#fbaa5

(I don’t want this to be a never ending long post so I will divide this into different post, one for each character)

Jla dropped a little teaser from Fbaa5 and I have something to say

teaser:

character 1: Isbeth

character 2: Malik

character 3:

Malec:

Let’s make something clear beforehand: I fucking hate Malec. If this post sounds biased, it is because it is biased: I hate Malec and I believe he is a piece of shit. I don’t care if Jla takes a redemption act from her ass during fbaa5, I won’t take it because he doesn’t deserve it. I don’t care whose son he is, I strongly believe he doesn’t deserve to be put under the light of redemption.

First let’s do a little recap of what we know about his life:

Malec is born as one of the twins of Nyktos and Sera, he lived in the Alisium alongside his family and friends

he grew up, got bored of the gods' world, and started to visit de mortal realm. According to Reaver, Malec changed somehow after these visits. Reaver said that they used to be friends until that point

(I am not sure about this because I haven’t read the books in a while but if I am not wrong at some point Malec doesn’t come back to the gods' real and stays among mortals. He abandoned his family for freedom.)

Malec meets Eloana and they fall in love

Malec meets Isbeth and they fall in love

At some point, Malec has a child with isbeth

Eloana poisons isbeth but Malec brings her back to life

The war of two kings happens

Eloana embroils Malec and throws him into a cave for the next like 200 years (good for her :)

Now that we know about Malec’s life, I am going to list the reasons of why he is a piece of shit:

He committed mass murder and killed the deities that lived in the mortal realm. This was unnecessary to do because he is a god, the deities were only the grandchildren of gods, and they were not nearly as powerful as him. Not to mention that those were descendent of the same Gods he used to live with, He probably know whose offspring he was murdering and even if he didn’t know all of them, Sera and Nyktos certainly did

he is a liar

he cheated on his wife. I can’t and I would never stand on a chater's side. You may catch me defending a fictional murderer but never ever a cheater. Besides not mentioning that he cheated multiple times on Eloana and that she knew that he was cheating. I really think that this topic is not explored enough in this fandom. Let’s talk for a second about what this implies. One thing is to be cheated on and be oblivious about it, and the other is to know that the man that you love and that you are married to is cheating on you with multiple people. The latest causes incredible damage to self-confidence and self-love, also because Eloana stayed that means that she probably didn’t blame Malec for being a cheater but herself for “making him want to cheat”. Moreover, we don’t know how is that she knows, if even Malec tried to hide it or denied his affairs. Because if he didn’t that is also incredibly manipulating, is showing your partner that they are not enough for you so “you have to do this”, it also shows that you don’t care about the other person in any way and that you are a piece of shit.

He is a misogynist. One example of this is when he marries Eloana so she becomes queen and they change the Atlantian crest because Eloana “is less powerful than him” (then she kicked his ass. good for her) so they make her representation in the crest smaller to his. Seriously wtf. And you can’t tell me that it was not a choice because Poppy chose that she and Casteel should be represented equally. She sees Casteel as her equal and she respects him. So yes, It was a choice.

the existence of cravens those are his fault

Also, I find it incredibly sad that all Eloana wanted was having a family with the man she loved and through his marriage, they never had a child but Malec was so quick to get his mistress pregnant. That’s shitty

all his behavior shows three things clearly: he is selfish, he is a sexist/misogynistic and narcissistic

I don’t care whose son Malec is, he doesn’t deserve to be put under the ligh of “but poor malec😭” and given a redemption act. Besides, what is he going to say? "oh but guys I was in love! so a cheated on my wife multiple times, lied to her, and I was literally a piece of shit husband oh and then I brought back my mistress from death and accidentally brought the cravens to the real oops! and my lovely heartmate who was alive because of me was then the person who abused you all this years😂 ! but I am poor defenseless god :( eloana is so mean, she was supposed to be a weak atlantian not to win over me. we should hate her, how dare she remarry, build a family, be a good queen and try to be happy??? poor me! and I am poor por god”

I understand Sera's anger but her son had it coming.

(I don’t want this to be a never-ending long post so I will divide this into different posts, one for each character)

Jla dropped a little teaser from Fbaa5 and I have something to say

teaser:

character 1: isbeth

Character 2:

Malik

Mother and son share something in common regarding what they did: desperation. But let's talk about Malik first.

