#anti freye

[going-through-shit]

did rhys, cas, az, feyre, amren and mor not do practically the EXACT same thing tamlin did to feyre in acotar in to nesta in acosf or am i going insane?

all just a bunch of hypocrites imo

[browneyedartist01]

Saints, Freye is so thirsty for Rhysand. He could be slaughtering a puppy and she would still bring up his sensuous lips or his broad shoulders... like girl, he just forced you into a bargin by twisting a broken bone in your wound, calm down.

Oh and also, screw rhysand. I hope his coffee is always cold.

[browneyedartist01]

Well, at least Freye and Rhys have something in common, they both too stupid to be alive.

Despite SJM’s excuses for him, there is no logical reason for Rhys’ treatment of Feyre UTM except getting to Tamlin.

“Working Tamlin into a senseless fury is the best weapon we have against [Amarantha].” 

Based on the extensive list of every horrible thing she had done already, Tamlin was always going to absolutely decimate Amarantha once he regained his power. He didn’t need one more reason. Also, how was something Rhys did supposed to make Tamlin mad at Amarantha?

“When you were hurt so badly against the Wyrm … I found my way in with you.” 

Rhys coerced Feyre into the bargain when there was no real reason for one in the first place. He could have helped her without it, like Lucien and the Lady of Autumn. Amarantha had no way of even knowing Rhys was helping Feyre without the bargain tattoo as visual proof. Anyone could have gone in and helped Feyre stay alive because she was not being guarded from visitors. Amarantha would only know Rhys was helping Feyre once the bargain was made.

“A way to defy Amarantha, to spread the seeds of hope to those who knew how to read the message, and a way to keep you alive without seeming too suspicious. // I made you dress like that so Amarantha wouldn’t suspect” 

Rhys made Amarantha suspicious in the first place by betting on Feyre during the wyrm trial. Making the bargain was visual proof he was helping and so would not throw off suspicion, only increase it. Bringing Feyre out to parade around would only make Amarantha even more suspicious because it was showing further interest in Feyre, regardless of abusive treatment.

“What have you done with my captive?” [Amarantha] said, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

Suspicion so not prevented. 😬

“[I] made you drink the wine so you would not remember the nightly horrors in that mountain.”

Feyre only witnessed those horrors because Rhys needlessly exposed her to them. Making her drink wine to forget was unnecessary as well because Rhys is a Daemati and could have used his power. He had no problem going into Feyre’s mind to scare Tamlin into letting her go, so why would he have one in the dire situation UTM?

Feyre needed out of her cell where she was breaking from the darkness/isolation and hearing screams from other prisoners.

As a Daemati, Rhys could have sent any image and sound to Feyre’s mind to get her mentally out of there. He could have physically had her taken out to “clean his room” or serve wine at the party or whatever other excuse.

Feyre needed to stretch her legs and move around instead of sitting inactive for weeks.

Dancing for hours every night until exhaustion, drinking to vomiting and lingering nausea throughout the next day, went in the opposite direction of that. It was harmful, outweighing the positive of getting Feyre out of her cell for excercise. It was not helpful in any way to her well-being. It made it harder for her to eat and to think about the answer to the riddle.

It stopped Amarantha from doing worse.

Amarantha was leaving Feyre alone between trials. The impossible tasks were given by Amarantha’s followers to mess with Feyre (and Rhys stopped them with no problem) but Amarantha herself ignored Feyre. 

“And that last night, when I found you two in the hall … I was jealous. I was jealous of him, and pissed off that he’d used that one shot of being unnoticed not to get you out, but to be with you,”

Tamlin could not have gotten Feyre out. Once she accepted Amarantha’s bargain, Feyre had no choice but to stay and see it through. There was no other way for Prythian’s freedom, either. The whole reason Rhys said he was doing all those things was because Feyre was their only hope.

“I decided, then and there, that I was going to fight. And I would fight dirty, and kill and torture and manipulate, but I was going to fight. If there was a shot of freeing us from Amarantha, you were it.”

And speaking of that, there was no logical reason for Rhys to invade Feyre’s mind before UTM and use it to humiliate her in front of Tamlin and Lucien.

“And I decided that I had to scare Tamlin (…) I made Tamlin beg—as Amarantha had made me beg, to show him how powerless he was to save you. And I prayed my performance was enough to get him to send you away. Back to the human realm, away from Amarantha. (…) If you broke that curse, she was going to find you and kill you.”

