notawheelwalker

[notawheelwalker]

google search how to stop experiencing anticipatory grief when this world has taken so much from me already

[notawheelwalker]

Surely this cup of coffee will bring all my loved ones near me and also bring back my youthful curiosity for the world and what i can do in my brief time in

it

[notawheelwalker]

Az’s fixation on Elain makes me think of Lestat stalking that one nun and I can’t elaborate on that thought it’s just the same vibes

#acotar #anti sjm #azriel #elain archeron #anti elzriel

[notawheelwalker]

the devil knows your name now, galaxy stern

#art i'm proud of? in this economy? unheard of #ninth house #alex stern #galaxy stern #hell bent #leigh bardugo

[notawheelwalker]

“nesta needs her karma for favoring elain over feyre” SHE GOT IT. nesta poured her whole self into elain. didn’t leave her side for WEEKS when she was catatonic. she was always the closest with elain, thought Elain understood her more than anyone. and as soon as the going got tough elain jumped ship without a second thought. she literally packed up nesta’s things to send to the house of wind. she came up there when nesta was depressed and told her to her face she “doesn’t need to be so miserable about it.” being locked up against her will. she brought up their father and then nesta very clearly told her not to bring up their father and to get out. what did elain do in response? bring up their father again and does not get out. then she acts shocked when nesta snaps after she violated clear set boundaries, runs away crying, and complains about Nesta “not even trying to get better.” when has Elain once stuck up for Nesta? never. All the time, effort, and care was never reciprocated. Yeah, so Nesta got her karma for playing favorites and then some. Acting otherwise is being purposefully dense.

#acotar

[notawheelwalker]

i genuinely don’t think anyone in the ic would have bothered to help Nesta if she hadn’t been “embarrassing” them. like if she was drinking herself into oblivion alone in her apartment every night with the same amount of pain and trauma and they knew about it. they genuinely wouldn’t have cared.

#carly’s pro nesta propaganda #nesta deserves better #pro nesta archeron #anti ic #anti inner circle #inner circle critical

[notawheelwalker]

None of the IC were aware of feysand’s death pact, which is the main reason they did what Rhysand ordered and didn’t tell Feyre that her pregnancy would be fatal. They don’t care about her outside of who she is to him. If he was willing to step aside and let his mate die while birthing the heir to his court, they didn’t care either.

#anti feysand #anti sjm #acotar #anti inner circle #anti rhysand #remember when Feyre was warned her power would make her a target for fae to kidnap so their heirs would have her power #and then she abruptly decided to have a baby with her mind controlling partner who literally kidnapped her #but yeah the boo hoo Rhys is gonna die too in Cassians POV set me off

[notawheelwalker]

The argument that the switch-up between Tamlin and Rhysand as love interests was SJM making a clever commentary on the inherently problematic nature of the Beauty and the Beast tale is actually really annoying to me.

I'm absolutely not above being critical of this story.

However, just because there are problematic aspects in the foundational version of this story doesn’t mean that modern iterations automatically possess these as well.

So let's look at how modern retellings deal with the most commonly criticised element of the story: the kidnapping.

For me personally, the most important thing to look at when judging how "problematic" the kidnapping in any given Beauty and the Beast story is, is to look at what the actual power dynamics at play are.

Most of these stories tend to feature some inherent power imbalance between the Beauty and the Beast characters. However, most retellings also feature a curse/curser who puts pressure on the Beast to kidnap Beauty in the first place. This means there is always some kind of higher power/authority who holds significant power over the Beast as well.

In the og Fairytale version, we have a scorned Fae/Witch who curses the Beast. The stakes for the Beast are to find a woman, make her fall in love with him, or stay a Beast forever.

How much this gives the Beast a pass for the crime of kidnapping is, of course, sth each person has to decide for themself.

However, most modern retellings tend to significantly increase the severity of the conditions and consequences of said curse, often times putting many lives outside of the Beast's own at stake.

This increase in stakes, at least for me, significantly impacts how much I condemn the actions of the Beast character.

