Let’s Be Real I’m Here For The Love

Trying out this bookstagram business @harbound_rhapsody

[hacawijo]

Throne of Glass Ships: Chapter Guide

So this isn’t EVERY interaction between every couple, just the particularly crucial or particularly lovely [though I didn’t add as much from Crown of Midnight because Chaolaena honestly kills me still] - I also skipped Nesryn and Chaol because that just never really seemed real for me. This is nice if you just need a quick serotonin boost on your fave ToG couples :)

- Chaolaena (Chaol and Celaena) - 

ToG: ch. 24, 28, 30, 32, 34-39, 43, 45-48, 50, 52-54

CoM: ch. 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10-13, 15, 17-19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 55

- Chaorene (Chaol and Yrene) - 

ToD: ch. 5-9, 11-16, 18-23, 25-28, 32, 36, 38-40, 43-46, 52-56, 58, 60-65, 67, 68

KoA: ch. 6, 11, 18, 19, 39, 45, 48, 54, 66, 72, 91, 101, 111, 113, 116, 120

- Dorian and Sorscha - 

HoF: ch. 6, 15, 18, 26, 29, 40, 49, 56, 63, 64

- Elorcan (Elide and Lorcan) - 

EoS: ch. 9, 10, 19, 30, 40, 41, 43, 49, 50, 52, 56-58, 60, 63, 67, 71, 72, 74, 75

KoA: 2, 5, 21, 23, 30, 36, 37, 42, 44, 51, 58-61, 64, 79, 80, 87, 111, 117, 118, [A Better World]

-  Lysaedion (Lysandra and Aedion) - 

EoS: ch. 14, 29, 32, 37, 45, 47, 59, 69

KoA: ch. 1, 10, 16, 17, 34, 46, 47, 53, 63, 69, 75, 81, 82, 88, 89, 100, 102, 104, 105, 107, 117, 118, [A Better World]

- Manorian (Manon and Dorian) - 

QoS: ch. 58, 88

EoS: ch. 7, 39, 42, 44-46, 48, 54, 60, 75

KoA: ch. 4, 7, 13-15, 24, 32, 33, 40, 43, 52, 55, 56, 62, 65, 74, 78, 82, 107, 117, 118, 120

- Nesryn and Sartaq - 

ToD: ch. 6, 11-13, 21, 24, 25, 29-31, 33-35, 37, 41, 42, 47-51, 57, 64-66

KoA: ch. 6, 51, 101, 107, 116, 120

- Rowaelin (Rowan and Aelin) - 

HoF: ch. 22, 25, 28, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41-43, 45-48, 50, 52, 55, 57, 59, 60, 68

QoS: ch. 26, 28, 29, 34, 36, 39, 41-44, 47, 49, 52, 56, 60, 64, 65, 67, 83, 89

EoS: ch. 2, 5, 8, 27, 28, 31, 32, 35, 36, 38, 39, 44, 54, 60, 71, 74, 75

KoA: ch. 28-31, 35, 37, 38, 41, 44, 48-50, 54, 57, 59, 66, 67, 87, 92, 93, 96, 98, 99, 101, 103, 106-108, 110, 112, 114-121, [A Better World]

[hacawijo]

Sometimes I’m reminded of Elain Archeron haters out in the wild

“On Threads, the usual suspects are telling ppl about to lose SNAP benefits to just start a garden. As a gardener, I had to laugh. You need at LEAST an acre of land to feed a family of 4. Start-up costs are enormous. But yes, subsistence farming on the balcony of your rental apartment is the answer”

G. Willow Wilson (@gwillow.me)

On Threads, the usual suspects are telling ppl about to lose SNAP benefits to just start a garden. As a gardener, I had to laugh. You need a

[endlessvoid319]

Hard Truths the ACOTAR Fandom Needs to Accept:

1) Elain’s book is next.

2) Elain is rejecting or unmaking the mating bond

3) The ACOTAR 6 love triangle is Elain-Azriel-Lucien. SJM writes books that focus on the FMC’s journey. She will never have two women fighting over a man 🙄 Be so fr

4) The Inner Circle are not written to be villains. If you don’t like the main characters of a series pick up a new one.

5) Nessian is endgame, Nesta is not going to end up with Eris (quit pretending it’s anything but fanon)

6) Elriel has more foreshadowing than all the other non canon ships combined

I could keep going but you get the point…

Feel free to add because I’m tired of people ignoring blatant foreshadowing and misconstruing canon text.

