wingsdippedingold

[wingsdippedingold]

I don't know if it's just me but I really don't get the fascination and why people simp so hard for Azriel. At best he feels like an incel and at worst he seems a more than willing enabler of Rhysand and Cassian abuse of Fayre and Nesta. And when it comes to how he treats Elain, he only views her as a mere sex object, not an actual person with her own wants and needs. But then again neither does the author writing her.

imo it’s because he’s pretty blank, he has bad buy vibes and is more redeemable than the other bat bros; we also know the least about him. He’s probably the easiest to insert whatever traits you want onto and he’s also not yet coupled up with someone in the series

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Every day I remain in this fandom the concept of leaving becomes more and more appealing, for the salveging of my mental health alone.

I also hope you are doing good and are having a good day 🩷

me too 😭

I stopped posting on tumblr cause it go so draining but it’s still all over my tik tok

My days off to an odd start but thank you! I hope you’re doing well as well! 😋

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SJM could be an intelligent author and use literary devices beautifully, BUT that does not mean that she doesn’t have a glaring POC and LGBTQ blindspot despite regularly including characters of those identities into her stories.

Being able to craft a great narrative and write complex characters and having personal ignorance or biases are not mutually exclusive.

This is one of my BIGGEST gripes when it comes to theorizing about SJM’s books and how she’s actually going to creative a masterful narrative and wrap up all her plot points, because maybe she will but that also half the time excuses the way she has written the CoN and Illyria thus far, because maybe she will give them the grace they’re due, but her track record for it makes me less hopeful.

I have yet to find a character that is explicitly poc in the text (art after the fact doesn’t count) not hit with a weird trope besides Tarquin.

Furthermore, if the human brain looks for patterns and connections they will find it, even if they’re not actually there. I’m not sure how many of the connections in Sarah’s writing are connections, and how many are just a product of her having all of her previous books subconsciously in her mind.

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I am having a really hard time waiting for this series to be complete before judging it and its flaws and holes 🙏

We are 5 books and a whole decade in 😭

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I just saw a post by @looseleaflettuce where your anon makes a super important comment:

It was only after I read this that I realized. Amarantha is a harassers (and a female portrayed as villain) Iantha is a harassers (and a female portrayed as villain).

Why are only women harassers but men (Rhysand and Cassian) aren't portrayed as such too?

Not only did Rhysand harass Feyre in the first book, he also drugged and manipulated her the entire time (and has clear signs of being Gaslighting).

Cassian I don't think I need to say anything. The guy is toxic as fuck, you can see it in ACOSF.

When women are not harassing, they are hypersexualized.

Morrigan, Nesta (my god all the time), even Feyre sometimes.

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The ACOTAR fandom has a huge issue when it comes to how we talk about misogyny and female characters, and honestly, it’s time to clear up some major misconceptions. There’s been a growing claim that Nesta stans call any criticism misogynistic when, in reality, the issue is not about people simply disliking her. It’s about how female characters are criticized versus how male characters are excused, forgiven, or even praised for the same things.

So let’s break this down:

People are absolutely allowed to dislike Nesta, Elain, Feyre, or any female character without it being misogyny. Not every criticism is inherently sexist, but the way it’s framed and applied matters.

Not liking Nesta because her personality doesn’t appeal to you → Not misogynistic

Calling her an irredeemable abuser while ignoring that male characters have done worse → That’s misogyny

Thinking Elain’s storyline is underdeveloped → Not misogynistic

Acting like Elain has no value in the story because she doesn’t fight → That’s misogyny

Criticizing Feyre for her choices as High Lady → Not misogynistic

Expecting Feyre to be perfect while excusing Rhys’s mistakes → That’s misogyny

The problem isn’t that people dislike Nesta, Feyre, or Elain.

The problem is that the fandom constantly moves the goalposts when it comes to female characters and refuses to apply the same logic to the men.

The problem is not that people dislike Nesta, Feyre, or Elain.

The problem is that they are judged in ways that male characters are not.

And that is misogyny.

It doesn’t mean that every single criticism of them is inherently sexist, but when patterns emerge where female characters are held to higher standards, villainized for things men are forgiven for, or boxed into one-dimensional archetypes, that’s when the issue becomes clear.

No one is saying you have to love every female character.

But if you only have vitriol for the women while excusing the men, maybe it’s time to ask why.

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You wanna know how I know that Tamlin hatred makes 0 sense?

