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belle-keys · 3 years

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Reflections: How we are Tessa, and the purpose of GOTSM (meta)

Cassandra Clare said in her latest IG live that the reason the epilogue of Clockwork Princess is forever beautiful but bittersweet is not because we know that the characters, save Jem and Tessa, die. It’s because we know that there will always be people who have to deal with their loss too and live on: a bittersweet concept, seeing someone die and having it remind you of how beautifully they lived. Think of the shared vision Will and Jem had in Learn About Loss when they went to Shanghai - Jem thinks of the fact that Will is about to die soon, but yet Will’s memory is constantly associated with the emotions he suscited as he lived. That’s overwhelming, beautiful, and sorrowful all at once.

There are those of us who have to go on living knowing these characters’ stories, now immortalized in memory- that’s the reader, but it’s also Tessa.

It was easier to die protecting the people you loved than to watch them die in your stead. What horrific choices mortality had to offer.

Tessa lives on through the century and the different stories of all the characters. She’s the chronological inception of the five families’ stories: the Herondales, the Fairchilds, the Carstairs, the Lightwoods and the Blackthorns. She does not die when Will does, nor when her children do. She lives a beautiful life but it’s still a pain to bear her own existence and bear the knowledge of the stories of all the people that she has known and loved over time. Furthermore, their stories live on in her, with her, through her.

Likewise, the stories of the characters live on in us. We as readers in the real world hold the stories we read in books in our minds and hearts dear as we go on with life, and we feel incredibly sad when our favorite characters die. That is the fundamental en-soi of stories: for them to be read and for them to touch our hearts.

The lives of all the characters and all the decades that Tessa has lived, the passage of time, are a literary symbol for the worlds that readers live in when they read books. She has to see what has occurred yet move on and keep living despite her attachment. Thus, Tessa is a stand-in for the reader as she lives on perusing time yet holds these stories dear too. This is incredibly incredibly meta to a level that has me like yooo. She is a living commentary on the relationship between readers and fiction. Moreover, Tessa herself is a reader and finds solace in stories meaning that her meta-ness is twofold. (This has links to the meta-commentary on literature in TID and TLH.)

“It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them.”

Now, this is why Ghosts of the Shadow Market feels like an opened wound. (Yes, Jem has been immortal too but now he’s human again, so I won’t put him in the same category as Tessa. Magnus, while we’re here, is objectively not the main character and most of what I’m saying is in fact applicable to him, but in terms of the main plot of the series, Tessa is more relevant.) Clockwork Princess is designed to be read either directly before or after City of Heavenly Fire. In this way, as soon as the reader learns Jem is shipped off to be a Silent Brother and has to battle the beast of time, he immediately gets saved from our perspective based on the way the books were released. We didn’t have to live all the years between 1880 to 2008 and live Jem’s life (or Tessa’s). We learned about The Jem Situation but then we got the outcome quite quickly in terms of the books’ publication order - we didn’t have to wait in suspense for too long to hear Jace’s heavenly fire saved Jem eventually.

Nonetheless, Ghosts of the Shadow Market does in fact give us all the hard parts of immortality: experience. It doesn’t in any means mitigate the value of TID or TMI, yet develops the story of an incredibly important character. If anything at all feels like a sequel to TID, it ain’t TLH, it’s Ghosts of the Shadow Market. We get Jem’s adventures but also his emotions. These stories in GOTSM break that sacred unspoken “happy ending” rule where we now have see the reality of what living is like: we don’t get that “running into the sunset, happily ever after” feeling. Instead, we grieve with Jem and Tessa, we mourn Will, we feel hope like Jem does and it’s all quite overwhelming given how much Jem feels. Yet this pain is again another example of meta-commentary on what time is like and what experiencing stories entails: it’s angst, but to a beautiful end. We get another bittersweet ending at the end of GOTSM: Jem and Tessa finally have their moment, a marriage and a family after 150 years and thus, all of Jem’s pain and living is finally comes to fruition: he is happy with his love. The 150 year old story that began in Clockwork Angel gets a new conclusion. Another layer to the conclusion that the epilogue of Clockwork Princess gave us, and we truly feel like we lived through those 150 years with Jem as he goes through many pivotal changes in his emotional arc. It reminds us that the Herongraystairs story is immortal. Hence, the payoff is amazing as we get to see Jessa thrive, just like got to see Wessa thrive in TLH. Talk about equality amirite.