[hacawijo]

10000) SJM don’t give a F**k.

[sydneymack]

Lidia and Ruhn - Crescent City

Artist: @the_megabee33

[offtorivendell]

And in just the right spot to always piss you off

The first iteration involved much more swearing, but then I wondered... what would @hacawijo do?

[hacawijo]

Hehehe 😌 I hope their smoke alarm resets and beeps every 6 minutes so they can’t tell where it is right away

[lotus222]

Okay.

I only meant to make one SJM post cause Ik how certain girls like to tussle

But since the gwynriels and elucians decided to mess w me EVEN THO I SAID TO LOOK AWAY IF YOU GET EASILY TRIGGERED…

There is only one thing to do:

Talk more about why Elriel is not based in delusion — unlike some ships (not naming names, if you take offense that’s your mind questioning things)

Again, I am giving my PERSONAL OPINION. I even said at the end of my last post that I am not the author and I will love & respect whatever SJM does, which some of y’all can’t echo. That’s sad. This is a fictional world.

DISCLAIMER: if you’re easily triggered by elriel/elucian/gwynriel…l o o k a w a y

DISCLAIMER#2: I am unapologetic cause this is my page :)

Also, stop hitting my line with the “I wasn’t going to respond to this but…” or “you’re so anti…” like 1, if you weren’t going to respond, then don’t. It’s not that serious where the world is BEGGING for your opinion. And 2, I’m not anti anything, I’m pro-logic, again if that offends you then that’s a convo for you and you not you and me.

Now onto the main event…

Azriel

My mans is being dragged through the mud both in the books and online. We say we “love him” but are ignoring what he wants and babes, that’s Elain. If you don’t like her personally, that’s not how Az is feeling, that’s how YOURE feeling. Gwyn has one chapter (+1 sentence) of where I can even attempt to grasp at what Gwynriel’s quote as bible, but again, AZ AND ELAIN HAVE 3 BOOKS. Y’all are acting like Rhys in Az’s bonus chapter and if Rhys couldn’t make his stance acceptable, y’all definitely can’t.

Elain

Again, I say, if you do not like the lady pictured above, stop reading ACOTAR cause she ain’t going anywhere. To be so for real, I didn’t mind Elain at first, meaning I didn’t care whether or not she was included in any story whatsoever. But as I read ACOWAR and ACOFAS, I started realizing that there’s something so lovely about having a character who is innately good and wants/practices peace in a world of animosity and ugliness. She brings beauty in all areas of her life and I think that there’s nothing bad about being “boring” cause that just means your life ain’t a dang mess (*cough* *cough* everybody else in this book)

So here is where I debunk all the claims I have grown tired of ignoring:

• #1 - “He hadn’t gotten that far into his planning beyond the fantasies he’s pleasured himself to.”

(Picture credit: unknown) Get a good look cause that’s what he’s doing at night when he thinks about ELAIN. (It’s canon, so cry to yourself)

So, y’all really think you got us here, huh? So, my man Azriel blatantly admits to thinking of Elain when he wants to be intimate and y’all STILL want your girl to be with this man?

Ugh

Anyway, so Azriel hadn’t planned a relationship with Elain…OKAY???? Did you expect this man to have a map laid out about how he’s going to steal Lucien’s mate??? Do y’all even know Azriel? Like, be so for real rn.

Idk about y’all but when I have a crush on someone, I’m not thinking about how to steal them from the rest of the world, I’m imagining kissing them or going on cute dates. Not how I’ll actually make it happen. And ik y’all do that too with your favorite celebrities so stop playing.

He has a crush. Can you let the man figure out if Elain even wants him to act on it before he plans a 12-step mission on making Lucien disappear forever?

Azriel doesn’t want to force his emotions on anyone (as seen with Mor) so of course he’s not going to act or plot without confirmation that the other person in the party wants that. I.E. why he hadnt tried anything with Mor in all the CENTURIES that he liked her.

So, yeah, consider that point invalid.

• #2 - Lucien is Elain’s mate

(PC: @shauna_the_author) *sigh* This one cannot be dubunked, unfortunately, because it is true. You got me here.

BUT

Elain is more likely to marry Nuala and Cerridwen before she spends the rest of her life with Lucien.

