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@save-the-birds
It's not everyday I get "upset" over the posts Gwynriels make. Most of them don't make any sense and is just based on stupid mysogonystic hatred for Elain.
But NOW. Its simply reducing Elains Trauma as "nothing", her being "Dramatic" or not having enough Trauma to make her interesting.
I'm sorry but first of all Elain IS such an interesting character and I'm sick and tired of everyone staying she isn't. We have no clue what Elain went through in the couldron and no clue why it loved her so much. Her being a seer in itself is interesting cause we rarely get to see such a power first hand in fantasy books. Not to mention that "seeing visions" is probably just scratching the surface of her abilities. Seers aren't just usually seers they have much more to them then meets the eyes. Being necromancers and controlling dead spirits is one of the most common co powers.
That being said Elain is more mysterious then Azriel.
Second of all, I suggested it once I'll suggest it again, certain Gwynriels need to reread the original trilogy.
Elain just like Nesta got dragged from her HOME, forced into a couldron FIRST, then has a male she never met before claims she's his MATE. For months she was in a murky state not understanding what was going on with her. Yet she still managed to help everyone around her. Oh she also got kidnapped again.
She has trauma. Readers are reminded of this in ACOSF. Just because Elains or anyone else decides to heal themselves in a more "quiet way" does not mean what they've went through hasn't affected them.
At this point I swear Gwynriels are just embarrassing themselves. Just admit yall hate elain for absolute no reason other than the fact that she is the one that Az wants. The one he'll risk his life for
@princesshamlet
cassian sucks
This story isn't Nesta healing, it's her systematically being torn down to the point where she hates herself so much that she is willing to do just about anything to be different.
The statements "Mor's behaviour towards Nesta in the beginning of acosf is horrible", "Mor's behaviour contradicts previously-established character traits", "Sjm pitting all female characters against each other and suddenly turning her only notable queer character into a terrible person is neither feminist nor good rep" and "It is hypocritical to demonize Mor but excuse Cassian" can and should coexist.
Nessian and Feysand in comparison
Or why both relationships are unhealthy and sjm really hasn't changed the style of relationships she writes at all.
Tw: sexual abuse, harrassment, violence etc.
1. The age gap:
Feysand: Feyre is 20 in acomaf, Rhys is 535. Age difference: 515 years
Nessian: Nesta is 22 in acomaf, Cassian is 536. Age difference: 514 years. (With Nesta not being old enough either to qualify as a fully matured adult by human standards.)
2. Sexual assault
Feysand: Rhys drugs Feyre and makes her dance for him UtM, touching her on her arms and waist. He also kisses her without her consent, and licks away her tear. (Inadequate "excuses" include: He tried to distract her, he wanted to anger Tamlin, he was trying to protect her. Neither excuse is good enough.)
Nessian: Cassian kisses Nesta without her consent after they talked about Nesta having been assaulted before.
Physical assault
Feysand: Rhys twists a bone shard in a wound in Feyre's arm to the point where she passes out. Also invades her mind at one point.
Nessian: Cassian squeezes Nesta's knee to the point where it hurts in acowae (after she kneed him in the balls. After HE sexually assaulted her.)
General predatory behaviour:
Feysand: Rhys makes several sexual comments to Feyre, makes her write sentences about how great he is, invades her mind to show her smut of them. Kidnaps her and keeps her in his court even though she wants to return home.
Nessian: Cassian (Fae, warrior, armed) purposefully stands uncomfortably close to Nesta (human, unarmed, unprotected). Only moves closer to her after she told him she sees this as an intimidation attempt, moves even closer and takes her by the hand after she mentions having experienced secual assault. Makes multiple inappropriate comments, inquiring after her virginity and her sexual preferences. Is told multiple times to leave her alone, keeps bothering her. Follows her home after a party he spent mostly ignoring her and ignores her demands to leave her alone.
General treatment of the partner:
Feysand: Rhys pretends to let Feyre choose/generally allows her freedom, is actually manipulating her. Doesn't inform her of some important choices he makes.
Nessian: Both are rude to each other. Cassian usually ignores Nesta when others are around. Ignores her even after she saved his life, doesn't try to help her when she is clearly depressed. Calls her unlovable when she is clearly depressed. Doesn't respect wishes she voices (e.g. "go home"/"leave me alone").
Circumstances of the beginning of the relationship:
Feysand: Feyre is severely depressed, even suicidal. Gets brought to Rhysand's home, where she is surrounded only by his friends and family and has to rely entirely on them.
Nessian: Nesta is severely depressed, even suicidal. Gets brought to Cassian's home, where she is surrounded only by his friends and family and has to rely entirely on them.
Conclusion:
This is terrible. This is both completely terrible. And yes, Feysand is probably worse, but not by much. It's really just the same relationships sjm always seems to write: A much older immortal man pursues a young woman, exhibits predatory behaviour, sexually assaults her, doesn't respect her wishes and somehow, it's presented as "romantic".
I’m crying this is so funny
I believe in beating Eris (from ac0tar) to a pulp!
