#even SJM

[hugevanserrass]

reread the solstice scene from acofas and was surprised at how pleasant nesta was the entire time. from the way people talk about it, and from Cassian's reaction after she leaves, you'd think she was hissing and insulting everyone in the room. but no.

nesta wishes feyre happy birthday, she thanks elain for her gifts, and sits quietly, allowing them to continue with their presents. meanwhile mor gives cassian silk boxers that match the lingerie set he got her. nesta even kisses elain on the head before she leaves. she is 100% polite.

the next chapter is Cassian's pov and it starts with "he'd had enough. enough of the coldness, the sharpness. enough of the sword-straight spine and razor-sharp stare that had only honed itself these months"

BRO SHE WAS JUST SITTING THERE

[lyssasdrafts]

Feyre: We decided that if, Cauldron forbid, anything happens to us, we would like Nesta and Cassian to be Nyx's god parents

Nesta: That is great news! Nyx! When something horrible happens, you'll be all mine!

Rhysand: It really is an 'if' situation

Nesta, taking Nyx: All mine!

[copypastus]

Feyre's selective hearing is the origin of my villain arc.

[extremely-judgemental]

As someone who knows squat about faery lore, explain this to me. Aren’t faeries supposed to be otherworldly? Why do they have gender roles when they should be genderless or gender fluid? There shouldn’t be sexism either, let alone misogyny. If females are considered ‘brooding mare’, shouldn’t they be revered since they worship Mother for birthing their lands? How exactly is being queer wrong when literally anything is possible in their world and that’s utterly stupid when genders don’t even exist.

Why are they monogamous when they should be having scandalous relations with everyone? If they were all incest-y enough, Cassian sleeping with Morrigan and then calling her his sister would be less appalling.

How is magic orgy in Spring lands frowned upon when everyone should be designing costumes to outdo the other? I know Eris and Rhysand have a running tally, but it is Helion who always wins.

Species-hierarchy makes sense, but shouldn’t it be the other way around? Creatures with non-human features should be considered superior because they are attuned to their true nature and are tapped into land magic better, especially since they enslaved humans for ages. By that standard, shouldn’t Tamlin be considered the most powerful because of his beast form and shape-shifting? Why do faeries live by human standards and concepts? If anything, shouldn’t they look down on mortals for being bound by the ‘rules dictated by the flesh’?

These books are romantasy. . .but where is the fantasy though?

Edit: If you wish to reblog this, do it with this addition by @songofthesibyl. The insights and book recs are worth sharing!

[roseadleyn]

no yk what? you guys are soo right.

feyre really does deserve better than nesta n lucien. she was treated like shit by them. lets see, nesta literally exposes feyre's sexual thoughts in front of tamlin and lucien, threatens to break her mind, makes her dress in skimpy clothing and dance and sexually assaults her, feeds her wine when she doesn't want to drink, twists feyre's broken bone in her arm to force her into a bargain she doesn't want, intrudes on her thoughts,

and lucien trauma dumps on her, hyperventilates when confronted with actions, mocks her at every single given opportunity, objectifies her and compares her tits to apples in front of someone she just met, grooms her into thinking his tyrant behavior, her cultural appropriation etc are a-okay,

nesta literally hides an extremely significant magical bond that affects feyre mentally n physically from her, gets her friends to hide it too, treats feyre's siblings like shit, makes her fight for an engagement ring and purposefully endangers her,

and lucien applauds when feyre commits war crimes, makes feyre wear the same clothes she was assaulted in and cosplay a whore and get fingered in front of a whole ass city, when feyre gets pregnant at 21 and the pregnancy goes wrong, nesta hides how dangerous it is from feyre and tries to control the outcome of the pregnancy and literally tells everyone other than feyre abt the dangers of the pregnancy other than feyre-

OH NO YALL. i mixed it up. all of those things were done by rhysand wow what a shocker i am befuddled bamboozled tricked

[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.

[yazthebookish]

Why is the whole "Gwyn is a child" topic is being discussed again? Sarah killed it in May 2021 by confirming Gwyn is a "fully grown woman". She left no question about it.

Cassian calling her a girl is irrelevant because Rowan called Aelin both a girl and a child, that didn't stop him from ending up with her because we know Aelin is already almost an adult at 19.

Sarah retconned (which is not something new) the aging process of Fae in ACOMAF. The bat boys and Mor fought in the Great War in their mid-20s, are we to believe the Night Court is sending children as soldiers? Mor and Lady of Autumn were betrothed/engaged at 18, would SJM promote child marriages? Gwyn tells Nesta she didn't get a chance to lie with a male during the Great Rite, meaning she was already old enough to have sexual relations with others.

The books have enough hints that High Fae are already adults once they reach their 20s. If people didn't complain about Mor and the Bat Boys joining a war as "children" in their 20s, then there's no point in arguing about Gwyn's age over something that was retconned in ACOMAF not ACOSF.

Her being bubbly has nothing to do with maturity, if you don't have a bubbly adult in your life it's probably dull. Also, it's not like she's bubbly and unserious 24/7, she's vigilant about her work and is quite empathetic and helps Nesta understand her own feelings.

This argument has been dead for 3 years and a half, let's put it to rest.

[starrbirrd]

I think probably the saddest thing about Feyre is that she genuinely has no friends of her own. Her "friend group" was loyal to her husband hundreds of years before she was born and have proven more than once that they still defer to him over her. The one friend she might have had (Lucien) has been completely estranged from her. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Feyre in ACOSF is living ACOTAR Feyre's worst nightmare.

