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#anti hosab
aho-dapa · 3 months
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sjmmmmmm, stop making women solely the sexual aggressors to every man in your book please
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sharpen-your-blade · 11 months
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Hi there! As someone who, admittedly, has being finding her own writing inspired by spite and criticism of the ACOTAR series — is it just me I seriously don’t like the ‘mates’ trope in the ACOTAR series and how it’s now springing up in a lot of copies? It’s this idea of how a woman has being made as a man’s mate (think of how Eve was ‘made’ to be Adam’s helpmate, and how that justifies women being submissive to men) and basically how the ‘mates’ concept is practically what I call ‘divinely/fantastically-condoned entitlement’ — because we are ‘mates’, it justifies me abusing you and bullying you and pushing your boundaries until you ‘learn’ to love me and treating you like my property if a man so much as looks at you (god fucking help you if you decide to love someone else, or else get your loved one murdered because your mate threw a goddamn tantrum) as you’re supposed to because DeStInY (ie the story and the author) says so (as we have seen with Rhysand and Cassian, and we may end up seeing with Lucien). Just a lot of gender essentialism and heteronormativity and just plain up misogyny just makes me uncomfortable. It could be me overthinking, but whats your feelings with the mates trope? Otherwise, I adore your criticism and I just pray to god we see better fantasy books get the attention and resources away from SJM!
hi!!
personally i've never been a huge fan of the "fated mates" trope. i think it works in some scenarios, but only when the mates in question actually develop a relationship and understanding of each other without depending on that bond between them to do all the heavylifting. having someone be your "destiny" isn't enough for a relationship as a whole; there still needs to be some sort of development in the characters' dynamic. i need to see that they actually work together because there's genuine chemistry and a connection between them, regardless of a mating bond. i don't want to see them simply accept that they're mates and base their relationship off of the fact. even so, i must admit i very rarely read/like the mating bond trope, and i honestly can't think of any examples to give you of times when i did. i agree that the trope can veer into very dangerous territory, which is why i think i tend to avoid it and/or not enjoy it.
amongst many other things, i don't feel that sjm succeeds at writing the "fated mates" trope well. i once saw someone say she's lazy with the mating bond, and i wholeheartedly agree. it reads as though she uses the bond as a shortcut, in a way, because she can jump ahead when developing a couple's relationship by just...shoving a mating bond in there. it's especially annoying because not only does it end up not being executed well, but it also disproves the statement that "mates are rare" in prythian. we've seen quite a few mating bonds throughout the series, and there are more hypothesized to be revealed eventually. all three archeron sisters coincidentally(?) found mates.
feysand and nessian's bonds fail, in my eyes, in different ways. much like you said, i see sjm's usage of the bond between feysand as a way to enable and excuse rhysand's behavior. before feyre finds out not from rhysand tho that they're mates, she shows that she's willing to call rhys out. she fights with him, she challenges him, she reprimands him, she feels legitimate, valid anger at him when he's manipulative towards her. after they accept the bond, feyre becomes deferential to rhys. her inner monologue bends over backwards to absolve him of all guilt and wrongdoings, even when, from a logical standpoint, rhys should be held accountable for things, especially the trauma he caused her utm. i'd even say that when sjm introduced the bond between feysand, feyre's character began to decline not just in quality but in authenticity. the feyre we knew in acotar-acomaf pre-mating bond would never let rhys get away with scheduling a meeting with mor's abusers without informing mor. he wouldn't get away with treating nesta the way he did in acosf, or hiding the fatality of feyre's pregnancy from her and then threatening to kill nesta when she tells feyre. there are so many occasions where rhys's manipulation should not have gone unchecked by feyre, and yet it does because the bond between them makes her inclined to excuse him. instead of actually forcing rhys to acknowledge and be held accountable for his abuse and nasty behavior, sjm lets the mating bond smooth over every horrible interaction feysand ever had, which just...doesn't work? lol?
i also think sjm sees their bond as a kind of justification for the way she treats tamlin's character after book 1. the idea that feylin was never meant to be and it was always going to be feysand endgame permits the overly critical approach the narrative takes towards tamlin even though he was a good love interest and character in book 1, and he should be allowed to have his own issues post-utm. their bond is why tamlin's abuse is a Big Thing to feyre but rhysand's is not, even though certain aspects of their abuse are extremely similar (i.e. rhysand locked feyre in a cell and tamlin locked her in his house, so this kind of isolation is suffocating/triggering to feyre).
