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Azriel and Elain - A Court of Thorns and Roses

Artist: @/mabon_art / @mabonart

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Canon Gwyn having chestnut hair and the Gw*nriels claiming TSwift is using orange as some kind of Gw*nriel symbolism because of Gwyn's hair is somehow just so symbolic of the whole issue of Gw*nriel

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original post

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What do you mean? I've been dying for a scene where Azriel spots Elain and wants to turn the other way, but it's too late so he spends the next few minutes avoiding her questions. It's soo romantic.

I'd KILL for a scene where Lucien goes into the other room and stares at boiling water instead of talking to Elain. Ugh the romantic tension.

The fact that there isn't one GA/EL scene that I'm envious of or wish for Elriel while there's multiple Elriel scenes that GA/EL wish they had...

Says everything.

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lol it's so fkin funny to me how antis can't stand the existence of Elriel content. like at all.

lovely art? leave nasty comments and report it (sometimes even organized reporting! who tf has time to even do that!)

fanfic or theories? post snarky comments about how unrealistic it is, and how people who believe the theories are uneducated and stupid

like???????? why is it so hard to just keep scrolling. i have never once left a negative comment (or any comment, really) on any GA or EL content.

it's extremely telling that they spend so much time and energy going out of their way to bully and belittle those of us who love Elriel. if you were actually confident in your ship you wouldn't feel the need to do that. Elriel content angers them because it's the most realistic. many of the scenes they see in our beautiful fanart are real scenes they read in the books and they hateee it. deep down they know it's coming, but instead of acknowledging that, they lash out instead. they hate the fact that we have so much actual canon content, and they have like...a paragraph and vibes.

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You know, I’m pretty over this fandom and have episodic MIA moments bc it’s tiresome and we get no new info. We’re left rehashing the same shit repetitively for years. It’s pointless. If I have a new idea or thought, I’ll post and catch up on here, but I’m honestly just tired and annoyed.

That being said, you know what I’m not doing? Spending my limited free time trying to debunk the other ship. I see so few posts actually offering ideas and potential plot lines. Very few to no posts about what the book would actually be about.

Are you guys not so f-ing tired of this?

But you know what I see? “Why ______ argument about Elriel isn’t valid.” “Why Elriel are just lust and nothing more.” “Why the 50+ Elriel scenes mean nothing.” Are you guys not tired? It doesn’t give security and confidence in your ship to be in anons arguing about your perception of the invalidity of one ship without any insight on what the hell your beloved ship will even be doing. What the story will be about. How it will serve the overarching plot.

Come into my anons with that instead of more shit from the bonus chapter. Or if it is about the bonus chapter, tell me what you think of the other bonus from ACOSF. Tell me what you think about the odyssey parallels. Don’t just troll. Give me your real thoughts. On the books. Not lives with Steph from 2021.

Stop wasting time just trying to debunk another ship so yours can sail. Give me ideas and thoughts. If you’re trying to convince me and other Elriels, give us your thoughts and ideas. Give us your theories.

Tell me, what do you think your book will be about? Why do you think Azriel loaned truth teller to Elain? Why do you think Elain got Az a gift 2 years in a row and not Lucien. Come into my anons with ideas. Do you think these scenes are insignificant? The people want to know.

I’m again asking:

1. Why is Azriel unaware of the mating bond? Why didn’t he react like Cassian did to Nesta being taken into the BR?

2. Why is Azriel still fantasizing about another woman when he’s around his alleged mate every date and she’s a few floors down?

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As someone who has literally never been surprised by SJM's endgame couples, I still cannot get over that there's a ship war at all

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The absolute nail in the coffin for Eluciens and subsequently Gwynriels is Azriel willingly giving Elain truth-teller.

You cannot downplay how monumental that was. You’re telling me Azriel, who has never offered ANYONE in his inner circle TT ESPECIALLY Mor—someone he has loved for 500 years and is actually trained to use weaponry but he gives it to a 22 year old recently turned fae woman whose he’s known for barely a few months and she has never known to use a weapon in her life???

Like c’mon!!! That’s his endgame lady right there!! She stepped out of a damn shadow for Pete’s sake! It’s really not that hard 🤦🏽‍♀️

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He could've said:

If you want to see the garden, it's that way

He could've said:

Feyre will show you the garden

He could've said:

Do you want to see the garden?

He could've said:

There is a small garden in the townhouse. You can take a look if you get bored.

Instead, he said:

Would you like me to show you the garden?

He didn't pawn her off to someone else. He didn't drop her off in the foyer for Feyre to deal with.

