#*feyre

[eatsbooks]

obviously most of feyre Not Letting Herself Consider Or Think About Things is sarah janet being a lazy author but i really like it by way of her characterization. feyre ever as the survivor who simply can’t think about the bad things—not her cramping belly, not her frostbitten fingers, not the failings of her father in leaving her to provide. she must loose the arrow; she must fell the beast to provide for her own. she can’t think about good things either—not the branches reaching like fingers towards the sky, not the sparkle of the snow in the sunlight, not the slide of a brush on canvas. she must loose the arrow; she must fell the beast to provide for her own. feyre who faces every problem and every solution from there on with the narrow focus of a survivor and does not think about extraneous things—not the fate of the people of spring, not the deterioration of its borders, not the consequences to people she once called friend. she must loose the arrow; she must fell the beast to provide for her own.

[blissfulparker]

Omg im rereading acomaf and I completely forgot about the paint scene GFCHGGJIHN

Pls I hate the way Sarah j. Maas writes smut scenes but also live for them at the same time 😩

[eatsbooks]

Okay as much as I am feral for tamgenia may I ask what would Iphigenia would be like as lady (or high lady) of the spring court?

I'm so intrigued on how would Iphigenia operate as a powerful, influential public figure when she spent so long as bed slave and mistress and having little to nurture her noble (albeit weak) background.

Also I kinda want to know how would feyre react as Iphigenia being beloved and treated well and loved by both tamlin and his people because as a political science graduate Feysand and Co's way of politicking makes me want to gnaw off my own arm and smack them with it.

omg hey twin one of my majors was poli sci too !! ironically (and not that she’d ever realize it) i think becoming beron’s bed slave wound up giving iphigenia a lot of secret mouseketools to function really well as lady of spring—far more than her upbringing did, since she lived wealthy enough to be taught etiquette but not of status enough to be instructed on politics or economics or any sort of strategy. before beron, she would have been too gullible, too naive, too willing to overlook harm to preserve the sanctity of her comfort and too avoidant of conflict to make difficult decisions for the overall betterment of the court. her experiences surviving him make her a well-suited complement to the way tamlin rules, a lot like lucien was. (for example, i think genia understands the necessity of the tithe and would be fine with enforcement of it. thing is … her abilities literally pertain to enriching the soil through decomp + encouraging forth harvest-ready plants. so everyone is eventually able to contribute.)

where tamlin orients himself always towards action and has little care for social graces at court/really doesn’t bother at all with controlling narratives that surround him, often even letting them inform his opinion of himself rather than the other way around, iphigenia is highly focused on public perception and (because of beron) innately attuned on how to mold it favorably without making it obvious that’s what she’s doing—sometimes even to herself. her life became a performance but then that just became her life again. she internalized all her mechanisms for survival until they became as second nature: assessing how someone might be a threat to her and hers, figuring out what they think about her and hers, knowing what to say to make sure however they feel doesn’t manifest itself as harm to her or hers. it makes her social navigations seem effortless, which is something tamlin needs by his side—especially with his name smeared across prythian. of course flip side for her is that she operates largely on defense, on coversion and suggestion, so having tamlin who is very overt and actionable by her side is crucial to actually getting things done instead of just preventing things from happening.

she has an interesting role to play as lady. i picture tamlin as sort of the grassroots man of the people politician while she’s sort of like his campaign advisor who doesn’t quite know how commonfolk operate like he does but does know how to engender their affection for him. but then as she’s seen with him, as she’s helping alongside him, as she’s exposed to more and more of the court, her perception becomes tied to his. she’s autumn but she’s spring, and being seen as more than what she was made into by beron makes her want to continue moving in service of spring. tamlin’s people become her people too. she moves much more disingenuously and strategically amongst the nobility. they’re more like game pieces to her. she projects maybe a bit too much of the politics of the forest house onto the spring aristocracy but that ultimately isn’t a bad thing because she manages to nip a lot of unrest in the bud before it ever even becomes something tamlin has to act on. they both are fulfilled in taking care of each other and the court without infringing on what the other needs to feel like a caretaker.

now contrast that with feyre—feyre who also lived in survival mode like iphigenia but by necessity became more like tamlin: a woman of action. in order for feyre to feel fulfilled, she needed to be the one to do things, to fix things, to provide for her and hers. but that was a zero sum game. in being the one to take action, she took that sense of purpose away from tamlin. who is he if he’s not in service? that’s what we’re seeing in his current arc in canon: a tamlin completely bereft of his purpose, of the sense of service that, through everything else, he could point to and say, look. at least i’m doing something. at least i can take care of things and not just rage against them. that’s why amarantha cursed him as she did, too—she made him functionally impotent knowing he always does and does and does. others had to act and sacrifice in his stead while he could only be passive.

ANYWAY lmao i think feyre takes iphigenia as lady of spring more as an interpersonal slight than any slight on her capacity to rule. it’s more like a what does she have that i didn’t; what does she do for him them that i couldn’t? sense of inferiority i think. especially because iphigenia would show up to any high lord meeting-esque functions effortlessly polished and well-spoken—largely because she’s petrified everyone knows that she was once beron’s bed slave. (while alive, beron lords telling everyone over her head to keep her small and afraid, but he’s too concerned with his image to let everyone across prythian know that he keeps whores and fucks around on his lady. at most he barbs it at tamgenia when no one else is around to hear or makes vague but highly disparaging comments about them at broader functions. once he’s dead, it’s just residual trauma that people can see it of her.) iphigenia also is night court racist courtesy of autumn upbringing + has a lot of resentment towards feysand for leaving tamlin to suffer as they did + experiences her own sense of inferiority to be so confronted with the cursebreaker, the female who saved all of prythian and first won her tamlin’s heart. so she’s uhhhh more than happy to fan the flames with a double-spoken quip lolol