in nessian's case, the bond was just purely lazy imo. sjm developed their relationship from acomaf-acowar, so they had something there already. a connection, an intrigue in each other, the inklings of desire and deeper feelings. but acosf completely warped that dynamic—suddenly nessian lost that interest in each other save for a physical interest, and their relationship was then built up on a foundation of lust. i don't get why (i talked about this here) sjm tossed aside what nessian had already established between them in acowar, but she did, and as a result their relationship felt weird and disconnected from what we saw before acofas. i didn't see any real connection there. i saw lust, not love. throwing the mating bond in there felt like an easy way out for sjm, as a way for her to say they were meant for each other without actually proving that on the page and then calling it a day. i guess it makes sense she put little effort into nesta's romance storyline because uh she fucking hates nesta lmao. it just felt...cheap. i remember i read a post once where someone said that nessian being mates felt like it nullified everything they'd built in their relationship in acowar, like none of it mattered because they're mates so "they were always going to end up together anyways regardless of the work they put into their relationship" and honestly? i feel like that was spot-on for sjm's mindset when writing their romance. it seemed like she didn't even try to get them to connect on a deeper level because she knew they were destined to be endgame from the start. at least feysand worked (to some extent) for their endgame-ness, if nothing else.
as for elucien, i guess only time will tell. i think their mating bond is a way to introduce the "forced proximity" trope which i'm not personally opposed to, but i think sjm really has to put in the effort to ensure they have a genuine connection outside of the bond; their romance shouldn't be reliant on it. i'm so anxious for what sjm is going to do to lucien's character that i actually can't even talk about it much lol, it just sends me spiraling with thoughts like "she better treat him right" but also "she doesn't even really seem to like him". there's so much riding on elucien's book for me, it's really the only thing i'm holding out hope for in the series atp.
in terms of the mating bonds in tog and cc, i don't even care to talk about them. i despise rowan to hell and back, and think chaol was done so dirty to enable the rowaelin romance (a similarity tog shares with the feyre/tamlin/rhys issue), so i think rowaelin's mating bond was stupid and lazy and also does not justify rowan's abuse of aelin. i think bryce and hunt's relationship was healthier than every other main sjm pairing by miles, and i don’t think they even needed a mating bond. they developed their relationship on their own, and did a pretty good job of it in comparison to the other couples, so the bond was pointless to me. they were fine without it. it was just sjm's fixation on the fated mates trope showing. whatever. cc was ridiculous and boring and unoriginal in terms of sjm's style, so i don't even have much to say about it, and thinking about tog too much gives me a headache, so. that's basically all i have to say for that.
anyways, thanks for the ask and the kind words! i wish you well with your writing <3
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Rhysand's sudden appearance at the end of HOSAB is the culmination of one of the most annoying and infuriating tropes that plague supposedly 'feminist' titles.
Let's say you've picked up a book. Maybe it’s fantasy. Maybe it's science fiction. Maybe it’s historical fiction, or straight up romance. Whatever the genre, you probably picked it up because there's a female protagonist whose story you want to hear.
And for a while, it's going great. The protagonist is intelligent/witty/capable. She's ticking most of your boxes, if not all of them, and you're eager to see where she goes.
But then the male love interest sidles into the plot, and then things start to go wrong.
He swaggers in, all broody, or smirking, or mysterious. He's got a shady, secret past, or he's had major trauma in his life. He has an athlete's build and he's strangely beautiful. He has a mission or crusade for justice or vengeance. He has a brooding intensity or a smoldering gaze.
Bonus points if he dresses all in black or he has aesthetic 'shadow powers'.
Either way, our heroine finds herself intrigued. And as time goes on, as the love interest plays a bigger role in the story, that intrigue starts to become something more.
Finally, there will come a moment. The heroine's inhibitions fall away, and she finds herself completely infatuated.
And that's when there's a shift. Sometimes it's a bit sudden and jarring if the author isn't quite practiced yet. But sometimes the author is skilled enough that the shift is subtle and easily missed.
