#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.

[starrbirrd]

don't get me wrong. I fully understand and get the appeal to it and this isn't to like. kinkshame anyone. but the practicality side of being able to smell when people are horny is making me-

imagine being able to smell when strangers on the street were getting hot and heavy. when your parents had sex. when your sister and BIL wanted to fuck. there are some things people do not want to know about their family!!!

[grimseverity]

ACOSF Rewritten

I have no time to write fan-fiction at the moment, but I did want to run an outline for how Nesta healing at the Library would have been such a better option than the HoW nonsense we got.

Big Changes:

NO TROVE, it’s largely unneeded.

NO Bryallin or Koschei, also largely unneeded.

Bigger focus on Night Court politics

Focus on Cassian and Nesta’s relationships with their respective families

So let's begin:

Keep the opening of Nesta’s transformation it was so dope.

Keep the same opening with Nesta and Cassian and shirtless man and leading her by saying that Feyre wants to talk about the rent situation. Legit was a good way to get here out of the house.

Same intervention scene only this time it is Feyre and Elain only, instead of the whole crew. Feyre fights with Nesta about them having their own separate lives, and actually show Nesta having some resentment for the two sisters finding peace while she is not. Elain speaks up about how she lost an engagement, and how just because she isn’t willing to shut herself away, she isn’t suffering as well. The only difference is that Elain and Feyre are willing to push their own needs aside to help Nesta now, just like how Nesta did to bring Elain out of her depression in ACOWAR. It’s Elain’s tears that convince Nesta to even bother trying, and Feyre notes that for later.

Nesta goes home and sees the shambles she is living in, and maybe one of her old suitors comes to pay a visit, and she for once refuses. He pushes back and she lets her powers flash to scare him off, but it sets the apartment on fire. The fire destroys the apartment because they can’t put it out (it’s death magic hello) and the people are displaced. This is Nesta’s coming to Jesus moment when she realized she has to learn how to control her powers, having just cost people their homes.

Feyre and Rhys talk about where Nesta should stay, paying to have the people relocated to new homes, and Rhys in a surprising amount of foresight suggests the Library over the House of Wind. It’s full of other people Nesta can socialize with, and they have a strict no drinking policy (Nesta actually has real alcoholism in this version)

Nesta spends time in the library, and struggles with quitting drinking cold turkey.

Nesta goes with Cassian to the Illyrian camp, same scene as before with her refusing to train, but Emerie is introduced as one of the few female Illyrians who are trying to train, and only one of her wings is scarred because Cassian and Azriel stopped the clipping midway. She meets the other Illyrians and tells them off like in the original story.

Nesta’s meeting with Gwyn goes exactly the same.

Nesta falls off and sneaks a bottle of wine into the library, Gwyn catches her and rips the bottle out of her hands, chastising her for bringing alcohol into a place where other ex-alcoholics are, and risking them also falling off. “I can deal with the sharp tongue and the bad attitude, but if you don’t give a shit about everyone else, maybe you shouldn’t be here.” Nesta thinks on this and almost decides to quit, before she noticed a book about swordplay and tactics, and decides that if she’s going to leave, she’s going to do one thing right.

Nesta steals the book (or gets permission from Clotho who knows) and gives it to Emerie the next time Cassian takes her to the camp. Emerie refuses saying “I don’t need to cheat”, but Nesta replies, “It’s not cheating, you still have to learn the fucking thing. I’m just...diving you the tools.” Emerie reluctantly takes it, and Nesta ruminates on what she said about giving the tools to help her succeed. She tells Cassian she wants to train, but not here with Illyrians who constant cat-call and insult her. She also demands that he train Emerie as well, which Cassian agrees to because it means that Nesta will finally train, and they decide to use the House of Wind as a training ground instead of Nesta’s prison. Also now Emerie and Nesta are training together.

Training montages and so on, and Nesta ends up liking the House of Wind and its amenities and sentience (this way we don’t sacrifice the befriending a haunted house aspect of ACOSF) and Nesta asks Cassian if she can stay there instead of with Feyre and Rhys at their mansion. Cassian warns her of the 10,000 steps, and how if she stays, she’ll have to have someone come and get her, such as himself or Azriel. She agrees, actually admitting to liking Azriel because he takes such care of Elain.

Nesta apologizes to Gwyn, they bond, Gwyn invites her to the priestess’ ceremony and Nesta has her enjoy of music and dancing reignited. Nesta decides to quit drinking and ungoes a cleanse with Feyre and Elain where she struggles with withdrawal for weeks, even going to therapy with Madja to work through it. She emerges successful, but struggles with it at places like the ball and such. Gwyn also decides to join her for training, wanting to break free of her own trauma.

Nesta learns the NC is going to the CoN to announce Feyre’s pregnancy, and Nesta says she wants to go to support the family, and show her progress of healing. There, she catches the attention of and dances with Eris, and they have a bit of banter as Cassian watches on.

Nesta asks Cassian to dance with her, and he accepts, and they have a romantic moment where she teaches him easy steps.

Nesta overhears Rhys discussing with Helion (also in attendance at the CoN to support Rhys) about Feyre’s pregnancy risk. Upon returning home, Nesta grapples with whether or not to tell her, but ultimately decides to do it.

Rhys explodes, calling Nesta ungrateful for him tolerating her nonsense and putting her up in the library, putting the girls there at risk because of her behavior, bringing up how she made Feyre hunt etc etc. Cassian gets in the way and defends Nesta, and he and Rhys get into a fight, where Cassian actually manages to overpower Rhys, revealing that Rhys lost his High Lord powers when he died in ACOWAR. Cassian takes Nesta and runs.

