u/Similar-Focus8400

For months after the SJM interview everyone kept saying that there is no way the book would be a multi pov because “It will for sure be about Elain and she deserved a book all of her own with her love interest” (which granted I think too, I just didn’t think the next books were hers) yet now there is a whole bunch of backtracking by those same people who are now all for a multi pov lmao

Whenever I or others mentioned that the next book will either focus on Nesta because of HOFAS or be a multipov there was always someone angry claiming that her story is over, the only way she’d appear in those books is similar to how Feyre appeared in ACOSF and that Nesta fans are jealous that Elain will get the bigger book while Nesta only got one. Now I’m seeing everyone scrambling to defend the multi pov guess and trying to include their faves with weird theories.

I’ll backtrack from the title, it would ALMOST be funny if I didn’t find the hypocrisy and the previous behaviour so obnoxious

WE GET IT. THE COVERS DON’T MATCH. BIG DEAL.

You know what other cover didn’t match when it came out? ACOSF who replaced the old covers with Feyre portrayed in them. People complained then and complained some more after they all changed because the side had flames instead of being plain like the others. Everyone still bought it so what is the issue? Besides are we forgetting that these are hard covers and that we still don’t know what the paperbacks will look like? For all we know the paperbacks will be a single color and all this collective frustration would have been for nothing

It’s so tiring and obnoxious. We all have been complaining about nothing coming out for months and when it does there is even more complaining because “oh the covers don’t match” “oh it’s not Elain’s book even though no one claimed it would be and we just assumed so” “oh I don’t want to read about Nesta and the Valkyries”. Boo hoo. This is why we aren’t getting anything, besides, we all know most of you will end up reading it anyway

I like pretty and cohesive things as much as the next person but we need to relax lol you don’t have to re-buy the whole series, the content of the books is the same. It’s not the end of the world, and if it is for you then simply don’t buy it (after all most of the people who are currently complaining are the same ones who ran with the “if you don’t like the books why are you reading them ?” take for months. Follow your own advice and protect your peace by dropping the series at the trilogy 🫶). I don’t want to say “be happy for the scraps you are getting” because I do feel that building up the hype to this level and dragging the announcement so much was low but….”don’t judge a book by its cover” I believe is my point

Well…yeah? Congrats on understanding the book I guess. ACOSF was never meant to be a “redemption”, it was Nesta’s healing arc. All the redemption she needed was in ACOTAR chapter 30, that’s about it. For people who take Feyre’s word as gospel and who claim to want change, complexity and that “actions matter more than words” they certainly hate a lot on the character who represents all these things.

And look, that wouldn’t even be a problem if they didn’t keep condemning Nesta for the 1.5 chapters we see her in the cabin with the same breath they love and defend characters who either remained completely stagnant or had a downfall so bad they likely will never recover

It seems that only kissing Feyre’s feet and doing whatever she wants like a slave counts as a satisfying “redemption” for certain people and I’m sorry to tell you this but nothing Feyre did really warrants anyone doing that, not even choosing to hunt 🙃 Unless of course you want your darling high lady to do the same to the sister who saved not only her life but that of her entire family after her and her centenary mate’s dumb decision, but considering the double standards you show those two I highly doubt that’s the case.

I speak often about the double standards in this series, especially those shown to Nesta.

Be it for the way her trauma is treated, how she is not provided an ounce of care, how she is the only one blamed for Feyre’s choices while their father not only is treated as a hero but his name was considered as a possible name for Nyx or simply the reaction to her meanness compared to that of characters who not only are just as mean, but are murderers, torturers and criminals, Nesta is without a doubt often at the receiving end of the “rules for thee but not for me” narrative that is spun both by the books and by the fandom.

Today though I wanted to focus on a specific thing that I’ve noticed, no one cares to “save” Nesta.

Elain gets kidnapped, Azriel and Feyre don’t care and are ready to die getting her out of the enemy camp (far more dangerous that whatever that blood rite was), Feyre is locked for a whole 5 minutes and boom she gets saved, Cassian is injured and Nesta is ready to die with him or she fights a death god to save him, Feyre is taken to Prythian and Nesta goes to look for her etc.

