#now that beron and co are very dead | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

flowerflamestars · 3 years

Text

your heart, as it was then, will be on fire Snippet

“Monster blood in my veins, Archeron, didn’t you say it? If I lose sight, if I lose my way, if I ever hurt you- promise me you’ll bury that knife in my chest.” “Are you planning,” Nesta hissed, acid over the tempo of her heart, “On having some kind of break down, because”- Eris laughed, as falsely hollow as his eyes. “On the contrary, I want forever. I want what I told you I wanted- this life a dance that never ends, a match by my side, not temperance or balance or softness. I want to run beneath the moon with you, and know the death of the year is coming. I want to be in step. I want an eternity so long and tangled and difficult I never grow cruel in boredom or see my father’s face in the mirror.” No snarl in the words, no growl of faery power- the more he felt, the truer Eris spoke, the quieter he became, whispered words burning in the air. Nesta tipped her head back, and looked full on the Lord of Autumn. “When you told me that, it was a marriage proposal.” His mouth twisted, a flash of white. “Surely you know.” Nesta knew. Nesta knew it the second he’d run, run out of a forest at his youngest brother’s behest. When he’d healed Emerie’s wings. When he’d painted her face in Beron’s blood and stood unflinching as she called monsters of legend from beneath the ground, out into the sky. “No,” Nesta lied, light, lovely, “Tell me.” He swallowed, a true, unhidden tell. “You must know. It could only be by your hand. Only you, were I lost. You, who would know truly. You- who- Nesta Archeron, it must be you, because that heart you wouldn’t hesitate to carve out bloody is already yours.”

#fix-it fic #guys...it go very sexy by accident?#just VERY BRIEFLY POPPING IN #I will answer messages tomorrow but please know I love you all and this insane au is coming together FAST #nothing quicker than me armed with spite apparently #I don't even really ship this in canon #because Eris Big Trash in most of canon #but it is..uhhh #REALLY WORKING IN THIS WORLD?#who needs canon?#Gwyn has a pegasus friend #Nesta is a goddess #Emerie is FLYING #and Autumn is basically a refuge for ladies #now that beron and co are very dead #somewhere twenty miles in the background #Lucien: I CANNOT BELIEVE I HAVE TO TAKE OVER SPRING NOW #TO HELP MY STUPID #NOT ACTUALLY EVIL BROTHER #I CANNOT-#Jurian #with his head in Vassa's lap: literally no one asked you to babe #Vassa: but I like it! His wife is the awesome #Lucien taking deep breaths: THEY'RE NOT EVEN MARRIED #THEY'RE JUST LIKE THAT-#AND OBVIOUSLY THEY NEED HELP!#I'm sorry i'm very slow at replies right now #more soon!

60 notes · View notes

moiraineswife · 7 years

Note

What proof do we have that Eris is abusive, other than that characters have said he is? Most held a similar opinion of Rhys, what's the difference? That we have a first person narrator who is privy to the backstory of one but not the other? I'm not trying to be aggressive but I want to know your thoughts. I thought showing was more important than telling in storytelling.

Okay then, like, what ‘proof’ have we got for literally 90% of the things in this series???? Feyre is a 19 year old human girl in a world full of immortal fae. You want an eye witness account for everything in this thing, do you?

How do I know the war happened the way they said it did? Feyre never saw it, she’s only had characters tell her about it. How do I know Rhys actually hated what he did with Amarantha and didn’t just swap sides right at the end? How do I know Rhys’ dad sucked but his mother was a good person, I’ve only heard him tell me about her, I’ve seen it. How do I know Tamlin’s brothers were awful? Never seen them either. How do I know Beron is really that awful either, I mean maybe he’s wearing a mask too and all the characters are just wrong. How do I know Mor is queer? I’ve never seen her with a girl before, I just have her word for it, maybe she lied. How do I know literally anything in this entire series because WE GET TOLD MOST THINGS NOT SHOWN THEM.

This is what happens when you have a limited first person pov. The character HAS to get told things in order to tell us things like ???? A little bit of common sense please, do you want me to like, historically fact check Prythian for everything that Feyre tells us about it???

And tbh SJM has a pretty crappy habit of doing the whole ‘telling over showing’ thing anyway. See: the entirety of the Throne of Glass series, Mor’s powers in ACOTAR (she’s awesome, really, we promise, we just haven’t actually SEEN her do anything), the assertions that Rhys and co are ~the most powerful ever~ have I actually SEEN that? Can I actually see that? No. Do I really question these things? No. Because I understand that this is the only way I can actually get some information out of this story and if I only went with what I ‘saw’ and disbelieved everything else I’d have literally nothing??

And when it comes to the whole Eris thing, like, dude, it’s not just a couple of characters who’ve said he’s abysmal it’s like, wait let me make a list:

Tamlin: “His father had her put down. Executed, in front of Lucien, ashis two eldest brothers held him and made him watch.” That would be Eris. So at best you’ve got conflicting statements here.

Lucien: “Lucien crossed his arms, leaning against the back of thecouch. “I have to agree with Cassian. Eris is a snake.” M, yes, Eris, HIS OWN BROTHER. If anyone was going to know Eris was ~not a bad person~ it’d be Lucien. Lucien who lived in that court. Who knew him. Who Eris apparently cared enough to protect/save, according to him. Eris who apparently cares so much about his mother (as we have seen Lucien does SEEN that is SEEN with our own two eyes) Why the hell would Lucien not know Eris was ‘wearing a mask’. Or maybe...Eris really does suck.

