fool most people, but it's getting there, and faster than we thought.

But the point was: they were commenting about the absolute need for digital education for our society and how we need it desperately in the face of AI advances because otherwise, we would never be able to disentangle the reality from the lies AI have the power to create.

Then I remembered about 1984, by George Orwell, and Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and then Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, and I was thinking about how right they all were in their predictions of a futuristic society.

So, for those how don't know those books, I'll quickly explain:

1984, by Orwell, is a distopia in wich people are watched every minute of every hour of every day by who they call the "Big Brother" (the origin of the reality show's name, yes, it's that creepy). Anyway, in the new society of 1984, Orwell reveals a deep fear that the truth would be hidden from was, our History and the world news kept from us by an authoritarian regime that would know everything everyone was doing at all times every minute of every day.

Brave New World, by Huxley, is a distopia in wich people are so overwhelmed with both useful and useless information all the time, when wouldn't be able to CARE about the truth. In this book, Huxley denounces a deep fear that our humanity would be suffocated by a tsunami-worth of information (oh, look at this new Iphone, nevermind it's created by slave work of people in Congo; look at this constant stream of repeated, poorly made movies, books, songs, etcetera), he feared that we'd be so distracted by everything, we wouldn't be able to see the shackles around our wrists.

In Fahrenheit 451, by Bradbury, on the other hand, we have a society in wich every published work became digital, so why would we need the published version of it anyway? Except that's the catch: everything in digital mode has been slightly modified to spread a series of small lies that changed society so deep, people were unaware of their own unhappiness. In the first chapter, for example, the MC's wife tries to commit suicide and then denies it ever happened once she wakes up —and we discover as she is saved that this is not uncommon thing to happen, to the point there's a squad of medical aid for that alone.

My point is, all those authors saw in the middle of the 20th century what our society would become, at least some aspects of it.

I think from the three of them, Huxley was the most obvious one: we are so constantly bombed with information by our social media it's hard to catch up. Just today I saw a woman on TikTok talking about all the things she was supposed to do as the internet says (eat healthy, go to work, earn enough to pay for rent and food and bills and so on, exercise regularly, keep up with political issues, fight for them, having at least 8 hours sleep on the right time, and so on) and I mean, it's incredible if we manage to do half of it (my Elizabeth Bennet moment here lol).

Now, we are constantly bombarded with information, both useless and useful, all the time. We cannot escape it: we wake up and look at our phones full of notification of several apps; we go to work and pass through several outdoors and commercials of every kind; we go to social media, there's merchandise everywhere, influencers posting that you HAVE to have this purse/make up/jewelry, have this of that life style, if you want to earn N money, and on it goes.

And it's such a powerful pull, we became to WANT to be the ones doing what they're doing and we expose our lives on social media like it's candy, completely ignorant, or choosing to ignore, the dangers of it and how exposed we are. As Orwell said, we are watched, every minute of every day. Just not by one single regime. We are policed through ourselves in a game of "find a motive to cancel N celebrity/influencer" and we forget that the things we are policing are rooted on a very specific system and while this system exists, there will always be people that will need to be canceled.

Because they are not the problem, they are the symptoms of a larger problem.

Anyway, I digress.

Finally, when we talk about Fahrenheit 451, that's when the AI technology enters the conversation by a full. In a capitalistic society, I doubt that people would just give up an entire market (publishing industry) to spread a new social order, however, with AI, they don't have to.

Let's be honest, how many of us use the internet and social media to find information? Do we go through scientific data and/or published content such as books when we want to know something or do we go to TikTok, Twitter or Google?

They don't need to bane and burn books to make us ignore that truth in the digital world is relative, they don't need to force us to do anything because we'll do it willingly if we allow ourselves to be distracted by the constant distractions and dispersement of what's really important: liberation.

Liberation for us all.

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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Me at 3am: What if I'm grey-romantic? Or maybe I'm just emotionally blocked? Or maybe I don't meet enough people to be able to fall in love?

*This post punching me so hard in the face I'm seeing stars*

Me: ...nope, grey-romantic it is.

The grey-romantic urge to fixate on romance only when it's all encompassing and someone who utterly gets the other person and soulmates of a kind where despite any difference there is unconditional love because you struggle to see the appeal of a relationship unless its completely all encompassing and world changing to have that person in your life

#greyaromantic #grey romantic #greyro #or maybe its just me being a sap lmao #love like an apocalyptic event #thats what i want #or is it #probably not #but eh #:p

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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Honestly, I'm thinking 24/7 about that new character from my book that was based off of Achilles, the character who was raised to be a king, and a hero, and a general, who believed he was entitled —destined— to become it all. And he believed that so deeply, he believed on the fairness and righteousness of it so much he became blind by everything else out of the desire to make the world a better place.