Amarantha was no match for Tamlin once he had his power back. So how exactly was she going to get to Feyre once the curse was broken? Feyre would be safer with Tamlin when his whole courts’ power was restored. The best thing to do would have been to keep Feyre a secret from Amarantha and let her and Tamlin grow closer and break the curse. That was Prythian’s biggest chance at freedom and scaring him into sending her away would only guarantee Amarantha stayed in power. It wouldn’t even have ensured Feyre’s safety because the KoH would have taken over without opposition soon after anyway.

And a reminder of what Rhys put Feyre through and never apologized for, only made excuses for that are easily debunked:

“Drink. You’ll need it.” Drink, my mind echoed, and my fingers stirred, moving toward the goblet. No. No, Alis said not to drink the wine here—wine that was different from that joyous, freeing solstice wine. “No,” I said, and some faeries who were watching us from a safe distance chuckled. “Drink,” he said, and my traitorous fingers latched onto the goblet.

“He had you dance for him for most of the night. And when you weren’t dancing, you were sitting in his lap.” “What kind of dancing?” I pushed. “Not the kind you were doing with Tamlin on Solstice,” Lucien said, and my face heated. (…) “In front of everyone?” “Yes,” Lucien replied—more gently than I’d heard him speak to me before.

Rhys making Feyre do that is sexual exploitation. It is sexual abuse.

I awoke in my cell, still clad in that handkerchief he called a dress. Everything was spinning so badly that I barely made it to the corner before I vomited. Again. And again. When I’d emptied my stomach, I crawled to the opposite corner of the cell and collapsed. Sleep came fitfully as the world continued to twirl violently around me. I was tied to a spinning wheel, going around and around and around— Needless to say, I was sick a fair amount that day.

Binge drinking is a serious thing. A person binge drinking can die from alcohol poisoning or choking on their own vomit after they have passed out.

“Shit,” said Lucien. “It’s freezing in here.” It was, but I was too nauseated to notice. Keeping my head up was an effort, let alone keeping the food down. He unclasped his cloak and set it around my shoulders. Its heavy warmth leaked into me.

Feyre was left underdressed in her cold cell… for what reason? She was not guarded and Amarantha never went there, so Amarantha would have no way of knowing if Rhys had Feyre’s clothes returned to her.

Night after night, I was dressed in the same way and made to accompany Rhysand to the throne room. (…) I woke with vague shards of memories—of dancing between Rhysand’s legs as he sat in a chair and laughed; of his hands, stained blue from the places they touched on my waist, my arms, but somehow, never more than that. He had me dance until I was sick, and once I was done retching, told me to begin dancing again. I awoke ill and exhausted each morning, and though Rhysand’s order to the guards had indeed held, the nightly activities left me thoroughly drained. I spent my days sleeping off the faerie wine, dozing to escape the humiliation I endured.

Even if Rhys touched Feyre “somehow never more than that”, it is still assault. Her autonomy was taken away and she never gave consent to anything. Feyre willingly drinking wine after the fact was not consent, it was a victim trying to survive mentally in an abusive situation that she was given no choice but to suffer.

“And a way to get back at Tamlin … To use him against Amarantha, yes, but … To get back at him for my mother and sister, and for … having you.” 

Rhys admitted he wanted to get back at Tamlin. With every one of his excuses debunked, this reason is the only ones that stands.

[storieschats]

I'm becoming a Nesta fan and this book is a bit slow!

Note: Check out previous reactions here. Feel free to comment, reblog, like and talk to be about books whenever! And happy holidays everybody!

Book 2 Page 301 of 626

What's happened so far: ok not much has happened to be honest. It's been a lot of her adjusting to the little town of the court of dreams (lol that name will never not be funny). So she and Rhysand go to the prison to see the bone carver who tells them that they have to find a book that will allow him to make the cauldron not work. And we need this cauldron not to work because the evil king is going to use this cauldron to break down the barrier between the worlds and conquer the human world. And we discover that Feyre can sense these bits of the book. More stuff: we stole a ring from some girl called the Weaver, went to eat at a restaurant and oh goody we went to meet her sisters to use their house as a base of operations in the human world.

What I think so far: I'm still enjoying it. I mean it's fine. A book and a half later I can confirm that it's not going to be the series of my life and I'm nowhere near obsessed. I think I was more obsessed with Fourth Wing at the end of the first book than I am or was with ACOTAR, although I can see that ACOTAR is better from a “technical” point of view (better written, more imaginative, more coherent) but brains are weird. Of course, then there was the second fourth wing book, which was not very good so I’m not actually excited to continue that series either.