And it has nothing to do with Lucien. It really, really doesn’t. Elain simply doesn’t like him. Y’all were in my comments like “oh he didn’t really sell out Elain and Nesta, he didn’t know”. OKAY. But Elain literally says in ACOWAR that she knows Lucien as two things: Feyre’s friend and the MAN WHO SOLD THEM OUT TO HYBERN

Who cares if it isn’t true, that’s what Elain thinks and with her in mind, you can’t say that this bond means anything more to her than Lucien having some ownership of her which she doesn’t like at all. She even tells Graysen that she doesn’t care Lucien is her mate (“I belong to no one, but my heart belongs to you.”)

Whereas with Azriel, my girl is practically skipping into his arms; talking with him about her dream garden, getting him not one but two solstice gifts, almost-kissing him, recoiling at Cassian’s dagger but actively using Azriel’s…

Idk about y’all but if someone who was fated to be with me was acting this way with another girl, I’d drop him like a hot potatoe. AND AS LUCIEN SHOULD. He deserves someone who wants him, not someone who, as even Lucien said in ACOWAR when he was questioning if Elain was “worth it”, is shackled to him.

I harbor no ill will toward this dreamy man, but it ain’t gonna happen so do Elain a favor and lose her number, k?

• #3 - Sarah wouldn’t do the 3 brothers with 3 sisters, it’s too cliche

Write your own book then. Fan fiction is a thing. If the ONLY thing preventing you to see reason is the possibility of a cliche in a book about kingdoms and fairies and magic then your priorities are so out of shape I won’t even spend the time explaining it to you.

This is SARAH’s WORLD. If she wants to be cliche and have the three female protagonists end up with the three male protagonists then let her. Omg.

• #4 - That Gwynriel scene tho

(NOTE THE PICTURE) Oh, you mean the bonus chapter that featured thoughts about Elain? Not that one? Oh, then maybe you mean the other bonus chapter that featured thoughts about Elain? No? You mean the scene with Gwyn…hmmm

OH! You mean the 2 page conversation about training and why he couldn’t sleep (cause of Elain) and the subsequent regift of Elain’s present to Gwyn. Yeah, I know about that but why are we talking about it? Cause that means Az likes Gwyn? Huh?

That’s how delulu y’all sound. And if I hear another “you’re the ribbon Az”, one more time I’ll scream. THE RIBBON WAS ABOUT TRAINING NOT GWYN WANTING TO SLEEP WITH THE MAN. We are talking about the same girl who hadn’t left a library in god knows how long because of a sexual trauma and y’all are forcing her onto another man??

Gwyn was focused on coming into herself and mastering the ways of the Valkyrie. Nesta meant Gwyn found another obstacle in Az that she would have to overcome to become a Valkyrie. The only man Gwyn was concerned about was Cassian and that’s cause he was getting it on with Nesta. Again, be so for real right now.

I refuse to acknowledge this point until the opposing ships acknowledge the 3 books (+ ACOFAS) of build up between Elain and Azriel.

• #5 - Elain doesn’t belong in the Night Court

This is the last point I’ll mention cause I actually feel bad for dogging the Gwynriels like this, but it had to be done. (Elucians get a pass bc at least their ship is based in evidence)

Elain doesn’t belong in the Night Court, okay, yeah Cassian said that the colors drown her out, I’ll give you that.

But Elain doesn’t know where she belongs anymore, just like Azriel has said about himself. She’s still figuring herself out and what she wants, so it’s okay she looks odd at times or feels at times out of place. Azriel keeps his shadows out 24/7 for the same reason. He doesn’t let anyone past the front he puts on unless he knows it’s safe to. They’re both figuring out how to live their best lives in their current lives.

I’ve heard Dusk Court theories and others but I won’t even repeat those (even tho they’re so good and you should definitely look into them). They just need to find their place in this world (and Cassian was right, Elain DOES NOT BELONG in the Hewn City).

Just like how Nesta didn’t believe she belonged in the Inner Circle, I believe there’s a place for Elain and Azriel where they can be themselves. They just need to find it I.E. their book.

-

Okay, that’s enough slaying of my enemies for one post. Again, this is just my opinion/theories and at the end of the day I’ll be happy with whatever Mrs. Maas gives us as long as she gives us something.

Act correctly or else I’ll be back.

[hacawijo]

It’s giving: me three years ago trying to explain to anyone ever that Elriel is indicated in the text.

