Tag: sarah is salty

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Hi. Have you made a post of your thoughts about feysand in acowar? The more I think about the book the less I ship them and small things that didn’t really bother me are building up and turning me off the ship. Not that it was bad… I guess after acomaf I had great expectations and I may be slightly biased because I liked both Feyre and Rhys (individually) less in acowar.

I think you’ll find some of this scattered about in the ‘feysand’ and ‘sarah reads acowar’ tags, but I can kind of sum it up here.

Ultimately, I started ACOWAR with Feysand as my OTP, and finished it with that no longer being true. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint why that is–perhaps part of it is simply me moving on as a person, but a lot of it had to do with how their relationship unfolded in ACOWAR.

There were a lot of little moments between them that I loved: Rhys checking on her over the bond, their first moment of seeing each other again, and some of their really good flirting moments. However, this was sadly overshadowed by some parts of their dynamic that I found troubling. I’ll try to sum it up, because it’s mostly centered on one thing.

There was no conflict between them. These two have such strong personalities, and as we saw in ACOTAR and ACOMAF, they don’t always mesh. I feel like, somehow, the mating bond was an excuse to get rid of that. Besides one moment when Feyre is mad at Rhys for criticizing Nesta, there’s next to no conflict between them. They’re constantly validating each other, even when one of them is making shitty decisions. This is such a tonal shift from ACOMAF, when virtually all Feyre and Rhys did was call each other out on their bullshit. That was almost totally absent here, and I really missed that dynamic. It also sends a poor message that once they’re “married”/mated, the conflict ends and everything’s all happy. That’s not how real relationships work. 

Also, the use of the term “unified front” really rubbed me the wrong way, because those are the words that Tamlin used as a weapon against Feyre. It seemed like a really poor narrative decision to use them in regard to Feysand.

I agree with you that I liked both characters as individuals less in ACOWAR, and this affected my perception of their relationship. Rhys’s character, even his shitty decisions, would have been fine if Feyre had stood up to him and called him out, and if he’d had to face consequences for his actions. But he never really did. And Feyre became diminished, somehow, whenever she was around Rhys. This isn’t to say she had no personality or no flaws or anything, but she seemed to revolve around Rhys more than she had in the past, and I noticed this. Again, their individual flaws would be good character traits if they dynamic between them had remained as strong and ripe for conflict as it was in ACOMAF, but again, they were just letting each other get away with everything. It didn’t seem in-character for them. 

Finally, the death bargain. This is so completely out of character for both of them, I can’t even. Other bloggers have written it so much more clearly, but basically, Rhys is the sort of person who has plans on plans on plans, and he would never leave his court’s future up to chance. He wouldn’t imperil his court for the sake of a dangerous romantic gesture, no matter how much he loves Feyre. And I don’t think it’s in character for Feyre to ask that of him. It’s almost exactly the opposite of how I expected them to behave, and given that this was in the very last chapter, it really ruined the appeal of Feysand for me.

I don’t hate Feysand by any stretch of the imagination. I still enjoy the fics I’ve written for them, as well as their dynamic in ACOMAF. But they’re no longer my OTP, and I no longer feel driven to write fic for them. I’m a little sad about this, but that’s the way things go sometimes. 

Random thought in need of smart opinion: So you know how Feyre clung onto her bargain + mating bond when she died and then was brought back to life by the High Lords thus giving her a choice in death etc.? Well if someone had a mating bond or bargain, and they, like Feyre, clung onto it, what would happen? Would they become a literal part of their mate? A ghost? Is the only reason it worked for Feyre cuz she has the mating bond and bargain? How, then, did Rhys come back to life w/o the bargain?

In ACOMAF Rhys explains that the mating bond was what Feyre was really holding onto in ACOTAR–that the bargain was just a cobweb that wasn’t doing anything. The same would be true of Rhys in ACOWAR; the bargain never had any affect on anything.

We’re also told in ACOMAF (and ACOTAR, I think), that the mating bond lasts beyond death. SJM directly contradicts this at the end of ACOWAR by describing remnants of it like they’re floating through the air. Given that SJM doesn’t seem to have a consistent way of explaining this, I think you could pretty much say anything you want about how mating bonds work and not really have it go against canon. *shrug*

I see a lot of anti acowar posts on your blog… Did you really hate it that much? (P.S. I loved it but I don’t judge people for their preferences)

Hi! So, you’re not the first person I’ve heard this from recently, so I’m going to answer this generally. I went back and looked at how much I’ve been using my ‘anti acowar’ tag and … there have only been 13 posts with that tag in the past month? And my regular ‘acowar’ tag is filled mostly with fanfiction and art, not meta or discourse (there are a couple of things about Mor’s and Lucien’s plotlines, but they’re not really anti posts). There was that drama about Moriel this week, but that had way more to do with fandom behavior than the book itself. 