Then we have Nesta, and no, I will not be talking about that blood rite or everyone’s reaction as there is no point in beating a dead horse. I wanted to focus on ACOWAR, specifically chapter 72.

In here Nesta offers herself as bait for Hybern. The reactions? Quite similiar to that of the blood rite actually (for those who say ACOSF changed the characters these might be bad news). Cassian is the only one who has a reaction and mind you he has known her for just a few months, Rhysand obviously doesn’t care so he just asks a question about the plan, Feyre just blinks once and that’s it. You might say, “well maybe they thought she’d be fine” which would be a nice idea if the reactions to Cassian joining her barely a paragraph later weren’t so vastly different

“I’m not letting you throw your life away like this”, plenty of refusals, and a whole heartfelt moment later we finally get Feyre’s reaction: “And if Amren and I could control the Cauldron between us ... That distraction they'd offer...” followed by a “HE might survive," said softly to Rhysand

Underwhelming? Very and that’s pretty much it. Nesta is just chopped liver until arguably the best scene in ACOWAR where she and Cassian are ready to die together.

Maybe SJM wants to show that she can fight on her own but this thing does not portray any of the other characters (except Cassian) in a good light. It makes them appear callous and as if they do not care which, fair enough, they don’t have to care about her, but if that is the case then I do not want to hear any of them, especially Feyre, whine anymore about how much she cares for her and cry over her nasty scrambled eggs about how her affections are not returned.

Or better, they do to the same extent all the other characters get excused and justified.

I can’t even begin to count the amount of posts and comments I read who say “trauma isn’t an excuse”, “I understand so-and-so but don’t excuse them”, “I hate so-and-so fans because they keep victimising their favs”

All fair, by all means but how come it counts only when Nesta and Tamlin are concerned? I don’t see those people holding that same opinion when Feysand and the IC are concerned. Does trauma excuse only their actions?

Tamlin and Nesta simply get held by their fans to the same standard the other characters are, especially when they objectively have done the same things the others have or less. If you don’t like that then start having the same opinion for other characters and hold them accountable as well; I assure you, you’ll see much less “excusing and justifying”

I see way too many people talking about how the fandom used to be oh so positive and blaming ACOSF and Nesta fans (now Tamlin fans as well) for the recent wave of Feysand and IC hate and the fandom “turning toxic” so I need to offer another perspective that seems to be getting lost here:

Feyre hate and IC hate is not new, it’s just that no one could say anything because they would get massive waves of hate as soon as they spoke negatively about them

ACOSF simply opened the eyes of more people by offering a different perspective and gave those who kept getting dragged, “courage” to speak up. With having to wait so long for the next book, many people also started rereading with a different perspective and maturity as many years have passed from the trilogy so it’s inevitable that opinions skew. I realise how unpleasant Reddit is currently for pro Feysands but the situation here was completely opposite just a year or two ago, the same goes for other platforms, the takes are ever-changing. One day you are in the majority, the next the tables turn, it’s just how it goes and it will 100% happen again after the next books 🤷‍♀️

The best example I can provide because I am a neutral party and it is recent enough so I managed to observe it since it started, is Tamlin love on tiktok. Not even a year ago the consensus was “Tamp0n sucks!!!1!!1!1🙄😡 Abusive PoS who destroyed Feyre’s life”, then a new account popped up. She shared her opinions on the series as she read it and kept loving Tamlin even after MaF. She gained so much popularity thanks to people who felt the same but never shared their opinion for fear of getting mass attacked. Since then more and more people have started making pro-Tamlin accounts and, while still getting a lot of hate, they are able to make their points to a broader audience

Anyway, the point of this post is that the fandom was always toxic, just towards different groups, whoever says it used to “positive and nice UNTIL….” likely did not look at the situation well enough until they experienced it on their own skin (best case scenario) or were the people doing the same thing they now condemn which seems crazy but I’ve seen more than once.

