u/SpecificHeron

I’m rereading ACOMAF and it’s abundantly clear that the only reason Rhys and Feyre work is that Rhys can read her mind.

Feyre is terrible at communicating. Tamlin is hit or miss in his communication with her—while he is good at explaining his viewpoint through a logical lens, sometimes Feyre just needs her emotions addressed instead. Feyre, most of the time, doesn’t even bother trying to express her feelings to Tamlin, and it seems the biggest barrier in their relationship is her utter inability to express herself and therefore Tamlin being unable to respond to her needs.

It had become our unspoken agreement—not to let Amarantha win by acknowledging that she still tormented us in our dreams and waking hours.

I hated the bright dresses that had become my daily uniform, but didn’t have the heart to tell Tamlin—not when he’d bought so many, not when he looked so happy to see me wear them.

[re the wedding dress] I’d wanted to push back about it, hating that though he agreed with me, he had sided with her, but… it took more energy than it was worth.

The first conversation where we see any back-and forth about her feelings is in chapter 2, when she wants to go on an aid mission to a village while Tamlin and Lucien go on a monster hunt. Tamlin points down that he doesn’t have the sentries to spare to escort her, and Amarantha’s beasts are still at large. Feyre says she can hold her own. Tamlin doesn’t want to risk it. (Tamlin is right to doubt her ability, given she’s still so uncoordinated in her body that she is still accidentally crushing silverware and breaking glass doors.) Feyre reluctantly concedes, but gives Tamlin a fake smile:

“Fine,” I breathed. I made myself look him in the eye, made myself smile. “Be careful,” I said, and I meant it. (Feyre, why would you not mean that?!How often are you lying that you have to point out to the audience when you’re being earnest??)

Fortunately for Feyre, the ability for healthy communication is a barrier she never needs to overcome, because Rhysand doesn’t need her to. He just reads her mind, and Feyre auto-transmits thoughts and feelings via the bargain bond.

At the first Moonstone Palace breakfast:

Feyre: “You’re prone to digging through my head whenever you please.”

Rhysand: “Only occasionally will I do that. And I can’t help it if *you* send things down the bond.

Further along in the conversation, he denies digging through her mind all the time, but still reveals a huge advantage over Tamlin.

Feyre: And how often do you just rifle through my mind when my shields are down?

Rhysand: When I can’t tell if your nightmares are real threats or imagined. When you’re about to be married and silently beg anyone to help you. Only when you drop your mental shields and unknowingly blast those things down the bridge. And to answer your question before, yes. Even with your shields up, I could still get through them if I wished.

Rhys also plants doubts about Tamlin during Feyre’s stay in the Moonstone Palace:

“You can be a pawn, be someone’s reward, and spend the rest of your immortal life bowing and scraping and pretending you’re less than him and Ianthe, than any of us. But I know you—more than you realize, I think—and I don’t believe for one damn minute that you’re remotely fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat in his ass for fifty years, then sat on his ass while you were shredded apart—“

Putting aside that of course Tamlin didn’t sit on his ass for fifty years, and in fact his resistance and activity during those fifty years ultimately led to the curse being broken and Amarantha being defeated while Rhys accomplished nothing besides continuing to keep his secret hidden city a secret hidden city—Rhys’ “I know you, more than you realize” of course means that, because he can access Feyre’s mind, he knows exactly what she wants. She doesn’t have to tell him, doesn’t have to learn the communication skills to express her desires and concerns. As far as we know, she’s never expressed to Tamlin her dissatisfaction with her life in Spring, and he of course doesn’t have the advantage of being able to read her thoughts and emotions. He knows she’s expressed a desire to go out and help villages, but as far as he knows, she accepted his explanation about concerns for her safety back in chapter 2.

Now, Feyre does communicate her thoughts and feelings about the Tithe. Tamlin does a good job explaining that giving the wraiths a handout does nothing to help them in the long run and in fact undermines the authority of the court. The problem here is that Feyre is too dumb to understand the point of taxes (despite it being explained explicitly to her), or comprehend anything Tamlin is telling her. She can’t think beyond: I was starving once, and they are starving, therefore their plight is relatable to me, so we should help them.