Thank you for your service Lotus222 - please do check out the posts I wrote when people kept trying to tell me the facts weren’t fact-ing 😂

know you’re not alone and a lot of us have just lost the energy to keep discussions going with people who do not base their arguments in facts, reason, and logic 🧡🧡🧡

Critical thinking is sexy pass it on

[emiliamildner]

The Seer ✨

Probably one of my last public artworks of Elain since the original version of this painting ('what if Elain was evil') made someone so upset they reported a bunch of my posts. How I love this fandom.

Character inspired by Elain Archeron from ACOTAR series by Sarah J. Maas

‼️ DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION!

[emiliamildner]

I adore them together 😍

Alternative smutty version on Patre0n here

Characters inspired by Manon and Dorian from Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

‼️DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION!

[hacawijo]

TarGwyn - My MOST Left Field Theory

Okay so, Tarquin and Gwyn have not interacted at all, have not even been mentioned in the same chapter, like… I am very aware that this is a huge stretch and is most likely me just reading into some pretty writing lol but I can’t quite let go of it! I have like, three very small tiers to this theory. The theory being that Tarquin and Gwyn may be mates, or at least destined for each other.

Please don’t come for me, it’s just been stuck in my head, I’m not trying to put down Gwynriel! I just kinda like the idea of it, because I love both characters very much.

Tier One - A Good Male and The Rock Against Which the Surf Crashes

My biggest point, when I think about it, is that both Gwyn and Tarquin are truly charming and wonderful. Tarquin and Gwyn are both warm and compassionate and honest, optimistic and earnest, but with mighty resolve and courage. Tarquin wants to see a more irreverent, accepting world - and Gwyn has embodied those values time and again in ACOSF. Not to mention the fact that Gwyn is part-nymph, and I do believe that a high lord with ideals being mated to someone who is not full-high fae would help to create the world that Tarquin wants to build.

TARQUIN CHARACTER EVIDENCE:

“I would like to one day see a Prythian in which they [lesser Faeries] have a voice, both in my home and in the world beyond it.” (Tarquin to Feyre ACOMAF Chapter 33)

…that might destroy this place— and a High Lord who might very well overturn the order of things. (Feyre ACOMAF Chapter 34)

Tarquin studied me. “I’d say I’m looking at the most valuable thing in here.”

I didn’t fake the blush. “You’re very kind.” His smile was soft. As if his position had not yet broken the compassion in him. I hoped it never did. (Feyre ACOMAF Chapter 34)

I supposed it was the least of my worries. Tarquin frowned at the map one last time and declared, “We’ll find a way to face this.” (Feyre ACOWAR Chapter 62) [an example of Tarquin’s strong and positive will]

GWYN CHARACTER EVIDENCE:

“Tell yourself, I am the rock against which the surf crashes. Your thoughts are the surf. Let them crash over you.” (Gwyn doing the mind-stilling with Nesta ACOSF Chapter 39) [this is obviously in general a Valkyrie mantra, but when reading the book it definitely feels like it belongs to Gwyn the most]

She’d expected to have to coax her friend, but once Gwyn overcame her initial trepidation, she was a willing participant, and a merry companion. The priestess laughed at her own mistakes, and did not bristle at corrections from Cassian. (Nesta ACOSF Chapter 25)

“Because I don’t ever want to feel powerless again,” Gwyn said softly, and all those easy smiles and bright laughs were gone. Only stark, pained honesty shone in her remarkable eyes. (Nesta ACOSF Chapter 25)

Gwyn smiled again, her eyes bright. “Our stories are worth telling.” (ACOSF Chapter 56)

I could go on and on about Gwyn, but….

Tier Two - Summer and Sea descriptive language

We associate sun and light more with the Day Court and the Dawn Court, and so the only things I’ve ever really noticed as signature Summer Court are the Sea and Heat. SJM, surprisingly, doesn’t actually use a lot of ocean/sea language to describe anyone’s physical appearance in this series, I’ve really only noticed it prominently with Tarquin and Gwyn.

