#acotar critical

[herrinarte]

The ACOTAR fandom is so weird because what do you mean Tamsand isn’t one of the most popular ships 🤨 Tamlin is literally on Rhysand’s mind 24/7, either this man is massively insecure, gay as fuck for Tamlin or massively insecure about the fact that Tamlin ain’t fuckin him right now and could be with someone else so he has the uncontrollable urge to tell his ex-boyfriend to kill himself. How are people not saying this is gay????

And then there’s whatever the hell is going on with the bat boys. Fucking in the same room? What you just gonna stare at each other? go one step further and just do it with each other. Stop being a coward bro 😤✋

And Azriel choking Eris, uh it’s just floor play. Don’t worry it’s cool, they have a list of dos and don’t that they made when they got married.

How can you look at Lucien ‘fire in his blood’ Vanserra and Tamlin ‘literally a big ass beast’ and go no I don’t think they have had nasty passionate sex under under a cherry blossom tree 🤓 like huh????? They’re literally roommates. Lucien lost an eye for Tamlin. Tamlin felt more betrayal over loosing Lucien than Feyre. YOUR HONOUR THEY ARE IN LOVE

Then the Valkyries…um gay too. Lesbian throuple. Come on people get creative. The girls are kissing and cuddling and having beautiful sex and you are all boring.

I have never seen a fandom go so feral for dry ass ships in my life. Literally no other fandom would ignore the plethora of gay ships.

This is your sign to stop caring about what is canon and start being fun, cool and interesting xxx

[lady-selenee]

Why are so many people hating on Jurian? What did he do that was so bad?

He killed a woman who owned slaves? Given that Rhysand and the inner circle also fought in that war, I'd say they've done the same. AND THAT WOMAN OWNED (AND PROBABLY KILLED AND TORTURED) HUMANS.

He tortured her? Guess what? Azriel's job is to torture people, and most of the readers don't hate him.

He pretended to work with Hybern? Didn't Rhysand pretend to be loyal to Amarantha?

Jurian fought (and died) to free humans from slavery. He probably has statues built around the mortal kingdoms! So why so many people don't also hate the inner circle for doing the same things, but only Jurian?

[crazy-ache]

As a mother reading romance/fantasy, LoA is SO important to me.

Everywhere I look, there’s dead mothers in the hero’s backstory. Dead mothers without names and tragic lives. No personalities, no impact to the plot, no substance for me to look inside and see my motherhood experience reflected back. Nothing to offer the narrative except grief or pain.

But with Lady of Autumn? There’s a chance. There’s finally a chance for a gripping, inspiring story.

I need her to be a loving, devoted mother. I need her to be the last saving grace keeping her sons together against the brutality of Beron. I need to see the immense strength it took to sacrifice her own mating bond to protect her children. I need to see an example of an older mother with adult children still getting her own epic romance—because she is worthy of love even after all those years spent protecting her flesh and blood over her own happiness. I need to see her play a pivotal, political role in Beron’s takedown as High Lord. I need to see her love her sons despite the moments they are cruel, selfish, or ugly from their father’s influence. I need to see more examples of how a mother’s fierce, unconditional love has teeth. I need to see her children be better because of it—that her love has the power to change the world and its fate. I need to see LoA transform from tragedy to heroine.

Mothers need the representation. Motherhood needs the representation. Show me love conquers all. I need it.

[silverflameataraxia]

Feyre stans think that Feyre had a right to destroy an entire court because Tamlin provoked her, yet they don't think Nesta had a right to be mean to Feyre when provoked 🤨

Nesta being mean to Feyre is nowhere near as problematic as Feyre ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people all because one dude was a giant dick to her.

This narrative has to completely twist itself into knots trying to make Feyre seem like the hero when everything would make much more sense if SJM just admitted the truth: Feyre's a monster.

[lainalit]

Posted this over a year ago and grown ass women still use "tampon" as an insult

At this point they just need to admit that they love doing misogynstic jokes like a manosphere podcast man instead of trying to convince people that it's because of autocorrect

Every women over the age of 20 in this fandom who still calls Tamlin "Tampon" peaked in High school💀

[theweeklydiscourse]

Hewn City is a prison except babies are born and left to suffer there and then called monsters when they take after their environment.

