Tired Of Fae Dick

bardugo in 2012: predominantly straight and white cast, average writing style, average worldbuilding, subsistent characterization, regularly interacted with fans

sjmess in 2018: predominantly straight and white cast aside from blatantly obvious and stereotypical retcons of previously straight and white characters into queer/characters of color; vast majority of poc are either violently murdered, sidelined, or introduced 2/3 of the way into the story as irrelevant side characters; repins and reposts depictions of her supposedly “poc” or “queer” characters that are white and cishet; created a magic system that necessarily excludes any sort of queer identity and used it in both her series; almost unreadable prose filled with sentence fragments and plot holes; nonsensical, unoriginal, and inconsistent worldbuilding; endless retcons to make sure failsand and ratalien take precedent over everything else in the story; barely interacts with fans except to promote her books

bardugo in 2018: makes efforts to diversify her cast with humanized and 3d characters of different body types, ability status, ethnicities, and sexualities; only supports artwork that accurately represents her characters’ ethnicities, ability status, and body types; established firm and logical magic rules; successfully distinguished multiple cultures, cities, clothing styles, and histories within her world; balances and differentiates six 3d povs that all justify their presence as narrators in one book; publicly and repeatedly addresses the issues in her work; talks to fans to see how she can make it better and give them rep that works for them

: | You want a diplomatic answer or an honest one?

I think I’ll just be honest: I have zero respect for her and, even now, my mind boggles while trying to wrap itself around the fact that she is both a NYT bestseller as well as someone who is hailed a feminist.

My issues:

Velvet-wrapped steel? Fire dick? Come the fuck on. Really? 

Also: cumming at a vision of your future children is nasty as hell and  carries some ped/ophilic vibes that I don’t even wanna touch on.

More than eight em dashes on one page is a good indicator of poor writing. Why interrupt yourself so many times in narration? Where the hell was her editor?

Inconsistent character behaviour disguised as so-called  “character development.”

Changing a character’s identity halfway through a series just to have new ships.

On the subject of ships: ABUSIVE MEN HAILED AS PERFECT LOVE INTERESTS. Beating, belittling, and raping women to “make them stronger” should never ever be hailed as feminist. What the fuck, people?

Skipping over plot points and referring back to them with a few sentences. Where’s the action? I want more than two damn sentences about the important stuff and a lot less of your protag thinking about how attractive she is.

For that matter: completely unlikable protagonists.

Writing female main characters who all have a hatred and distrust of other women isn’t very realistic or feminist. : ) 

The heavy romanticizing of colonialism and imperialism. 

Treating LGBT characters as tokens and not people is s h i t t y. Treating characters of colour as tokens and not people is S H I T T Y. 

Complete control of worldbuilding in a fantasy and you still choose to make it homophobic. Lol. Okay. It’s clear where you stand.

This one is mostly a personal pet peeve, but: worldbuilding in which your names don’t linguistically fit whatsoever. Also incomplete worldbuilding where some places and people don’t even have names. 

I could go on for days about this so TL;DR:

How Hollywood sees diversity:

“Just remember you’re a wolf and can do no wrong. No wait. You can only do one wrong. And that’s not marrying me. That’s the one mistake you can make. Otherwise, you’re a wolf”

“Fryer, my mate, is such a wolf. No wait, she’s not my anything, not yet. Cauldron, I wanna fuck, but no - not yet”

“You’re a wolf, okay? I’m gonna give you the barest training possible and put you in danger”

“Woof woof, you see there’s all the training you need.”

“She doesn’t wanna fuck, but I horny after seeing her womanly curves”

“I’m going to give her crowns so she’ll realise she’s such a kween despite doing absolutely nothing”

“Oh lookie me im doing the ABSOLUTE bare MINIMUM, don’t you see fryer, im the ultimate girl power™️ supporter!”

“I’ve got a big dick lol. It’s bigger than eveybody else’s because I’m speshuler. Don’t you want this fae dick?”

“Our sex will be catastrophic. don’t you want to conceive our children AND break a mountain in half at the same time?? come on i know you wanta.”

“She’s so sexy and beautiful in my Mom’s dresses. Is it weird to want to fuck her even more knowing that she wears the clothes of my diseased mother? Nah. Her boobs look amazing so it must be okay”

“My orgasm was so intense a mountain broke in half”

“Maybe if I purr enough she’ll forget all those times I abused her”

“I wonder if she’s noticed how outrageously attractive I am. Look, Fryer. Look at my violet eyes and smexy face”

“See these muscles? I’m so hot. I’ve got tattoos. My looks make up for everything I’ve done to you”

“I totally understand sexism. You femails have it real rough. I’m not gonna do anything about it, but I’m here for y'all”

“See the night court? yes, imagine, you. being high lady. yes you. without doing absolutely anything. i just really want to fuck you really.”

“I’m going to allow my beloved cousin’s abusers into velaris, the only place she feels safe bc ya know gotta do what ya gotta do amirite.”

“The Illyrians are pieces of shit who abuse their femails. I have the power to stop it, but I don’t because my bestie Cassian will be mad at me”

*Mansplains feminism* “I’M SUCH A FEMINIST!” *does nothing about it*

Predictions for future books:

“My mate, now the mother of my child. I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything since she became pregnant. The male instincts are raging in me and I can’t help but try to fuck her everywhere we are. The thought of a baby insider her makes her even more sexy”

“There she was - My mate. So gorgeous even after having our child. Though I hadn’t forced her to bear a son, no I couldn’t, she had asked, given him to me as a gift.”

“She smiled and my breath was taken from me. She began to feed our child and my male instincts fought against my self control. Her breasts had grown larger during pregnancy and it was getting harder to restrain myself at the sight of them”

“I snuck into my son’s mind and put him to sleep so I could fuck my mate. Oh my beautiful mate who had given me a child despite not wanting to. Feyre, my mate, looked up in alarm when the baby fell asleep. I smiled and grabbed the baby from her and winnowed it to somewhere I would figure out later”

“I placed the baby into the weaver’s cottage. “find my crown, son,” I whispered encouragingly, then wandered off to screw my mate”