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thecrenellations · 5 months

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Is the lymond chronicles something I can get into if I know little of history and do not speak many romance languages?

Yes! I mean, it depends on your reading preferences and how you feel about being confused, but I certainly did!

That's my short answer! If you give them a try, I hope you find the series worth it, and I believe that what you like in a story will matter more than what you do or don't know going in.

My much longer answer, about my reading experience, is ....

In my case, I knew the names of monarchs and had a vague familiarity with the setting of the first book (Tudor/1540s Scotland and England). I speak a useful amount of French and a tiny bit of Spanish. Comparing experiences with friends, French was an especially helpful language to have, but I feel confident saying that I would have loved these books without it.

The thing about The Game of Kings (book 1) is that it’s just confusing. Dorothy Dunnett wastes no time in throwing political intrigue, multilingual references, and many characters at you. But even if you’re an expert in the history and in (modern and archaic) English, French, Latin, Spanish, Scots, and a little bit of Italian and German, you are faced with a protagonist who’s running back and forth across the border and interfering with that history … while guarding his goals and motives, explaining nothing about his past, and constantly quoting poetry from the personal library of a mind he doesn’t want to let anyone inside. Most of the people he meets don’t understand him, either.

For me, it was so rewarding when I finally started to learn what was happening and who he is, and after that the ride truly began…

I did not look up many references or translations and just kinda went with it. I was enjoying myself enough that I didn’t mind that so much was going over my head (especially if it was coming out of Lymond’s mouth), and within a few chapters I’d gotten invested in one of the characters (Christian!) and was entranced by a recurring joke/element. By the second section (let’s say … 175 pages in …), I was hooked, obsessed with a second character (Will!), interested in most of the rest, and having a great time.

There’s a character list in non-audio editions (the David Monteath audiobooks are very good, though), and companion books exist with translations/sources for many of the references. There are also various online recaps and chapter-by-chapter discussions. Looking things up yourself as you go along can reduce confusion, but be warned that many of the characters are versions of real people, so you may learn more than you want to know, such as when they die. 470-year-old spoilers, but still.

For me, the characters (complexity, parallels, relationships) and writing (playfulness, beauty, INCREDIBLE use of perspective and unreliable narration) are what make the books so good. They reward rereading, so, when/if you return, you’ll have another chance to go down some reference rabbit holes, and even if you don’t, you will understand much more.

The second book is generally agreed to be easier to understand! Also, there are elephants.

Perhaps more important than knowledge of history and languages is the reader's tolerance for …

angst. pain. agony. devastating reminders of prior angst and pain and agony

on the flipside, truly ridiculous antics, hijinks, and capers

many, many kinds of traumatic/potentially triggering content

bias/bigotry that shows up in characters’ perspectives and in general (not that newer media is free of this, but these books are from the 1960s and 70s, for context)

occasional elements that stretch the definition of historical fiction

revelations about your favorite authors’ influences (this was fun)

excessive reference to and description of Lymond’s beauty

half? a third? a large amount of the cast being in love with Lymond. This made for way more queer text than I knew to expect, which was great, but also … oh my god everyone is in love with him

the most bantering banter to ever banter, mostly, but certainly not entirely, courtesy of Lymond

Thanks for asking! If any of this raises more questions, ask again!

related: my lymond recs tag. There are mild and out-of-context spoilers, but these posts all sum up something about the series. :)

#lymond #lymond recs #questions #if anyone who sees this wants to chime in ... please do!#i love that so many people bring historical knowledge to the series/fandom #and/or end up diving into research because of it #i did not! history interests me but i really didn't know much about this era #so i eat that context right up #i also tend to have a very long wallowing-in-the-text phase when i find a new thing i love #so i'm still over here rereading multiple books at once because reading something else would mean reading something else!#eventually i'll probably branch out more than i have (a little bit of reading up on places/ people/ elements i want to draw)#much to learn as always #re: the language list ... there are probably more that i forgot #even in GoK #re: everyone being in love with Lymond ... that's probably not the most accurate way to put it but i was going for a tone...

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elenajohansenreads · 3 years

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Books I Read in 2021

#45 - Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray

Mount TBR: 43/100

Beat the Backlist Bingo: Chapter title page has art (illustrated by the author, no less)

Rating: 3/5 stars

I haven't had an experience quite like that since I first read Les Miserables in eighth grade. It took me just over a month of steady, dogged reading, and I carried that book with me everywhere--to every class in school, every time I was sitting in the backseat of the car while running errands with my parents, every time I read before bed.