We Need to Talk About SJM
I was recently anonymously asked what exactly my issue with Sarah Jane Maas is, and ended up writing what was essentially a thesis paper about it. Unfortunately, Tumblr pulled a Shitty Website move and deleted everything I wrote under the ‘read more’ tab, so I’m compiling my reasons here on a masterpost, for your reading leisure.
EDIT: Read more tab continues to not work for me, so I apologize to all of you who have to suffer through this. I’ll tag is as a long post accordingly.
Let’s get started
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Reason 1: She preaches messages that no young girl needs to (or should) hear.
Granted, I know the a lot of the YA genre are adults who are no strangers to smut and aren’t phased by toxic behavior in characters. But on the same token, a lot of the YA genre is fueled by young girls age 12-20. Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend like girls in that age range aren’t reading/writing smutty fanfiction or dating. I know they do, I did, most of my friends did. But at that age, young girls are still trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be, including in terms of relationships. That’s where my problem with Maas comes in.
Maas writes, almost exclusively, toxic relationships - at best. Straight up abusive at worst. At one point in ACOTAR, I had to put the book down because I was so disgusted by what happened. Rhysand assaulted Feyre. I’m not kidding. He kissed and groped her against her will, telepathically asked whether she was wet about it, and wondered aloud what she looked like naked. The entire goal of doing this was to piss Feyre’s then-boyfriend off, and for Rhysand to assert his dominance as a Fae lord or whatever the fuck (y’know, like rapists do). Feyre was left shaking, nauseated, and scared for her life. But the worst part? It was written like this was something sexy and desirable. Literal penetration was all that stopped this from being a horrifying rape scene, and I couldn’t believe Maas wrote about it like some hot erotica. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t cute. It was disgusting, violating, and I was furious when I read it (especially given Feyre actually ends up with Rhysand eventually. What the fuck).
In Throne of Glass - and subsequent sequels - there are couples (namely Rowan and Aelin) who quite literally spit on each other, punch each other, and bite each other. No, not “love nip” bite, I mean “I’m trying to tear your skin off” bite. But we’re meant to believe they’re endgame, meant to be, and a totally healthy relationship. Let’s not even get into emotional abuse and manipulation, because holy fuck does every single character in these books act like a goddamn villain if we were to go over that in detail. All you need to know is that “if you don’t do xyz then I’ll leave and never come back” “what made you think I cared about you? You’re nothing to me. Just kidding, I love you” and similar sentiments are rampant in these series.
While we’re here, what is up with this “mates” nonsense? Every character pairing we see by the end of the ToG series has a “mate,” and swears off everyone they’ve had before, claiming them to be “false mates.” This whole “mates” business sounds a lot like somebody desperately trying to reassure their insanely jealous partner that they don’t still have feelings for their ex. That’s not healthy! That’s not okay! Your exes helped you narrow down your search. They helped you understand yourself more and what you want (or don’t want). And y’know what? It’s okay to have happy memories with an ex. It’s okay to not hate your ex. Telling young girls that all that matters is their future husband (which erases LGBT+ girls, as well as straight women who don’t want to get married) is harmful as hell, and contributes to the idea that a girl is only “complete” when she finds her “soulmate.”
Girls 12-20 really do not need to be given the message that it’s normal - nay, romantic - for their partners to hit them, humiliate them, or assault them. You may be saying, “Clara, come on, girls know fiction isn’t reality and no girl is actually going to stand for that kind of thing in real life.” But I can’t tell you how horribly my own view of relationships was corrupted for several years after all the books I read as a tween where the protagonist had to defend her flirty boyfriend from the advances of other girls. I didn’t trust boys not to cheat on me. I didn’t trust my girl friends not to try and steal a boyfriend. I thought girls who dressed up and wore makeup and dated a lot were sluts. It took me years of conscious effort to unlearn those ideas. Fiction can and does influence the reader. So again I say: teaching girls that it’s “hot and sexy” when men literally abuse you is not a message a 12-20 year old should be hearing. Ever.
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Reason 2: What exactly does Maas want her readers to be?
Y’know, Maas thinks Caelena/Aelin is a role model for young girls. But here’s a brief list of things Celery/Alien has done throughout the Throne of Glass series:
1. Tried to smash a flower pot over a girl’s head for showing interest in courting Prince Dorian. Despite said girl literally being present at the castle for that purpose and Caelena was not.
2. Very nearly murdered Dorian for absolutely fuckall reason, and then she got mad at Chaol for trying to stop her (keep in mind: Chaol and Dorian are supposed to be best friends. So like… yeah, he’s gonna come to Dorian’s defense).
3. Straight up said, “if I get bored being queen I’ll just go and conquer more lands for my kingdom.” Imperialist there much, Aelin?
This is Maas’ role model material? Half the shit she does from Heir of Fire onward could be described as “war crime” and the other half could be described as “selfish.” Maas seems to think that a shit ton of half-baked “witty” lines and a few “badass” fight scenes completely makes up for having an amoral character as the protagonist you want to flaunt around as an icon for young girls.
