#acosf critical

[reblogandlikes]

I'm sorry, but the ultimatum given to Nesta in ACOSF: Go to the HoW or be dropped off in the human lands.

Dude, please, piss off. Kick her out of Velaris or even the NC, sure. But you do not own Prythian to banish her from it, you absolute prick!

It's clear Nesta is capable of making friends outside of the IC and those not influenced by Feyre. Nesta also has courtly training to survive even as a human, and now she's a fae with unknown power others fear. Yeah, if ol girl wasn't so self-loathing, she would have been just fine outside the IC. Also, Jurian, Vassa are in the human lands. She could have joined Lucien as their second fae housemate.

She had plenty of choices, but only one would ensure consistent access to her powers for them the use like she'sa weapon, so they made sure she felt like it's was only their way or face literal death.

[b00kdiary]

Eris Vanserra is Rhysand if he didn’t have the Inner Circle.

Eris Vanserra is a dreamer with no stars. The Autumn Court is his Hewn City, it’s his Court of Nightmares.

Free my man 😭

[kataraavatara]

rhysand after telling nesta that he’s going to pay her a huge salary for being a human emissary after never reimbursing her for the massive fortune she and elain lost because of the night court and then never paying her and then after she’s traumatized and unwell because of all the shit the inner circle made her do STILL not paying her but offering her pity jobs where don’t worry he’s definitely going to pay her this time meanwhile giving her an open line of credit to his account she ends up using because she has no money of her own because HE NEVER COMPENSATED HER FOR HER LABOR AND LOST HER INHERITANCE and then using the fact she spent his money as an excuse to get MORE free labor out of her, hey nesta we noticed you’re unwell, you’ll clearly not capable of living on your own but you CAN do life or death missions for us and use your sexuality for us so go work in the library go wield the dread trove go seduce eris for us (elain and mor can’t because they don’t want to and/or need to be protected thank god you’re expendable), amren’s going to talk about you like you’re an object to be wielded by the night court and we’re all going to vote on whether or not to tell you the truth about your own body but you should be grateful because you spend a minuscule amount of the endless fortune i hoard while my own citizens are so poor cassian has to hand out blankets in the winter

[littlefeltsparrow]

Feyre’s arrogance is actively cultivated by the Inner Circle because it lets them contain her in a bubble of ignorance. If Feyre feels sure of her authority as High Lady, then she trusts that the Inner Circle will be subject to her power and never betray her. That illusion makes it easy to undermine her, because she is convinced of her security in their world. Her naïveté, coupled with her rapid rise to power makes her easy to persuade and manipulate.

Also, Feyre’s alignment with masculine power makes her think that she no longer needs feminine solidarity/sisterhood which isolates her even further. Lording her power over her sisters pushes them further away and prevents the Archeron sisters from fully uniting with one another. Her willful blindness to the injustice of Nesta’s plight is a way of convincing herself of her authority and the false idea that she could never be subject to such treatment.

[silly--fangirl]

"women subconciously seek out men like their father"

nesta's father never standing up for her to her mother and grandmother

and nesta's mate never standing up for her to his family

[yaralulu]

me when I’m delusional and out of touch.

“No other male would be a a fairer ruler” i can name like 7 other people.

“Prythian would be blessed to have such leaders” a guy who can barely run his court and his inexperienced 20 y/o gf leading a nation would obviously be such a blessing 🙏🙏.

[azysmate]

Guys pleaseeee what is this???

I’m reading ACOSF, i’m 8% through it and in those pages Cassian has complimented Mor in his inner monologue more than he has ever complimented Nesta AKA HIS FUTURE MATE.

He has just said “But he could still admire her sheer beauty—as he'd admire any work of art. Even though he knew well that what lay inside Mor was far more lovely and perfect than her exterior.

He wondered if she knew that"

And many moreeee about how beautiful she is.

Wanna know what he said in his monologue about Nesta:

"He took the invitation to survey her: long bare legs, an elegant sweep of hips, tapered waist-too damn thin-and full, inviting breasts that were at odds with the new, sharp angles of her body.

On any other female, those magnificent breasts might have been enough cause for him to begin courting her the moment he met her. But from the instant he'd met Nesta, the cold fire in her eyes had been a temptation of a different sort.

