#*elain

if eris knew elain was a seer—or even suspected she had power from the cauldron like nesta—absolutely yes. but i'm not sure that he would be as interested in elain off rip.

i'm very much of the belief that eris pursued nesta as he did in acosf because he wanted the power he knew she had. he knew she could be an extremely valuable asset against his father. if the night court wanted to dangle her in front of him like meat before a dog, he would play the part; he would sink his teeth in and bite. then nesta was sharp, and smart, and he had the fleeting thought—oh, you are not like the others; you could be fun to play the game with. his want of her was self-serving, but there could have been something between them, eventually, because his interest was piqued.

with elain—things are different. iirc she never exposes her abilities to anyone beyond the ic because no one realized she had them; they all just thought she'd been brain-scramblied by the cauldron. i'm sure plenty of rumors circulated through prythian about this, stemming from the distant observations of servants and lesser fae and commonfolk. (whisper networks my beloved!!!) among them, i think there were some voices speculating that elain was damaged in some way by the cauldron, that it took from her as it did that mortal queen—she isn't seen around as much as nesta, she doesn't attend the meetings, etc. i don't think eris takes any rumor at face value, but he also isn't assured of her value in the way he is of nesta's.

then he sees her dangled before him: lovely and soft, choked up by night court black but blushing pink, nowhere near as convincing as her sister would have been in another time, in another universe. her pulse flutters wildly at her throat, and she is hardly able to hold his gaze, but he can tell that she has been coached through this—told to bat her lashes; to affect submission like the nc thinks he likes, though that doesn't seem much of a put-on; to act flustered by his presence. she presents much softer, more docile, more pleasant than nesta; she does not play the game very well. his interest is not piqued in who she is but rather what she is hiding underneath.

i think they have a lot more grace for both of them! one thing all of the ic keeps coming back to when justifying their treatment of nesta and elain is that they were feyre’s older sisters and they never did anything to take care of her / offset the burden placed on her to provide for the family. but with toddler!archeron in play — both nesta and elain did pull their weight, at least while he was alive. and if they didn’t in the aftermath of his death, the ic would be more willing to excuse it as grief instead of condemn it as a moral failing.

like this kind of blatant trauma would prompt the ic to view nesta and elain more as one of their own off the bat. in canon, they all bond over the fact that they have endured hardship in their past that they can point to and say look, this was unfair. i was not a perfect person in the aftermath, but i was surviving, and i am trying to do better now. they would be more willing to view nesta’s meanness and drinking as a parallel to something they went through in their own lore, a hurdle to overcome to get to a place of healing.

because the main issue the ic has with nesta and elain, especially initially, is that they can’t empathize with them not taking action while enduring hardship. by sitting by and letting feyre care for the family, nesta and elain position themselves as diametrically opposed to the like … Pick Yourself Up By Your Boostraps ethos of the ic. plus a lot of nesta and elain’s trauma is more internal? than feyre’s? and occurs over the course of their adolescence. plus nesta especially keeps hers close to her chest. so the ic is unwilling and / or unable to understand it.

Nesta's plan to push her father now involves starving a 2 year old which she absolutely would not want. They in general need more attention and care so someone would have to entertain them too, who do you think would do it most of the time? I also think Nesta would teach this child to read (or ask Papa to), do you think Feyre would have joined in to learn even just by hanging around? (And just how would the different characters treat that child in the series)

my god. i knew being the parentified eldest sister of four much younger siblings would pay off someday. i just didn’t expect it to be so soon

nesta — i think nesta is the one to take on the brunt of the mothering role for sure. in canon, there was some ability for her to rationalize feyre fending for the family — feyre was always more adventurous, more capable, (seemed like) more of a loner. feyre was young, but she did not depend on nesta the way a toddler would have no choice but to. so nesta, i think, kind of becomes almost a rosalie hale type character. she focuses entirely on the toddler, more than even her other sisters. she probably does her best to get coin however she can to provide for toddler!archeron and give them a normal life. definitely does her best to try to marry into a wealthy family. (if you want to get crunchy, i do think this — eventually, after exhausting other avenues — looks like her selling her body. not saying a word of it to anyone. cleaning herself completely and covering the bruises before she comes home. but they all know. there are few other ways for them to make money.) she is the one doing the feedings and the changings and the instructing and the etiquette, like her mother would have expected — but not like her mother would have implemented. and, naturally, i do think nesta resents this with a vicious, violent, burning anger down to her core. she would never take that out on toddler!archeron. again, she cannot be her mother. but oh baby. if she resented her father’s incompetence in canon, the addition of a toddler would make their relationship unrecoverable. there would be no undercurrents of please daddy take care of us, take care of me, don’t you love us enough to try? she would just absolutely fucking despise the man for his failings.