Vanity Fair reminds me a lot of Les Mis, not in tone or subject matter, but in my sheer determination to get through it, even when it's slow going. Because I started this book in February. The wit and charm and lively characters carried me through the first two hundred pages fairly easily, but then I began to lose steam. I took what I thought was a short break to read something else before going on, and when I went back, suddenly it was hard to read more than a chapter or two at a time. I told myself to keep going. After all, I was still enjoying it--it wasn't the same feeling of epic struggle to stay interested that I had with War and Peace last year. I liked this book, yet somehow, I couldn't motivate myself to read it.

Pretty soon it became clear the problem wasn't Vanity Fair itself, or at least, not mostly. I was just in the worst reading slump of my adult life, because nothing I read could hold my attention long. I took almost an entire month off reading, but when the mood struck to try again, I'd either try a new book and set it down after five pages, or nibble at the edges of Vanity Fair. When I declared (to myself) that my reading slump was over, I was just past 400 pages in.

Like magic, once I'd warmed up with a few light reads, the pages began to fly by again. I could finish several chapters in a sitting, and genuinely want to read more.

But this is a book review, right? Not the story of my reading slump. So what was it that was giving me difficulty, specifically, about this work?

The names. Formal name etiquette in British high society is just the pits. Our main character, Rebecca, probably showed up in the text under about a dozen different names or epithets throughout the course of the story, because she's got her first name, her full name, her nickname, her married name both formally as Mrs. Husband's Name and Becky/Rebecca Husband's Name, and of course any given description posing as a person that Thackeray wanted to attach to her. Eventually at the very end she's mostly Mrs. Becky, which I didn't recall being used much before. On top of that, there were other instances when a change of status caused me some confusion, because first we have Pitt Crawley, no title attached, son of Sir Pitt Crawley, but when the elder Crawley dies, of course Pitt becomes Sir Pitt because the title passes on, even though that's also the name of the now-dead character. Any male character in the military might be referred to by his rank rather than his name, and when multiple military figures are in the same paragraph (as they often are) they are all referred to by an inconsistent mix of their names and ranks.

And all of this is happening constantly through the entire nearly-700-pages of the novel. It's exhausting.

When this was published, I have no doubt this was common enough that readers had little issue with it. Now? I often had to stop to parse who was who because of the constant flux of designations.

If I could strip that stylistic inconsistency out, that would fix a lot of my problems with reading this right away. However, there were still others. While the core cast of characters is relatively small compared to some epic classics of this length, Thackeray does like to veer off on tangents frequently and spend a chapter or three detailing the life and situation of a minor character. That's something I remember loving in Les Mis, which, again, is the thing I have read that is most like this book; but here, somehow I was never as fascinated by these little portraits as I was when Hugo did it. Here I was invested in Becky and Amelia and William Dobbin (in fact, the resolution of his story is the primary reason I finished this book at all--I was hanging on for that happy ending.) But I did not find myself particularly interested in Lord Steyne or Mrs. Major O'Dowd or the Gaunt family. The minor characters were not completely without charm to me, as I particularly liked the single-page tale of Becky's little French maid abandoning her. What the girl took, what became of her, how she fared after Becky's tyranny, that was all grand. But it was also short, and seeing as it came immediately after we read of Becky's downfall, it felt timely and appropriate. Many of the other, larger tangents from the main story line left me scratching my head about why I was suddenly learning new names or jumping to a different country. I admit to skimming some of the side bits that seemed less relevant or interesting, in order to get back to the "good" parts.

How do I feel three months later now that I'm finally done? It was a long walk to that happy ending I was 95% sure was coming. I'm pleased to be finished but not particularly eager to try any other Thackeray works, because while I liked many things about his style--the wit and humor, the insertion of himself as narrator into the story (occasionally) as a character, the biting satire--there's also simply too much dead weight to carry in order to get to all of that. I'm glad I read it, but I never need to reread it. It's rare for me to find myself finishing a classic novel without either loving it to pieces (My Antonia, Les Mis, Jane Eyre) or hating it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns (too many to name.) But I found this book simply good--not great, not terrible.