Someone made a tik tok about what cars the ACOTAR characters would drive and everyone got a normal car. Tamlin got a cyber truck with “no explanation needed”

TAMLIN???? CYBER TRUCK??? Y’all will really just push any negative stereotype onto him as if he’s the quintessential evil man.

The High Lord of SPRING?? The guy associated with nature? The one Y’ALL SAY IS TOO TRADITIONAL would drive a metal abomination??? 😭

Be so fr he’s riding a fucking horse

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HI 🙋‍♀️ I have come to the conclusion that every HL of the NC was a bad person.

As the history goes, at first Hewn City was the main city but then a HL made Velaris in secret. But in order to keep Velaris a secret the image of the CoN had to remain constant. So did some people just have to continue to live in Hewn City to maintain the image. Or was the NC just never visited by other courts? Furthermore, why was Hewn City so bad in the first place that it needed a shinier place, considering that’s where all the efforts of ruling was put. Was it just a product of bad rulership? This means he never tried to fix an systemic issue with the HC, but just jumped ship and build his personal utopia.

Later a different HL basically kicked all his adversaries and opposers into the CoN. That kinda implies that the CoN was only for bad people (because that’s totally not how tyranny starts), but people also had to already be living there anyway to maintain the image of the CoN. So as bad as simply making it a political prison is, it’s even worse.

What’s also interesting is that Rhysand usually says “we” when talking about the actions of his predecessors, for example ending the human enslavement.

Hewn City has always been the “official” city of the NC and is where the official seat of the HL is. Yet all the HLs preferred Velaris because it was specifically built to be their little perfect city because none of them actually gaf about fixing the CoN.

Adding that history of neglect for over 5,000 years to the current treatment of the CoN makes it so much worse and really puts into perspective how the IC actually isn’t progressive at all

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banging my head on a desk every time I find an Instagram page that’s going on a self-victimized tirade about how they’re being persecuted and accused of using AI, when it’s abundantly clear to anyone who’s spent time looking at ai image generation models and their outputs that it IS Ai generated in some way. Like if you’re familiar with bing ai image generation, then you can spot its art style from a mile away.

And people falling for the speedpaints is so annoying when it literally cuts out half of the process that gets it from messy sketch to an outline. If you just zoom in on details half of them blend together or make no sense. Please use your brains 😭😭

I’m not even saying this from an artist perspective???

It’s just fucking annoying because WHY are you lying so hard. No you’re not just a lil ol’ artist making art because you enjoy it, you’re actively lying because you know it’s wrong. It is YOUR FAULT that you didn’t do a good enough job of covering up your ai usage. Like at least some accounts have the (minuscule) decency to write that they use ai, because at least they don’t try to cover it up

And half the time they can actually do art too????

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Is Rhys written as a Mary Sue?

Since everything he does is apparently necessary for the „greater good“ and in Sjm own words he‘s „perfect“ and „the most powerful high lord in the whole universe“ with no limits, that pretty much makes him a Mary Sue. I don’t think Sjm intended to write him as such though… or even knows what a Mary Sue is.

It‘s kind of funny, considering that everything outside of the narrative he does the most messed up things you could imagine.

ATP, idek

If you had asked me months ago, I might’ve said yes, but for this past month I’ve been in the process of reevaluating how I think SJM’s actually going about writing her narrative. From’s the IC’s and Rhysand’s own perspective, do I think he’s a Gary Stu? Yeah, pretty much. Even if Rhysand admits he’s guilty at times it’s always followed up with a reason as to why it’s actually necessary that he did it as if it’s supposed to negate what he actually did.

From a hollistic view of the narrative… ehhh…

Mary Sues are meant to be all around good, or at the very least the “best” by any metric even if not necessarily morally perfect. They’re meant to be infalliable rather than just moral paragons (though the two often coincide).

Rhysand on the other hand is meant to be morally grey, so while I do think that’s often used as a crutch by the fanbase to explain away his actions, it is a big part of his character that he’s supposed to be the dark, more exciting, LI (even if the narrative and characters refuse to give him meaningful criticism, and the ones who do are supposed to be bad for doing so, that would actually characterize him as morally grey)

So does that disqualify him from being a Mary Sue solely based on the fact that he’s supposed to be a character you can argue isn’t meant to be perfect, even if he’s defended like he is and if that reasoning is only used when someone criticizes him? You tell me 🤷‍♀️

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You what else is a plot hole? The stairs.

I‘m not sure if it has been discussed already, but Nesta had already climbed the 10k (12k actually) when she reached the 6k step and went back. Going back up is far harder than going down.

