The Elder Salt

There's a good chance that I'm older than you. I read a lot of bad books and complain about them. Sideblog of rowsdower-saves-us. Heavy focus on anti-t0g and anti-ac0tar but anti-other-stupid-stuff as well.

[longsightmyth]

Queen of Glass, Chapter 11

Celaena Sardothien hated to admit that learning how to act like a lady was hard work.

Then she belittles Kaltain for being good at it. Apparently Anuksun and Celaena have problems remembering to sit with their knees together until Madam Tul’rouse physically shoves Anuksun’s legs together and tells Celaena that her posture, “[makes] her look like a man in disguise,” at which point Celaena immediately changes all behavior. Because of course.

At lunch, Celaena obsesses over berries. Apparently they are hard to find in Adarlan and you can buy them for a lot of money from Wendlynn.

I’m sorry, are these a specific kind of berry we’re talking about? Like. What?

Anyway, Anuksun tries to use her spear as an eating utensil.

Keep reading

[sowesososo]

I actually learned on here that corsets aren’t bone crushing, in fact they provide good support for the breasts because they act like they’re holding the breasts up so they take stress off the back and shoulders.

[longsightmyth]

You are correct! When comfortably tightened they also offer back support.

[elder-salt]

I can go on for hours about misconceptions of corsets. Tight-lacing wasn’t a common thing in Victorian times (it happened, but the people who did it were side-eyed hard), organs shift more in pregnancy than with a corset, they’re really good support, etc. ad nauseum. (not to mention photoshop has been around as long as photography and a lot of the extreme photos of women in corsets were doctored).

[longsightmyth]

Queen of Glass, Chapter 11

Celaena Sardothien hated to admit that learning how to act like a lady was hard work.

Then she belittles Kaltain for being good at it. Apparently Anuksun and Celaena have problems remembering to sit with their knees together until Madam Tul’rouse physically shoves Anuksun’s legs together and tells Celaena that her posture, “[makes] her look like a man in disguise,” at which point Celaena immediately changes all behavior. Because of course.

At lunch, Celaena obsesses over berries. Apparently they are hard to find in Adarlan and you can buy them for a lot of money from Wendlynn.

I’m sorry, are these a specific kind of berry we’re talking about? Like. What?

Anyway, Anuksun tries to use her spear as an eating utensil.

Keep reading

[elder-salt]

She used her spear... as an eating utensil... nice job caring for your weapon, idiot.

[discountalien-pancake]

Antis Zine

this form is to sign up for the anti-sjm community zine :)

Hey everyone! Here’s the sign-up form for the antis zine! It’s very short, it shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes to fill out. The final title will NOT be Antis Zine, so suggestions are welcome :)

Also, it would help if y’all would reblog this bc tumblr is hiding links from the search function. If y’all have any questions, feel free to shoot me a message! Thank you!

[battlestar-royco]

what is the last line of KOA that she never shuts up about it? like I feel like I haven't seen any anti blogs talk about it and like its mentioned every tour stop. I'm surprised there haven't been any parents talking about Sj/M talking about all the smut she's going to write for CC because there has to be parents there bringing their 13 year old daughters (or sons). Like she's telling an audience of literal children she's writing a ton of sex scenes.

Okay for whatever reason, my ebook isn’t letting me see the last page, but I know for a fact that the last line is about how the kingsflame (the plant that is only in bloom when a prosperous leader is ruling) is blooming over T/errasen. The sentiment is nice but I highly disagree with the idea that Alien is a wise ruler who will bring peace and justice to her people, so that’s yikes. And, YES, it’s soooo confusing to me how the word about T0G hasn’t spread! So many books have been banned for violence, magic, anti-religious sentiment, etc, so you’d think a book series like SJ/M’s that’s full of explicit porn would be a gold mine for PTA moms. It’s very disturbing and bizarre how SJ/M gets away with everything for whatever reason.

[longsightmyth]

For across every mountain, spread beneath the green canopy of Oakwald, carpeting the entire Plain of Theralis, the kingsflame was blooming.

Maas, Sarah J.. Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass) (p. 980). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

All I can think of is ‘climb every mountain/ford every stream/follow every rainbow/till you find your dream’

Only, there were a lot of thematically important things in The Sound of Music and the kingsflame just sort of popped up in, what, the fifth book of ToG?

[elder-salt]

I can’t help but think of Where the Red Fern Grows...

[longsightmyth]

Why does everybody always sleep three days when they’ve run out of magic? It’s not even just Sarah Janet’s stuff, it’s across the board. Did I miss a magic memo?

[discountalien-pancake]

Like, specifically three days? Or just sleeping off magic usage like a bad hangover? I think the concept of a magical recharge period makes sense if the magic system is based on a self-contained power rather than external sources. Or channeling magic through the confuit of the body causes internal damage that takes time to heal. Either way, I’ll let this one thing slide. But if it’s always three days, that’s a little weird.

