#one of the reasons courtiers hated her is because she was allowed to change etiquette as queen

[vivelareine]

My (finished sometime in the future) book on Marie Antoinette in pop culture/media/public consciousness is going to have a section on the infantalization of Marie Antoinette into a perpetual teenager that presents her as being in this Poor Girlhood stasis while ignoring her adulthood and especially her last few years, all while presenting an inflated version of life at Versailles in order to forward this narrative more strongly, and said chapter is gonna be hot.

[moltazia]

A court of silver flames plot rewrite

Plot doctor. SPOILERS!!!

ok so i really dislike the latest ACOTAR book, it really undercut the illyrians as cool warriors and the achievements of rhys, cas and azriel for reaching the mountain. Really 3 people whos trained for a year is alot better than people whos trained their whole life?? it also really ignored Nestas actuall skillset and seemed to try and make her feyre 2.0. in this feyre is also very much not pregnant. that whole plotline deserves its own book and since they said they wanted to wait i think it can happen 50 years into the future or something rather than the immidiate next book from the one saying they wanted to wait. also no attempted rape tacked on plot or 3 objects everyone just forgot about. if i was to do a rewrite of the plot beats and settings of the book it would go something like this:

we move it so nesta actually moves to the illyrian camp full time for her intervention. with how the human society is structured this fits her better than velaris with the more strict and defined gender roles, we can explore here how in a way she is quite alike to illyrians. cassian is frustrated that she is not on his side when it comes to training women. we see flashbacks of her life and how it was beaten into her by her parents and everyone around her that it was mens job to care for women and it was horrible and unsightly if a woman tried to do anything on her own or push to hard for something with physical force.

she helps with the womens chores but are also confronted with the ones who want more out of life and they ask her why she thinks why shouldnt they be allowed. not all women will suddenly be trained, just the ones who want to. she comes around. she makes friends with the female shop keeper, she really likes the idea of being in control of making and having her own money. flashback to the cottage, her frustration with her father for not fulfillinf the role of provider and leader he was "supposed to" and her not being able to bring herlsef to chop the wood because it will ruin her hands, hands she was told to take care of because it was a sign she was a lady. her admiration for feyre for bringing them food but that first instinct to shun her for not being feminine or adhering to her role is very strong. she doesnt know how to handle it.

life in camp settles into a routine a bit, she sees cassian caring for his people and being a gentle person, she finds this very admirable and thirts a bit. sexism being directed at her, now that shes settled in with the women well the other illyrians have started to regard her as "just another woman" she gets angry and it becomes a bigger spat. she gets some approving comment from the more outspoken women who wants to train. she asks cassian to show her some basic defense moves.

she sees a wing clipping when cassian is gone to inspect some other camt´p and she tries to intervene she cant do anything since shes too weak and illyrians are stone hard super warriors. she makes the bargain with Cassian this time its for protection if another spat happends and so through the bargain she could summon him.

the evil queen attacks the camp with autumn court soldiers. its a disaster and alot of people die. since it was made clear they were soley after nesta she gets blamed for the attack in the high emotions after when people find their loved ones dead. she cant stay in the camp any longer.

cassian and her leaves for the court of nightmares, meeting up with the gang and Eris to discuss whats happened.(before eris arrives it is tense between her and feyre, fyre tries to hug her after hearing what happened and nest cant stand to ahve someone be kind to her after feeling like shes to blame and shrugs her off) it is agreed since nesta is a mostly neutral person to the rest of the courts and the one most trained in court manners she will be the one to go with Eris back to the autumn court to investigate. cassian will come with her as her personal guard. as the queens sister it is not something off about that arrangement. to give a reason for her to visit the autumn court they decide to fake a romance between eris and nesta. same ballroom scene as in the book.

longer flashback of nestas life right before poverty, shes the ultimate mean girl and a social butterfly, switching masks to be different people to different artistocrats with ease. shes admired and she holds high society in her small lace gloved hand. they arrive in the autumn court. she gets a "low" faerie assigned to her as a handmaiden. she has a audience with Beron and his wife.

