thefreakpanda

[thefreakpanda]

I’ve been having a lot of ACOTAR content on Tik Tok recently and everytime the subject of Nesta comes up I look at the comments (the best part of most social media pkatforms).

I have found that every time someone explains why they don’t like Nesta outside of the hunting business, they describe FEYRE.

Only cares about her own trauma ? Feyre. Nesta would always put hers to the side to help others. Or have you guys missed the part where she worked hard to help the priestesses. Or how she protected Elain. How she went to dining room of her own accord because Cassian had looked distraught and she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling for the whole day. Or how she panicked when she learned about Feyre’s pregnancy and asked if her sister was distraught. And how she agreed to scry after learning of it to give a better world to her nephew. Or how she threatened Tamlin in defense of Feyre. Or even that she detests Eris because of what he did to Mor, someone she has no reason to care about.

The same comment would then add that Nesta puts her friends/found family above her sisters… and if the previous argument didn’t scream Feyre enough, this is comes with neons. Feyre cares more about Cassian being with his mate rather than look at how rude he’s treated her sister often in front of her. She literally built a home keeping every member of the IC’s preferences in mind. A garden for Elain, a training ring for Cassian, a closet for Mor…There’s even a library for Amren who has her own apartment. Meanwhile, Nesta doesn’t even have a portrait there.

The Nesta hatred is so forced, I swear….

[thefreakpanda]

Nesta has flaws like everybody else. She’s cold, reactive, occasionally mean, proud as hell and resentful.

Fine, I’ll give you that.

There were times she could have been more grateful or nicer. Sure.

But saying she’s selfish? You’ll have to explain that one because she is one of the most selfless people in this series.

[thefreakpanda]

Feyre is definitely the reason why Nesta is still alive because she hunted to feed her family. Whoever denies that is an idiot.

BUT

Nesta is also the reason Feyre and Rhys are still alive, why Nyx is alive at all, because she was ready to sacrifice herself, not just her power to save them. I give it all back.

Nesta is the reason Cassian is still alive because she saved him twice during the war and saved him from Lanthys.

Nesta is the reason Gwyn and Emerie are still alive because she almost sacrificed herself to save them during the Rite.

Nesta is the reason Azriel and Bryce are still alive because she saved them from the Wyrm.

And yes, Nesta is the reason the Midgard was saved because she selflessly gave the Mask to Bryce despite where the two females left things off.

I am critical of Feyre but I do love her. And she absolutely deserves gratitude for a number of things. But don’t play about Nesta. A lot of people owe their life to my girl!

[thefreakpanda]

I saw this on Tiktok and tbh this is, by far, one of the best cases being made in favor of Elucien and Gwynriel. All props and credit to the creator, because she sure hit the nail on the head.

[thefreakpanda]

I’ve been working on a fantasy novel outline for a hot minute and Feyre and Rhysand particularly how they rule has been great villain inspiration.

What’s interesting is that they’re the villains who don’t even realize it. It’s a Thanos-type of situation.

They have good intentions but the way they proceed it wrong and so individualistic. It’s ‘my way or the high way’ with them. People need to agree not just with the end goal but with the plan to get there. They won’t listen to any other ideas and will work on the low until they have no other choice but to involve someone else in their plan. And even then, it will be through manipulation.

Someone is bound to call them out on it and I can’t wait to see who it is. I honestly feel like Emerie might instigate it!

[thefreakpanda]

I genuinely don’t know what Elain’s character is really supposed to be other than being constantly infantilised, talked and thought about like she’s stupid by everyone around her. And acting like a whispering lobotomised doll who only seems to be a love interest that can do traditionally feminine Tradwife things like baking and gardening.

I think (and hope) we’re going to be surprised by Elain’s character. I don’t fully trust her and I think she’s pretty selfish (not entirely her fault) but she manages to manipulate everyone with her doe eyes and pretty smiles.

A lot of the characters in ACOTAR and the Massiverse in general are teaching us not to trust appearances. We see it with Jurian who worked with Hybern but was actually a double agent of sorts. The Night Court had the reputation to be cruel and we saw their more caring side (despite their very evident faults and capacity for said cruelty). Nesta seems cold and unapproachable and she has a true heart of gold.

Now it’s mostly been people with a bad rep turning out to be good. I’d love to see someone everyone trusts and love turning out to be a traitor.

My theory is that Elain was Briallyn’s spy. That when she was captured by Hybern (maybe), she was promised to be turned human again if she worked with the queens, who probably lied to her and said they wouldn’t hurt her sisters… I think Elain can be pretty gullible and, just like Feyre, refuses to acknowledge things that don’t suit her.

