goodknightfriends

[goodknightfriends]

The Last Hours’ titles/covers in relation to Great Expectations

The titles of all three TLH books come from the following line from GE (which is found at the very beginning of Chain of Gold):

“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”

Pip, as the adult narrator, interrupts his own story telling to deliver this bit of foreshadowing after the day he first met Estella. A day that ultimately changed his life. A day that set his expectations for his future. Everything that happens to him moving forward is a product of that day. That day started the first link of a chain that bound his life in misery.

I’ve been thinking about how this quote correlates to our TLH titles and the covers…

Chain of Gold - Cordelia

Cordelia’s life is forever changed by the day she stands up to defend James by ruining herself and then agreeing to his wedding proposal.

Gold typically represents success, intelligence, compassion, reputation, royalty, etc.

All of which can be applied to Cordelia. Her dream to be a hero, her wit, her kind heart, her focus on saving her family name of Carstairs, her becoming a Herondale.

The start of her chain of gold appears to be something positive. Cordelia is getting all these things she wanted, yet it is still a chain that bound her in pain and will affect her for the rest of her life.

Or maybe her chain started all the way back to the day she slid into James bed as a child to pull him back from the shadows. It bound her life to her love and pursuit of James, which led to her ruination both in a societal sense and emotionally.

Chain of Iron - Lucie

I think you could say Lucie’s chain begins when Jesse first helps her out of the hole in Brocelind Forest as a child.

Iron is usually representative of tenacity, stubborness, confidence in power, hard work/grit.

Lucie is nothing if not stubborn, which we see in her determination to raise Jesse. She was confident that she and Grace could bring him back, and she worked tirelessly to do so. In the end, she uses her own power to resurrect him, despite the consequences.

Her chain started in Brocelind Forest and it is a testament to her strength and determination to a fault with the committance of necromancy. Her future is changed because she met Jesse. The legacy of her entire blood line may be bound by her chain of iron because of it.

Chain of Thorns - Grace

Grace’s first link could be the day her parents died, the day Tatiana adopted her or the day she was enchanted.

Thorns represent sorrow, sin and hardship. When paired with a rose, it’s often symbolic of pain and pleasure. Thorns also protect roses from predators.

Roses with their thorns symbolize sacrifice.

(Since this is only a trilogy, we won’t get a Chain of Flowers. However, based on the cover art, it seems that roses are being balanced with the thorns to complete the quote. It gives me the feeling that sacrifice will play a huge role in this book.)

The day Grace was bought/adopted by Tatiana had begun her chain of thorns, a life of abuse and neglect, a series of events that ruined her life and the lives of so many others. Will Grace sacrifice herself or something/someone she cares about to atone for the sins of her adoptive mother?

Side note! Because of the symbolism, I also think James will be the reverse cover. His life and all of his friends’ lives were changed the day he agreed to cut the thorns around Blackthorn Manor in Idris. It led him to a life of pain and sorrow, and possibly altered the Shadow World forever.

And the chain of this entire story began the day Will read Tatiana’s diary. Or the day Will released the demon from the Pyxis and thought he was cursed. Or even the day Edmund met Linnette.

Our lives are forever altered by single days that don’t seem all that important in the present, but in hindsight changed everything. *Existential life crisis incoming.*

[goodknightfriends]

Half the people commenting on the live were being rude about the cover. That’s insane.

You don’t have to like the cover. You can critique it as much as you want, but why do so in front of the author, on the launch day???? Where are the manners??

Not to mention that most people complaining were doing so because they dislike Grace as a character. You do remember that we have covers with both Sebastian Morgenstern and Annabel Blackthorn, right? Sebastian who literally tried SA Clary. I’m sorry, but Grace is simply not as big of a villain compared to that, and having her on the cover isn’t glorifying her or her actions anyway??

[goodknightfriends]

reblog to tell the person you reblogged this from that they are deserving of love and affection

[goodknightfriends]

the way the merry thieves support kit even when his experiments go wrong makes me believe in friendship

[goodknightfriends]

as if people on this hellsite need april in order to be fools

[goodknightfriends]

Cordelia swore to be Lilith's paladin as "Cordelia Herondale" so what if in order to break the oath to Lilith she has to divorce James and become "Cordelia Carstairs" again?!?!?!?!