Hewn City is an interesting creation. I think it’s a prime example of Maas’s lack of interest in exploring certain storytelling decisions. It also functions as a point of contrast to prove to her readers how noble and progressive-minded Rhysand is. It’s really funny how she accomplished the opposite of that goal.

Maas includes a few musings about the innocent people who live in Hewn City and establishes through Mor that not everyone who lives there is an irredeemable monster. There are times when she suggests that good people are suffering and confined, which makes it all the more disturbing when her heroes treat the city’s inhabitants as one evil collective.

Instructing the citizens of Velaris to discriminate against the people of Hewn City and advocating for limitations on their movement are examples of Feysand wielding their power righteously in the narrative’s eyes. It’s particularly damning when Feyre lectures the leaders of Hewn City about them having every luxury, yet still complaining about their lack of freedom, somehow not connecting her own traumatic experience to the plight of her subjects. Like yeah, I get that Keir is a misogynist and a tyrant, but that doesn’t mean his subjects should be punished for it. It’s very reductive to imagine that ALL the people in Hewn City are exactly like their leader and should be treated thusly.

But more importantly, Hewn City exists for Rhysand’s and Feyre to flex their might and epically own the baddies. Feyre’s first stint at leadership is done with Hewn City in the periphery and her power fantasy at the forefront. It’s a tool that is a testament to Maas’s shoddy world building.

[aphroditeofcnidus]

I'm sick of hearing that the Valkyries winning the Blood Rite is unrealistic.What exactly about Illyria is realistic or even makes sense?

Everyone in Illyria is a warrior,while those that don't make it in the Blood Rite also have war related activities,like being blacksmiths.Who does all other jobs necessary for the community, especially since Illyria is isolated and has to be pretty self sufficient?There have been warrior societies,where every free male's job was being a warrior,but all other jobs were done by slaves.Sparta for example had a special category of slaves,called helots for this.Illyrians don't have slaves.The problem could be solved if women did all other men's jobs,but Illyrian women are bullied for running their own businesses.

Women don't make sense at all for a warrior society,either.Women in warrior societies were often the ones that had the most freedom. They needed to give birth to strong offspring and had to deal with the men's long absence at war and the death of their husbands and sons. This meant the men needed them strong.Also,if every Illyrian is so sexist,that they don't want women to run businesses how does Emerie survive as a shop keeper?There are definitely other shops they could go to,if they didn't want to buy anything from a female.Perhaps,not everyone is so horrible,at least in the youngest generation,like Balthazar.But their rulers paint them all with the same brush.

Moreover,Illyrians seem to know about Velaris.Devlon is invited to the How to watch the Valkyries.Rhysand definitely couldn't hide the existence of an entire city from flying beings,who live in the NC.How come noone spoke of Velaris to outsiders,even by accident?As for this there could be a logical explanation,but it makes Rhysand even more horrible.By keeping Illyrians poor and therefore isolated,they don't have contact with other faeries in Prythian.Cassian talks about female High Fae,becoming pregnant with Illyrians's children and dying in childbirth,but those are probably from Velaris only,where there's less travelling distance and easier to take a day trip to drink and get laid once in a while.That means another reason for illyrian poverty is for Velaris to remain a secret.

[bookbitchx]

"There is no such thing as High Lady."

Call Tamlin a misogynistic sexist asshole or whatever else you want, but he's right.

High Lady is a title Rhysand gave to Feyre.

It's honorary.

It wasn't 'earned'. She wasn't 'blessed' with it, and she certainly wasn't chosen by the land and the magic.

If there was a title and it meant something, don't you think Viviane, of all women, would've been granted it by the lands for holding down the fort in Winter Court for 50 years while Kalias was stuck UTM?

Kalias could've also easily slapped the title on her like Rhysand did with Feyre, and yet he didn't. You know why? Because Viviane doesn't need it. She's already respected and seen as his equal by his court and the others for what she has done.

Feyre can't say the same, can she?

SJM sets it up as this badass moment of empowerment, but all I saw was Rhysand giving a baby (by Fae years) a title and letting her run loose with it as well as letting it go to her head.

