#anti adrian ivashkov

[gins-potter]

Let’s get something straight: Rose did say no/turn Adrian down multiple times and he continued to ask her out.

#this is an official vague post brought to you by a salty rose stan #keep my wife’s name out of your mouth #vampire academy #va #rose hathaway #anti Adrian ivashkov

[theeangeltimes]

Vampire Academy Books 1-3 Re-read Thought Dump

For the past several months, I’ve been working my way through a re-read of one of my favorite book series, Vampire Academy.

I first read it four years ago when I was 14/15, so it’s been a loooong time and I’ve forgotten quite a bit of it. Plus, now that I’m older and more intelligent/perceptive/critical, my opinions have changed quite a bit and I’ve picked up on more subtle things in the story this time around. In this blog (for my own sake, lol), I’ll be sharing some of the new stances I’ve developed on aspects/characters in the first three books of the series, Vampire Academy, Frost Bite, and Shadow Kiss (as those are the only ones I’ve re-read thus far). AND THERE WILL BE SPOILERS, so beware!

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

• Lissa + roselissa’s friendship kinda fvcking suck.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of lissa and she honestly kind of always rubbed me the wrong way, but during my first read I never really thought too much about it and could never put my finger on what exactly it was that bothered me about her. But now I know!

Their friendship just feels so disproportionate in the sense that it feels like Rose would and has done literally EVERYTHING for Lissa, but Lissa wouldn’t do the same. Like Rose is literally training to spend her future dedicated to Lissa and risking her life to protect her. She also took Lissa away from the academy, putting her herself in jeopardy to keep Lissa safe AND even let Lissa feed off of her while they were out in the human world by themselves despite that being seen as utterly degrading by their society. And let’s not forget how she knew that Lissa’s use of spirit was wreaking havoc on her mental well-being and would probably drive her to insanity or even suicide, yet she let Lissa keep on using it just because it made her happy…

But when Dimitri was left behind in the cave after the mission in Shadow Kiss, Lissa wouldn’t even tell Rose that she would at least ATTEMPT to heal Dimitri or bring him back to life even though Rose was distraught and begging. And then she had the nerve to get mad at Rose when she found out that she and Dimitri had a relationship and Rose didn’t tell her about it. Like, what???

And there’s other ways she’s rubbed me the wrong way but I won’t mention them because I feel like I don’t have enough proof to truly support my argument, but I’m still right! ☝️

Lissa is also just sort of a bland character. And I normally like quiet kind smart girls, but there’s just something that falls flat about her for me.

And speaking of the bond…

• The use of the bond was a very clever storytelling device. So while I do find it mostly annoying, I also appreciate it.

• Adrian is a fvcking CREEP!!!

I truly, TRULY, do not understand how I liked or even felt bad for Adrian at all when I first read this series. He’s a creep, and the way that Lissa (see? another reason why Lissa sucks) and Richelle Mead try to gaslight both us the reader and Rose into thinking that deep down he’s some great guy pissed me off so much. And it makes me feel insane when I look at how the fandom as a whole tends to love him and defend him and act like Rose is this major evil bitch, because HOWWWWWW???

It’s bad enough that he is constantly flirting with Rose since she’s underage, but even if she was a grown ass woman, it would still be gross; Rose tells him over and over again to leave her alone and stop flirting with her, and yet he persists. And also makes sexual comments to/about her. And always tries to ~playfully~ coerce her into giving him physical contact like hugs. And also bugs her in her dreams even though, once again, she tell him not to. Like there’s no way she can escape his creepy ass and nobody steps in for her to tell him to fuck off and leave her alone. It’s blood-boiling to me.

And, spolier: from what I can recall, more layers of shittiness are added to his character as the series progresses and even more are added in Bloodlines (unpopular opinion, but oh well). The only good thing that mf has done is fund rose’s trip to kill strigoi Dimitri.

And speaking of her getting money from Adrian…

• I genuinely do not feel bad for Rose asking Adrian for money.

Like why in the world would I care that a woman does something kind of bad to her harasser? Especially when she’s a teenager who’s in a terrible space mentally?

The whole exchange reinforces how Adrian is a total creep. As I previously mentioned, Rose was not only in mental/emotional turmoil due to Lissa’s use of spirit, but she was also reeling from Mason’s passing, the strigoi attacks and their casualties, and Dimitri turning strigoi. And yet he was still bugging her about dating him.

• The dhampirs (especially the women and girls) are greatly oppressed and thus far no one has even really acknowledged that except Ambrose, and he doesn’t even truly relay just how bad their oppression is.