“Tarquin’s eyes—so like the sea beyond us—slid to me. “How do they compare to the ones you have seen?” Such a carefully crafted question.” (ACOMAF Chapter 32)

Gwyn’s eyes shone, like the sunlight on a warm sea. (ACOSF Chapter 51)

And when Gwyn reached the finish line, bloody and panting and grinning so wildly her teal eyes glowed like a sunlit sea, she only extended her battered hand to Azriel. (ACOSF Chapter 60)

“My grandmother was a river-nymph who seduced a High Fae male from the Autumn Court. So I’m a quarter nymph, but it’s enough for this.” Gwyn gestured to her large eyes—blue so clear it could have been the shallow sea—and her lithe body. “My bones are slightly more pliant than ordinary High Fae’s, but who cares about that?” (Gwyn/Nesta ACOSF Chapter 29)

Gwyn, however, stilled, those large teal eyes looking even more unearthly as they widened. No fear tinged her scent, but rather something like surprise—awe. (ACOSF Chapter 28) [Here, my only point is that Unearthly can be interpreted as Sea-ly - what is not earth is sea!]

Also, there’s a quote where Gwyn is compared to a summer storm in ACOSF (in the whole series, the only other non-Tarquin person who has been described with the word summer is Elain, and that was in reference to her similarity to a warm sunset), and a quote from ACOMAF where Feyre talks about the sea singing to her:

Quiet settled around her, as if Gwyn had been a summer storm that blew in and evaporated within a moment. (ACOSF Chapter 9)

The salt and the sea and the breeze tugged on me, sang to me. (ACOMAF Chapter 33)

Tier Three - The Significance of Colors

I think that we can all agree SJM wields color in a specific way a lot of the time - for example with Azriel and Cassian’s siphons or Mor and Amren’s signature colors. I noticed a ton of similarities in the colors associated with Tarquin and the Summer Court and those associated with Gwyn.

Tarquin and Summer

High Lord of Summer had rich brown skin, white hair, and eyes of crushing, turquoise blue. (Feyre ACOMAF Chapter 32)

She looked over Tarquin, tall and muscled, his clothes of sea-green and blue and gold, (Feyre ACOMAF Chapter 32)

Tarquin’s pewter tunic was accented with the same shade of seafoam green as my clothes. We might as well have been a matching set. I supposed with my brown-gold hair and pale skin, I was his mirror opposite. (Feyre ACOMAF Chapter 34) [Gwyn and Feyre have virtually the same coloring for the purposes of this contrast]

silver-and-blue armor of Tarquin’s court (Feyre ACOWAR Chapter 36)

Gwyn

Her large teal eyes were as clear and depthless as the stone usually atop a priestess’s hood (Nesta ACOSF Chapter 9)

Gwyn reached into the pocket of her pale robe and pulled out the blue stone of the priestesses. It fluttered with light, like the sun on a shallow sea. (Nesta ACOSF Chapter 15)

In the sunlight, the color of her hair was extraordinary, strands of gold glinting, and her teal eyes were a near-perfect match to the stones the other priestesses wore. (Nesta ACOSF Chapter 25)

Nesta refrained from snickering and selected colors for Gwyn: blue, white, and teal. (Nesta ACOSF Chapter 59)

She angled her head, hair shining like molten metal. (Azriel ACOSF Bonus Chapter)

Also, Varian is literally always at the Night Court, so Summer Court is also low-key always in play :P

[hacawijo]

Guys I still vibe with this take

[hacawijo]

I kinda wish I’d actually called it “Gwyn-Quin”

[soracities]

“English is my native anguish.”

— Amit Majmudar, from “Vocative”

[prideprejudce]

rhaenyra and alicent really had a messy breakup when they were only 15 years old and then proceeded to make it everyone’s problem in the seven kingdoms for the next hundred years and i love them for that

[hacawijo]

My Top Ships of 2022 Countdown

10. Timmy and Zeta (Love Island USA) - Okay yes, this is a real-life couple, but the point of dating shows is to ship real-life couples, and Timmy and Zeta are the best. They both came into the show with the right balance of self-awareness and optimism, and they were by FAR the most mature and likable people on the show.

—————

9. Aaron and Bobby (Bros) - Definitely the rom-com couple of 2022! Aaron is cute, but Billy Eichner’s Bobby is definitely the reason I ship this couple so much. He’s a gifted comedian and actor, and it’s really cool to see the perpetually sarcastic Eichner playing a little earnest in this movie. The ship itself is well-developed and I particularly love their P-Town moments.