It would be one thing if Maas said, “I don’t want anyone to be like Celery/Alien. She’s not a good person and I want my readers to be able to identify how and why she isn’t a good person. The moral is what not to be like.” But she does the opposite and claims time and time again that Celery/Alien is some kind of feminist warrior, when in fact Celery/Alien is the very epitome of white feminism and false feminism. She’ll be all kinds of gung-ho for herself, but as soon as another woman mentions her own unique problems or lifestyles, Celery/Alien thinks she’s a “whiny bitch,” “dumb slut,” or something similar. Celery/Alien ends up looking down her nose at basically every other female character. The lack of female friendships in Maas’ books is frankly astounding.
No girl needs to be Celery/Alien. Celery/Alien is not a role model, she is not a feminist, she is not a figurehead of a well developed female character or even a compelling antihero. She’s sexist, she’s misogynistic, she has serious anger issues, she’s manipulative, she’s abusive. This is not who young girls should be looking up to.
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Reason 3: Maas has no place in the YA genre.
I’m not really sure I need to elaborate much on this. Let me give you a scenario:
Imagine you’re at a book signing for your fans. They’re mostly girls 15-20, so you kind of just sign their copies without thinking much about it. But then a smaller girl comes up to the table, you ask her age, and she says “I’m ten.” A 10 year old girl is standing in front of you, clutching her copy of your book where you wrote and published the scene, “he buried in to the hilt and roared. Over and over he spilled inside of her, the lightning outside flashing soft and lovely long after he stilled.”
Look me in the eye and tell me that shit is appropriate in the YA genre. At all. Ever.
You wanna write romance? Go for it. It can be cute! It can be healthy! It can be intriguing! But this? This? This is just… erotica. If you’re publishing stuff like this in the YA genre, in a book that isn’t even on the ‘tween/teen romance’ shelves, then you better be ready to take full responsibility for teaching 10 year olds what a blowjob is, what an orgasm is, what BDSM is, what a fucking foot fetish is.
I know JK Rowling isn’t the most popular right now, but even she did better than this. The first 3 Harry Potter books you can generally find on the children’s/middle grade shelves. They were cute, fun little adventures about wizards and magic and fantastic creatures. Books 4-7? Those are on the YA shelves. People are dying, magic is dangerous, fascist organizations are on the rise – it isn’t fun for Harry anymore. It isn’t about the wonders of magic. It’s about life or death, war, and fear. So yeah, of course those book aren’t going to be on the children’s/middle grade shelves! They’re dark! They’re scary! That kind of material shouldn’t be advertised as appropriate for younger kids!
Maas never extended that courtesy. Maas took her books full of badly written erotica and plopped them down right where all the rest of the completely tame YA books went, because she wanted the sales. She didn’t care if she was exposing kids who were too young to explicit sex scenes. She never posted a disclaimer, she never posted any kind of warning on social media when the books came out. Nope. She just silently took advantage of the market knowing she’d get more sales in YA. But it has no place in YA. It’s not YA. And I don’t think I’m ever gonna be okay with that.
***********
Reason 4: Diversity? Never heard of it!
Maas’ books are so incredibly white and straight that it’s painful. Rowan and Aelin? White and straight. Feyre? Rhysand? Chaol? Dorian? Manon? Hey, you guessed it! They’re all white and straight (despite Chaol, Dorian, and Manon being heavily LGBT+ coded for like, the entire series till the last book)!
“He looked at his friend, perhaps for the last time, and said what he had always known, from the moment they met, ‘I love you.’” (Queen of Shadows)
Hello? Sarah Jane? I’m all for male friendships, but there’s male friendships and then there’s actual romance. Chaol and Dorian are about as gay-coded as they could fucking get. And this isn’t even the only time this happens! Check this out:
“Dorian surged from his chair and dropped to his knees beside the bed. He grabbed Chaol’s hand, squeezing it as he pressed his brow against his. ‘You were dead,’ the prince said, his voice breaking. ‘I thought you were dead.’” (Queen of Shadows)
But wait, there’s more!
“‘I’m not leaving you. Not again.’
Dorian’s mouth tightened. ‘You didn’t leave, Chaol.’ He shook his head once, sending tears slipping down his cheeks. ‘You never left me.’” (Queen of Shadows)
I mean come on, Sarah!
Also, Manon. My girl Manon hated men, pretty explicitly, for the entire series. In case you don’t believe me:
“There were few sounds Manon enjoyed more than the groans of dying men.” (Heir of Fire)
Oh, and other characters even imply Manon has never had a heterosexual relationship in her fucking life. See:
“‘That golden-haired witch, Asterin…’ Aelin said. ‘She screamed Manon’s name the way I screamed yours. How can I take away somebody who means the world to someone else? Even if she is my enemy.’” (Queen of Shadows)
Tell me that’s not gay as fuck. I dare you.
Manon had a whole lot of love to give women! She was always affectionate towards other women. Particularly Elide. This is a woman who was about as lesbian as you could get. Had no interest in men, every interest in women, rejected typically expected roles for women (getting married and having kids, etc.) but guess what happened? Guess what fucking happened?
