Extremely Judgemental

Still an ACOTAR Critical blog | But with feeling this time, murderous feeling | OFFLINE

[extremely-judgemental]

Fandom so bad that you build a blog defending the characters you didn’t even like in the first place.

This side blog was meant to be an expression of my thoughts on the media I’m enjoying, but unfortunately, we are still stuck on A Court of Thorns and Roses series. The critiques here are for my own reference and rationality, and they are heavily influenced by my morals, life experiences, and world view.

Disclaimer (since the above hasn’t been enough): This blog doesn’t exist to convert you to my ideals. Educate me if I’m mistaken, but don’t spread hate.

We have reached a point where people feel entitled to crawl into my blog and attack me. So, here’s some obligatory details on my standing on these books and characters.

I hate Sarah J Maas. I hate A Court of Thorns and Roses and Crescent City (maybe I wouldn’t have if I had read it first). I will gladly pass on Throne of Glass after these atrocities.

Pro: Tamlin. Lucien. Nesta. Emerie. Gwyneth. Eris. Every victim of Inner Circle

Anti: FEYRE darling. RHYSAND. CASSIAN. MORRIGAN. AMREN. ELAIN

Neutral: Azriel (The boy is just shadows at this point. Get it?)

To the souls who fell for the hype and suffered these books, I’m so sorry. And if you’re one of the stans here to recruit me into your toxic cult, this is where you block me.

Some rants in case you want to understand my immovable hatred for these books.

ACOTAR: A faux feminism propaganda at best ACOTAR: Sarah J Maas’s obsession with violence on women ACOTAR: Subtext is dead Feyre doesn’t love anyone: Speculative analysis Feyre has no true autonomy ‘Rhysand is morally grey’. Lol, okay Rhysand: The most useless High Lord ever Cassian is a bully and abuser Cassian’s arc makes no sense Nesta’s story is every woman’s nightmare Punishing Nesta has nothing to do with Feyre’s feelings Azriel was character assassinated even before we got his book Elain is selfish Elain is worse than Azriel Tamlin as a spy

I am open to healthy discussions and perspectives. But I won’t tolerate insulting or threatening real people for a piece of fiction in this space.

[sugar-petals]

modern media in a nutshell

[extremely-judgemental]

Fantasy has always been the genre that encourages expanding your perception and widening your imagination. Fantasy has always had themes of romance and love even if it isn't integral to the main plot. Fantasy has always been rooted in real world politics and borrowed elements from extinct and existing social groups.

To say Romantasy shouldn't be critically analysed because it's escapism or is a "turn your brain off" genre is insulting and the ones outside these fandoms aren't saying this.

[extremely-judgemental]

Freaking loathe acotar's mommy's boy agenda so making every single mother into a villain. It's going to be so cathartic.

[uniquezx]

Being a fan of a piece of media with conventionally attractive actors when you’re ace is not for the weak, because not only is all the fan content thirst trap edits, those are also the only kind of edits you don’t actually enjoy

[maythray]

walking into a fandom tag and leaving with 10 new users added to my block list

[extremely-judgemental]

Coming across a lot of comments or posts like this lately where people ask why you read a book if you hate the main characters. If you've ever written a book or read a good book, the characters do and should come with a set of flaws which makes them relatable and human. And over the course of the book, they get to confront some of these flaws and overcome them as part of their emotional journey. Not all of them will be resolved, but the ones that have the most weight and leaves them stagnant in their current life should.

In a series like ACOTAR, Feyre's journey doesn't come to an end until the third book. There are some issues that have resolution at the end of the first book like her inability to trust and love someone, her relationship with her sisters, and embracing her humanity which she had lost touch with as a hunter. Second book amplifies her already existing ones along with sprouting some new which makes her less than desirable; her stubbornness, arrogance, pride and greed to simply name a few. Love her all you want but that girl has issues that even institutionalising her might take a while to reverse. So call me hopeful or delusional to read that book and the next in hopes of her acknowledging her problems other than pinning it on others like Tamlin and Nesta, and growing as a person, especially after the destruction she caused in Spring. That didn't happen.

Similarly, I hoped for Cassian and Morrigan and Azriel and Rhysand even. And Nesta and Elain. And Tamlin and Lucien. It doesn't matter who the main character is, Feyre is just a narrator. I can read for whoever the fuck I want. Just because I don't like the mouthpiece doesn't mean everyone else around is as bland as her.

[extremely-judgemental]

Since I’ve come out with my sociopathic Azriel agenda, I can safely tell you my headcanons.

Azriel is a good spy because he is hella nosy. He sucks at his one job though because he doesn’t care. About anything.

He didn’t know about the Ravens in HoW? Wrong, he knew. He wanted to see what it could possibly lead to.