[sunnybyler]

i know the acosf court of nightmares scene has already been analyzed to death but something i don’t see mentioned quite enough is the fact that elain is mentioned to be wearing pearls in this scene — which lucien gifts her that same solstice. the very same scene where it goes in depth on how much black, the color of the night court, sucks the life out of her. its so clearly a subtle way to show how lucien sees her even when she’s drowning and hidden in the night court and i just love the symbolism of this scene so much <3

[sweetandspicy]

Some ACOTAR fans are genuinely the worst people to ever exist. Because what the hell is this?

These people are acting as if not putting yourself through trauma makes you a bad person. In what world?

Also these people love to forgot that Tamlin was the only one who was (semi) free. Meaning he was the only one able to free everyone else. If he had slept with Amarantha like this person wanted him to, then all of Prythian would have been enslaved, the wall would have come down because there's no one protecting/preventing Hybern from destroying it, and all the humans would be killed or enslaved.

So no, Tamlin made the right choice by not "sacrificing" himself because it was the only way to free everyone else. The only reason they are free is because Tamlin didn't submit to Amarantha and was able to get Feyre to free them.

It's such a stupid take because stories of heroes have always been about defying evil, fighting against it, rebelling. And yet somehow these people have turned that into a bad thing and that the good thing to do is to be oppressed. What kind of mentality is that? How are you going to blame the person who is trying to save everyone?

[delaneytveit]

saw someone say that Tam didn’t crawl to Feyre when she was deleted by Amarantha and how that was how they knew that he didn’t actually love her and i just have to say

“But Rhysand didnt come any closer to my corpse, not as rushing paws— then a flash of light, then footsteps — filled the air.”

“Amarantha’s blood had vanished from Tamlin’s face, his tunic as he slammed to his knees. He scooped up my limp broken body, cradling me to his chest…i heard the shuddering sobs that broke from him as he rocked me, stroking my hair.” -ch 45

yeah, you’re right, he ran straight to her immediately and without hesitation after killing Feyre’s murderer in a blind rage. AND THEN SOBBED WHILE CRADLING HER!!!!! but go off i guess

[lainalit]

Just a reminder that compassionate and empathetic queen Feyre needed a personal reason for stopping Ianthe from r*ping lucien and not Idk cause it would be the right think to do

[wingsdippedingold]

One reason I don’t think I ever cared for a single SJM romance was because of how disjointed they feel. Considering their personalities, I genuinely do not believe they would work in any other universe.

SJM gives most of her main romances mate bonds, which while I get is the genre, kind of undermines their mystique. She literally uses a different version of the “forced proximity” trope (the men are usually doing the forcing) on all of her couples.

If you hand me Rhysand and Feyre, Cassian and Nesta, probably Aelin and Rowan too, on seperate platters I would never guess that they would mesh well. “That’s literallly how writing and character growth works blah blah blah” I don’t care. That’s not what SJM did, none of them grew in that way. She made them hate each other then pause and go “wait you’re kinda cool” *lip bite* then kiss.

They all feel like trauma bonded couples to me who just have to work it out because their god said so. None of them feel like they could ever happen organically, and that takes away from their credibility to me.

AND I DO LIKE ROMANCE I PROMISE

This post isn’t inherently anti any of the couples despite what the tags say. I just know someone will bite my head off, and I don’t have a sadistic god secretly making them my soulmate 💔

[hunnyy-bunnyyy]

The dissonance between era inspiration in ACoTaR is one of the more brushed over flaws in the book series. Looking at the Inner Circle's fashion alone, we jump between "literal scraps of fabric" (Under the Mountain, Court of Nightmares) to "orientalist painter's imaginings of the Ottoman Harem" (clothing described during Feyre's first few visits to the Night Court) to "modern 'corset' dress" (Feyre's Starfall dress, majority of Mor's clothing, most of the clothes drawn in fan art) to "modern -- almost sci-fi style -- skin-tight leather armor" to "sweater and leggings combo".

Then, between courts, we have Helion wearing Spirit Halloween's take on the ancient Grecian tunic; Feyre's Spring Court wedding dress looking like an 1830s fashion plate; and Dawn heavily implied to have traditional East Asain clothing (e.g. kimono, hanfu, hanbok).

On top of all of that, some of the Dawn Court's small cities ". . . specialized in tinkering and clockwork and clever things. . ." which -- combined with Lucien's metal eye and Nuan's mechanical hand -- implies a sort of post-industrial revolution time period. However, a decent chunk of the fandom says that ACoTaR is medieval; which, yeah, it's medieval themed in the first book -- sans the "dress" Rhysand forces Feyre to wear UTM.

The wild inconsistencies in ACoTaR's inspiration leads, not to a rich and diverse world, but a world that seems ramshackle and haphazard -- like it's creator simply threw together a board on Pinterest and called it a day. This is a major part of why the world building is so abysmal, it relies on convenience to the plot and whatever pleases the aesthetic whims of the author. Cultures deemed "pretty" or "badass" are thrown together, irregardless of how far apart they actually are. This is not only disrespectful to the narrative, but to the readers and the cultures used as inspiration.

All of this to say: Sarah J Maas is a bad author, not just because of the way she handles serious topics like power dynamics and abuse, but also because she cannot put together a world that is even the slightest bit cohesive.

[extremely-judgemental]

Man, I feel so dumb. Eris sending his baby brother to beast land when peaceful Summer and Winter exist? Tamlin adopting the runt no questions asked or conditions whatsoever? Tamlin killing his brothers making an enemy out of Autumn only to protect one little homeless baby? Tamlin and Eris definitely fucked at some point. Like, literally no other reason to do all this.

[elrielffs]

Guilty as Sin doesn't matter.

The articles don't matter.

Spotify, Audible etc don't matter.

SJM talking about ill fated bonds doesn't matter.

Using the colors blue and teal apparently matters.