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#Mor could also be tied with Gwyn's development through the library so it's not like I'm forgetting or neglecting my favorite academic
feysandfeels · 3 years
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Nobody asked for my opinion, but listen, to me, personally, the next book should be about Elain. Work in that who’s she going to pick angst, give us a Lucien pov, start to work on Azriel’s development, spy plot, revealed child drama, more found family, court politics, Jane Austen romance, all that, and then end with Elucien. 
Then the next book would be more Az focused. He’s sad because everyone is happy but him or with that lingering feeling. However, instead of being a Gwynriel book it would be Moriel friendship-acceptance book: Have Gwyn as a hinted romantic interest for Az and a full on w/w romance for Mor (Emerie, come take the stage my love); the Az plot is not a romantic driven one, but rather the acceptance of himself, from himself, truly dealing with his attachment to women (which would have started in the previous book, but now he’d have to deal with the big one for him) and coming to love Mor for who see is fully and not the idea of her; and for Mor to find love and have the pining, the romance, all of it and tell her family.
By the end, Az doesn’t end with Gwyn, rather with the hint that in some time they will get together, now that he is in a much healthier place, while they smile looking at Emorie be happy flying into the sunset. The Mor and Az situation is the one that truly needs to get dealt with just because they are no longer romantic, doesn’t mean Mor and Az’s povs wouldn’t offer growth and an interesting dynamic. Finally, Mor deserves more than the novella where y’all want to put her, just because there hasn’t been a clear ship to link her too (besides Emerie saying that she finds her cute). 
Disclaimer: This is not to say that I do not think Mor should have her own pov book, because she is queen and she should. But being realistic Az is pointed to be one of the characters who will definitely get a book and Elain the other one - with this being said, Mor fits better with Az’s arc than Elain’s so yeah.
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surfalldaybaby · 3 years
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SPOILER ALERT!!!!
DONT READ UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED!!!!!
My full review of ACOSF 3 seconds after reading it.
Probably unpopular opinion. Idk.
First off wow. I did not expect that shit at alllll! I liked it but I would rate it a solid 6.5/10. To me it wasn’t that good. It was a book with a good plot for about 3/4 of the way and then it gets weird with smut scattered throughout it with no real purpose.
First I want to say that I still feel that Nesta and Cassians relationship is so strange and forced. I wish I liked it more. I don’t. The initial romance scenes were so quick and weirdly put together they literally did nothing for the plot. It was just a lot of sex scenes that I was like eh ok. They’re steamy and raunchy but with little to no purpose. Like Maas just decided to make this her sexiest book bvs of how many views it would get without calculating the plot into it. They just end up making out and having sex a lot but I didn’t see the buildup or anything it just happened out of nowhere. And then it stopped and then it happened again. I wish their mating bond snapping into place had been more of a plot line I was left a little confused when I read it. Nesta apologizing and accepting Cassians apology was too quick he said he was shackled to her. Hellllll no. She became a pushover.
I did like how now Nesta has a relationship with all the IC. However her instant forgiveness and her apologies to the IC were very rushed and ingenuine. She was treated very poorly by rhys and amren and shes the one who throws herself at rhys and apogkizes? She’s the one who apogizes to amren? No. It doesn’t seem at all like the Nesta that I would have expected. I wanted at least a little rebuttal or fire. Like I understand all of their hesitantion and why they were so mean but I wanted a little apology or explanation.
I hate to say it but Maas really did seem to cut the fire out of Nesta. I didn’t want her to be a bitch but I wanted to go retain of her sassy energy and she just seemed like a wash rag at the end. Nesta was done wrong by Cassian rhys and amren a lot and she was the one who ended up fixing or apologizing in those relationships and it doesn’t fit right that they don’t at least mention their mistakes to her as well. And this is coming from someone’s who didn’t like Nesta, or didn’t rlly care for her, so I can’t imagine what people who liked her thought after reading this book.
I didn’t like how she never apologized to feyre or Elain. She did in actions but I wanted a verbal apology. I loved the total sacrifice and I thought it fit her arc. I thought it was very full circle. Obviously Nesta and feyre love eachother and I’m elated about that. I like that Nesta had to give up her power and was able to keep a bit of it. The power would have killed her I think if she was able to keep it.
Lowkey I was expected each sister to have to be called to a made item and I thought it would have been a cool plot idea to introduce Elain into the story.
