#second reason it might actually force cassian's character to fucking DEVELOP

[alicentsaegon]

Anyway Cassian should have lost his ability to fly after his wings were shredded in ACOMAF, that's non negotiable

[alltheworldsinmyhead]

ON FEYSAND’S PLOTLINE IN ACOSF

              !!!!MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE ACOSF!!!!

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Let’s be honest for a while, okay?

ACOCF had potential to be SJM’s best book, if not for any other reason then because of the sheer idea of it. Coming-of-age, healing story of the most complex and polarizing character she has ever created set in the time of peace, away from the familiar setting (according to the later changed concept which still remains in the snippet at the end of ACOFAS), development of her arguably most feisty and angsty love story... It could be her absolute trumph. Even with the change to stick to Velaris instead of exploring the Illyrian culture of the Mountains and with the added conflict of the Mortal Queens and Koshei, it still could work quite well. 

It didn’t. For many, many reasons, but the most important one, in my opinion, being the feysand pregnancy plot. 

Nothing about this plotline made sense. Not a single thing. From start to finish, it was an absolute disaster from the character-writing POV, from the narration POV, from every single context of it. It broke the rules of real-life logic, it broke the rules of this fantasy world setting and it completely exposed that Rhysand, while not a bad guy, is a pretty terrible partner, even worse ruler and an absolutely terrible contender for the High King title. 

Let’s break this whole mess down (and expect this post to be mammoth-sized. it’s not my fault, though, write to SJM if you have any complains):

1) Feyre, 21, decides to get pregnant, even though less than a year earlier, she expresses the delight with not being forced to bear children to her new mate and told him herself she wants to wait a while and enjoy her life with him. Feyre decides she wants a baby though and Rhysand goes along with it, even though he is aware how young Feyre is and how hard her life has been up until this point. He wants a baby too much to have an honest discussion with Feyre about it, to stop and wonder what is the reason for her sudden change of heart, to reassure her that they have a lot of time ahead of them and don’t need to rush. No. She mades a sudden decision to have a baby after A YEAR OF MARRIAGE and not much more of being turned fae, JUST AFTER having her whole world put upside down, having received a completely new title and responsibilities, surviving the wat and being mated. Great. 

2) Feyre decides to get pregnant and Rhys goes along with it less than a year after the end of the bloody war. It is politically a delicate time, everyone is still not sure how the balance will shift, some countries don;t want to sign the peace treaty, etc. There are a lot of enemies and a lot of turmoil remaining. But sure. Let’s have a baby. Perfect time to add yet another target, another weakness that can be use by the Mortal Queens, Beron or whatever else with malicious intent towards the Night Court. 

2) Feyre gets pregnant after approximately a year of trying. I know healthy people of reproductive age for whom it takes ages more than this. Fae’s pregnancies are rare af and precious and happen once in a blue moon, but ofc SJM broke the world’s rules for her darling Feyre. And again, for Kallas and Vivianne who are also expecting the baby, even though it has been a maximum of 3 years since they’ve mated. 3 years is also not a particularly long time to try to have a baby for those who have issues with their reproductive systems like Fae women. Thank you, next. 

3) Rhys has unprotected sex with Feyre in her Illyrian form when she conceives, even though he knows full well having a winged baby would kill her. He does it anyway, for shits and giggles apparently. They probably have sex in the sky above Velaris, for all we know. 

4) The baby has wings. Now, the whole explanation with Illyrian wings being bony (bc they resemble bat wings) and Seraphin ones being more flexible (bc they resemble bird ones) is so insanely stupid that it takes around 3 seconds to wikipedia this shit and find out it’s exactly the opposite. But okay, the baby has wings and Feyre will die while giving birth, along with the baby. Madja forbids Feyre from turning into an Illyrian to carry the pregnancy because it MIGHT hurt the baby. Now, remember, Feyre conceived while in Illyrian form and then turned into High Fae. The baby survived it just fine. The baby MIGHT be hurt by Feyre turning .... but it will FOR SURE die if she stays High Fae and Feyre will too. Idk about you, but I would take the risk of MIGHT instead of FOR SURE. Especially when she is already in labour and dying. Cauldron or Nesta or idk who alters Feyre’s pelvis after the baby is cut out of her for no apparent reason but to allow feysand to make exactly the same mistakes later on. How convinient. And Nesta also alters her own pelvis bc god forbid she won’t be able give Cassian babies like the little useful mate she is now. She should’ve probably done it with Elain too, just in case she decides to fuck Az in the future, because fuck consequences and fuck the stakes in the story that make the readers actually CARE about characters bc they know the author may actually kill them and not save their life every fucking time.  

5) I don’t even want to comment on the fact Rhys hid the true danger of this pregnancy for Feyre and their family went along with it. It is absolutely disgusting. And Nesta telling her and that being condemned as the act of the ultimate cruelty which is a final straw to break her self-loathing back.... is abhorrent. It made my sick, actually, phisically sick. There is no justification for it. No at all. And the fact that they did not even consider abortion sends a message that I really don’t want to think too much about it. Feyre was 2 months along when they learned the baby is winged. 2 months. 8 weeks. It wasn’t a baby yet, let’s be honest. They could’ve at least discussed it. She - oh my god, I cannot believe SJM wrote it this way, I’m gonna be sick. 

