NESTA ARCHERON LOVEBOT

⠀side blog | alina. she/they. white. xviii. sapphic. anti sjm.

[kasamira]

Chapter by Chapter: 16 Alina’s Flight

We are Doomed

Baghra tells Alina to get the hell out of dodge the Little Palace

“Head west. At Os Kervo, find the Verloren. It’s a Kerch trader. Your passage has been paid.”

I took German in high school: Verloren means lost. If we want to get technical it’s past participle- We are lost. Of course it also has the happier definitions of: missing or doomed.

This is going to go well.

Keep reading

[kasamira]

I swear, after Alina left LP she was giving me headaches(well, more like LB did). All Darkling's bad and evil characteristics/deeds were conjured from thin air. No witnesses, no proof. Her stay at LP and people reacting to him tells us otherwise. Not even Baghra painted him like that. Why are assumptions presented as facts. Why does the author thinks that's enough? And why do I feel like I'm being gaslighted??

You’re preaching to the choir, Anon. 🙌 I truly do not know. And it really does pain me, because with a few small changes all of these things could have been resolved easily.

(This got long)

There are various times throughout the book when LB writes one thing, Alina says another thing happened, and then chapters later Alina says yet another thing happened. It’s like a slow creeping game of telephone that’s gets more and more different with each recitation.

It made me feel like I was remembering things wrong, I’d go back and realize, Alina was wrong, but it’s not treated like a statement from an unreliable narrator. It’s not addressed or broken down or used later for some form of catharsis. There’s never any pushback from the narrative.

Things that would have improved the story (with little effort):

Have Alina notice things are out of place at the LP, have her develop her sleuthing skills, just enough that she discovers things to later put together. This would support Baghra’s claims.

Have her find her letters in Genya’s room.

More scenes with the Apparat (because that feels like a dropped political plot line)

Another scene with the king where he tries to sway her away from Grisha/the Darkling.

Scenes with other Grisha outside of Marie and Nadia- the only Grisha Alina ever interacts with other than Genya. She needs to talk with them, see the lives they’ve lived, the things they’ve endured, the horrible things they’ve escaped from. Have her talk to the children, maybe ones from Kerch or Fjerda.

Alina needs to see the impact of the war on Grisha- have her see Grisha recovering from captivity in Shu Han in the infirmary. Just glimpses whole her ribs are healing. Enough for her to imagine another life and another fate she might have endured.

Issues with Catharsis (the plot twist sucks):

She already doesn’t trust the Darkling which lessens the effectiveness of the reveal. LB telegraphed the Darkling reveal from Day 1, so when the hot guy all in black called the Darkling ends up being the bad guy... gasp? I mean fucking duh.

So, when Alina’s all “you betrayed me!” I’m over here like... this was entirely expected and I don’t know why you’re so surprised.

Alina is never convinced, she never buys into it, and without that investment, the reader can’t invest either.

Baghra’s claims... are just ridiculous. And the only way they make sense is if you know the ending beforehand. That is bad writing. There’s no clues littered along the way, no evidence of some master plan of manipulation on the Darkling’s part. Alina just believes Baghra based on zero evidence.

In Alina’s position, who are you going to believe: the man who’s supported you every step of the way, saved your life, and you have a budding romance with?

Or, the woman who hits you all the time, never calls you by your name, insults you, drugs you, and never gives an ounce of encouragement or approval at any of your accomplishments? Who’s now screaming that the Darkling is going to lay waste to the world and have volcra eat everyone.

LB is nuts if she thinks I’m going to believe Baghra in this scenario.

It’s presented as a zero sum game: spend a short life running, or live as a slave.

But it’s a false dichotomy. These are not Alina’s only choices.

The solution is simple: Alina needs more information. She should have stayed at the Little Palace to gather evidence. Jump into a cat and mouse game that could have been absolutely hair raising with suspense.

If she had made her own choices, taken her agency and her position of power, the story would have been much more interesting. But instead, she allows everyone else to make choices for her.

And LB only encourages that, and punishes Alina when she does claw her way into some agency. You’re right, Anon, at a certain point it feels like she’s gaslighting the reader. Making me question my own reading of the story, and carrying on with this altered version of events that never happened.