[longsightmyth]

Specifically three days

[elder-salt]

jesus allegory or somethin’, i dunno

[elder-salt]

I’ve been busy gettin’ a new job and stuff. One of my new coworkers is SUPER into t0g and was freaking out about K0A last night and I was somewhat uncomfortable. :P I would NEVER tell someone their book tastes are stupid. I would mostly say I didn’t like them, or say I found aspects really problematic, or something like that.  But it was hard to take her seriously when she was explaining how wonderful the books were. 

[salty-j-maas-deactivated2019110]

I’m begging you all to watch this video

Credits to my friend Meg on Instagram (@riceand)

[imloathful-deactivated20190525]

This is the worst and best thing I’ve seen today 😂😂

[vanimeldes]

This is the most brilliant thing I could ever see

[inthemidstofbuddie]

I HAVE ASCENDED

[battlestar-royco]

i??????? hehitrngioqrngirnowhtn5h hate this!!???!?!?!?!

[elder-salt]

i cryD

[battlestar-royco]

Nehemia was buried in rifthold by celery right? And idk if I’m missing something but like what abt her family lol like I’m sure they’d like her to not be buried there. Did someone have to come dig her back up? sjmess I need answers

Such a good point! We’ve never even seen another E/yllwe noble on the page since N/ehemia died, and the last E/yllwe character I remember at all is S0rscha from three books ago. At this point, we have no idea what’s going on in E/yllwe when we REALLY should. N/ehemia’s parents sent her to A/darlan with the reasonable assumption that she’d be gracefully received as a royal representative of E/yllwe. Wouldn’t they be up in arms after their beloved princess died? Wouldn’t they be going batshit? Aside from their daughter’s body being buried overseas, their beloved crown princess literally got slaughtered and we’ve heard nothing from them besides that their own land got attacked by the magical forces of evil just like Adriata the token POC city in AC0TAR hm coincidence I think not?! At this point I think I would pay SJ/M to stop writing.

[winterfelliscoming]

Actually, I reread the ToG series fairly recently.

Nehemia was murdered in Adarlan and buried there. She had a funeral while Celaena was in the dungeons. It was later stated while Celaena sung over her grave that Eyllwe officials were coming to collect her body. Didn’t seem to happen, though? So I would assume Nehemia is still buried in Adarlan, which is gross as fuck.

[elder-salt]

On thing I never understood is if E/yllwe officials were supposedly picking up her body, why the hell did they BURY her? In the GROUND? That’s like, so much more extra work than embalming the body and sealing it in a casket or something. WTF.

[inthemidstofbuddie]

Y'know, Aelin referring to herself as "Princess" could've been an interesting reflection of her own state of mind: how weak, and powerless, and scared she is from Maeve's constant torture and isolating her, plus as a deliberate manipulation on Maeve's part. If it was purposely supposed to evoke how she feels not like the "badass" Assassin she grew up to be, nor Queen, but rather the scared, scarred little girl Arobynn rescued from the river. But instead, SJM just retcons her ego and spews shit.

i still think it’s the funniest thing, sj/m retconning alien’s ego. and you just know that as soon as she’s freed from the coffin, she’s going to be using that to garner sympathy and make everyone worship her bc she survived days (weeks? months? who knows) of torture for…well, i’m still not sure why maeve captured her and is torturing her for information (what information could alien possibly have that maeve can’t get? maeve is a valg, so it’s not as though she doesn’t have power to get whatever she wants out of alien). 

it makes me think of the movie White Christmas (humor me for a moment). so in the movie, the two main characters Bob and Phil served in WWII together. in the beginning scene, though, Phil saves Bob from getting crushed beneath a crumbling house but ends up injuring his arm (or so we’re led to believe, since Phil shakes Bob’s hand with his injured arm but i digress). SO, in the following years, Bob and Phil become big shot performers and every time Phil wants to do something and Bob doesn’t, Phil rubs his formerly-injured arm and Bob begrudgingly agrees. it’s played off as a huge joke to both the characters (Bob rolls his eyes a lot) and to the audience. 

however, with alien? she’s going to be rubbing that formerly-injured arm for all she’s worth and, bc sj/m is sj/m, it’ll work and alien will be revered as a martyr or some such weak bullshit. 

[elder-salt]

Reblogging just for the unexpected and excellent usage of the White Christmas analogy. Also you are 100% correct that Alien will use it both as a pity party for herself and to manipulate the hell out of everyone.