It’s not even that Sjm forgot about that detail. When Nesta first tried it and reached only like a 50 or something, She told Cassian that it was 100 technically.

I‘m so fricking tired of Sjm‘s inconsistency.

Also, Cassian calling a very sick woman that climbed 50 stairs down and back „pathetic“ as a 500+ year old gym bro with a lot of experience is pathetic.

Yk what? I don’t think it’s a plot hole.

First I’d like to point something out, that 10,000 steps doesn’t even technically grant her freedom from the regimen that the NC has set up for her, it only allows her to go wherever she wants, but she’d likely be forced back into the HoW by the end and would definitely still be made to train.

(I’ve been talking to all the literary analysis ladies on tik tok who are convinced SJM’s sewing seeds of doubt to create some sort of reveal that the IC actually isn’t amazing, so bear with me because this gets messy)

Even if it’s not what SJM intended, if we look at Nesta like a real person, I think it speaks to how broken down she was at that point. Obviously, at this point Nesta seems to be doing a lot better than she was at the beginning of the book, she’s closer with Cassian, she’s training, and she’s made friends, but that doesn’t really negate the negative effects her treatment has also had on her.

Any logical person with all their faculties would realize there’s no difference between moving back vs. forward once you’ve reached halfway (in her case foward being even easier), but that’s not where Nesta is.

Her mental state is so bad, even if she’s not literally drinking herself to death she’s not she same Nesta to her core, that she can’t even realize her own situation. And if we want to go to a more symbolic route, I think this also speaks to the standards the IC has set for her. She’s only considered fully “healed” when she conforms to whatever mold they’ve determined for her: subservient to Rhysand, pleasing to Feyre, and agreeing to Cassian. To the IC, there is no compromise, either she’s acceptable to them or she’s not. Now I don’t remember the exact circumstances regarding this particular climb, but at that 60% spot, she didn’t reach the 100% that they wanted in the way that she wanted. Despite not actually completing the full journey that would grant her the title as “healed”, Rhysand and the IC actually had achieved their goal of controlling her and breaking her down to be moldable.

What’s interesting is every time she attempt to climb she achieves more steps before going back to the HoW, and every time she seems more and more healed. Now obviously this is a byproduct of her getting healthier and progress, but I think it can still serve as a narrative element showing that the closer she gets to this alleged “freedom” the closer she gets to whatever the IC wants her to be, regardless of if it’s to her benefit or not. And to add to this, she’s not “going up” she’s descending down. Furthermore, what does Cassian do to her attempts and progress? He LAUGHS. There is no encouragement to see her push through and endure, there’s humiliation for not immediately being good enough. That alone should tell you that Cassian wasn’t actually a “trainor” nor should he entrusted with Nesta’s improvement.

ALSO, 6 thousand steps, let alone 10 thousand is INSANE. The fact that she was able to do even that still boggles my mind.

The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, only has 2,909, not even a third of what they said Nesta had to descend in order to leave the HoW. That task is not a “test of mental endurance”, it’s in fact not meant to be humanly, or faely, possible. SJM’s not stupid, she knows that that is a daunting number (even if Nesta manages to get down 6k), and the IC knows that as well. Cassian waits for Nesta at one because he KNOWS that she won’t make it, not that he doesn’t believe she will, but because he KNOWS.

Again, as many have said it was never presented as a legitimate choice, and the HoW was never meant to actually be about Nesta’s betterment for her own sake.

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This fandom is so far gone omg

On a post of someone cosplaying Nesta to the audio of Rhysand telling her that she has to seduce Eris for his own political gain, and Feyre replying that Elain shouldn’t go near Eris, someone dead ass commented “Eris is abusive!”

Did you even hear the words he said?? 😭 There is such a herd mentality of believing whatever Rhysand says or does is moral/correct simply because it’s him, regardless of its actual content

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One thing that’s super abundant in the ACOTAR fandom is making theories and headcanons about a character solely because of dislike towards them (most prominently for Tamlin) that isn’t really founded in the text at all. And it’s not like I’m exempt from this, I’m sure I’ve done it too, but been unable to recognize it

Like I saw one about Beron being the weakest HL and taking power from the LOA, but literally what points to that? 😭

Like if anything, the most powerful HL needing to bring his entourage everywhere is more indicative of weakness but whatever

A lot of it feels like it comes back to relating morality to power and physical appearance (which we know to be very problematic). Regardless, it’s always about making the IC seem super righteous and perfect compared to everyone else. There’s a tendency to reduce any opponent of the NC to a tiny, sniveling fool, but that’s boring and also makes it less impressive for the NC to have the upper hand.