6) For the entirety of Feyre’s pregnancy, they have no plan to really help her. Labour plan? Haven’t heard if it.  They have money and power and access to the healers of the whole land. And did not figure out how to stop her from bleeding out after a fucking C-section. THIS WORLD HAS MAGIC AND THEY COULDN’T STOP HER FROM BLEEDING OUT AFTER A FUCKING C-SECTION. Didn’t even ask Thesan, the High Lord of Healing, to be present. Cassian had guts hanging out of his stomach and survived. Az was fucking slashed apart in Hybern and survived. But yeah, Feyre was on a brink of death after a C-section. Great, Sarah. Keep it up. Let’s force the thought into young girls’ heads that labour is the most lethal thing ever, why not. 

7) Also, for the entirety of Feyre’s pregnancy, Rhys keeps quiet about this idiotic bargain. He, as far as we know, doesn’t make any plans for the moment when him and Feyre and possibly their baby are dead. If they died and baby survived.. who would take care of it? Does Rhys have a conversation with his family about it? NAH. Doesn’t write any sort of plan how to keep the Court going, doesn’t inform even the closest of his co-workers how they should proceed to act after he’s gone and his and Feyre’s power go to god-knows-who. Their deaths would mean a sure chaos for the weakend and fragile Prythian and the Night Court especially and yet nor Rhys nor Feyre make any sort of preparations for it. Rhys doesn’t tell his brothers or Mor or HIS SECOND IN COMMAND they will all soon have to somehow manage without him. He was about to just leave them to their own devices and told them in the last. possible. moment. 

And this man - this man is, according to Amren, the best candidate to handle the whole country? To unite it? This fool who makes idiotic bargains, who thinks first about his cock and his own selfish desires and considers his subjects and his responsibilities as a High Lord last and least important of all? Who has so much trust in his wife, in his High Lady, the mother of his son that he doesn’t tell her she will almost surely die on a birthing bed because it MAY UPSET HER? 

This plotline was the straw that broke my back. ACOTAR, at it’s heart has always been a ya fantasy with added ‘spice’ and I was willing to bend my critical-thinking skills in many cases and forget and forgive many smaller idiotic issues in this series. But this? It is not idiotic. It is massive and stupid to the point when it becomes insulting to the reader. It was a plot straight out of a bad fanfic, not something that should be in a published book written by someone who writes for a living. You could even argue that Twilight has handled this toxic trope better.  I have wasted my money on this book and thinking about it will always be painful for me. So yeah.

ACOSF could be great. Ended up quite pathetic. 

[jonsa101]

Yes, There’s Only 14 Episodes in Season 3 But Sharpwin is On Track and Progressing How They’re Supposed To.

There has been so much talk about this season’s writing and the lack of Sharpwin scenes that I thought I would just address everything in this post.

First, the writing this season is NOT BAD! In my honest opinion I actually think this season has some of the best writing in the series. Compared to season two, the writing is head and shoulders above what we got last year. More than ever before we are diving into these characters stories, seeing friendships form, getting a better look into their home life and seeing secondary characters shine! This is a good thing! These were the things that were so desperately needed in season 2 but we didn’t see this play out. I’ve said this before in my infamous season 2 rant and I’ll say it again, a show can’t solely depend on a ship! It has to have great storytelling and good character development for all of it’s main characters. This is what New Amsterdam failed to do in season two and they’re now making it up for it in season 3. The only area I would say the storyline suffered was the Cassian, Helen and Max “love triangle.” There was definitely more intent with that plot before the pandemic. Cassian was not only supposed to be a catalyst for Jealous Max and Sharpwin but he was also supposed to come in and challenge the way Max did things. Cassian’s whole thing was self care first=great patient care which was the complete opposite of Max and the two of them were supposed to clash. Obviously this completely changed due to the pandemic. You can’t have a storyline about a doctor prioritizing himself first for “better patient care”in the midst of thousands of doctors globally throwing themselves on the frontlines and even loosing their lives to COVID-19. It would have been a terrible look to have that storyline so they clearly scrapped it! What we saw was probably them trying to salvage whatever was left from the original plot while they still had Daniel Dae Kim in the limited amount of episodes for season 3.

Apart from that, I think the writers are doing a fantastic job in terms of character development this season. Arguably I would say that Iggy probably has the best storyline so far and that’s incredible for his character. Tyler Labine is acting his ass off and Iggy’s scenes with Lauren, Vijay and Martin were top tier!!! We are finally getting a Max and Reynolds bromance that was teased in season one but literally know where to be found in season two! It’s great seeing them bond on screen and I hope we get more moments with these two. We’re also seeing Reynold’s “life plan” blow up in his face and we finally have some closure with Bloom. They kept us in limbo for so long! We didn’t know if him and Bloom were truly over but now we finally know. Also, it seems like he and Evie are officially done as well and he might have a new love interest on the horizon. For Lauren, she’s clearly seems to be having a coming out story which is something I didn’t see coming at all. I’m really curious how they’re going to play this out for her and can’t wait to see it unfold. Last but not least, for Max and Helen they are both going through massive character development phases which leads me to my second point.

I love a good Max and Helen scene as much as the next person. To me they’re the ultimate ship and I want to see them thrive and flourish but just because we don’t see Max and Helen interact doesn’t mean that the show isn’t properly developing or investing in their relationship!!!!!!!!The relationship between Max and Helen is so nuanced that their relationship doesn’t hang in the balance because they don’t have more witty, flirtatious, or emotional dialogue. Don’t get me wrong, I adore those moments. Those scenes between them make us the passionate sharwpin shippers we are. At the same time though, we have to truly take a look at why the state of their relationship is where its at now and why from a narrative perspective their current interactions make sense. In order to do this, we have to take a look at where Max and Helen left off last year.