—————

8. Aloy and Kotallo (Horizon: Forbidden West) - This is the first of several crack ships on this list. Aloy is the protagonist in the Open-world RPG Horizon: Forbidden West and Kotallo is one of her companions. I love Aloy from the first game and she continues to be awesome in the second. Kotallo’s voice acting is deep and commanding (but not loud) and he’s a great blend of competent and tortured (like a cross between Rowan from Throne of Glass and Hunt Athalar from Crescent City) and I found many great fanfics to feed my interest in them together! Full disclosure, there’s no indication of romance between the two in the game and a lot of people speculate that Aloy may be queer or asexual.

—————

7. Rhaenyra and Alicent (HotD) - I’m sure I don’t need to expand on this too much given that House of the Dragon is a worldwide sensation. Needless to say, I think Olivia Cooke is incredible as older Alicent in the show, and there’s something incredibly tragic about the love they had for each other (platonic or romantic) being destroyed by the men around them. I do read a romantic undertone in their relationship, but I don’t know that either of them realizes it themselves.

—————

6. Bruce and Selina (The Batman) - The Batman was probably my favorite movie of 2022 and I loved the chemistry between Selina and Bruce. I’m glad that she’s more than a love interest for him - she has a real role in the story - and there’s something pretty lovely about how she teases Bruce because he’s so awkward. It makes sense that Bruce would be awkward in romantic interactions! He’s not a stud! He’s a traumatized man who has devoted all of his time to destroying crime in Gotham, of course he doesn’t know how to flirt! But it’s just even more endearing and a cool, (relatively) un-explored take on Batman.

—————

5. Draco and Hermione (Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Falling in Love — among others) - It would be difficult for me to not include my OTP on this list. Not just because they’re my OTP, but also because the Dramione fanfic economy is incredible! New works are published and updated everyday, many of which are better quality than a lot of published novels. Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Falling in Love was my absolute favorite - incredibly well-written, with a believable and multilayered interpretation of both Draco and Hermione’s characterization. Unfortunately the slow burn is agonizing, and the fluffy part of me wishes there was more time in the story where they’re truly together, but it’s a great story. Below illustration by @elivrayn - who is insanely talented!

—————

4. Janine and Gregory (Abbott Elementary) - Janine and Gregory are like those two friends you have that would be perfect for each other and who deserve to be a lot happier than they are. Obviously the show has to keep up a will-they-or-won’t-they dynamic— it’s practically a requirement of sitcoms like Abbott Elementary thanks to Jim and Pam from The Office — but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating to watch them dance around each other! I love the characters, the actors, and the show, and I won’t be surprised if I eventually rank them among my favorite TV sitcom couples.

—————

3. Lidia and Ruhn (House of Sky and Breath) - HOSAB came out at the beginning of the year and so I almost forgot about this great new ship! Their couple name (NightBright) is fire, their circumstances are beautifully tragic, and Lydia is especially a fascinating new character in the series. Ruhn was already a fan-fave, so SJM probably knew she needed to DELIVER for his ship. Their relationship is particularly aesthetic and ethereal, and the cliffhanger at the end of HOSB is so incredibly heart wrenching, maybe more so than any other couple SJM has ever written. by @sncinder - INCREDIBLE

—————

2. Leighton and Alicia (Sex Lives of College Girls) - So this might technically be more of a 2021 ship, but things DID happen for them in 2022 AND I only watched season one this year. Leighton is one of the best characters on the show and following her journey of understanding privilege through season 1 feels pretty realistic, as does her hesitance to come out of the closet and it’s affect on her relationship with Alicia, whom she loves. In Season 2 she does come out and has a whirlwind semester, only to realize in the end that she doesn’t want to be in a sorority or date someone who is close-minded and rude (RIP Leighton and Tatum). She and Alicia reunite and even in just those last two episodes she seems SO MUCH HAPPIER. I love them.

—————

1. Hannah and Fox (Hook, Line, and Sinker) - My number 1 for 2022 really just couldn’t be anything but Hannah and Fox. It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey was lovely, such a great read, especially because Piper feels a lot more fleshed out than many female romantic leads. That being said, it’s Hannah and Fox’s love story (a sequel to Piper and Brendan’s) that truly blew me out of the water. Fox’s grappling with the expectations of the people around him and the way he’s constantly over sexualized by everyone around him is heartbreaking. People expected him to be a player and so he played into their expectations because it felt better than being rejected for trying to have something real. Hannah and Fox are so completely lovely, and their ending is perfect. It’s refreshing to read a het romance where the woman is ultimately the one who feels more self-assured about who they are and the one who is positioned to do the big romantic gesture, even if she doesn’t see it as such.