Whichever it is, the result is the same: sooner or later, our female protagonist has been sidelined in her own story. Her motivations, her drives, her every waking thought, are now subordinate to this smirking male love interest, who has now displaced her and taken away her protagonist spot.
Our female lead is no longer an active player; she's become the grand prize to be won by this male character. Sometimes, there's a veneer of an equal relationship; our female lead may be his valuable confidante or his right hand woman. But it’s still just a veneer: at the end of the day, she's still subordinate to the man she's paired with.
And then you realize; our protagonist was never the true focus at all. Our protagonist is now just a walking camera, a proxy through which her author can focus their effort and care onto the real focal point of the story; the male love interest, who's been the actual main character this whole time.
It was never her story in the first place. It was his.
She no longer makes decisions or takes initiative for herself; it's now for him.
It's no longer about her mission or goals or desires; it's now about his.
It's no longer about her struggles or pains or hardships, it's now about his.
And it's not just her story that's stolen from her. Her personality, character and strengths are wittled away as well.
If she's competent and skilled at something, then she'll suddenly have the rug pulled put from beneath them by a man who inexplicably outclasses her.
If she's confident, well-spoken, and respected, then she'll suddenly become tongue-tied, flustered and condescended to by a smirking man who's somehow more witty and eloquent than she is.
If she has ambitions that don't immediately revolve around men or relationships, then she'll suddenly have her mind changed by a man who'll make her forget and discard her goals in favor of his.
If she's disinterested in, or indifferent to men, she'll suddenly become infatuated with and softened up by an excessively attractive man almost instantaneously.
And, worst of all, if she confronts him for his gaslighting/manipulation/violence/abuse, she'll suddenly find her anger and will crumbling as the story and narrative excuses and forgives him for his misdeeds. Worst of all, she'll be forced to admit that she's wrong.
I've picked up too many books that are supposed to feature badass or compelling women, only to find them being undermined by men.
And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of compelling female protagonists ceding all their initiative and agency because they’re suddenly convinced some Byronic edgelord's grand quest or crusade is somehow more important than their own.
SJ/M's books suffer from this terribly, especially in the case of Rhysand. It's as if SJ/M (and other authors like her) can't concieve a scenario in which a woman, protagonist or otherwise, is NOT awed by, overpowered by, subservient to, or superceded by Rhysand (or, for that metter, any other man) in some way.
I don't care if this male love interest is a deep character. I don't care if his motivations are compelling. I don't care if his morality, grey or otherwise, makes him fascinating. I don't care if he has six pack abs, lustrous hair, or shimmering eyes. And I certainly don't care about whatever oh-so-tragic backstory or trauma he uses to justify his predatory/abusive/manipulative behavior.
If he swaggers into the story and starts leeching away at the female protagonist's agency, headspace, character, and story, then he's not a character; he's a tumor that needs to be excised posthaste.
And it's not that hard to cut out that tumor. It's absolutely possible to have a unique, compelling, interesting, and even funny female protagonist tell her story, without some pretty-faced, musclebound bad boy barging in and stealing her spotlight. I've seen it in videogames. I've seen it in fanfic. I've even seen it in history, IRL.
Just for once, I'd like to see so-called feminist authors actually make their female protagonists centerstage with desires and goals and ambitions, instead of just being a vehicle through which the author can fawn over the tall, overly attractive, self-pitying popinjay who's been the real focus the entire time.
And if they still prefer to write a story just so they can ooh and aah at their imaginary Adonis, then they can at least do the courtesy of excluding a female perspective outright. They can make this special, muscle-bound snowflake the protagonist from the outset.
They don't need to undermine smart, capable and competent female leads and squander their potential in favor of their thirst trap.
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alexcollix7 · 1 year
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Ok I've been holding this for too long, but I've got a huge post where I've compiled all the the things regarding plagiarism/copying that sjm has been accused of, including a bunch of different book series and movies, and it's just unreal how much stuff there is, especially regarding the Black Jewels series. I was too scared up until now to truly post it here, but I'm going to do it this week or next, because I just don't think it's fair that there's just so many things out there, and no one really talks about it enough. What do you guys think?