A couple of scenes later, Tamlin actually apologizes to Feyre about how he responded to her thoughts about the tithe. This scene leads up to the infamous explosion in the study, and it’s fascinating on re-read to see the lead-up. He says he’s sorry, and he was wrong (he wasn’t). He appeals to her feelings and emotions rather than to logic, which is what she needs in the moment. The techniques he use actually remind me of the “addressing the right brain” technique in the book *The Whole Brain Child* (yes, it is a parenting book about how to communicate with irrational babies):

He kissed my neck again. “I’m sorry.”

I ran a hand down his arm. “Tamlin,” I started.

“I shouldn’t have said those things,” he breathed onto my skin. “To you or to Lucien. I didn’t mean any of them.”

“I know,” I said, and his body relaxed against mine. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

What he said had been true—if he made exceptions, the other faeries would demand the same treatment. And what I had done could be construed as undermining. “Maybe I was—“

“No. You were right. I don’t understand what it’s like to be starving—or any of it.”*

Then he gives her a traveling painting kit, and she is horrified. She hates that there is red in it because it triggers thoughts about UTM. She compares it to a crow-picked corpse. Tamlin senses she doesn’t like it. So he says, “You don’t like it.”

Feyre, rather than telling him how she’s feeling, says “It’s wonderful.” Then she changes the subject and asks Tamlin if his paperwork is actually doing any good. “And you? Will the paperwork help with anything at all?”

This annoys him, understandably, because he knows she is bothered by something but isn’t coming out with it (and is needling him about his paperwork and implying it’s a waste of time.)

Feyre finally drops the passive aggression and comes out with it.

Feyre: Tamlin—Tamlin, I can’t… I can’t live my life with guards around me day and night. I can’t live with that… suffocation. Just let me help you—let me work with you.

Tamlin: You’ve given enough, Feyre.

Feyre: I know. But… I’m harder to kill now. I’m faster, stronger—“

Tamlin: My family was faster and stronger than you. And they were murdered quite easily.

I want to point out here that, even though Feyre brings up feeling suffocated by the guards, she immediately pivots again to wanting to help Tamlin and making that the primary concern. We know from her inner monologue that “wanting to help” isn’t the source of her dissatisfaction—it’s feeling pent up by always having an escort, being stuck at the manor, and now the prospect of carrying out the duties of the wife of a High Lord. But instead, she still frames it as “I am frustrated because I want to go on missions to help rebuild the court.”

Tamlin does make the mistake here of trying to address her with logic rather than responding in a “left brain sensitive” method (by addressing her emotions).

Feyre drops the bomb.

Feyre: Then marry someone who can put up with this.

Tamlin: Do you not want to marry me?

Feyre: Of course I do. Of course I do. But you… Tamlin… I’m drowning. I am drowning. And the more you do this, the more guards… You might as well be shoving my head under the water.

Note that here, she still doesn’t express what is actually bothering her—she doesn’t even really express a complete thought besides feeling like she is drowning, but as far as Tamlin knows, it’s because he isn’t letting her go risk her neck on solo relief missions—and he thought that issue had already been put to rest.

This immediately leads to the magical outburst that blows up the study. Which I am not excusing, and Tamlin doesn’t excuse either—he’s immediately horrified and apologetic.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll try. I’ll try to be better. I don’t… I can’t control it sometimes. The rage. Today was just… today was bad.”

Afterwards, he “didn’t stop apologizing for days.” He stops having guards follow her. She rides through the woods without an escort.

Nonetheless, it’s all downhill from there—Tamlin shields Feyre into the manor after her next return from NC because she’s still insisting on barreling off into a war zone, and she is stuck in the manor for all of five minutes before throwing a magical tantrum and being taken back to NC by Mor. And from then on, she’s in an effortless relationship with Rhys. The first day in Velaris, he senses her frustration at Velaris being kept a safe haven and is able to defuse her, without her having to explain a word of how she’s feeling:

I wanted to scream at them, wanted to pick up a loose piece of cobblestone and shatter the nearest window, wanted to unleash that power again boiling beneath my skin and tell them, show them, what had been done to me, to the rest of the world while they admired sunsets and painted and drank tea by the river.

“Easy,” Rhys murmured. […] “My people are blameless.”

He does the same when she starts fearing for her life at hearing Rhys proclaim himself “the most powerful High Lord in Prythian’s history”:

I waited for the fear to hit; waited for my body tp shriek to find a way to get out of this dinner, but…nothing. Maybe it’d be a mercy to be ended….