The Moroi (as a class) exploit the physical abilities of dhampirs and more importantly the fact that the dhampir race cannot go on without Moroi and coerce them into dedicating their entire lives to being their guard dogs. The only other choices that dhampirs really have when they’re adults other than becoming guardians is to become “blood whores,” single mothers who live on communes (which is pretty much always conflated with being a blood whore by most people in their society), or being alone and vulnerable in the human world.

And it’s completely normalized (the primary way that dhampir a are reproduced, in fact) in their society for Moroi men to have casual relationships with dhampir women, impregnate them, and then leave them to raise their children on their own while they go and settle down with a Moroi woman instead. PLUS, guardians having serious romantic relationships is looked down upon, so those are pretty much out of the question.

And what makes it worse is that they can’t even liberate themselves from Moroi completely unless they’re willing to have the dhampir race die out completely since interaction with humans is not a real option.

To make matters even worse, Moroi could have been fighting alongside dhampirs to protect themselves from strigoi, and the fire users can very easily kill strigoi without even coming into physical contact with them, but no. The moroi were too damn lazy and thought of themselves too highly to do so. Which is why I’m glad that Moroi have started advocating for Moroi to begin fighting as well and that becomes a big theme throughout the novels.

• Moroi (as a class) are evil oppressors, continued

The whole feeder system is very flawed and exploitative, in my opinion. The fact that we briefly see in the books a few times that the feedings cause a mental deterioration for the feeders after a while is the main reason why. In Shadow Kiss, the way that rose and Christian were sitting there calling Alice (the elderly feeder who seemed to be experiencing some sort of psychosis) ~craaaazzzyyyyyy~ yet Christian still proceeded to feed on her definitely made me side eye him.

Surely there could be a more humane system put into place, like age/service limits for feeders or something.

*side note: I don’t think we ever figure out how Alice knew about how the strigoi were coming? I could very well be wrong though, I’ll have to see if Richelle provides answers in the following books.*

• Despite how outspoken and confident and strong and brave Rose may be, she has ZERO self-preservation or self-worth when it comes to herself and the dhampir race as a whole.

To see her repeatedly talk about how it was both her and every other dhampir’s duty to protect and prioritize Moroi and become guardians and repeat that stupid “they come first” mantra and dedicate her entire life to training just to protect her friend has honestly been painful. Like, girl, STAND UP!!! None of you were put on this planet just to give up your life and be 24/7 bodyguards to some people that likely see you as inferior to them!

However, I do think this aspect of her makes her character more real and complex. Rose may seem like a rebel to the people around her because she often gets into trouble and is sassy and ran away, but in reality, she isn’t one at all. Her worldview is actually quite traditional. She has internalized all the norms in her society without a second thought and doesn’t begin to see things differently until she starts interacting more with the world outside of St. Vladimir’s and is upon the brink of adulthood. She even says herself “Why was everyone suddenly challenging something that I’d held as absolute truth my entire life?” in Shadow Kiss.

I’m very excited to see how both Rose and her world continue to evolve and grow with the next three books. I don’t remember the society and characterization of these books being so rich and complex, Richelle Mead did an amazing job creating a compelling and thought-provoking world. So while I may not think that these books are literary masterpieces like I once did, I appreciate them in a new, deeper way.

#vampire academy #vampire academy books #ya books #rose hathaway #adrian ivashkov #lissa dragomir #anti adrian ivashkov

[dhampirwomen]

some thoughts on dhampir commodification

one of the most interesting threads in va is the way dhampirs are valued almost exclusively for their bodies: it’s repeatedly reinforced in the series that the only way dhampirs can participate in moroi society is by becoming guardians or doing sex work, and both types of labor mean giving over their bodies to the service of royal moroi. there are dhampirs, mostly women, who opt out of this, but they’re still expected to use their bodies to have kids who will become guardians or beget more dhampirs (e.g. mason’s mom chose to be domestic and worked with humans, but she still sent her son to guardian training at st. vlad’s and lost him to strigoi). dhampirs who don’t want to become guardians, do sex work or devote their lives to raising more dhampirs have to self-exile and live among humans. they have to cut themselves off from the culture they grew up in, and are seen as disgraces who abandoned their duty by the people they left behind.

dhampir women who live in communes and/or do sex work are usually given the deragotory label of “blood whores” and receive the brunt of social stigma, even though the current system would collapse without their labor: moroi exploit them for sex and use their kids to bolster guardian numbers while denying them full rights and personhood. and dhampirs are prevented from forming any kind of class solidarity because of the way guardians are taught to look down on commune dhampirs.

even though the guardian-or-sex-worker dichotomy largely affects dhampir women, it’s also in place for dhampir men: ambrose didn’t want to run off or become a guardian, so he became a sex worker, indicating that "guardian” “sex worker” “runs away” are the three limited options for all dhampirs. (instructors at st. vlad’s fall under the “guardian” umbrella because they’re guardians or former guardians who teach novices.)