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astrababyy · 1 month
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the second cc book is so weird because cormac is the guy fighting for justice and pushing the plot along, and he’s got to drag the actual mcs along with him kicking and screaming. like, HE’S the good guy who’s fighting for human liberation, and all the others are playing the whole “reluctant hero” cliche but it just doesn’t work cause they’re, collectively, two royals, an ex-member of a super powerful wolf pack, the underwater queen’s spymaster, and the fucking umbra mortis who JUST got his freedom back after centuries of slavery. but then the mcs are the saints on a moral high horse and cormac is the devil incarnate. idk if it changes as the book goes on, but i’m on this part where declan is joking around about a situation where people could die and cormac is the only one taking it seriously. like this is so tone deaf???
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spaceshipkat · 1 year
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since bookseller limits the articles you can read per month, here y’all go! screenshots above and transcript below the cut
Sarah J Maas in conversation about the crossover between two of her epic fantasy worlds
“I had planted seeds in all my series about the possibility of it being a multiverse. The worlds exist, but they’re planets and light-years away”
AUTHOR INTERVIEWS FEB 3, 2023 BY KATIE FRASER
"This has been years in the making, thinking about how the worlds connect and how you can move between them,” says Sarah J Maas as she talks to me over Zoom from rainy Los Angeles about House of Sky and Breath, the second instalment in the Crescent City trilogy, following House of Earth and Blood.
Maas is a titan in the fantasy genre. Her oeuvre boasts three distinct fantasy worlds—the Throne of Glass series (eight books), the A Court of Thorns and Roses series (five books) and Crescent City—with 1.2 million print copies sold across all series and editions through Nielsen BookScan’s UK TCM. The successful hardback sales of House of Sky and Breath alone helped boost Bloomsbury’s profits in 2022.  
Despite her success, Maas is incredibly down to earth, speaking to me bedecked in a joyful “Bambi” jumper and proudly showcasing her slightly prehistoric-looking radio. It is not a tech-pumped feat of engineering, it simply plays music, and it is the simplicity Maas yearns for: “I keep my little desk radio because I just like listening to the local radio. Just putting on the classic channel, there’s something about it.”
It has become slightly harder to find opportunities to escape to the solitariness of her study and bask in the unadulterated delight of classical music since having children. “My children are the music I write to,” she laughs. With two young children and a 13-year-old “built like a brick” dog Annie, things are never dull. “When I got the call from my editor that House of Sky and Breath had hit number number one in the New York Times bestseller list, I was elbow deep in baby poop!”
Now anticipating its paperback release in May 2023, House of Sky and Breath sent long-time Maas readers reeling when the ending revealed a crossover between the Crescent City trilogy and Maas’ other series A Court of Thorns and Roses, confirming reader speculation that the Maas multiverse did indeed exist.
The trilogy has marked new beginnings for Maas, not only opening worlds of possibilities for future writings but also marking a brief departure from high fantasy. House of Earth and Blood was the first contemporary novel she had written, the primary difference being setting. The first two instalments in the Crescent City trilogy are set in Lunathion, a modern city on the planet Midgard, which would be familiar to any Londoner except it is populated with angels, fae and animal shifters.
Following on
House of Sky and Breath opens a few months after the events of House of Earth and Blood. Bryce, the half-human, half-fae protagonist, is adjusting to life after defending the city from demon hordes. She is also grieving the death of her best friend Danika, murdered in the first book, and navigating her increasingly romantic relationship with Hunt, a lightning-wielding angel. Attempts to regain a sense of normalcy, however, are undercut when Danika’s secrets begin to surface, and Bryce and Hunt become embroiled in a plot to overthrow the rulers of Midgaard, known as the Asteri. In a bid to escape the Asteri’s wrath, Bryce uses her powers to teleport and inadvertently lands in the world of A Court of Thorns and Roses.
Although many readers were thrilled at the crossover, Maas stresses that you don’t have to have read her other series to appreciate the ending. “I want it to be satisfying and compelling for both fans of the A Court of Thorns and Rose series and fans of the Crescent City series. [I want] to make sure the story can stand on its own.”
The crossover has been years in the making, occurring to Maas when writing A Court of Silver Flames and Kingdom of Ash, the latest instalments in the A Court of Thorns and Roses and Thrones of Glass series, respectively. “I had planted seeds in all my series about the possibility of it being a multiverse. The worlds exist, but they’re planets and light-years away.”