A broad hand gripped my face—gently enough not to hurt, but hard enough to make me look at him. “Don’t you ever think that,” Rhysand hissed, his eyes livid. “Not for one damned moment.”

The bond between us went taut, and my lingering mental shields collapsed.

This shows that Rhys is in her head even when her shields are up—monitoring, sensing, and reacting before she ever has to say out loud what she’s feeling or thinking.

And if Feyre is never going to learn a healthy way to communicate, that’s exactly what she needs—someone in her head at all times to catch her spinning out before she bottles it up to the point of explosion. It’s why Rhys is perfect for her.

Throughout the series there are inconsistent explanations of what the mating bond actually is and at this point I’m confused about what’s even the point.

Theory 1: Soulmates

In ACOTAR, the first mention of mating bonds is by Tamlin.

Feyre: You said that your father had it [rose garden] planted for your parents upon their mating—not wedding?

Tamlin: High Fae mostly marry. But if they’re blessed, they’ll find their mate—their equal, their match in every way. High Fae wed without the mating bond, but if you find your mate, the bond is so deep that marriage is…insignificant in comparison.

So here, Tamlin describes mates as true soulmates, so compatible and perfectly matched that marriage to anyone else becomes insignificant.

We find out that although Tamlin’s father sucked, his mother still loved him, so much that she couldn’t even see his flaws.

Tamlin: My mother—she loved my father deeply. Too deeply, but they were mated and… Even if she saw what a tyrant he was, she wouldn’t say an ill word against him.

This is pretty much all that’s said of mates in the first book—so by the end of ACOTAR, we’re left with the impression that mates are basically mega-soulmates. You find your mate, and you’re all set, because no other relationship can compare to the depth of compatibility with your mate. Even if other people think your mate sucks, you still love your mate, because they’re perfectly compatible with you.

But wait.

We find out that Rhysand’s parents were mated, but their relationship was unhappy and toxic. Just tautologically, people cannot be perfectly suited for each other but also be unhappy and toxic with each other. If you end up unhappy with a person, then that person is not a perfect match, because you are unhappy with them.

So the mating bond is not necessarily with someone you are even compatible with. Rhysand’s parents prove that Tamlin is incorrect about his characterization of the mating bond.

So, if mates can end up resenting each other, why would anyone choose to permanently soul-fuse yourself to someone you may or may not even be compatible with? I guess there might be ways to break it, but divorce seems easier. It just seems like a crazy gamble to mind-meld with someone that you might end up hating.

Theory 2: Reproduction

Even typing that out gave me the heebie jeebies because I find this theory so grody, but Rhysand himself brings it up, so I have to discuss it.

Rhysand hypothesizes in (can’t remember which book) that mates are paired to
create the strongest offspring. So the mating bond drives faerie eugenics. Not a theory that I love much in a romance driven series to be honest.

This would mean gay couples can’t be mates, yet Rhysand speculates on a possible mating bond between Thesan and his (male) lover, so it seems there is a precedent for it, which debunks his own theory.

This one is also debunked by the fact that Nesta and Cassian are mates. Cassian is Ilyrian. Nesta is high fae. If we are talking about the mating bond as biologically driven, this seems like an inadvisable pairing due to, you know, the whole wing dystocia/guaranteed death of mother and winged baby thing.

So most evidence seems to be against Rhysand’s whole mating-bond-as-a-vehicle-of-faerie-eugenics theory.

In conclusion, it seems the mating bond is kind of just a suggestion. What am I missing here? What am I meant to take away as the point of all this?

I’ve seen “generational wealth” used to explain how Rhysand seems to have a vast fortune despite not seeming to draw a paycheck himself (and despite LOTS of gratuitous spending). We see the outflow of money, but where does the inflow come from? How is he replacing the cash he is blowing buying diamond encrusted dresses and whole ass mansions?

Generational wealth can only be self-sustaining when it’s invested and paying out dividends/interest. Otherwise he runs out of money—this is an immortal man with ludicrous spending habits.

Unless there is a Prythian Wall Street somewhere, and Rhysand has his fortune invested in like faerie ETFs and bonds, generational wealth doesn’t explain it.

Now, Rhysand is the head of state in Night Court, and we know he does set taxes (confirmed by Amren in ACOMAF).

