Eris Vanserra is Rhysand if he didn’t have the Inner Circle.

Eris Vanserra is a dreamer with no stars. The Autumn Court is his Hewn City, it’s his Court of Nightmares.

Free my man 😭

“I knew she was an artist then. The same way Feyre is. But what Feyre does with paint, that’s what Nesta did with music and dance. Our mother saw it when we were children, and honed it into a weapon. All so Nesta might one day marry a prince.”

Cassian froze. A prince—was that what Nesta wanted? His stomach clenched.”-ACOSF chapter 63

Leave it to fucking Cassian to hear about how Nesta’s joys as a child were twisted by her mother and her being preyed upon by a grown duke at fourteen and make himself the victim in that situation.

oh Rhysand I will see you in HELL. Believe that.

(mind you, he continued to keep many more secrets after this quote in ACOMAF 🙃🙃)

"You shouldn't criticise/analyse SJM's characters/worldbuilding because it just isn't that deep." Is a take I see a lot when someone analyses or criticises SJM, and while I get where you're coming from, I do have a couple of issues with this take.

First of all, it's important to be able to criticise all media, even your your favourites, no matter how good or bad they are. Media of all formats is a product of it's time and goes a long way into helping us learn about the sociopolitical climate of the time it was written, from the past, present or future. As a result, no piece of media can be considered 'perfect' or without points to criticise, and analysing it can give us perspective on issues we may not even realise exist. This is true for most, if not all media, from books to news channels to music or tv shows.

If you don't want to analyse or criticise it though, that's fine. Just ignore posts and videos of people who do, since there's no use in telling them that they're wasting their time. Some people enjoy criticising/analysing the media they consume, but if you don't, then just let them be.

Now, here's the bigger issue I have with this take. It might really not be that deep to you, but it might really be that deep for other people. Especially since SJM books have a pretty young fanbase. The books are YA, and are advertised as being for ages 12 and up.

Many kids, young girls mostly, that read, even just the first book, are shown Feyre forgiving Rhys at the end of the book after SA-ing her for three months or Feyre getting back with Tamlin after he watched her get tortured for three months, and romanticise it. Then there's the second book, where she ends up with Rhysand despite what he did, and even lets him do it again at the CON.

Nesta is pressured by Elain and Feyre to let her use their home for something incredibly dangerous despite her very reasonable concerns, only to then be insulted by Feyre's friends for a situation he wasn't even there for, only for some romance to between them to be hinted at. In Acowar she's further pressured by her sister, and strangers who hate her, to put her healing and coping from her trauma aside to push her clear boundaries to help her sister even more despite her and her friends not having a great track record of holding up their ends of deals from Nesta's experience.

And don't even get me started on the train wreck that was ACOFAS- ACOSF. If these actions and behaviours were acknowledged as being toxic or wrong, that would be fine, somewhat. However, the narrative paints these characters and behaviour in a positive light, despite the fact they aren't. For young readers to look at this, and to idolise these characters and their behaviours, thinking that it's what they want in a partner, is disturbing.

It's fine to not want to critique or thoroughly analyse a book, but discrediting people who do, especially if they're pointing out harmful behaviour being perpetuated in said books, is not. Ignoring the harmful behaviour these books perpetuate is making you a part of the problem, and I truly hope that your view on this behaviour would change if it was coming from a living person instead of a fictional one. Be it towards you or somebody you know.

RANT TIME

If I see one more person say that the reason Rhys seemed different and less likeable in ACOSF is because we’re seeing him from Nesta’s POV and not Feyre’s, I’m going to go feral.

I’m sorry, I know we find ways to blame Nesta for absolutely everything under the sun, but are we now also trying to claim that she is able to control Rhys’s words, decisions, and actions??? PLEASE BE SO FOR REAL. I do not dislike Rhys because Nesta thinks unfavorably of him and her mental commentary is somehow swaying me. I dislike him because of the things he DOES and SAYS. Nesta does not like Rhys and makes this clear to everyone. But for God’s actual sake…her opinion of him does not control his choices and actions. The story SJM wanted to tell was going to happen, regardless of who’s POV we see it from.