I personally believe that A) JLA failed at portraying Malik based on her own logic or B) many readers really don't know how to infer information about a character.

First of all, Malik is a character who suffered through hell and back. Let's do a little recap of what we know so far:

He was captured because he was betrayed by his friend/someone he trusted and who he even had grown up with side by side

after being captured he was held in a cage, used, and abused

he was forced to watch how his best friend, who had gone to his rescue, was assaulted, tortured, and then brutally murdered without him being able to do anything

he had to bear the knowledge that he would never be able to "give her peace" because her bones had been used to make weapons and were sold (and one of those bones is being carried around by his own sister in law which I still think was one of JLA worse ideas so far, that is not badass of poppy)

he had to betray his loved ones and his kingdom, the one he had been raised to love, protect and rule just so he could survive

and last, now he was kinda treated as if he was some kind of untrustable evil man

so...I think we can agree on at least 1 thing: Malik is fucking traumatized. (I personally believe that is not portrayed correctly in the book but anyways this post is not about Jla's writing)

What Malik did was try to kill Poppy which ended up in her scars, her trauma, and the death of her parents. I am not going to pretend I am not here to justify his actions because that it's exactly what I am about to do:

Malik knew about the prophecy, but he only knew the side about the harbinger of death and destruction which everyone assumed it was Poppy. Which I do not think that it would be a hard thing for Malik to believe mainly because he knows that is Isbeth's daughter, the person who had destroyed his and his brother's lives, I do not think that is crazy for him to believe that Isbeth could birth evil. So Malik finds out that a revenant, isbeth's favorite revenant, was on her way to his home where his little brother, friends, and parents lived and she was taking with her isbeths's daughter, "the harbinger of death and destruction" with her. I mean... He really believed he was helping to put an end to basically the end of all realms. Malik did what he did because he thought that Poppy would be the reason for everyones' and everything's dead. Moreover, that is why he said he would have tried to kill poppy even if he know he was cas' heartmate.

Malik acted because he was desperate and there was no other hope for him to cling to. He wanted to protect his loved ones and he only realized he had fuked it up when he saw Sera in Poppy's eyes, basically when it was too late.

I am not saying that what he did was right, he basically fucked up Poppy and I believe that he at least should apologize to her just to show his regret to Poppy. However, I do not blame him completely.

Something that I would like to point out is that I like that Poppy understands Malik's reasoning, I like that very much. The one who is madder with Malik for this is Casteel, which I also like even if it kills me from the inside because it makes sense with Casteel's character and the personality he was given.

(Disclaimer: I'm not saying this because I hate Malec. This post, compared to my other post about Malec, is not biased, I'm just pointing out facts lmao)

I was thinking about who could be "the traitor" among our "good" characters. It is someone close to poppycas so it won't be Malec but, while I was thinking, I realized how good of a traitor Malec would be and how much sense it would make.

First, why do I believe it makes sense?

Even though I hate Malec, if I were him, I would be extremely pissed. Let's picture this: I'm finally free from being in a cage for like 200 years and I found out that my parents knew the whole time where I was and did not free me, the woman that put me in there (now this is my Malec's point of view, but I love my baby eloana, she did the right thing - there is a post about that on my pinned) is not only still alive but she also lived a very happy long life where she ruled over the kingdom that used to be mine, she had the opportunity to marry someone she loved and also have children. Then, I find out that my brother has not one but two daughters with the love of my life, my biological son is dead, my literal heartmate was painfully murdered by my mother and niece and now she is also being tortured by own mother. On top of this, I was put on a cage after I fought in a war and now that I'm free I have to go to another much more difficult war and risk my life when I literally just got it back and to do this I will have to team up with all the people I hate. To finish this, one of the persons that will have a lot of saying in what is done and not and is a literal king is not only someone much younger and less powerful than me and who is not even a god but is also the youngest son of my ex wife, that I hate, and another man because now he is the king AND he is also married to my niece so I can't kill him in like revenge, same as his brother because he is the boyfriend of other niece. I would hate absolutely everyone.

If the writer wants Malec's character to make sense with the story he was given, then I don't think that a happy-get-along-with-everyone type of character should be expected over an annoying-grumpy-ass type of character. (but what do I know, he is not my character, this is just my opinion)

But now, why do I think Malec would be a great traitor when he could just be angry and that is it?