The first thing she did after getting that title was go and get revenge on a whole ass court because she had issues with its High Lord which is insane in of itself but it brings me to my point, that there was no political repercussions where as if Rhysand had done it, it would've declared an internal war between Night and Spring.

It would've been a good ass arc if she had learned Prythian politics, history, diplomacy, the cultures, and customs of the other courts, including her own, so much as visited the other courts, slowly climbed the ranks and learned instead of Rhysand shoving that crown on her head and down everyone else's throats.

It's like taking me, a complete clueless, inadequate foreigner, and making me the Queen of England. Utterly ridiculous.

"You just hate Feyre being High Lady because you want Nesta to be one."

The same thing goes for Nesta, babe. NONE of the Archeron sisters are qualified to be High Ladies, honorary or not.

One of the hills I will die and kill on.

[sadlybluespirited]

Amren is the one that confuses me most because presumably her power isn't tied to Rhysand or Prythian. She's supremely her own entity. He brings Amren along to the Summer Court both to retrieve the book and as an intimidation tactic because that's how scared people are of her. You're telling me the embodiment of nightmares couldn't do anything? She's also shown as capable of protecting the city by herself, enacting wards all on her own. Amren could've easily been someone more involved in the beginning.

Also, I maintain that Rhysand wasn't upset that Tamlin was sitting on his ass. He was upset that Tamlin wasn't being punished in a way that would've been cathartic to him. Rhysand probably wanted Amarantha to be Tamlin's divine punishment for all his wrongdoings in the past.

If we are to trust Feyre and believe that Mor, Azriel, Cassian were the deadliest things in that room, wouldn't that mean that Rhysand doomed everyone by locking them away - they could have taken down Amarantha. And then he had the audacity to say that Tamlin sat on his ass.

It is the most ridiculous shit in the world. And also Amren is described as something used to scare children by Lucien. With one teeny tiny drop of rhys' magic, he manages to lock down velaris AND remove any trace of cassian/azriel/mor/amren from the memories of anybody who knows them - all of the hewn city, tamlin, lucien, the vanserras. Like.... he couldn't do anything more effective with that singular drop?

[yugen-ikigai]

this could just be me speculating but I have a feeling that the night court is the type of place to openly have both slaves and child soldiers in it, and both would be treated as completely fine by the narrative.

In a way, isn't that what the Illyrians are?

They're more of a property of the night court than a member of it; they aren't treated like citizens, but they abide by laws that don't benefit them or their interests.

And their children begin training really young. I believe the bat boys participated in the blood rite in their 20s, but that doesn't mean it's the minimum age to participate (and given their long life span, 20 IS A CHILD in the grand scheme, even if SJM doesn't think so).

I think people tend to forget things aren't often named what they are even if they have that essence; for example, the US prohibits slavery and "involuntary servitude" with the exception of it being used as punishment for a crime. People rarely consider this to be slavery even though it's forced labor with insubstantial pay.

So SJM doesn't need to outright say something is slavery or that there are slaves in the Night Court for there to be hints that those things exist in the Night Court.

[nikalaeva]

Dear anti-Rhysands 🙋‍♀️📢

It seems (I could be wrong), but we don't talk enough about the fact that Rhysand TWISTED THE BONE in Feyre's arm.

SA in the form of naked dancing while high on drugs is disgusting and wild. But the scene is initially presented with an erotic, "sinful" subtext, so people have no problem either ignoring Feyre's condition, or with Rhysand's "I did it to save you". We must remind more often and describe in vivid detail this torture when excuses are spat in our faces.

And especially fo disrecpected pro-Rhysands - 👎 👇

PHYSICAL ABUSE, bitches. Something that Tamlin was not forgiven for in a fit of anger (for a minute, this is a state of affect, which in my country is a mitigating circumstance for a criminal).

If you think that jealousy of another man or even despair about the situation is a reason to go to this extent, dude, I have bad news for you, don't get into a relationship. Your precious "book hubby" in a clear mind inflicted pain similar to torture on his dying love.

Rhysand: "omg, she's dying and won't take the deal. I need to save her!"

Rhysand: *twists broken bone in infected, contaminated wound*

Feyre: *dies of pain shock*

Rhysand: "... fuck."

Justify it. Romanticize it. I'll eat you alive.

