#yes i know 'not all e/riels' and all that blah blah blah

[gwyns]

“The misogyny in this fandom is insane. I've never in my life seen such hatred and negativity thrown at a fictional woman in all my life until I saw the comments from eluciens / gwynriels on various platforms saying the most disgusting things about Elain Archeron. It genuinely makes me scared for how they view real life soft and feminine women. I'm appalled.”

I’m not going to deny that there is toxicity and negativity, but it’s not just one side. It’s both sides. It’s funny how E/riel’s cry misogyny and all this other stuff, but go back around and say vile stuff about Gwyn, and send r/pe threats to Gwynriel’s. “It genuinely makes me scared for how they view real life soft and feminine women” well it genuinely makes me scared for how E/riel’s view real life survivors of assault with the shit they say. I’ve noticed that some E/riel’s pick one thing that was said (maybe even from a while ago) and just run with it.

Most Gwynriel’s have been very supportive of Elain being more feminine and soft. There probably are a few idiots who have said awful things, I’m not denying that, but for the most part I’ve seen Gwynriel’s support Elain wanting to not be a warrior. It’s E/riel’s who keep making the fanart and theories of Elain in leathers and wielding Gwydion and being a spy.

I do agree that the misogyny in this fandom is insane. It’s ridiculous and gross. But E/riel’s only apply that misogyny when it comes to Elain. Not when it comes to Mor, Nesta, Gwyn, or even Feyre. It’s funny how some of them say Elain owes Lucien nothing, but argue that Mor owes Azriel an explanation/apology. It’s that selective feminism.

mhm, it's both sides. or rather, all sides these days. i'm sure many would include me in that toxicity because of my snarky remarks but meh, at least i don't send death or rape threats over fictional characters like a loser

e/riels like to try and rewrite history, yeah i've seen gwynriels be rude and weird too but never to the extent that e/riels take it. it's like these books, this fandom, this ship is all they have going on in their lives and if true, that's pretty sad. i'm not even trying to be mean, i know how important hobbies can be for your mental health and distracting you and being a safe space and all that but like... maybe take a walk? get some fresh air, yeah?

the worst i've personally seen about elain is that she's boring and useless, while i disagree heavily with that sentiment it also doesn't truly compare with calling gwyn "spoiled goods" or attacking real life survivors or wishing assault on people who are minding their business. like i'm sorry but the hate towards these characters, and by extension their fans, simply cannot compare. they're on entirely different levels and if people want to get upset over me saying this, oh well!!!!

VERY good last point anon. they're super selective and tbh they don't even care when it's about elain, not really. they just use that as an excuse to show how morally superior they are with their ship. they cry feminism but then turn around and hate mor for "leading az on" or wish death on nesta for... suffering from her mental health? some of them are genuinely such disgusting people. i hope they seek help because this shit isn't healthy

[acourtofthought]

Can't wait for Elucien's book (I hope it's next!!!), but I'm also preparing myself for a whole lot of "but e/riel was planned, she retconned it blah blah blah". I basically block any E/riels I come across because I'm just not interested in them or their ship, but I still see some crap from time to time (the art is pretty tho).

Like they really think Sarah will write not one, but TWO books (Elucien + Gwynriel) instead of writing ONE book she supposedly really wants to write (E/riel). Like Eluciens and Gwynriels broke into her house and are holding her hostage until she writes the books lmao

I agree, the art is beautiful and their vision of Elain is typically lovely.

But yeah, I know we can all predict their backlash if Elucien ends up as endgame (PLEASE let them be next, it's been so long coming for them and especially Lucien - end his suffering! 😭).

I don't know how anyone can claim she retconned E/riel if that happens considering Elain and Lucien were made mates in book 2. MATES. There is nothing so special as a well matched mating bond so how can two mates ending up together be a retcon?

For every E/riel relationship "hint" that popped up, SJM also provided us the mallet to knock that hint back into it's hole (sort of like a game of Whack-a-Mole.

Elain wears cobalt when she first meets Az? Cobalt is revealed to also be Graysens color.

Azriel took Elain out to the garden? Only after Lucien first suggested it and Feyre called down her orders to Rhys through the bond.

Azriel offered to take Elain to see how her seeds here coming in? Only after Feyre first offered to take her.

