I just wanted to say I loved your take on the ask you got recently that was about elriel and elucien and how people care more about screen time than Elain herself. What I like about SJM is that she writes relatable real female characters and it’s sad to see people bashing them because they won’t end up with their favorite or bashing certain pairings because they want their favorite to have more screen time. I want to see Elain’s journey to happiness like we’ve seen Feyre and Nesta’s. I want to see Gwyn and especially Mor grow and develop and be happy. Whatever people might ship, isn’t the point of shipping two people being invested in both of them as characters and supporting their journey together? If someone is all about Azriel and making sure he gets screen time - at that point why not just read an x Reader fic?
What I like about SJM is that she writes relatable real female characters
Thank you! You'd think that this was a common denominator. That at the very least, we would have that in common, an appreciation of the central women in the series, and an understanding that they are, indeed, central to the story because we are reading Sarah Janet Maas, not... idk some random dude.
I will legit put books down at the store and not buy them if I see that all the MCs are guys. I did that a couple of weeks ago when I picked up a book by John Gwynne and in the blurb all four MCs were dudes lol. No thank you! I've had enough of that for one lifetime <3
And I agree re: shipping, I can't get into a ship unless I like both/all characters. That's why I am meh on gwynriel (I'm side-eyeing Az for a thousand reason) and why I never got on board with lysaedion (he can jump off a cliff after KoA haha). I guess people ship differently and find different things that bring them joy, I just can't see it! Why would I spend my time thinking about characters where I really love one of them, but with the other one I'm just like, "well, I guess you can come too". (pun intended?)
But also to your point, there has been a LOT more reader fanfic since acosf came out. Like it was not really a thing prior to acosf, at least in this fandom, and now it seems pretty popular. I'm not judging, just making an observation. An observation that seems to support what you're saying.