Also thinking about how he had so much faith in everyone around him, how deeply he cared about everyone he called family, how much he wanted to give those people, only to learn —right after his lover died (and yes, he's loosely based off of Patroclus)— that they were fighting alongside him for their own selfish interests, not because they believed in him.

I'm thinking about how hard he fought his own demons to be deserving of the throne he thought he was destined to inherit, how many personal demons he had to overcome to be what he thought his people needed, how deeply he believed he alone could make the world better — and how wrong he was about that. I'm thinking of the moment he realizes that, after everyone betrays him and his lover dies.

And I'm thinking about the maddening rage he will unleash on the world, how he'll burn and destroy out of spite, how he'll kill and slaughter just because he can, how he'll destroy everything he was because he lost everything and therefore, everyone else should loose it too.

I'm thinking about him slowly descending into madness, him isolating so much in his own head nothing matters so he might as well do whatever the fuck he wants. And he wants to inflict pain upon everyone because he wants people —the very people he fought so hard for— to learn the pain of his sacrifices and understand what it cost him.

I'm seriously not well.

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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So, for those how don't know those books, I'll quickly explain:

My point is, all those authors saw in the middle of the 20th century what our society would become, at least some aspects of it.

Because they are not the problem, they are the symptoms of a larger problem.

Anyway, I digress.

Liberation for us all.

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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Honestly, I have so much to worry about this year but all I can really think about is the character from my book and how he was raised to be a soldier for his half-brother's army once his brother became king, how he was isolated and alienated from everything so he could be the best soldier but never the child he already was, how he saw his family die before his eyes and was spared because he wasn't really part of the family, how he had to deal with the grieving all alone because the people he thought he had left only cared about the "perfect" side of the family and left him for himself at 15.

I'm thinking about how he discovered the world was completely different than he was taught it was, that the people he trusted had lied to him all his life, how he rebelled just to be silenced and beaten down again and again until he gave up and left, until he tried to convince himself he didn't care about everyone else when deep down, he did care. How he spent 10 years of his life trying to forget the person he had been meant to become, trying to burn down everything he was into a new version of himself —one that belonged to him, and not to the lies of his past.

And I'm thinking how he fell in love with a woman that despised him for not caring, for convincing himself not to care after so many lies and so many betrayal, but he still fell in love with her because he knew she was reacting to the persona he had forced himself to become and could disassociate himself from anymore, a persona that was exactly like she described. And he fell in love with her anyway because he could see she was witty and kind and she cared when everyone else didn't, she cared and she paid attention and she was fair without being soft, she was good without being foolish, she knew how the world worked and fought to change it anyway.

And I'm crying because even when she saw all of him and fell in love with the person he was learning to bring out from inside of himself, he wanted her to keep hating him because he didn't know how to trust other people's love but he could trust their hatred.

It breaks me every time I think about it.

#original character #new books #writers #fantasy books #fantasy writer #fantasy #romance books #my ocs #oc #ocs #oc story #hero origin story #anti hero #bitches be like that's my confort character and then proceeds to show you a character that has never had any comfort in their entire life #i'm bitches #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #female writers

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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God forbid latinos have hobbies

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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I am generally an anti-violence type of person (unless we're talking about revolution and war against imperialism) but I find so much humor when someone says that communism/socialism doesn't work because it creates violent dictatorships like that isn't the pure description of capitalism.

I mean, just because the violence is hidden from your eyes and your understanding, it doesn't mean it's not there, and just because you have the illusion of control through the con of democracy, it doesn't mean you actually have control over your government.

Apparently, socialism failed after a try period of 30/40 years under heavy capitalist opposition and oppression, but capitalism has been falling for 500 years now and that's okay, like we're not dying by the thousands because of it.

#politics #political discourse #to be honest fuck capitalism #communism #socialism #leftism #left wing #anti capitalism #anti capitalist love notes #fuck the police #fuck the idf #fuck patriarchy #free palestine 🇵🇸#free palestine #free gaza #free west bank #anti colonialism #anti colonization #anti imperialism

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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licorice-lips · 2 months

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Oh boy I have something to say

No hate to you but that is exactly what I'm saying is the problem in my previous post. Culture and Art don't exist in a vacuum, they stem and influence reality (society and individuals) in equal measure, it's a cycle. It influences how and what you think in the sneakiest ways.