This warrior who was friends with and rode on a big fuckoff wyvern completely and totally submits to Dorian as her lover. I don’t mean that metaphorically. They literally do some BDSM shit where he’s her “master” and she “kneels to him” or whatever the fucking fuck. This entire thing pissed me off more than Chaol and Dorian being all “no homo bro,” because Maas used every possible symbol and subtext for Manon being gay, and then said “just kidding!” Her relationship with Dorian came out of nowhere. All of a sudden she was just as thirsty for mediocre dick as Aelin.
At this point I honestly have to wonder if Maas is really this ignorant or if she’s - dare I say it? - taunting her readers who have complained about the lack of LGBT+ representation. Maas has, historically, not reacted well to people criticizing her work. I would not put it beyond her at all to intentionally queer-code characters only to turn around and rip the rug out from under her readers by pairing them up in heterosexual relationships. And not only is that shitty writing, but it’s… really malicious and rude.
Of course then there’s the issues with racial representation. Again, Maas doesn’t even try. She includes 13 characters of color only to immediately kill off all of them in a suicide pact. So there’s that. Not sure I need to say more than that.
Maas knows what diversity is, but as per her famous quote, “I just don’t want to force diversity into my books.” So. Y’know. Writing a black or gay character (or!! God forbid, both black and gay!!) is asking a little too much of her, apparently. She doesn’t want to force anything as unbelievable as someone who isn’t white or straight, don’tcha know? In these books about fae people and dragons and gods fighting mortals and explicit erotica, an LGBT+ character or a character of color is high fantasy, not YA. *Sarcasm*
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Reason 5: The woman can’t write.
This is pretty straightforward. She cannot write. My proof? She plagiarizes the living fuck out of everything she can to avoid actually writing her own original work.
1. “You’re gonna rattle the stars.” - from Disney’s Treasure Planet
2. “The Queen Who Was Promised” - from GRRM’s ASOIAF, where Dany Targaryen is often toted as the exact same thing. Oh, and The Prince Who Was Promised prophecy in ASOIAF also mentions Azor Ahai being “the Heir of Fire” so, uh…. yeah.
3. Aelin basically being Aragorn. Lost royalty spends years as an outcast, denies their claim, teams up with elves (fae in Aelin’s case) to defeat a greater evil, becomes known as the people’s champion, falls in love with an elf (fae) and makes them their consort, crowned by the people, ends their coronation scene with a “you bow to no one” (I’m not kidding).
4. Nehemia dying for Aelin and it later being revealed that Nehemia was “grooming” Aelin to face great evil, and potentially give her life to stop it. How much you wanna bet Maas tried to give Aelin a name as close to “Harry Potter” as she could get?
5. Manon lighting a series of beacons across a mountain range to call for aid during war. I mean seriously? This is one of the most iconic scenes in Peter Jackson’s rendition of Lord of the Rings. It’s moving, it’s powerful, it’s awe-inspiring. And Maas knew it. So she just… took it. I don’t have a lot of respect for writers who can’t write their own moving scenes.
6. Kingsflame blossoms, which only bloom when the rightful monarch is on the throne. So… the White Tree of Gondor. Got it.
7. The Hand of the King being a royal court position. Like… jesus. GRRM, come get ya world-building, SJ stole it again.
8. A paralyzed Chaol has a specialized saddle made for him, because he wants more than anything to ride a horse again. GRRM! Please! She’s taking Bran Stark’s story now!
And besides all of these horribly plagiarized points, there’s nothing even slightly compelling about these books. There’s literally zero substance, and the last few books in both the ACOTAR and ToG series have been nothing but a smut-fest. Plot who? We don’t know her.
Trauma, both physical and mental, is erased at the drop of a dime (Aelin lost physical scars, Chaol’s paralysis was basically cured, series of events that should’ve left characters absolutely fucked just… didn’t phase them). The battles are rushed and sloppily written, and Maas has a particularly nasty habit of focusing on exactly the wrong people in the middle of what should be an action packed scene. Instead of showing alliances forging and plots being made behind people’s backs, instead of showing us people gearing up for battle by saying tearful goodbyes to their infants and spouses, Maas shows us Rowan and Aelin banging on a beach, or a tree, or a ship, or wherever the fuck they happen to be at that moment.
None of these characters lose jack shit. There is no sense of urgency or stakes, because we knew since Heir of Fire that Aelin and her precious uwu fae “mate” would be just fine. Why? Because nobody shipped Rowaelin as hard as Sarah Jane Maas did. Consistently the only people who suffer in these books are background characters (who, coincidentally, are almost always the characters of color and LGBT+ characters). By the end of Kingdom of Ash, literally everyone is fine. And paired off to be married, too! Because a happy ending isn’t a true happy ending if it doesn’t end with Babies Ever After and everyone in a heterosexual relationship, of course, right?
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Reason 6: World-building doesn’t even go here! Sorry, she just wanted to be a part of something.