#booklr #vanity fair #classics #book photography #my photos #my reading challenges #mount tbr 2021 #beat the backlist bingo #food

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ficklewish · 4 years

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Pre Calc Sucks

a Tendou x Reader Soulmate AU

Word count: 1.6k

Genre: Fluff

Pairing: Tendou x reader

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

If you were told that you'd meet your soulmate through a texting app way before you did, you'd probably laugh at their face and tell them that it's not possible for that to happen, as it only does in movies or books. Or that's what you believed. Never in a million years did you think that it would happen to anyone you knew, let alone you yourself. It was a shock, but it was welcomed with open arms, as you had finally met the love of your life, the one fated to be with you. Meeting Tendou was, by far, the best day of your life. How you first met him however…now that would be a funny bedtime story.

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

You were struggling with your art and school when you had downloaded discord. A school friend had suggested it to you, as certain servers had places for school or art help, and you had given in due to the huge lack of inspiration you had. Making an account and picking your username, it had finally been done, but once again, you were stuck. How exactly did discord work? Would it just…randomly suggest servers everyday or did you have to find them? You had left it for a while, just empty, waiting for it to be filled. Your friend had asked if you had made any online friends, and responding with no, they became confused. "Haven't you joined any servers?" You awkwardly laughed, turning away from them. "No…I don't know how discord works." You look back up at them and see the most judging look in their eyes. "You're hopeless. Here, let me help you." Taking your phone and opening your search engine, they go to a random site and start scrolling while you look over their shoulder. Seeing them go through multiple windows, they give back your phone. “There, I added you to one, you can figure out the rest from there.” Giving a small thanks, you turn to your phone, reading the instructions. “Hmmm, this is gonna take a while…” After doing a few tweaks and introducing yourself, you finally started to talk to the people on the server, learning their names and pronouns, acknowledging their age for appropriate conversations, and even adding a few friends. You had completely forgotten you were still at school, even though it was currently your lunch period. “Who knows, maybe your soulmate is in there.” Startled, you turn towards your friend then roll your eyes. The whole soulmate concept was something you used to like, but now, it was just a reminder that you hadn’t found yours yet. The whole “first place they touch you” thing was just a taunt, at least to you. Your mark was what seemed like someone's arms wrapped around you, including your upper arms. So many of your peers had already found theirs while you felt almost forgotten. It brought thoughts to your head, such as what if...your soulmate was across the world? Would you ever meet them? Did you even have one? Shoving the last thought deep into your mind. “I doubt it, shit like that only happens in movies.” Your friend looked at you, then smirked. “I don’t know about that.”

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

After classes ended, you went home, a bit excited to start talking online, as childish as it sounded. You had to keep reminding yourself that you joined for school and art help, but making a few friends never hurt. Taking off your shoes and dropping your things, you sat on the couch and noticed you were home alone for the time being, your parents most likely at the market. Taking your phone out and opening the app, you begin to interact in the correct chat for school.

"Hey! I was wondering if someone could help me with my pre calculus homework? I'm a bit stuck"

You noticed that someone was already going to respond, which comforted you greatly.

"I could help with this! Just give me a moment!"

Checking their profile to not accidentally misgender them, you notice that they are actually a he, and he has similar interests as you. Going back to your bag and getting your notebook and textbook, you turn back to your phone and prepare to fry your brain with math. (fucking hate math, it's so COMPLICATED)

"Alright, what did you need help with?"

Telling your "tutor" about which problems you were confused about, they immediately begin to guide you through it and point out any mistakes you made, all while not exactly telling you the answer. He had helped you understand the concept much more easier than your teacher ever did, and you were extremely grateful for that. He had even given you some extra tips on how to remember certain formulas for when exams and tests are assigned. You thanked him multiple times for helping you with your homework

"Of course! Just DM me anytime you need help, I'd gladly do so!"

And that's what you did, texting him every now and then for homework help, mainly pre calc as it was your worst subject, and you didn't want to burden him with your other classes in case he had his own to pass. Sometimes, you'd even text him because you were actually interested in him, as he had been an interesting person to talk to. Learning a bit about him and sharing a bit about yourself, you quickly formed a friendship with, who you found out a few days ago, Tendou. He'd talk about how he was a part of a volleyball club, being a 3rd year, being part of a powerhouse team, and even some personal facts about his life. Of course, he never told you exactly where he was located, which was perfectly fine, as you didn't want to disclose that information either. However, you soon started to notice that whenever Tendou would text you, you'd become giddy no matter what the conversation was about, and when someone other than Tendou would text you, you'd deflate a bit, hoping it was him. Whenever you'd be doing anything else, you were hoping that he would send you something, you were just hoping to talk to him. These feelings scared you, as you might've had a soulmate, yet you fell for Tendou, and you prayed that maybe, it would somehow work out.

