#reader interpretation

[sofasoap]

Yankee 7 and his Lastochka - by @wombywoo

My original character, Freya ' Mini ' MacTavish and Nikolai from Call of Duty.

Thank you again for the lovely art! I am amazed again and again by your excellent skill and Oh.. words can't express how much I love it 🥺🥺

[natureboy96]

SJM, ACOTAR, Authorial Intent and what's "fair" to criticize/validate

So, the title of this post is, while accurate, a bit vague. I decided to put my two cents out on this because, since I joined the ACOTAR fandom a few months ago, I've found a lot of very harsh words being flung one way or another, largely based around the characters of the book or the direction people believe SJM has taken/will take the narrative. There's also been a lot of rather nasty attacks on people for their takes, their ships, and their criticism. I'm not an expert on writing, but I thought it worth having a proper, fleshed out discussion on these topics.

Author's Intent vs Reader's Interpretation

When it comes to understanding a text and gaining meaning from it, Author's Intent and Reader's Interpretation are generally the two fields which are subscribed to. Authorial Intent argues that the meaning of a text should be derived by what the author wanted the reader to take from it, and that a text is inherently connected to the intent of the author; for example, because SJM doesn't put as much emphasis on certain side characters, the reader shouldn't consider them important. Or, that SJM and the narrative intend and clearly state that the IC and Rhysand are the good guys, it only makes sense to view them as such. Reader's Interpretation posits that texts are meant to be interacted with, and that the meaning people can derive from them is subjective, because individuals have different life experiences and perspectives which can lead them to understand a text in different ways; A reader can see Rhysand's actions as hypocritical based on their interpretations of what he did and how in ACOSF. Or, coming at the text with a different understanding on trauma or sexuality, a reader can come away from a text finding Tamlin to be a more sympathetic character than hateful one. Both of these arguments have existed for decades, if not longer. And the thing is...

Neither of these are wrong or right ways to read a text

There is no "one right way" to engage with or criticize a text! If you believe that SJM is a bad writer because she uses characters as plot points rather than giving them actual growth/retcons things as needed for her narrative, or that Tam’s actions have earned him his redemption, that is a valid assessment based on what you read in a text. If you think Lucien and Elain have no chance because Elain has on multiple times been shown being friendly, even intimate (not romantic intimate, just close) with Azriel and that the author seems to hint towards a rejected mating bond, that is a valid assessment too. Anything in a text, written, implied or intended, is a valid avenue of criticism.

At the same time, people are fully allowed to have their own head cannons and fanfics about characters outside the written narrative. Just because SJM wants you to ship Feysand, doesn’t mean you can’t write or ship TamlinxRhysand, or Gwynriel or Rhysta. Art, including text, is open to interpretation and you are allowed to make it your own too, even if the text itself makes it clear it’ll never happen. Hell, shipping Elain and Tamlin because they both like flowers is entirely valid! Fan fiction and ships don’t have to be defended by the text/author’s intent, they are your own creation and can be based on whatever you want! Have fun, go crazy with em.

What isn’t ok for criticism

You can criticize the actions and choices and motivations of a book character all you want, using whichever method of critique you want. If you want to call Rhysand a pedo because he came to a pic of his child, you can make that take. If you call Tamlin a serial abuser who brought everything on himself, you can make that take.

What isn’t ok, is using your takes to criticize the people who disagree with you.

(These are just a few examples I’ve seen in the last few days, but I’m pretty sure everyone in this fandom has seen personal attacks along these lines, some far worse than the ones I grabbed. It’s also not a matter of degrees of bad faith criticism, all of these are of the same vein and one isn’t more ‘valid’ than others because it wasn’t as harsh.) Believing Rhysand is a pedo doesn’t make it ok to call people who like him the same. Believing Lucien is a terrible person doesn’t make someone who likes him a person of questionable morals. Having a different method of criticizing a text doesn’t make someone else’s different way of approaching the text wrong.

At the end of the day, these characters, this world, this narrative are all constructs, not people. You are not Feyre, you are not Tamlin, you are not Rhysand or a Valkyrie or Elain or Cassian. You do not deserve to be judged for the actions of fictional characters, and you should not be judged for your opinions on these characters either. And you need to let others have differing opinions on characters, even ones you dislike intensely.

Let people like the characters they want to like, let people criticize the characters they don’t like (or the ones they do) and for fuck’s sake, don’t take it or make it personal.

[harveybwabbit92]

{Game is called Rinmaru anime avatar creator Link to the site in case anyone wants to use it.]

This is my interpretation of what I think the reader's human form would look like in my Belial x reader series and Quotes, (She doesn't have to look like this; her appearance is completely up to you guys, but this is just how I see her.)

Some background info for R/n: She is a teacher and youth counselor at an international high-school that teaches the children of both human and alien celebrities and government officials. R/n is the homeroom teacher of the third years in class D who are a group of late transfers, year repeaters and delinquents.

The Reader is one of the few teachers the kids actually show respect to, because unlike everyone else? she actually listens to them and tries to assist them when they need help; instead of ignoring them, giving them crap advice or is just acting like she cares in an attempt to suck up to their parents.

This mutual respect is shown when Belial moves in with her and R/n sometimes shows up to school with mystery injuries. (From getting into fights with aliens coming after Belial.) Causing the kids to worry they started asking her if everything was okay at home? and some of the more rowdier students asked if there a Slime-ball who needed their ass kicked? Cos they'd be happy to oblige. Luckily, R/n was quick to convinced the kids that nothing sinister was going on; she had joined a boxing team and the injuries were from participating in matches.