At the end of season 2, Max made a move on Helen and almost kissed her in her office. After this moment occurred he never addressed it and at the time he was still dating Alice. There’s no doubt in my mind that this was the catalyst for why Helen started dating Cassian in the first place. She had practically laid her feelings out there and told Max he was the reason she gave up half of her department. After this revelation and the massive, intimate moment he initiated in her office, he didn’t even have the decency to address it. He swept it under the rug and wanted to keep the same relationship that he had with her like nothing ever happened. Even though Helen was aware about Alice, we now know from season 3 that Helen felt a type away that Max never “officially” told Helen that he was dating her. This is IMPORTANT!!! Max and Helen did not end on a high note in season 2. In fact, the very last scenes we see of season 2 is Helen blowing off Max to go on a date with Cassian and Max breaking off things with Alice. I know this wasn’t intentional due to the season being cut short but it definitely contributes to where they are now. 

Fast forward a year later, and not only do we still have a massive almost kissed elephant in the room between Max and Helen but also the trauma of being on the frontlines of a pandemic and going through the biggest social justice movement the world has seen. This is something I’ve said many times over but I’m not sure the fandom recognizes how much these events have permanently altered these characters and changed the dynamics of this show. COVID-19 changed everything. The Black Live Matter Movement for the first time grabbed the attention of the world and changed everything too! Max and Helen are in the process of trying to heal and rebuild their lives the best they can as individuals after such a tumultuous year. At the same time, they are acutely aware of the feelings they have for each other and the UST between them and are carrying the weight of that as well. Naturally guys, the combination of all this is going to change most dynamics in a relationship. Things are awkward and distant  because Max and Helen are awkward and distant!! They have a lot of shit that they’re going through as individuals and subconsciously as a “couple.” They are clearly not in a healthy place to be as vulnerable as they once were to each other. And how can they be when their feelings have literally been eating at them for over year?! It’s hard to ignore that and try to force yourself to go back to the way things were. Especially when their feelings have “technically”  been out in the open since the end of season 2. They both know what it is! They were steps away from unleashing years of built up sexual tension between them and they went on with their lives like it never even happened. Max walking in on her and Cassian kissing in HER OFFICE and subsequently having that convo with Helen was not for shits and giggles. It triggered the BEAST of his feelings that he had fought so hard to suppress. There is no doubt in my mind that when he saw them in her office kissing, he was having some serious dejavu to their almost kissing affair last year. He‘s in love with her and she’s in love with him but this what happens when you continuously try and run away from those feelings and let it fester instead of trying to deal with it head on. The dynamic  were seeing between them now is a result of their unresolved issues and it absolutely plays into Sharpwin’s story. It doesn’t take away from it. It makes sense for where they are NOW! 

If we look at season three holistically, you’ll realize that a momentum for something significant happening for Sharpwin has been set through the acting and writing. I got to give it to Ryan Eggold. He has that fire and desire, Mr. Darcy type level acting down to a tee so far. It is so satisfying seeing Max so overcome with his feelings that you can tangibly see it in his body language and hear it in his voice. We have seen Max taken aback by Helen before but we have NEVER seen him like this. I keep on saying it but this is different guys. Something has shifted and it seems like Max is on the verge of exploding. His feeling are burning hot right underneath the surface and it’s a beautiful thing to behold. Last night’s episode was ripe with this type of content and Ryan was in his acting bag! It wasn’t an overtly “Sharpwin” episode but the writing and the acting is so clever and methodical, it will have you thinking otherwise. At the beginning of season 3 Max told Helen that he wants to build something better for Luna and something better for her. Was last night not a beautiful reflection of that? One question asking Max if he has ever loved a black woman put him in the shoes of his patient’s husband and had Max advocating for his wife like he would advocate for Helen if it was her! If that’s not fucking romantic I don’t know what it is and if the alarm bells aren’t going off that there is something deeper at play here with a huge payoff around the corner I don’t know what to tell you! Another moment that sticks out to me like a sore thumb is when Helen was telling Cassian that her brother died. I wrote about this in a previous meta of mind but Helen at her most vulnerable telling Cassian that she feels like she’s running out of time is SO SIGNIFICANT guys!!! It’s not only tell us that she fears that she’s missing out on the windows of opportunities for the wants and needs in her life but it literally sets the pacing of how quickly Sharpwin is going to progress. It is the beautiful freudian slip that tells us exactly where things are headed for these two. To me this is equivalent to Max telling Helen “I love my doctor” and “what if I want you?” in season 1. This episode had no interaction between Max and Helen but it was a MASSIVE Sharpwin indicator through and through! These are just a couple of examples but even their respective journeys in parenting is so Sharpwin driven. So in all I’m not mad in the direction the show has taken to showcase their relationship this season because Sharpwin is deeply interwoven in the storyline this year even if it’s not overtly obvious through emotional dialogue/ interactions. 

Also, one thing you have to realize is this, season three is wrapping up a lot of loose ends from season 2 and when it comes to Max and Helen these two points will be/ have to be addressed in the next six episodes.

The Almost Kiss

Whether or Not They Want To Be Together

The showrunners know without a shadow of doubt that the resolution for these two points is owed! If Sharpwin is talking about their almost kiss, there is no way that they aren’t talking about what they mean to each other and what their future looks like together. Both solutions literally go hand in hand and I promise you they are not delaying the resolution for that till season 4. It’s not happening fam. We will see this play out within the next six episodes. So in hindsight, more Sharpwin interaction are on the horizon. 

