I have tried, really really tried, to see where they’re coming from. I’ve re read the books multiple times to ensure I’m not missing any context, I’ve looked at it through every angle possible and I still cannot fathom why they are so confident.

I have a couple of theories as to why they’re so confident and I’m feeling a little spicy today, so I’ll share. I could go in to heavy detail, but I’ll try keep it brief anon.

1. They hate Elain and so are looking for any other option. Literally anyone. G*yn happens to be in the bonus chapter and so they go with that, without really thinking about it* (I will circle back to this).

2. They blindly follow the word of one or two people online.They don’t like Elain, or they love L*cien (and they totally miss all the clues that say L*cien doesn’t actually want Elain but that’s a whole other can of worms) and so they accept other people’s interpretations - which those people very intentionally present as fact, and use them as a jumping off point, so when they go back to the books they have that other persons narrative in their head that far better suits their ideals and so they’re looking, twisting, turning any and all of the narrative to fit that. They are gaslighting themselves, basically.

3. They don’t re read the books and they don’t open themselves up to any other possibility. I can say for myself that before I started posting online about elriel, I had heard about G*riel after reading the books and re read them to be sure. I’m nearly positive a lot of them don’t do that, and either never re read or re read as per the second point.

As to the second part of this question, I don’t believe he’s got feelings for G*yn, nor do I think he’s always looking for her - so, I’m very sure of that. If you meant Elain, it’s pretty obviously laid out in the text, without SJM having Azriel and Elain say ‘I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM/HER AND I DONT CARE WHO KNOWS IT’ - because how does that make any sense when they haven’t had their book? If they had, I’d be less sure of their endgame.

As for the last part, I’m going to assume you’re asking if I think either G*yn or Elain are mated to Azriel. I do not believe G*yn is Azriels mate. At all. There are a few signs that Az & Elain could be, but it truly doesn’t matter to me if they are or not. I think SJM has been metaphorically winking at us with some of the things she’s said about them but it could go a number of ways, in terms of wether they’re mates or not.

One things for certain though - they’re endgame ❤️

* to circle back to them not really thinking about it, as I didn’t want to bog down the main text with this, they don’t seem to consider a number of different things.

They don’t consider that it’s a limited bonus chapter that was only available for one specific book store. It is not available in the copies of ACOSF you can buy now, nor was it available in a huge number of copies you could buy at its initial release.

They don’t seem to consider that if you remove the bonus chapter, we still have four books that include build up for them. It literally makes no odds as to wether the bonus matters or not. For them though? Most of their argument relies on that bonus chapter.

They don’t seem to consider any other reason as to why G would be in that bonus chapter. None whatsoever. The Elain part was explicitly romantic and if you look at G’s part there is no romanticism in sight. The ‘spark’ happened after a conversation with Clotho, not even when G was present. Almost like G didn’t actually have anything to do with it at all. If you connect the dots to the main text, at least for my interpretation, you have Elain & Az, who very clearly have feelings for one another. You have G, who has a powerful affect on Nesta, and Clotho who also has, to a smaller extent, a powerful affect on Nesta.

And those are just the few things off the top of my head that I have the bandwidth to come up with right now. ❤️

I would say that I strongly don’t agree.

‘A thing of secret, lovely beauty’ being repeated immediately rang as a red flag to me, and not because it was romantic in nature and I felt it threatened my ship, as much as antis like to claim otherwise.

Now, without going into my history with this book series and fandom, I will say that at my time of reading the bonus I was a casual reader who had been flooded with tiktoks from G/Az shippers and was MIGHTY confused. I eventually found out about the bonus chapter and read it. My immediate thoughts were that I loved the elriel part but it wasn’t a surprise to me and that there must be more going on with the priestesses than meets the eye - which honestly, I kinda got a little vibe of that from acosf anyways.

I think specifically if you look at that line, look at who he is conversing with just prior - Clotho. G is no where to be seen, so it doesn’t really have anything to do with her. I haven’t read acosf since last year, so I don’t have direct quotes to hand but re reading Nestas interactions with Clotho, I distinctly remember Nesta feeling calmed after her conversations with her, and generally a little better.