So, do we think:

1. Faerie stock market exists, most of his fortune is invested, and Rhysand is living off fat dividends?

or

2. He’s writing himself enormous paychecks from the taxes paid by NC citizens?

(Feyre could have answered this for us since she is doing his bookkeeping but as usual she is terminally uncurious)

i have a question for anyone who agrees with the title. would love to hear any and all thoughts.

let’s start our thought experiment by accepting the premise that SC was unstable and careening toward collapse anyway. (this is of course debatable, but just for the purposes of this discussion we will accept this premise as true.)

if i see a little old lady tottering unsteadily along and i say “huh she’s going to fall for sure” and push her over myself…. does that make it okay?

Part 1: Morus has a bad day and gets jizzed on by Rhysand

Part 2: Morus has to talk to his neighbor

note to the mods (who I love), pls let me know if i should just make an Ao3 account for this shit, i figured it might be relevant because of the critical take on Velaris

You Are Here—> Part 3: Morus tries to get his Stuff back

—————

After a humbling walk back to downtown Velaris, Morus strode through the doors of the Department of Infrastructure and Urban Development.

A line of fae snaked from the reception desk. He joined it, stepping in behind a burly blue fellow whose shoulder seemed to be pierced through by a mesh steel bar.

Posters lined the walls. “Have You Thanked Your High Lady Today?” gleamed in silver-foiled lettering above a painting of Feyre Archeron crouched amongst a gaggle of children, a beatific smile on her face. “Under Lord Rhysand’s Protection, We Thrive Together” captioned an illustration of the High Lord wielding a sword, his foot on the head of a snarling beast with antlers.

A poster with the logo of the State Daemati—an eye pierced with an arrow, with three stars above—was emblazoned with the caption “Dissent is a Thought Crime—Keep Your Mind Patriotic!”

“Next!”

He approached the reception desk. He tapped on the glass separating him from the clerk. She slowly looked up from her novel to meet his gaze.

“Hi. I’m here to reclaim my belongings. My apartment building was demolished today.”

With a small nod, feathery antennae gently bobbing, the clerk picked up a slim notebook and leafed through the pages. “I am so sorry to hear that your home was demolished,” she intoned, her black and multifaceted eyes fixed on the pages in front of her. “The High Lord wishes to thank you for the sacrifices you have made for the—“ she turned a page “—good of Velaris.”

They stared at each other in silence for a few moments.

She stirred to life again, returning to her notebook. “Your apartment building was found to be not up to current building codes and was thus demolished after our department came to an agreement with your landlord.”

Morus leaned forward upon hearing this. He opened his mouth to protest. A panicked look flashed across the clerk’s face. He sat back on his heels and closed his mouth.

“Do you know where the belongings of the tenants of that building might be? Where might I collect my things?” he asked.

She nodded again and flipped a few more pages, settling on one with her moth-brown finger pointed at a line of text.

“Your belongings were collected and transported to a storehouse the warehouse district,” reported the clerk, peering at her notebook over her half-moon readers. Morus perked up at this. Perhaps the day wasn’t an entire loss after all.

She continued. “At the direction of High Lady Feyre Archeron, Curse-breaker and Savior of Prythian, your belongings have been—“ she flipped another page “—redistributed to war orphans.”

Morus blinked. “War orphans?”

The clerk held up her notebook. “Yes, see, it says right here—“

Morus waved impatiently, cutting her off. “I heard you, but… I had safe with my all my savings in it. My armchair. My grandmother’s old tea set. My clothes. Those were all given to war orphans?”

The clerk pointed insistently at her notebook. Looking somewhat disconcerted, she leafed through another couple of pages.

“If they protest. Sir, I understand your frustration, but the High Lady’s judgment and wisdom are beyond our small minds. Let us thank the High Lady for her beneficence and protection.”

Morus began having an Uncharitable Thought about the High Lady.

Nearby, a State Daemati stirred and looked at him. Her eyes narrowed under her hood. Morus swallowed hard and buried the thought.

“Yes, all praise to our ever charitable, ever beautiful High Lady,” said Morus in a voice that cracked. The State Daemati sat back down. The clerk smiled and nodded, looking relieved. “Praise to our High Lady!”

Outside the Department of Infrastructure and Urban Development, Morus sat on a bench and opened his briefcase on the sidewalk in front of him. His ears drooped, brushing his slim shoulders. He ran a hand over his chin. His goaty little beard was already growing back in. He thought of his fine shaving set, with its straight razor and brushes, a Solstice present from his last beau. It was now presumably being repurposed by war orphans. He thought of Pinetta’s lighting-powered Dawn razor.