And now that she was High Fae, all inherent dominance and aggression-and piss-poor attitude he avoided her as much as possible. Especially with what had happened during and after the war against Hybern. She'd made her feelings about him more than clear"

WHAT THE HELL???

[ennawrite]

the Inner Circle: *pretty much all have/had at least one shitty, abusive parent but they know that doesn’t make them monsters just because of the shitty hand they’ve been dealt because they’re ~dreamers~*

also the Inner Circle: “What the fuck do you mean Eris isn’t a horrible guy like his father?!?!🤨😡”

[thefatesofspring]

Cassian ACTIVELY CHOOSING to leave Nesta at The bog of Oorid which is well known for how dangerous & deadly it is & still makes the decision to leave Nesta…a newly turned fae, with untrained power & basically 0 combat skills, to help Azriel…an almost 550yr old Illyrian warrior, spymaster & torturer, has a substantial amount of combat skills behind him spanning over 5 centuries & that’s the decision Cassian as a WAR GENERAL chose to make?!!…

Oh Nesta hunny…I’m so sorry, you deserve so much better than that trash.

& if you read the scene that happens straight after you’ll be even more disgusted.

[silverflameataraxia]

I'll never understand how Nesta gets compared to Eris for "letting" Feyre hunt. I don't recall canon ever mentioning Feyre coming home bruised and bleeding. But you know who did come home bruised and bleeding from being beat by their grandmother, only to have their father turn a blind eye? Nesta. You know who was bruised and bleeding from a fall down the stairs that could have killed her as a human, only to have Cassian turn and walk away without helping her? Also, Nesta.

[bayonettesque]

i have a really big issue with the priestess library because the idea we’re supposed to have of it vs the problems that are alarmingly obvious once you examine the concept even slightly are like… sooo different it’s scary. sjm clearly intended for it to be rhysand’s woke king abuse survivor utopia except when you think about it, it’s an isolated camp for heavily traumatised women to live with zero programs in place to overcome their trauma or work towards returning to the outside world— instead, they swear an oath to provide labor for rhys (presumably without pay, because what and where would they spend it?) and be bound to a religious order they don’t really have room to question or leave because defecting from the religion would lead to obvious social isolation and exclusion. it’s an almost cultish setup because like… imagine if a priestess wanted to leave— she has nothing, no family, money, accomodations, or familiarity with the “outside world”. leaving means departing from everything you know, likely to never return, not having learnt to defend yourself or cope with your severe trauma. 

the excuse that “things work differently for the fae” doesn’t exist here because acosf gives us a perfect case study of how these priestesses are quintessentially the same as an average real human woman, wherein yoga, meditation, doing some exercise, getting fresh air, and hanging out with your girlies is enough to apparently re-integrate you into the real world via GWYN and all the other priestesses. WHY is this apparently the first time in like 500 years the powers-that-be have considered a program to rehabilitate the priestesses and give them their own power??? (well. it was NESTA’S idea lmfao the ic would never do that on their own) if sjm wanted this priestess library to actually be the ethical feminist fantasy she thinks it is, couldn’t it have been that the library is supposed to be a transitional place where the ultimate goal is to heal and leave to live a fulfilling, independent, healthy life?? if rhys were the villain this would so easily be a “he keeps traumatised women as slaves to work in his isolated library camp” it’s not even funny holy shit

[onemustalwaysbecarefulofbooks]

All I'm gonna say is. . .finding it pretty fucking unfair that not only can Cassian have his wings "shredded", Hunt and Baxian can have theirs sawed off all together and be *good as new* in a few short days but for the Illyrian females, two little snips and it's game over forever.

[lainalit]

Instead of the fifth smut scene in Acosf we could have gotten the equivalent of a fae chess scene between nesta & cassian, so we could have seen how strategic and smart they actually are but this would require for sjm to understand her characters and not write them like horny teenagers for more than five minutes 🤡

[kataraavatara]

“I knew she was an artist then. The same way Feyre is. But what Feyre does with paint, that’s what Nesta did with music and dance. Our mother saw it when we were children, and honed it into a weapon. All so Nesta might one day marry a prince.”