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

4 months later, and Tendou being your "tutor" was still going strong, and your friendship even stronger. You had brought up meeting with him a few times, and the both of you had even planned it sometimes, but never actually went ahead with those plans. Your schedules never met up, as he had practice and you had a part time job. You grew wary, wondering if you would ever meet your online crush. It was then that you realized you had absolutely no idea of what Tendou even looked like, which meant you could've passed him on the street multiple times without noticing. You would constantly hope that one day he would stroll into the little cafe you worked at and notice you, but that was a far stretch, as he had no idea of what you looked like either. Today was no different. Each time a customer would waltz in, you had hoped that it was Tendou, but it never was. It was currently near closing time, and you had begun sweeping the place while a coworker cleaned the kitchen in the back. It wasn't until you were about to begin putting chairs up that you felt a vibration come from your phone. Taking it out, you look at your notifications and see you had gotten a text from Tendou, and you felt your heart skip a beat. Scanning the text, the happiness you had felt quickly melted into excitement and nervousness.

"I found the place you work at, and I think I see you. Are you the one who's holding a broom?"

Rereading the text a few times to check if you weren't seeing things, you began to grow panicked. Today was an extremely stressful day, and you knew that you looked horrible. Your hair was a mess and you had even cried once due to an overly loud and rude man whose order was messed up, and you knew that the tear stains were still slightly visible. Quickly answering his text with a "come inside then :)" you continued to put chairs up in hopes to distract yourself from the nervousness and panic growing inside you with every passing second. Hearing the door open and the small bell above it chime, you freeze. "Um…are you possibly Y/N?" Turning around slowly, you're met with a tall boy with red hair and tired eyes. He reminded you of a lizard, and you thought he was really cute. Remembering that he had asked you a question, you answered. "Yes I am. Are you Tendou?" His eyes widen, and a smile grows on his face. "Aahhh, I finally get to meet you!" Realizing that he is indeed Tendou, a smile of your own grows on your face, and you couldn't stop yourself from engulfing him in a hug. The hug is cut short however, since you feel a searing pain from where Tendou had wrapped his arms around you. Pulling away, you look into his eyes, and does the same. Realization floods his eyes, and he looks as though he's about to cry. "Well shit, who knew you'd be my soulmate too." You immediately run back into his arms, shedding a few tears into his hoodie as he hugs you as if his life depended on it.

"I guess stuff like this really does happen in real life."

ˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ༄ؘˑ

a/n: HOOOO this took me a while to write, had to start over 3 times 😔 neways, I hope you liked it!

#haikyuu!!#hq tendou #tendou satori #tendou x reader #tendou x y/n

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kitashiwrites · 7 years

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I'm sorry my post was really aggressive. I still stand by my point that it ISN'T fair to dismiss Mor's romantic feelings (or lack thereof) towards Az, but how I acted was really awful. You don't have to post this publicly, but I hope you know I'm very sorry. My intention wasn't to try to start drama, but just receive an explanation over WHY you still ship Moriel. My way of going about it was TERRIBLE. I know sorry is just a word, but I'M SORRY.

2/2 I didn’t send you three asks. I only sent you one? Just to clear that up.3/3 I also didn’t send more than one ask. :/

Okay Anon. While I find it extremely hard to believe because of the timing (especially because for as long as I have been on here, I have RARELY gotten asks, let alone 3 in such quick succession that are so similar), as well as the fact that you clearly don’t stand behind your words because you felt the need to do this all on anon/have to make sure we know that you still think we are wrong, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt & accept your apology.In regards to your question, why I still ship Moriel, @sarahviehmann honestly said it best in her original answer to you: “ACOMAF was written in a way that intended for them to be shipped. So those people spent a year building up their fanon and meta and so forth, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.”

(For the sake of everyone, I’m putting this under a cut. It got way long.)

I hated ACOWAR. I’ve made no secret of that. I’ve also made no secret as to WHY. I’ve been writing fic for this series for over a year, & heavily focused on ACOMAF. I started when there were literally 7 fics posted to Ao3. Basically all of my free time at home & all of my breaks at work were spent either writing fic, discussing the series/meta with people here/talking my poor friends’ ears off over dinner, or planning fic for characters I wanted to explore in POV fics like Rhys, Tamlin, & Tarquin. Hell, I still have a 10 chapter Amarantha POV pre-ACOTAR through ACOTAR fic that’s over half written at 16k that I originally wanted to try as a surprise for my readers. I read ACOMAF enough times that I honestly would have said that I knew those characters as well as my own family, knew exactly what happened in which chapters, & got many comments here & on Ao3 from people who felt I’d captured the characters correctly, so I felt pretty good about what to expect going forward.