To answer your question more directly: yes, I did hate it that much. People have gotten really upset with me and a couple of the other bigger bloggers with this opinion, telling us to “just get over it and move on,” which, okay, I see the point, but … we have? I think we deserved a “mourning period” if you will. We’d dedicated a year of our lives to this series and had most of our headcanons and expectations dashed. It was a lot to deal with. But besides answering asks, most of us have moved on. 

I’m writing my ACOWAR Lucien fic, but other than that I don’t personally talk about ACOWAR all that much on my blog anymore. I’m on the lookout for new books and new fandoms to fill the gap (ofc I’m still going to be here and this fic is going to take me a while to finish, so don’t worry about me going AWOL). I realized that talking about ACOWAR all the time was making my blog un-fun, and it was a drain on me, too. So I’ve definitely cut back and I hope this makes a difference. And also, I’ve never judged someone for liking it, and I’m honestly glad you did! The whole point of fandom and books is that people experience them differently, and I won’t try to take that away from anyone. 🙂

Some people are just huge assholes

I went and sat outside to do my Russian homework because for once it wasn’t too hot to sit in my new chair. I played some Florence + The Machine radio for a while, and then I had to do my listening exercises. At some point my neighbor came out and started vaping, which was obnoxious but whatever. I didn’t turn off my music because I was there first so it was my right to keep playing it. Then I stopped it and very obviously started listening to a foreign language. Before I had even finished, my vaping neighbor decides to turn on very loud rap/hip-hop music. Which, okay, he lives here too, but I was still obviously sitting there, still obviously listening to Russian. And it wasn’t just any music he was playing–it was like, vile stuff about pussies and bitches and sex that was not only annoying but made me very uncomfortable. I was almost finished with my homework but I gave up and went inside because I couldn’t concentrate anymore between the vaping and the awful music.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought that maybe he was my upstairs neighbor and didn’t see or hear me still there. So I walked to the end of my sidewalk thinking I would surreptitiously check, but no. He’s this white dudebro literally right on the other side of the wood paneling from me. He knew I was there, he had to have heard me working, and he decided to fuck around anyway. 

I had half a mind to go over and start yelling at him in Russian, but I was too drained and annoyed. smh. My homework is finished and I have a glass of wine now (thank goodness), but I had to rant.

Assuming every page is 250 words, and since ACOWAR is 699 pages, it means she wrote about 500 words a day (if she had done it for a year). But since she wrote the book, edited some of it and published it afterwards, that means she may have halved that and instead wrote an average of 1,000 words day.

She’s gone on the record saying that she regularly writes far more than that. I think her record in a day is something like 18,000 (for ACOWAR). It’s impressive, but also worrisome. Especially given how the book came out. 

SJM finished the first draft of ACOWAR on August 14th, 2016. She got her first-pass pages on February 7th, 2017. That means that in 6 months, the book was supposedly (*cough*obviouslynot*cough*) given a developmental edit, a line edit, and a proofread. Even if you have a lot of people working on it, that’s not much time! 

My editing process for my book will take 7 months minimum, and that’s after I’ve already spent years perfecting this draft (it’s safe to say it’s been through at least ten drafts at this point, and three of those were total rewrites from scratch). And after that 7 months, then the book still has to be designed! I know there are big differences between my publisher and someplace like Bloomsbury just based on scale (trust me, I’m very grateful to have a smaller house), but from my perspective, this is just stunning–and not necessarily in a good way.

Things that seriously bothered me about ACOWAR

sarah-bae-maas:

Now don’t get me wrong I love SJM and I liked ACOWAR, but the more I linger on it the more stuff just frustrates me. It’s gotten to the point where I just get mad because I can’t stop thinking about them. So, without further ado, here are my critiques/complaints. 

Get ready kids because here tf we go

– We never found out what kind of magic Mor has!!! Like are you kidding me? She’s named The Morrigan but we never find out why. Her magic is intrinsic to her character and yet was left out. There was all this hinting and it just came to nothing. 

– Elain and Nesta never apologised for how they treated Feyre for goddamn years and yet here I am supposed to like these two people and care about them. Like no thanks. 

– Not only that but they never had to deal with real consequences of their actions. Sure, they were kidnapped and turned into fae but that would’ve happened anyway because of Feyre’s relationship with Tamlin/Ianthe. 