[goodknightfriends]

Kit and Ty’s first meeting!

characters belong to @cassandraclare <3

[goodknightfriends]

Julian To Magnus

Hi Magnus, it’s Julian Blackthorn. (I know, you told me just “Julian” is fine, but habits are hard to break.) You had said you wanted updates on what was happening with Blackthorn Manor, so here are some of those. More than you probably expected, actually.

First off, Hypatia Vex says hello. So that probably tells you from the start how things are going. She also says that you should contact her regarding some kind of money you owe her, but I said I didn’t want to be in the middle of any of that and only said I would mention it. (I believe she said you “welshed on a bet,” which I had to look up. (a) It doesn’t sound like something you would do, and (b) it seems offensive to the Welsh?)

We saw Hypatia because we went to the London Shadow Market, and we went to the Shadow Market because, in addition to all the other mysterious business at the house—a ghost, a curse, a lot of bad vibes overall—it turns out we also have an enchanted diary. It belonged to a Tatiana Blackthorn, née Lightwood, back in the 1870s. Emma has been reading it since we got here, but it has some kind of spell on it that prevented her from telling anyone about it. Even before we got to the Shadow Market, Emma and I both forgot about the diary a couple times each. Luckily the other one still remembered. Eventually I wrote “REMEMBER THE DIARY” in huge colorful letters on some posterboard and hung it up so we see it when we first wake up.

But that’s not a long-term solution, so we took it to the Shadow Market to find someone to disenchant the thing. Hypatia has a kind of outpost of her magic shop that she sets up in the Market, and we were relieved to find someone we knew—I wasn’t eager to hand over an ensorcelled Shadowhunter item to just anyone. As you’d probably guess, she did not seem happy to see us, but that’s kind of Hypatia’s thing. And no one is ever happy to see Shadowhunters at a Shadow Market, of course. We tried to look as casual as possible but it’s not like we can tell everyone, “Don’t worry! We’re not here to raid the place!” We did see a few stands suddenly close for the day as we approached, including one that sold a potion that was guaranteed to “put werewolf hair on your chest.” I have to wonder, is that actual werewolf hair shaved off an actual werewolf, or is it supposed to just make you look hairy like a werewolf?) I couldn’t ask because the stall was closed. You know how it is.

Anyway, for all her grousing about Shadowhunters only turning up when they needed something and so on, Hypatia was helpful enough once we explained what was going on. I think she couldn’t resist the puzzle of it. She took the diary in the back and, I guess, did some disenchanting. When she came back, she had good news and bad news. Good news: the diary was no longer enchanted. Bad news: being disenchanted triggered a failsafe spell which caused all the text to degenerate into Purgatic script. Someone really didn’t want that diary read.

Hypatia agreed to translate the diary, albeit for a significant fee (though it is a drop in the bucket compared to all the other costs of fixing the house). One thing: she said it would be kind of slow to do. Apparently the act of translating from demon scripts saps the translator’s energy and they can only do so much before they have to rest. I did not know that! (And if it turns out it’s not true, and Hypatia is only messing with us, please let me know.)

So provided Hypatia keeps her end of the deal, we should know more about the diary soon. It feels like we have all these puzzle pieces but we have no idea how to fit them together, or if we’re missing pieces, or if they’re even from the same puzzle. Is Tatiana’s diary related to the ghost? Are either of them related to the curse? Or is this house just totally piled up with bad magic?

Then on our way out of the Shadow Market there was another surprise: Ty’s ghost-modified Sensor started going crazy as soon as we left. We thought it must be something in the Market and went back in, but no, the signal stopped. We followed it out and it took us to Southwark Cathedral, which is just down the road from the Market. It still had a whole bunch of tourists visiting, so we got to do the classic Shadowhunter thing, glamour up and sneak in. The Sensor took us to the Nephilim weapons cache (in a niche under an alabaster statue of somebody-or-other) where we found…a weapon. I know, amazing, right? But this was obviously not just some generic weapon that had been left in the cache; it was beautiful and elaborate and looked like it could be worn ceremonially. It’s a curved dagger, Middle Eastern in origin (I am no expert on weapons from the region, unfortunately, and will have to check some references to get the specific kind), and there’s beautiful calligraphy all along the blade in Arabic script. (Of course, there are probably twenty common languages that use Arabic script; I don’t know which one this is.)