Negative points:

I'm not really in love with any of the characters in particular. I hope they grow on me. At the moment, the only character I feel a modicum of attachment to is Freye and I was in her head for one and a half books so that probably helps.

She doesn't write very exciting court dramas, does she? We're in the court of the rulers of the night court and these guys don't seem to have anything very interesting to do. Who is ruling over these people?

Positive points:

Nesta is growing on me a lot. Now I'm curious about how her book will turn out! I liked her interaction with Cassian. And female characters are so rarely bitchy or rude that I love all the heroines or anti-heroines with these characteristics that I meet. Typically only male characters get to be cold or rude even with anti-heroines or so called “morally gray characters”. So Nesta be a cold bitch when a bunch of strangers show up at your house asking you to do this and that. Go on!

Stars: ⭐⭐⭐

Predictions: I don't have any questions so I don't have any predictions either but I can make them up... Let me see no one is going to die obv so maybe Nesta and Elain will be captured by the whatever king and turned as like experiments? For some reason?

[roguestarsailor]

So I really do not like is Elain in ACOTAR and I want to explore why I feel this way. This is going to be a critique of Elain and a critique of SJM too.

So I think about this tweet whenever I feel passionately about a character; many of the characters I love or hate clearly have these things outlined.

Elain is positioned as a central character who is vital to be part of the main protagonist group but she doesn’t have any supporting characteristics that make her valuable or interesting as a character. If you parallel her story to literally any other main characters, they all have grit, flaws and passion whereas Elain doesn’t. The story really doesn't change when you take Elain out of the equation. Her only relevance happens in ACOWAR and she weaves in and out. She’s so absent most of the time, and she’s barely thought about more than precious and gentle and likeable. that doesn’t make the character interesting.

Elain is the type of character that other characters react to. Sometimes I think she should have died in the cauldron because she was the type of character that would motivate people to action. She functions best as a symbol of purity and good that everyone will throw themselves for or go to the end of the earth for. Even from Freye’s point of view, she would do anything to defend her sisters and most of all her gentle and caring Elaine. Even the description of Elain being shoved into the cauldron with Freye and Nesta pleading and struggling to save Elain was intense! if Elain had died, this would have made the reason to go to war significantly more impactful, more heated and more personal. We would get to see so much action from Freye and Nesta; we could have watch these characters flex their strengths and grow into more powerful women (another critique is that Amren and Mor are supposedly top tier individuals but we don’t see what they're actual function is within the night court. we see Cassian and Azriel doing their thing and hold meetings w Rhys but not those two?? they just hang out in Valaris). We would even see politics change in Prythian! We got a glimpse of what they did at the High Lords Meeting and then we saw them speak united after the war in the human realm in ACOWAR. Imagine the possibilities! So many directions this could go.

This story isn’t suppose to be lovely. It’s not suppose to be a happy ending (although a bit cheesy but good amount). Every character has a dark past, and have to overcome their traumas. Every character had to make choices they don’t like and have suffered in the most intense way possible. UTM scenes in the ACOTAR was actually hard for me to read the first time around because I wasn’t aware of how dark it was going to be. But we saw the impact on Freye and watching her overcome that which was the main reason why i kept reading (ACOMAF is by far the best book in the series for its healing arc). 

So letting all these characters thrive despite all of it is interesting and the reason why I keep thinking about and reading and rereading these books! This is where SJM failed Elain’s character. She doesn’t have conflict. Her conflicts are surface level at best i.e. marriage to gregory (or whatever), society life and nothing in her character says she will fight for what she loves. Nobody dislikes Elain, Elain doesn’t dislike anybody (except maybe Luciein). What motivates her? We see her fit in so well the the IC on Solstice, she thrives in Valaris, she’s even made friends out of Cerridwen and Nuala. She enjoys gardening and she enjoys caring for others, shopping for others, etc. She seems to have her life relatively together compared to literally everyone else.

What did give me pause and peaked my interest in Elain was when she asked Amren why she chose the female body form (ACOFAS, pg 109). When I read that scene, I thought she was asking about changing gender like being trans fae which would really be taking her character in a whole new direction, potentially sexuality exploration too?? But turns out she asked because she wanted to know the possibility of changing into a human again. I know ACOFAS showed her mourning her father and being sad and quiet all the time which is normal and fine. But conversations with her (at least with Freye’s POV) shows she’s still stuck on being human or living a human life again which makes her character stagnate and hard to tell a story that would be interesting. At least Nesta has moved on to more than just mourning her human life and see her clearly struggling through it all.