“There will be no separation between us. Where you are, I am. Where we are, Will is.”

The meaning is twofold here too: Will’s spirit lives on as Jem and Tessa live, and Will Herondale the literary character lives as long as readers keep reading and remembering how he touched them. Again, the en-soi of books is reiterated too: books live on only when they touch us, and thus memorable stories always have more value on a wider scale in the literary canon. In fact, there’s an even bigger meta value of TSC in this regard, and it’s the way Cassie plays hommage to classic literature, classics, art, and religion and makes meta commentary on art and literature but that is a whole ass essay by itself lmfao (spoiler, but my thesis would be that the meta value of these motifs helps render the classic lit canon relevant yet simple among young people or some shit like that idk).

But anyway, all this to say that we see the story the way Tessa sees it. In the Romance Languages, “history” and “story” are the exact same word, and TSC effectively explores the phenomenon that makes the two one and the same using narration as it concerns the human experience. All of this has great significance as it reiterates the role of literature in our lives and the use of chronological structuring to develop such an extensive story.

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thomaslightwoodenthusiast · 4 years

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no one asked for it so naturally i’m going to be annoying and do it :)

here are my tsc opinions (some of which are going to be unpopular lol)

please bare in mind i’m not trying to offend anyone, nor am i saying my opinion is the only right one!

tid is kinda boring. well, at least, most of the characters are, except for henry. don’t get me wrong, i love tessa and will and jem and everyone now, but outside of tid.

tda >>>

none of the ships are overrated, they all tend to have their own sort of sub-fandoms where other ships are mentioned less/more often.

tda malec >>>> tmi malec. tmi malec was...interesting in some points.

alec was an asshole half the time in tmi- though he had reasons to, some of his reactions to things were rude as hell. like the way he treated magnus at the start. but tbf it also gives a good point that not all relationships are perfect and lovey dovey at the start, they take work!

magnus being angry with alec for going to such lengths to ignore their relationship and refusing to come out was reasonable, but a little too much. they had been dating for a good few months and alec knew his friends would be okay with it, so there was no reason for him to not be out to them. at the same time though, magnus of all people should know how it feels and how pressurising coming out can be and i feel he could’ve spoken to alec and helped him rather than just going ‘if u don’t come out i’ll break up with u’ lol

simon is extremely overlooked at times; but that doesn’t mean he was perfect. what he did with maia and isabelle was really shitty and he deserved their reaction.

anna is alright, but a bit overrated. the book of names of girls she’s been with was unnecessary and kind of gross.

you don’t have to like grace to like alastair; here’s what i mean. a lot of people are saying ‘well if you like alastair after all he did then why don’t you like grace?’ listen. you can’t control which characters appeal to who. both alastair and grace have done shitty things that they need to apologise for but they also both had reasons they did these things. that doesn’t excuse them of course, but you know what i mean. don’t hate on either of them until they get their redemption arcs- we’re only one book in and we don’t even have a grace POV!

magnus gets so little cred from everyone. no one acknowledges anything he did- creating the portal with henry especially. he runs around after every shadowhunter, exhausts himself, and has barely ever even received a thank you. the only thing i can think of was alec sharing his strength that time but i’m not even sure if that counts because he’s his (well, now) husband.

clalec and jimon are the two most underrated friendships honestly i love them both so much !!

DIANA WRAYBURN RIGHTS. PERIOD. MOST GORGEOUS WOMAN EVER AND SO BADLY UNDERRATED ITS AWFUL

ON THAT SUBJECT: GWYN AND HER!!!!! THEY!!!

thank u for reading xo

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rose-tico · 4 years

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I want to hear your opinion on m/m vs f/f relationships in Cog! And male vs female characters in general. What I noticed about relationships is that nominally, we do have wlw prominent characters - as in, they exist and all - but the focus is never on them. And female characters' plot is often a function of male pain/angst. I did love Cordelia, though, and I thought James was more bearable than other Herondale men.

