2/2 because he wanted her to be happy. Rhys knew that telling Feyre she could die in childbirth would make her depressed. Rhysand has ALWAYS looked out for Feyre and her feelings, and he actually respects her as a person.

i drew alina because last month the promo pics made me rly excited but i didn’t finish it until now lol

Nesta shook her head. “Consider it the repayment of a debt.”

A tear slipped down Emerie’s cheek. “For what?”

“For being my friends. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”

Emerie’s face crumpled. “There is no debt, Nesta.”

But Nesta smiled softly. “There is. Let me pay it.”

This really is the worst possible reasoning for Nesta staying behind, isn't it? It somehow manages to completely undermine both the friendship between Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie and Nesta's development. Because this isn't her selflessly sacrificing herself for her friends. It's her going "I'm such a terrible person that for anyone to put up with me is a great gift/sacrifice on their part and I need to repay that debt by sacrificing myself for them." And even though Emerie initially disagrees, she ends up doing what Nesta wants in the end, which reaffirms that Nesta is right.

It's really a shame, because up until then, I actually like the idea of Nesta staying behind to allow the other two to win. It felt refreshing. For once, it's not the protagonist going on while the others stay back to make it possible, but the other way around. And I actually like Emerie winning the Blood Rite better than Nesta winning because Emerie is Illyrian.

“And the Valkyries are gone, too?”

“Yes.” Gwyn sighed. “Valkyries existed for millennia. But the War—the one five hundred years ago—wiped out most of them, and the few survivors were elderly enough to quickly fade into old age and die afterward. From the shame, legend claims. They let themselves die, rather than face the shame of their lost battle and surviving when their sisters had not.”

okay. one. novice/blade/valkyrie are 3 out of 4 of the part names. great. guess nesta is gonna become a valkyrie smh.

two. “legend claims” no, if this was 500 years ago it should NOT be legend bc 500 years is within living memory for MANY fae. in fact, a large amount of the fae in this series were around back then. ONE OF THEM should remember.

three. ohhhhh the unfortunate implications of this. let us remember what The WarTM 500 years ago was about (stopping the enslavement of humans), and which side lost (the side that wanted to own humans as slaves), so if the valkyries let themselves die out of shame over losing in the war…maybe we should take a minute to consider exactly what that implies about which side of the war they fought on. and maybe we should Not Fucking Have nesta & gwyn & emerie become valkyries bc holy shit the tone deafness. and also, this makes me incredibly suspicious of merrill’s interest in the valkyries. like if it’s just writing the info down,,,, sure, but kindly do not fangirl over them.

sjm: so there’s this group of female warriors who fought on behalf of human slavery… let’s ignore that because #feminism

excerpt below the cut.

so from what i recall, she doesn’t get uncomfortable after having sex with men (which she only does to make assriel leave her alone), she looks downright nauseous and like she can’t feel at home in her own skin. i can’t find the exact passage (i don’t own the ac0tar novels), but there is no canonical evidence in ac0war to support the idea that mor enjoys having sex with a man. 

(emphasis only exists to exemplify what i’m saying, not bc i’m irritated with you, anon! just wanna make that clear.)

i mean, this is seriously simplifying why mor would find “pleasure” while sleeping with men, but be attracted to women: that’s why dildos exist. and fingers. and vibrators. and any other kind of sex toy that can take the place of a man if you’re not into men but like penetrative sex. 

what sj/m apparently fails to realize is that sex is about more than anatomy; more than peen into vagina. you have to be attracted to the person you’re with, trust the person you’re with, and if you can’t even look the person in the face (as seems likely with mor) you’re not enjoying the sex. it’s a hard distinction to describe, but basically, just bc mor finds pleasure in sex with men, it’s not bc it’s a man she’s having sex with. the reason she’s so nauseous afterward is bc she had sex with a man, who she was not attracted to. it was more compulsory. 

“No.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “No. I don’t … You see …” 

I’d never seen her at such a loss for words. She closed her eyes, fingers digging into her skin. “I can’t love him like that.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I prefer females.” 

For a heartbeat, only silence rippled through me. “But—you sleep with males. You slept with Helion …” And had looked terrible the next day. Tortured and not at all sated.

Not just because of Azriel, but … because it wasn’t what she wanted. 

“I do find pleasure in them. In both.” Her hands were shaking so fiercely that she gripped herself even tighter. “But I’ve known, since I was little more than a child, that I prefer females. That I’m … attracted to them more over males. That I connect with them, care for them more on that soul-deep level. But at the Hewn City … All they care about is breeding their bloodlines, making alliances through marriage. Someone like me … If I were to marry where my heart desired, there would be no offspring. My father’s bloodline would have ended with me…”

The passage IS confusing, so I can see why some people might classify Mor as bi, but as a bi chick… look. She says she ‘can’t’ love Azriel that way. She says that if she married who she wanted, ‘there would be no offspring’ and ‘her father’s bloodline would have ended with [Mor].’

That more than implies that given the choice she wouldn’t sleep with a guy ever, but enjoys penetrative sex. Since the author appears to have never considered the idea of a strap-on or how wlw sex actually works, Mor is relegated to still getting sexual pleasure from a penis with bonus eye-rolling because of course it’s only the woman abused by men who is the lesbian. I thought we killed this trope, y’all?

If you’re writing epic fantasy, the temptation to name everything with a fancy name like Soulbreaker, The Rolling Pin of Destiny, can be overwhelming. You want it to read like an epic of a bygone age, you want it to sound grand and magical. What often happens is you wind up with a muddled narrative, too many unpronounceable names that’d make Tchaikovsky roll his eyes, and the dialogue and narrative flow equivalent of a clogged toilet.

Which is not to say you can’t have fancy names for things, just y’know, be wise about when and how you use them.

The question I got was particularly pertaining to describing the rooms of a castle. “Do I call it the Great Hall, or the great hall?”

Well the way I work that kind of thing out, is to remind myself that the majority of castles have a great hall. So capitalizing it is a bit like thinking of your living room as The Living Room. See, how odd that looks? Same with “castle” in general, you don’t need to capitalize castle whenever you type it. if you are naming it by it’s proper name, then yes, but if say, your character glances up at it or tells someone “go to the castle, quickly!” it doesn’t need to be capitalized. If they say “go to Castle Plinth, quickly!” it does. 

It’s noun vs proper noun, or to put it another way, a type of building vs the specific building in question that has a formal name.

Titles are a little more tricky, especially with Lord this and Lady that and a whole host of etiquette rules, but a common trick is to think of it in terms of, is it a title? or a descriptor?

Vlad is a viscount (descriptor), but he’s also the Viscount of Castle Eyrie (title + formal name= capitalization). 

You also shouldn’t capitalize species. Human isn’t typically capitalized, so don’t write “the Elf” or “the Vampire”. They are “the elf” and “the vampire”. If however you are referring to them as a specific group withing said species, they’d be the High Elf or High Vampire. 

Think dog (noun descriptor) vs German Shepherd (proper noun of a specific type of dog). 

Same with regions. Capitalize region descriptors. If your region is called something like “Woodland” you’d still refer to them as “the elf”, but if you are referring to them in reference to the region where they come from, they are “the Woodlander” or “the Woodlander elf”. (and if you get confused, always, always think of it in real world settings. The woman is a woman, but she is from America so she is American, or the American woman.”)

Is this making sense? I hope it’s making sense. I’m running on about two hours sleep so I may read this again tomorrow and cringe. But these are some of the most common mistakes people make when writing fantasy.