We see this in the Disney version were all the people living and working in the castle were turned into animate objects and risk turning inanimate once the time-limit for the curse runs out, which is essentially a child friendly way of saying that they will all die.

In the YA novel Cruel Beauty (which I already compared to Acotar in an older post), the Beast character is forced to take a new bride every century. Due to the specifics of the curse, the safety of an entire country is dependent on his compliance with the conditions put on him. So, despite the fact that he initially appears much more powerful than the Beauty character, they are essentially both stuck under the same curse.

The first Acotar book works the same way. Tamlin kidnaps Feyre, not because he wants to but because the conditions of the curse put not just the fate of the SC but of the entirety of Prythian at stake.

That's, of course, not to say that this isn't a violent experience for Feyre and her family. But it does mean that Tamlin isn't the instigator of this violent act, but the person responsible for the curse, aka Amarantha.

The attempt to turn this into a subversion of the BnB story by revealing Tamlin as a violent and abusive partner becomes incredibly frustrating, because most of the violent undertone present in the 1st book, that fans like to point towards as an early sign of his future abusive behaviors are not caused by Tamlin himself but by Amarantha (and her batwinged lackey).

But SJM's attempt is especially nonsensical because Feyre's new romance with Rhysand is just a worse version of BnB.

I am aware that the second book, Acomaf, is most commonly marketed as a Hades/Persephone retelling.

But here is the thing; the modern interpretation of Hades/Persephone as a romance is much more akin to the story of Beauty and the Beast than the hymn to Demeter (the og source text featuring the myth of Hades/Persephone), which as the title suggests is much more concerned with the feelings of grief and rage a mother feels in response to her daughter's abduction than anything else.

So, let's judge Feysand's story with the same standards we just used for other modern BnB retellings.

Immediately, we run into the issue that Rhysand doesn't have a higher power above him forcing him to kidnap Feyre (unless you want to count the mating bond, but that is clearly meant to be seen as a positive so that doesn't really work, Amarantha doesn't count either).

However, it gets worse.

He is the one who forces the bargain on Feyre, ensuring she has to spend 1 week in the NC for the rest of her life. When he later kidnaps her, he is fulfilling the curse he himself put on her.

In this version, the Beast character, Rhysand, is not the cursed but the curser. So he is at once the kidnapper AND the higher power enforcing the curse/the cause for the kidnapping.

In a direct comparison between the way Tamlin and Rhysand each fullfill the Beast role, it becomes pretty apparent how utterly SJM's supposed criticism of the BnB story has failed; Tamlin kidnaps Feyre because he is forced to, Rhysand does because he WANTS to.

#anti feysand #anti acomaf #anti rhysand #anti sjm #acotar #feyre archeron #pro tamlin #a court of thorns and roses

[notawheelwalker]

Just saw a take where someone said Rhys was ooc in ACOSF and that his behavior “lined up more with Tamlin”. Is “tamlin” just shorthand for “abusive” to y’all lol

#anti sjm #anti rhysand #tamlin

[notawheelwalker]

"Healing" vs. being made functional

"[Cassian] would never take that away from her: the chance to save herself" ACOSF, Chapter 67

#a court of silver flames #pro nesta

[notawheelwalker]

"Tarquin, across the pool, watched and listened—either because he was the youngest of them, or perhaps he knew some advantage lay in letting us battle it out ourselves."

Uh... Feyre? I hate to break it to you but Tarquin isnt the youngest at that meeting. You are. And the only thing you contribute to that meeting is backing up Rhys and excusing the misbehavior of the night court representatives.

I think it speaks to an "us vs them" mentality that Feyre refers to this meeting as the high lords battling it out. The meeting would have gone smoother if

Feyre and Rhys had left the IC in Velaris. Between Azriel and Mor picking fights with Eris and Beron already looking down on lesser fae/ women that was starting at a disadvantage.

If you think Tamlin is swinging down. Ignore him. It makes you look more mature and him look childish if you focus on the task at hand. Don't try to turn the table on him because you're already fighting uphill.

Apologize to Kallias and Vivianne. Dont make excuses, dont sugarcoat it. Apologize, promise to make things up to the court if you survive and dont go looking for ways to make the situation a pity party for Rhys.