When I was making predictions about this season I wasn’t aware that this season would only be 14 episodes. I’m sad that season 3 is so short but that still doesn’t change my mind for where I think the story is going. Call me crazy but I’m sticking to my guns. There is something about how Ryan is portraying Max that is signaling something huge. Also I just trust the context clues that i believe the show is giving. I trust it! Anyway y’all! If you have any sharpwin question just DM here or message me on Twitter! my username is @oyindaodewale. 

Love you guys! ❤️

[tardytothepardy]

My Review of "A Court of Silver Flames" (because it's too long for Goodreads)

~`,Spoiler-free summary/review idk,`~

In "A Court of Silver Flames", the story centers around two characters that were previously in the "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series, Cassian and Nesta. As far as I can tell, this story takes place about a year after "A Court of Frost and Starlight", where Nesta is in a bad mental state. To cope with the events in "A Court of War and Ruin", she has taken to excessive drinking and sleeping with random people. The members of the Inner Court allowed her to do this for a while, but as the book begins, it is made clear that they won't let her do that anymore. It is decided that she will be taken to the House of Wind, along with Cassian and Azriel, so she can be separated from everything and heal. The reasoning behind putting Nesta in the House of Wind is that the only ways anyone can easily go to or leave the house is by flying or winnowing, neither of which are things she can do. There is a set of 10,000 stairs that she can take, but seeing as they are 10,000 stairs, it's pretty difficult.

Throughout the story, Nesta is forced to come to terms with her difficult memories and her powers, which she has pushed away in an effort to retain as much of her prior humanity as she can. It is soon revealed that her powers are connected to three ancient magical items, collectively called the "Dread Trove", and Nesta is tasked to find as many as she can to keep Briallyn, one of the human queens, who has a similar connection to the items, from obtaining them and wielding powers that could completely destroy the world.

While all of this is going on, it is revealed that Feyre is pregnant. It isn't all happy news, however, because it seems that complications (of the deadly variety) have become known, and no one knows what to do to save her (let alone herself because she's not even aware of it hooray Rice Hand you're doing fabulously).

I think as a whole, one thing that this book struggled with is pacing. For the majority of the book, I didn't feel that the characters were actively trying to stop The Bad Guys, it almost felt that they took action every so often, as if they randomly remembered that these events are happening. Most of the book is focused on the development of the relationship between Cassian and Nesta, and everything else falls around that, which would be fine if the other events were of a smaller scale, like planning a party or something (idk lmao), rather than the fate of literally the <i>entire world</i>, both the Fae and human world. A lot of the things that happened in this book seemed like they were resolved within the last 50 pages of the book, one after another, it just felt odd.

(spoilers for the entire book below the "keep reading"!)

~`,Spoilers from here on out,`~

So like I said in the beginning, it starts with Nesta in her house. It's from Cassian's point of view, so I got to endure two things that really fucking irritated me: first was where she was living. It was a similar line of thought from the "ACOFAS" description, that Velaris doesn't have slums, but if it did have a slum, Nesta would be living in it. But it doesn't have slums, but this place is still icky. Cassian acknowledges that he's stayed in worse, but this place is still icky, yucky, blecky, and gross. Second thing that irritated me was when he first saw her. He describes her as having "long bare legs, an elegant sweep of hips, tapered waist--too damn thin--and full, inviting breasts that were at odds with the new, sharp angles of her body" (10). She was thin, very thin, but not her boobs. Nope, those badonks were still (somehow) plenty large. This might be the fault of me trying to understand Fae bodies by comparing them to human bodies, but I simply do not understand how that is supposed to work. Boobs are made of fats and tissues, if you're losing weight, you're gonna lose boob. Whatever.

Cassian proceeds to take Nesta to one of (apparently 5. Rice Hand and Feyre have five houses, why) Feyre's houses, where it is soon made clear that an intervention is being staged. This has to be one of the worse ones out there, because oh my fucking god everyone is so goddamn hostile towards Nesta. Amren and Nesta were previously friendly, then they had an unresolved (and unexplained) falling out, and now holy shit Amren is constantly baiting Nesta, making snide remarks. Rice Hand seems to be offended by Nesta simply because she doesn't like him or Feyre, like I don't get why he's so aggressive towards her (and that shit continues for the majority of the book it's so annoying), but somehow everyone there is surprised when Nesta is aggressive, that she throws insults, that she's rude.

Anyway, after Nesta is toted to the House, she instantly tries to find a way out, and that's when the 10,000 stairs come in. (Tangent, in the book it says that the stairs are about a foot tall each. 10,000, 1 foot tall stairs. That would mean the House of Wind is at least 10,000ft tall, but seeing as the House has multiple levels, it's even taller than that. This building is so goddamn tall, did Maas even think about that? It's nonsensical! Anyway) She tries to go down them, but she fails miserably. She's underweight, I wouldn't be surprised if she's malnourished, she's in no state to climb down 10,000 stairs.

So that's where the training comes in. Cassian takes her to Windhaven, an Illyrian camp (place thing idk), to train, but she just refuses. After 3 days of her not doing anything, Cassian is ready to throw in the towel (I thought,,, I would think that since he's had to discipline out-of-line soldiers before he'd do better than 3 fucking days but whatever), but then he remembers what she's said about it all three of those times, that she's not gonna do it in front of everyone (because if you didn't remember, the Illyrians are massively sexist and so of course no one has anything better to do than gather round to see some random woman attempt to train but whatever), so he just has her train within the House. One top of the House, it seems. I don't know how big this House is supposed to be, but the roof at least would have to be huge to allow for multiple people to train and work out, spaced out evenly, and not be at risk for falling off. But he has her train there, issue resolved.

What is this training, you may ask? It's just basic stuff, like stretching, balance, strength training, and eventually grappling with so much sexual tension you can barely see your hand in front of your face (it's like a fog as far as I'm concerned), casual stuff.