No. As if knowing that she'd say yes to him, he said 'would you like me to show you the garden?' and she agreed, as he predicted.

But what's more, he didn't just walk her there. He didn't leave her. He stayed. He was already dressed for CoN. He knew that there would be a lot to do once they got there, and that he'd be on a mission.

But what he wanted to do, was to take his girl to the garden and sit with her in peace and quiet. Of all the things that he had to do, the one thing he chose was to stay with Elain in the garden. No shadows. No masks. No words. Just him and her, together.

He showed her his wings, unable to stop the instinctual desire to show off his most prized feature to a female that he found desirable.

And looming above it all, above them, above the scene, was the one question: WHY NOT MAKE THEM MATES?

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Wanna know something that doesn’t get talked about enough??

The fact that Azriel can smell the Elucien bond. He knows there’s something up with that stinky shit.

Why can he smell it? Fae can’t smell bonds unless they are accepted. He didn’t smell Feysand’s bond.

My theory is it’s because he has a true mate bond with Elain and 1. The Elucien bond is fake. 2. Smelling another bond on his mate be doing psychological damage on his olfactory system.

Even if that wasn’t the case, the fact he can smell it is weird and needs an explanation.

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Elain every time Lucien appears

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so my best friend has been doing a reread of ACOWAR over the last week and it has been… incredibly validating to listen to, i can’t lie.

she is, by definition, a normie. she sees some tiktoks, but that’s about all the interaction with the fandom she gets. she’s not diving deep into theories, she just enjoys the books as they are. she loves feysand, she loves nessian, and her favorite character is nesta. she doesn’t have any strong opinions about elain except that she hasn’t done much so far.

the amount of times she’s sent me a voice memo over the last few days talking about how obvious the elriel foreshadowing is, how elain and lucien clearly don’t work and have no romance to be seen, and that it’s very obvious SJM is setting up a rejected mating bond, and all this just from this one single book? like i said, very validating.

her exact words: “anyone that thinks it’s going to be anything but elain and azriel together either don’t understand storytelling or are trolling.” (ngl this had me cackling cause i’ve said this myself so many damn times)

there’s a reason GAs and ELs insist that the previous four books don’t matter and only ACOSF (and half the time, only the BC) matters moving forward.

they know what’s been set up in the books, and they know none of it supports their ship. it’s also why they ignore half the BC or use it to mischaracterize azriel and elain, because even the bonus chapter doesn’t really support them.

normal readers know this. elriels know this. it’s only GAs and ELs insisting otherwise, and that’s only because they fucking hate elain, or they’re so obsessed with their redhead of choice that they can’t see what SJM has very clearly laid out for us.

anyways, it’s always fun seeing a normal person’s take on elriel after being entrenched in this god forsaken fandom for so long

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I know this has been said before and has been, of course, roundly ignored by the people who actually need to hear it, but...if Lucien actually cared about Elain, about getting to know her, being her mate and someone she chose, he very easily could have found someplace to live in Velaris. He could have very easily spent his time not forcing interactions with her but simply existing in her vicinity, letting her see who he was, letting her get to know him at her own pace.

Instead, he's living with another woman, tolerating a man who made rape jokes about his mate, and doing so in the estate once owned by the man who broke his mate's heart.

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‘Azriel scowled. "I think Lucien will never be good enough for her, and she has no interest in him, anyway”’

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The timeline has always been pretty clear, so i don't know why that side is acting surprised right now.

Sjm has only addressed Elain and Lucien 3 times (2 in 2016) and one time in 2017.

The last one was during a Q&A during the Tower of Dawn Tour and giving how Acofas/Acosf turned out, i think we all have the answer for the question it was posed :

INTERVIEWER: So the next question is from Abigail, and says: Will Elain accept the mating bond with Lucien? And congrats on your announcement!

SJM: (people cheering) Aw, thank you! So if you guys don't know what we're talking about... I'm preggers. (Laughter and cheers) --talks about it some more before coming back to topic--

You... might get an answer to Elain's fate in the upcoming spin off books. I'm not gonna tell you when. Once you read ACOFAS, you may get a sense of the timeline and layout and things, but I've been planning and thinking... I know everyone's fate and (hesitates and laughs) romantic situation.

Interviewer: Not ominous, at all.

SJM: (literally cackles maniacally) Jusf - I have so many secrets I'm keeping from you guys!

Charlie Bowater: How do not let anything slip?

SJM: I live in constant terror of just accidentally being like, "oh and by the way these people are mates. Surprise!" I have no self-restraint in any regards except trying to keep secrets. (...)