There is a good phrase somewhere that reads "It is not about me winning, but you losing" Malec has literally no reason to care about the destruction of the realms, he has already lost everything he deeply loved, and most of the time he was "betrayed" by those he loved. If he turns against those people with the intention to harm them just because they harmed him, it would make sense. Besides, anger is easy to manipulate and Kolis and Malec have one thing in common after all, they both lose the woman that they loved most (I know Kolis never actually had sotoria, but this is more from their point of view, not a normal persons' point of view. poor sotoria, at least isbeth had consented). In addition, while Kolis lost sotoria because of Ethyos (I think that was his name, can't remember sorry), Malec (in part) lost his heartmate because of Ethyos' son, his father Nyktos. There is a really strong connection in there. Last but not least, there is the fact that neither Nyktos, Sera, Poppy, Casteel, Millicent, nor Malik, lose their heartmate, they all had the chance to be with them. Even Valyn and Eloana, who might not be heartmates but they love each other, had the chance to be happy together but not Malec. They don't understand or know his pain because they never went through it.

Then my last point is about the impact. The treason trope is good as long as it is well-written. It is crucial that the treason has an impact on the reader along with an impact on the characters. The reader must be left wondering wtf but then they think about it and it makes sense. And then the impact on the story and on the characters is also essential because do treason trope without actual impact on the story, what is the point then?

Malec is the son of two main characters, so his treason would be an impact on the characters because it would be a son betraying his parents AND his twin. It would be heartbreaking for them. From the reader's point of view, Malec is a little bit harder because the readers have had no time to know much of him and what is known makes him look like a piece of shit, but the writer could show how much his parents love him, his twin missed him, they can show how much this character has grown, they can show him bonding with the new characters, and so on. This will create a bond with the reader and the character but then BOM treason. It could be great.

(I don’t want this to be a never-ending long post so I will divide this into different posts, one for each character)

Jla dropped a little teaser from Fbaa5 and I have something to say

teaser:

(this is my opinion, you can agree or disagree but this is what think.)

character 1:

Isbeth

tw: mention of abuse

I understand why sera does that to isbeth and I agree with her.

Isbeth is bad not because she “treated poppy badly” or because she “kept ires in a cage”, Isbeth is bad because she was an abuser not because she did bad things because of her past.

Isbeth psychologically abused Poppy, she psychologically, physically, and sexually abused Ires, Casteel, and Malik after taking them hostage for decades, and she also allowed her “crownies” to abuse and assault Casteel and Malik and she psychologically (as far as we know) abused Millicent at least. Yes, she did more evil things like letting her people live in terrible conditions of hunger and poorness and she didn’t care, she literally couldn’t care less about killing innocent people and manipulating them for the fun of it, and so on. However, all those things were additional. That is not what makes her evil, what makes her evil is her being a literal abuser, a literal rapist. Besides, it’s made very clear through the way she behaves that she does not regret her actions at all. (those are only two examples I remember, but there are probably more) You can tell by the way she makes clear that Malik belongs to her as if he was a thing when they are at the house of those decenters and when she mocks malik his abuse topic twice. First, she says that he was a guess in solis (or something among those lines, I can't recall word for word but it was before they rescue Casteel and Malik was not there when she said it, millie was and poppy points out that millie gets mad bc of her comment) and second, when malik tells her “fuck you” and she mocks him saying that they haven’t been wanting to have sex in a while. Those were the things that made Isbeth evil, not only being a bad queen/mother and (only) kidnapped ires (important disclaimer: what I mean with the “(only) kidnapped ires” is that she did not just keep him on a cage and that’s all which for the behavior of the characters of this series would be shitty but not the worse thing to do, she did not just keep him, as I said before she abused him which is far worse)

Any character that defends isbeth would be defending an abuser, not a bad queen.

I understand Isbeth wanting to kill Eloana because she took her away Malec and maybe her son too, I understand isbeth wanting to end Nyktos because she blamed him for what was done to Malec and I understand isbeth wanting to destroy atlantia because she blamed Eloana and Nyktos and Atlantia what had happened to her son and Malec. I understand her rage and many evil things she did but not the abuse. She crossed the line between “an evil heartbroken queen” and “something else far worse than that”.

To sum up, Isbeth deserves to die and suffer because she was an abuser.

Now, all the things I just mentioned are the exact reason why Isbeth deserves that death but Eloana or Malik doesn’t despite Sera hating them.