It is a constant thrill to fans and one that, after a cursory look on Reddit turned into a deep dive on Maas-lore, has churned up hundreds of theories, ranging from the inexplicably brilliant to the not so brilliant. “I often think about these series for years before I end up writing them,” Maas explains: “[It means I have] the opportunity to think, ‘How in this moment can I plant this little detail?’” Her readers are undoubtedly looking for every single one.
Initially, the Crescent City trilogy began as a side project for Maas after inspiration struck mid-flight while listening to “Shenzou”, a theme by Steven Price from the “Gravity” film score. The music prompted an image of one of the most climactic moments of book one, reducing Maas to tears: “I wound up putting my sweatshirt over my head and crouching down in my seat and crying.” From here, House of Earth and Blood percolated for years as a “fun side project”, being written when Maas had the “creative energy to burn—which was well before children”, she laughs. “I would pull up the manuscript on my computer and just write for a couple of hours and the world slowly unfolded. Initially, I didn’t have plans to publish, it was just something for me.”
Side by side
Although the Crescent City books are woven with intrigue, spiced with romance, politics and power, they are built on Bryce and Danika’s fierce friendship and how Bryce is forced to cope in its absence. “We spend a lot of time talking about losing our romantic partners and how that can break us, but losing someone who has been a rock for you, who has seen you at your worst and still stuck by you and encouraged you to be your best? Losing that person can leave a crater in your life and your soul.”
Bryce is “very close to my heart in a lot of ways”, Maas says, which speaks to the importance of female characters in her writing. Bryce’s determination, awe-inspiring power and fiery sass are hallmarks of Maas’ female protagonists which take, as their blueprint, Garth Nix’s Sabriel, first published in 1995. “The book changed so much for me; I realised not only, ‘Oh God there’s a thing called fantasy books’, but that [a book] could be about young women like me.” Nix’s novel follows young necromancer Sabriel, who must journey to save her father and, ultimately, the kingdom from the rising dead. It was a “gateway drug” for Maas, who was motivated to “create stories like that, about young women getting to do all these epic, bad-ass things, but also have a real emotional journey”. 
Now in the process of editing the third Crescent City book with her editor, Maas teases that it is “on track to be as long as the first two in the series”—a veritable doorstop. Although there is a lot to juggle, both with reader expectation and the sheer challenge of bringing together two series, Maas is calm: “Of course, I want this one to live up to the expectations that readers have going into it. But, for me, I just want to make sure that I’m making smart choices.” 
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onfma · 1 year
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the fact that hunt is on the cover of cc2 but we discover literally NOTHING new about his character in the book
cc1 ended so good for him with all of us making theories about who his father might be and who hunt really is and all that, just for him to fall into the bland macho-bf type of "oh he loves her, oh he had such a rough past, how alone he was before her, oh he wants to pump her so bad" and nothing more beyond that he can give power to bryce
it's actually sad
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ok. this was bugging me, but i just decided to google the definition of auxiliary and check. and yeah. it means something extra. supplementary. additional.
you can’t call your only military force the Auxiliary. genuinely. the only military force that Crescent City directly has is the Aux. (i mean, the governor technically has their 33rd, but that’s minuscule in comparison to the Aux).
if it’s your biggest military force, then it by definition is not a auxiliary force.
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the-littlest-bi · 1 year
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HOSAB RANT
As someone who enjoyed CC, HOSAB... irritated me. I wanted to focus on the plot and connecting dots and connecting worlds but I couldn't.
SJM has sexualized every female character, before we've even heard them speak. It's just men commenting on women's appearances. "Lush bodied" or "ample backside" or "sinfully curvy". It doesn't feel complimentary most of the time, it feels male-gazey and predatory. It's entirely unnecessary.
Also it's hard to focus on the plot when, even with something horrible or life changing going on in the moment, bryce and hunt are continuously taking a moment to sexualise each other and think about fucking. Like, it's one thing to get turned on by your partner, but it's another when something serious is going on and you can manage to get through one scene without having to comment on it. It takes away from the drama of the situation. "Oh I know our lives are in immediate danger, but goddamn hunts dick game is strong" like... im not supposed to view bryce like some shallow, party girl right? Then focus on something more then having sex, please.