When ACOWAR spoilers came out, absolutely nothing made sense with what we knew or had been prior established canon. Most of all in regards to Mor, Rhys, Feyre, & Lucien, but I’m going to specifically focus on Mor, since she’s at the crux of the issue at hand. In Mor’s case, we took a woman who is described in ACOMAF as “a queen who owned her body, her life, her destiny, and never apologized for it” & says to Feyre, “I once lived in a place where the opinion of others mattered. It suffocated me, nearly broke me. So you’ll understand me, Feyre, when I say that I know what you feel, and I know what they tried to do to you, and that with enough courage, you can say to hell with a reputation. You do what you love, what you need”, & in ACOWAR made her a victim in circumstances that make absolutely no sense for the character we had known up until that date. Queen of the Hewn City? She wasn’t even treated with enough respect to be prepared to go into a meeting with her abusers, let alone shown that she is in charge. The first real female friend Feyre has ever had? Regulated to acting like a jealous girlfriend around Cassian whenever Nesta got too close. And speaking of Cassian, it was pointed out in another post (I’m sorry I don’t have the link right now) that the Cassian & Mor moments read like they were originally Az & Mor moments & were hastily changed when suddenly they weren’t supposed to be even friends. Nothing in this book read like it had been edited for continuity.

There are many bloggers who are far more qualified than I am to speak on Mor’s coming out scene, & while there was a divide, there were quite a few I know & follow who felt it was poorly written/bad rep, & I agree with their reasoning. Besides the fact that I don’t believe for one dang second that no one in the Inner Circle at a minimum would have picked up on something bothering Mor in 500 years or that she wouldn’t have at least told them even if she hid everything from Keir, there is the fact of Azriel. Azriel is in love with her, no disputing it. But it is mentioned by Rhys that Az has always thought himself unworthy of her, & Mor says that she could take her clothes off in front of him & he wouldn’t do anything. Does that sound like someone who is trying to avoid him because she isn’t interested, or someone who is creepily stalking her? In the Nessian short Wings & Embers, Cassian speaks on their relationship as well: “He wasn’t stupid. He knew she and Azriel were … whatever they were. Knew Azriel had been in love with Mor from the moment she’d strutted into the war-camp five centuries ago. And Cassian had been jealous—of Mor’s shy glances at Azriel in those first few weeks, and the fact that his dearest friend and brother … was looking at someone else.”

I’m not going to rehash Wings & Embers or ACOMAF for you. But as Sarah said, it was clearly written with them as a ship in mind, & this is from the POV of a character that has known them since the beginning, not just a few months like Feyre.

Why I still ship Moriel at this point? Because I ship it in any form. I love her & Az together period, even as friends. This ship was one of the ways @illyriantremors & I bonded originally, before we found out how much else we had in common & she became as good as a biological sister to me (I call her my Threadsister for a reason), because we shipped it back in the beginning before there was really any fic for it because it was overshadowed by Feysand, Nessian, & Elucien. Moriel was our Nessian; the unconfirmed side-ship with so much potential & evidence to back it up. When Sierra met SJM at San Diego Comic Con last summer, SJM dedicated Sierra’s copy of ACOMAF to Moriel. Why the af would an author do that if they planned to destroy a ship in the next book from the beginning?

We still love Moriel because it is hard to let go of something you’ve loved that much after you’ve been strung along & then had the rug pulled out from under you with no actual basis in ACOMAF to say “oh, it was there all along”; like when rereading ACOTAR through the ACOMAF filter, as I like to say to people, & seeing the clues that were left to the deeper story for Rhys. For me, those were not in ACOMAF upon reading it again after ACOWAR. I noticed you using my tags in your defense of yourself to Sarah regarding why I wanted to ignore ACOWAR &, by your interpretation, erase Mor’s sexuality. If you had read any of my blog at all after ACOWAR, you would have read that isn’t true, but I’ll spell it out for you: I want to ignore ACOWAR & what it did to my favorite characters’ personalities/their interactions with each other. I want to forget that Mor’s agency was taken away from her & that she was regulated to a plot twist. I want to forget that Az has been made out to be a creepy stalker. I want to forget Rhys treating Mor like she would be too emotional to deal with the negotiations with Kier & Eris & so he & Az didn’t tell her. I want to forget Feyre using Lucien to make Tamlin jealous in the Spring Court while she dismantled it from within & putting him in danger. And so much more.