[wtchliings]

something that has been bothering me for years now is the lack of interest in developing not only alina’s character but her powers as well.

sun summoners are not explored like other grishas are, the only exemple of their existence is alina herself which leaves us with a feeling of “okay, they are super rare” but why? during the whole “am i related to the darkling?” arc in r&r we got a bit close to an actual explanation only to it to be thrown away thanks to the blade guy plot twist (do not get me started into “mal is a morozova amplifier” bullshit)

so tell me, what are they exactly?

this answer is simple: just like there are legends about werewolves and vampires all over the planet, from civilizations who never even made contact, there are different versions of the sun summoner legend, one which is only known to the shu han: of dragonborn children who were taken by emperors to rule by their side; symbols of the gods to be worshipped.

ravka had whispers of this powers but the shu always had them.

[longsightmyth]

LB said in interviews that she got rid of Alina's powers because power corrupts, but I agree with you that her message didn't come across good. She was a mapmaker and hated it, she didn't have an ambition, friends (besides Mal who was drifting from her), etc until she got her powers. Then at the end she loses her powers and friends (cuz she faked her death) and that's the happy ending? She starts and ends powerless and with only Mal as company

It’s interesting that that was her aim, because she gave Nikolai an entire nation and doesn’t seem to show him being corrupted in any way but the literal physical corruption forced upon him by the Darkling. 

[wtchliings]

I’M GONNA COMMIT A H/TE CRIME. PEOPLE ARE GAY, STEVE.

[thesedoomdays]

I don't normally do this, but i'm, like, really obsessed over this and... Why not, huh? Here i go!

Why i think Materialkis are way more powerful than it was showed in the three Grishaverse books.

There i was, reading the second book from Grishaverse, Siege & Storm, when a thought hitted me. I got really curious... But Leigh Bardugo did nothing to clarify my doubts. Sometimes it looked like she was letting things there that seemed to prove what i was wondering. Other times... It felt like she was stepping back.

So, let's put things in the table before going ahead:

We have Grishas.

We know we have, normally, three types of Grishas. Let's just ignore Shadow Summoners, Sun Summoners, Tailors and Corpsewitches here in this one.

Leigh Bardugo taught us that Grishas aren't really something like witches. They just don't go around using magic. Actually, Grishas have a very specific kind of power. They manipulate matter:

"Everything in the world could be broken down into the same small parts. What looked like magic was really the Grisha manipulating matter at its most fundamental levels.

Marie didn't make fire. She summoned combustible elements in the air around us, and she still needed a flint to make the spark that would burn that fuel. Grisha steel wasn't endowed with magic, but by the skill of Fabrikators, who did not need heat or crude tools to manipulate metal."

— Shadow & Bone, chapter ten.

Now, keep this in mind but follow me ahead:

Etheralki manipulate natural elements.

Corporalki manipulate the human body.

Materialki are said during the the three books to manipulate matter composed of such things like metal, glass, chemicals, etc.

But even though that's what is said, there's somehing that doesn't fit. If Materialki can only control matter composed by those specific things — non organic matter and chemicals —, then how can David manipulate the horns of the Morozova's Stag? How can the Materialki in Sturmhond crew's manipulate the scales of the Sea Whip?

This left me confused. And wondering. If Materialki could manipulate scales and bones, then they could act like Corporalkis? what would stop a Materialki from manipulating bones? Could they only manipulate organic matter after being removed from its source — a tree, a stag, a sea monster —, the thing that, technically, keeps the cells alive? Could they only manipulate organic matter if it was dead? That could make sense, but it still had something that really bugs me.

And while i was wondering, we also are introduced to Ilya Morozova. AKA the Bonesmith. The Materialki's hero. Sankt Ilya of the Chains.

It's pointed that Ilya Morozova was a Fabrikator way above average. And the central point of his theory is about manipulating everything:

"One of the essential tenets of Grisha theory was "like calls to like," but Morozova seemed to believe that if the world could be broken down to the same small parts, each Grisha should be able to manipulate them. Are we not all things? he demanded, underlining the words for emphasis."

— Ruin & Rising, chapter four.

But in Ruin & Rising, we also have Baghra, his daughter, talking about their life during her childhood. Where she explicitly says he was a craftsman and a healer. So... We have a Materialki manipulating organic matter that wasn't dead, or removed from a source. He was manipulating bones, skin, blood. The human body. Doesn't it sounds like a Corporalki? (also, why Corporalkis can only manipulate the human body and not other animal's body? Weird.)

Ilya Morozova healed the shattered body of his younger daughter before using merzost to bring she back to life. And, of course, we can say it was because he was super powerful and mega special — He created the amplificators, right? Extraordinary dude —. But then... David and the Materialki in Sturmhond crew's were there, manipulating organic matter like it was natural. Baghra said her father was a healer like it was natural. Darkling made David travel with him because he was the most powerful Fabrikator in the Second Army. He knew David could manipulate the bones, organic matter, in the most perfect way.