And on that topic, if bryce is supposed to be a compassionate character, why do I rarely get to see that ? She's half human, but she has no legitimate sympathy for the human rebellion. Her reluctance to join the rebels because of the asteri, I can understand. I totally get hunt being traumatized by his own rebellion. But you can be afraid to join and still be like " they have every right to fight back, their cause for equality is just, etc". But they don't. When cormac calls bryce out for "being more concerned about her nails" than the problems going on, and bryce shoots back about a nail appointment, she comes off as a brat. Cormac was right in this scene and bryce couldn't acknowledge it. Bryce later on says things like "I can't sit back and do nothing" but she was entirely ready to do that for the first half of the book. She wasn't doing anything because she cared about ending human suffering, she wanted to know about danika. Bryce, at least to me, is selfish. She has selfless moments, but her usual state of being is selfish.
And her relationship with hunt takes precedence over everything. Hunt has a horrible reputation, but everyone is expected to forget and forgive because bryce loves him. But she can't extend the same to anyone else - like baxian helped them multiple times, despite being looked down at. But when he tells them about danika - bryce is unforgiving about who he is and by the sounds of it she's degrading about it "dog". People could and have said the same things about hunt and bryce gets all upset. But no one else is allowed that reprieve. I understand she's reeling from yet another surprise, but it's the way she reacted. And her reaction was stupid - if she can't understand by now that danika had more secrets from her than truths with her??? And I doubt lidia will get the forgiving treatment hunt gets, even though she's been helping them the entire time too and ruhn loves her. I just... there's no self awareness with the two of them.
She is also pretty cold towards cormac and sofie. I get being xold at the beginning - he was an antagonist. But he's been helping you, training you, told you the truth and his relationship with sofie. He wanted to find Emile for sofie, but bryce kept him hidden. Bryce decided she was the only one who could be trusted - disrespecting sofie and cormac. She didn't have the right to do what she did, nor keep it a secret from cormac. She decided cormacs life wasn't good for a child, but that wasn't her decision to make. Bryce also didn't let cormac know about her plans to trick the autumn King into letting her be with hunt. Cormac was basically like " I'll keep this pretend thing up, but let me know when it's over" and she couldn't even do that. She knew for two weeks - and instead of apologizing for it when she's called out - she basically lies and says there was no plan. She's arrogant and again - SELFISH.
Also the lack of concern for her friends during the life threatening situations - she is the girl who priorities her bf over friends and her brother. No debate, Bryce is that girl.
I hate the storyline of tharions sister btw. At least we get a name for her, but still. His does nothing for his character - minus the ptsd phone call scene where he can't reach anybody. But it doesn't give him more compassion to ithan regarding connor, it doesn't come to his mind when they find out about the bone quarter. It's just... idk like he doesn't actually care.
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kaitlin-kate · 1 year
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I thought about reading House of Earth and Blood to see if only Acotar was so bad, but I only read a review, and I decided No, I'm not reading that.
Midgard, the world where action takes place, is technically stolen from Norse mythology. Like, really? What will I find if I start reading? Odin? Thor? Valhalla?
Also, Vanir? Really? Also, stolen... from the same mythology...
And she didn't even try to hide it. The names are completely stolen.
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belle-keys · 2 years
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The fact that white people try to say that Bryce is actually a woman of color in CC to give SJM undue diversity credit but can’t say what exactly she is…
I've talked about the Kylie Jennering of SJM characters before. It's so ridiculous.
She describes everyone as being "tanned" or "honey-coloured" or "sun kissed" of "golden" and whatever but doesn't actually zero in on the ethnicities of her characters. If she does, it's always a retcon (see: Amren, Lucien, blah blah).
The fact that so many of her own stans don't know what's the actual race or ethnicity of her own MAIN characters says a lot. She likes to give her characters just enough POC features, like the coveted tanned skin, but ultimately has everyone depicted as white-coded. They can have all the "exotic" traits of POC but remain white-adjacent so SJM doesn't have to do any proper work to develop their characters yet gets praised from other upper middle class first world white people for "diversity" or whatever because Orientalism is still thriving.