[youareatragedy]

I get why SJM’s fae are basically just humans with pointy ears and magic. Because if SJM had chosen to give them even the "basic fae traits" like being unable to lie, Rhysand would have been dead immediately or during that High Lord meeting when Kallias asked about those children. Viviane would have ripped Rhysand’s heart out with her bare hands.

[starrbirrd]

'Feyre is going to heal Emerie's wings!' idk how to impress upon y'all she does not gaf about the Illyrians

[fenrysmoonbeamswife]

A T E and left no crumbs

[dippedinmelancholy]

This isn’t aimed at any one creator, but just a trend I’ve noticed, especially with the holiday art.

Often when all three of the sisters are drawn in ACOTAR art, I’m seeing both Elain and Feyre in the softest, most cottage core dresses/sweaters ever designed, and Nesta is in the sluttiest, high slit line, low neckline, titties out dress you’ve ever seen.

Words cannot tell you how much this infuriates me. Nesta, the one character whose modesty was SO FUCKING IMPORTANT TO HER. Nesta, who feels uncomfortable baring herself in such a way in any social setting. Nesta, the only sister described to have a large chest and yet finds comfort in high necklines and long dresses, hiding as much of her flesh as she can, who has been repeatedly SA’d ON PAGE, over and over and over again, is the one sister who is drawn this way? Why??????? why is such a core part of her stripped away even by the fandom? Against Feyre who is apparently free and uber Girl Boss as she consistently wears the sluttiest dresses ever made? but not in the fan art, no, it’s nesta who needs to dress that way, because how else could recognize it was her?

idk it just feels gross and wrong and horrible mischaracterization of her, especially if you’re trying to show her as healed and comfortable with her family. I promise, Nesta is never happy if her tits are out in public.

[spacerockfloater]

The way people switched on Tamlin the moment Rhys was introduced is diabolical.

“Tamlin never really loved Feyre, it was all a trick from the start”: It is stated that Tamlin was disgusted by the idea of forcing someone to fall in love with him and considered it slavery, but ended up being so in love with her that he ultimately lets her go and choses her freedom and safety over that of his own people. Rhys confirms that Tamlin loved Feyre too much. And he loved her truly. Not because he had to. Tamlin treated Feyre with dignity when she was engaged to him. He introduced her as his lady, to be respected and cherished by all. And she really was loved by his people, too. Rhysand uses her as his lap dog to scare Hewn City and parades her as his whore.

“Tamlin never did anything for Feyre, he just used her”: He improved her and her family’s life in every aspect and offered her everything he had.

“Tamlin had sex with someone else in Calanmai”: Out of duty and responsibility because he didn’t want to force Feyre, who still wasn’t sure about her feelings, into it. All of the High Lords perform the Calanmai. Lucien says so. How convenient that this is never brought up with Rhysand. He surely does perform it as well. All the theories in here, “Lucien doesn’t know what he’s talking about/ This is a SC ritual only/ He probably just passes the duty on to someone else” are just a way for people to villainise Tam and glorify Rhys again. All of them inaccurate. The Calanmai is canonically performed by every High Lord. There’s no evidence that proves otherwise. As the son of one High Lord and the ambassador of another, Lucien would know. He is 500 years old. It’s just more convenient for SJM to never bring this up again because it raises the question of “Who was Rhysand fucking all these years?” and it makes her favourite character look bad. And once he is engaged to her, Tamlin flat out refuses to do it. Let’s be real for a second.

“Tamlin didn’t help Feyre under the mountain”: He literally could not. He was bound by a curse. He was forced to be Amarantha’s consort and a consort cannot oppose you. His powers were bound. Alis warns Feyre that Tamlin will not be able to help her. Stop acting as if he didn’t want to help her. He decapitated Amarantha the moment he got his autonomy back. Claiming that there’s no proof that Tamlin was under the influence of a spell when he literally didn’t break the curse and Amarantha’s magic didn’t allow him to use his powers is crazy. And even if he tried, he could never provide actual help. We see this when he begs Amarantha for Feyre’s life. Him showing he cares about her would only make Amarantha more jealous and vicious towards Feyre.