guardians aren’t immune to having their romantic/sexual lives commodified by moroi, especially royal moroi: there are two examples in the series of a royal moroi pursuing a romantic/sexual relationship with a dhampir, adrian with rose and tasha with dimitri, and both relationships are transactional. adrian gives rose money on the condition she give him a romantic chance (after trying to leverage gifts and personal favors into touch and sexual attention), and tasha makes an offer for dimitri to be her guardian, with a sexual relationship and bio kids as a side “arrangement” after he starts working for her.

and within moroi society, there’s the way dhampirs’ place in the public sphere is segregated (dhampirs sitting in the back when the queen visits st vlad’s) and their private spaces are controlled: dhampir instructor/guardian housing at st. vlad’s doesn’t have kitchens while moroi instructor housing does etc, and it’s another way that dhampirs’ standard of living and comfort is put below moroi's.

#vampire academy #vampire academy meta #dhampirs #been sitting on this one for a while bc i wasnt sure how good it was but im saying eff it and sharing it lol #tagging this #anti adrian ivashkov #anti tasha ozera #bc the post highlights some of their negative canon traits (tasha i still love you lol) #tw lack of bodily autonomy #tw cissexism

[captainswanandclintasha]

Leo Woodall looks more like Adrian Ivashkov in One Day than he ever did in the show...

Fuck you, Julie Plec.

#captainswanandclintasha #vampire academy #adrian ivashkov #leo woodall #Anti julie plec

[xdarkeningkrystals]

You couldn't even do the MAIN series right now make it successful, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN DO BLOODLINES?! Just give up, Julie! Stay away from my previous Sydrian forever!

#Vampire Academy #Bloodlines #Richelle Mead #Sydney Sage #Adrian Ivashkov #Sydrian #Anti Julie Plec #GO AWAY AND GIVE UP #You already ruined Dragozera and Romitri was a joke #YOU CAN'T ADAPT FOR BEANS

[sapphiredhearts-a]

@inspotlight | closed starter

' whoa there, little hurricane. ' the boy slurs his words as he leans back, teetering ever so slightly. ' watch out - i know there's no way you could have missed me. i'm quite noticeable. '

#we gotta plot these two out a lil more but here's a random thing #☾ ` written just for you ; closed starter . #☾ ` it must be exhausting always rooting for the anti hero ; adrian ivashkov ic . #inspotlight

[myvalittleworld]

Just "accidentally" saw the gifs set of Adrian...Even though I don't like him, he deserves SO MUCH BETTER🤦‍♀️

At this point, I started to anger at what Richelle made me go through.

#vampire academy #Adrian Ivashkov #just...get the image out of my head plz😭 #anti va tv series #anti julie plec

[shouta-edits]

"Can I request a Vampire Academy moodboard of Rose Hathaway and Adrian Ivashkov? themes as fangs, possessiveness, clove cigarettes (on Adrian’s end). Maybe themes of being a Guardian at the Academy, devotion and a desire to protect loved ones for Rose. Colors of red and green. I hope this makes sense! " - anon requested

#rose hathaway #adrian ivashkov #rose x adrian #vampire academy #moodboard #red aesthetic #green aesthetic #tw cigarettes #possessive tw #possessive aesthetic #protection aesthetic #pro ship safe #pro shippers please interact #anti harassment #proship edit blog #proship #proship safe

[sydneysageivashkov]

moroi dashboard simulator

🔥 burnthemall follow

you know I really think the alchemists all have to be repressed vampire fuckers. there's no other reason to hate us that much we're all so fucking boring.

🌺 goodqueenalex follow

boy do I have news for you

👊 rosilisatruther follow

so tired of how moroi-centric everything is. where's my dhampir sexyman tournament. hashtag dhampir rights

#janine hathaway sweep

🤴moroisexymantournament follow

👻 hrhtatiana follow

NOT tasha ozera sweeping the sexyman polls have you people no shame she literally killed the queen

🌊 piesandstuff follow

🔪 atheistwithabiggun follow

sorry for thinking an anti-monarchist milf is sexy ig

🍋 humanshit follow

all the court-based moroi being so scandalised about adrian ivashkov running off with a human is so funny like just say you've never stepped foot outside the wards and go

🗡️ dhampirrevolution follow

i love being on tumblr bc i can come on here and be like we should be able to kill all the royals with hammers. and everyone is like. yeah. but then i have to log off and i'm expected to let the strigoi kill me with hammers bc the royal i'm guarding won't even learn how to throw a punch.