Rhys: “Eris refused to marry her. Said she’d been sullied by abastard-born lesser faerie, and he’d now sooner fuck a sow. [...]Rhys said withsoft wrath, “Eris left her for dead in the middle of their woods.” Idgaf how he tries to spin it later, this is what happened.

Cassian: “You’re working with that prick,” Cassian cut in, whatevercatching-up now over, apparently. He moved to Mor’s side, a hand on her back.He shook his head at Azriel and Rhys, disgust curling his lip. “You should havespiked Eris’s fucking head to the front gates.”

Amren: “Your whole family is despicable,” Amren said to Lucien.

Mor: AtMor, whose face went white with dread. [...]Or at Eris, heirto the Autumn Court, as he strolled into the room.

[...]

And I had the terrible sense that Mor had gone somewhere far,far away as Eris set down his goblet and said, “You look well, Mor.”

The sight of him triggers actual real panic attacks and flashbacks that we can literally see from Feyre’s POV. Five hundred years after the fact and Mor is still traumatised enough by what he did to her to react like this even after all that time.

Then we have Feyre’s POV herself. Through her we’ve seen Eris laughing alongside his other brothers as Lucien was tortured and nearly killed.

“I don’t suppose your handsome brothers know, Lucien,” shepurred.

“If we did, Lady, we would be the first to tell you,” said thetallest. He was lean, well dressed, every inch of him a court-trained bastard.Probably the eldest, given the way even the ones who looked like born warriorsstared at him with deference and calculation—and fear.

Ah, yes, that would be Eris actively promising help to Amarantha in order to damn Feyre and continue her reign. Then there’s the way Eris hunts down Lucien and Feyre in the Winter Court, actively harms them both. So that’s like...Basically every single main character in this book who’s told you Eris sucks.

What’s the basis for believing that he doesn’t, out of interest? I mean what ‘evidence’ do you have that he is actually wearing a mask, what do you have that’s so strong it goes against the testimony of multiple characters? Oh I know! You have Eris’ word for it and that’s it. Wow. So unbiased. So convincing. Eris tells us he’s not really a bad guy and that outweighs the half a dozen people who tells us he is! That’s just. Damn. What logic. Can’t argue with that.

Also, like, I’m sorry, but Rhys’ arc was done properly, Rhys’ redemption wasn’t a retcon it was a followed-through on plan. There were hints UtM that Rhys was not as black as he was painted (He killed the Summer Court faerie outright rather than leaving him to suffer, he repeatedly came to visit Feyre in her cell when no-one else would, he was honest with Feyre about the treatment he received at Amarantha’s hands (a vulnerability on his part), he told her why he was making her dance every night as well as the steps he put in place to protect her, he sent music to her and saved her life, he saved her life and Tamlin’s with the kiss (which Feyre is aware of), he tried to save Feyre’s life while Amarantha was torturing her)

Rhys was a complex, morally grey character UtM and it’s possible to show a different side to him and a ‘mask’ because there were always hints of him wearing one. What if Ianthe told Feyre she was actually a secret agent working for Prythian but she was forced to act the way she did to keep her cover? What if Amarantha said she’d only dominated Prythian that way to save it from something worse and she too was wearing a mask and working for the greater good? What if Hybern said there was a bigger threat facing them and he had an ulterior motive to this war (and also, I mean, how do you really know Hybern is that awful, we’ve only ever had people tell us about him, maybe he’s misunderstood too!!!!) @valamerys wrote this out far better than I could in this post, read it too.

My thoughts are pretty simple, tbh: SJM decided to “”””””redeem”””””” Eris, likely to have him set-up to take over Autumn, now Lucien isn’t an option for that before what with the whole dramatic lost son of Day thing and she did a crap job of it. Like this isn’t some grand morality based character debate that’s going on here, SJM just handled this poorly. In order to make him seem not so bad she had to undo all of the canon that she’d set in place before hand and offer ‘alternative’ explanations for what happened that we’ve never heard about.

If she planned this all beforehand, if Eris was always wearing a mask why weren’t there hints of it before? Why didn’t she have Tamlin tell Feyre he got an anonymous tip-off the day he saved Lucien’s life from his brothers (which is what Eris claimed). Why wouldn’t Lucien defend him a little, say at least he cared about their mother/was sometimes kinder to him than the others? Why wouldn’t Rhys say that in the arranged marriage that petrified Mor, Eris was as unwilling as she was, that he argued against it? (Eris would have gone through with this marriage regardless of what it did to Mor if she hadn’t slept with Cassian) Why wouldn’t Eris stay quiet UtM or not show up to watch Lucien’s torture (which he does repeatedly)? Why, why, why, why, why would SJM not do something to show us that there might be more to Eris? Unless this was just a sloppy, last minute retcon to redeem a gross, abusive character who still to do this day petrifies his victim?

Like, if you consider showing to be of more importance than telling in stories....You’ve picked a mighty weird hill to die on here with Eris. Because this is literally the worst example of telling not showing in this entire series. There is no basis for anything that happens with Eris’ character in ACOWAR and the only thing we have stacked against the evidence of two and a half books is what Eris says and how he personally spins the story like ????

Idk dude, we can have a convoluted, let’s bend over backwards to redeem this guy and show he was misunderstood and has been wearing a mask so convincing it’s never ever ever cracked even once this entire time, to anyone! Even people who’ve known him for centuries....Or we go with the simpler: SJM really didn’t plan or execute this story very well at all. Which seems more reasonable?

225 notes · View notes