There more but even this would have improved the situation IMO

#anti rhysand #anti sjm #anti ic #anti inner circle

[notawheelwalker]

A woman on my fyp just started talking about “authors i will never read a book by” and I didn’t hear one word of it because she has 15 COPIES OF CRESCENT CITY BY SARAH J MAAS BEHIND HER GIRL STFU

#like???? i dont think you have any business making videos about what you would and would not read #anti sjm #booktok

[notawheelwalker]

IN DEFENSE OF JOANNA LANNISTER

The Woman Dies, Aoko Matsuda, Translated by Polly Barton // Beatrix, Elizabeth Sonrel // A Storm of Swords, Chapter 38, Tyrion V

lyanna stark || elia martell || sansa stark || arya stark || alicent hightower || jaehaera targaryen || cersei lannister || myrcella baratheon || joanna lannister

for @joanna-lannister, on whose blog i've been a lurker for an embarrassing amount of time, sorry, ma'am.

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #game of thrones #joanna lannister

[notawheelwalker]

My first headcanon:

Tamlin: You're tresspassing. And why would you head for the human lands? They'll likely kill you on sight.

Nesta: All I want is faerie wine, music, sex and never address my dormant power.

Tamlin: You've come to the right place. Let me fix up a room for you and get my fiddle. Calanmai is coming up next week. No one else is likely to attend. Save next round of spring with me?

Tamlin & Nesta, for the rest of their lives:

#i want peace and unassuming love for both of them - complete with flaws and everything #imagine elucien reuniting with them eventually #i'd be so happy #pro nesta #pro tamlin #neslin

[notawheelwalker]

a girl and her dogs

#sansa stark #asoiaf #sandor clegane #the hound #lady the direwolf #while i was reading clash a sansa chapter talked about dogs a lot and i was like !!!!!

[notawheelwalker]

my favorite nessian moments 🥰😍😜

• when Cassian told her everyone hated her

• when he told her he couldn’t understand why her sisters loved her

•when he continued to harass her when she told him to leave her alone multiple times

•when he followed her home against her will

•when he laughed at her falling down the stairs 🥰😍

•when he locked her up and forced her to train as a warrior because she was using sex and alcohol as a coping mechanism and proceeded to have sex with her when she was emotionally vulnerable

•when he slept with her at a time he had so much authority over her he dictated what she ate 💓

•when he purposely had Azriel pack a heavy bag so she would physically suffer on the hike

•when he didn’t stand up for her when Rhysand threatened to kill her

•when he never confronted or was upset at Rhysand for threatening to kill her (did he? I’m not rereading acosf to find out that’s for damn sure)

•when he realized she was suicidal…and continued to force her on a hike with lethal drops while not even bothering to look back at her for hours at a time <3

•when he didn’t bother telling her Feyre wasn’t angry with her for telling the truth about her pregnancy, leaving her in mental agony over it for days (to go with the physical agony he was inflicting on her, how sweet 🥰)

•when he forced her to physically exert herself until she collapsed ❤️

•when he forced her to physically exert herself until she had a complete mental breakdown

•when he had sex with her after said mental breakdown

•when he told her point blank that he could handle anything she threw at him and then immediately snapped at her because she slightly criticized Rhysand

reblog with YOUR favorite Nessian moments 😍

#nesta archeron #cassian acosf

[notawheelwalker]

It's incredibly weird (and telling) that Helaena's grief and trauma is centred over Jaehaerys's actual death in most mentions of Blood and Cheese. It's especially weird and telling that her grief and trauma is then weaponized against Rhaenyra, and lamented in a way that Rhaenyra's grief and trauma is not. That she's upheld as an innocent and a victim in a way Rhaenyra is not.

Because if Daemon had ordered Blood and Cheese to simply kill Helaena, an adult who claimed the title of "Queen," an active participant in talks in the books, and an enemy combatant whose massive war dragon made immediately ending the coup by seizing King's Landing too dangerous, he would have been 100% ethically correct.

#asoiaf #fire and blood