Along with this training, Nesta is also assigned to work in the library, which is also a sort of refuge or something for a bunch of priestesses who have survived various forms of abuse or assault. It's one big safe space that also has old ass books. Sounds great. She has to work there for six hours, I believe, everyday, along with the training, and at the library she meets someone named Gwyn. Gwyn is a priestess, she's been there for a little while (it doesn't actually say how long, now that I think about it) and fun fact, she's a quarter river nymph. The person she works under is shown using that fact as an insult, but only once, because then Nesta lets her eyes go silver, which freaks them out, and then Gwyn doesn't have to deal with it anymore.

Speaking of silver eyeballs, let's talk about her powers. What are they, how do they work? What are the limits of her powers, etc.? It's not really stated, beyond vague stuff of her powers being derived from something ancient, before the Fae's time, and that she's really powerful. At one point in the book when Rice Hand had to go into her mind (she was having night terrors), he described her powers as "pure death". On one occasion as she was trying to go down the 10,000 steps (which is a recurring thing throughout the whole book), she fell partway down and when she caught herself, she saw that she somehow burned her handprint into the stone. At another point when she's a good way into her training, she's punching something and it is later shown that she again burned through the wood (it was a piece of wood wrapped in cloth which sounds like an absolute delight to punch for a sustained period of time), but somehow the burn mark was cold? Much later in the book she literally un-alives someone, like she didn't kill them, she regressed their age so much that they were un-alive. (She basically hit the "undo" button on their life) Additionally, since her powers that she got from the Cauldron have connected her to the "Dread Trove" items, she is able to find them very easily and use them without issue. With all this information, it's still not clear as to what the limits to her power are. I suppose she is the limitation, because she could choose to use her power to gather the items of the "Dread Trove" and use them to manipulate worlds and time and fucking death itself, but she doesn't. And honestly I'm not sure how I feel about that, I'm kinda iffy on the idea of a character having seemingly unlimited power (especially when they only use it a handful of times, if at all), but I suppose it doesn't really matter because by the end of the story, she gives back most of her power to the Cauldron anyway, so any questions about that are just,,, thrown to the wind.

The characters in this story were a pretty mixed bag. I can say full-heartedly that I did not like Rhysand (there, I said his actual name instead of Rice Hand, Rice Hand is funnier to me). I don't think I've ever particularly liked him, he was too smarmy for my liking, and then when we got a look into his mind courtesy of ACOFAS, all I got out of it was that whatever is going on in his head does not match his outwardly appearance and demeanor whatsoever. (On the outside, he seems like he'd be the one to smirk a lot, probably use lots of sarcasm, on the inside it seems like if someone said "boobs" he'd start laughing uncontrollably. Like, it's weird. Idk what was going on in that book, it was weird.) But in this book, I did not like him, from the beginning. He was so hostile, so aggressive towards Nesta, at any given moment. I don't know if he had any sympathy at all for her situation, because he certainly didn't act like it. At anything Nesta would do, he would push back.

For example, when Gwyn decided to join Nesta in her training, Rice Hand said in her mind to not do anything (in the book, he said, "You are to treat Gwyn with kindness and respect." (pg. 304)), and the whole thing angers me for two reasons, the first being that Nesta's kindness was the reason that Gwyn was there in the first place. Which leads to the second reason, that it seems that Rice Hand is so convinced that Nesta is an unlikable person that she couldn't have possibly made friends (or at least friendly acquaintances) during her time at the House and working in the library.

Following that remark, Nesta noted that it seemed that Rice Hand didn't particularly like the fact that she and Cassian were a thing, which also ticks me off. Am I a huge fan of Cassian and Nesta being together? They're fine, but it's again that idea that she couldn't have possibly warmed up to someone that she has to be around the majority of the time, and maybe someone that doesn't default their mentality of her as "whatever she's doing, it's wrong/bad". To give credit to Cassian, he did figure out that Rice Hand said something to her and chided him for doing so. He actually caught Rice Hand doing it a few more times within the book and got after him about it those times, which is nice.

But that's not the only reason why I specifically did not like Rice Hand in this book. There's another thing he did which I feel is so much worse than what he did or said to Nesta. That thing would be that he kept information about Feyre from Feyre, specifically about her own pregnancy. Now, I said in the beginning that she had a troubled pregnancy. Basically, her baby had wings, but her body wouldn't be able to safely deliver the baby because of those wings. Before you ask "Hey, doesn't Feyre have shape-shifting powers?" or "What about a c-section?", Maas tucked away those easy solutions by saying that Madja, the person overseeing Feyre's pregnancy, told her that shape-shifting might put the baby at risk for more complications, and as far as the c-section thing goes, they just uh, they just haven't seemed to figure out how to do that. These Fae people live for hundreds of years and no one has ever figured out how to properly do a c-section, I guess. Additionally, it seems that Illyrian wings are particularly special, compared to the wings of the other two groups of winged Fae, Seraphim and Peregyrn, because whereas the wings of the Seraphims or Peregryns can move, allowing for an easier birth, apparently (for some fucking reason) Illyrian wings are bony? Like, in utero, they're already bony and difficult to move, which is where all those complications come in.

He told none of this to Feyre. All she knew about her own pregnancy, was that there might be some complications, she didn't know that there was a gigantic mortality rate with pregnancies like this, nothing like that. He purposely kept this information from her, it seems that the whole fucking Inner Court voted on it, or some shit. When Feyre was told of this whole thing from Nesta, Amren said it was to protect Feyre, to keep her from getting stressed or scared, which could worsen things further. But I counter that Amren, with this: How fucking scared do you think Feyre would have been, when she was in labor and everything, and things were rapidly spiraling out of control? She would have been terrified! Don't you think that would've affected something, because I fucking think it would have! Was there ever any intent to tell her about this, or did all of them just decide to never tell her?