I love how Elain was so bold in this book but there were moments where even I was like calm down girl.
I loved her slow development with Mor. mor was aggressive at the beginning but really came into herself and i liked their friendship all the way through. I liked how mor is portrayed a lot. Hopefully mor snd emerie are a thing. But, how does nestas jealousy just go away? How does mor just accept that Nesta and Cassian are having sex? How does every charter just act fine with it when they all were so cautious around her? Seems kind of gross to constantly smell the sex. Ew.
Az and Nesta are so great as a pair. Hopefully we see more of Gwyn with him.
Love emerie and Gwyn but how the three of them were able to complete the blood rite after only a few months of training is so unrealistic and just not what I expected. It seemed so played out and sacrificial martyr like I was bored of it. Very predictable. Especially how Cassian goes against the crown to save his mate like okay next.
I wish Maas had just kept her as a leader for assault survivors I think that would have been amazing. But Nesta and her friends after literally 3-4 months of training being illyrians is unrealistic. Nesta seemed to transform into Feyre at the end and while I love Feyre Nesta is not Feyre and I was not a fan of seeing another recreation of that sacrificial lamb trope.
The whole pregnancy plot point was weird and I didn’t like it. I get it at the end but literally I could have done without the whole thing. Rhys keeping it from Feyre that she was gonna die- horrible. Them making a pact they would die together is absurd and so weird. They would never do that like ... someone has to fucking rule the night court.
I loveeeeeed the dance scenes and the importance of music.
Eris is fine. I don’t like him I don’t hate him. He’s whatever. Same with Lucien. Literally this whole thing he was with Mor about her knowing the truth like literally don’t care. It’s mor making me curious it’s just a stale detail now that’s been repeated a lot with no follow up information.
I would have liked more touching up on mor azriel and cassians relationship. It’s like Maas is fostering confusion with Elain and morrigan over azriel and it’s not mysterious it’s just annoying.
There was some amazing detail that went into this novel and I applaud the well thought out and carefully constructed attention to history and mythology. I thought a lot of the smaller scenes and chapters were brilliant- the harp scenes, the initial training, the library and house scenes, the female relationships, music scenes, etc....- but as a whole plot it felt like 6 stories being forced together and tied with a ribbon but the stuffing was coming out so your left confused and a little like wtf okay.
Overall I liked the story thought it was very good “redemtption” arc for nesta but I wish it had more to do with her psychological journey and not so much out on her psychical one- Illyrian blood rite, hiking, weird sex- with odd plot points and rushed relationships and forgiveness.
Also I liked the azriel extea chapter it was fine. Kinda made az look like a little morally grey but we now know he is interested in Elain, that Elain wants him back, and that he is lonely. Hopefully he doesn’t hurt Gwyn.
Loveeeeed the feysand chapter. Rhys is dead on about his characterization of Elain.
The next book will def be about as, Lucien, Elain, mor, and probably Gwyn. LOVE THAT.
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good-forthe-weekend · 3 years
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a Gwynriel post
All of first. No, I am not interested in ship wars. As long as my dear sweet child spy Az ends up happy, idgaf who he ends up with, and will be happy if he ends up with either Gwyn or Elain, as long as both women get to have their own story told separate from Azriel.
But. I do think that Gwynriel is adorable, and have taken a preference to that ship over Elriel.
Please, for the love of christ, no hate. The block button is my friend. This is a ship drama free zone.
Anywhoozles. Gwynriel.
[Trigger warning: SA]
I mentioned in THIS post that I think it would be neat if we got a romance arc between Gwyn and Az that involved Gwyn wanting to take their relationship slow or focus on herself. I kinda wanted to just elaborate on that.
After seeing a tiktok (and a couple tumblr posts) about people being presumptuous with how they feel Gwyn will for sure feel about being in a relationship/having sex given her SA survivor status, I wanted to clear a couple things up, because my original wording is just vague enough to be a lil problematic.
I don’t want it to seem like I think Gwyn would respond to her assault any particular way. We simply don’t know enough about her to know exactly how she’d respond, and I agree that it’s problematic to assume. When I say that I think it would be cool for her to want to take the relationship slow, I mean the whole ass thing. Emotions too. She’s explicitly stated that she has a lot of trauma to work through outside of the SA. She has survivors guilt, self hatred issues, and doesn’t feel safe outside of the library (which, by the way, I hope we get an exploration of how traumatizing it must have been for Gwyn to be abducted the ONE TIME she decides to leave the library overnight).