I personally hate the book for multiple reasons, ranging everywhere from inconsistent characterization to grammar/editing issues. But I’m stuck with the facts it gave us, which is why writing fic is so hard to even consider anymore. It made everything about the series, not just Mor & Az, something I no longer can love with the intensity I once did, & the fandom diminishes that love more & more everyday with their bullying of people for not believing exactly the way they do, which is exactly what you contributed to when you sent those asks to myself & Sierra. And honestly, I couldn’t care less what you think of me. But if you had even looked at one of Sierra’s actual written posts/answers to asks—just one—you would have seen how quiet she’s been about her love for them as a ship & how determined she’s been to not to offend people while she’s been trying to come to terms with losing something that has been a lifesaver for her, to the point she has mostly stopped contributing to the fandom at all. She posted two Moriel drabbles during her birthday week because she was inspired by the Azriel candle I got her for her birthday, & as she said to you in her response to your original message, they were her way of saying farewell to Moriel. And guess what: even though it isn’t canon, people liked them.

I view Mor as bi, & if she’s given a healthy, happy female love interest in a future installment, then awesome. I want Moriel at least as close friends because I genuinely don’t think Az (at least the one from ACOMAF that actually made sense) would begrudge her if he knew the truth. Would he be sad? Sure, but I think he would support her nonetheless, just as the rest of the Inner Circle would. But I have absolutely no faith that SJM will give Mor anything good because she can milk the drama and turmoil she’s created, & I have no desire to see the characters & ships (across the board) I have loved so much destroyed any further.

I think @my-name-is-fireheart put it perfectly in her chime in on Sarah’s post: “Also, we should keep in mind that Mor expresses sexual attraction to men, she just prefers women. How she feels about men romantically is also blurred, though it’s slightly more clear. She says she doesn’t think she loves Az romantically but she doesn’t want to try it just to see.” SJM didn’t even know how to break her own ship apart properly to fit what you suggested, which is a good chunk of why we are even having this discussion right now.

I know Moriel is no longer canon. Cazigan (Cassian/Azriel/Mor) isn’t canon either, but I still love that. I have enjoyed their interactions with each other more than anything else since they were introduced in ACOMAF. The entire Inner Circle made me so happy for their closeness & how much of a family they were. I feel for a plot twist & a couple extra Benjamin Franklins, SJM destroyed everything that made one of my favorite characters in the entire series who she was (a strong, independent woman who didn’t let her circumstances break her & showed Feyre how not to let hers break her) & made her a poor caricature of herself, & made Az something he never has been before either because SJM hastily had to make her new & poorly executed addition work.

I shouldn’t be surprised though. This is the woman who attempted to retcon Eris of all characters into a decent person. And also took away any modicum of being able to read Tamlin as the multifaceted antagonist he had been & just turned him into a completely hateful ass with no loyalty to anyone to further drive home how perfect Rhys is supposed to be (which he definitely is not in ACOWAR, & I say that as someone who loved the morally grey character of Rhys).

TL;DR I ship Mor with Az in any form, even as friends, Mor being bi is not an issue, & I have lost all respect for SJM as an author after ACOWAR for giving us a poorly written/poorly edited product after the anticipation/hype this book had. Make of that what you will; I don’t care. I’m out of effs to give, & your ask & the other Az one I received, no matter who it was from or what your intentions were, pretty much tipped the scale in favor of me wanting to step back even further & have nothing to do with this fandom ever again.

I would ask that next time you think you have a problem with someone (because I doubt Sierra & I will be the last people you do this to), please think about how it comes across & think about your target. Your original ask was terribly hateful, & there is no amount of apology that can take that hurt away. And you would be amazed how far a little kindness & grace when asking a question instead of an accusatory message can go.

This explanation is more than you probably bargained for when you started this yesterday, but that’s the last I’ll say on any of this.

#kitashianswers #Anon Answers #Moriel #Mor deserved better #Az deserved better #anti-SJM #anti-acowar #long post #sorry to my followers #discourse & meta aren't my thing #but seriously #sending hateful messages to people is never the answer #especially on anon

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