Again, what would stop Materialkis from simply manipulating the bones of the people around them?

Then i remembered something. In Siege & Storm, Alina decides that Fabrikators should have military training instead of just producing for the Second Army. Darkling didn't do that. He is something like 200 years old. Or more, we can't be sure. Older than The Unsea. And Baghra said that before the Grishas didn't distinguished between Etheralki, Corporalki, Materialki, Healers, Infernis, Alkemis, whatever. They didn't have the Second Army. They didn't have Orders. And yet, somehow, Materialkis endend up without military training. Somehow, Materialki ended being looked as less powerful, less worthy. Someone made that choice. Someone who built the Second Army.

I believe the Darkling deliberately made the choice to to put away Fabrikators from the fighting scenery. He inserted them in workshops, where they would focus on production instead of fighting. He lived in the time where Grishas didn't felt in categorys. He was Ilya Morozova's grandson, and was obsessed over the work — the work of a Fabrikator who's naturally seem as a Healer too — he left behind, after all.

He must have known what a Materialki could do. He must have known their potential. So, why he didn't use that goddamn potential in his army? Was he afraid to see Fabrikators that were military trained and seen as valuable soldiers, manipulating the human body? He must have thought they were too strong. They controled too many things. Organic and inorganic matter. Basically everything that Corporalki do, but more. Better. Maybe even turning some Etheralki useless too.

Following this, Materialki could, theoretically, manipulate chemicals like the ones Etheralki could. Or manipulate organic matter like a Corporalki could. And then become even better than these two Grishas types. Etheralkis can't play with poison, and Corporalkis can't mess with other organic matter besides the one in the human body. They need to have, of course, strength to do it. But just like it takes strength to Harshaw, or Adrik, or other Summoners, to use their power. Just like it takes from Tamar and Tolya. They just need to be trained.

"We say like calls to like, girl. But if the science is small enough, then we are like all things."

— Ruin & Rising, chapter seven.

Matter.

This is what Grishas manipulate.

In its most fundamental way.

From the latin, materia.

Materia-lki.

[cinaja]

I really hope the way I discuss the way Jurian killed Clythia doesn’t come across as me endorsing what he did, because I obviously don’t. It’s just that considering what other characters canonically do and by comparison, Jurian’s actions are nowhere near as bad? And especially considering how much shit Jurian gets in canon for it while characters who do things that are 100x worse never get called out, I really wanted to emphasize the “what he did was far less horrible than what other characters do and calling out a human for murdering a person who owns his people as slaves while excusing Fae who are serial torturers is Bad” more than the “but of course what Jurian did was still wrong” part.

[cinaja]

Oh, and I maintain the opinion that Jurian was 100% right to kill Clythia because she was a sadistic enemy commander fighting a war to keep owning slaves. What was wrong about what he did was the way he killed her, but like I said, that’s a much smaller issue compared to the shit many other characters do.

[cinaja]

In other news, I will make this idea that Jurian was the one who crossed all the moral lines highly ironic in Before the Wall

[cinaja]

@flowerflamestars YES!!! That’s exactly it!! Everything about Jurian’s story is so tragic and I will forever be satly that he isn’t written as an undoubtedly good guy who fought for the right thing and cracked under the pressure of war (which is, in other words, exactly how I’m writing him).

I also REALLY hate how he gets written as the one who Went To Far in fighting for his cause (which he absolutely did not), and the entire story is set up tp contrast him with Miryam who is presented as having done the opposite and being the one who was more fine with Fae of smth (which makes no sense whatsoever bc SHE was the former slave from the Worst Country Ever). Anyways, I really, really hate that subtext in the story and I’m completely DESTROYING it by writing Miryam as, if anything, MORE ruthless than Jurian and having her to smth that’s 100x more questinable than him torturing Clythia because fuck the idea that a former slave would have to be forgiving towards the people who enslaved her or whatever stupid narrative canon has going there.

[mana4anam-deactivated20221204]

you gonna bac up your claim that cisgender straight people who lack sexual attraction have always been queer? or is speaking out your ass all you can do

Sure! Let's go! I'm always up to stretch both my lgbt history muscles. Sorry if it took awhile but I am passionate about this stuff and wanted to do some good writing and find some really great sources for you! 😊

In 1869 a humanitarian and journalist named Karl-Maria Kertbeny published pamphlets to oppose the sodomy law in Prussia. In these pamphlet he is widely regarded as beginning the terms "homosexual" and "heterosexual" in the academic mainstream; though, it is likely these were lgbt terms used long before that time. In this same pamphlet advocating explicitly for gay rights, Kertbeny refers to those who engage only in masturbation and not in sex with others as seperate from straight people, coining an entirely different term: "monosexual." Now, this term is outdated and widely used the m-spec sub community to refer to straight, gay, and lesbian folks lacking multi-gender attraction, but he states very explicitly in all his work that this term is meant to refer to people we would now understand to be asexual.