The reason why Nesta told Feyre about it was to hurt her, initially, but it was also because she found out that the Inner Court had made a decision about her, personally, because she had accidentally made more "Dread Trove" items by imbuing her power in three swords that she made while at a blacksmith. She found out (via Cassian's absolutely terrible way of bringing up the swords she made) that they were planning to take them away (or something, I don't specifically remember), and that's when she went to Amren's place and demanded more information. When Feyre was brought to intervene, Nesta told Feyre what Cassian had told her (despite the fact that he was totally supposed to keep that a secret but whatever dude). Feyre was shocked, understandably, but she wasn't angry at Nesta for that, and I can't tell you how happy I was about that, I am so happy that Feyre wasn't angry at Nesta for telling her about this. She actually was angry at the other people for deciding to keep this information from her. I just,, I'm really happy that she wasn't angry at Nesta. Everyone else, on the other hand, was fucking pissed at her, including Rice Hand. He was absolutely livid, but the funny thing is, that I don't give a shit, honestly. He should have never kept that a secret in the first place.

I think as a whole, his behavior is explained away because "his mate is pregnant", so I guess he has full clearance to be obnoxious and aggressive and withhold information without the knowledge of all parties involved. What happened to always giving Feyre a choice, Rhysand? What happened to that? Did she only get a choice when you decided to give her one? Because that is certainly what this felt like.

Another thing that Rice Hand did that I would place in between his bullshit against Nesta and his bullshit against Feyre, is another thing that he did to Feyre. So, back in ACOTAR, I believe, when Feyre was still with Tamlin, Tamlin infamously trapped Feyre in a huge magical bubble, where she couldn't leave Tamlin's house. Everyone agreed that that wasn't the best thing for Tamlin to do, and Tamlin's punishment was completely equal to the evils he committed, one-hundred percent. (Not really, now he's stuck in his beast form, roaming the Spring Court in a state of anger and pain. Sympathy for him is quite the commodity in the books.) But what does any of this have to do with Rice Hand? Well, he basically did the same thing to Feyre, except rather than being stuck in a building, the shield is on her, and it's so strong that even her friends can't touch her without being hit by the shield. And when she's asked about it, Feyre just says that Rice Hand learned how to make shields from Helion, the High Lord of the Summer Court, and like,,,, is testing them out on her?? And we're all supposed to think this is fine? The shield is so intense that they can't even smell her (which is a thing, in this series. Fae people can smell other people, they have scents, idk man I'm just going with it), so effectively he's masking her entire existence, and no one has a problem with it. It's weird. It's not as bad as the pregnancy thing, but it's still not great.

I suppose since I'm talking about characters, I should talk about Cassian and Nesta, seeing as they did totally, undeniably become a Thing in this book. Idk how to really go about it, honestly. For the majority of the book, at least one of them was sure that the other didn't like them, or that they weren't deserving to be with the other, so that was fun. I don't particularly remember when, but at some point they both just,,, decided? to have casual sex, that it meant nothing (when it did, in fact, mean something), and it was like,,, a way of distancing themselves from the other. That is particularly the case with Nesta, who felt guilty for constantly pushing Cassian away at basically every turn. Apparently her attention was caught on him from like,,, the first time that she even saw him, way back when she and Elain were still human, in their cottage. She didn't love him or anything, but it was a Notice.

Despite that Notice, she still pushed him away, as I said, because she just didn't feel like she was good enough. Over the course of the book, Nesta quickly became ashamed of the life she had been living since being put in the Cauldron, which was all the drinking and sex (and that's it? Like, a lot of people in this book made it out to be this whole thing but I think that's basically all she did. Part of me feels like the main reason the Inner Court was so bothered by it in the first place was that she was billing it to them, who really wouldn't even notice the money spent anyway, given how much money they seem to have but whatever), and this was another thing that caused her to push away. (And then violently yo-yo back it was incredible) She also has been harboring a fuck ton of guilt over her father's death, which I think was something I worried about after reading ACOFAS? Idk, but it wasn't terrible. She acknowledged that she couldn't really do anything, that it was all over before she could move, but the main reason she felt so horrible about it, was because all this time, since her mother's death (and kinda before it?), she had been mean towards her father, constantly snubbing him, acting with disdain, etc., but during the war (in ACOWAR, it's so helpfully acronymed), he came to help with a fleet of ships, and the one he was on, he named after her. It showed that, despite all that she had said and done to him for all these years, he still loved her, and she felt that she didn't deserve that.

She felt guilty about what had happened to Elain, and felt angry that she wasn't able to do more. Her relationship with Elain kinda soured at a point, because it went from Elain being the withdrawn, sallow, underfed and distant one, to her being that, except with Elain, she would just sit in a chair in an empty room and wallow in her own misery, whereas Nesta used other aforementioned ways to try to forget. Throughout a lot of this book, Nesta and Elain are at each other's throats, and they did, apparently, make up, but I don't know when. For how much of the book is spent about them being at odds with each other, there's an odd lack of them actually making up with each other and settling all that. It's weird.

As a whole though, the center of Nesta's issues stem from the fact that she feels helpless. As she put it, all these things happened to her, she didn't do anything about it. She didn't (in most cases, couldn't) do anything to get herself out of those situations. She felt she lacked agency, in essence. I believe that is mostly why she acted the way she did, because then she could control how others felt about her. The other reason why she acted the way she did, is that her mother trained her to do so.