Maas’ world-building is… how do you say… shitty. New lore pops up in every book, having never been mentioned before, and is for some reason of utmost importance (but only for this book. It’ll be forgotten again as soon as it isn’t relevant). Religions who? Culture where? History what? None of these things exist in Maas’ world. None.
Now before anyone jumps down my throat with “but The World of Throne of Glass is coming out this year!!!1!1!!” let me gently establish something. Speaking as a fantasy author: if you do not have your most basic world-building - that being religion, culture, language, and history - already established, then you have no business making a “world of” book to cover all the bases your ass never bothered with in the original series.
I said what I said.
Tolkien and GRRM are masters of world-building because they spent decades working to forge their worlds before they ever put a pen to paper and wrote their stories. Not to toot my own horn, but my own fantasy series has been developing for almost 7 years now. What am I doing with it? I’m outlining governments in different societies, why people came to worship what they do, and I’m making a fucking world map on my bedroom floor (that now has cat paw prints on it, so it’s not exactly final product material anyway).
I give not a single hoot for Maas’ “The World of Throne of Glass.” She could be saying anything she wanted to and it would all just have to be canon, because she’s establishing what this world is after already finishing her series. Yes, it does piss me off, because it’s pretty obvious she didn’t have a clue what her world was, or who was who, or why things were the way they were. She made shit up as she went along, nothing more. There was no grand scheme. There was no planning, and it shows.
***********
TL;DR: I have a lot of issues with Sarah J Maas’ writing, including her world-building and handling of diversity. But most of all I despise the potential impact she has on the YA genre and on the young girls reading her work. They deserve better than this. They deserve better than Sarah Jane Maas.
SJM Books and Aesthetic PTSD
Part II of my series on Nesta (albeit sort of tangentially, here). This is going to be a heavy topic, so I’m making it into its own post. CW for in-depth discussion of mental illness.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a recurring theme in SJM’s books. Protagonists Aelin, Feyre, and Bryce all suffer from it, as do their love interests. And, uh. I have a bone to pick with it, as do many antis and even some stans.
First disclaimer: I don’t claim to know what SJM herself has or hasn’t experienced, and I’m not going to speculate about it. I’m not here to attack her as an individual, and if you are, I would strongly encourage that you cut that shit out. HOWEVER. I can call out bad representation where I see it, and this goes to show that research is important EVEN IF you belong to the group you’re trying to do justice. No one’s experiences are universal, and portraying them as such does much more harm than good.
Second disclaimer: I do in fact know what I’m talking about. I have a degree in psychology (emphasis on clinical research), I’ve been an emergency medical technician and a crisis counselor for sexual assault survivors, and I work in a psychiatric-heavy hospital emergency department. This isn’t even touching on shit in my personal life.
So. Believe me when I say there are as many different responses to trauma as there are people. There’s a reason that diagnosis of mental disorders is done largely via identifying clusters of symptoms, and patterns, rather than cookie-cutter pictures. For example: When my psychiatrist diagnosed me with OCD, I just sort of stared at her and said “but I don’t even like to clean.” Because this was the only representation of OCD I had ever seen in any of the media I was consuming! So, media portrayals can be deeply significant in terms of people getting support and timely diagnoses.
The VAST majority of PTSD IRL looks absolutely nothing like what Aelin/Feyre/Bryce etc experience, aka an identical trifecta of vomiting, nightmares, and weight loss. I mean, yes, this presentation happens, but IRL it’s far from aesthetically pleasing. It often comes with poor hygiene or psychosis. One of my most scarring calls ever involved a person whose depression-induced weight loss was so dramatic someone called 911 for them.
It’s interesting to me that Nesta, of all SJM’s characters, has PTSD that presents in a completely different way. She has nightmares, but is also afraid of certain triggers (bathtubs), drinks heavily, sleeps around, doesn’t pay her rent, and distances herself/deliberately provokes her family. In my experience, this is actually a more common response to trauma.
PTSD isn’t glamorous. It does not elicit pity or admiration. It’s easy to end up hurting people you care about, which brings up another very complex, uncomfortable issue (which I don’t think SJM knows how to handle): how mental illness can hurt more than just the person suffering from it. MANY presentations of mental illness, PTSD in particular, tend to make other people perceive you—fairly or not—as a fucking mess.
So, the problem here is what’s portrayed as acceptable in SJM’s narratives. Protagonist PTSD, the kind where they’re viewed as noble, precious victims who must be defended at all costs, is aesthetic angst. They lose weight, they still take great care with their appearances, they call themselves monsters and then push themselves to lengths of hard work and self-sacrifice that elicit worshipful reactions in secondary characters. They function so well, the world would never know how much they’ve suffered. They’re strong and impressive and will never let anyone hurt them again.
Nesta’s version, though? It doesn’t make her a hero. It isn’t pretty to look at. It earns her slut-shaming, angry lectures, and a one-way ticket to a fucking WAR CAMP. Which, you know, would be a pretty realistic take if we weren’t supposed to perceive the Inner Circle as so unambiguously heroic.
Intentionally or not, this sends a strong message: there is ONE acceptable way to experience PTSD, and if yours doesn’t look like that, then fuck you.