Based in how coddled she is and how much of a plant she’s been so far, her character arc would only be interesting to me if something like a betrayal happens. If it turns out she’s seen as good AND is actually good with no flaws or anything, she remains boring until the end.

[thefreakpanda]

Cassian tries to tease Nesta (with cookies!) about not being Carythnian, and it’s all downhill from there. Some festering contentions are raised, a new turn on is discovered, and I think we can ALL agree that Rhys doesn’t always make the most strategic or wise moves 😬

(However, kidnapping Feyre on her wedding was equal parts strategic AND dramatic, so I’ll give him props for that!)

Things usually turn out well for him… but c’mon son! That idea with the orb and the human Queens was not wise in the slightest!

[thefreakpanda]

If Feyre and Rhysand had daughters how do you think they would be treated not just by their parents but by the rest of the IC?

My first thought was spoiled! These girls would be spoiled, for sure. Rhysand is big on expensive gifts after all.

But in terms if treatment, I feel like Rhys would pull the same tricks he does with Feyre. They’d be offered to train and do whatever they wanted, but when it comes down to it, he would still retain control over their lives.

I doubt they would ever set foot in the Hewn City or Illyria if their parents can help it. They’d be given some surface level authority when they get older without realizing who really pulls the strings. In a way, they’d be pretty coddled.

I also feel like there would be a difference in treatment between Nyx and his sister that would cause the two to have tension in their relationship. Feyre would end up recreating the same mistakes her parents made and pit her children against each other without realizing. Rhys would favor his daughter and put more pressure on his son.

As for the rest of the IC, they’d be protective of them but always follow Rhysand’s lead. I feel like they’d be the fun uncles and aunts.

Then there’s aunty Nesta who won’t hesitate to put their father in his place and they’ll love it when they become teenagers 😅

Overall I feel like their children would be loved immensely but not fully prepared for the real world, which would eventually create problems between parent and child in the future.

[thefreakpanda]

Is it just me when I go back and read the first few chapter’s of ACOTAR I can’t and don’t believe or trust anything Feyre says or thinks about her sisters in their supposed “cruel treatment” of her? Or that she was the only one who ever did anything in the cabin?

The more I look at Feyre, the more I see that she exhibits some pretty narcissistic traits. She either paints herself as the hero or the victim.

She can’t stand being told no. We see how she villainizes her own sister for her perfectly valid refusals.

She takes credit for things she didn’t do, like how she ‘left’ the Spring court… she was rescued. As a matter of fact, she constantly needs to be rescued.

She also changes the narrative like she did when she blamed Lucien for giving up on her. Lucien talked to Tamlin on multiple occasions and brought Feyre to a village where she saw with her own eyes that the villagers didn’t want her help and wanted her to rest.

She’s very forgetful when it doesn’t fit her narrative basically. She pretty much forgot how Nesta tried to cross the wall for her, or her promise to help her with her fear of baths, or her passion for dancing. When she was introduced to the members of the Court of Dreams, she looked at Mor and thought they could be friends. And she remembered how her sisters had sort of filled that role before UTM but when she talks about them, only the bad comes out. Especially her eldest sister who has been the most helpful member of her family despite the tension.

She won’t take responsibility for her own faults and sweeps it under the rug while she doesn’t hesitate to point the finger left and right at everyone. She will blame someone else when she is at fault or find excuses. She chose to hunt but it’s somehow Nesta’s fault. She put her sisters in danger and told Ianthe about them, brought the IC to their house and gave the floorplan of the house to the queens but it’s Tamlin’s fault that they were turned Fae. And she will punish an entire court instead of the people actually responsible. She let out Bryaxis and it ran away but has not attempted to find it. Rhys asked Azriel if he’d seen signs of the monster despite telling Feyre it was her job to find it and get it back to the library. At the end of the day, the task is like going to fall to someone else (likely Nesta, and heaven forbids she refuses…) because Feyre was busy painting and getting pregnant.

And finally, she’s extremely controlling. Her fight with Nesta that resulted in the ‘when you die, no one will remember you’ was because of it. Feyre tries to control everything her sisters do and throws a fit when things don’t go her way. She is incapable of minding her own business, or understand boundaries. She thought to ask Rhys to enter her sisters’ minds and force them to open their house. She thought of asking Isaac to cheat on his wife with her so she wouldn’t feel so lonely. She used Lucien to make Tamlin jealous, uncaring that she was ruining a friendship.