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“Why don’t you ship Elucien?”

Because this is literally them:

“Elain, at least, would be too polite to send Lucien away when he wanted to help. She was too polite to send him away on a normal day. She just ignored him or barely spoke to him until he got the hint and left. As far as I knew, he hadn’t come within touching distance since the aftermath of that final battle. No, she tended to her gardens here, silently mourning her lost human life. Mourning Graysen.How Lucien withstood it, I didn’t know. Not that he’d shown any interest in bridging that gap between them.”

“You’re welcome to stay for the night,” I said, since Elain certainly wasn’t going to.Lucien lowered his hands into his lap and leaned back in the armchair. “Thank you, but I have other plans.”I prayed he didn’t catch the slightly relieved glimmer on Elain’s face.”

“You couldn’t say a single word to him? A pleasant greeting?” Elain only stared at the steaming kettle as she set it on the stone counter. “He brought you a present.”Those doe-brown eyes turned toward me. Sharper than I’d ever seen them. “And that entitles him to my time, my affections?”“No.” I blinked. “But he is a good male.” Despite our harsh words. Despite this Band of Exiles bullshit. “He cares for you.” “He doesn’t know me.” “You don’t give him the chance to even try to do so.”Her mouth tightened, the only sign of anger in her graceful countenance. “I don’t want a mate. I don’t want a male.”

“Just because Lucien was her mate didn’t mean he had a claim on her time. Her affection. She was her own person, capable of making her own choices. Assessing her own needs.”

“Stay out of it. She’s not ready, and neither is he, no matter how many presents he brings.” “Let him live with his Band of Exiles. Let him deal with Tamlin in his own way. Let him figure out where he wants to be. Who he wants to be. The same goes with her.”

“I handed Elain the small box with her name on it. Her smile faded as she opened it.“Enchanted gloves,” she read from the card. “That won’t tear or become too sweaty while gardening.”She set aside the box without looking at it for longer than a moment. And I wondered if she preferred to have torn and sweaty hands, if the dirt and cuts were proof of her labor. Her joy.”

“I want to see her. Just once. Just—to know.” “To know what?”“If she is worth fighting for.”

“But there she was. His mate. She was nothing like Jesminda. Jesminda had been all laughter and mischief, too wild and free to be contained by the country life that she’d been born into. She had teased him, taunted him—seduced him so thoroughly that he hadn’t wanted anything but her. Elain had been … thrown at him.”

“When I sleep,” she murmured, “I can hear your heart beating through the stone.” She angled her head, as if the city view held some answer. “Can you hear mine?” He wasn’t sure if she truly meant to address him, but he said, “No, lady. I cannot.”Her too-thin shoulders seemed to curve inward. “No one ever does. No one ever looked—not really.” A bramble of words.”

“Why not make them mates?” I mused. “Why Lucien?” “I’d keep that question from Lucien.”

“So it can’t be a perfect system of matching. What if”—I jerked my chin toward the window, to my sister and the shadowsinger in the garden—“that is what she needs? Is there no free will? What if Lucien wishes the union but she doesn’t?”---“A mating bond can be rejected,” Rhys said mildly.."

“There is choice. And sometimes, yes—the bond picks poorly. Sometimes, the bond is nothing more than some … preordained guesswork at who will provide the strongest offspring. At its basest level, it’s perhaps only that. Some natural function, not an indication of true, paired souls.”“Even so,” Rhys went on, “there will always be a … tug. For the females, it is usually easier to ignore, but the males … It can drive them mad. It is their burden to fight through, but some believe they are entitled to the female. Even after the bond is rejected, they see her as belonging to them.”

“See what he can do. If anyone can sense if something is amiss, it’s a mate.”

“Lucien murmured to me, eye still fixed on Elain, ‘Should we—does she need …?’ ‘She doesn’t need anything,’ Azriel answered without so much as looking at Lucien.”

“Lucien just stared and stared at my sister, as if he’d never seen her before.”

“He and Lucien did not exchange gifts, though the male had brought a gift for Feyre and one for his mate, who barely thanked him after opening the pearl earrings.”

“Elain only shrank further into herself, no trace of that newfound boldness to be seen.”

“Lucien can’t be entirely trusted anymore.” “Even with Elain here, he’s become close with Jurian and Vassa. He’s voluntarily living with them these days, and not just as an emissary. As their friend.”

“Why are you here?” Cassian asked, unable to help the sharpness. “Where’s Elain?” “I am not always in this city to see my mate.” The last two words dripped with discomfort.”

Do I need to say more?