Another recurring theme in SJM-land is “love interest helps the character heal.” Which, okay, fine. It’s a simplistic take, but this does happen TO AN EXTENT in real life. Relationships (platonic or romantic) are important in recovery, but the fact remains, if you don’t learn how to stand on your own, sustainable mental health becomes a lot less likely. A lot of the time, someone’s romantic “lifeline” is either an object of extreme codependency, if not outright toxic to them. Implying that romance in particular is such a key component of recovery is… also kind of shitty to aro/ace folks, or really to anyone who would prefer not to define themselves via a significant other.
For example: In Heir of Fire (aka the last SJM book I kind of liked), Aelin digs herself out of a depression hole in a way that to me, felt very raw and real. Then, the rest of the series happens, and the narrative gives FUCKING ROWAN credit for digging her out with his magical mate crap, which was just… so goddamn insulting to Aelin, to women, and to any reader that identified with that HoF arc. I’m not even going to get into how toxically codependent Feysand is, because that would require its own post.
I have this nagging sense we’re going to get the exact same shit with Nesta via Cassian in ACOSF. The power of romance (with an emphasis on sex) heals all! Haha, fuck you.
It’s not just SJM who does this. Books, movies, and TV in general are TERRIFIED of showing the ugly side of mental illness, instead opting for shallow stereotypes or aesthetic angst.
Show me more SFF characters with PTSD who alienate their friends and family, who sleep too much, who lash out self-destructively, who struggle with addiction, who have to be hospitalized, who sleep around, who seek out danger because they don’t know how to exist without that adrenaline rush, who self-harm, who lose their jobs, who don’t exercise or clean because what’s the point? Show me characters who have to drag themselves up out of all that shit, without a soulmate waiting for them on the other side, who have to make amends AND forgive themselves, who learn to stand on their own two feet again and become heroes anyway.
Ok, but...
Is this what every s/jm stan is into?
so, basically, this reddit response took an annoying amount of time so i am also posting it here
because, ya know, i am feelin' moody and controversial today i suppose (and because reddit deleted all my fkn italics and bold font sections and that kills me). and i'm drunk lol
listen, i don't hate the books. i don't like feyre's character and what she turns into. there are plenty of elements in the books i love otherwise i wouldn't be in the fandom. i just have issues with the inner circle's superiority complex. which would be fine, all of the high fae in different courts likely think they are superior to each other, except the inner circle try to pass themselves off as morally superior as well and like they aren't like the rest of them
okay, so since i'm a lucien stan and already have these bits screenshotted, i am only going to cover examples of how she, and how she lets her friends, treat lucien (though how the whole high lord meeting was handled and her inner dialogue during that whole scene is also a good example of how the inner circle basically seem to think they do and should run all of prythian)
anyway, this is going to be long as fuck. but i am obnoxious soooo
"I'd never realized that while Lucien had been trained as a warrior, Caspian, Azriel, and Mor could wipe Lucien off the face of the earth in a single blow."
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"Mor swept her attention over Lucien once more. I almost pitied Lucien for the weight of her gaze"
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"Cassian took up a place against the banister, crossing his arms with an arrogance I knew meant trouble. Azriel remained beside me, shadows wreathed at his knuckles. As if battling High Lords' sons was how they usually spent their days.
I wondered if Lucien knew that his first words here would either damn or save him."
-
"Unsurprisingly, Cassian and Azriel were casually seated in the dining room across the hall, eating lunch and marking every single breath Lucien emitted. Cassian smirked at me, brows flicking up."
in case she didn't make it clear, guys - her friends are SUPER big bad and scary and lucien should be VERY intimidated. as if he hasn't lived his entire life being intimidated. even after he left tamlin and went to the night court where apparently the inner circle members are SUPPOSED to behave much better than how tamlin behaves
oh, and apparently it's perfectly acceptable for them to mock him and find amusement in their belittling and intimidation the whole time
"My mate leaned against the carved archway and drawled to Lucien, 'I assume Cassian or Azriel has explained that if you threaten anyone in this house, this territory, we'll show you ways to die you've never even imagined.' Indeed, the Illyrians smirked from where they lingered in the dining room threshold. Azriel was by far the more terrifying of the pair."
this one is just so interesting because the last real exchange lucien had with rhysand went like this -
"'You draw blood from me, Lucien, and you’ll learn how quickly Amarantha’s whore can make the entire Autumn Court bleed. Especially its darling Lady.'
~
'Oh? Here I was, thinking you still mourned your commoner lover after all these centuries,” Rhysand said, stalking toward me.
~
'I knew you liked to stoop low with your lovers, Lucien, but I never thought you’d actually dabble with mortal trash.” My face burned. Lucien was trembling—with rage or fear or sorrow, I couldn’t tell. 'The Lady of the Autumn Court will be grieved indeed when she hears of her youngest son. If I were you, I’d keep your new pet well away from your father.'