Those who want positivity should start by being the positivity they seek and who knows, maybe the next “phase” of the fandom will be one where opinions can coexist peacefully

I feel like this post needs a few premises:

1. I do not hate Nessian. They were my favourite couple until ACOFAS even if they already had some “problematic” moments before that. ACOFAS-SF soured their relationship for me and knocked Cassian down a few spots in my ranking but this is an unfinished series and I’m open minded so just as quickly as my love for their ship faded I’m hoping it will come back

2. I do not think that saying “I love you” is a necessity. As a huge Nesta fan, I’m a big advocate of the showing not telling. To me it was clear that she loved her sisters and Cassian even if she never said it until the last chapters of the very last book, and that is because her actions (going to the wall, laying on Cassian ready to die with him, everything she did for Elain etc.) showed it. I would be hypocritical if I inherently hated Cassian for not saying it

All this said, the issue with Cassian not saying those 3 little words isn’t the fact that he has not said it. It’s that he never even THINKS it about Nesta and we have half a book in his head. Unlike Nesta, he doesn’t have a problem with saying “I love you” to practically anyone. Mor, Rhysand, Feyre etc. his mate seems to be the only one he is close to who does not receive these words.

And I know the usual argument is that “Nesta doesn’t need it, he shows it and that’s enough” but I completely disagree with it. Nesta having a hard time with love in general is precisely why she needed those words. She even leaves off her book feeling like she still has to earn everyone’s love, CC3 also does not help.

I am sure we will get more on them in the next books because imo there is much left unresolved

Here is something the fandom doesn’t seem ready to accept yet: There is a reason why Papa Archeron was on “the Nesta” and no, he shouldn’t have been on the Feyre.

Whenever there is a post about the ships, there will always be at least one person commenting that they couldn’t enjoy the scene because he was on “the Nesta” or that Papa Archeron further failed Feyre because he wasn’t on her ship, and I can’t help but roll my eyes every. single. time.

Him being on “the Nesta” was done deliberately not to undermine Feyre, in fact, this isn’t about Feyre at all. It was done because his relationship with Nesta was the most complicated and complex out of all the sisters. While he favoured Elain and even Feyre, Nesta was not in the equation. They had enjoyed their trips to his study and spent time with him, Nesta on the other hand was there mostly to find a proper match, and she was less than 14 years old at the time. Even Feyre knew that, there is no way her father didn’t nor that he didn’t know the extent of her mother and grandmother’s abuse and grooming. She also had resentment towards him because she saw him as passively standing there while her mother was dying.

He was rarely there for her, nor did he ever react which is what hurt Nesta the most. This was his effort to show up for all his daughters but her especially. This and him dying before they could ever properly talk was also done as a backdrop for Nesta’s state of mind after the war.

He failed all his daughters in that cabin, but he had failed Nesta long before that. He had to be on that ship

This take often pops up when there are discussions about “how awful Nesta and Elain are in book one” and as a way to prove that their actions should in no way be excused or justified because SJM had set them up to be the tropy-evil-stepsisters and changed her mind in MaF...

And it drives me absolutely INSANE

I believe this take stems from a tweet of SJM herself so yeah, it does have some truth in it but for sure not in the way people are using it. If SJM had changed her mind, she did so while still writing book one, otherwise she would have not written chapters 30-31 where Feyre and her sisters left off in a very good place. She also would not have written all the positive things Feyre thought about Nesta after those chapters

I know we all go on and on about the many plot holes of this series but I find it hard to believe that this is one and that SJM just changed her mind in the middle of it and did not revise the book or switch things up before publishing it. I’d go even as far as to consider TaR the book with the least amount of plotholes (likely because it is the first book) or where at least the inconsistencies make sense (for example Feyre’e thoughts about her father coming to rescue her and Nesta enjoying her gone being false gave more importance to Nesta going to look for her)

If anything SJM changed her mind in MaF where she retconned a bunch of stuff, had Feyre not want to invite her sisters to her wedding, badmouth them to strangers and had their reunion be cold and so unlike those previously written chapters

I just had to get this out 😩