AND, as if that weren’t enough, there are PLENTY of scenes where he acts deplorable and the POV is Cassian’s, not Nesta’s!!! And as we all know, Cassian is so far up Rhys’s butt he can probably see out his mouth. So explain that one to me, please!

Now, does Rhys appear noticeably different in ACOSF than he does in previous books? Absolutely! I am in complete agreement that ACOMAF!Rhys would never handle Feyre’s pregnancy the way he does in this book (The conversation a lot of people are really not ready to have is that Tamlin would be the one to behave this way while Rhys would be the one who swoops in to let us all know how degrading, condescending, and chauvinistic his behavior was and that he would be the one to treat her with agency and respect and would never coddle her and lie to her about her health and her body because she was strong and she could take it).

(Tell me I’m wrong, I dare you!)

So, is Rhys different from how he is in previous books? Yes. But this is not because we are in the POV of someone who doesn’t like him. It’s because SJM’s handling of him is beyond bizarre, and at this point almost has me convinced he is her tool in some kind of social experiment she’s conducting on manipulation and brainwashing in literature. It’s as if she is testing to see how far she can push, how insufferable and hypocritical can she make him behave while still demanding through the narrative that we love and adore him. I used to swear this was not intentional on her part, that she really did think as highly of him as she appeared to, but his behavior as of late has gotten so absurd, it’s honestly beginning to make me wonder if some of this IS intentional and is part of a bigger process. I can only hope that it is.

So no, Rhys does not seem different and less likeable simply because we are seeing him through Nesta’s eyes. He seems different and less likeable because he IS different and less likeable, and a hypocrite to boot. No matter who’s POV we are seeing it from, he does and says insufferable and hypocritical things all throughout the story. But the cult following that this man has is unmatched, and so many people are literally incapable of admitting they feel any kind of distaste for him or that he may have done something wrong. So instead the response becomes “He just seems that way because we’re in Nesta’s POV and Nesta doesn’t like him.”….as if being in Nesta’s head creates some kind of opitical illusion where Rhys’s behavior isn’t real. Whatever makes you feel better, I guess!!

That’s the thing about extreme options as a “last resort”, because in order something to be a last resort, you need to have actually made a tangible effort beforehand.

Sending Nesta to the house of wind was not a last resort, not in the slightest. Because the IC’s idea of helping Nesta before that was to say: “Hey Nesta! Here’s an invitation to a party full of people who don’t like like you!” and giving her unfettered access to the Feysand joint bank account. There were many other options they could have pursued before moving to the extremes.

They’re the leadership of the Night Court, why not ask the bars and taverns not to serve her?

They’re in control of their finances, why not cut her off or give her an allowance?

They have multiple houses, why not offer her (not force her) that as a place to stay for a change in scenery?

There were numerous steps they could’ve taken, but instead they leapt to the most extreme and invasive option possible because it gave them near absolute control over Nesta. They don’t care about her healing, not really, because if they did they would not have centred themselves in Nesta’s struggles. They made it all about themselves!

Nesta is treated so callously because she’s an alcoholic and dealing with her trauma through hypersexuality. Both of which are harmful to her mental and physical health, but that still does not justify essentially placing her under an exploitative conservatorship and calling it “healing”.

During my re-read of ACOSF, I was re-examining my feelings about Cassian. Up until the hike, I was starting to wonder if maybe I was remembering him all wrong. Cassian has his bad, stupid, ugly moments but they're par the course for SJM heroes and tbh, not half as bad as Rhysand/Rowan. Cassian is struggling with his own feelings and his inability to just say what he needs to say in a way that doesn't come out as offensive or hurtful. It's forgivable, I think.

But now I'm at the hiking scene and I forgot how foul this whole thing is. He's been, in his head, all but thinking about how much he loves her. Needs her. Wants her. She's everything to him, he'd curl up and die if he lost her (his thoughts when she's lost in the bog). He'll take whatever she's offering from him just to have some little piece. Desperate and earnest to see her show up to yoga with him, encouraging her to reach out to her friends, telling Rhysand to leave her alone.