Elain seems to only be valuable as a symbol more than anything. She isn’t essential to the story, not saying she didn’t play a good role in the war effort but by in large, her story arc was bland. Take her out and the story would have to find a new route but nothing will be amiss. Her worth as a character is based on the hope that she does more, the love people have for these type of character and a symbol for “good” in the world which isn’t compelling enough and doesn’t make her character interesting. The only interesting part about Elain is that people can project their Elriel or Elucien ships onto or people just like because she’s unproblematic and agreeable.

But I want to end with hope with what direction Elain’s character could take. I can’t think about a situation where Elain would leave the comforts of Valaris on her own, so it would have to be with someone. I don’t see her character growing with Azriel. Azriel is chained to Night Court and to Rhys (and if we want to see him grow he needs to take a different direction away from Night Court and maybe not someone who comforts him all the time??). Although I do see her story growing with Lucien. Lucien has no residence and for now he’s fitting well with the Band of Exiles who are in the human realm and maybe they go on an adventure there and Lucien introduces her to the new human realm or she introduces Lucien to her human life or something (I don’t really care about the mate stuff since rhys said ppl can reject the mate so??? its not anything important?? not enough info for me to care about tbh). To be fair, I have been reading elucien like this and I can see how Elain and Lucien compliments each other but that doesn’t make Elain’s character any interesting on her own which is sad. I hope Elain becomes more than what she has been. I hope she starts fighting for the things she loves (it doesn’t have to be physically), I hope she isn’t so passive and I hope she finds her way of bringing fire into herself. Every character has that grit and passion, I demand she has the same or what is the fucken point??

[nyxreads]

I want to ask who is your favorite acotar character? Mine is Az but I also really love Freye as well and what I really want to see is more of their friendship I like how he treats all the members of her family I just wish people would stop hating on them both and shipping them with toxic abusive people I don't know if it's because I don't many fans of the books other than them but that's all I ever see as well as pro Tamlin posts and their ship can't believe his behavior was normalized I don't

Hello anon,

My favorite is Feyre, then Rhys (tho I'm more involved in Elriel fandom haha). And yes! We need more of Feyre and Azriel's friendship scenes in the books. Remember the scene "Be careful how you speak about my High Lady" ? That's *chef's kiss*

And you're right, those Feysand/IC antis should really stop hating or just drop the books because how can they hate on the main characters of this series? It's torture for them lol. I say, we stay winning as long as we stan the IC. And don't lemme start with pro T.mlin *major eye roll*

[browneyedartist01]

I like how Freye just assumed Ryhsand didn't touch her anywhere else but her waist, even when she saw how he could magically fixed the paint in seconds of touching it.

[browneyedartist01]

Freye: "*scoff* I haven't worn a dress in years. I would never be able to move freely with a dress on!"

Women throughout history: "Is she joking? I can't tell if she's joking."

What makes matters worse, is that I can't tell what time freye's world is suppose to be inspired by, it's just ✨️ Fantasy✨️.

[browneyedartist01]

I think Ryhsand should have had a lover waiting for him back in the night court.

A Penelope kind of character who rules the court while he's stuck utm, but the nightmare court would be growing tired of a outsider ruling and wants her to take another husband/or kill her close to the end of the first book (She's from the day court for obvious reasons) and that's why Ryhsand is going to leaghty extremes to make sure Tamlin will actually kill the villain (I do not remember her name and I don't want to google it rn).

He knows it's risky and evil, he knows he might die, but he's so desperate that he's willing to do anything to get home.

If he had told freye this instead of whatever he did before the final challenge. I would have seen Ryhsand the anti hero sjm wanted me to see him as.

Idk, that's just mine opinion...

[browneyedartist01]

Freye going through her all memories before stabbing Tamlin:

[browneyedartist01]

Curse you Hoopla for only giving me the graphic audio version of actor. Bad enough I gotta listen to freye grunts or moans, but now I've gotta listen to them kissing?

And before anyone says anything; I'm planning on skipping over the sex scene because smut isn't really my cup of tea.

[browneyedartist01]

"There was only one way to show that Ryhsand was a male of peace."

Ah yes, the ⅓ of your kingdom that lives in peace.

That's like having a casket all polished and clean on the outside, but a rotten corpse on the inside.

Also them being mad at the queens' for sacrificing some of their people as if they don't do horrible things all the time in the name of the greater good.

[browneyedartist01]

Ohhhh, I'm at the scene where Freye is in Tarquin mind and is implanting thoughts.

It's official, I hate her.

Before, she was just annoying.