Cassian froze. A prince—was that what Nesta wanted? His stomach clenched.”-ACOSF chapter 63

Leave it to fucking Cassian to hear about how Nesta’s joys as a child were twisted by her mother and her being preyed upon by a grown duke at fourteen and make himself the victim in that situation.

[littlefeltsparrow]

The worst thing ACOSF ever did was convince readers that it had something meaningful to say about mental health. It doesn’t, because fundamentally Sarah J Maas doesn’t understand (or care to understand) what treatment for mental healthy and recovery looks like. Furthermore, any attempt at providing insight about the nature of PTSD and trauma is dampened by the narrative’s consistent (and obvious) bias against Nesta.

The narrative of ACOSF vilifies reactions to traumatic experiences that are ugly and treats it like a personal moral failing (ex. Nesta being berated for not “trying” to recover when she has no support system) It romanticizes wildly insensitive behaviour and attempts to pass it off as “tough love” because the narrative is persuaded by the idea that since trauma is a moral failing, the traumatized person must be punished to get better.

[reblogandlikes]

Self insert Fandom

I've come to realise that most of the toxicity within the acotar fandom is often rooted in a ridiculous amount of self insert. They see a character as them, therefore their actions are absolved. They see another character in their abuser, or worse, 'as' their abusers and so they can never be impartial towards them, thinking the worst because in real life they've dealt with a lot.

I get it. Art can sometimes mimic reality, but they are indeed forgetting that this is a whole fantasy fiction book about human women turned fae getting dicked down with a hint of war and political intrigue. These characters are not, in fact, you or your abusers. Making the series so personal to themselves can then lead to a lack of introspection of the work as a whole made to be enjoyed and critiqued to the readers' preference, whether shallow or in depth.

But because this fandom in particular seem to make these books so personal than reading it as a piece of fiction, they're inflicting real world scenarios onto fictional characters and if their characters face any backlash or reasonable questioning, they take it as a personal attack which for some reason leads to insults and wild assumptions of very REAL people.

"No, no one is saying you should forgive your abuser mum, boyfriend, sister, because this literally isn't about you. I dont know you or your situation. Im talking about *insert character*."

"No, I don't think reactive abuse is OK, though I also don't believe lying about SA is OK either, let alone condoning SA."

"What do you mean it's abusive to lock someone up and then make an excuse to say it's not abuse to lock someone else up?"

The mental gymnastics is truly outstanding. If they're so called morally grey, let them be just that.

Speaking for myself, it's easy to find some commonality in a characters personality. It's written by a whole human who has a personality too, after all. But I do not attach myself to these characters as if they are my family members or those dear to me. They are, in fact, not real, and I will talk about them in the context of a fantasy text, generally.

Now the moment you take their actions out of a fantasy text, every character, and I mean, every character, needs to be dealt with the same scrutiny. Your faves will be called out and dragged. You cannot call real people names, but then think highly of yourself when your faves have done worse. What does that then make you? A racist? A misogynist? An AS denier? An abuse apologist? Someone who endorses apartheid? Someone who's OK with controlling the female body? A war criminal?

You see how absurd that all is?

Honestly, it's not that deep. But again, it's not bad to see yourself in character. Just realise that when people have some reservations about them, they are not calling YOU out. They are strictly talking about that character and that character alone. But maybe if you find so much offence, perhaps you should think about why that is. Look deep and figure out why it troubles you so much. Perhaps they're holding up a mirror, and you simply can not bear to look into it, seeming that that character represents you so much.

I think this is the only fandom I've been involved in where simply daring to disagree with the main MC and side characters can lead to online prosecution and just so much hostility. I've seen some truly nasty comments, and it's boggling. I can imagine how off-putting it may seem to newer readers.

I long for the days when people can talk about the characters and narrative alone without feeling the need to make disclosures about what they support in real life because it's truly unnecessary. I thought reading fiction was meant to be a form of escapism, not defending my moral standpoint.

If I said I enjoyed Katherine Pierce, Klaus Mikaelson and Kai Parker from TVD, what then? They're despicable, but fucking enjoyable. Don't get me started on Game of Thrones characters.

Alright, I'm done now 😅