When her family was still rich (and their mother was still alive), Nesta was trained to be absolutely vicious in the ballroom. She knew how to win people over with small gestures or expressions, and how to read people with a glance. She also knew how to dance, ridiculously well it seems. There is a point in the story when, to make sure that Eris, a member of the Autumn Court that they had been using for information, was still friendly with them, she was chosen to dance with him, to make sure that the Night Court was still in his favor. So, she danced with him. By the end of it, Eris apparently wanted to marry her, and you can fucking imagine how pissed Cassian was about that (I do think that at this point in the book, Nesta and Cassian were most assuredly a Thing, whether either of them acknowledged it or not), but the whole point of it was to show that Nesta was really in tune with music, and that she knows exactly how to meddle in the politics to win in her favor.

Her mother raised Elain to be a perfect princess, to be married off to someone with lots of money. Her mother raised Nesta to be powerful (but, from Nesta's own thoughts, she remembers asking her mother if she was going to marry a person the same way Elain was, but her mother didn't respond). As for Feyre, Nesta says that their mother seemed to mostly forget or avoid Feyre, because she wasn't quite right or something. I'm not sure.

There is a little thing where Nesta thinks of herself as a caged beast stuffed in a pretty dress, because she remembers that she's always had to restrain herself to make sure that nothing went wrong. When her mental health declines, it is equated to wolves encroaching her space, snarling her doubts and fears, and how she used to deafen them using people or alcohol. It wasn't ever enough, but it's what she did.

One thing that did help with the wolves was something she learned from Gwyn, called Mind Stilling (cough cough it's just meditation cough wheeze), a practice used by an extinct group of female warriors called Valkyries. (Yup, just like the Old Norse Valkyries.) Throughout this book, Nesta, Gwyn, and another Illyrian woman named Emerie (along with a few others but they basically only are present in theory) all trained with Cassian (and Azriel, he showed up later on, just in case Maas thought you forgot about him) to become the new Valkyries. It turns out that Cassian knew of them, I think most of the Inner Court knew them or at least knew of them (which is what happens when you're over five hundred fucking years old jfc) before they died in battle. There are a couple portions of this book that are mostly just training montages, with added notes of "it would have taken forever to build muscles as a human, but being Fae meant that Nesta could get stronger much faster", just in case you thought that 3 training montages was a lil too fast.

All this training does culminate into something by the end of the book, almost literally. I feel like a lot of this book is just watching Cassian and Nesta bounce off one another (in more ways than one lmao), and then Maas at some point realized, "Oh shit I have to actually make these things mean something!" and so the payoff for all the training, so to speak, and Feyre's pregnancy are both resolved by the end of the book, just barely.

The training thing is resolved by Gwyn, Emerie, and Nesta (in that order, it was specified that Nesta took like, three days after Emerie and Gwyn to complete her training because she was so busy probably staring at Cassian and thinking about... stuff. That's basically what both of them were doing for a healthy portion of this 700+ page tome) cutting a white silk ribbon that was tied up to a pole. I guess the idea was that if they are able to cut a piece of ribbon fluttering in the wind, they have mastery over themselves and their weapons. Personally, I get it. Ribbons are evasive as fuck and will gain enough sentience to move away from you just enough so you can't grab them. I know for certain that I would not be able to do this.

Now, I've mentioned Emerie a few times now, who is she? During the three or so days at the Illyrian camp, Nesta comes to know an Illyrian woman named Emerie. She's a shopkeeper in the village, and she likes keeping her store neat. Her family doesn't like that she owns the shop, and wants it to be carried over to one of her relatives. One of the times that Nesta visits her, one of Emerie's cousins is there, spewing stupid nonsense about how she can't run a store on her own. (He ends up dying, in case you were wondering.) She seems like a pretty interesting character, and she and Nesta bond over their shared interests in books, and that they've both been through some shit. In Emerie's case, her wings were clipped, so she can't fly. It is(or was?) a practice that was(is?) pretty common in Illyrian society, because clearly no one wants the wamen flyin around, who else is gonna do the cookin and cleanin and child rearin? Emerie ends up joining Nesta and Gwyn in training, with her main motivation similar to Nesta's: that she never wants to feel or be powerless again.

I've talked about the training a few times now, and I've mentioned how it led to something, without saying what it leads to, so I'll say it here: it leads to the Blood Rite, which is an Illyrian coming-of-age sorta thing, where the participants (typically the male Illyrians, like I said they just can't have the wamen beating them at anything it'd hurt their wittle egos) are put in this forest and they are tasked to scale a mountain (at least one) within a week, and fight off any monsters trying to eat them, or opponents trying to beat them. It's pretty common for people to die in these.

Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie landed themselves in this Blood Rite by being kidnapped, that's apparently how the participants are put in the Rite. There was something unusual about this one, however, in that someone (I think it turned out to be someone under the control of Briallyn) planted weapons all over the forest, which isn't allowed. Something that also isn't allowed in the Rite is magic, so the magic that Nesta has become accustomed to and now has a decent relationship with, is gone. Cool.

In the process of getting up the mountain, Gwyn nearly dies, she got shot in the leg by an arrow, and Emerie nearly drowns in a river. Nesta nearly gets stabbed by Emerie's cousin, the same guy who showed up in her shop that one time, but then he gets killed. Woohoo, violence!