🤖 raptorbot follow

hate it when I think I have an amazing mutual and then they turn out to be a human rping

#should have known when they said they were a spirit user but like #have you seen how many spirit users are coming out of the woodwork lately?

🧛 vampirevampirefucker follow

oh noooo mr strigoi don't get staked you're so sexy aha

🐦‍⬛ saintfladimir follow

and is jillian dragomir in the room with us right now

#so the queen supposedly makes quorum and then her '''''sister''''' is never seen again.... #sure jan. sure

👑 royalwatch follow

SPOTTED: Rose Hathaway, Dimitri Belikov and Adrian Ivashkov spotted at a dhampir commune in Michigan.

🤡 strigoicowboys follow

oh lmao do you think we're gonna get another world changing discovery this week

#isn't ivashkov meant to be living in marital sin or whatever

#vampire academy #bloodlines

[ciceroisthefamilycat]

Why do you think the takeaway that Adrian never sexualized or preyed upon Rose is so popular? I don’t think it’s as simple as not wanting to think about problematic implications in VA, because many fans with this reading of Adrian are aware of the problematic implications in R*mitri or vilify Rose

So given when this ask was sent (thank you for this patience as it’s been more than a week), I’m assuming that it’s in response to the really gross post about how “Rose just used [Adrian], cheated on him and didn't even respect him when he did not only a lot for her but respected her and treated her equally while Dimitri slutshamed her, degraded her and only had lust for her” (I’m not even vague-posting at this point, but I’m not linking it either).

There were some more prompt responses that I really admire, @sydneysageivashkov Emma’s first and a follow-up ask response, and @thegoldenlily Kenzie’s first and (even more recent) second. Both had really great thoughts- Emma came with the quotes to give evidence of Rose and Adrian’s interactions, while I feel like Kenzie really got to the heart of the misogyny and classism/racism (both the fictional dhampir kind and as a biracial Turkish WOC) Rose has to deal with and how that impacts her feelings about Adrian and his privileges. But as a fair warning, I like Adrian less (even as he is in Bloodlines) than those two fans so I might be less even-handed in my answer. This honestly devolves into an anti-Adrian rant for at least part of the end.

Before I get into this, I’m going to regale with a personal anecdote, as is my way. It was senior year of high-school- I was seventeen. I wasn’t interested in going to prom with someone just for the sake of having a date- I went stag since I wasn’t in a relationship. A guy I was friends with had hinted that he might want to hang out there- cool, whatever. But the night of it became clear he intended to confess he really rather liked me. Spring of senior year, we’re going to different colleges, and while I like him as a friend, I’m not really attracted to him- I don’t want to dance with him or “lead him on” or anything, but (albeit selfishly) I do not want to be in the awkward position of having his feelings out in the open and me rejecting him… another guy friend intimates to me that the friend has something he wants to tell me, and I should go hear him out- and that piqued my ire at being in a truly uncomfortable situation that I wanted to be free of, because now someone else is telling me how I’m supposed to react. I did not get away from prom that night without that interaction, it made things awkward for the two-ish weeks until graduation, and it soured my high-school graduation feelings at the time a lot. That was one night with someone my actual age, who wasn’t pushy about physical boundaries and didn’t invade my dreams or smoke in my face/drink to excess around me, and who didn’t have societal power over me (I’m white, he was a black guy). But it still stunk as an experience.

Granted, Rose was stronger and more experienced than me at that age (because she was a YA protagonist, and because adultifiaction of the dhampir students is a thing in that series). But given all that she was dealing with (including multiple deaths of loved ones) she shouldn’t have needed to justify snarking at Adrian, let alone rejecting him. That’s not getting into the fact, which Richelle never explored, that in less than a six-month time frame, she had learned really discrediting things about two of the most-present Moroi guys in her life up until that point (the way Andre treated Mia, and Victor’s whole terrible-shebang), or her experience with Jesse. By the time the series ends, Eric is added to the list of shady Moroi guys (Christian is a great contrast, but Abe and Adrian each bring their own shades of yikes).

I was honestly shocked on rereading last year just how perturbed Rose was by Adrian’s presence in Shadow Kiss- I remembered them being together in Spirit Bound and assumed they must have gotten along a lot better- nope, he just showed up where she was on campus often, and then kept up a conversation until she had an escape through the introduction of someone else. But she still got called in before Queen Tatiana because of rumors about her and Adrian (I am almost certain after the reread that Jesse started those rumors to hurt Rose) and berated by the most powerful member of her society because her refusals of said lady’s grand-nephew weren’t having the desired effect of him leaving her alone… WTF?!

So why do I think he gets away with it in fandom?

