Bibliophile Psychologist

What is always most evident to me is when people can take feedback and correct an action they have been told is hurtful and harmful. They apologize. They take accountability. And they learn.

We are all human.

Instead of making things so dichotomous and doubling down in this tribalistic approach to fandom, maybe we need to pay attention to how receptive people are to feedback and not globally label. If you see somebody receive feedback and correct it, give some grace.

Well no. That’s not what she’s going to say. The answer is that it has to come from her pov and will be explored via her POV. How SJM chooses to explain that will be evident once we’re in her pov.

I think you could also pose the question of, “why hasn’t she accepted the bond?” if we’re playing this game, ya know?

There are endless explanations SJM can go with:

She didn’t know it was an option

There is no formal rejection process

She is scared of the consequences

She doesn’t love Lucien but she knows he’s Feyre’s friend and doesn’t want to make him go crazy

She’s working on another plan

She’s afraid to let everyone down

She’s seen something and knows it isn’t time yet

She actually has and we just dont know it

She is keeping it because they use it to help their court and doesn’t want to harm the court

I agree. But my question was more so about how Sarah will address it within the story

How Sarah will address the mate bond rejection?

From HOFAS, we learned the cauldron was warped. Corrupted to work the will of the Daglan. We know the cauldron is in Cretia. We also saw in HOFAS the cauldron was once at Ramiel.

I personally believe mating bonds were warped to delegate biological advantage to more adequately feed the Daglan host. That mating bonds became a means of creating the strongest magical offspring for tithes. The “breeding” narrative is a big one across SJM series and I’m relatively certain that’s the breeding plot to ACOTAR. The bonds we have seen being poorly-matched were instantaneous bonds. One of which created the most powerful HL in Prythian: Rhys.

I believe this will all be uncovered. I believe Elain has life power, in addition to being a seer, to compliment Nesta’s death. I believe Elain will heal the cauldron, heal the rotting lands…and in doing so, will do away with the biologically advantageous bonds (which I think will also serve Mor’s story). Prior to doing so, I think she will have already chosen Azriel.

So with that being said, I believe Elain (and Azriel) will travel to Cretia to obtain and return the cauldron to Ramiel (probably via the harp). I believe a huge factor in “true, true mates” is choice. Nesta, Feyre, and Vivianne all chose before knowing they were mates. I believe Elain will do the same. I believe Lucien, too, feels the wrongness of the mating bond. How that happens? Only SJM knows. But I do think we will know very quickly once we’re in Elain’s head, as it’s possible she has foreseen many a happening.

I think it’s very simple…

Because we haven’t had her pov. This is a huge storyline and was never going to be told from another pov.

I miss Trout Gate

So much funnier than shark gate

Bring back the Trout!

and now we started this weird shark week emoji shit?

But it really happened.

But it’s the Elriels.

But we have insider info bc of a shark emoji!

But the Elriels are lying trolls making all of this up.

They’re so gullible.

I think we’re being gaslit.

Personally, I think it’s really weird behavior that anybody is messaging an author’s close, personal and private friend who is not involved in the fandom, full stop.

Her friend is not a public figure. They have grandchildren, family and a regular life. Making somebody’s personal friendship about a shipwar is bizarre. Using your favorite author’s irl best friend, who is not engaged in the fandom, as a rationale for your ship is weird.

Sarah is not her characters. Her characters are not her friends. Irl friendships serving as inspiration? Sure. But this is really unhinged behavior. Sarah’s friend is not synonymous with your fav. She is a made-up, fictional character.

Her friend is a living, breathing human. Not words on paper.

One minute, bragging about chatting with her friend and sending fanart and the next it was a joke and the terrible, no good Elriels are making it up.

Can we stop making Sarah’s personal friendships a part of the shipwar??

i came across this TikTok and wondered if we could get a TOG/ACOTAR crossover. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Ga2wW4/

I just went and reread the prologue. It’s interesting right?

@cassianfanclub caught this a couple weeks ago.

I think this is all very interesting and many of us have long theorized that there is a connection between:

Elain, Aelin, Elena, Helena.

I do think (hope) we are looking at the world walkers of the Maasverse. I believe Elain will be a world-walker. And I believe Elain was the pretty raw magic wielder who wandered into Mistward.

I highly suspect the harp with musical connotations will be a major player in this as we have long connected Elain to the harp.

The timing of it all seems to be a making of fate. The rebirth of the sisters. The brothers all connected at the same time. The cauldron also being whole albeit corrupted and in need of healing at present is also a very convenient timing thing. ( @wingedblooms brought all of this up in conversation).

Taking wild accusations at face value without evidence. Perceiving things constantly in bad faith. Because wdym we’re just accepting that somebody who fueled this fandom with vitriol and hatred can say they had to move to another state because of harassment and nobody questions that? Wdym somebody had their phone hacked and we’re just accepting that?

Idk. Maybe it’s because I work in a field with a lot of dynamic situations, I cannot accept allegations like that at face value and categorize anybody in my mind as awful, horrible or vile. Especially somebody who has been known to lie, manipulate and mislead. People have a lot of individualized motivations to lie and deceive for their own benefit or (sometimes) their own pathological urges.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, feel me? Sometimes people just suck and instead of taking accountability for their own behavior, they have to blame/demonize others, to make themselves appear blameless. Or to garner attention. Or to harm somebody/a group they perceive as their enemy.

Do you know how many times in all of our lives we mismeasure a person? We thought one thing was the truth and maybe even erroneously caused harm believing something that when all the facts came out…we were duped? We were wronged?

How hard is it to acknowledge you were wrong? You wanted to give somebody the benefit of the doubt and you saw true colors. You made a mistake. That’s human. Instead, all I’m seeing, with the exception of a few, is…”yes but the Elriels are awful.”

Really?

The logic is confusing to me. Why does taking so much time equate to Sarah changing her mind about the romance? As a mom, I can tell you that your efficiency at work shifts a lot when you have little children. It’s not that you’re inefficient, it’s that your priorities change and your brain stops working as well for a good bit (this is science not anecdotal). She also had, what sounds to be, a very stressful experience with the show during this time. She wrote HOFAS within the last 5 years. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of explanations as to the time it has taken that don’t equate to changing plans.

I don’t think her plans have changed. In the CHD interview she spoke of Elain. She spoke, in no uncertain terms, about the mating bond and how nature chooses right v wrong in the context of a question posed about Elain rejecting the bond. She said years ago she knew what the first 2 books in the spin-offs were about. She said they were dual-pov. Could that change? Sure. But there’s been no indication of that change.

The multi-pov thing is possible but I still think it’s unlikely. I think the multi-pov thing is cope bc they know their ship cannot fill an unbindable book. And they know Elain is needed to cover that much ground. She’s made. She’s an Archeron. She’s a seer. She can wield the trove. She can activate made weapons. She has other powers. And she has this mating bond with somebody who nature seemed to pick wrong with while there seems to be some fate associated with 3 brothers and 3 sisters. 2 of which nature picked right for. I don’t think it’s complicated to pick up what she’s throwing down but we’re in the trenches still in this fandom.