He catalogued his remaining belongings. A few folders detailing various public works projects, a spare pair of socks, a couple of notebooks, three pens. His wire-rimmed reading glasses, in their boiled leather case. His citizenship card. A tin of his favorite horn polish. On his person, he had trousers, a neatly tailored tunic, his socks and leather tasseled shoes, and a drawstring purse containing enough coin to sustain him for perhaps a week.

A passing fae tossed a copper coin into his briefcase. He picked it up and added it to his purse.

———

Next episode: Morus has some drinks and reconnects with his college roommate.

Which I have set up as a safe haven for sexual assault survivors.

I might be in here getting mad rutty with my lady sometimes, hope that’s not a problem (and don’t care if it is tbh)

Oh, the bottom? Down there? That’s where an unholy ancient being of pure darkness and evil lurks, just…don’t go down there?

Can you leave? Technically, sure, but have you considered just becoming a religious acolyte and confining yourself to the library and never reconnecting with the outside world again? Think about it!

Alright, I’m off to do some more feminist king shit, farewell, see you next time

another user (edit: u/finnick-odeair) inspired this with a post several weeks ago and someone reminded me of it today, i can’t remember who you are but this goes out to you

TL;DR: A beleaguered Velaris citizen walks home from work.

A Court of Biohazards and Embezzlement

Splat.

Morus gasped and sidestepped the glob that suddenly exploded onto the cobblestones in front of him.

Ahead, a fae was ushering her giggling children inside. “Shh. Don’t look up. NO, NAT, I SAID DON’T LOOK UP. Hurry!” The heavy oak and iron door slammed shut.

“Fuck sake,” Morus grumbled. He’d had a shit day at work, and the ongoing biohazardous onslaught from above—which at this point had become so frequent that the Velaris Post might begin including the likelihood of its occurrence in their meteorological section—was further souring his mood. All he could think about was putting on a pot of tea and sinking into his well-worn armchair.

He was, with each passing day, regretting more and more his decision to accept a promotion to middle manager within the Velaris Public Works department.

It came with a decent pay bump. He had considered looking at a better apartment, perhaps one in a nicer neighborhood closer to the Sidra, outside the slums. He’d have to see how his financials shook out over the next few months. His parents and grandparents had been run out of the family estate on the Sidra thanks to the war, and a significant chunk of his paycheck was now redirected to their rent. He had been told the estate was a total loss, ravaged by Hybernian soldiers.

Lingering in splintered doorframe of her apartment, scraping in his change purse, he had asked his grandmother about the insurance payout and immediately regretted it.

“Insurance? You mean gambling? Freiderich told me one of his associates accepts regular wagers, paid monthly, from clients; if their property is destroyed, he loses the wager and pays them back! Morally outrageous!”

Morus had released a slow breath through his nose and handed over a handful of gold coins.

From the starry sky above came sound somewhere between a roar and a moan. Morus’s eyes widened as he flattened himself against a wide shop window.

SPLAT.

Onto the sidewalk. “Ohhh, Feyre,” came a faint voice from on high.

He opened his eyes. Through the window, he made inadvertent eye contact with a young fae who had paused with a muffin halfway to her mouth. He gave a tiny, self-conscious nod and cautiously resumed his journey. He could probably find it in his budget to purchase an umbrella from the HomeGoods near his office. The one next to the Starbucks.

Close now. He passed a public park, formerly beautiful, now a ruin (no longer smoldering; at least there was that). Titus’ voice echoed in his head. “Accounting issues… Can’t find it in the budget… Not much we can do.”

Morus had fumed. “What do you mean, not in the budget? Where did the disaster fund go, Titus? What does accounting have to say about this?”

Titus had suddenly become very interested in his own shoes.

“Titus, you’re telling me we’re getting taxed out the ass and don’t have the budget to rebuild a school?”

Titus’ gaze had hardened. “Morus,” he had said gently. “I like you, and you do a good job. But hear me now. You need to stop asking those questions.” He’d then suddenly brightened. “Leave it to accounting!”

At last, Morus made it to his street. He stopped. Looked left, looked right. He slowly stepped onto the rubble field that had previously been the site of his apartment building. He gently set down his suitcase.

“AUUUGHHGHH, FEYRE!”

Morus stood, dazed.