One, with due respect anon, I think you’re working from a flawed premise:

many fans with this reading of Adrian are aware of the problematic implications in R*mitri or vilify Rose

That’s fandom for you. We form gut relationships to characters and their relationships with each other, and sometimes those change, but a lot of times we form our perceptions of all the character does in the future based on that initial relationship. I love Laurel Lance from Arrow, I think she’s noble and heroic and strong; other people in that show’s fandom looked at her and saw someone who was weak and motivated by greed (and when shown direct contradictory evidence from that canon, they say that she was greedy so that she could have the money to do good things, but she’s still a weak person, and then they called themselves “neutral” on her). There are so many different people experiencing these characters, each with their own experiences and their own assumptions to fill in the vast times that no fictional canon can actually cover in characters’ lives. They’ll point out the flaws in Romitri because it’s not a ship they like and it doesn’t hurt their cause to acknowledge those problems, they’ll vilify Rose because she’s not Adrian and because her treatment of Adrian (justified though it actually is, if they considered her situation) hurt him, and he’s the one they care (more) about. That will never change- there will always be some fans (not the majority, and not Adrian or VA-specific by any means) who will go the distance to justify a character’s actions. That includes ignoring parts of canon we don’t like (I do it with my faves, some Adrian fans completely understandably do it with the dabbling plot from FH and it’s not hard to understand why).

Two, misogyny (sometimes mixed with racism):

Again, a disclaimer, I’m not saying every person (or even a sizable group of people) who prefer Adrian to Rose are misogynists. That would be rather ridiculous, since a not-insignificant majority of the readers of the VA series are women (yes, internalized misogyny is a thing but that’s a tangent). But even if the people are not misogynistic, misogyny pervades the discussion of a book about teenage girls who are exploring relationships and the early steps into adulthood. The characters certainly treat Rose and other women (including Lissa, including unnamed Feeders, but especially Dhampir Women as a whole) with misogyny.

Adrian is filthy rich (at least nominally, and especially in VA as opposed to BL), he’s handsome (even if only in our minds while reading), he makes grand gestures (the perfume, the flowers, getting Rose to Court for Dashkov’s trial), he’s a brooding artist if you stick around for BL, and a tortured soul who makes witty remarks regardless. If you’re attracted to men and reading about him, and not thinking about how he actually makes Rose feel but maybe how you would feel with his attention on you, it would be easy to feel for him and get lost in that image. Especially in the YA (or YA adjacent) genre, there are plenty of male suitors who get away with GD-literal murder from fandoms as long as they’re attractive, vaguely well-off, and fun/witty. To note: Chuck Bass, Dan Humphrey, Tommy Merlyn, Oliver Queen, Stefan Salvatore, Damon Salvatore, and Klaus Mikaelson. For the Discord I’ll throw in Joe Goldberg. Not all of those men are created equal (I know someone who read that and was familiar with Arrow probably yelled “what did Tommy ever do to you?”). Adrian is not a serial murderer, or serially abusive, or a gaslighter- he has a mental illness (diagnosed by Richelle in FH as bipolar disorder, though personally it read more like BPD to me, for all of the spirit users) and has addictions, and he comes out ahead of any of these other guys than Tommy (“what is your problem with Tommy lady?” “people act like my favorite character is evil for not loving him above all other men, when he betrayed her own shakily given trust and had very real jealousy issues, and blame her for his death despite it resulting from his own decisions” yes this does reflect my issues with Adrian which is why I’m striking through instead of backspacing this tangent). But Adrian’s love is not easy and it’s not perfect, and people are far too willing to allow their own attraction to a character diminish their opinions of another character who he did wrong.

Despite the large personalities of Rose and Adrian and their relationship together, the real contrast in how fandom reacts based on gender is in… ding, ding, ding Lissa & Adrian. Despite being the deuteragonist for at least the first three books (if only because of the bond giving Rose and the audience entrance into her mind), Lissa is one of the most maligned characters amongst book readers (in my experience, which admittedly was centered in the early 2010’s, not more recent discourse). Rose’s best friend, whose presence Rose seeks and even jealously guards, is less palatable to people than the guy three years older than Rose and Lissa who makes romantic motions on Rose repeatedly asserts her vocal disinterest and uses Lissa and spirit research to justify his place on a high-school campus where he walks around drunk at least half the time. And to be clear, Lissa is not without her faults (her attempted compulsion to get Rose to stay at the end of SK is a noticeable contrast of Adrian’s earlier compulsion which Rose convinced him to do for an experiment and he didn’t take advantage) while Adrian actually knows what Rose is up to and her feelings on things in SK and notices the negative health effects Lissa’s spirit use has on her. But Lissa, who Rose is taking every effort to keep secrets from, and who lost her parents and brother before being abducted by a trusted family friend and tortured (and she gets tortured again at the end of SK), and who again and again gives whatever surprise presents she can to Rose (be they the Dragomir chotki, or surprise training with Tasha, or the massage with Ambrose), is not once treated by fandom to the same reading of her best intentions that Adrian is. Adrian is in many ways the heterosexually-acceptable substitute for Lissa in the love triangle of Rose trying to find her life’s direction, and people who will readily eviscerate Lissa for her actions in SK and BP in particular do not hold the same Moroi-centrism and entitlement against Adrian. That attitude does not come from Rose, the reader’s point of entry who thinks Lissa is pretty much an angel, but from readers’ own perceptions and interests.