my opinion is essentially what you described: there are definitely wlw characters in the shadowhunter books, they exist, (helen blackthorn, aline penhallow, and anna lightwood), but they are never allotted the same kind of focus that the mlm characters have. the wlw characters’ internal thoughts, dialogue, and arcs take up less pages than the mlm characters’. they’re usually operating as supporting characters to the main characters’ storylines. not even like second-level supporting characters like how ty, dru, livvy, and kit were supporting characters to emma, julian, mark, and christina’s stories, where they had their own arcs that directly tied with the main cast, but didn’t nearly take up as much page time or were the emotional center of the books. but like third or fourth-level supporting characters where they showed up to fulfill one or two narrative purposes and then were never to be seen again. they might have a few pov sections within chapters here and there that allows the reader to get a small glimpse into their minds and their feelings, but they don’t have any real significant arc or as big of an impact on the story compared to both the mlm characters and presumably straight characters. yes, i’m talking about aline and helen and yes, i’ll always be bitter they didn’t show up until the end of the second book in the tda trilogy. and yes, i’ll always be bitter that when they did have any page time in qooad, they were very short. and no, i don’t think aline and helen being older authority figures aka “adults” thereby necessitating that they be sidelined so they don’t take over the stories and fix the problems of the young adults/teens is a reasonable excuse to erase them to the extent that they were.

another thing: there are simply more mlm characters than wlw characters in the shadowhunter books. this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because we always need more mlm representation. but if you compare the amount of mlm characters compared to the amount of wlw characters, there’s a clear inequality and dare i say, preference for mlm characters. and this fact makes me uncomfortable being that cassie is a woman and this clear preference is riddled with heterosexism. the first mlm relationship in the shadowhunter books was magnus and alec, right? and the first wlw relationship was aline and helen, right? okay, we have one of each, but arguably magnus and alec were more important characters in the tmi series. skipping over tid because there really were no new queer characters in that trilogy. magnus was there, but he’s not a new character. moving on to tda: we have mark, kieran, kit, and ty. four new queer characters in the shadowhunter books: all of them are mlm. again, we can’t discredit the presence of aline and helen in the tda trilogy, but let’s be real, mark, kieran, kit and ty were part of the main story and aline and helen were not. and this is where the argument of leaving aline and helen at wrangel island for most of the trilogy makes me uncomfortable. mark and helen are twins, aka they are the same age! you can’t argue that sidelining aline and helen was necessary for the narrative because of the whole ‘authority figure meddling with the kids’ stories’ issue, when mark and helen are the goddamn same age! the idea to bring back mark early on and not helen just reeks of heterosexism. you . could argue that cassie simply was more interested in mark as a character and that as a writer, she should have the creative freedom to write about what she wants. but when you deliberately create a wlw character who is the same age as her mlm brother, kindling that hope in readers’ hearts that they’re finally gonna get wlw rep, but then suddenly prop up the mlm character at the expense of the wlw character, then there’s a problem. it would have hurt less if these characters were not related and the same age, but they are.

and now lastly, the tlh trilogy. we have matthew who’s bi, alastair who’s gay, charles who’s gay, thomas who’s presumably gay, anna who’s a lesbian, and ariadne who’s presumably a lesbian as well. (cordelia gives me bi vibes, but that might just be cassie’s writing through her perspective and describing every person regardless of gender with very beautiful descriptors, who knows). we have a whole slew of new queer characters which is amazing. i’m thrilled and happy that cassie made this decision and is willing to be inclusive, more than she has before. but the ratio of mlm characters compared to wlw characters is still skewed. cassie had the chance to create more wlw characters, fix the mistake of not having as many wlw characters in her previous books, and even out the numbers a little, but instead she choose to create even more mlm characters. idk...as much as i love the mlm characters in chain of gold, like i adore alastair, thomas, and matthew, i can’t help but feel frustrated at the lack of page time for anna and ariadne. when i heard anna was gonna be part of the main supporting cast and saw that she was on the drawing of all the characters in the first edition of chain of gold, i was so excited! finally, a wlw main supporting character. i was crushed to later find out she’s actually a few years older than them, and her only big narrative impact is when she’s helping them at the hell ruelle. anna has a few pages and moments where it’s all about her and her relationship with ariadne, but it’s not enough. speaking of ariadne, of course the only other wlw character was poisoned and bedridden for most of the book! because we simply cannot have more than one wlw character in the main narrative at the same time!

this is already super long, so i’ll end my thoughts here with this: all of this erasure and sidelining of wlw characters reveals that there’s a clear preference for, and honestly...fetishization of mlm characters in cassie’s books and heteromisogyny towards wlw characters. i don’t know if it’s actually okay that cassie prefers and is more comfortable writing mlm characters, especially considering she’s presumably a straight woman. i lowkey feel like there’s an assumption that most of her fans prefer mlm characters and thus, there are more of them in her books. why do you think male characters in cassie’s books are lauded as heroes and leaders more than the female characters are? there’s an assumption that the target audience of the shadowhunter books consists of mostly straight young women, therefore the characters that get the main focus and emotional weight and struggle in her books are male characters, with the male herondales being a prime example. it’s all really frustrating.