As always, I direct you to our brilliant theorist extraordinaire’s @offtorivendell @wingedblooms @ladynightcourt3 @silverlinedeyes who all have far more detailed and better laid out theories than I currently have the bandwidth to put out ❤️

I have and it was truly fantastic, I can’t wait to rave about it!

Hello, anon!

Ah, this old chestnut. I’m not sure what they’re implying with that first comment but literally no one made her remove it because it never made it into the first draft that she sent her editor. She removed it before she sent it because she didn’t like the way it moved some of the emotional threads - which is an interesting comment to make I guess, because what emotional threads could she be talking about?

There’s the issue of Cassian & Nesta’s mating bond, to be sure - but then we have these feelings he has for Elain and it’s interesting that in the bonus, Azriel snarls at the suggestion of going to a pleasure house, and has been taking care of himself to thoughts of pleasuring Elain.

And to the point about them saying it’s weird for her sister etc, would it not also be weird for G\ynriel? The thought of being with someone a bestie was romantically entangled with, whether it be purely physical or not is suuuuuper icky to me.

In my opinion, she wrote it originally because she’d finally been given the go ahead to write in the adult space, and wanted to write a spicy book - there is no question that ACOSF is her spiciest novel to date and it was only on further reflection that she realised it would affect things later down the road. I.e, Cass & Nestas bond, and Elriel.

The sensible part of me wants to say that is her power. Visions, and that is a rare and powerful gift that should not be sniffed at.

I also think it’s sensible to assume that she may be able to winnow - if the cauldron loved her so much, I don’t think it would leave her without that ability - but who knows?

The other part of me desperately believes that she is the life to Nestas death, and we’re going to see her bringing plants to life with nothing but a thought - I believe my lovely friend @offtorivendell has some theory posts on this.

I love the idea of her singing plants to life - they say plants grow better if you talk to them, so imagine stepping up that thought in a fantasy setting and having Elain sing plants into existence? I have so many mini ideas in my head of Elain using these life powers I’ve imagined for her.

But if that ends up not being the case, I’m happy either way. I just don’t feel like I’ve read enough on seers as main characters, and I’m so excited to read about Elain’s journey with that.

I’d have to fully re familiarise myself with that scene, but it’s probably because he was caught up trying to do his job and also trying to bury his feelings for her at the same time, almost ignore the fact she’s there. So when she calls out his name, it’s like it re opens the wound, at a guess. (Caveat to add that I really DO need to re familiarise myself, and I just came back off of holiday, we’re also about to move house… I’m knackered 😆 so that’s my best guess, I hope it’s okay!!)

The author originally wanted adult but they pushed her to YA - although she classes it as upper YA which I 1000% agree with. We also have Gideons back story which is pretty brutal, and potentially not something I’d let someone too young read about.

I think people in publishing think YA sells better, but they seem to slowly be catching on that NA is really popular rn, so I hope we see more books picked up.

Yes! I’ve read all the AH other than Check & mate (I’m not sure how I feel about YA contemp/rom com) and the book of novellas.

Ali Hazelwood has a brand of humour I absolutely vibe with. Love, theoretically is my absolute favourite though.

Loooooorrrd I hope not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did 🫣

Anon, I apologise, I went whole hog on this answer 😆

I have faith that we’ll get a good ending anon (and by that I mean they end up together and in love) I’ve watched a couple of lives the author did (they’re on her insta if you’re interested, one with fairyloot and one for a book club I believe) and the things she’s said give me hope. They’ll just have to suffer to get there 😆

Oh my friend, I know. I was pissed — but isn’t that a sign of the best, most true, enemies to lovers? At some point or another, one or both of them were in real danger from the other one 🥲

More than anything I want them to have an upfront, honest & to the point conversation.

Yes, Cressida is evil, beyond evil. That does not mean all witches are evil and should be treated the way they have been and put to death. Two things can be true at once, and two wrongs do not make a right. Cressida, and any witch who used their powers in similar ways, should pay for their crimes - but they are not the crimes of all witches.