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aho-dapa · 3 months
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The military propaganda in HOSAB is so glaring in the first chapter, I’m surprised I’m not blind
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sharpen-your-blade · 2 years
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because i just slogged my way through hosab over the course of 5 entire months, i compiled a list of moments where women were unnecessarily oversexualized that truly brought me suffering. why, you may ask? well, because i want y’all to suffer with me, duh! let’s do this 🤠
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wow 🥺 romantic 🥰
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i hate this entire paragraph 😃🔫
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“a face that might have been pretty, if it hadn’t shown her severe malnourishment and trauma due to years of enslavement and maltreatment” wow that’s a ship right there i ship it so hard 😩👏🏼
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yes it is so sexy when they joke about the “punishment she doles out” aka literal torture and murder 🥵 (and y’all better not come out here all rUhN DiDnT eVeN kNoW wHo sHe wAs okay and? i knew, so the whole convo was gross to me). also—his balls “tightened”? sounds painful.
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i honestly never understood why ruhn felt it was appropriate/had the desire to flirt with agent daybright during their meetings. like, they’re working for a rebel organization. millions of lives are on the line. everyone depends on them for their intel/communication. why do you wanna spend your time seducing someone you had like 5 surface-level conversations with when you have more important stuff to talk about/do? why are you ready to risk so much of this rebellion for them? the math is quite honestly not mathing for me, guys. rereading ruhn & lidia’s interactions as night & day after i finished the book has got me scratching my head. they barely say anything to get to know each other better in those conversations—she literally tells him a bedtime story (that was probably the most aggressively obvious metaphor for someone’s life that i’ve ever read) during one of them—but we’re supposed to believe that it makes sense ruhn is ready to tear the world apart for her? yeahhh forgive me if i don’t think so 🤷🏻‍♀️
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idk this did not sit well with me 🫤
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are they seriously commenting on her looks seconds after she was released from captivity??? and is flynn seriously flirting with her??? can they not read the room??? like damn, wait at least a chapter or two before y’all make everything about her physical attractiveness 😪✋🏼. it’s just frustrating because you’re taking attention away from ariadne’s storyline and putting emphasis on the possibility of her and flynn as a couple. she just escaped her captor, she’s a mysterious dragon, she’s a slave, she’s obviously very powerful, but when you have ithan noting that flynn finds her attractive, you’re turning the readers’ attention to a potential flynn x ariadne ship, and now ariadne’s storyline comes second to whatever romance or relationship she might have with flynn. now her character revolves around flynn’s. and i did not like that.
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a conversation about freeing her from slavery? but make it flirtatious? hot 😍
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see, i genuinely don’t get what the purpose of this line was. here’s a woman tharion just met, she’s a captain, she saved their lives, she seems interesting and cool, but that all gets shoved to the side when tharion turns her into a sexual object. it stops being “ooh an intriguing new female character” and becomes “ooh a possible love interest or at least hookup for tharion”. also: “the sort of ass he’d like to sink his teeth into”—does sarah janet actually think that kind of statement from men is hot? because it’s not. i don’t want any man to bring his teeth anywhere near my ass, tyvm. and like, making sexual comments about someone is understandable in certain contexts (establishing attraction, furthering a relationship, etc.) but i don’t see any reason for such a throwaway line like this. sendes is probably just another random side character that steps in to help the mcs when they get themselves in trouble, so i really don’t see what this sentence does for her character (and if i’m wrong and she actually has relevance to the story in cc3…idc this line was still nasty and unnecessary).
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again, another throwaway line where tharion remarks on a woman’s body—a woman who is almost 100% likely not to be romantically associated with him at all in the next book. so what is the point of this sexual comment from him? literally nothing. it does nothing for ariadne as a character, nor does it add anything to tharion’s, and it doesn’t help create or further a relationship between them. it has such an astonishing lack of purpose in the story that i’m honestly surprised sarah’s editor didn’t deign to cut it. it would have saved me a lot of irritation.
anyways, my point is that all of these quotes could have been removed from the book and i would have enjoyed it more (or at least disliked it less). it’s just so strange to me that sjm felt they were necessary in the story when they really don’t add anything to it. and they’re all gross too.