#chain of gold #the shadowhunter chronicles #cassandra clare #the last hours #tlh

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herondalesgonehaywire · 5 years

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Honest Thoughts on QOAAD (and TDA in general)

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion if you don’t agree with it that’s fine people can have different opinions and still be civil about it :). This is in no way bashing Cassandra or Shadowhunters it’s just some thoughts.

Also warning there might be spoilers

I’m just going to be honest here I: TDA is my least favorite Shadowhunters series.

I’ve been obsessed with Shadowhunters since my grandma bought me the first four books for Christmas when I was in 7th grade. I read all 7 books in 6 months and finished COHF in less than a week. It took me approximately a month to finish the entirety of TID. I love Shadowhunters and I love the way Cassandra Clare writes.

That being said, I do not enjoy TDA as much as I enjoy the rest of the Shadowhunters books. I was struggling with really bad anxiety when Lady Midnight came out, and the book took me forever to finish just because my anxiety was so bad it made it difficult to focus. I found myself plowing through the book just wishing for it to be over. I can attribute some of the three months it took me to get through Lady Midnight to my anxiety, but looking back it can also be said that I just wasn’t as interested in it. When I first read City of Bones, I was was pulled in, felt compelled to keep reading because I was just in love with the characters and the plot and the world this beautiful book had created.

But with TDA, I didn’t feel like that. Sure, the writing style and characters were good, I just didn’t love it nearly as much as I loved the previous 2 series. I felt like the only reason I was reading it was because it said “Shadowhunter Chronicles” on the cover. If it hadn’t been part of the Shadowhunter world, I wouldn’t have bothered.

The problem for me is this: TDA revolves around a forbidden love between Julian Blackthorn and Emma Carstairs. Their love is forbidden because they are parabatai. I’m going to be honest here: I really dislike forbidden love tropes. I always have and I always will. I feel like no matter how well-written the plot is, it always boils back down to “uwu i wuv you but i can’t have you because its not awowwed uwuuu.” I have personal reasons to dislike the forbidden love trope, but being as this is about the book and not my pathetic love life, we are just going to leave it at this: forbidden love tropes always come off as cheesy and can turn even the best of characters into whiny pathetic lovesick morons.

The next issue is Julian and Emma's relationship. In the beginning, their relationship was beautiful. The way Julian told Emma that he loves her more than starlight and the way he was able to let down the walls he'd spent years building up for her and be so raw and vulnerable around her despite keeping his feelings hidden from everyone else in his life was beautiful. Beautiful love, beautiful relationship. However, as the series went on, their relationship became less beautiful. I'm just going to say it, because there is no point in beating around the bush and trying to be delicate and classy: their relationship degraded into nothing but angsty sex. It became less of an "I love you" and more of an "I want to fuck you." All of their sex scenes are rushed and angsty, trying to cram as much "sexy time" into a few moments of down time as physically possible. It gets to the point where every time they're alone together, they end up having violent, angsty sex. This cheapens the relationship and makes it seem more like a cheap hookup than true love. I am quite the prude and dislike sex scenes, but I found myself skipping every sex scene because I just got tired of all the angsty Blackstairs sex. Sex isn't bad, but there is a difference between a healthy relationship that includes sex and a relationship that revolves entirely around sex. Before anyone says "they're 17 they can't help it!" I'm 17 and I think about things besides fucking. Granted I am the most single person on earth and find sex quite repulsive, but you get the gist.

Another qualm I have with QOAAD specifically is the point of view changes. Throughout all Shadowhunters books the point of view has switched from character to character to show different sides of the story, but I feel like in QOAAD it switched more frequently than previously. Rather than showing the reader many different sides of the same story, it made the story feel disjointed and made it harder to follow along because it was switching so rapidly. One minute we'd be with Emma in the faerie prison and the next we'd be with Helen making frittatas and the next we'd be with Cristina kissing Mark. Instead of showing multiple sides of the same story it felt more like reading several different stories at once to the point where it was difficult to remember what was even happening. For me personally, the battle in the Unseelie King's throne room was a mess. The point of view kept switching and I honestly had no idea what was going on. I also felt like if dragged on forever because of it.

