nothing and no one will be more special to me than Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius... in this essay I will
leiawritesstories asked:
WAIT A DAMN SECOND YOU'RE READING THE EMBER QUARTET OOOOOOH BOY ENJOY THE RIDE
I was ahaha but I got distracted bc I started uni and things, I’ll continue it again at some point
Anyone else get really sad when they think about how they will never get to be a rich fae princess turned assassin who is nicknamed fireheart by an angry fae warrior called Rowan and they fall in love and literally save the world and meet other fae warriors such as fenrys and have a bestie called lysandra who they once wanted to murder or is it just me
Anonymous asked:
Hi I saw your post about fics being in character and I thought this could be a good opportunity to share some insight to help people who struggle with their characterization. I love your writing and ask could you share some traits you see as 'core' Rowan and Aelin traits? Maybe more valuably, would you be open to sharing your process for what you look for in the text when understanding characters, what stands out to you and what you make sure to include vs what you don't? I understand if this isn't something you want to share and I send this ask with good intentions and respect and hope this can start a productive discussion, no drama. Thanks :))
highqueenofelfhame answered:
totally okay that you asked this!!
i think part of it is that i have read everything up to EoS so many times. like at least four times each and i’ve read heir of fire and queen of shadows probably six times each. i’ve only read kingdom of ash once bc it’s still too painful to read again lmaoooo.
when i write i also always look for any chance i can to make parallels. i love making canon parallels to anything from small moments to bigger ones that are more recognizable. like the rowaelin qos reunion, rowan’s “where is my wife” moment. rowan and aelin sparring in any capacity, like, anything like that. because i think that helps when you’re pulling from the text and putting them into situations where you know how they interact with them, and it makes it easier to add in bits and pieces before and after. if that makes any kind of sense. (this also goes for legit any ship that i write. nessian, feysand, etc. pulling from the text and putting them in familiar situations will always help.)
as far as traits go, one of my major ones that i always try to keep in mind is rowaelin’s loyalty to each other. rowan is like loyal to aelin almost to a fault sometimes. he will do anything and everything for her. when it comes that’s why their thing is “to whatever end.” they will follow each other to whatever end and beyond.
aelin has a very low opinion of herself. she thinks that she’s expendable compared to those around her. she is very depressed sometimes and i think it gets overlooked a lot. (when i get my books back from my sister, i plan on doing a meta about this.) but she’s been through a lot in her life and i try to keep that in mind in a lot of au’s. some au’s that are heavier (like iihasts and fafs) i try to pull on that. her mental health is very important to a lot of the way she handles things. post KOA, i know this girl has PTSD. it’s evident in the way she handles a lot and takes a long time to warm back up to rowan in kingdom of ash. but she was tortured and manipulated for months. she’s not okay.
people (in the books) also call her selfish A LOT but most of what she does she does for other people. she even spared dorian the weight of killing his father and told him she did it. like, come on.
as celaena, she does lean on the more selfish side, but as aelin she’s doing everything she does for the greater good of the entire world. she didn’t forge that lock for herself. she forged that lock for a better tomorrow for everyone she loved. which is incredibly selfless. she would also completely throw down to keep her loved ones safe.
the arrogant behavior is such an act. she’s not really like that, it’s a cover to hide everything she’s truly feeling inside, to protect herself, to keep people from truly getting to know her. she can flip her personality to better suit the situation and the people she’s around. she’s mostly only her true self around aedion, lysandra, and rowan. i don’t even think she really reveals herself to the rest of the cadre for probably a very long time. she picks fights when she’s hurting the most and rowan is really the first person to see and recognize that. (very evident in hof when she sees what a good person gallan appears to be and goes and picks a bar fight immediately. or when arobynn humiliates her and she wears her nicest jewels to try to intentionally get robbed so she can start a fight.)
the reality is that she’s an insanely hard worker, she keeps going and going and going to meet to meet her goals. she’s a master strategist and very quick on her feet in any situation she finds herself in. she feels isolated (which goes back to her depression and ptsd) and she feels misunderstood. but she has been known to literally give the cloak off her back (with kaltain) and the money in her pocket (with yrene) and doesn’t expect anything in return. literally nothing in return. she just did it out of the goodness of her own heart, yet she’s constantly filled with self doubt that she’s a bad person because people tell her that she is (chaol literally calls her a monster and she holds onto that and ends up asking rowan if she is one.)
she gives a lot of forgiveness and second chances, except to abusers. she pulls no punches with them. yet even with arboynn, she made sure there were no redeeming qualities left before letting lysandra kill him. instead of seeing it as a victory, though, she just felt hollow. she doesn’t take joy in killing these people. she is not a bad person.
she feels a lot of guilt when she feels she could have stopped things. i think she carries those moments with her. which is why she helped those people the king wanted dead to escape in com. she has no problem ending people that deserve the punishment, but when they don’t, she does what she can to help them.