Tamlin was still described as super handsome. In a boring way? Maybe. Rhysand was still described as super handsome. In an uncanny way? Maybe (probably, we’re hitting the weird ultra symmetrical perfect face thing with him)

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I’m gonna need y’all to stop putting so much slander on this man’s name 😭

We can argue about him being a bad partner or potentially abusive due to his lack of control, that’s fine. But this man was never creepy? 😭

He was never made to be offputting, he was supposed to be the fairytale prince that actually has his own issues and isn’t perfect for the fmc. Feyre felt panicked and overwhelmed in the SC, yes, but it wasn’t a product of Tamlin being a creep.

His defining traits are loving his people and playing the fiddle. This man is severely depressed, but he’s not creepy??? Like you can say you wouldn’t want to be in a room with him, but I don’t think he’d ever prey on women or push himself onto them when they don’t reciprocate? (We have Cassian for that)

Like you know who was creepy? Rhysand when he forced a young girl to get drunk and dance nearly naked, or when he fondled her in public. Cassian when he forced himself into Nesta’s life despite her not wanting anything to do with him, and having sec with her despite their inherent power dynamic of “trainer” and “patient”. Azriel when he doesn’t think about a woman beyond jerking it and feels like he deserves her just to fulfill some weird symmetric couple thing.

Idk why people love shoving every bad trait onto Tamlin, but he is a pretty established character, so you can like him or not, but some of these opinions just don’t make sense.

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It’s always odd when people automatically assume anyone criticizing Rhysand is a Nesta fan despite nothing pointing to that

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Yk, I think its very interesting that SJM, an author who LOVES to make the majority of her villains sexual abusers towards a “good” character in some way, created one single MMC who also participated in sexual misconduct towards our protagonist

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This has been pissing me off for years but I finally made a tiktok about it and I’m just posting it on here too.  So here are a lot of inconsistencies in ACOTAR that piss me off to no end, and one of them is this thing about daematis.  And it is sucha small thing but it is just one out of the countless inconsistencies in SJM's writing that makes me personally not enjoy the series as much anymore.

In chapter 54 of ACOMAF, Rhys explains in his really long "I'm a good guy I swear" monologue that he took away Clare’s pain Under the Mountain while she was being tortured.  

Chapter 54 of ACOMAF: “I broke into Clare’s head when they brought her Under The Mountain.  I took away her pain, and told her to scream when expected to.  So they…they did those things to her, and I tried to make it right, but…After a week, I couldn’t let them do it.  Hurt her like that anymore.  So while they tormented her, I slipped into her mind again and ended it.  She didn’t feel any pain.  She felt none of what they did to her, even at the end.

But in ACOFAS, Feyre gets her first menstrual cycle, she finds out that it’s so much more painful than a human period, but there was nothing Madja, Mor, or Rhys could do for the pain.  

Chapter 5 of ACOFAS: “In place of those monthly, human discomforts, was a biannual week of stomach-shredding agony.  Even Madja, Rhys’ favored healer, could do little for the pain short of rendering me unconscious.”  

...did we not remember that Rhys has the ability to take away pain?  This just tells me that SJM forgot, because that would be an excellentttt opportunity to show more of Rhys being a loving mate with these awesome powers. Rhys is tending to her every need, cleaning Feyre off, switching blankets, stroking her hair:

“Rhys had stayed with me the entire time, stroking my hair, replacing the heated blankets that I soaked with sweat, even helping me clean myself off.  Blood was blood, was all he said when I’d objected to him seeing me peel off the soiled undergarments.  I’d been barely able to move at that point without whimpering…”

If SJM remembered what she wrote I feel like Rhys would have leaped at the opportunity to take away her pain.

And people can say “Oh but what about this”, “well Rhys could just be manipulative and evil or something”, “Well I don’t think Feyre would have let him anyways”, and other such excuses, but when I break the fourth wall, it just looks like Rhys taking away Clare’s pain with his daemati powers was to make him look better in the situation. It was not a proper bit of world-building or magic system-building, because SJM just…forgot.  It is solely to make Rhys look like a good guy in this specific moment and is used for nothing else because she. Forgot.  And I’m pretty sick of SJM just…forgetting about stuff, even if it’s something as small as this.