Only to turn around and treat her like trash. Throwing that pack at her, laughing with Rhys that she's gonna HATE hiking, that it's her punishment after Rhys, only hours before, promised Cassian he would kill her. He knows fire troubles her and keeps one going for days and doesn't ever examine the link between his own fire and her constant flinching or how she's curled up in on herself. He thinks about it constantly over 400 pages, how she refuses to sleep in front of fire, how strange that she begs him/the house to make it stop. He knows there is trauma around it. How she's barely eating. That she doesn't speak for days.

And it's troubling and awful to read. He's supposed to love her but it doesn't feel like love. And then it gets reframed as "for her own good" and "cassian knew what she needed" just like Feyre a few pages back immediately forgiving Rhysand for keeping the news she'd die from her but saying she's "furiously angry" with them all. He knows best and Feyre submits to this judgement. Cassian knows what Nesta needs, and Nesta submits.

That hike doesn't solve shit between Cassian and Nesta btw. She's still all set to marry Eris because she thinks Cassian's TOO GOOD FOR HER and she's NOT WORTHY of him. The man who didn't care if she didn't talk to him for days and only felt sorry when she fell face first in the dirt from dehydration and exhaustion. Who took his girlfriend on a hiking trip against her will, he's loving and kind and sweet ONLY because the author says so. Cassian is an asshole. Keeping this scene makes Cassian's behavior feel sinister. He's nice until he's not. He wears his heart on his sleeve until he's mad.

Feyre was over it. She told him to bring Nesta back. Cassian decided to do this on his own to score points with his best friend/frat brother and to exact a little revenge that wasn't his to dole out. Anyway I guess I'm back to ranting about Cassian. The Archeron sisters deserve better, these men are serving dust.

Can I hear your thoughts on acosf specifically FEYSAND?

If you expect some Feysand slander, you're on the wrong Blog my friend.

But I can do acosf slander because that book is a fucking dumpster fire. I'm sorry (I'm not) but it is

Feyre is still the cutest and most badass person in the whole universe after acosf. She was a victim and she did not deserve anything of it.

The IC pissed me more off than Rhys with the pregnancy secret. I got why Rhysand didn't tell her (doesn't mean it's right) but he wanted to find a solution before telling her. He didn't want to stress her if there is a way to avoid the stress BUT the Inner Circle is a bunch of hypocrites here. No one could at least say "Hey, that might be a bad idea. Don't you think she should know? That she deserves to know?" No, they shut their mouths but then turned around like "NeStA sHoUlD kNoW aBoUt ThE sWoRd" I HATED IT

I'm still a Feysand stan tho. A Feysandnyx stan now. How I feel about the IC we will see in the oncoming books.

I think the book could have been better.

The way people switched on Tamlin the moment Rhys was introduced is diabolical.

“Tamlin never really loved Feyre, it was all a trick from the start”: It is stated that Tamlin was disgusted by the idea of forcing someone to fall in love with him and considered it slavery, but ended up being so in love with her that he ultimately lets her go and choses her freedom and safety over that of his own people. Rhys confirms that Tamlin loved Feyre too much. And he loved her truly. Not because he had to. Tamlin treated Feyre with dignity when she was engaged to him. He introduced her as his lady, to be respected and cherished by all. And she really was loved his people, too. Rhysand uses her as his lap dog to scare Hewn City and parades her as his whore.

“Tamlin never did anything for Feyre, he just used her”: He improved her and her family’s life in every aspect and offered her everything he had.

“Tamlin had sex with someone else in Calanmai”: Out of duty and responsibility because he didn’t want to force Feyre, who still wasn’t sure about her feelings, into it. All of the High Lords perform the Calanmai. Lucien says so. How convenient that this is never brought up with Rhysand. He surely does perform it as well. All the theories in here, “Lucien doesn’t know what he’s talking about/ This is a SC ritual only/ He probably just passes the duty on to someone else” are just a way for people to villainise Tam and glorify Rhys again. All of them inaccurate. The Calanmai is canonically performed by every High Lord. There’s no evidence that proves otherwise. As the son of one High Lord and the ambassador of another, Lucien would know. He is 500 years old. It’s just more convenient for SJM to never bring this up again because it raises the question of “Who was Rhysand fucking all these years?” and it makes her favourite character look bad. And once he is engaged to her, Tamlin flat out refuses to do it. Let’s be real for a second.