~
Lucien’s face was dark, but he lowered himself to his knees, then touched his head to the ground."
sure, rhysand was "pLaYiNg hIs pArT". doesn't make his words any less impactful or change the fact that that was the last true exchange lucien had with rhysand
"Rhys bared his teeth. My limbs turned light, trembling at the dark power curling in the corners of the room. Not fear - never fear of him. But at the shattered control as Rhys snarled at Lucien, 'My mate may one day find it in her to forgive him. Forgive you. But I will never forget how it felt to sense her terror in those moments.' My cheeks heated, especially as Cassian and Azriel stalked closer, those hazel eyes now filled with a mix of sympathy and wrath.
Lucien, to his credit, didn't back away a step. From Rhys, from me, or the Illyrians.
The Clever Fox Stares Down Winged Death. The painting flashed into my mind."
lol, yes, lucien deserves to be threatened and intimidated yet again for tamlin's actions. and again. they're all big bad and scary and wayyyy more powerful than lucien so of course feyre is just SO impressed he wasn't super duper scared of them and shaking in his boots
and hmm - i wonder if this is similar to the kind of terror rhysand felt from her during this other scene with him that also took place in the manor (while lucien was present and standing in front of her and DEFENDING her, despite who the threat was)
"Those invisible claws lazily caressed my mind again - then vanished. I sank to the floor, curling over my knees as I reeled in everything that I was, as I tried to keep from sobbing, from screaming, from emptying my stomach onto the floor.
'Amarantha will enjoy breaking her,' Rhysand observed to Tamlin. 'Almost as much as she'll enjoy watching you as she shatters her bit by bit.'"
but it's okay, i guess, because he was playing a part or whatever. but lucien is unforgivable for pleading with feyre to just wait while he kept trying with tamlin right before she got stuck in the manor while they left to prepare for war
"I fought a cringe as I halted in the threshold. Lucien was still in his travel-worn, filthy clothes. His face and hands, at least, were clean, but... I should have gotten him something else. Remembered to offer him -
The thought rippled away into nothing as Rhys appeared at my side."
feyre really had to fuck her boyfriend before at least getting lucien some clothes after he helped her on the journey back. classy. at least she KINDA felt bad for half of a second. what a saint
"'What about Tamlin? Did you plan to disembowel him before you left and simply not get the chance?'
I ripped the loose thread right out of the bedroll. 'I debated it.'
'But?'
'But I think letting his court collapse around him was a better punishment.'"
personally this quote is fucking chilling and disgusting to me. again - a court full of innocents being destroyed and made completely vulnerable before a huge war was justified because, you know, fuck tamlin - now everyone has to pay. even worse was that she enjoyed it in the meantime. THEN had the nerve to feel SLIGHTLY guilty about it
“At least you have armies to give it to,” Tamlin said mildly, breaking his roiling silence. A smile at me. “Though perhaps that was part of the plan. Disable my force while your own swept in. Or was it just to see my people suffer?”
~
"Surely you knew that when you turned my forces on me, it would leave my people defenseless against Hybern.”
I said nothing. Even as I blocked the images from my mind.
“You primed my court to fall,” Tamlin said with venomous quiet. “And it did. Those villages you wanted so badly to help rebuild? They’re nothing more than cinders now.”
~
“And while you’ve been making antidotes and casting yourselves as saviors, I’ve been piecing together my forces—regaining their trust, their numbers. Trying to gather my people in the East—where Hybern has not yet marched.”
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"And some small, horrible part of me enjoyed the thought of taking one more thing away from Tamlin, something vital, something essential."
good to know why she is really considering being oh so merciful and ALLOWING lucien to stay in her court. also glad to know she really hates the innocents in spring that much to also want to take one of the most competent and vital members in keeping spring together away as well (also. no one is saying tamlin isn't also at fault for his court falling apart, so chill out, friends)
"'I know a place,' Lucien said, walking toward the cave that would take us to his home.
To the lands of the family who'd betrayed him as badly as this court had betrayed mine."
literally claiming what happened to her in spring - the court she took pleasure in destroying and leaving completely vulnerable for the war despite it being full of innocents - had hurt her AS BADLY as lucien's court where he had been viciously abused his entire upbringing and had the love of his life murdered in front of him by his family. right
"And as for Lucien... It wouldn't hurt, I told myself, to keep tabs on where he was. How that conversation with Azriel had gone yesterday. Make sure he remembered the rules we'd set."
oh she DEFINITELY kept tabs on him. especially when she invaded his mind and spied on his personal thoughts 🤗
oh! and remember when feyre used lucien (who was very afraid of tamlin at this point) to make tamlin jealous. i will add a bit here but then i will link to the REALLY disgusting scene where she used his empathy towards her through their shared ptsd from under the mountain to make him hold her while she pretended to cry while in lingerie in his room so tamlin would catch them
"I gave Lucien a subtle, pleading look, and he barely hid his smirk as he sauntered over to me.
Our dispersing party watched as he braced my waist in his broad hands and easily heated me off the horse, none more closely than Ianthe.
I only patted Lucien on the shoulder in thanks. Ever the courtier, he bowed back.