Right as Nesta is fighting with Emerie's cousin, Cassian shows up, which is surprising because he wouldn't normally be able to be there: if outside forces help a participant get through the Blood Rite, it is then considered invalid, and both the participant and the outside person are promptly killed (Woohoo, violence!). Turns out that he's under the control of Briallyn, who shows up as well. She orders Cassian to kill Nesta (because of course), and rather than stab her, he stabs himself. This is when the un-aliving thing happens that I mentioned earlier. Nesta was so caught up in the rage and stress of being in the Rite, then the sheer fury of what was going on, and it was an instance of her mind going, "I will not let this happen to me" and so she slammed the "undo" button on Briallyn's existence. (Woohoo, violence!) All is well though, because apparently Cassian did not, in fact, stab himself.

All is not well though, because as this whole thing ends, Feyre's pregnancy issues begin. I won't go over in detail because I've already talked about it earlier, but basically she went into labor way too early, and things have only gotten worse. She's bleeding out, everyone is certain that she will die. And thanks to the fact that, in ACOWAR, Feyre and Rice Hand made a vow that, if one dies, the other will, there's also the risk that Rice Hand will die, and since the baby is so premature, so will the baby. So there are three lives at risk, and no one knows what the fuck to do about any of it.

Except Nesta. Well, she doesn't really know what to do, but she's trying something. She takes the items of the "Dread Trove" (remember those?) and she uses them to pause time, right before death (kinda like pausing right before your Sim's death to save your game), and pleads with the powers in the objects and within herself, to show her how to save Feyre and the baby, and she will give her powers back to the Cauldron from which she took them. The powers are basically like "k lol", and she saves Feyre and the baby (his name is Nyx, which is just,,, it's so fantasy fiction omfg), and she tells Cassian later that she also altered her fucking body so that it can carry an Illyrian baby. Has she, at literally any point in the series, let alone this book, ever even thought she wanted a child? Nope, but everyone gotta have babies. (I get that people change their minds, and Nesta seems to have a fuck ton of time ahead of her to think about it, but idk it just kinda came up out of nowhere. How about beginning research into situations like that and maybe learn how to safely perform a c-section, in this case, so that future situations don't turn out as they seem to have previously. Nesta fixing her own body won't affect the who-knows-how-many other people who might get into this situation. Then again, it's not on her to solve everyone's problems,,, idk man)

Rrrrighttt at the end of the book, it mentions that Cassian and Nesta are going to have a mating ceremony, which for all intents and purposes, might as well be a wedding they talk about it like a wedding some of the practices and traditions are reminiscent of a wedding, it's a wedding. But for some reason, they don't actually have the ceremony in this book, even though I imagine Maas could've totally done it. What's another few pages in a 700+ page book, right? So I imagine that the ceremony might come up again in the next book, because Something is going to happen then. I have no idea what that Something is going to be, but that's my guess.

I don't think I have many issues with this book in particular, it's more with just the series as a whole. I just have a lot of questions with this series, and I got even more questions from this book. Most of my questions circulate around the powers of the characters within the Inner Court, such as how does literally everyone's powers work?? Throughout this book, it kept referring to Cassian's magic, that he wears a bunch of thingies (they're called Siphons but they'll always be thingies to me) to contain that magic, but it never actually says what his magic is. As far as I can tell, there are like,, idk how to describe it but like kinda threads?? of magic, I guess, that come from his Siphons, but other than that it's just that he,,, punch? He fight good? I really don't know. From what I can gather, his abilities could stem from his life rather than any magic he has. (I think that could actually be more interesting, him not having any magic, and kinda lend another reason as to why so many fucking people in this book shit on him for being the way he is. They all throw "Prince of Bastards" or some similar title at him, as if he's the only bastard to have ever existed in Prythian like, bad guys, please come up with more insults. Call him a shithead or something like be creative I'm really not feeling it)

With Nesta, it also does a poor job of explaining her magic, it's just repeated that it's old, it's ancient, it's from another time, a time before the Fae, a time long forgotten, but like, bro, what is it. I guess I'll never know. Elain's power, which also stems from the Cauldron, is barely mentioned in this book, aside from them saying that it's either gone away, or gone dormant, so she's treated as though she has no powers (that is, whenever she actually shows up in the book. Elain is just,,, rarely in the series. What is she doing at any given time the world may never know).

I don't really think that Maas understands how many stairs 10,000 stairs would be. I don't think she gets how long 500 years would be, and what you would even be doing for the majority of that time. I don't think she has a scale for how much power she has flung at her characters, to the point of it all being nonsensical. Everyone has so much power, we're told that Rice Hand has a ridiculous amount of power, somehow Feyre has double his power, but Amren had even more power, but Nesta has even more power than that and it's just,,, can I please have a frame of reference because I simply do not understand. I don't think she even has much of an explanation for the powers she has given her characters, and two examples I can immediately think of are Mor and Azriel. Mor's powers have simply been stated as "truth", but have we ever seen her use that power? What the fuck does that even mean, does she have a freakin lasso of truth or some shit like I don't understand. Then with Azriel, he got some kind of shadow magic thing going on, but like even within the story, the characters don't seem to understand how it works. Even the people that have known Azriel basically their entire lives (Rice Hand and Cassian) don't understand it. So how the fuck am I suppose to understand?

I'm just going to end it here because jfc this thing is so long, it's 10 pages long in Google Docs, and I heavily doubt anyone is going to read this far. If you have, much thanks! To clarify, I do like the series (to some extent) I just,, I have a lot of questions. So many, I couldn't fit them in here because they didn't really have any answers in the books (any of them, as far as I'm aware). Idk. How do people write conclusions? It's beyond me. Agh, anyway, thanks for reading this.