I’ve got some pictures and am going to write to Ty to see what he can find out about the dagger. It doesn’t seem like it goes with the flask at all, and I have no idea why it would have been left in the cathedral. The mysteries continue. This house is, uh, more of a fixer-upper than we originally thought.

Emma sends her love, and please give our love to Alec and the kiddos. Let me know if you have any thoughts and hope you’re finally getting a chance to relax a bit.

Julian

[goodknightfriends]

tonight i’m thinking about how gabriel lightwood was raised in a toxic and isolated environment with a man who hardly cared about his children at all, never knew his mother, had a brother and sister who were raised the same way, and didn’t know any different or better. and yet he found the strength to turn his back on his family name after benedict’s death to protect charlotte, who he was manipulated into hating. he went through a ton of mental/emotional trauma because of his family and still developed into an understanding, kind, and loving adult (see every exquisite thing). gabriel lightwood is drastically underappreciated thanks for coming to my ted talk

[goodknightfriends]

One of my favorite parts of Chain of Iron is when Alastair says “Thomas Lightwood, I am nothing like you” and Thomas is like “oh FUCK he isn’t gay did I misinterpret everything I wanna die” and then Alastair says he isn’t like Thomas cause Thomas is kind and has friends and Thomas is like oh Jesus you scared the fuck out of me

[goodknightfriends]

I don't read poetry but if @cassandraclare wrote a poetry book about TSC characters with poem or just a paragraph's titles such as: "a letter from this character to this" or "an unsent letter from this to this" or "a diary entry by this about this" or just "what this character feels about this" etc. for instance, "Will's poetry for Tessa", I would definitely read it because who says Cassie ain't a poet?

The stars will go out before I forget you.

was there ever a more beautiful sound than your name?

that is love, son of thorns. we welcome it's cruelest blows and when we bleed from them, we whisper our thanks.

that's everyone's dream, isn't it, really? Instead of many who give you little pieces of themselves—one who gives you everything

there was beauty in the idea of freedom, but it was an illusion. Every human heart was chained by love.

I love you more than starlight

those two twin souls, the only souls she had ever loved.

at the edge of everything, love and faith have always brought me back, and back to you.

for that was what love was, wasn't it—to burn bright in someone else's eyes?

as long as you exist and I exist, I will love you

my other half is gone.

And like, so many more quotes. All her books are full poetry! At least, to me it is 🙈

[goodknightfriends]

Henry & Charlotte Moodboard 👒

And then she said nothing else, for Henry put his arms around her and kissed her. Kissed her in such a way that she no longer felt plain, or conscious of her hair or the ink spot on her dress or anything but Henry, whom she had always loved.

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Taglist (pls tell me if you want to be added or removed <3) @gayforcarstairsgirls @idk-i-just-really-like-tsc @alexander-gideon-lightwood-babe @unorganisedbookshelf @queenlilith43 @moyadorogayas @ty-blackthorn-herondale-stan @sociallyineptbibliophile @i-deia @totalbookmaniac @kiwichaeng @magnus-the-maqnificent @ahanahahaha @lantsovs-emerald @amchara @letsgofortacos @noah-herondale-lightwood @tis-the-boards-season @my-archerboy @raziyekroos @tellthestarshello808 @khaleesiofalicante @onetimetwotimesthreetimess @romas-dorogaya @alexandergideonslightwood @thestarkster1465 @rykeemeadows @awecwightwood

[goodknightfriends]

Slow burn but it's written by an impatient person

[goodknightfriends]

Cordelia Carstairs from The Last Hours by @cassandraclare ❤️

[goodknightfriends]

I don’t care how sexy Julian’s muscles or how good he is in bed. The sexiest thing he did was when he said “We can’t keep bothering Magnus.”

[goodknightfriends]

I love how with all parabatai they’re very much like “we’re in this together” and “your fight is my fight” and then whenever Jace comes to Alec with an issue Alec’s just like “that sounds like a you problem, bro.”

[goodknightfriends]

the tsc fandom got clear cut communication, magnus bane not being disturbed, a newsletter with jordelia, thomastair AND a love spell shenanigan on Valentines day like literally wow