Everytime you think it's okay to pine for a character who literally embodies a problematic/fascist point of view, there's an echo of that in society through you. It is a message, however tiny, that is saying it's fine to because X, Y or Z.

Do you know it's scientifically pointed that people who meet beauty standards have less chances to be held accountable for their deeds? We all know it's also true for the rich, for men, for people who are in the conformities of society's standarts.

When a character like Snow is seen like a hot villain, when people fail to see the uglyness hidden behind the charm, it becomes less likely that less critical people see his deeds as something completely unacceptable and his values as completely rotten — which they are.

When society forgets to see "just" a character like Snow in the way they should see him —as a fascist misogynistic pig— they diminish their and other's chances to relate what they see in Art to what happens in real life. And there IS people like Snow in real life, people who think humans are bad to their core and therefore need a "strong hand" to keep them from tearing each other apart, that this is the job of a government and as such, the government can go to any lengths to ensure that humans are caged by the social contract.

But who cares, right? It's just a character. Who cares that the media turns children into "minors" or "people underage of 18", it's just a way of phrasing, right?

But it's not.

When you begin to see (and I pray that you will one day) the depths that cultural influence has over society and individuals alike and how it shapes our perception of reality; when you realize what it means that we as spectators can look at someone so vile and utterly disgusting as Snow and just ignore that because he's hot, you laugh at something like this again.

You won't be able to.

You underestimate how much such a pious thing can be a reflection of a deeper problem because you cannot see how deeply interconnected Culture and Art are to Reality, how deeply it can go to show us who we are as human beings.

Everything is political, specially our response to Culture.

And you're right: you can do what you want in fandom. But know that there's an echo to what you do. You live in a society. Your actions, however tiny, however innocent, still have influence. They still hold power. They still hold truth to what we are as society. They are still reflections. They are political, even in the tiniest of ways.

Remember that.

Okay, it really bothers me how many people, especially on TikTok, are willing to forget how bad Snow really is just because he's hot. I mean, I'm not one to be above Tom Blyth's "hotness", but guys, really? Have you learned nothing at all from what you just watched?! Are you that unable to understand the film's problematic?

I try not to judge because I know sometimes people just want to be silly and give themselves a break from the heaviness of it all, but ffs, stop romanticizing creepiness and abusive behavior. TBOSAS is NOT a dark romance, Snow is NOT hot, he's a fascist-minded, not-so-borderline misogynistic, completely narcissistic villain from the beginning. He may have loved Lucy Gray or not, but it doesn't really matter as much as how he did it, how he treated her - how he (maybe) killed her (y'all know that, if she died, it was a femicide, right? At the very least, it was an attempt).

And I hate when people say "It's not that deep, he's fictional, I'd never do that irl" because that may be true for you but pay attention to the content you're spreading, the message you're getting across to people more vulnerable than you, in a position of doubt about what's really acceptable or not. Children, teenagers who think they have enough judgment when they don't, women in abusive relationships trying to normalize what they're suffering, young people being brainwashed, or trained, or raised to be prejudiced, violent, and bigoted... they're all exposed to what you're posting and if collective well-being still doesn't sway you...

Noah Schnapp.

That's it. There's your real-world version of Coriolanus Snow age 17. A young man, who supports genocide, who supports a massacre of children because he thinks his people are the rightful owners of the place they are actually colonizing. Still think he's so hot?

He's not.

He's just another fascist.

And what breaks my heart the most is that there are so many characters in THG and even TBOSAS who are so pretty, even "hot" and are still kind and, at the very least, VICTIMS of that society. Case in point, obviously, Peeta, Finnick, and even Haymitch, if you prefer a dilf. But also, Treech and Reaper, both of them victims of the Capital, and kind in the case of Reaper, I'm not sure about Treech, but he's still just a scared boy trying to go back home. And they're both so beautiful (and hot, and both actors are of age, I checked lol) and should be a lot more crushed on instead of Snow. Hell, even Sejanus is hotter than Snow just because he's not a fascist.

That's how low you have to go to find Snow actually hot. And again, I get that Tom Blyth is hot, but learn to trace a limit. It's not cool, nor funny, to throw away every message and cautionary warning this story ever gives you just because the actor playing the villain is hot, it's actually you just proving the whole story's point: we can ignore anything for the show.

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