Cassian takes her in the hike to get her away from Rhysand, but instead of it being a torturous mountain trek, it’s to a small remote house that Cassian owns and tells no one about, to give Nesta the time and space she needs.

We get some domestic Nessian time, and Cassian cooks for her, and she eventually breaks down not out of exhaustion but because she can’t stand how Cass still cares for her even after what she did, and continues to grapple with her feelings of being unworthy. He comforts her, and tells her that he hated having to keep the secret, because Feyre is truly a friend over being High Lady.

Cassian and Nesta get close to having sex, but Cassian actually has morals and brings up that he is her caretaker and can’t do it while they are still in this sort of situation. Nesta tells him that she feels freer than she ever did, and that she wants to live, wants to survive, and wants to make things up with Feyre for telling her about the pregnancy. They do the do, and it’s glorious and not the ridiculous porn-level roughness of the actual book.

Cassian is told that Rhys wants to apologize, especially after Feyre seems him for not telling her. Nesta and Rhys have a heart to heart, where he reveals the reason why he was so hard on her and resents her for letting Feyre carry the family is because, as the oldest in his family, he saw himself in her, and his failure to protect his sister made him angry that Nesta wasn’t more willing to fight for Feyre, letting the family starve in order to try and motviate the father to do something. Rhys apologizes, and he and Nesta make amends.

Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie are kidnapped and bought into the Blood Rite, not as a plot by Koschei or Bryallin, but by the Illyrians, who are seeing if the Night Court will break tradition and intervene to get them out. They want to have a justified reason to start an Illyrian rebellion, and this is their shot.

The girls survive the Rite same as the original story, Nesta makes it to Feyre in time as Madja and the rest are performing a C-Section (still risky of course), and uses her power over Death to ensure that Feyre survives her pregnancy.

Maybe she even manages to go into the spirit world of Prythian, and have a moment with Papa Archeron’s soul for closure, before she drags Feyre’s soul back as Madja heals her.

See? So easy to make it still engaging and less about the NC and Cassian controlling her, while also giving them some goddamned ethics.

Maybe some more later on xP

IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD

[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.

[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.

[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.

[fenrysmoonbeamswife]

A T E and left no crumbs

[silverflameataraxia]

Since ACOSF is meant to be a book about mental health, it's important to note the differences between the IC's approach and Gwyn's approach.

The IC constantly tell Nesta that she isn't worthy of love, she isn't worthy of Cassian, she isn't worthy of her power or her Made weapons. They constantly tell her how expendable she is and how they don't care about her. They don't care about her getting re-traumatized. They don't care whether she lives or dies. They're constantly invalidating Nesta's trauma and telling her to just get over it. They're constantly telling her what a failure she is. They abuse and bully her to the point of near-suicide and then pat themselves on the back for "healing" her. (They must have gotten their "Mental Health for Dummies" guide from Tamlin or the CoN.)

Then there's Gwyn's approach: "Our stories are worth telling." Gwyn doesn't lecture Nesta on how to overcome her trauma. She doesn't take Nesta's hand to try and lead her out of the darkness; she takes Nesta's hand and joins her in the darkness. She encourages Nesta to open up about her trauma, but on her own time and on her own terms. She listens to Nesta and lets her know that she matters, that her trauma matters. Gwyn gives Nesta the respect of leaving when Nesta asks to be left alone. She respects Nesta's choices and autonomy and understands that "No" means no. She helps Nesta understand that she does deserve love and kindness and respect. She does deserve to have people care about her and fight for her.

*Since ACOSF was marketed as a book about mental health, I feel like it's worth mentioning that the IC's approach is wrong in every sense of the word. That is not how you stage an intervention. That is not how you treat someone with mental health issues. That is not how you treat someone who is supposedly an addict. That is not how you treat someone with severe weight loss/anorexia.

**ACOSF is nothing but sheer hypocrisy, and I often wonder if SJM was able to write it with a straight face. It's the IC punishing Nesta under the guise of "helping" her. It's the IC giving her the Tamlin Treatment after spending four books hating Tamlin and Lucien for giving Feyre the Tamlin Treatment. It's the IC punishing Nesta for being cruel while the IC never punish themselves for their cruelty towards her. It's the IC forcing Nesta to deal with her trauma even though they've never dealt with theirs. It's the IC condemning Nesta's trauma response and saying there's no excuse for it while their trauma response is either just as bad or worse, but they always find reasons to justify their behavior. It's the IC holding Nesta accountable for her actions while never holding themselves accountable for theirs. It's the IC getting Nesta to apologize for hurting them, but not one of them apologizing for hurting her. It's Nesta learning to not lash out when her feelings get hurt, but not Cassian learning that same lesson. It's Nesta learning to control her rage, but not Cassian learning to control his temper. It's Nesta owning up to "failing" Feyre, but Feyre never owning up to all the times she's failed Nesta. It's the IC punishing Nesta for her treatment of Feyre, but no one punishing Feyre or holding her accountable for her treatment of Nesta. It's the IC blaming Nesta for everything while they refuse to take any blame for their actions. It's the IC putting Nesta's flaws on full blast while refusing to self-reflect and see that they all have the same flaws.

*** ACOSF is nothing more than the IC using Nesta's mental health as a means to break her down so they can mold her into someone they can control, a tool for Rhysand to wield. The IC metaphorically clipped Nesta's wings when she should have been learning how to fly...all under the guise of helping her, loving her, and healing her.

[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.