But to be fair, Adrian does come across as quite chivalrous, especially in BL. When Rose was free of his company in Russia (yearning for home) and saw him through Lissa’s eyes (a girl he didn’t repeatedly hit on and whose boundaries he respected and empathized with) she saw positive attributes- especially when you combine that with his protectiveness over Jill, when Reed Lazar was aggressive with her. Her most fond thoughts of Adrian are when he’s half the world away being gentlemanly to other women… He has a notably bad relationship with his dad, while a very positive one with Daniella and even his contentious Aunt Tatiana (unpopular?opinion time: people are misled by FH and misremember his relationship with Tatiana because of his negative hallucinations of a dead woman- Tatiana at large was a horrible person, but Adrian honestly got the best of her). Once he’s being written as the love interest intended to win (as opposed to the triangle with Rom.), instead of being disrespectful of boundaries, he’s an enforcer of them for Sydney, including with other women (Sonya in GL) as well as an advocate for equal pay (Nina in SS). Sydney comments in TGL that no man had ever held a door for her before, and she thinks how lucky Jill is that Adrian saved her life (it’s a fair trade to be shadow-kissed, even though she was disgusted at his lewd behavior in Bloodlines knowing that a 15 y.o. he calls Jailbait could see his hook-ups, and even though she’s not sure how she feels about restorations like Sonya’s even though the day of it in LS she was outright calling it a miracle). He paints wooden crosses for his devout girlfriend, and the AYE shirt when they get to spend an afternoon on a college campus, as opposed to the less personalized gifts he gave to Rose. Sure, there’s the Dabbling plotline in FH, but he immediately protects Sydney’s boundaries with his fellow Moroi and within another fifty pages he and his virgin girlfriend have sex for the first time after he protects her from sexual predators his former friends. And hey, Mr. FH Dabbling Plotline thinks, when meeting Keith again in SS about how “even I got turned down by girls, and when it happened, I dusted off my ego and moved on. I’d never considered doing what he did. He should’ve known it was wrong before the Alchemists threw him into some mind-control camp.” FH was also the book where he pulled the same type of “let’s scare the annoying Alchemist by pretending to be thirsty” trick with Zoe, Sydney and Carly’s 15 y.o. sister, as he had when he first met Keith. But he is really a stand-up guy who makes sure Sydney gets her dream wedding… speaking of dreams, he apparently learned after Sydney freaked out in his dream-space once to respect boundaries (Rose would have loved to know that trick) and could recognize what a violation it was when Nina did it to Olive (though not enough to not do it at all for Nina and Neil’s sake). He’ll respect Moroi women’s boundaries, even humans (sometimes), but a dhampir woman? Nah. Hi, this was my very bitter paragraph, to lead to point 3.

Three, Richelle’s writing/the timeline of VA/BL

In VA, Adrian is the other suitor. He gets to be funny and have rougher edges, but not be the right guy, and there are plenty of people who leave that series feeling bad for him- especially after his final appearance which was heavily geared toward setting up a sequel series intended to be a four-person POV for Adrian, Sydney, Jill, and Eddie. He doesn’t even know Sydney’s name, but he takes up her cause (to bolster his own, as I doubt it was any actual consideration for her as a real person at that point), andaccuses Rose of being a callous bitch basically- I loved you, how could you do this to me, etc. Never mind that he set the terms of a contract that if Rose wanted money, she had to give him a “chance” when she got back from her (pseudo-suicide) mission of killing Dimitri (it wasn’t for sex at least, but he did treat it like a transaction). Did she screw him over by trying to keep their relationship going despite knowing she was still in love with Dimitri and then having spirit-fueled sex with Dimitri for the second time (Richelle, seriously)? I mean, yes, the ideal break-up time would have been when she overslept their dinner date with his parents, if not earlier. But, honestly? I really don’t care at this point. He coerced her into a relationship on his terms, though he promised her some changes to his behavior, and then once she gave him the chance he demanded, he was mostly angry that she was still in love with the same person he always knew she had been in love with, despite her best efforts and despite the fact that she was actively unhappy with the demands he was making of her to be a guiding force in his life despite being 18 and just graduated but she kept trying because he made her feel like she owed that to him.