“Tamlin didn’t help Feyre under the mountain”: He literally could not. He was bound by a curse. He was forced to be Amarantha’s consort and a consort cannot oppose you. His powers were bound. Alis warns Feyre that Tamlin will not be able to help her. Stop acting as if he didn’t want to help her. He decapitated Amarantha the moment he got his autonomy back. Claiming that there’s no proof that Tamlin was under the influence of a spell when he literally didn’t break the curse and Amarantha’s magic didn’t allow him to use his powers is crazy. And even if he tried, he could never provide actual help. We see this when he begs Amarantha for Feyre’s life. Him showing he cares about her would only make Amarantha more jealous and vicious towards Feyre.

“Tamlin made out with Feyre instead of helping her”: He couldn’t help her run away. No one could do that. She would never make it, Amarantha would find her. In fact, Tamlin specifically could not help her in any way. He could only assure her he still wants and loves her. And she wanted that just as much. Rhys abused her physically, mentally, verbally, drugged her and much worse. And he enjoyed all of it. If he didn’t want to raise suspicions, he wouldn’t have placed a bet in her favour. Rhys is a masochist, SJM just decided to mellow him down in the next book so that we’d all like him over Tamlin.

“Tamlin ignored Feyre’s wishes and only wanted her to be his bride, he didn’t let her be High Lady”: Both Tamlin and Feyre were bad communicators going though trauma and Tam had a whole court to care for. Tamlin was unaware of how Feyre felt because she barely spoke up once. Rhys knew because he literally lived inside her head and had all the time in the world to focus his attention on her since his court suffered zero consequences during Amarantha’s reign. And Tamlin simply told her the truth: there’s no such thing as High Lady. Even her current title is given to her by Rhys, the magic of Prythian has not actually chosen her to be High Lady. The title and its power are decorative. And she said she didn’t want that anyway.

“Tamlin locks Feyre up and uses his magic to harm her”: He locks her in his humongous palace to keep her safe, after she just came back from the dead and his worst enemy is kidnapping her every month, while he runs off to protect his borders. Rhysand lock Feyre in a fucking bubble. Tamlin loses control of his magic. He doesn’t want to harm her. That’s not abuse. Abuse is intentional. Feyre and Rhysand lock Lucien and Nesta up. They lock the people of the Hewn City up in a cave. Feyre loses control of her magic and harms Lucien’s mother. Double standards I guess.

“Tamlin is a bad and conservative ruler”: Tamlin is such a beloved ruler that his sentries literally begged to die for him. Feyre had to fuck with their minds to finally turn them against him. They were his friends. He was so progressive that the lords fled his court once he became their ruler because he wouldn’t put up with their bullshit like his father did. He loved all of his people. He is against slavery. The Tithe was just tax collection. Rhysand practically rules over just one city, while ignoring Hewn City and Illyria. He treats 2/3 of his realm like shit and everyone except the residents of Velaris hates him. He collects tax, too, but we conveniently never see this. He ranks the members of his inner circle (my 1st, my 2nd etc.) and reminds them every moment that they are his slaves first and anything else second, while Tamlin treats them equally and even gives Lucien an official title by naming him Ambassador.

“Tamlin conspired with Hybern”: He was a double agent and his short lived alliance, two weeks all in all, not only didn’t harm a single soul, but ultimately saved all of Prythian as he was the only one who brought valuable information to that meeting. He dragged Beron to battle. Rhysand’s alliance with Amarantha harmed thousands and only helped save one city, Velaris.

“Tamlin is responsible for turning Nesta and Elain into Fae”: No, that was Ianthe, who got the info from Feyre. Tamlin was fooled by her, just as Feyre obviously was, or she wouldn’t have trusted her. Tamlin was disgusted by that act.