It was hard, sometimes, to remember to hate him. To remember the game I was playing."
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https://asilentfrenzy.tumblr.com/post/633263002394722304/remember-when
(link above is the screenshots of one of the most disgusting scenes with feyre)
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"I was running out of borrowed time. I could winnow, but then I'd abandon Lucien to them if he somehow couldn't manage to himself with the faebane in his system from the food at the camp
Leave him. I should and could leave him.
But to a fate perhaps worse than death -
His russet eye gleamed. 'Go'."
hmm. yeah. nice of her to consider leaving him like that after she used him so much that even if he did escape them - he would be absolutely fucked just on the fact alone of tamlin thinking they were together. how selfless of her to decide against it after lucien told her it was okay to leave him
and let's not forget how she decides it's HER right to decide if lucien knows whether or not his father is who he is after a life of suffering at the hands of his false father. and then there's the fact that he is the sole heir to the day court. but i guess they should get to decide who is in power and who isn't. because they believe they should be the true dictators of all of prythian because, ya know, moral superiority and whatever
"Fire. His mother’s gift.
Not his father’s.
Yes, it was Beron’s gift. The gift of the father who the world believed had sired him. But not the gift of Helion. His true father.
I still hadn’t mentioned it. To anyone other than Rhys.
Now wasn’t the time for that, either."
annnnd we will end with how she treated him in acofas, though there are PLENTY of more examples not listed bc this is already long af
"Lucien got to his feet. 'I don’t need your charity.'
I rose as well. 'But Jurian and Vassa’s is fine?'
'You’d be surprised to see how the three of us get along.'
Friends, I realized. They had somehow become his friends. 'So you’d rather stay with them?'
'I’m not staying with them. The manor is ours.'
'Interesting.'
His golden eye whirred. 'What is.'
Not feeling very festive at all, I said sharply, 'That you now feel more comfortable with humans than with the High Fae. If you ask me—'
'I’m not.'
'It seems like you’ve decided to fall in with two people without homes of their own as well.'
Lucien stared at me, long and hard. When he spoke, his voice was rough. 'Happy Solstice to you, Feyre.'
He turned toward the foyer, but I grabbed his arm to halt him. The corded muscle of his forearm shifted beneath the fine silk of his sapphire jacket, but he made no move to shake me off. 'I didn’t mean that,' I said. 'You have a home here. If you want it.'
Lucien studied the sitting room, the foyer beyond and dining room on its other side. 'The Band of Exiles.'
'The what?'
'That’s what we call ourselves. The Band of Exiles.'
'You have a name for yourselves.' I fought my incredulous tone.
He nodded.
'Jurian isn’t an exile,' I said. Vassa, yes. Lucien, two times over now.
'Jurian’s kingdom is nothing but dust and half-forgotten memory, his people long scattered and absorbed into other territories. He can call himself whatever he likes.'
Yes, after the battle with Hybern, after Jurian’s aid, I supposed he could.
But I asked, 'And what, exactly, does this Band of Exiles plan to do? Host events? Organize party-planning committees?'
Lucien’s metal eye clicked faintly and narrowed. 'You can be as much of an asshole as that mate of yours, you know that?'"
(because apparently "the court of dreams" and "the court of nightmares" aren't also cheesy nicknames, but it's cool. make fun of his)
annnnd that's the conclusion of my novel long rant 🤗🤗 excuse the fact that there are probably a thousand typos and errors
This is just so true and it makes me so mad. Honestly Lucien deserves better
Friendly reminder that “You and I are going to change the world.” Wasn’t just said to Alina Starkov, that the Darkling said this to Zoya Nazyalensky too and he did it so she’d do his dirty work. “You and I are going to change the world, he’d told her. And she’d been fool enough to believe him.”
Friendly reminder that the Darkling was an ancient being, over 400 years old, with a pattern of praying on teenage girls: Zoya, Alina, Genya.
N/essian is an objectively bad ship not just because Nesta (just like feyrug and rice) is a literal infant compared to cassiass but also because your precious batboy constantly harasses her, refuses to give her the space she wants, stalks her home, gets super possessive, gets offended because she refuses to accept a fucking gift and pokes his nose into her sex life and basically allows feyrug and riceman to ship nesta off to a literal war camp so if you want to ship that even after everything you do you I guess but stop pretending n/essian is a good ship. It fucking sucks, actually.
friendly reminder that cassian & ricesand are both 500+ years old and nesta & feyrug are 21 & 22/23. if the oldest human queen (presumably somewhere in her 50s-60s) is an infant to them then nesta & feyrug are literal fetuses.
Even friendlier reminder that Nesta has ptsd from events related heavily to Cassian (getting turned into Fae, the war with Hybern and battle and shit) and any aversion she had to him is completely justified and reasonable, Cassian continuously trying to evade any effort she makes to avoid him and make her talk to him is him disregarding her space and boundaries and that is not okay. His borderine obsession with her when she has made it as abundantly clear as possibly that she doesn’t like him is creepy and not at all romantic. And not at all unlike Feysand.
to my fellow antis