#and idk if that's true... and who knows if jace would have ever gotten the heavenly fire if he wasnt raised by valentine

[ghostbustermelanieking]

i've got to say, i'm extremely interested in jace's parents, stephen and celine -- and amatis, and her relationship with stephen -- but particularly the implication that celine was murdered instead of killing herself?? i'm losing my mind. i always kind of suspected, but semi confirmation? holy fuck. poor celine. part of me wonders if valentine killed her because he sensed that the angel blood was changing her, too -- not just the baby; the way jocelyn herself was changed -- and he sensed he wouldn't be able to control her. and/or celine just stopped trusting him after he essentially murdered stephen

[roomno382]

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while now and it’s pride month so it seems appropriate.  I have a lot of thoughts on Amren in the ACOTAR series.  There have been far too many posts about representation in SJM books and arguments on how it was done and I really do not want to start another flame war.  I just want to share a little bit of my point of view.  Personally I think the reason it’s so criticized when other books aren’t is because we are all so heavily invested in that series and attached to all of those characters.  I know I personally identify far too much with Amren.

Putting the rest of this under a read more because I rambled way more than intended.

Let’s start this off with some backstory on me.  I am aromantic.  For those that don’t know, that means I don’t have or desire romantic feelings or relationships but I do still feel sexual attraction.  It is the less known side of the asexual coin.  It feels odd to think of myself as someone who should be included in pride month, as I identify as a straight cis woman but there is a + in LGBTQ+ for a reason.  Aromanticism, like asexualism is something that is severely underrepresented.  There are a handful of asexuals in media, most of which still end up in sexual relationships, and I can think of and zero aromantics I’m sure someone out there will correct me.  What this leads to is one of the few times I did feel represented.

Now I know I am much more represented than some are as I am a Caucasian woman.  I’m not hurting much in that department, although Wonder Woman was still a much needed change of pace.  But I love YA books and almost every one of them has some sort of romance or love interest.  Don’t get me wrong I still enjoy watching the characters dance around their feelings when it’s done right and sexual tension is one of my favorite things in media.  It’s just when it gets to the over the top ‘who loves who more’ that kills it for me Jace and Clary I’m looking at you.  

This is what brings me to Amren.  I absolutely love Amren.  I identify with her on such a deep level.  She is one of my favorite characters.  I have even cosplayed her.  When she admits she doesn’t understand love and it’s not an emotion her people had I felt that attachment even harder.  It was really one of the only times I had ever seen my sexual identity truly represented.

The struggle I have is that because I identify with her so much it seem everyone also assumes I love her relationship with Varian.  I am not outright against that relationship and did truly enjoy Amren toying with him in ACOMAF, it’s just when things got more serious between them that I fell off.  There’s more still to the series so who knows where it will go from here but as of right now this is how I feel.  I know that Sarah J Maas is an extremely romantic person and the stories are being told through the lens of Feyre, who shares that sentiment so things are going to be skewed that direction but I’m still not a fan of how that relationship has gone.

Them getting together more seriously feels a bit like Amren had to be taught how to love.  In the grand scheme of things they still have the least romantic relationship of the group but that is mostly due to it taking place off page.  I understand that part of her growth in that series is her becoming more human fae.  She has had to learn how to exist in a form that is not her own and how to fit into the group dynamic, most of which happens before the start, but I’m a bit sad a relationship and love had to be one of those things.  She easily could have stayed true to her character and never had an actual relationship.  I don’t know I would have liked it more but it would stay closer to how I saw the character going.

Most of this, and a lot of the other representation arguments about this series, is due to me projecting too much onto the character.  I see myself in Amren and as such labeled her like I would myself.  When she didn’t stick to that label it hurt and felt as if my representation was taken away.  At no point did she say she identified this way and that she wasn’t interested in love but the snippets we did get of her on a more personal level made me see myself in her.

I’ve gotten to this point in this post and realize I have no idea where I meant for this to go.  I understand that a lot of the issue is due to lack of representation.  How am I to expect someone to represent me properly when I didn’t even know there was a label for it until recent years?  There are still people in my extended family that assume I don’t date because I’m secretly a lesbian and am too afraid to tell anyone (actual thing I’ve been told).  Most “”normal”” people assume you need to be in a happy relationship to be happy and that is just not for me trust me I tried.

Idk where I’m going with this anymore so I’m going to end it here.  I pretty much just wanted to put it down somewhere in words.  This is no way lessened my love of the series or Amren as a character.  It is still one of the few book series I have gone back to time and time again to reread/relisten to.  I’ve just had these thoughts floating around since ACOFAS came out wanted to write them out.  Side note I will go down with the Nessian ship and am all sorts of hyped for that book.

TL;DR:  I identify too much with Amren and now that she’s in a relationship idk how to feel.