We’ve had 2 romantic arcs that are entirely entwined with the respective heroines’ growth past trauma. I think it would be cool and different representation to show someone who says “Hey, I‘m in no shape to be tied to anyone right now. I care about you too much (and respect myself too much) to get into a relationship at this point in my recovery. Can we take this slow and be friends first?”
Not that you can’t be in a relationship if you’re not fully healed from trauma, but both of them have some pretty serious issues that *are* things that would block them from being able to love in a healthy way (ex. Self hatred, Gwyn not being able to live in the present, and Az not feeling worthy of love)
NOTE: I low key want this story to be more YA than NA (at least with regards to spice), to squeeze out a lot of angst from the story, and force the Horniest Bat Boy™ to analyze his feelings from a non-horny POV. Make him really think to himself “Is this lust, or love?” Not saying I don’t want sexual banter/tension, but it definitely for sure doesn‘t need to be Nessian level fae porn
I also think that she would bring up Mor and Elain (because of course this conversation happens AFTER the whole necklace comeuppance happens), and bring up that Az has his own shit to work through before trying to be in a healthy relationship.
“You haven’t been alone in 500 years. Not really. You pined after Morrigan for so long, carried a torch for her for all those years, and the only reason you let her go was to move on to a girl that looks exactly like her, but who wanted you. A girl that you knew you couldn’t have. And now I’m supposed to believe that you’re just....suddenly over it all? That you wanting to race into this relationship is anything more than trying to leverage our status as mates so you don’t have to be alone? I care for you, Azriel, and it’s because I care for you that I can’t jump into a relationship with you just like that, when both of us have healing to do.”
Az probably wouldn’t love being called out like that, but would ultimately agree, or at least acknowledge that he can’t force this. So he agrees. They need to work on themselves. And they set boundaries. Just friends, nothing more. (This is, of course, exactly like Nessian and Feysand saying they want ‘just sex’. It damns them to feeling like they need more)
It would also be so bittersweet if this happened *after* they realize they’re mates. For maximum yearning and angst potential.
Like...imagine. They realize they’re mates fairly early in the story, but decide to stay just friends for now. So we get half to two thirds of a book where they’re friends, trying desperately to resist this bond, and trying to respect each others’ boundaries, trying to heal so they can love each other right. But they’re also fighting against the mating bond, which is exacerbating the sexual tension that was already there.
Think of all the Pride and Prejudice level sexual tension we could get! I think it would be less in your face than Nessian’s tension ever was (shit, they were never subtle), but I think there’s a lot of potential for stolen glances with intense thoughts, glancing touches, hand flexes, aching for each others’ touch, innocent training related touches that are just SUPERCHARGED with intentions, all the good yearn-y stuff. (All inspired by the romance novels that Emerie and Nesta give her)
I also think this could play into THIS theory I had about evil!Elain. Here’s how I picture it:
Az and Gwyn realize they’re mates
After a discussion, they’ve agreed to take things slow and focus on their own respective mental health.
They have agreed to stay close friends for the time being, and to continue to train together (well, in the Valkyrie group), and to try to keep the whole mates thing quiet as they can for now, just so no one bothers them about it
The IC has no sense of boundaries though, and it gets out to them because of course it does. Gwyn probably told Nesta, who accidentally let it slip to Cas, who she threatened within an inch of his life to keep quiet about it. But of course he didn’t. He brought it up to Az, Rhys overheard, which of course means Feyre knows, and long story short, Elain hears about it.
When Elain hears, she FREAKS. Silently, of course, but she freaks nonetheless, which leads down the arc that I detailed in the post I linked above
Outside of that, Gwyn and Az grow.
Az puts in legwork to confront his demons, accept his past (both Mor related, and his family history. A confrontation with his mother would be impactful)
I’m not entirely sure how he would get there (if I figure it out, you KNOW I’ll post about it) but he does come to a point where he knows he wants Gwyn, and for the right reasons. He consciously chooses her.