I also feel like, towards the end specifically, they were trying to get back to the "roots" of Shadowhunters and mirror the original TMI series. Characters from the original TMI series were there, but most of them served little to no purpose. Sure, Magnus and Alec were relevant to the plot, as were Tessa and Jem, but there was really no reason for Simon and Izzy to be there. This "reuinion" felt forced, like they were trying to bring back nostalgia for the good ole TMI days but just ended up creating a failed family reunion in Brocelind Forest in which nobody really had any reason to be there.

All that being said, I do not think QOAAD is bad. I love Julian and Emma as characters. I love Ty Blackthorn, an Autistic character whose purpose goes beyond advancing the plot with his computer skills and providing comic relief by rocking back and forth and screaming about airplanes. I love Kit's adorable awkwardness around Ty and Jem and Tessa having a baby together and Kierarktina being a healthy polyamorous relationship. I think that the series is good, but it definately had some flaws.

Hope this didn't offend anyone too much.

Thanks for reading (^♡%)

#shadowhunters #qoaad #kierarktina #jemma blackstairs #qoaad spoilers

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julianspancakes · 7 years

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Malec Fic Recommendations ➸ 1

The fics listed below can be old or fairly new, so this has no timeline. Neither an order of preference. Some of them has serious warnings and that’s because I love psychology of people who has been hurt and their process of getting out of that state. Maybe you can give them a try if you think those things can’t trigger you.

Part 2 Part 3

The Notebook by lunatic2.2

Summary : After Magnus handed the notebook to Alec as an attempt to share his past with him, Alec can’t lay the book aside.

Happy Birthday and other Drabbles by jennynivea

Summary : A series of drabbles about Alec Lightwood. First Drabble: It’s Alec’s 26th birthday and he doesn’t want to celebrate. New Drabble: Aline’s POV of Alec kissing Magnus before the battle.

Learning To Be by jennynivea

Summary : When Alec was 13, he stopped speaking for almost a year. Five years later, Alec is forced to deal with the trauma of his past while learning to accept and love himself. Malec, Alec/Jace friendship and Lightwood family dynamics. [ Warnings : This story deals with very sensitive subject matters, including sexual abuse of a minor (actual abuse is not explicitly described but alluded to), internalized homophobia, self destructive behavior, language and adult sexual content. If you think any of those can trigger you in a bad way, please don’t read. ]

Learning To Breathe by jennynivea

Summary : After confronting the trauma of his past, Alec must learn to navigate love, intimacy and adulthood in this sequel to Learning to Be. (This story has the same warnings with its prequel.)

Stamina Rune by TheSuperBuffMarsAngelMortal

Summary : It’s Magnus and Alec’s anniversary and Alec has some some special plans for Magnus. What has he got planned and what does this shadowhunter have up his sleeve or more like on his chest? (WARNING: Smut! Don’t like, don’t read.)

Jealousy by lunatic2.2

Summary : Magnus Bane claims that he is not the type of being jealous. With Alec as his boyfriend he doesn’t really need to have a reason, anyway, as he is the most honest and trustworthy person he has ever known. What happens, though, when Alec gets hit on in a club? (A collection of little short stories with jealous Magnus ;D)

Reborn by 1thousandminus7

Summary : “But Magnus, necromancy is not only illegal, but impossible! Isn’t it?"

"Not if you have the right connections, my dear."

Magnus is left heartbroken following Alec’s untimely death, and looks for any possible solution. But he might not get quite what he bargained for. [ Caution: Character death, angst and lemons. Smut chapters: 6,7,12, 21 and 24 for those who are here for that ;) ]

Boy With The Blue Eyes by 96qutie

Summary : There are 3 rules among the Noble Families of Idris– 1:If you have a have a problem, go to Magnus Bane. 2: Do exactly as Magnus Bane says. And 3: You must pay any price Magnus Bane asks of you. Alec learned all these rules from his father. But when Alec’s Father is the one with the problem Magnus’ Price is only one thing. "Your son must say with me forever.”