elain — with the addition of toddler!archeron, i don’t think elain and nesta are nearly as close as they are in canon. nesta’s protective drive probably encompasses only the baby. (rosalie core!) it’s all she would have the mental capacity for. so i could see elain filling that real stereotypical middle child role. not close to her older sister, who is busy bringing in coin and raising a baby; not close to her younger sister, who is busy bringing in food. lonelier by far than in canon. she is definitely the sister they try the hardest to marry off — herself still pretty and soft and lovely and unsullied, and best able to bring in a handsome dowry. or whatever a handsome dowry is in their town. she still fills the one of us must remain gentle and normal in this harsh world role. but she is probably forced to help with the cooking and also watching toddler!archeron while nesta is out. i could see her being the one to play and console toddler!archeron more than nesta or feyre. again, nesta just — she does not have the fucking capacity. she is stretched to her limit, always. she will never be mean to toddler!archeron, but sometimes the constant screaming and attention-seeking and dress-pulling and diaper-changing just gets to be too much. elain can always tell when nesta begins fraying around the edges. nesta’s eyes go a little too wide and her breath gets a little too quick and she looks at their father like she could crush his windpipe beneath her thumbs. so elain steps in then to help, and she lets the small, tearful half-frown of thanks nesta throws her before bustling off to their bedroom balm her soul.

feyre — toddler!archeron really challenges feyre’s characterization the most i’d say. in the books, she is always the most compassionate to papa archeron, having seen what happened to him firsthand. i think having a sibling this much younger around would completely change that. in canon, she saw her older sisters as capable of helping and just outright choosing not to. if only they helped, their survival would not all fall on her. but a toddler is not capable. a toddler cannot chop the wood or come hunting with her. a toddler would force young feyre to see how their father failed her and her siblings — especially with nesta now doing so much to care for the toddler, which unintentionally extends out to the rest of the family as well. there’s still that element of nesta and elain not really taking care of feyre directly, which she would lament, but i could see toddler!archeron bringing nesta and feyre together in a coparenting role. there would be more respect between them — in a heightened way elain brings them together in canon. and yes, i do think she hangs around for lessons! at a certain point, i think nesta even notices feyre doing this and begins to put two and two together. or snaps at feyre to stop hovering, then sees feyre blushing deeply and puts it together then. what’s fun is having toddler archeron around doesn’t change what she would do in canon though. she would still hunt the wolf for her family. she would still skin it — probably to keep the baby warm. she would still sacrifice herself to the fae to keep them safe, and she would probably feel better doing it knowing that nesta, at least, would be there to bring in coin.

i really like elain for her potential and the elements of her personality that we’ve been given to play around with in fanon. i don’t know that i like how sjm is … actually implementing her character in the books? idk i’m glad she’s been filled out beyond the original flat, sort of cinderella’s step-sister type role she had in acotar, but — as with a lot of characters — it is very obvious sjm did not intend at the outset for her to have the plot she does by acosf. i really wish we had more consistency and roundness for her from the beginning, and i think that’s what has me overall pretty neutral on her in canon, but that isn’t really any fault of hers as a character.

Ugh the psychological dynamic is soooo mhmhmhmhmhmhmhmmhmh

for elain, it would be a relatively comparable reaction to vassa/lucien coming to light—except worse because iphigenia is of autumn and lucien specifically saved her and elain hasn't even heard the name iphigenia before. (bonus points if azriel, bitter after rhysand forbid him from elain, is the one to outright tell her about iphigenia<3 she sensed Something—a trapped rabbit, a benevolent fox, a shared den. but it meant nothing until azriel confirmed it for her.) she has no right to feel angry. she has no right to feel upset. she has no right to feel anything. she's been clear about wanting graysen, about not wanting lucien. sure, her rejection of this mating bond is really a manifestation of her rejection of being turned fae, her rejection of lucien is a choice she can cling to because she had one ripped screaming from her—but she doesn't have the capacity to recognize that. what she knows and can accept is: she made it clear she had no interest in him, and he is now fucking someone else, and she cannot be mad.

except that, of course, she is.

it shows in little things because her anger had always been silent as a human but now it's raging and loud inside of her overwrought faerie body. she's more snappish with those close to her: nuala and cerridwen, azriel, feyre and nesta. they share looks over her head because they think her too dim to notice. but she does. she notices so much more than she wants to nowadays. she's far more prone to frustration. she snaps the necks of a hundred flowers trying to prune them. she splits cast iron clean through trying to scrub it of the baked flour atop the enamel. she can feel lucien like mist, feel his lust, feel his affection for another, feel his guilt over another—but if he feels guilt, then why pursue that other at all?

except that, of course, elain knows why—because she has told him in no uncertain terms that she does not want him.

so elain subconsciously does things to necessitate lucien. to see how quickly he arrives at her side. so fast. every time. he's there in a blink. it feels better—it feels good, even, to know that he comes for her. the bond, so taut, relaxes when he does. gooey and warm. she pushes him away again because things feel fine inside her now. she was being silly before. she doesn't need him; she doesn't need this bond. he leaves—goes back to the human lands. where that other female is. that other female who knows her m— lucien as she never has. the bond gets angry. she gets angry. everything feels tense and tight and wrong again. she subconsciously does something to necessitate him. he comes, and the cycle perpetuates itself over and over.

i think with genia being actively harmed in the mix, lucien winds up calling elain out. either you want me or you don't, he tells her—and though he's firm, it's a plea: want me want me want me. but i can't keep doing this, elain. whatever this is. elain hears what he doesn't say: it hurts. because it hurts her, too. and it's been long enough now. maybe not long enough to accept being fae—but it has been long enough to accept that she doesn't want the pain. i want you, she tells him for the first time, and it's the same time she admits it to herself.