A little later, in the 1890's we have sexologist, founder of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, and an openly gay man himself, Magnus Hirschfeld. He published his work "Sappho and Sokrates": a pamphlet he wrote with the task of explaining the lgbt community to straight people. He makes multiple references to and defences of what he called "anesthesia sexuals." Again, an outdated term, but as you can see, both gay advocates and straight allies referenced us as being part of the community like it was nothing.

Meanwhile, we have the lovely Emma Trosse, an academic peer to Hirschfeld. She discussed gay rights—especially the rights of lesbians and non-binary people—very openly and wrote multiple papers on the subject. But at her heart, Trosse was a researcher, and so her most famous work, naturally, was an indepth study of what she referred to as "counter-sexualities" as stand in for what we now know as the broader lgbt community. In this work she coins the phrase Asensuality, stating "the author has the courage to admit to this category" officially coming out in her own study! Damn lady! We love her. The Schwules Museum (literally the Gay Museum), a famous German LGBTQ+ museum dedicated to collections focusing on the history of lgbt research, features her work prominently. She also holds the distinction of having been banned as a "degenerate" author in Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, and Russia for that very work. On top of that, she was the first woman on record to have a treatise in defense of lgbt people and our community published in 1895, even before her colleague Hirschfeld had his first works published.

As you can see 19th century Germany was a hub of lgbt theory, research, and activism still studied by lgbt historians today. It is widely credited as being a period of time that brought our history into print and the mainstream. And ace people, as I noted before, have been involved both in mention and in activism from the beginning according to both prominent allies, gay folks, and ace folks who were scholars during this period.

But, now lets move over with a bigger hop to the sexual revolution in America; which mirrored the German one in many ways! This is the period of time a lot of people, especially americans, think of as the start of our mainstream history—which as you can see a very americancentric idea, but I digress. Even here we have asexuals represented among the community by diverse members of the community.

You've probably heard of the Asexual Manifesto, written by Lisa Orlando and published by the New York Radical Feminists. A very important document to ace-spec people, it defines us as a sexuality seperate and distinct from straight; but you aren't interested in what we have to say about ourselves and our experiences so lets move on to other lgbt people validating us.

Kinsey—himself an m-spec or multisexual person—recognized us in his research, which he picked up from at the point our lovely Hirschfeld left off, basically. This was later expanded on by Michael D Storm, author of Theories of Sexual Orientation. He reimagined the Kinsey Scale as a two dimensional map, which became the beginnings of the modern Kinsey Scale used in the lgbt community today. He posited it was better able to distinguish asexuals from m-spec people as it defined them less based on sexual preferences, or lack their of, based in gender (which would put both sexualities squarely in the centre of the 1D scale), and more on their self described experiences of attraction. So that's right, you read correctly; the latest rendition of the Kinsey Scale was created in response to a piece that was published after Kinsey's original studies specifically to better include asexuals who were already featured in the study and scale.

Then we move to the "The Sexually Oppressed." Published in 1977, it was a book that did exactly what it set out to do: describe people who were oppressed by heteronormative society and their struggles. It was published by social worker, Harvey L. Gochros and featured the work of Myra T. Johnson in a piece describing the way in which mainstream culture affected asexual women specifically, and how straight feminists often shamed and gatekept them from liberating movements, while straight men continued to be an omnipresent threat via corrective assault and forced institutionalization. It was actually a text book in my college, very good read—goes into the ableism present in sexual oppression as well. I highly recommend it.

Also, just as a bonus, I've included an extra link below to "On the Racialization of Asexuality" by Ianna Hawkins Owen. She goes into depths about how the allosexual vs asexual discourse we see starting in America in the 70's—which has turned into the modern global "ace discourse" of today—started with nationalist discussions that have their roots in white supremacy, the white construction of binary womanhood, and chattel slavery. An offering from my university days.

Anyways, I hope you and any other lovely readers who come across this enjoy and educate yourselves a bit. Knowledge is power!