Feyre acts like the world revolves around her, and she is unfortunatly mated to someone who acts the same way.

She is too much of a narcissist to be trusted. The more you read the books, the more you realize it.

[thefreakpanda]

Isolating yourself is a bad coping mechanism, but it is not treating people like shit.

The Inner Circle made a mountain of something they created.

Can someone please explain to me how you can be mean to someone you refuse to be in the same room with?

Nesta didn’t owe them friendship. They owed her and Elain care after putting them in danger. The IC is more to blame for the sisters turning Fae than even Tamlin is.

Nesta not falling for their charms is why they’re mad at her. The problem is not Nesta but their over inflated egos.

[thefreakpanda]

Cruelty doesn’t include remorse. Just like there is difference between being nice and being kind, there is one between being cruel and being mean.

Nesta was occasionally mean to people and mostly because they pushed her. And if you look back, they had to put in a lot of effort to get a reaction out of her.

The worst of Nesta is chapter 2 of book 1, and readers don’t want to look at the whole picture and how Feyre wasn’t nice either. Unfortunately, people decided to stay stuck on that first impression.

I’d remind you that our first impression of Rhysand wasn’t great and everyone managed to look past it…

But not Nesta. She’s the scapegoat of the IC and that damned fandom.

[thefreakpanda]

No one can make me believe in Elriel and that’s even outside of any ship war. Even without Elucien and Gwynriel, Azriel and Elain as a pair makes no sense to me.

First of, Azriel is my favorite bat boy, so I’ll admit that I am partial to him and this may come off as an anti Elain post but it’s not. Elain makes me pretty indifferent. I have a few reservations about her and her behavior, but overall I just don’t really care.

I would be on the team to call Elain boring but I think it’s important to remember the context. First of all, because everyone has a very personal definition of what boring is. It’s all a matter of personal preference. Things that excite me bore others and vice versa.

For Elain, it’s more a matter of scenery to me.

Elain as my neighbor? Love her. Would admire her garden and ask for some of her recipes.

Elain as a character in a contemporary romance or even a rom-com? She’d be wonderful to read about and I have read some rom-coms with FMCs like her and loved them.

But Elain as a character in a fantasy series is boring. In a world where we have powerful FMCs who take up swords, lead armies, stand up against their enemies fearlessly, do I want to read about a gardener/cook/baker ? Absolutely not.

Even if she ends up creating a garden full of poisonous plants to kill her enemies, I’d still think she’s be better as a side character with very few scenes. A whole book of that is a no from me.

Now onto the whole Elriel thing, too many people like to justify it with the 3 brothers/ 3 sisters thing. Which is a terrible trope for so many reasons. It’s cliché to the point of being lazy writing. It’s giving children’s book from 18th century and I hate it.

If Elain’s romantic storyline ends up being with the 3rd brother because she’s the 3rd sister, I’m afraid she’s never beating the boring allegations…

Then we have their personalities, and that’s the biggest no for me. They don’t match in the slightest.

Their scenes together have been polite at best, awkward at worst. They mostly consist of Elain talking about her garden and Azriel listening quietly. He stays politely quiet.

And you know what the biggest plot point of Azriel’s arc is ? The fact that he never opens up. In ACOFAS, Rhys lamented the fact that no matter how hard he and Cassian tried, how much they beat him into it, Azriel never talked about his past/trauma…

He needs someone who will make him feel comfortable to share his feelings and thoughts. Someone who won’t be scared of his darkness. Elain is not that person. And this is where it’s going to start to look like an anti post. But Elain couldn’t even handle her own sister’s darkness and trauma, and you want me to believe she can handle Azriel ???

The girl who couldn’t even wear pants during battle because they were too revealing of her body? The girl who stopped Feyre talking about period because she deemed the conversation inappropriate ? The girl who complained about Nesta’s sex life by calling it ‘doing those other things’ (she can’t even say the word sex)?

We have Azriel who tortures people for a living. Who’s allegedly a freak in bed and has his fair share of lovers. Who leaves for days at a time for spying missions and likes to be alone (Elain is way too social for that). Azriel who is prone to violence and won’t even blink as he chokes a male with his knee.

And you want me to believe that Elain can love him, support him and understand him? That she can give him what he needs? No!

And Azriel cannot give her what she needs either. She needs to get out of the sweet-and-innocent mould and stop being coddled. Have you read ACOSF? Azriel coddles her as much as everyone else.

They are not compatible and even if SJM went the Elriel route, this is a pairing that makes no sense to me.

[thefreakpanda]

Actually, let me add some things for other characters.