rowan is so respectful. he finally gets his mate and his wife and his love back and he’s consistently giving her the space she requires when it’s so hard for him to not just touch her. he puts his own needs aside consistently based on what aelin needs.
he’s a complete and total hardass to other people but is so soft for her. but he’s also territorial about her. he’s protective of her. but never at the cost of what she needs and wants. however, he will put his foot down and make people swallow their own tongues if they’re disrespectful toward her. but he’s also respectful toward everyone, not just aelin. he can prove his points without physical violence even if he would want to.
in that same vein, if you’re doing enemies to lovers, he doesn’t understand her at first. he think’s she’s spoiled and doesn’t have a single clue about the trauma she’s been through and he’s very hard on her. he treats her like another warrior in their training. he doesn’t go easy on her just because she’s a woman (which also still comes from a place of respect) but the second he finds out about her trauma the way he treats her shifts. he becomes protective because he doesn’t put up with that kind of shit. he isn’t torturing her in their training, in fact aelin in hof says that he’s brilliant even if he beats the shit out of her every damn day. a lot of people try to twist that into a thing of abuse, but again, he’s training her like a warrior. he doesn’t coddle her and she doesn’t want to be coddled. again, this comes from a place of respect.
he also learns from his mistakes and tries to right them, and takes action to better himself from it as soon as he can. this is important. he has the humility to apologize, whether it be by actions or words. he doesn’t ask for credit in the things he does and ends up kind of making jokes about it. i think he has a lot of humility at the end of the day. he is quick to forgive others when it’s deserved but has a lot of trouble forgiving himself. this is also important.
but rowan also has a playful side with aelin. they have witty banter that they exchange even when they’re not totally on board with the other. he’s funny in subtle ways, and toward the end of the series we see that he’s so wholly comfortable with her that he even gets a little silly.
after his own trauma, he also falls into a very deep depression. for centuries. it took aelin coming along for him to come back out of his shell. everyone gave up on him, but aelin never did. just like he never gave up on her, and they were able to walk out of that darkness together. i also think he feels a lot of guilt when innocent lives get put in danger and risk or die at his hands when he felt he could have stop it, much like aelin.
rowan is also very calm in most situations. he’s able to work out solutions like the warrior that he is even when other people are losing their minds, which makes him a very good soldier and eventually king.
i could keep going but this is getting wildly long lol. i hope this helps even a little. thank you to @westofmoon @whimsicallyreading @punkassbookjockey26 for helping me with my thoughts as i’m still exhausted from surgery and healing.
YES
Everything about this is said perfectly
All I’m saying is Rowan would’ve told Feyre that’s she was going to die due to her pregnancy with no hesitation, during a causal dinner because he was bored.
“Hey Feyre how was your day? *sniff sniff oh you’re pregnant? Congratulations. Btw your kid will probably kill you”
*joint annual dinner starring high lords of prythian, inner circle and court of terrasen*
Feyre: it's gonna be a few more months before I-
Rowan: die of childbirth?
Feyre: whAT
Rowan: Lucien I haven't seen your dad in a while how is he
Lucien: ....I wasn't aware you were on good terms with Ber-
Rowan: looool no I meant Helion
Lucien: exCUSE ME
Helion: wait a fucking minute-
Lady of the Autmn Court: how did hE JUST-
Beron:
Rowan: Mor! How's been going with Emerie?
Emerie: *chokes*
Mor: with,,,, with who???
Rowan: you know, your GIRLfriend? You're so cute together I ship it lol, aedion here is bi too
Mor: *drops fork*
Rowan: Az! You've been awfully quiet today! What about your mate?
Az: I don't...I don't have a mate?
Rowan: what do you call dear Gwyn then?
Az: *jaw on the floor*
Rowan: Right then! By the way, I was flying by the other night and saw you through your window when you were rearranging your cabinet, so you're either keeping torture devices in your bedroom or those were all sex toys
High Lords of Prythian:
Inner Circle:
Court of Terrasen, not at all surprised and enjoying all the tea:
Rowan: what? SOMEONE's gotta do the Lord's work smh
Acotar needs Rowan Whitethorn, tea spiller extraordinaire.
My favorite thing about this whole situation is that Rowan would be so calm and casual spilling all these secrets. Then stands thanks for the meal and leaves.
my favorite scene in the whole tv history
the only sad thing about this scene being in picture form is that you can’t hear the way Garcia says “Quantico”. Kwan-tee-co.
the best 90 seconds of television ever filmed
This is seriously amazing.
