KRISTEN STEWART Rolling Stone Magazine (Feb 14, 2024)

dont care + didnt ask + you know nothing of Javert + I was born inside a jail + I was born with scum like you + I am from the gutter too

Hayden Christensen for EMPIRE magazine (2024)

Well … You’re not gonna believe this but …

lol it makes me soooo angry when people say elriels have no reading comprehension!! The other ships don’t even have anything TO read like?? Their ships have maybe 1-2 lukewarm interactions between them in the text.

Do people not understand how writing works? SJM already made Elain & Lucien mates in ACOMAF. If she “would never destroy a mating bone” and “loves mating bonds” then why would she specifically spend the rest of the books talking about how uncomfortable Elain is and how they both avoid each other? If the mating bond is the end all be all, then why waste precious words saying it made them both uncomfy? It’s not enemies to lovers (which is a trope she already did with feyre and Rhys), it’s APATHY. Big difference.

In terms of the other ships: Gwyn and Azriel interact every single day in Valkyrie training. Nesta and Cassian (who the antis have crowned the authority on narration because he’s OBVIOUSLY the Miranda preiesly of velaris) are also both present at training. Do people realize how EASY it would’ve been to show multiple moments between Az and Gwyn during training that could be romantically coded? Him helping her with daggers, hand on the small of her back, skimming over her hip, she kisses his cheek - all these are subtle - very easy ways to show a slowly emerging relationship between Az and Gwyn.

But SJM did not go that route. Despite the fact that they interact every single day - Neither nesta or Cassian thinks anything about their interaction is worthy of noting. Because they are all platonic.

Comparatively, both nesta and Cassian (though he hasn’t put all the puzzle pieces together yet) explicitly show how they are witnessing SOMETHING between elain and Az. Nesta even explicitly states she knows why Azriel avoids the fire, avoids Lucien. So SJM goes out of her way to write interactions between Az & Elain and- even though Gwyn is “right there” (as if she isn’t a strong powerful character in her own right and should be reduced to being the backup love interest for a man she has shown zero interest in). Reading comprehension doesn’t even come into play because while elriel has been built up since that first moment in ACOMAF - the other ships have half a bonus chapter of platonic banter (very similar to the banter of az and feyre when he was teaching her to fly btw) and something about a ribbon meant to be a symbol of womanly strength. Oh, and Cassian being the velaris fashion police.

Make it make sense???

The best doggy

good night

Nesta's chest tightened, but she refused to think of it, acknowledge it. Elain was a like a dog, loyal to whatever master kept her fed and in comfort.

Nesta's throat constricted, and she surveyed the swaying cherry blossoms overhead. Elain would love this place. So many flowers, all in bloom, so much green- the light, vibrant green of new grass- so many birds singing and such warm, buttery sunshine. Nesta felt like a storm cloud standing amid it all. But Elain... The Spring Court had been made for someone like her.

Nesta was wrong, Cassian realized, to think Elain as loyal and loving as a dog. Elain saw every single thing Nesta had done, and understood why.

hm. anyway!

also if i have to listen to ONE MORE person talk about how cassian's word is the end all be all of who belongs in the night court when he acknowledges in the later half of acosf that he and nesta and everyone else for that matter has been wrong about elain.... read the book beyond the points u want to see perhaps!

Lucien didn't move an inch. His face was pale as death as he stared at Elain.

She refused the knife Cassian handed her, though. Went white as death at the sight of it.

Her skin was so pale it looked like fresh snow in the harsh light. I realized then that the color of death, of sorrow, was white. The lack of color. Of vibrancy.

Elain in black was ridiculous. Yes, she was beautiful, but the color of her long-sleeved, modest gown leeched the brightness from her face ... wearing black, no matter how much she claimed to be part of this court … It sucked the life from her.

fun and interesting connections between elain and death that i'm sure mean nothing and will have no importance later :)

"I gazed again at that sad, dark house- the place that had been a prison. Elain had said she missed it, and I wondered what she saw when she looked at the cottage. If she beheld not a prison but a shelter- a shelter from a world that had possessed so little good, but she tried to find it anyway, even if it had seemed foolish and useless to me."

interesting! interesting! much to think about in regards to the "the prison is actually the dusk court" theory! interesting!

on my "anti elain/anti elriels are allergic to reading comprehension" tirade; taking the word of nesta (who is literally proven in the same book to be unreliable when it comes to her perspective of elain with her "elain is like a dog" comment that cassian later disproves) on blind faith about how elain would love the spring court or that it was "made for someone like her" simply because it has flowers when, in the first book, we are explicitly told that there is no gardening done in the spring court- which is what elain actually enjoys about flowers, the actual process of gardening and getting her hands dirty. it's like sjm is trying to tell us something about elain and how fundamentally no one in the inner circle (cough, besides azriel, cough) understands her as a person.

from a basic perusal of the tag and this general ship war. i genuinely think most of you just straight up don't like this series or sjm as an author. like i straight up think maybe her books just aren't for you if you don't like the way she's written ANY of her previous couples and are hanging onto the hopes of your crackships for any kind of enjoyment in them and i mean that genuinely. like pick up a different series.

BASIC common sense puzzle for you guys (easy mode). if an author says EXPLICITLY that they are writing a book for a specific character (extensively researching the hobby this character is famously known for to the point that they're having dreams about said hobby) after writing books focusing on this character's two siblings and repeatedly sets up another character to also be the lead of the next novel of their series after writing books focusing on THEIR two sibling figures... what does this tell us? basic pattern recognition should help in the solution of this puzzle!

🤳✨