‘But Rhys put a shield on Velaris so they couldn’t get out’ ? Then stop hating on Tamlin when he put a shield over his house keeping Feyre in.

‘But Rhys did that to protect his family’ ? And Tamlin did it to protect Feyre who was faaaar from able to protect herself at the time.

I don’t justify either, but some people need to be consistent.

And if you’re one of those people who defend Cassian by saying that he can’t stand up for Nesta because Rhys is his High Lord, y’all better leave my boy Lucien alone !

Lucien at least attempted to talk to Tamlin in favor of Feyre and he didn’t owe her thing! Whereas Nesta is Cassian’s MATE and he owes her his LIFE. She saved him, defended him, nearly sacrificed herself for him on more than one occasion on top of making his dream of a female warrior unit come true and changing her body for him. The least he can do is defend her.

If you truly find Nesta irredeemable because she was ALLEGEDLY ‘horrible’ to Feyre. (This was far from one-sided, but you all like to ignore that). Then I hope you hold Rhys and Cassian to the same standard for how horribly they treated Azriel because he couldn’t fly or because he refused to open up.

I hope you hate Cassian just as much as you hate Nesta for continuing his bullying and physical attacks on Rhys even after the latter offered him shelter.

I hope you hate him just as much for betraying Azriel by sleeping with Mor and continuing to play buffer for her for centuries knowing it was hurting Azriel’s feelings.

I hope you hate Amren for the amount of times she insults people. Especially if you hate Nesta for degrading Cassian ? Look back at the way Amren talks to and about him.

And if you hate Nesta for not doing anything to save her family (even though she was the first one who tried to save her family and she was just a child, like Feyre), I sure hope you hate the Inner Circle, who were all grown, powerful and capable people, for remaining safely in Velaris while their High Lord was a prisoner and a sex slave for Amarantha.

[thefreakpanda]

If you truly find Nesta irredeemable because she was ALLEGEDLY ‘horrible’ to Feyre. (This was far from one-sided, but you all like to ignore that). Then I hope you hold Rhys and Cassian to the same standard for how horribly they treated Azriel because he couldn’t fly or because he refused to open up.

I hope you hate Cassian just as much as you hate Nesta for continuing his bullying and physical attacks on Rhys even after the latter offered him shelter.

I hope you hate him just as much for betraying Azriel by sleeping with Mor and continuing to play buffer for her for centuries knowing it was hurting Azriel’s feelings.

I hope you hate Amren for the amount of times she insults people. Especially if you hate Nesta for degrading Cassian ? Look back at the way Amren talks to and about him.

And if you hate Nesta for not doing anything to save her family (even though she was the first one who tried to save her family and she was just a child, like Feyre), I sure hope you hate the Inner Circle, who were all grown, powerful and capable people, for remaining safely in Velaris while their High Lord was a prisoner and a sex slave for Amarantha.

[thefreakpanda]

[thefreakpanda]

I’ve been seeing a lot of Tik Toks online where creators ask people to tell them why they’re against gay marriage without using religion as an argument.

I’d like to do somehow similar in ACOTAR : tell me a good reason you think Elriel is endgame without using the 3 brothers/ 3 sisters thing.

Like what they have in common. Any way they challenge each other like all the other SJM ships do.

I’m a Gwynriel shipper to the core but even before reading ACOSF and being introduced to Gwyn, Elriel never crossed my mind. As a matter of fact, the ship gives me the ick…

[thefreakpanda]

It’s impossible to know what 500 gold marks would mean in our currency. Though a lot of people online like to make assumptions just to hate Nesta more.

But a reminder that in ACOFAS when Mor and Feyre are shopping for Solstice presents, the former talks about how wealthy the Night Court is and how they could fill a bathtub with sapphires and barely make a dent in their account.

And also, since Nesta frequented ´seedy taverns’, as the IC liked to say, I doubt the drinks and foods were that expensive.

I’ll make my own assumptions there and say there is no way buying people drinks and exotic foods at a cheap tavern is more expensive than a bathtub full of sapphires. Or the staff Feysand hired for their new palace. Or the decor Feyre travelled across the sea to get for her new house.

If we’re being logical, Nesta’s one wild night and rent are still less expensive than what I mentioned above

Do we have a frame of reference for how much 1 gold mark is? That is - is Nesta spending 500 of them in one night the equivalent of spending $500 in one go, or more?

Anyway, I ask because I'm pretty sure that due to material cost and labor alone, each one of Feyre's single-use tissue dresses dripping in diamonds costs way more than that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