[taz-writes]

i love how literary writers call everything non-realistic “genre fiction,” as if literary isn’t also a genre in and of itself

[taz-writes]

so this started as a shitpost but now I want to go on a tirade… like, I have nothing against people who write litfic on a theoretical level, that shit takes skills that i don’t have and it’s pretty tough work. I have a lot of respect for the effort put into creating “literary” stories. 

but the world of literary academia seems to define itself not by what it is but what it isn’t, and the world of what it isn’t is so much bigger. there’s an implication with these people that anything outside of “literary” fiction is inherently less valuable, less demanding, less skill-oriented and serious than high-minded avant-garde stories about death and genitalia. “every good story is somehow about sex, death, or both,” and if it’s not then it’s not worthy of being considered high art. I think the whole concept of high art is flawed, I’ve ranted about this in every artistic sphere I encounter. 

there’s a vicious irony to it too, when we get to talking about things like shakespeare and jane austen, where those stories were ABSOLUTELY “genre fiction” until a certain amount of time passed and someone arbitrarily decided they were “worthy.” why is agatha christie literary but a contemporary murder mystery writer isn’t? when did any of these stories cross over from shocking and low-culture to the cream of the crop? what draws the line, what brings the difference, and why are we implying that these types of stories only have merit if they came from the past and not the present?

everything is a genre. genres aren’t rules, they’re just descriptions used for convenience in a bookstore or in marketing. character development and skilled writing are not exclusive to any one theme or style, and I think my professors realize that, but the language expected and sometimes required in academia forces them to behave otherwise. if you want us to write character-driven stories without fantastical trappings because you want to avoid distraction with the intricacies of certain genre expectations, then say so. it’ll earn you a lot more respect from me than saying fantasy and horror are banned because they “aren’t character-driven” or they’re “not serious fiction.” 

I like my creative writing professor a lot. he’s a great guy, he defended me in the Mermaid Incident, I enjoy working with him. but I don’t like the way he and his colleagues seem to simply accept the entrenched habits of sneering and elitism in the culture of the arts. I think we as a culture need to push back against that kind of toxic attitude with everything we’ve got. 

[battlestar-royco]

Can we talk about how she writes the piano being played ?? it just doesn’t make sense ?? I’m a piano player and it literally does not add to the plot at all, etc.

Certainly! I didn’t pick up on the technical inaccuracies of piano in T0G because I have very little experience playing the piano, but from what I’ve heard from other piano players who’ve read T0G, it’s not a very accurate representation. I imagine it’s a lot like the way SJ/M uses Faerug’s ~art~, where music is weirdly one of Alien’s only hobbies and she’s really good at it even though she realistically wouldn’t have had regular practice, teachers, or encouragement growing up. (Did Arobin have a piano at his home? I don’t remember. He doesn’t seem the type to encourage her piano playing, especially because he BROKE HER HAND. Wouldn’t that have severely interfered with her ability to play piano and generally be an assassin?) Whenever music is used, it’s for Ratalien-hooking-up purposes rather than Alien’s self-expression. At least Alien isn’t constantly thinking of how she can add random sounds into her next sonata, like Faerug is with her painting, but Alien’s love for the piano does feel a little tacked on at certain points. I get the feeling that someone told SJ/M that characters are more well-rounded with hobbies, and SJ/M was like “I know what will make her seem artsy and sexy! Piano!”

[elder-salt]

I seem to recall in T0G that she mentioned Arobin made her play piano for him. I guess in between training and breaking her hand, he decided to pay for piano lessons?

[vanimeldes]

When you want to be the next Tolkien, but your *sighs* world-building and epic plot is overshadowed by nice abs and velvet-wrapped steel

[elder-salt]

I’d ask that crossroads demon for a refund.

[inthemidstofbuddie]

hey anti friends,

i know some of your names but not all of them, so if you feel comfortable doing so, would you reblog this and add your name to the post itself so i know what to call you? mine is Kat

kay bye 👋🏻✌🏻👊🏻

[mordeservesbetter]

idk how old this post is or if anybody is still reblogging it but hi!! my name’s athena :)

[inthemidstofbuddie]

it’s fairly old but people still reblog it! i should reblog it again for any new antis who want to add on!

[elder-salt]

Hello, I’m newer round these parts. I’m Catherine.

[elder-salt]

I have the itch to snark a book again. I quit H0F 100 pages in because I was so ridiculously bored but I may try reading it again.

[valyrfia]

I was talking with a friend about our respective first kisses and what I never get in YA is how first kisses (and first times!) are always so perfect and magical when in reality…they are not.  Both me and the boy I was with forgot to turn our heads so we ended up headbutting each other and my friend said, and I quote, “he tried to spit in my mouth”. First kisses are awful and more YA authors should write them as such. 

[inthemidstofbuddie]

yesssssss my first kiss was horrible bc it was all tongue (i have an issue with saliva so it just made it ten times worse) and my first time ended in me crying (siiiigh hormones) so yeah that’s always been something i do in my books: make them goofy. it’s healthy imo.

[elder-salt]

Lol my first kiss was during a rehearsal for a play when I was 19 and with a 45 year old gay man so. Yeah. Definitely goofy.

[elder-salt]

My partner-in-salt and I are bitching about the Hobbit movies. Again.

[elder-salt]

Remind me to tell you about this dumpster fire sometime.