Not saying he goes from 0 to fully healed, but he does enough legwork to be able to enter a relationship without it being doomed from the start
(This should totally involve him talking to Nesta, the queen of self destructive romantic behaviors, and a development of their budding bromance. He’s always been one of the only people to treat her like a person, not a weapon, a threat, or a nuisance/pest, and she’s always treated him with a softness most don’t afford him. She’s also canonically one of the only people not afraid of him and his shadows. They’re my bro-tp. No I will not be taking criticisms on this)
Gwyn, for her part, has been leaving the library more and more. For daytime outings to visit Nesta, Emerie, Azriel. To train Valkyries (I like to imagine that the Valkyries will get their own camp at some point, or at least space in Velaris to stay/train). To see Velaris.
I think it would be fun if she started to offer singing lessons like Feyre does painting lessons. Maybe she visits Nesta (who started offering dance lessons in Feyre’s newly expanded Velaris Center for Community Art), and Nesta convinced her that it might help her heal if she started to give back to the community and share her passion. (Bonus points if we get a scene where Az stumbles past and hears her singing to her students, and is just entranced by it)
She’s still taking advantage of the services the Library offers (it’s never explicitly stated, but I can only assume therapy is among those services), but she’s coming into her own, and starting to feel more comfortable outside the Library. Starting to heal. Starting to create a life in the present and move beyond her past. She’s starting to believe she deserves a bright future.
She’s also developing quite the friendship with Az. They quickly become best friends, confiding in each other, leaning on each other, joking together, generally being there for each other and bringing out the best in each other.
Az likes to bring Gwyn lunch/dinner in the library sometimes, Gwyn keeps track of when he’s away on spy business, and makes a point to visit him when he comes back, little things like that, that show they care about each other.
Clotho notices all of this, and brings it up to her at some point, telling her that she’s going to have to make the choice to leave at some point, and that she can’t keep straddling the line of living inside and outside the Library.
Gwyn shrugs it off, and continues living her life, thinking that she’ll be able to put it off for a while longer.
Cue Elain kidnapping Azriel.
Gwyn knows she has to go save him, but Clotho tells her that if she does this that she can no longer live in the Library. That she will always be welcome to visit, even to work as a scholar if she so chooses, but this mission will mark the end of the Library being her place of residence.
(I don’t know what reason Clotho would give Gwyn, but on the inside she’s doing this because she knows that Gwyn is ready to fly the coop, and needs that final push to have to acknowledge that she’s ready to leave. Clotho also knows about her and Az being mates, because of course she does. Clotho knows all.)
Of course, Gwyn leaves. She has to save Az. She loves him. He’s her best friend, her love, her soulmate. Her mate. It’s a very emotional moment, and also the perfect metaphor for her being able to leave behind her past to be able to live in the present and chase her future. It’s used to represent Gwyn choosing Azriel, if he’ll have her.
Bonus option: Gwyn takes Truthteller. Grabs the knife on her way to go save him. Doesn’t kill Elain with it, but does kill some guards with it on her way into where Elain has Az holed up.
After she saves Az, when they finally get a moment alone, Gwyn reveals that she needs to find a new home. She no longer lives in the Library.
There’s this tender moment where they bare their souls and basically agree to be together romantically and help each other heal.
They acknowledge that the idea of becoming entirely healed before a relationship isn’t wholly realistic or reasonable, and that they’re able to be together even if they’re still healing a bit.
Gwyn: I think....I think I’m ready to move forward. Catrin wouldn’t want me to keep living in my own shadow. She’d want me to live colorfully again, and be with the person I love. And I totally understand if you’re not there yet! I’m not trying to rush you or anything, I just want you to know that I’m ready for this. Whenever you‘re ready, I’ll be waiting for you with open arms, and an open, healing heart.
Az: *shakes head* I’m not sure I believe I deserve that, Gwyn. But gods if I don’t want to prove myself wrong. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect, I can’t promise that we won’t stumble, or that I won’t retreat into my own mind sometimes. But I can promise that even if I do, I’ll still love you with my whole heart. A heart that’s only ever really belonged to you.
Basically, in my mind, their story would be super tender and sweet, and sexy in a much less brash way than Nessian, or even Feysand. Not that I don’t think there’s potential for these two to get kinky and sexy as FUCK once they’re together, but I just feel like their love story would be different. More innocent (at least in comparison to High Lord and Lady of Shaking The Mountain and Commander General/Goddess of Fucking In Common Areas) and more centered on their respective healing arcs, leading into them falling in love.
Like always, feel free to interact, add, tell me how wrong you think I am, etc. I’m desperate for people to talk to about these books. Just be respectful about it lol (and again, because it bears repeating, keep me out of ship wars)
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