SPLAT.

He reached up and wiped a glob of his High Lord’s jizz out of his hair.

PGY1, four months in. This is a small observation but it has stayed with me.

Last week I was charting at a workstation near the staff bathroom, which is just a small room with a toilet and a sink. My attending was in there blowing it up. The door was closed but the trumpet fanfare was audible despite this. I wasn't trying to listen but the bathroom is close.

He was absolutely tearing it up. Just absolutely dropping bombs.

I sat there charting and I kept losing my place in the note because I couldn't stop processing what I was hearing.

This is a person who yesterday were making rapid, high-stakes decisions with total apparent confidence. And here he is laying bricks like a normal human who experience the passage of food through his GI tract and has bowel activity that continues after they leave the building.

I think I have been operating under the assumption, without realizing it, that attendings exist only within the hospital and have no interior experience outside of it. Seeing evidence to the contrary was genuinely disorienting. Not in a bad way. More like running a background process I didn't know was running.

I've been in medicine long enough to lose track of how normal people shit. This was a useful reminder that I am also technically a person.

((attempt #2 because my tiny woman brain forgot to remove the link in the sauce))

——

A confession from the mentor's study: I once carried the culturally ingrained skepticism of a man who believed the romantasy genre was forged for someone else.

I want to speak of the first time I surrendered to Sarah J. Maas’s *A Court of Mist and Fury*. Suspended on a long flight, I found a copy planted in my bag with a simple directive from my partner: "Just try it." I expected to feel like a clumsy phantom navigating a shimmering tapestry meant solely for others.

Instead, the narrative alchemy took hold. I consumed the entire tome before the flight landed, and secured the sequel before collecting my luggage.

I have been analyzing this visceral shift ever since. What does it mean to traverse these ethereal worlds as a man? The arrogant assumption that romantasy isn't "for us" is not just a fallacy—it actively starves men of profound, load-bearing emotional arcs and structural brilliance.

I delve deep into this architectural divide and the male reading experience on the blog today:[REDACTED but available at the sauce]

**A question for the coven:** For those who initially resisted this genre (or any genre), what was the specific book—or trope—that finally shattered your defenses and pulled you into the dark? Let us dissect it in the comments below. 🥀✨

I hate the loss of the faerie feeling once we get to Velaris (which, as has been said before, is basically faerie Aspen), so I wrote my own faerie’d up version of Velaris, trying to fix some world building issues along the way, as I’m nap trapped by my baby.

Let’s get this out of the way: In Night Court, it’s always night. Idc what Rhys says about magic not being able to alter the sun’s path or whatever, if it can be permanently winter in winter court, or permanently summer in summer court, it’s permanently night in night court.

Getting to Velaris:

There’s a narrow, rocky path mountain path that eventually peters out and dead ends into a vast granite cliff. That’s not the entry to Velaris. The entry is via the vast, yawning chasm that bounds the edge of the last half mile or so of this path. To enter, you have to find precisely the right spot—around ten feet in width, ten feet high (so flying fae only see the chasm) bound on either side by very inconspicuous granite boulders—and step off the cliff face, into the chasm. Your first time doing this, you might expect to free fall and splat at the bottom, but instead you find yourself stumbling onto the polished granite bridge to the vast gatehouse guarding the mountain pass. Tattered Night Court banners whip in the wind on either side of the tall black stone doors; the Night Court emblem is carved into the silver-speckled granite of the doors’ face. The gatehouse is staffed by daemati guards, and if they don’t find reason for you to be in Velaris after scouring your mind, you’ll find yourself lying at the bottom of the chasm, a bit bruised and battered but miraculously unharmed, with no memory of what happened after you stepped off the cliff besides free fall and panic. Holy shit, i survived, you think. That drunk guy who told me how to get to a secret rich city in the mountains must have been fucking with me. Damn. I’m never doing that again.

Identical entry point at the mountain pass at the other end of Velaris. These two passes are the only way in and out of the city. Unless you pass the bridge, the glamour remains, and Velaris will just appear as a rocky, scrubby valley.