Honorable Mentions/Ship Seeds of 2022

Ithan and the Fendyr heir from House of Sky and Breath

Sandman and Johanna Constantine from Sandman

James and Erin from Derry Girls

[southfarthing]

FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR FARAMIR

[oreolesbian]

the most frustrating thing about lotr being one of your comfort movies is that you can’t just pop it in one day when you’re feeling down and watch it in full.

return of the king (non-extended edition) is almost 4 hours long. FOUR. the extended is FIVE!!. but i treat that bitch like she 90 minutes with the way i want to watch it every single day 😭

[hacawijo]

Freal

[hacawijo]

SPOILERS FOR HOUSE OF DRAGONS

Before everyone jumps on the “wow Alicent Hightower is a huge bitch” train, let’s get some critical analysis in here.

Alicent isn’t mad that Rhaenyra lost her virtue, and in a sense, she’s not even just mad that Rhaenyra lied about this one thing. That’s what she’ll spend the rest of her life trying to convince herself, but it’s not the real truth.

Here is Alicent’s story: she has a good family (in terms of Westeros) and is a noble, but she also has no say in her own life and is basically the social lesser of everyone around her. The best thing in her life, without a doubt, is her friendship with Rhaenyra, and I think she never imagined they would lose that bond because of something the men around them did, especially when it seemed that she and Rhaenyra were both so cognizant of the machinations taking place around them. (Classic, kids knowing more than the adults think but still underestimating the power of those things)

Note: you could potentially make the case that Alicent feels romantic love toward Rhaenyra, but there’s no clear evidence to confirm or refute it, so for the purposes of the post I’ll be referring to it as a friendship. I personally hope it’s not romantic love, because I think there’s something uniquely heartbreaking about losing your childhood best friend.

Cut to: Tragedy befalls the world, and Otto Hightower decides to take advantage of a vacuum by angling his daughter in front of the king. Alicent knows what he’s doing, immediately, and it seems pretty clear that she’s not a big fan of the idea, but she does it because she has never lived in a world where it’s possible for her to disobey her father.

Here is the only real mistake Alicent makes: she doesn’t tell Rhaenyra that her father is sending her to the king’s chambers. Alicent is the only person in whom Rhaenyra can safely confide- she trusts her with her feelings about her father and the succession and the death of her mother. Alicent is her safe place. Alicent probably knows how upset Rhaenyra will be and doesn’t want to deal with that pain and conflict in a situation where she doesn’t really have a choice anyway. It’s not the smartest move but she’s like sixteen and I think she is holding out hope that their friendship will ultimately survive any obstacle.

Unfortunately for Alicent, she doesn’t tell Rhaenyra what her father is making her do, and Rhaenyra finds out what is basically the worst emotional betrayal she could imagine at the worst possible time. In that moment, that friendship was dead to Rhaenyra. She is absolutely a “one strike you’re out” person. I think Alicent knows this in her heart of hearts, but she also believes that she could be an exception because she herself loves Rhaenyra basically unconditionally.

She would probably forgive Rhaenyra were their positions reversed, but that’s also partially because she doesn’t have the same kind of relationship with her own father, and because she has never really entertained the idea that she can have the life she wants, unlike Rhaenyra, for whom freedom (everything she’s ever wanted) appears to be dangling right overhead. Rhaenyra could basically never represent a real threat to Alicent’s life trajectory, whereas Alicent has now, in a sense, become what Rhaenyra believes is her biggest obstacle to the throne. She had started to make peace with (or at least resigned herself to) the fact that her father had to marry, but she was NOT prepared for Alicent to be the woman he chose.

Rhaenyra is of course apoplectic and ices Alicent out, but I think Alicent, through all of that, has constant hope that they’ll be able to repair their friendship AND that she’ll even get to have more freedom then she ever thought possible as queen. They’ll be best friends and as close to equals as they can get.

A while later, Alicent’s lived a few years as queen and she knows that it basically sucks. She has no friends and she has to keep having sex with a scabby, grumpy, dying old man. Rhaenyra, for her part, isn’t angry anymore, but she also now only views Alicent the way she views everyone else at court- as someone she needs to maneuver, a potential tool at best. So obviously she accepts Alicent’s offer of friendship, but she doesn’t mean it the way Alicent means it.