[eatsbooks]

With the way Cassian dismissed her father's death I don't think much extra grace would have been given to Nesta for the dead sibling. If anything, they would say that Feyre lost that sibling too and on top of that had to go through all Nesta put her through.

oh yeah they would for sure be more sympathetic to feyre, even if they’re giving nesta grace. but my thought with this potentiality is that nesta would be forced into that caretaker role the ic criticizes her for not assuming — even by the time the toddler dies, there are still a good few years nesta is taking care of the baby + by extension elain and feyre. and since nesta and feyre fall into a coparenting role by necessity, i think feyre herself is much more fiercely protective of nesta than she is in canon. she watched firsthand how nesta sold herself to take care of the family their father wouldn’t. she watched the light go out in nesta’s eyes on the morning they woke to find their sibling’s cold, lifeless body. she no longer begrudges nesta for the years she didn’t help out as she does in canon — half the time, nesta couldn’t even get out of bed; half the time, nesta wasn’t even responsive. so feyre is not as critical of nesta because that all goes to their father instead now, and even if the ic tried to be upset with nesta on her behalf for not being there for feyre after the death, she’d shut that down so quick.

[eatsbooks]

If there were actually a toddler archeron when they all became poor, how do you think different characters would have changed?

Nesta's plan to push her father now involves starving a 2 year old which she absolutely would not want. They in general need more attention and care so someone would have to entertain them too, who do you think would do it most of the time? I also think Nesta would teach this child to read (or ask Papa to), do you think Feyre would have joined in to learn even just by hanging around? (And just how would the different characters treat that child in the series)

my god. i knew being the parentified eldest sister of four much younger siblings would pay off someday. i just didn’t expect it to be so soon

nesta — i think nesta is the one to take on the brunt of the mothering role for sure. in canon, there was some ability for her to rationalize feyre fending for the family — feyre was always more adventurous, more capable, (seemed like) more of a loner. feyre was young, but she did not depend on nesta the way a toddler would have no choice but to. so nesta, i think, kind of becomes almost a rosalie hale type character. she focuses entirely on the toddler, more than even her other sisters. she probably does her best to get coin however she can to provide for toddler!archeron and give them a normal life. definitely does her best to try to marry into a wealthy family. (if you want to get crunchy, i do think this — eventually, after exhausting other avenues — looks like her selling her body. not saying a word of it to anyone. cleaning herself completely and covering the bruises before she comes home. but they all know. there are few other ways for them to make money.) she is the one doing the feedings and the changings and the instructing and the etiquette, like her mother would have expected — but not like her mother would have implemented. and, naturally, i do think nesta resents this with a vicious, violent, burning anger down to her core. she would never take that out on toddler!archeron. again, she cannot be her mother. but oh baby. if she resented her father’s incompetence in canon, the addition of a toddler would make their relationship unrecoverable. there would be no undercurrents of please daddy take care of us, take care of me, don’t you love us enough to try? she would just absolutely fucking despise the man for his failings.

elain — with the addition of toddler!archeron, i don’t think elain and nesta are nearly as close as they are in canon. nesta’s protective drive probably encompasses only the baby. (rosalie core!) it’s all she would have the mental capacity for. so i could see elain filling that real stereotypical middle child role. not close to her older sister, who is busy bringing in coin and raising a baby; not close to her younger sister, who is busy bringing in food. lonelier by far than in canon. she is definitely the sister they try the hardest to marry off — herself still pretty and soft and lovely and unsullied, and best able to bring in a handsome dowry. or whatever a handsome dowry is in their town. she still fills the one of us must remain gentle and normal in this harsh world role. but she is probably forced to help with the cooking and also watching toddler!archeron while nesta is out. i could see her being the one to play and console toddler!archeron more than nesta or feyre. again, nesta just — she does not have the fucking capacity. she is stretched to her limit, always. she will never be mean to toddler!archeron, but sometimes the constant screaming and attention-seeking and dress-pulling and diaper-changing just gets to be too much. elain can always tell when nesta begins fraying around the edges. nesta’s eyes go a little too wide and her breath gets a little too quick and she looks at their father like she could crush his windpipe beneath her thumbs. so elain steps in then to help, and she lets the small, tearful half-frown of thanks nesta throws her before bustling off to their bedroom balm her soul.

feyre — toddler!archeron really challenges feyre’s characterization the most i’d say. in the books, she is always the most compassionate to papa archeron, having seen what happened to him firsthand. i think having a sibling this much younger around would completely change that. in canon, she saw her older sisters as capable of helping and just outright choosing not to. if only they helped, their survival would not all fall on her. but a toddler is not capable. a toddler cannot chop the wood or come hunting with her. a toddler would force young feyre to see how their father failed her and her siblings — especially with nesta now doing so much to care for the toddler, which unintentionally extends out to the rest of the family as well. there’s still that element of nesta and elain not really taking care of feyre directly, which she would lament, but i could see toddler!archeron bringing nesta and feyre together in a coparenting role. there would be more respect between them — in a heightened way elain brings them together in canon. and yes, i do think she hangs around for lessons! at a certain point, i think nesta even notices feyre doing this and begins to put two and two together. or snaps at feyre to stop hovering, then sees feyre blushing deeply and puts it together then. what’s fun is having toddler archeron around doesn’t change what she would do in canon though. she would still hunt the wolf for her family. she would still skin it — probably to keep the baby warm. she would still sacrifice herself to the fae to keep them safe, and she would probably feel better doing it knowing that nesta, at least, would be there to bring in coin.

bonus: rhysand probably tries to ingratiate himself with feyre by trying to care for the toddler. rosalie nesta would bite his head off. that’s her child sibling. get your filthy fae hands away from them.