– I need a reason as to why Nesta loves Elain so so so so much and was a fucking bitch towards Feyre for so long. Feyre was the baby of the family. And I don’t take Feyre looking like their dad as an excuse. Nope. Not good enough.  

– Lucien having a bloody last name. And then even better, Cassian teasing her about it when WE LITERALLY DON’T KNOW THE LAST NAME OF ANY FUCKING CHARACTERS RHYS INCLUDED AND HE HAS A GODDAMN POV. Give all the names or none of them.

– Speaking of said POV, was it really necessary?? Was it really needed to break out of Feyre for that minuscule part at the end?

– Remember that time Feyre had a namesake that seemed like it would become important? Yeah me neither since it was never mentioned again. 

– I feel there was no real sacrifice made. 

– The reunion scene just wasn’t good fam. There was no slow burning passion like in acomaf, and (this one is probably more opinion) it was just a bit too animalistic. 

– Feyre being concerned about the bond showing her scent but never just asking Rhys if it would or not?? Like pretty sure he would bloody know.  And was she really planning on being there that long that it would become an issue? I think not. 

– Her father (another character without a bloody name) just comes out of bloody no where and it’s so sudden and stupid and ugh I need backstory. I need an explanation. This one I will admit though could be cleared up with a novella. 

– Speaking of hearing more story, WE NEEDED TO SEE THE OUROBOROS SCENE. THAT WAS SO IMPORTANT, AND WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT CHANCE FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. There were so many scenes that just did not need to be in the book (VANSERRA I’M LOOKING AT YOU) that could have been sacrificed so that this could’ve been included. 

– I love SJM, but I’m just gonna say it. ACOWAR didn’t need to be that long. There, I said it. I’m going to go crawl into a pit now. 

– Jurian, Miryam and Drakon take time out of fighting a goddamn war full of their soldiers dying to have a chat. Probably not the time for it dare I say. 

– I’m just gonna say it again, but there was no real sacrifices in this book. Sure, Rhys died, but he came back five minutes later. Go full V Roth or go home. (Just kidding love you Rhys) (but like actually tho)

– Now this is a weird one but bear with me, there is literally so many ellipses in this book. Go open to a random page. 9/10 there’s probably one or multiple there. 

– There’s going to be conjecture on this one but I think there was too much smut. Now God know’s I’m here for it, but a lot of it just didn’t serve a purpose in ACOWAR. Like any scene that is written, there needs to be a reason for it. Maybe it would’ve been okay if the book wasn’t as long, but it was huge and it just didn’t need to be. 

– We are made to believe that the fae are immortal, right? And yet Feyre comments about how she meets a fae that has aged. So are they just creatures that age really really slowly? 

– That dumbass death bargain. Did they even think? What if one of them dies and they don’t have an heir or someone to leave Velaris to. You don’t get to choose your closest relative, and Rhys could just as easily pass his powers to Keir then he could Mor or literally any one else. And going with the above point on how ageing works, does this mean that Feyre could prematurely die hundreds of years before she should? 

– As my final point, I’m just going to say her editor really let her down on this one. Her deadline should’ve been longer, had more revisions and plotting/workshopping, and she needed to have a tighter leash when it came to a word count.

I might add some more later, these are just the ones I can remember right now. @sarahviehmann thoughts? 

I agree with just about all of this! My only disagreement has to do with Nesta and Elain, because I am satisfied with that story (though I agree that we never got that reason why Nesta loves Elain so much because that conversation in the library was never picked up again). Everything else I’m pretty much on board with! It’s such a shame that small things like this, that could have so easily been fixed with more time, pile up and drag down the book so much. I’m sorry all this has ruined your reading, babe! I’m kind of in the same boat.

Salty Asks! 10, 19, 22!

10. Most disliked arc? Why?

Besides Lucien, who was woefully underused in ACOWAR, I feel like Tamlin’s arc was the biggest disappointment. I feel like it could have been really good but was just underdeveloped. I didn’t even care if he got “full redemption” or not, but something a little more cohesive would have been nice.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

I would say that’s the ugly side of the fandom that surfaces when anybody tries to have a conversation about representation. People demand to see “proof” that someone can talk about this issue, which puts vulnerable people in the position of having to out themselves to be taken seriously (not cool). The attempt to silence any conversation about it is really disheartening. And it didn’t used to be this way? I remember last year being so happy we weren’t like the ToG fandom, that we just let everybody be, but that isn’t really the case anymore.

22. Popular character you hate?

Ummm, there aren’t any major ones, but I’ll say Varian. Not that he’s particularly offensive on his own, but he did bulldoze in and kill my ace Amren headcanon, so …