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captainnswift · 2 years
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it's just so beyond frustrating to me that cc3 is now a full blown ac0tar crossover. i would've been fine with b/ryce spending minimal time in prythian and finding some portal and going back to cc. but nope! a full crossover and r/hysand is going to feature prominently bc s/jm apparently can't write a series without him appearing. at this point, she should just market all of her books under "r/hysand cinematic universe."
hey anon!
totally. when i was a tog fan, i actually didn't mind the sneaky rhys cameo in kingdom of ash. i don't like rhys, but i thought it was a cute little hint to her other series that was fun for her fans - and most importantly, it wasn't fundamental to the story and fans of tog didn't have to read acotar to understand it (as in they could not understand the cameo and could still understand the story).
it's so painful to watch sjm self implode like this. like this is bad. bryce's story had potential and its own fanbase too and it all feels cheapened now. not that the books were even that great to begin with, but now...well, at the very least it will be very entertaining for me and other antis to watch how this evolves.
can't wait for the clownery and dumbassery we are about to witness unfold 🤡
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unimone · 2 years
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Crescent City Worldbuilding Questions
The Four Houses:
The four houses of Midgard are the House of Sky and Breath, the House of Many Waters, the House of Earth and Blood, and the House of Flame and Shadow. The members of these houses are based on species, and each has a corresponding god (or gods).
I think this element of the series should’ve been expanded on or scrapped entirely. As it stands now, the houses have no major effect on the world or the characters besides being a fun sorting gimmick. Furthermore, characters like Jesiba Roga can switch alignments with no serious consequences.
The house system also raises many questions. Are the gods of Crescent City real or did the Asteri fabricate them? If they are real, why are they not doing anything about the Asteri? Have they been captured or killed? Do they just not care? If it's a religious thing, why were the houses decreed by the Imperial Senate?
In Chapter 57, we learn that HOEAB priestesses offered Ember and Randall asylum and protection when Bryce was a baby. Why doesn’t the HOEAB intervene more to improve the treatment of humans? If the Asteri want to wipe out the humans, why would they assign them a house? They created the four houses, and it’s not like they haven’t removed a race from their house before (ex. sprites).
What does it mean to be loyal to your house? Is it the same as being loyal to your ruler (ex. the Ocean Queen) or your god? Is it being loyal to your fantasy race and the other creatures grouped with it?
Humans share the blessing of Cthona with shifters, fauns, witches, and otters in the HOEAB. Is there less animosity between these groups because they share a house/goddess? Do the other Vanir look down on the ones in HOEAB for being grouped with the humans? What does it mean to have a god’s blessing or be their vessel? Are there any special perks or powers? Do creatures aligned with a certain god have a better chance of speaking with them or getting their prayers answered?
Witches vs. Sorcerers and Other Confusion:
It’s stated that Jesiba Roga was a witch and a member of HOEAB before she became a sorceress. What’s the difference between a witch and a sorceress? Is a sorceress just a witch that has defected? Do witches and sorceresses have a difference in strength or magical abilities?
Speaking of magical abilities, what are the limits of magic in Crescent City? Does it have limits? How about risks?
Where do witches originate from? Why are they in HOEAB? Did they cross with the Asteri and the rest of the Vanir? Are they a mix of humans and Vanir? Are witches the same as they were in Throne of Glass lore?
This is a bit of a nitpick, but Hypaxia is described as being half-necromancer on her father’s side. In this world, are necromancers their own distinct race, like witches, or is the ability to raise the dead just genetic?
Vanir Appearances:
This is a point that I’ve seen brought up by others, but I’d like to take a stab at it myself.
Why do most of the Vanir—even the Asteri—take on human appearances? Was it a disguise to ingratiate themselves with the humans before colonizing Midgard and it just stuck? Did Vanir try to look like humans because they thought it was cool, making it a fashion trend? Or, do Vanir have human-like characteristics because they share a similar origin?
Why does Rigelus, an Asteri, use the body of a lanky Fae teen? Why can’t they use their true forms? Would it be too powerful, thus killing whoever sees it? Are they arrogant, believing their underlings don’t deserve to see it? Have the gods placed restrictions on Asteri appearing on Midgard in an attempt to mitigate their damage? Also, do Asteri hosts need to meet certain criteria, or can anyone do it? If it could be anyone, why choose a body that strains to contain your power?
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wastelandcupcake · 2 years
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I've officially made the decision that House of Earth and Blood is a stand-alone novel with some things left ambiguous and House of Sky and Breath is a messy fanfic that fundamentally misunderstands and ruins almost every good thing about the original book.
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