But now?

Screw her and the inner circle.

I hope her kids overthrows them and locks them in the nightmare court for their crimes.

[browneyedartist01]

In hindsight, even if I'm not crazy for the ship, all of feylin fluffy romance scenes are so much better than any feysands scenes.

[browneyedartist01]

My thoughts during the final hour of acomaf:

(Bare in mind that I notched up the speed to 1.5 then 1.75, and these thoughts are not in order)

-"You don't need proof that it works, I'm proof that it works-"

Weren't you made by high lords?

-"I will destroy your court."

And I will hate you. More so than I already do

-"He held out his hand like I was some pet."

"Come home."

My thoughts:

"Come home with me."

"Who are you?"

"The man whose gonna marry you, I'm Orpheus."

"Who am I?"

"Eurydice, *laughs* the girl who makes me wanna sing, the women I'm marrying."

-Why dose the evil man sounds like a radio announcer?

-Lucian really setting the bar higher already in how to care for your mate, as expected. (Go little Rock star)

-He broke through the bounds that a high lord couldn't break through just to go to her?!?!

-And he gave her his coat to cover her??

-"There were different kinds of torture I realized, there was ones I went through, what Rhys went through and then this."

Yeah, now you know how Tamlin felt utm.

- Did Nesta just give the evil king the middle finger? Ew, sarah cringe stop it.

-Cassian just keep dying sweetie, don't touch Nesta.

-Nesta be nice to your future brother in law.

- Freye unlocked a new power, somehow.

-Cheesy, this is all so cheesy.

- "his green eyes met mine, the sorrow and tenderness in them was the most hideous thing I've ever seen."

Wow, ok...

-Tamlin acting like Ryhsand though with Tamlin it's justified/understandable

- *me counting down the final 22 minutes while freye is dying*

-"I nerely gagged on his scent."

Freye darling, I get your upset about his deal with evil king. But he literally tried to save your sisters, stop being so dramatic.

- "my family."

It's been 3 months girly.

- "Tamlin ignored Lucian, so I did too."

Sums up Freye and Lucain's friendship

-Of course all the queens' want is eternal youth,

- Lucian naturally being the smartest one in the room.

-Noooo, not Ryhsand pov. 😭 this better not be the last 17 minutes.

-Holy crap, I just realized how similar this ending is to season 2 of lore olympus ending.

-Don't worry, the bat boys plot armor is thick. Sarah loves you monsters too much.

-Mor don't rip out the arrow it will only make it worse.

-Ryhsand please think, do you really think Tamlin would actually partner with evil king? He didn't even trust evil fae women when she first appeared, what makes you think he would actually help him beyond getting freye back?

-"she is my mate, my wife, the high lady of the night court."

BANG, CRASH A LIGHTING BLAST! (no joke there was thunder after he said this in the dramatized version)

I have 2 thoughts on this one:

1. There was a fan theory during the court trial in lore olympus (persephone was on trail for mass murder, long story) where hades and persephone got married before the trail started because at one point he called her his wife. This wasn't the case because she was 20 and he was in his 2000 (aka 40's) Idk if Rachel was a fan of acotar and wanted to steal from it (since acomaf was released in 2016 and the trial was released in 2020) but because people guessed it she dropped it. Idk that's just a my own theory.

2. How can she be the high lady when the mother is the one to give out titles? Do you realize what you just start Ryhsand? This could lead to more war against the more religious courts, this could lead to the end of the night court if the mother finds out... oh wait, this is acotar. Not real high fantasy, there's no real religious world building.

-"I've forgotten how quiet it was here, how small, how empty"

You do this every time freye, anytime your some where "better" you always just stick your noise up at your old home.

-Freye acting high and mighty towards Tamlin as if she wouldn't had praised Ryhsand for doing the same thing.

- Lucian, you are truly the best character.

-"My sister mate, the mother did indeed seem to have a sense of humor."

What do you mean? He would be a great mate. But then again you're suffering because of it...which makes it so much better.

- "as if he could do that to anyone."

But- but he did freye. And tbh I think he would have done worse to you if he deemed it necessary.

-Freye is really giving evil queen vibes. I wish I could enjoy it, but I know sarah is going to make her the "hero"

And that's it, Thank Saints.

[browneyedartist01]

I'm sorry, but you can't let me hear the lines:

"Come home with me."

And not expected me to think about 2017 Hadestown when Orpheus was begging Eurydice to come home with him, but she couldn't because she had already signed the contract.

You can't write that line and then expect me to hate Tamlin.