But he still got a whole other book series centered around him, with only spontaneous Rose appearances and he never once apologized to her for his role in their relationship but regarded her happiness with bitterness and jealousy. And no, it wasn’t a four-person POV like originally intended (where he would have also presumably had his perspective in Jill chapters too), but by the second half of the series, he did have half of each book from his perspective (and it was some of the worst writing Richelle did) and the other half emphasizing an outside look at how much he had grown, and he was the best guy ever. And whereas Rose had to be a villain (apparently) to set up his spin-off series, when Richelle seeded another spin-off series at the end of his and Sydney’s, he’s living his dream house-husband life with Sydney and their kid. Like, I know there are legitimate complaints from Syd/Ad fans about how they got stuck with Declan so that people knew Rom. could reproduce together, and I don’t disagree (especially for Sydney), but none of his major relationships are torn asunder, he isn’t the bad guy or in the wrong, he has a literal fairy-tale, “look how far he’s come” ending. And that’s how people choose to characterize him from the start, so that Rose was an idiot for not seeing she could “fix” Adrian if only she put as much effort into that as she did to the rest of living, rather than “hey, Adrian grew in Bloodlines and his relationship with Sydney was an improvement because he made more serious, adult efforts and he gave her more respect from the start than he ever gave Rose.”

#I'm a VA girl #responding to an ask #thanks anon! #anti Adrian #anti Adrian Ivashkov #(not entirely but it is substantial) #discussion of sensitive topics including SA as related to the VA and BL series #this is over 3000 wds so I hope that justifies my delayed response

[academiaipromise]

what i imagine sydrian on social media would look like

#sydrian #shout out to the actual work I have to do today and yet #I know the dimensions are wonky and the font is off because I could not bring myself to open a single Adobe product today after work #also while I’m kind of anti sydrian having a kid and it shows I also believe that Sydney would be anti posting pics of the kid #anyways this is what my last hour looked like oof #also Sydney does have a private account in my brain while Adrian does not #might delete this later who knows 😂 #really was in my feelings about a potential live action that did not look like the sydrian I have in my head #as far as the relationship I mean #I have no fancasts to speak of #also yes Adrian has a story highlight for Sydney don’t @me #I also think Sydney did go back to using sage in some capacity in her life #I understand all of the sides to it #I just think eventually she just starts throwing it in there #legally I do think it is Sydney ivashkov

[gins-potter]

i did not just read “adrian always listened when rose said no”, i did not just read “adrian listened when rose said no”, i did not just fucking read that

#i'm sorry do you want page numbers and exact quotes of all the times he didn't? #babes it's okay you can love adrian despite the times he fucked up #you don't have to rewrite the books #va #vampire academy #anti adrian ivashkov

[wendyliddel]

I should probably be grateful Julie Plec is the one doing the Vampire Academy tv show, because if she wasn’t, I would probably have to subscribe to another streaming service just to see it.

#vampire academy #anti julie plec #rose hathaway #lissa dragomir #dimitri belikov #adrian ivashkov #sydney sage

[dhampirwomen]

if the vampire academy show gets multiple seasons, i really hope it changes the direction of the rose/adrian relationship bc i can’t think of any good reason to write a show where a black woman is villainized and used as a plot device for her white oppressor's manpain. regardless of your personal feelings on rose or adrian, the concept of a narrative where the black heroine is put in a bad position at the end of her own story to set up more angst for her white ex-boyfriend is a bad choice, for both meta and story reasons.

wrt meta reasons why keeping things the same as spirit bound/last sacrifice is a bad idea, following the books faithfully would prob open the door to a lot of fandom antiblackness and sexism against rose as a character and sisi as an actor. rose is already an overhated character in book fandom and reviews bc of the rosdrian subplot, with many of the same people who don’t see an issue with adrian’s sexually harassing or objectifying rose calling rose an abuser, manipulator, gold-digger and a mix of sexist and racist slurs for not returning adrian’s feelings and/or for not being loyal to him. ofc this isn’t behavior that’s unique to adrian fandom bc all fandoms have sexism/racism problems, and i’m def not saying all adrian fans are anti-rose or that anyone is bad in any way for liking adrian. imo you can love/appreciate adrian as a character and still see that the va show is better off avoiding the books’ take on the rosdrian subplot. black characters- esp black women- always get more flack from fandom and their choices are judged more harshly, rose/sisi is already getting a lot of hate from racists who hate the show reality that rose hathaway is a black woman, and there’s no need to stoke the misogynoir flames even more by making rose “at fault” for how her dynamic with adrian plays out.