Hello yes 911 I just witnessed a fucking murder
I thought I wasn't into light haired men but now I am married to Rowan Whitethorn
Aelin vs Dorian: Why KoA is Aelin’s Book and One Way to Read the Lessening of Her Powers
I’ve seen this issue come up post-Kingdom of Ash a ton so I wanted to give it a good ole fashioned meta. This is going to be long, and detailed, and full of quotes from Kingdom of Ash and the series as a whole. So I’ve broken it into two parts to make it easier, with TLDR’s up top for ease. (except please do read this because I’ve worked on in for a month and my phd dissertation has suffered because of it).
I feel like there are aspects to this that I haven’t articulated very well, but it’s time to post! It’s time! As always, thoughtful comments are welcome, but pls no one yell at me.
Part 1. Why Kingdom of Ash Should Be and Is Aelin’s Story First and Foremost
TLDR; Because Aelin is the chosen one and true hero of the story, she’s the one who performs the sacrifice to save her world and because she does this, any argument that Dorian’s actions are in any way of equal importance to hers or that he is also “the hero” is invalid.
Part 2. The Meaning Of Aelin Losing Her Powers, and Why “But a man didn’t lose his powers all the way” Is Not Great Counter Argument Given What the Series As a Whole Says About Power
TLDR; Aelin isn’t disempowered or anything, demonstrated by that fact that she effectively avoids a fate that condemns her to death, saves the world, and screws over the gods, and learns that her true magic is in her heart of fire, not her literal fire. Aelin and Dorian both lose a lot of their powers, and this is really significant because it means that neither of them are going to be doing any conquering any time soon.
All page numbers from American hardcovers, unless otherwise noted.
Part 1: Why Kingdom of Ash Should Be and Is Aelin’s Story First and Foremost
Okay so at this point you’re either like “duh Lucia of course KoA is Aelin’s book” or you’re like “NO IT WASN’T, DORIAN HAVILLIARD SPOKE TOO OFTEN” or you’re like “Chaol and Dorian didn’t have sex so this book was irrelevant to me,” or maybe you’re only here for Manon Blackbeak and you think KoA should have been her book not Aelin’s, in which case I would like to show you the way to books .5-2 in the series.
Whichever way you’re thinking, the debate over whether Aelin is the hero in KoA seems to come at it from a few angles, mainly being:
1. Dorian in KoA was the chosen one and is the hero just as much as Aelin
or
2. It’s fucked that SJM gave Dorian such a big role in KoA because it’s Aelin’s story
or
3. It is Aelin’s story because she’s the character who ultimately saves the day, does the World Saving Thing, and facilitates other characters doing the other World Saving Things. If the story belongs to anyone but Aelin, it’s the other female characters who SJM serves to us on a silver platter with the words “WOMEN SAVE THE WORLD” engraved in 32 point Arial Bold font. When you look at the canon text, and don’t just fall back on your knee jerk reaction to either hate Aelin or hate Dorian, it’s pretty damn clear: Aelin, assisted by various ladies, saves the mother fucking world, solidifying her place as The Heroine within the text and also making the point that successful women are backed by other successful women.
I’m going to be arguing point 3, in case you couldn’t already tell.
Point 1: The World Saving Thing
The Lock scene. The scene we had all been waiting for since EoS, since Elena sent us all on a meandering hike through the marshes of Eyllwe to find a “lock” (see: not a lock, actually a mirror, Elena is a crafy lying biotch) that could save the world.
Forging the Lock is the World Saving Thing. It’s the killing Voldemort of this story. It’s the dropping of the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. While other things, like finding the deathly Hallows or Aragorn taking up the sword that was broken and has been reforged, are also important, there is no denying that killing Voldemort, destroying the ring, and Forging the Lock, are *the* things that need to happen. Obviously, in this universe, instead of Hallows and swords, we need to find Wyrdkeys and Wyrvens and Healers. But does that stuff matter if someone doesn’t use their entire life force to forge a new lock for the Wyrdkeys ensuring that no more demon lords can come through the gates and sending the gods back to the world from whence they came? NO IT DOESN’T, IT MEANS FUCK ALL WITHOUT THE LOCK.
What’s the point of the final battle if the Wyrdkeys are still out there for Erawan to use to summon his abusive ass brothers to Erilea? What’s the point if Maeve gets her hands on a Wyrdkey? Whats the point, basically, of Dorian finding all of the Wyrdkeys if someone doesn’t then do the sacrificing thing to put them back in the gate?
The entire point is to get rid of the keys by forging the Lock and ensure that the world remains safe for centuries to come.
And who is the someone who does the sacrificing thing??? MOTHER FUCKING AELIN ASHRYVER GALATHYNIUS, THAT’S WHO.
rowaelin never had a bad track. “even when this world is forgotten whisper of dust between the stars, i will love you.” SEXY. “i'd walk into the burning heart of hell itself to find you” BANGER. “to whatever end” SMOOTH. don’t even get me STARTED on “all those centuries, i was just looking for you”
manonblaqkbeak
