welcome back to yet another rant about sarah j maas.

well, i guess not only sjm but we will be getting into a lot of her stuff. we will also look at fan fiction, tfota, rwrb, and more

mainly, we are just looking at this trope in general and how hard it truly is to get it right and how easily bad writing can make it suck.

first we need to break this trope down and the easiest way to explain it is in three parts

enemies
friends
lovers

obviously it's much more complex than this, but that's the root of the trope. everything else is character development, relationships, and internal conflicts

there are also variations to this trope, friends to enemies, friends to lovers, lovers to enemies, etc. all of these are great too!

now let's talk about how to write this trope

you need to start out with your two characters hating each other but for a VALID REASON

bitches on this app will be like, this percabeth fic is enemies to lover because one time percy spilled paint on Annabeth on accident and annabeth held a vendetta for 10 years

bestie stop it. you look stupid.

the only time it does not need to be valid is if it's a celebrity and normal person kind of thing. you can see this in rwrb, but i feel iffy about this trope. the only reason Alex really hated Henry was because Henry was pretty rude to him. the rest was just Alex being petty (which makes sense for his character)

which is another thing to remember: MAKE THE HATRED FIT THE CHARACTER!!!!

this is one thing Feyre in acotar doesn't have: a personality!

so, when we first see her killing a faerie, it doesn't make much sense. sure, she had a bias but that bias was never really explored in any other way besides that first chapter or two of the book. so it doesn't really make sense within the context of this bland ass character

however, in tfota, Jude does have a personality and character and has this really cool thing called goals, and that goal is power

which makes sense given the fact that she has always been undermined by faeries and has been encouraged by her "father" whose name i forgot to be strong.

it also helps that she doesn't hate faeries, she hates certain fae. that means that she is aware of the fact that faeries can and most likely will underestimate her, but she doesn't hate an entire fucking race for it.

she does hate cardan for being an absolute piece of shit! and card and bias against humans makes his hatred have fuel as well.

so just remember when writing this trope to think about your character and if their hatred makes sense looking both ways.

now we must look at the progression between enemies and friends.

as i'm sure you can see that's a  h u g e  gap, and you know what builds the bridge?

that's right, y'all.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT LOML OMFG WHAT A FUCKING QUEEN

yes, it's character development.

now, one thing people, especially in the fantasy genre, seem to think is that putting on sexier clothes means character development.

stop it.

unless there is a symbolic meaning behind it, like Henry wearing a printed tie at the end of rwrb, then stop this shit.

i've actually found this in fan fiction a lot. the shy girl wears a dress instead of a sweater to show her confidence.

bestie, the sweater is still her sense of style. where are these drastic changes coming from?

also important? REDEMPTION ARCS

yes bitches, we must Zuko this shit.

you know why? because they can't become friends without acknowledging the past.

honestly, this redemption arc is why i ship Zutara and why i ship catradora

it's also the reason i hate Rhysand from acotar

Now, to give y'all some background as to how unhealthy this relationship is, Rice sand over here SA Feyre, withheld medical information from Feyre, quite literally kidnapped Feyre, and much more.

Now there is no way in hell i would be caught dead having sex with this person three books in a row, but sjm apparently thought that was the way to go.

the thing is, even during his "redemption arc" RICE CAKES NEVER APOLOGIZED

I SHIT YOU NOT

AND IT PISSES ME OFF

you see, if we take a look at the loml Zuko, we can see that he apologized 274628373 times and then proceeded to do what he could to earn the gaangs trust and SHOWED them that he was sorry.

which is another thing.

show the redemption, please. if you just say but look, my uwu dark daddy Rhysand said sorry, so he is sorry, i am going to burn your book!

show me he is sorry, please! it won't mean shit unless you do that!

after they become friends it's just a matter of not being like sjm and making sure that they have chemistry outside of sex.

with Nesta and Cassian, it starts off as hate sex then leads to love.

bestie how does that make sense?

it was like sex and then love as a bonus

don't do that shit. it's love with a bonus of sex.

ok that's all for today, hopefully this helped you out.

love y'all