the show could write any number of new subplots where (assuming the show wants to keep the canon endgames intact):

(if adrian’s behavior is changed) adrian has unrequited feelings for rose for a while but they don’t actually date, he takes no for an answer after some flirting and his romance shifts to adrian/sydney once sydney takes a more active role in the plot

(if adrian’s behavior is changed) rosdrian date, but they do it in a casual, no-strings-attached way where they break up at some point before they get together with their endgames. there are no hard feelings between them

(if adrian’s behavior stays the same) rosdrian’s trajectory stays mostly the same but the breakup is abt rose getting some catharsis calling adrian out for objectifying her, which could kickstart adrian’s redemption arc. this option would prob be closest to canon, but rose gets a mini-arc that culminates in her standing up for herself against a royal who disrespected her and adrian realizes he needs to start acting better with women who are lower than him on the moroi social hierarchy, which would pay forward with adrian/sydney

this is just me floating a few options and i’d love to hear other ppl’s suggestions wrt how this subplot could go if y’all have any. but the most important point is: no matter what happens or how adrian is written, rose shouldn’t cheat on adrian and shouldn’t be written like the breakup is her fault, like she’s responsible for adrian’s feelings, or like she "owes” adrian a chance at any point. even if adrian is written like a legit nice guy and doesn’t coerce rose in the show, the main issue with the cheating plot is richelle m using rose as an “ex who broke his heart” plot device to give adrian more tragic backstory in a spinoff, without giving rose any of the detailed catharsis, recovery and healing she wrote for adrian in that new series. the va show, like the main series, is rose’s story, and it needs to stay rose’s story without sacrificing her character development or marring her hea so it can contrive more angst for a white supporting character.

#vampire academy #rose hathaway #tweeted something similar to this but posting slightly expanded thoughts here bc twitter is horrible for archiving and referencing things #anti adrian ivashkov #for posterity bc stuff like rose calling adrian out for harassing her is canon but ik ppl don't like to see that stuff #i don't think it's technically an anti adrian take to suggest the sexist narrative bias from the books should change #or to talk abt his canon actions even if they happen to be the shadier ones #but yk better safe than sorry #last sacrifice spoilers #vampire academy spoilers #tw fandom racism mention #tw fandom sexism mention #i might type another post later wrt the story reasons for why this ending was a bad idea #and did a disservice to both rose and adrian's arcs #but that's a post for another time

[captainswanandclintasha]

The Vampire Academy promotion sucks more than anything.

No offense but we are 15 days away from the premiere of Vampire Academy and their promotion in media and/or social media is.... bad to put it nicely. 

BTS photos of actors doesn’t really mean promotion. Just as thirst traps doesn’t mean promotions (Kieron is hot, yes, we can’t deny it, but why should someone who never met him or Dimitri, watch the show just because there’s a hot guy in it? It’s the same thing as promoting a show by putting out pictures of the very hot actress!!). 

A post about a love triangle between Rose, Dimitri and Adrian doesn’t mean promotion when 1. Adrian is not even in half the show, 2. the “love triangle” should come in much later and 3. people who never read the books have NO IDEA who Adrian is.

Their goal should be attracting new viewers and possible fans. They already have the old fandom (which is more or less divided by the bad decisions they took) who will watch the show but do you not want to appeal to a new range of viewers that might or might not contribue to the next phases of the show?

Especially since they don’t have Netflix/Disney+/HBO behind to help make the show bigger.

Make promo videos to introduce the people into the story, release interviews with the actors, post promo pictures, stills, character posters, posters of any kind. Promote the show (as something other than Bridgerton wanna be). 

Having Julie Plec as producer/director doesn’t mean shit to people, there are people who won’t watch it BECAUSE it’s Julie Plec. The actors aren’t big names to count of self promotion purely based on their names, as you see in other shows and/or movies. You can’t even count on fans to promote it for you and apply the Spider Man: No Way Home method and not promote anything because the fans will. 

So yes, in conclusion their promotion sucks and they need to do better.

#vampire academy #kieron moore #sisi stringer #julie plec #anti julie plec #rose hathaway #dimitri belikov #lissa dragomir #adrian ivashkov #captainswanandclintasha #it's like they are not even trying

[xdarkeningkrystals]

I'm eternally grateful that Julie Plec cannot destroy Sydrian. She already made Romitri boring, Dragozera cringy, Mermia rushed and Victor marry his brother. Could you imagine what she would have done to Pure, beautiful Sydrian? I'm glad we never will see that day, dear friends.

#Anti Julie Plec #Sydrian #Bloodlines #Vampire Academy #Sydney Sage #Adrian Ivashkov #You know it's true