He didn’t know about the Hybern traps? He did. He is a legit sucker for pain and wanted to get shot once (preferably by Jurian which happened, dude played diva the entire time).

He didn’t know about Morrigan’s sexuality? Wrong, he knows. He doesn’t care since she also sleeps with men, and he really doesn’t have a preference, so he doesn’t mind hers either.

He got caught in Autumn by accident? Wrong. He is bored af and wanted to get caught for thrills (also he’s so gay for Eris obviously, and he wanted to recreate their sexy HL meeting moment)

His job is people watching and the people around him (yes, IC included) are not that interesting. Let the guy have some fun.

[picturesque-atall-costs]

can i talk about how i dont think henry was trying to kill charles in the traditional sense? can i talk about how he was probably just setting charles up to do it himself? the pills, lending his car to a clearly drunk charles after a fight, giving him MORE alcohol after he was in the hospital due to it???

[willgrahamscock]

canon is whatever I perceive with my third eye

[extremely-judgemental]

Can I be honest with you? I actually read these books for Azriel. This series was on my list for years but I was afraid to pick it up because I don't prefer romance to be the crux of the plot unless it's exclusively romance. I like psychology and thrillers and so I have an affinity for fucked up characters and when I learnt of his captivity and abuse, I was like, oh boy this one will be goooood!! And the day I realised he was doomed was when the book and fandom couldn't even handle Tamlin's epic magic meltdown🙂 Y'all are not ready for Azriel's true potential. The greatest catalyst for IC's downfall.

[extremely-judgemental]

Stans talking about Cassian as if he did Morrigan a favour by sleeping with her like he knew anything about her reasons, like he wasn't actually mildly attracted to her, or that he didn't do it solely to sabotage any chances of Azriel having a relationship with her and you question my reading comprehension. Completely understandable.

[extremely-judgemental]

Since it wasn't clear, I don't mind brown people projecting their culture and turning acotar into a brown world and making the characters brown in fanworks because who doesn't want their world represented in a piece of fiction? What I hate is a white person using every existing ethnic group as props based on the only signifier in the books, i.e. the skin colour, especially for a race that's explicitly described as barbaric and inhumane in every mention which is how every brown race has been branded since forever, or, the worst of reasons, because [insert race of your choice here] is hot which is another way of saying these people are 'exotic'.

[extremely-judgemental]

Nostalgia is a funny feeling for a bad media. In my initial days in this fandom, I remember being bombarded by fanfics with the usual premise of oc or reader escaping their life (always abuse, always from autumn or hewn city) and they just stumble into the secret city (protected by wards) and are accepted into the IC (like they aren't picky entitled bastards), and the villains are always Eris or Tamlin (meanwhile Rhysand and Cassian as the prized LIs), that there are 10 layers of logical dissonance right there but somehow the slew of content was so convincing that when I got to the books it's just a whiplash after another. Anyway it was nice to not have strong opinions and deep seated hatred for a fiction that any reference to even the names in real life or other works and I was just coasting through the fantasy world like any normal person should, for fun and whimsy, instead of actively looking for and indulging in political fiction when that isn't even my cup of tea. All this to say, it's been two years and I miss my ignorance. I miss my pre-acotar years. When life was good and peaceful.

[mrsblaileen]

We really don’t talk about the body horror of JJK enough, what they did to Satoru makes me SICK. Like what do you mean after he’d been beaten bloody and bruised - brain literally melted in his skull from constant overuse and exhaustion, with the weight of the literal world on his shoulders - they cut him open and stuck someone else’s brain inside his head and then sent his deceased body back out for more. Truly treated him like a weapon to the very end.

[queerstudiesnatural]

i think there is something to be said about this wave of white women made media that is so surface level with an underlying racist and/or insensitive bias and that refuses to engage with criticism. i'm talking taylor swift's the life of a showgirl, emerald fennell's wuthering heights, colleen hoover, the acotar series and booktok in general, etc. whenever you dare to raise concerns about the superficiality or the questionable writing or the treatment of poc in those pieces you get shut down with a "it's not that deep" or "let women have fun". this weaponisation of misogyny to justify slop made for mass consumption, especially considering how wide spread it is becoming, scares me quite a bit. to quote princess weekes, "the girlypopification of anti-intellectualism" is truly concerning, and i do believe it is linked to the rise of far right movements worldwide. if you refuse to engage with what you are being presented with, and exclusively consume brain smoothing content "for fun" then yeah you do become more susceptible to propaganda. it is that deep.

[extremely-judgemental]

quick question: why do the goodreads pages for the next acotar books already have a rating? i rarely use goodreads and i know it sucks lately, but is it common to open ratings for a book with no title or summary?