Feyre questions why Elain and Az aren't mates but then never speaks of Elain and Az as a thing again. And yes, Rhys says sometimes the bond picks poorly but why did the bond pick poorly for his parents? Because his father was cold and vicious while his mother was soft and fiery. Between Lucien and Az, who is more cold and vicious? Neither is a bad guy like Rhys's father of course but really, people are LYING to themselves in they aren't willing to admit Az is a lot more like Rhys's father than Lucien. And that means he would not be right for Elain who is soft and fiery like Rhys's mother.

Azriel figured out Elain was a Seer? Only because Feyre begged him for help and he winnowed away after her plea to search for answers. Not to mention Feyre knew that Elain foresaw the ravens coming before Az did, she just didn't know that made her a Seer. And Cassian was not the one to discover Nesta's true powers so clearly it's not a romantically coded thing.

Azriel lent Elain TT? Only after Cassian offered her a dagger then Mor begged him to sit out of battle. Had the female he loved not cried to him to stay safe, Az would not have had TT to offer Elain in the first place. And Elain only took it after Feyre's reassurance she wouldn't need it (not when Az first gave it to her). Also, SJM very pointedly told us that Elain returned it to him and "did not look back". It doesn't matter what Az offered because in the end, Elain did not want it.

Azriel might have gotten her a Solstice gift the second year but he was relieved not to have to get her one the first and looked at Mor with yearning while Elain was sitting right in the room with them 😬 What a disturbing romance right? Az drooling over Mor while the apparent "love of his life" is beside him?

And yes, Elain and Az nearly kissed but since when has that ever mattered in an endgame pairing? Feyre and Tamlin did way more. So did Nesta outside of Cassian.

Az also then told Elain she was a mistake and ended up feeling happier an hour later after spending time with another female.

So where exactly would SJM be retconning E/riel when for every positive interaction there is an equally negative one (when it comes to their ship)?

For every example of buildup she turned around and knocked them right back down to the ground.

[bookofmirth]

ok so this might come off as a bit rambly so please bear with me lol

i've noticed that the acotar fandom has this incessant need to be right when it comes to canon and it really sucks out the funness of fandom. shipping is supposed to be fun but when it comes to this fandom, it's almost like a competition to see who will be more right when the books come out. engaging with theories/predictions about characters and the plot is supposed to be exciting but when it comes to this fandom, some of the theories/predictions are problematic at worst and nonsensical at best. like how can you say with your full chest that you're so confident about where the series is heading in the future because of this or that theory when you're stuck in the past and refuse to see what all of the text is telling you in the present. it doesn't make sense. the selective reading is so strong that it has me looking sideways sometimes lol

i guess my question is why do you think the fandom is so divided when it comes to ships right now? i've seen people say this wasn't the case for feysand and nessian, so what's the difference here?

Oh boy Brielle, I have some thoughts on this. It's complex.

To be clear, I am not saying that this applies to literally every single person who ships a certain way. This is a commentary on the fandom as a whole, and there are always exceptions.

This got really, really long, so I'm putting it under the cut.

I think that one of the main draws of this series, and of sjm's writing in general, is her ships. I think that people get very, very attached to their ships.

I also think that sjm does NOT fully think through some of the choices that she makes when writing. See: the way that she takes from all these different cultures and mashes them together, which could be seen as disrespectful of their origin. She has retconned things, like Mor being queer and Lucien being Helion's son. I think that she thoroughly thinks about some of the aspects of her books, like Rhys's reaction to sleeping with Feyre for the first time, but then really half-asses other aspects of her books, like Mor coming out.

Then, we have your good old misogyny and homophobia - people in the fandom don't like Mor because she hurt the poor bat boy's feelings when she didn't sleep with him, and they don't have a mating bond, but she's never really told Azriel "no", and so every single moment of pain that Azriel has felt in 500 years is Morrigan's fault. And Mor's experience as a closeted queer woman who feels unsafe around the people she should trust the most is completely disregarded by the fandom.

Finally, I think that a combination of these factors has created the monster we know as e*riel, and that the fandom is perpetuating its own mythology.

What all of this comes down to, and the real reason I think that the fandom is behaving this way right now, is that e*riel is dead. It's never happened, it's not going to happen, but because we don't have the clear closure we got with moriel (where people would be accused of homophobia for continuing to ship it), people are still trying to figure out any possible way for e*riel to become canon, though every single sign points to it being a non-issue.