Their problems are currently (but not limited to):

My current hope, is that they work together in order to bring Cressida down, whilst also coming to an agreement on how best to move forward in order to have witches and non witches live together safely and peacefully. And of course, that they recognise and accept their feelings for each other and we leave them, happy and in love! I am SO excited to find out which way it goes though.

I mean, where to even begin? Elain is canonically beautiful as you said, and has been called beautiful time and time and time again, the most beautiful etc etc.

But, really? Is this really their argument? Like you said, Azriel is not a shallow idiot & do we really want to read a series about a man that is? That does not sound like any fictional man I want to read and it does not sound like any man Sarah Janet Maas would write.

I am admittedly newer than most to fandom life, in that this is the first fandom I’ve ever really been a part of - but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything remotely like this… where people are so wilfully dismissive of canon events, as if it’s going to change the course of the series? Baffling.

Elriel is canon ✌🏻

This is going to be the most irritating answer ever, but if they won’t listen to what’s in the actual book then they won’t listen to anything, they aren’t having a good faith conversation and it’s best to just block and ignore them.

Like how are you gonna deny what’s in the actual book? As annoying as it is, I’m very chill about people like this these days because frankly, in about a year or so they’re going to have to read a book ALLLLL about her, & about how much Azriel loves her 😉

I couldn’t agree more! It also just feels really out of whack for a story that has so much of the focus being on not only these 3 sisters & 3 brothers but the theme of 3 everywhere. And they try to tell us, that 2 x 2 bros/sis is fine, or that 3 x 3 best friends is also fine, when it’s been done over & over, yet I don’t think I’ve ever consumed a piece of media with 3x3 brothers/sisters.

As for the argument that Feysand & Nessian hated each other to begin with that always makes me laugh, because that isn’t even what E*ucien have. What Feysand & Nessian had was passion, (both sexual and otherwise) tension, they were bold around each other - Feyre even remarks in ACOTAR that she loses the sense to keep quiet around Rhys that she has around Ta*lin & Lu*ien. What E*ucien have is uncomfortable - I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again, I want to crawl out of my skin when I read their interactions. They are so far from the same thing. Can you imagine, SJM, a self proclaimed feminist, writing a story where the FMC was so uncomfortable around her end game love interest she lost all of her newfound boldness? It’s so ridiculous to me.

Someone posted the other day (I’ve tried to find it but I can’t 😩) about how they think SJM always planned to have this storyline but just different characters & I wholeheartedly agree! But Cassian & Elain my god 😆 I’d low-key love it 🤣 maybe Elain & Azriel, then Mor & Cassian? Mor did seem to be a bit upset about Nesta & Cassian in the beginning 🤷🏼‍♀️

Hi!

So I took some time to think about this because truly the HC’s this side of the fandom come up with are *chefs kiss* but if I had to choose, I’d say probably the idea that there is no bond between Azriel & Elain. I can’t even say ‘& she just chooses him’ because I know that’s such a big part of her journey - and I do think we’ll get that. But for me, I think if they aren’t Mates then all of Azriels mate like behaviour doesn’t make sense & the whole 3 brothers x 3 sisters doesn’t have the same feeling of kismet. I’m also not a huge fan of her unmaking her bond with Lu, & forging one with Azriel - only because it gives me that same non-kismet feeling & I really think there’s something bigger at play here.

Ooo this is a tough one! I’m scared of heights anyway so I’ll go with that one. Being british we don’t get a lot of sun so when it’s here I like to make the most of it 😅

Exactly. I’m just not a L*cien fan, at all. Do I want him to suffer? No of course not, & I hope that he finds his happiness (with Vassa preferably) & should he get a story/pov I hope we get to see more of how he feels about the situation. Maybe he does feel super guilty about the way Feyre was treated? Who knows. All I know is, it currently still feels like he’s a whole ass T*mlin apologist, and I love Feyre with my whole being.