#i've got a whole powerpoint being drafted out

[unlikelysaintdelele]

Just gonna post a snippet of my lil Amren theory because I'm getting lowkey annoyed by certain parts of the fandom on their theories of who they think the next ACOTAR books are about.

First and foremost, an SJM interview that I've posted before:

Pay attention to the blue.

"based after and before ACOWAR."

and now I'd like to bring your attention to an interview that came with certain versions of ACOFAS (I don't recall which, maybe hardback, but that info isn't relevant to the theory so moving on...):

"through a course of events that I'd love to tell one day"

"I've got an idea for a prequel that takes place a long time before the events of Thorns and Roses."

The fact that she mentions wanting to write Amren's backstory and follows that up with discussion of an ACOTAR prequel (and then follows THAT up with discussing her future novels) makes me suspicious in the best way possible.

On top of that, she's been really vague about the last novel. I know she says she's keeping herself open to ideas... but she's lied to us before in order to steer clear of spoilers. For TaR, she hyped up Tamlin and lied through her teeth about how she felt about him and Feyre. She knew from the beginning that Tamlin wasn't Feyre's endgame and she still didn't gush about Rhys in the early days because SPOILERS. This woman is a planner. She doesn't outline her stories, but she KNOWS what she wants to happen and makes it work.

Back to the ACOFAS interview, there's a portion where she talks specifically about Elain:

"everything I did during those weeks became research for her book."

She has mentioned an Elain spinoff before in this interview:

"[Feyre's] sisters come back in the later books, and I’d love to write their own spin-off books one day."

With only two novels and one novella left, I'm seeing a lot of people map out the books like this: ACOTAR 5 = Gwynriel, ACOTAR 6 = Elucien, and the second novella is Mor x Emerie. Which is understandable considering that, in the interview I first listed, SJM stated "each standalone will follow a different romantic pairing". But she also mentioned that she has five ships to choose from for the sixth novel. FIVE. This makes the mapping I've seen so far hard to believe because Elain is just not involved in five ships.

SJM has wanted to write an Elain spinoff for a while and she knew who the first two novels following ACOWAR/ACOFAS would be about, which leads me to believe Elain's book is next since that is the only character who has been confirmed by SJM as someone who will get a book so far.

I also don't think the second novella will focus on a couple. I think it will be more similar to the first novella in that it will be multiple POV's.

Now I bet you're wondering where Amren fits into all of this...

Well, Elain's story is obviously after ACOWAR, but Amren's backstory is before. And if anything, Amren's backstory could open the door to future connections and stories... Crescent City is an obvious one by now. But let's not forget about SJM's Twilight of the Gods WIP.

Amren arrived to Prythian while it was still forming, which was thousands of years ago... and consistently throughout SJM's novels, the Fae (and other supernatural beings) are settlers that arrived to their respective worlds thousands of years ago. There's also some CC2 spoilers I've vaguely heard about that lead me to believe these are connected in some form.

Based on what I've mentioned above, I think one of the books will focus on Amren, or at least provide more detail on her backstory in relation to the histories of the separate SJM worlds.

This makes my mapping of the future ACOTAR books: Elain, ???, and Amren OR Elain, Amren, and ???.

[eissibee]

Fuck me dude... My shitty job asked me to redesign a cartoon mascot and I got SO EXCITED to be able to use my degree and moderate skillsets that I misread the brief and redesigned a whole thing all day even missing lunch bc I was so FOCUSED for once instead of reformatting word docs and being useless, when they actually want to KEEP THE UGLY INCONSISTENT DESIGN and I was only supposed to design a companion in the same style,,,, just take the same fucker and change his palette. The style currently looks like it was drawn by different people every picture (it's a penguin) so I showed my work EOD and felt mortified I'd fucked up my rare chance to be a 'designer' of sorts and wasted a day. I got confused cos they were talking with me about how ugly the current one is and how they might have me making new illustration decks for them which... Made me think they wanted a rehaul Id draft so it can be consistent going forward. I wasn't even happy with my design yet anyway, I was gonna keep pushing it, but nope.

Fuck me man I swear since uni I've spent like 6+ years farting around at corporate jobs where I make PowerPoints pretty until I get sacked 1.5 years in. I'm not a researcher or a designer or even an illustrator. I don't have a career, or marketable skills, I've just been passed around trying to learn but not really advancing anywhere, bored out of my mind and not helpful to anyone. At this point I think I have to go back to school, but I don't know what I could do that would be a good career for me. The only solid idea left is psych, but I'm IN therapy so I'm terrified of BEING a therapist to other people's issues. I'm not a naturally caring enough person for that and I know it. Ugh.