I’m just waiting for Jennifer Armentrout to write a threesome in the next Blood and Ash book. Keiran, Casteel and Poppy have too have a threesome it just makes sense and i am 100000000000000% here for it. if this doesn’t happen i will be disappointed and sad because it will be sosososos HOTTTTTT if they do.
Casteel/Hawke: “I’m not just going to hold you. I won’t stop at kissing you. My fingers won’t be the only thing inside you. My need for you is far too great, Poppy. If I stay, you will not walk out this door the Maiden.”
The scene in Chapter 8 where Casteel and Poppy are having sex with Kieran literally standing next to them and “assisting” them lives rent free in my head. If this isn’t foreshadowing to The Joining I don’t know what is.
A new sketch featuring Poppy and Hawke from From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout. This was voted on by my Patreons for the July Sketch-a-Wish! Such a super fun perspective for one of the more hilarious scenes in the book!
✨ ahhhhh, I haven’t drawn these two for ages and it was well needed, especially since poppy is one of my favourite MC’s! So here’s a scene I’ve been thinking about drawing since I’ve read FBAA
“Some truths do nothing but destroy and decay what they do not obliterate. Truths do not always set one free. Only a fool who has spent their entire life being fed lies believes that.”
I like fbaa, but if someone doesn’t get miss Jennifer Lynn Armentrout a better editor (if she even has one) I can not take anymore “poppy asks to many question” or “I’m going to stab you” jokes. And then after we have a battle scene the next chapter is just discussing everything that already happened or going deeper into world building. Everything is just thrown at you. You think Malec is Poppy’s father think again bitch. You think poppy’s a deity nooooo she’s actually the freakin granddaughter of the king of the gods. It was almost to much to follow. The dialogue is very modern for the world, and the banter is just very repetitive.
yeahhhhh apparently she self edited this book…. also you can tell she’s making “jokes about it” to herself. this isn’t a gimmick ms jennifer please STOP IT
It’s like, I DO love the whole, “LI is completely devoted to MC” thing, I do. It gives me butterflies. “Who did this to you” is an excellent trope, love a grand gesture, love proof that someone has been devoted and pining for a lot longer than they’ve let on. All that stuff is great.
BUT,
That doesn’t mean I want that person to no longer care about ANYTHING ELSE except their romantic partner. I DNF’d the third book of the FBAA series, but from the things I’ve heard and the pieces of the newer books I’ve read, Casteel is a completely different person. He no longer seems to care about anything at all except for Poppy, and most of the time he only cares about fulfilling her sexual desires. This is good fantasy fodder, I understand why this trope is appealing, but it’s the transition from a complex, multi-motived character to a bona fide disciple that is really disappointing.
I recognize that I haven’t read all of those books, so I can’t speak on it with total certainty, but -
I HAVE read all of the ACOTAR books, and while I don’t think Rhys’s character has degraded to the same level or degree as Casteel’s seems to have, I have still been really disappointed with his behavior since the middle of ACOWAR. It seems like he doesn’t really care about anyone except for Feyre and now their child, and that makes me sad. He’s screwed over Azriel, Cassian, and Mor, a few of them more than once, and hasn’t seemed apologetic at all.
These are supposed to be the people he DOES value and DOES want to protect. I understand that he was ruthless under the mountain, but he was ruthless for their sake. He’s lied to all of them and on several occasions basically refused to consider their feelings beyond a cursory mind-to-mind convo with Feyre. In fact, Feyre seems to be the only one of the two of them who still tries to prioritize their friends’ happiness and well-being even if it’s less convenient/a bit of a headache for her and Rhys.
Yes, I’m referring to Rhys pretty dismissively and harshly warning Azriel off of Elain in the bonus POV (really, Rhys, your best friend of five hundred years and you think he’s just tryna whet his whistle with one of the most “off-limits” women in Prythian?) , but also the way he handled the alliance with Eris and the bargain with Keir in relation to Mor, his asking Azriel to lie to Cassian about the illyrian rebels and essentially withholding crucial information from Cassian, and his lack of consideration for Elain’s opinion in the court machinations he’s laid out in his head. Even if Elain does want to be with Lucien (though I definitely don’t think she does) Rhys doesn’t seem interested in finding out.
But I’m not even here to argue about the ships! I just wish that authors would allow their male LIs to still have loyalties and motivations beyond their significant other. That’s what keeps the ship interesting! They can be together 100%, be completely and undoubtedly in love with each other, but still care about other things and people. I know you can make the case that Rhys wasn’t just disregarding his family for Feyre but also for the greater good, but then he put literally his entire court and really all of Prythian at risk when he made the death pact with Feyre.
Idk, this is a bit of a ramble, I’m not even sure if I have a definitive thesis here. I’d love to hear other takes on this but to me, Rhys’s abandonment of every other loyalty in his life to prioritize not just Feyre’s life, but also anything that might complicate their situation non-lethally, is not great.
I just, I don’t want complex characters to lose their complexity! That’s no fun! And it leads to a really boring and unsatisfying phase or end for a lot of otherwise fantastic ships.