Eris is a much better mirror for nesta than cassian. he is the same as her in many regards, growing up in a strict role. missing a step in the social dance can mean death (symbolically for nesta growing up, real here). putting on an uncaring mask to not show how intensly you care is a big theme in this part. Eris and Nesta are great at playing "the game" toghether and cassian as her silent bodyguard grows to admire her slyness and how great an actress she is, manipulating the courtiers to giving information and making accurate conclusions from their clothes and manners ("we can pressure X person to do this, their clothes are a season old and they are doing their own hair because its messier in the back where they cant see it in the mirror, this means they cant afford a hand maid anymore. give them a bribe and they will do anythign" etc). she and eris starts growing a friendship of two people who see alot of themselves in eachther.

they are figuring out the evil queen, but some moves from the enemy doesnt make sense, theres a third player in this game they realise (death god lake dude). the trio have become comfortable with each other and are hanging out and putting together their intel and gossip. Nesta becomes friends with her handmaiden. this helps break down her elitist and class barriers in her head a bit. while feyre has her painting it is to messy for nesta when she tried it.  but shes always loved clothes (we can see a bit of it in the first book even), she starts putting her own touch on dresses throughout the book and starts designing her own even. we can see how many in the court she has won over to her, cassians and eris´s side by what courtiers copy details from her designs.

she makes her handmaiden some nice outfits. we can also learn what nesta likes about herself here, in the dresses she designs: what does she emphasize, what does she hide? while she probably has a whole range of outfits to make her look anything from innocent to evil queen what does she wear when shes just "nesta"?  Feyre once remarked she hated her eyes because they reminded her of her mother and nesta. does nesta feel the same way or does she like her eyes for just the same reason? combat training with cassian continues in secret. some fun wrestling or close combat fighting flirting. she reflects on the fact that while she "let loose" in velaris and slept around she would never sleep with him casually, she knows it would mean somethign and she wouldnt be able to brush it off if she did. he asks her to teach him something aswell or explain some etiquette thing. idk, poin is that they are learning from eachother and admire each others strenghts. she says to him she thinks hes very brave to never masks his feelings but notes it leaves him open to manipulation easily. he asks back if shes then thinks herself a coward for always masking herself. conversation started out nice but turns sour.

Autumn court outing, she and cassian makes up and she opens up to him about her and feyres realtionship. we can also maybe get some more background on why shes so protective of elain here, as someone whos described to be so beautiful and charming i dont buy its because someone was like once mean to her. elain would have been popular in her own right.

she and eris ride together and jokes and such, he makes some halfjoking remark about cassian maybe and she defends him. they talk about family pressures and parental figures who are very imposing and bossy while the other is passive (something they have in common) eris lets down his guard a bit and talks about how he doesnt want to be like that, he doesnt want his future partner to be trapped in the same situation either. she talks about how she never really thought about how married life would be like growing up, everythign was about getting married. the after wasnt something discussed. she thinks about if she would ever want a family, she probably assumed she would have children one day (it was expected) but the only thing she can imagine is a perfect child like she was. she starts being afraid of if she has children she would turn into her mother. she has a quick image of cassian as a dad with a smiling little girl in his arms.

throughout this whole thing nesta is writing letters to the night court, it is expected since shes the high ladys sister and since they are surely read they use it to throw suspicion in the wrong places to beron about what she sees and suspects. but as she writes and recieves back letters and she reflects and improves on who she is, her letters become more heartfelt. doing some work to improve their relationship a bit. in her dresses she starts sewing in hidden pockets. Cassian gifts her a dagger, saying he thinks she will be able to be marginally more dangerous to others than herself by now with it. she makes a special hidden pocket for it and always has it on her.

the trio finds out who in the autumn court is the death gods agent and kidnaps them. azriel comes by to get information through torture but the agent does not break. Nesta goes in and through playing a perfect balance between caring and arrogant she gets the agent to slip up and give them a clue about where they will strike next, what they are after. Azriel is impressed, notes she is a a great interrogator and would make a great spy for him. he also notes to cassian about how shes changed alot since he saw her last. more focused and balanced in herself. Eris notes how she reminds him of Amarantha from the first book before she betrayed everyone and cassian gets mad he would say something like that. back and forth but and eris notes how "a knife is a knife, its about how its wielded." and pointing out that just because a person was an enemy on the battlefield doesnt mean he couldnt admire a skilled warrior. and so likening her to amarantha was a compliment. cassian huffily agrees and sees their, to his mind, more boring socialite nights with a new eye. same revelation as in the original book when nesta read battlefield books and saw how like it was to a court but for cassian instead.