Saving Alec by AdventKisa-x

Summary : AU fic, no shadowhunters. Alec is a bullied Junior in high school, desperately wanting to end his life. Magnus is a senior, one of the most popular boys in school and oblivious to Alec’s pain. Will Magnus save Alec in time? (Warnings : rated M for language and suicidal talk, Lemons in future chapters.)

Your World Is My World by akpendley

Summary : Alec thought he was having a bad day already, but after a conversation with his parents about his sexuality, things just keep going downhill.

Prisoner’s Silence by OnyxInk

Summary : Alec gets captured and tortured and Magnus has to find him. Will he be able to? What will happen afterwards? (WARNING: Intense Scenes!)

A jealous Warlock by NiennorNight

Summary : During one of Magnus’ parties Alec is hanging back, waiting for it to be over when something unexpected happens that makes the High Warlock Jealous.

Closed Doors by ferventkenopsia

Summary : Set primarily during CoHF, so spoilers. What did Isabelle, Clary, and Simon say to Magnus? What thoughts drove Magnus to write that notebook? How did Alec realize what his real problem was?

A Maid’s Apology by DoroTastesLikeDinosaur

Summary : Alec finds out that Magnus is pissed at what he claimed: “I’m not going out with anyone!” Alec, feeling guilty, thinks up something that would cheer Magnus up: Why not dress up as a maid and do what he wants for the day? Maybe Magnus would forgive him. ( WARNING : Rated M for explicit scenes. )

Love Can Defy Time by dax-fox

Summary : Alec and Jace accidently end up back in time… in Victorian London, how will Jace react to meeting his ancestor? How will Alec react to meeting a Magnus who has never known him and is in love with another? (This one is TMI & TID crossover.)

I’ve Seen Where This Goes by haru.fan

Summary : Takes place after City of Lost Souls (time frames may not match perfectly). Alec comes by to try and make amends with Magnus but a girl with a serious face answers the door instead. The two talk about Magnus, immortality and Will. (This one is also TMI & TID crossover.)

Please Trust Me by RobinTheSoldier

Summary : Tessa visits Magnus and Alec gets confused about Magnus’s relationship with her. Magnus gets upset by Alec’s lack of trust in him. Alec gets annoyed at Magnus for keeping so many secrets about his past. Can Tessa help the couple to understand eachother before it’s too late? (This one is TMI & TID crossover too.)

Archangel’s Sword by Lycii

Summary : Going down a wayward portal was never high on Alec Lightwood’s to-do list, but the Fates were never kind. Horrifying asphyxiation shall ensue to the ones that are not ready. With a combination of purple faces, two over egoistic Herondales, three warlocks and four Lightwoods, what could go wrong? (In case that you couldn’t understand by now, let me tell you. I’m sucker for TMI & TID crossovers. Feel free to recommend me if you know good ones.)

Cold Love by JaycieferandCursedGilbert

Summary : What if Alec lived back in the Victorian age? And what if Alec wasn’t just a Shadowhunter, but had a ability? When a series of events make him go to London, he suddenly finds out that not everything is black and gray and good verses evil. Will he control his power, or will his power control him? And how will a certain Warlock react to this? Is love really stronger then anything? (Do I have to say it? Yes, it’s a TMI & TID crossover.)

Time Lapse? by Girl59

Summary : Why are Jem, Tessa, and Will on the steps of the New York Institute this late at night in the pouring rain? Why are they nearly 130 years away from their home? and what happens when Will and Jace are in the same room? (TMI & TID crossover.)

Family Dinner by Zora4995

Summary : Everybody knows that the current residents of the New York Institute are not the most conventional family. What happens when the lot of them attempt to have a normal family dinner? Set sometime before Isabelle’s visit to the Shadowhunter Academy in The Evil We Love.

Dance Like Nobody’s Watching by Renesmee4eva

Summary : AU version of Magnus’s party in CoB.

Shadows Of The Past by ANGELofMUSICval

Summary : Alec isn’t taking his break-up with Magnus very well.

I’ll Give You A Whole New World by Apple Pie Is Fricken Worth It

Summary : Everything was different. Magnus was an eighteen year old mundie, best friends with Clary and Sam.. I mean, Simon. If the love is true, it will still find away for a freewheeling bisexual to to finally get his knight in shining armor, a closeted shadowhunter… Or will it? AU Human Magnus Bane Shadowhunter Alec Lightwood.