P.S. I could not find "The Sexually Oppressed" available online for some reason (but mind you, I am very bad at computers) so I linked a website that should show you the nearest library in your area that carries it. It's a very popular social work read.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/03/asexuality-history-internet-identity-queer-archive.html

http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~pbarfuss/Asexual-Manifesto-Lisa-Orlando.pdf

https://books.google.ca/books?id=XbgTAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT113&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.ca/books?id=IH2GCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA122&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://www.worldcat.org/title/sexually-oppressed/oclc/925168401&referer=brief_results

[sunsummoner]

like maybe i’m just a toxic person but i think feyre nesta and elain having a screaming match would have added more to the book in terms of a sister relationship than that twilight baby plot ever did

[sunsummoner]

like look me in the eyes and TELL ME nesta elain and feyre yelling about how they failed each other or whatever wouldnt have been a more satisfying resolution over elain being passive aggressive and feyre and nesta not caring about each other for 699 pages then having magic baby solution, i will simply tell u ur wrong

[croissantcitysucks]

this got me thinking abt how nesta's arc in this book (no i will not call it a healing arc, fuck that) is SO centred around the men the narrative seems to think she's wronged. like? all of her problems are either family-related or war-related but it all gets pushed to the side in this book, and for what?

i could accept her father being important in her arc, bc he obviously falls under the banner of family problems, but s//jm not having nesta have those conversations with her sisters (or even deal with her mom problems) speaks SO LOUDLY here. but apparently there's plenty of time for the narrative to go on abt how cassian is sm better than her & she doesn't deserve him & etc etc. even her relationship with RHYS gets more actual closure than her relationship with her sisters, and once again it's her making some grand gesture to make up to rhys for whatever bad thing the narrative thinks she did to him.

but fuck complex relationships between women though!!! fuck nesta's healing bc that would require her to spend more time with her sisters & other women and this book is too busy making her grovel for men & shoving her into a shitty relationship with the guy who called her unlovable & never really apologized for it!

[avidhater]

you know who i wish i could be rn? sarah j maas. she's an adult woman writing whatever the fuck she wants and earning good money from it. like at this point she's literally just writing fanfiction about her own characters and the stans are eating it up, no matter how bad it is objectively. god i wish that were me

[wtchliings]

editor: so whats feyres last name

sarah:

sarah: her what

editor: you know, her last name????

sarah:

sarah: it’s ..... well she... archery?

editor: ? do you mean archeron?

sarah:

sarah: YES—! YES THATS WHAT I SAID.

[scarlet--wiccan]

do you know of any good twitter threads explaining the racism of Wandavision? (I doubt most people'll take it seriously if I link them a Tumblr post hhh)

Well, I just found this thread, although it’s mostly links to other tweets/other sites. It might be a useful place to start. These articles [x][x] are also a good conversation starter, although neither of them go very deep into the issue of Romani visibility in popular culture.

I’m not active on Twitter-- i have the app but only because it’s the easiest way for me to follow Romani activists and advocacy groups / stay connected to Euro news in America. If you, or anyone else reading this, is on Twitter, you’re welcome to quote my posts, screencap them, make a thread out of it, whatever so long as you cite and link my blog. I think my writing speaks for itself, and I kind of resent the idea that people wouldn’t take it seriously just because it isn’t formatted in a series of bite sized posts. @katebishps made this great directory for which does include a lot of my posts, but other people’s as well. Link that stuff, quote it, go wild. Boost our voices.

I’ve regretted not having an active Twitter presence these last few weeks, as I know it would have given me a much wider reach than Tumblr, but I also work full time and I’m already burnt out just from running this blog. Between research and writing, fielding harassment and hatespeech in my inbox, and trying to open dialogues with various industry people and celebrities, I’m, uh, tired, which is why I haven’t answered anything in close to a week. Sorry about that.

[alectology-archive]

So in ACOTAR it mentions that in the winter court 2 dozen kids are dead and their minds were “shattered.” But Amarantha doesn’t shatter minds herself, she always has Rhysand do it for her... so did Rhysand kill 24 kids?!?!?!?!

yeah, that’s the implication. 

[wtchliings]

pls

[alectology-archive]

Sjm owes every lesbian and sapphic person $1000. No, I will not elaborate!!

[orchid-child]

If y'all need me, I'll be in my room, in the dark, yearning melodramatically

[inthemidstofbuddie]

how. heh. how much you wanna bet sj///m saw the S&B trailer and is now fuming. if her new agent holds the rights, i’d say it won’t be long before they’re sold 😏

[croissantcitysucks]

it is very interesting and very annoying how in ac0sf, s//jm makes nesta’s Thing dancing. bryce’s Thing in c/city was also dancing. another point in the “s//jm is so unoriginal her series are slowly losing their individual features and becoming more and more similar over time” column.