This weird thing where people have to be "right" all the time, and the way that "right" = "canon" is a relatively new development. It's as if everyone in this fandom forgot that they are in fact in a fandom, which inherently diverges from canon.

However, I think that the need to cling to canon is because the alternative would be to admit defeat and say "well, even if it doesn't happen I will still ship e*riel, it's fine, I will live with that." But they don't want to do that. In response, they look at canon so hard that they are reading the white space between the letters to create their theories, which as you noted as largely nonsensical and often fail to take into account who the characters are as individuals, how they are connected to other characters, and why it would or wouldn't be appropriate for them to be involved in various plots.

People could say, as eluciens having been saying since day one, "I really ship this thing but I can see that it might not become canon". But they don't say that. They literally refuse to see any other possibility than e*riel becoming canon.

You pointed out that people are stuck in the past - absolutely. The number of reimaginings I have seen of scenes where either Azriel or Elain has literally zero to do with the scene, but people try to shove one or both of them in there. And this from books ago. People are stuck on the Truthteller scene, and refuse to acknowledge that neither of them have acted on their feelings, whatever those might be, for years. And they ignore the fact that once Elain and Az do act, it goes horribly wrong.

Here are the facts as of right now:

ACOSF is the most recent book. In that book, sans extra chapter, those two had no interaction other than looking at one another.

If we include his POV, then he said it was wrong, we got confirmation that nothing has ever happened between them, she returned his necklace. Elain was aroused, but that does not mean she was ready to even have sex. "Yes" to a kiss is not "yes" to every single sexual act Az can think of. They parted on awkward, bad terms after a scene in which it seemed like they were about to start something. Yikes. Unlike Wings and Embers, they did not end that chapter still thinking of one another. After they part ways, the omniscient narrator does not mention Elain, or Az thinking about Elain, again.

His POV occurs months before the end of the book. They do not interact after that.

Elain has a mate she has not rejected, nor accepted.

So anyway, your question was why are people like this. lol. I think the fandom created a monster, and that monster is clinging to life. It can't accept the idea of morphing into a non-canon ship, though it never was canon in the first place. It had just convinced itself that it was.

There are other aspects to this, that have to do with gwynriel and elucien.

Gwynriel is a new ship, it's almost guaranteed to happen, people are super excited to ship it and give Gwyn all their love. I'm sure they would rather create content for that ship than argue about whether or not it's going to be canon, but they are in constant defense mode. Some people honestly didn't like e*riel before because they don't like Elain, or because they don't like Azriel, and those are valid reasons for not liking it. Why people ship gwynriel doesn't matter. The tone of the discussion is, unfortunately, being shaped elsewhere, which I will mention below.

Elucien is an old ship, older than e*riel. I can speak from this perspective - personally, I have been holding my tongue for 4.5 years. I have been letting people live, and just talking about the things I like. Then when acosf came out, it was like I could finally say all the things I had been thinking about Azriel, because I now had proof that the things I thought about his character (and because of that, about e*riel) now had solid canon foundation. This is 4.5 years of me holding in a lot of shit and finally being able to say it. Sometimes yes, I might take joy in having been right.

I think that a few people are clinging to canon, and that sets the tone for the discourse in the fandom. Someone says "according to page whatever, blah blah blah" and people feel the need to respond, and then it turns into and "I'm right" contest instead of... a fandom... A lot of us like debating. To me, it's fun. But when Person A starts a conversation that's about canon and it actually ignores canon, it's hard to let that conversation go by and just keep creating whatever we want to create. Instead, we respond, and so the tone of the conversation is shaped by what Person A decided to say.

I also think that there is a lack of distinction between theories (what will happen in the future) and meta (analysis of what we have now).

There is also a lack of "I" statements. Opinions are being stated as fact.

idk if there is a way to make it better, other than to just go back to ignoring one another. This whole situation makes me want to throw out every single canon ship I like and create exclusively non-canon content, just for spite. Except I really like doing meta, and so I don't want to. I guess for my point, I'll just keep doing meta, keep creating different content, and keep reminding people that they aren't here to continue perpetuating canon, but to play with it.