When not in her classroom R/n can usually be found hiding out in her office. Sometimes Takeshi (80) joins her during lunch breaks or sometimes Belial goes to work with her (in his doll form of course.), he gets lonely when she's not around but won't admit it.

[percys-tits]

Percy: (to CHB) I'm tired of being objectified, I am tired of the whistles, people trying to touch my ass or my tits- I am a human too! Not just a piece of meat Michael: Percy I- Percy: Not you baby, you can keep on objectifying me

Idk if you mean Michael Yew or Michael Kahale (Both? 🥴) but yes love this <3

Percy doesn’t like being objectified but also please objectify him 🥵🤤

[princessofmerchants]

Some not fully formed thoughts about reading, canon, characters, and my relationship to all of these things...

The ACOTAR series is not yet complete. So many elements of the remainder of the story, for readers, are at present moving targets. Before ACOSF, this was also true of the how of Nessian's coming together, which in many ways is a great case study in the following stuff I'm gonna try to describe.

The fandom at its core is people who love this series for a variety of reasons coming together and interacting in relation to the series. There are moments in the fandom when the moving target-ness of the remainder of the series is the cause of a deep kind of readerly anxiety. I've experienced it myself (just before ACOSF came out I was a feral wreck), so I'm describing it from both my own experience of it and my observation of it around me in the fandom.

But then there are other times I step back, and think about how exciting and generative it is that the series isn't finished yet.

As a reader, I have a deep love for Sarah J. Maas, if only because the characters and stories she has created are helping me heal from a lot of trauma in my real life. (For me, the main character I'm referring to is Nesta.) I also trust her as a storyteller, and do believe she knows her own characters enough to tell their stories to us.

But, I am also a semi-inhabitant of the Death of the Author camp when it comes to how readers experience stories. What comes next in canon does not threaten my experience of the characters so far, both in canon and outside of it in the fandom (fic, art, metas, memes, all of it).

It's a shifting of perspective on what a story is, which is more than just the words on the published page (see also reader-response criticism, one of the most empowering things you may encounter as a reader and lover of stories), a shift I know I'm not explaining well. And because of this shift, I can freely enjoy the rest of the books in this series no matter the decisions SJM makes for the characters I have grown to love, because I'm not putting on SJM the responsibility to continue to construct the versions of these characters in my own head and heart that have grown to mean so much to me. In other words, I'm not giving canon the power to override the reasons I have connected to these characters in the first place. Does that make sense?

And furthermore, because of this, I can lean into, geek out, and totally enjoy the lull between canon books and all the discussion and content the fandom is generating in the space created by the length of time between canon books. And it also means I can enjoy canon itself, in the future, in the same way, because canon is at the end of the day just a new pile of content about my faves.

I have more thoughts I could add, about how given the above way I interact with this series and these characters, what my process of reading canon is like, and the way I use it to kind of test what SJM gives us about my favorite characters against my own construction of them in my head and heart, and how yes I do want them to integrate (because, again, I trust SJM to tell her characters' stories so I want to understand why they act and think as they do in canon because I think trying to determine that is a worthwhile activity, though not everyone will agree with that sentiment and that's totally valid), but I also don't force it (looking at you, Amren 😑), and the kind of reader/rereader I am because of all of this, but this is already long so I'll stop here for now.

[rosy-cheeked-girl]

darling

you often wonder, dear, why I so often call you darling. my darling, darling mine.

what would you rather I call you, dear? sweetie? honey? baby? they seem so small to me, when you could be my darling, beautiful, sugar, darling mine.

[harveybwabbit92]

{The game is called Rinmaru anime avatar creator here's the Link to the site in case anyone wants to use it.]

[This is my interpretation of what I think the reader would look like in my Tregear version in my Spark-doll au shorts and Quotes series, (She doesn't have to look like this; her appearance is completely up to you guys, but this is just how I see her.)]

This her reaction to after seeing Kirisaki turn into Ultraman Tregear for the first time and she is utterly terrified.

Reader bio: The Reader is a college student studying to become a forensic scientist, though she originally wanted to be a astrophysicist. but due to a personal tragedy she dropped out of college on her 2nd year and became a Neet for a few years before returning college partially anyway, she takes most of her classes on online and only comes onto campus for tests or exams or to borrow the lab.

One day R/n's computer died and she had to order a new one, which gave her no choice but to start coming to school again, one the days she came in she met a fellow student in the science department, an odd fellow named Kirisaki, R/n took an immediately dislike of him considering the first thing he did when they met was insult her.

R/n did her best avoid him which Kirisaki found amusing and responded by teasing her and would randomly pop up places she frequented.

Which pissed the usually timid R/n off enough for her tell him off which she immediately regretted when Kirisaki morphed into his true form Ultraman Tregear much to R/n's horror! but before he could do anything to her; his color timer went off and Tregear reverted to the form of a small doll. Needless to say, R/n wasted no time running away from him, unfortunately R/n dropped her campus ID which had her address on it, So Tregear used that to track her down...

One couldn't describe the confusion and horror R/n felt when she woke up the next morning to the the smell of (IDK bacon, pancakes, eggs?) and found Kirisaki in her kitchen cooking and walking around like he owned the place.

[bayesiandragon]

Whenever I come across debate about the meaning of written works being defined by authorial intent vs reader interpretation, I think about Fahrenheit 451. Specifically, about Ray Bradbury getting into heated argument with literature students on the meaning of his book, where the near universal takeaway was (and still is to this day) that it was a commentary of government control via censorship and destruction of knowledge, but his intended meaning was more limited to how mass media consumption was making people dumb. 

From which my own takeaway is that, sometimes things are written in a way that accidentally confer a meaning - or at least create additional parallels/allegories - that were not intended, but do latently exist there to come alive in the minds of readers.