Done by AnimeLover796

Summary : I’m done being Alec Lightwood, i’m done with this sad existence, i’m just…done. (Warning: abuse, future lemons.) All human, no powers.

Past, Present by colourfulswan

Summary : When Tessa, Will and Magnus are transported from 19th century England to 21st Century New York things get a little complicated. (Yes, another TMI & TID crossover.)

Dear Magnus by Ayanfe

Summary : Alec wrote letters for Magnus to read when he’s dead.

#malec #alec lightwood #magnus bane #the mortal instruments #the shadowhunter chronicles #fic recs #julianspancakesficrecs #alexander lightwood #fanfic #fanfiction #tmi #tsc

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kattahj · 7 years

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Thoughts on The Bane Chronicles

Short version:

Started off really poorly and got a bit better. As usual with these books, does better with action scenes and bringing the story along than with emotional or humourous content (though there are some exceptions). Overall a decent read after the first 100 pages, although this Magnus will never be my Magnus.

Long version (with some notes scribbled down during the read and others written afterwards):

What Really Happened in Peru

Remember how much I hated the touristy postcards from Magnus and Alec in TMI? Yeah. Imagine how much I enjoyed a story consisting entirely of Magnus making an ass of himself at an exotic backdrop. :-(

Also, it's full of the kind of farcical humour that I pretty much only find tiresome. It's like the whole story is set with canned laughter and drumrolls. There were heartfelt, touching scenes inbetween, that could have made the story not just worthwhile, but good. Unfortunately, they pretty much got drowned out by stuff like: "The way mundanes in this part of Peru practiced medicine, it appeared, was to rub a guinea pig all over the afflicted sufferer's body." WTF even?

The Runaway Queen

And then we get revolution-era France, which I hoped would be more tolerable, until we got yet another repetition of that trite old false Marie Antoinette quote. There's nothing wrong with setting your stories in various countries and historical periods, even in humourous ways, but you have to be able to offer more than clichés. It even overrode the thrill I usually get about seeing Swedes in things. (Magnus's two phrases in Swedish were jokes about furs and pickled fish. Which is just kind of boring and missing any sort of point. Come on, there are plenty of better jokes than that to make about Swedes!)

The whole attitude to the revolution was weird, too. Now, the Reign of Terror and all that means that the French revolution is kind of a clusterfuck to begin with, but there's a difference between "well, that remedy's as bad as the illness" and, y'know, this:

"No longer a private wooded area and park, the Bois de Boulogne was now open to the people, who used the wonderful grounds for growing potatoes for food. They also wore cotton and proudly called themselves sans-culottes, meaning 'without knee breeches'. They wore long, workmanlike pants, and they cast long, judgmental looks at Magnus's own exquisite breeches, which matched the rose-colored stripe in his jacket, and his faintly silver stockings. It really was getting difficult to be wonderful."

Wow. Yeah, gosh, it must be SO HARD FOR YOU with all those peasants around. Wtf.

I don't mind hedonist!Magnus, but he comes off more as asshole!Magnus. Like, I may actually find him even more of a dick than I did Jace in City of Glass. Which is pretty disappointing.

It also rubs me the wrong way that it's hammered home that Magnus will fuck just about any guy with blue eyes and black hair. I get that it's supposed to remind us of Alec, but it makes their relationship come off as based in a fetish more than anything else. (And did Axel von Fersen really have black hair and blue eyes? It seems an unlikely combination for an 18th century Swede, but not impossible, and I don't know enough history to tell.)

Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale

Doesn't start off well, with Magnus pondering fashion and staring at Camille's breasts (because obviously that's a great thing to do to a strange lady, and everyone who disagrees is just a prude). But after that, it's not too shoddy, though it has waaaay too many descriptions and the supposedly funny stuff still isn't funny.

The Shadowhunters throwing away the plates after the Downworlders have eaten on them is a nice/horrible touch. It's interesting to see the Accords being created, but I do wish the scenes had a bit more weight to them.

I am super bugged at "Nephilim" being used as a singular. That's like saying "a Cherubim". One Nephil, several Nephilim. Come on, it's not hard!

The joke about "falling out of the sky", quite apart from being spoiled by the comic, was put to better use in Dogma.

Edmund's quite sweet in a puppyish way, like the better sides of Jace. Even the rakish behavior doesn't change that. And I was amused by the Linnette introduction.