“Tamlin made out with Feyre instead of helping her”: He couldn’t help her run away. No one could do that. She would never make it, Amarantha would find her. In fact, Tamlin specifically could not help her in any way. He could only assure her he still wants and loves her. And she wanted that just as much. Rhys abused her physically, mentally, verbally, drugged her and much worse. And he enjoyed all of it. If he didn’t want to raise suspicions, he wouldn’t have placed a bet in her favour. Rhys is a sadist, SJM just decided to mellow him down in the next book so that we’d all like him over Tamlin.

“Tamlin ignored Feyre’s wishes and only wanted her to be his bride, he didn’t let her be High Lady”: Both Tamlin and Feyre were bad communicators going though trauma and Tam had a whole court to care for. Tamlin was unaware of how Feyre felt because she barely spoke up once. Rhys knew because he literally lived inside her head and had all the time in the world to focus his attention on her since his court suffered zero consequences during Amarantha’s reign. And Tamlin simply told her the truth: there’s no such thing as High Lady. Even her current title is given to her by Rhys, the magic of Prythian has not actually chosen her to be High Lady. The title and its power are decorative. And she said she didn’t want that anyway.

“Tamlin locks Feyre up and uses his magic to harm her”: He locks her in his humongous palace to keep her safe, after she just came back from the dead and his worst enemy is kidnapping her every month, while he runs off to protect his borders. Rhysand locks Feyre in a fucking bubble. Tamlin loses control of his magic. He doesn’t want to harm her. That’s not abuse. Abuse is intentional. Feyre and Rhysand lock Lucien and Nesta up. They lock the people of the Hewn City up in a cave. Feyre loses control of her magic and harms Lucien’s mother. Double standards I guess.

“Tamlin is a bad and conservative ruler”: Tamlin is such a beloved ruler that his sentries literally begged to die for him. Feyre had to fuck with their minds to finally turn them against him. They were his friends. He was so progressive that the lords fled his court once he became their ruler because he wouldn’t put up with their bullshit like his father did. He loved all of his people. He is against slavery. The Tithe was just tax collection. Rhysand practically rules over just one city, while ignoring Hewn City and Illyria. He treats 2/3 of his realm like shit and everyone except the residents of Velaris hates him. He collects tax, too, but we conveniently never see this. He ranks the members of his inner circle (my 1st, my 2nd etc.) and reminds them every moment that they are his slaves first and anything else second, while Tamlin treats them equally and even gives Lucien an official title by naming him Ambassador.

“Tamlin conspired with Hybern”: He was a double agent and his short lived alliance, two weeks all in all, not only didn’t harm a single soul, but ultimately saved all of Prythian as he was the only one who brought valuable information to that meeting. He dragged Beron to battle. Rhysand’s alliance with Amarantha harmed thousands and only helped save one city, Velaris.

“Tamlin is responsible for turning Nesta and Elain into Fae”: No, that was Ianthe, who got the info from Feyre. Tamlin was fooled by her, just as Feyre obviously was, or she wouldn’t have trusted her. Tamlin was disgusted by that act.

“Tamlin is less powerful than Rhysand”: Rhysand himself says that a battle between them would turn mountains to dust. Tamlin killed Rhysand’s dad, the previous High Lord of the Night Court, in one blow. He is just as powerful as Rhysand. SJM again just wants us to believe otherwise. And he is smarter, too. He was the only one not to trust Amarantha. And he was a good spy for Prythian against Hybern.

All of these takes are cold as fuck. SJM was testing the waters with ACOTAR and she made sure the main love interest, Tamlin, was insanely likeable, so that the book could be a satisfactory standalone story in case she couldn’t land a trilogy deal. She didn’t know it would be such a big hit. But once she realised she could turn this into a franchise, she had to figure out a new story to tell. She may claim otherwise, but there’s just too many plothotes to convince me. And in order to make her new main love interest seem like the best choice, she had to character assassinate the old one. There was no other way. ACOTAR Rhys was too much of an evil monster to be loved by the majority of the audience. But Tamlin was introduced to us as such a heroic and passionate man that is literally impossible to turn him into someone despised by all. Feyre’s relationship with Rhysand reads too much like cheating on Tamlin. That’s why anyone with basic analytical skills is able to realise the flaws of the narration.