So Alicent still has to be mostly very lonely and a mother to three (she loves her kids but she basically never got to enjoy being a young woman) and have terrible sex with a scabby, dying old man, but her father is still the Hand and she finally has her best friend back, and that makes it all bearable.

Then she finds out about this whole Rhaenyra/Daemon thing and is like, oh fuck, this ruins literally everything. She knew her father wanted to supplant Rhaenyra but she still felt she was being successful in straddling the line between the two succession stances. She goes to Rhaenyra and is like, okay cool, this is really bad but I can solve this as long as we talk one-on-one and figure it out.

I’m not certain that Alicent would have kept Rhaenyra’s secret if Rhaenyra had told her the truth, but I think it’s really possible. She went to Rhaenyra mostly because she wanted to resolve the situation as best she could, and Rhaenyra being happy is in Alicent’s best interest. She thought their friendship was restored and so she thought she could trust Rhaenyra to tell her the truth. Plus, Rhaenyra did swear on her dead mother 😅

Alicent definitely didn’t know that her father would be dismissed, so of course she feels terrible about that, and then she discovers that Rhaenyra lied point blank to her face (Rhaenyra was telling the truth when she said Daemon didn’t have sex with her but she lied outright when she also said “I swear to you my virtue is intact” or whatever the exact wording was), which means that their friendship is very much not intact, which means that Alicent facilitated the ruin of her father’s life for basically nothing.

Alicent’s anger isn’t about Rhaenyra’s virtue or being lied to, it’s about what the lie indicates about her relationship with Rhaenyra, something for which she has made legitimate sacrifices.

Alicent isn’t innocent - she should have known better that marrying Rhaenyra’s father would be a permanent end to their friendship as they knew it (especially in a case where she didn’t explain it to Rhaenyra herself) but she didn’t want to deal with the conflict, or being torn between her father and her best friend, so she told herself what she had to in order to get out of bed every morning.

Theirs is a friendship break-up like many others but the stakes are a thousand times higher when you’re talking about the fate of an entire kingdom and a world in which you either play the game or you die. The moral of their story is that power (and specifically, the patriarchy) is likely to corrupt even the most good, pure, and tender love.

And fuck the patriarchy. After all if women were treated like people in this kingdom Aemma would still be alive, either because they’d be perfectly happy to have Rhaenyra as heir to the throne after Aemma underwent so many dangerous pregnancies (and hopefully she would have gone through only one of them before they realized it was too risky to keep trying to have kids). OR, at the literal least, she would have been allowed to decide not to have her body sacrificed in a not-guaranteed-to-work attempt to recover her child.

So as the show continues on and Alicent makes cruel decisions and everyone watching comes to hate her, because we are, of course, being set up to root most for Rhaenyra in this story, just try to remember that she held onto hope that things would be okay for basically as long as she could, and that most of the things that led her to that point were not her fault or even in her control. I’d probably get pretty bitter too.

[soyzaweels]

𝑬𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝑾𝒆𝒆𝒌 𝑫𝒂𝒚 4: 𝑹𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆.

“𝐽𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚”.

♡•♡•♡•♡•♡•♡•♡

I am so excited to finally be able to show this piece!!

When Thia sent me the finished art I was tempted to post it right away, but decided to wait to post it on a special day, and what better day than one dedicated to romance in Elain Appreciation Week!

Obviously I'm a faithful shipper of Elriel, their interactions throughout the saga drive me crazy and I'm looking forward to reading more of their story.

I am extremely happy with how well this piece turned out, I think it shows the exact amount of sensuality and tenderness that Elain and Azriel share in the books.

I hope you enjoy it and like it as much as I do!

Art by lovely @/thiaperezart on instagram

Commissioned by me 💕

Muchas gracias @leiaamidala por ayudarme con la traducción  ❤

𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗗𝗢𝗡❜𝗧 𝗥𝗘𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗧

𝗟𝗜𝗞𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗗

[silverlinedeyes]

Love Sarah for confirming that Azriel isn’t and won’t be the controlling/abusive male some like to say he is. She doesn’t like men or write male MCs like that, and she’s told us she loves Az and we’re getting his story.

Sorry, but that’s never who he was, regardless of what some inferred or read into the text.