the clue from the death gods agent leads them to trying to go after the mcguffin under the guise of a romantic trip. think a bunch of weapons hidden in a picknic basket. Handmaiden comes along to make it look real. on the perilous trip they all work together and and finally gets it, on the way back to bring the macguffin to meet up with nighcourt gang so amren can study it, they get attacked by the queens cronies again. Eris has the mcguffin and the handmaiden on his horse and rides off, making the smart decision to first and foremost get it out of the enemies reach and try and lure them off cassian and nesta. it doesnt work. the evil queen is overcome by her hatred for nesta and order her soldier after her instead of the mcguffin. nestas had some training but cant hold off soldiers whos trained for centuries and gets taken. she sees cassian being overwhelmed but still trying to get to her. she invokes the bargain of favour they made to force him to abandon her. they share a long look before he is forced by the bargain to fulfill her wish.

Eris and Cassian meets up the NC gang and they are besides themselves. a rescue mission is put toghether. Feyre insists on coming "she came for me, trying to pass the wall". handmaiden stays with azriel and amren.

Nesta wakes up in The evil queens castle. we get some one on one talks with the villain. we get insight into her motivations and why she valued her youth so much. we get to see how Nesta used to also think the most valuable thing about herself was how well she could appeal to others and the power that gave in a society wich was designed to make her powerless. she now finds it a bit sad and reflects on how much she values her new friendships and how cassian would probably still like her even if she wasnt traditionally beautiful anymore. The Villain starts draining her blood bathory style to get her youth back. agents of the deathgod comes and makes her stop before Nesta dies. he has bigger plans for her. Evil Queen looses her shit at not getting to kill her.

we see eris, feyre, and cass making plans for how to get in and rescue Nesta. some heart to heart between feyre and Cas about his feelings for Nesta and how hes holding off on showing her them. He talks about how hes seen alot get thrown at her. he talks about how she havent gotten to choose alot in her life and so in a way he hates the bond because he himself realises that that is yet another thing she havent gottent to choose. feyre wonders if nesta thinks he isnt attracted to her. that she thinks cassian only said what he said in the heat of the moment on the battefield. Cassian is dumbstruck by how anyone could not be attracted to nesta.

Evil queen comes by to taunt nesta in her cell. they exchange barbs and she lies and says she killed "her warrior" to mess with her. Nesta doesnt believe her but still gets anxious. has a twinge of doubt anyones goign to rescue her. elaine has always been with her when things go bad and a part of her thinks they only got rescued because of her since everyone loves elaine and now when its just her will they still come?

shes to be transported somwhere by the evil deathgods cronies and the evil queen is accommpanying them. the rescue trio sees them leaving. their whole plan on infiltration flies out the window and they have to move quick. Feyre uses her shape shifting to look human and makes herself bait. running at the caravan of nestas captors when theyve left the city (a castle usually have a city around it) screaming theres fae attacking from there pointing to the right as eris and cass attack from the completely opposite side. in the chaos nesta gets loose and starts running for the trees evil queen blindly pursue her and tries to kill her. with her arms free she grabbs the hidden dagger from her dress and kills the queen in self defense. the rescue trio finds her and they all go back to Night Court.

the book concludes with her and cassian having a heart to heart about how he was so worried he would loose her again and she admitting how she certainly feels somethign for him but she wants to take it slow. (her being terrified of showing her true raw feelings have yet to be resolved. her admitting this much is a big step forward for her) and they have a super smoldery kiss.

end of book. sets up evil lake dude as big baddie, nesta gets to have her own skillset instead of being yet another warrior and next book can build on the change illyrian culture regarding women plot aswell. and makes the sex have some build up.

this whole thing was of course just my personal opinion, and an impulsive plot and theme re-write. rant over.