“Tamlin is less powerful than Rhysand”: Rhysand himself says that a battle between them would turn mountains to dust. Tamlin killed Rhysand’s dad, the previous High Lord of the Night Court, in one blow. He is just as powerful as Rhysand. SJM again just wants us to believe otherwise. And he is smarter, too. He was the only one not to trust Amarantha. And he was a good spy for Prythian against Hybern.

All of these takes are cold as fuck. SJM was testing the waters with ACOTAR and she made sure the main love interest, Tamlin, was insanely likeable, so that the book could be a satisfactory standalone story in case she couldn’t land a trilogy deal. She didn’t know it would be such a big hit. But once she realised she could turn this into a franchise, she had to figure out a new story to tell. She may claim otherwise, but there’s just too many plothotes to convince me. And in order to make her new main love interest seem like the best choice, she had to character assassinate the old one. There was no other way. ACOTAR Rhys was too much of an evil monster to be loved by the majority of the audience. But Tamlin was introduced to us as such a heroic and passionate man that is literally impossible to turn him into someone despised by all. Feyre’s relationship with Rhysand reads too much like cheating on Tamlin. That’s why anyone with basic analytical skills is able to realise the flaws of the narration.

I want tamlin and Nesta to start a therapy group and just work through the copious amount of gaslighting they’ve faced by Rhysand, Ferye, and the his merry band of idiots.

“Its makes sense for Rhysand to hide Feyre’s pregnancy issues from her. He wanted to protect her from it, hE’s MoRaLlY gReY..”

He would be MoRaLlY dEaD if I was Feyre because I would have ripped him a new asshole for lying to me about MY OWN DAMN BODY.

SJM should re-write that whole fucking mess and let Feyre go ape-shit crazy on Rhys and the IC. #JusticeformyHighLady

A Court of Silver Flames: “Cassian looked over a shoulder, to where Nesta had been asleep for the past few hours, curled into a tight ball against the wall of rock. I think we'll stay out here for a few days. We're going to hike.

Nesta has never been on a hike in her life. I guarantee she will hate it.” (Feyre’s response)

A Court of Thorns and Roses: "My hands slackened at my sides. "You went after me," I said. "You went after me- to Prythian."

"I got to the wall. I couldn't find a way through."

I raised a shaking hand to my throat. "You trekked two days there and two days back-through the winter woods?"

Hey guys? Guys? THIS is why it’s important to have a team who will actually check you when you make a mistake. This makes Feyre, the main character of the series that Sarah wants people to like, look absolutely awful.

one of my biggest qualms with Nesta (there aren’t many) in ACOSF is how much of a loser her bf is.

I’ll never understand why SJM is forcing Cassian into the role of courtier but it’s so awful to read about. Even worse when he & Nesta do it together and it’s literally as horrible as it can get. Like yeah, go ahead and TELL Eris you’re fucking him over, you fools 😭

“Did I do well? 🥺👉👈” NO, NO YOU DIDNT!!! In fact, you just exposed everything to him, dumb asses (i say this as a term of endearment to Nesta)😭.

We already have two sexy male courtiers, we do NOT need a third.

Emerie and Gwyn would choose Nesta first 🥺

I thought this at first too, but after a conversation in the comments of another post I made, I'm not so sure. They fawned over Rhys more than once in ACOSF, and if they heard about that hike from hell, they didn't get too upset by it. There is a chance they might not have known though. I'm also not sure if Emerie would be willing to abandon Illyiria or Gwyn the library. Leaving for a short period isn't the same as leaving forever, if it comes to that.

With that said, I do think it makes more sense in the Valkyrie's storyline and character that they chose Nesta, but I wouldn't be surprised, at this point, if they also chose Rhys in later books. Again though, all of this is more because of inconsistency and bad writing on SJM's part, since anything good about Nesta from before ACOFS seems to go out the window in ACOSF. Meanwhile, the narrative paints Rhys as the good guy no matter how many horrible things he says or does and I don't expect it to stop now.

All I'm gonna say is. . .finding it pretty fucking unfair that not only can Cassian have his wings "shredded", Hunt and Baxian can have theirs sawed off all together and be *good as new* in a few short days but for the Illyrian females, two little snips and it's game over forever.