The city:

Inside Velaris, it’s night. All the time. The city is lit by the swirling stars overhead, glowing mushrooms, and bright clusters of crystals that grow off the buildings. The buildings and bridges spanning the Sidra themselves look like they grew out of the black granite of the mountain itself; they’re spindly and delicate with wide, tall windows to let the ample starlight in. There is no lingerie shop. THERE IS NO LINGERIE SHOP. There are inns and markets and taverns, and an endless bustle of vendors along the main street selling street food in an endless night market. Cups of dumplings in spicy broth, skewers of roasted elk, handheld rabbit pies, with street performers juggling and magicking and performing music between market stalls.

At the city center, rather than a palace or town hall, there is a vast observatory, the biggest in Prythian (although they can’t take credit for that, of course). It is available for public use, but during certain hours its use is blocked for an order of astronomers who have resided in Velaris for millennia. What better place to study the stars than in a place where you can see them all the time?Thanks to the magic of night court, the stars move across the sky same as they do across the rest of Prythian. Their order has produced a prolific amount of knowledge about the night skies, but they have to ghost publish it and give credit to a secretive, prestigious university on the Continent (which most scholars presume is just too glamoured to find, but it is actually just fictional).

The food:

Mostly foraged and hunted from the surrounding mountains. Fae don’t farm, they don’t even keep sheep (although there are plentiful flocks of wild mountain goats).

Thank goodness, the magic of the Night Court still allows animals to thrive and plants to grow—probably something about that magic starlight.

Elk, venison, rabbit, mountain goat, pheasant, trout from the Sidra. Mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms. Wild leeks, nettles, wild onions, dandelion greens and tubers. Blackberries, juniper berries (mostly made into sauces for game meats), thimble berries and wild plums. Chestnuts, violets, wild thyme, river grapes. Mix and match to make endless faerie feasts of your choice, no roast chicken or green beans or scrambled eggs involved.

The inhabitants:

Most residents of SJM’s Velaris seem like just a Guy (sometimes with green or blue skin to really spice it up), so here’s my version.

Moth hobs with multifaceted eyes and feathery antennae. Low night fae with giant pink eyes, almost-white skin, and wide, bat-like ears. Tall, wispy fae with night-black skin across which galaxies seem to swirl. Owl-like fae with feathery tufts on the ends of their ears.

The economy:

Velaris is rich as fuck. Hard to explain being a city cut off from the rest of the world.

The money is from silk trade. High in the mountains above the Velaris valley are endless networks of huge caves, and in those caves are Prythian’s only giant spiders, which spin the most valuable silk in the world. Their silk can be woven into the finest fabric or spun into an unbreakable rope. Trained teams of silk harvesters collect the silk from the spider caves, a job which significantly shortens your otherwise immortal life expectancy—which is why the silk is so rare and so valuable. Raw silk, rope, and fabric are exported across Pythian after laundering it through the Hewn City, and it’s called Hewn City silk. Their secret is safe because nobody in Prythian is crazy enough to try to show up to Hewn City to try to fight some giant spiders for silk.

My baby is still asleep on me so I have time for comments, criticisms, concerns from my lovely audience.

edit: oh my god how could i forget.

The Fashion:

Leggings? Sweaters? Uggs? get out of here!

The silk that is incredibly expensive and rare outside of Velaris is fairly plentiful within, so lots of silk tunics, dusters, and layered draping robes with brocaded cuffs and hems. I imagine fashion to be fairly unisex, with both men and women wearing loose silky colorful layers, including both robes and loose flowy breeches. I did like that NC outfit SJM described early on that was like a short midriff baring top and harem pants (and would’ve loved more of that rather than sweater + leggings)

Lots of wool outerwear made from wool harvested from the goats roaming around the mountains.

bread is like the ultimate peasant food. don’t tell me these four dumdums (i’m including useless papa archeron bc im sure he could have sat at a table and kneaded and prepped loaves even with his exploded knee or whatever) weren’t making bread daily? were they just living off straight up meat? sell a few deer hides and you’ve got enough flour, salt and yeast to last at LEAST several months. if you’ve got a heat source, you can make bread. you can even leave out the yeast and make flatbread. you can make it in a pot.

i love elain but this made me go “wtf?”

edit: i spelled WDYM wrong 😭

Why do I watch Teen Mom since I hate Jenelle?

Why did I watch Breaking Bad if I think Walter White is a bad person?

Why do I watch 90 Day Fiance if i think Paul and Gino and Sarper suck?

you guys, i don’t need to LIKE the main characters to be entertained.

(i apologize for the breaking bad comparison, the writing in BrBa is incomparable to acotar but i thought the common theme was pertinent)