The Midnight Heir

Still fairly enoyable, I would say more so than the previous one.

"Seventeen-year-old boy" is an odd way of phrasing it - does he know how old Jamie is, or making a really specific guess? (I haven't read TID.)

I like Magnus better in this one, he seems to be acting less selfish - though possibly the history I don't know would explain that. (And I know I always protest the way Magnus has to help everybody out on the show and nobody does it for him, but being allowed to have your own problems and ask for help sometimes is NOT THE SAME as being shallow and callous, which is how he comes off in some of these stories.)

Jamie is less charming than his grandfather, possibly because he has book!Jace's whole self-pity thing going on. (And shooting out a person's peg leg deserves a punch in the face, if you ask me.) But I still got engaged in his story.

It kind of bugs me, the way Shadowhunter families are these massive monoliths, so that all Herondales act like some variations of Jace and all Lightwoods before Alec and Izzy are raging assholes. First, because we are not our parents, that's not how heritage works. Second, because even if it did work like that, family name only follows the paternal line, which means that after a few generations there'll be lots of influences from all over the gene pool, so wtf. It's the kind of sweeping generalizations that - don't hate me know, Harry Potter fans, but - that feel really Harry Potterish.

The whole Tatiana thing is a bit too OTT, as well. It's all appropriately gothic, but maxed up to such a degree that it's hard to think of as anything but parody. Aaaand we get a Catherine the Great crack, because just like with Marie Antoinette, spreading centuries-old misogynist smear campaigns even further is always good for a laugh.

The story does make me more intrigued to read TID, though.

The Rise of the Hotel Dumont

This story is parodically gangstery, which bothers me less than the first couple of stories because the setting is so often parodied anyway. It gives the whole thing a rather Bugsy Malone feel (if less cute). The main downside is, obviously, that it makes the sad and horrifying events come off a bit pat. It's not a bad story, but it's so frothy it's almost nonexistent, which is impressive, considering the subject matter. Like so often before with these books, the emotional resonance is almost entirely missing.

I always wondered, since Magnus is the High Warlock of Brooklyn, if there were other High Warlocks in New York. I guess now I know! (Though is there a new one in Manhattan, or is it vacant?)

Magnus's comments about Harlem made me realize that everyone he has interacted with so far has been either white or various warlock colours. Does he ever hang out with other Indonesians, or is his past too sore for that?

Saving Raphael Santiago

The beginning, with its detective pastiche, is a bit too mannered, even if I can see what they're getting at. And again, the supposedly horrifying bits are mostly just meh. But as soon as Raphael shows up.... Yes. There's the emotional content I've been waiting for. I don't know if it's pre-existing feelings from the show, but I don't think so - Raphael has never been a favourite there. (I don't mind him. I just don't think much about him.)

He's super touching here, in his crabby, stubborn, drily funny way, and it makes me retroactively mourn his death even though I didn't when it happened. (Always have the character development BEFORE the death scene, it really helps!)

Watching him despair at what he has become was touching, and the parallell to Magnus's childhood heartwrenching. And then we get all that mulish determination Raphael has in getting himself fit to see his mother, and the strength of character required to make him second in command. (Which, I don't think book!Raphael would ever allow himself to get addicted to Izzy's blood. Not sure that's a point against that storyline - there are plenty of other points against it - but it did occur to me.)

I loved the, "I am someone who talks sense, and there is very little job competition."

Sidenotes: I don't throw my cat birthday parties, but then, I don't throw myself birthday parties either.

I think it's entirely fair that Raphael doesn't do the washing up.

I scribbled down "fist bumps in 1953?" and went to look it up. Apparently, there is some historical evidence that fist bumps happened earlier than that, but it definitely wasn't a common gesture until the 1970s or later. The more you know!

The Fall of the Hotel Dumort

I don't have a whole lot to say about this one. It wasn't bad. It wasn't exactly good either. I kind of wish we could have seen Magnus' and Camille's actual relationship, maybe that way it would have had more of an emotional punch. (Or is that in TID? If so, my bad for saving them until later.) Then again, scenes not having the weight they're supposed to have is a recurring theme with these books. But apart from that, I don't really have any complaints.

Oh, except one: Why would anyone do cocaine five times in an hour, and on a plane no less? It seems unnecessary. I've never done cocaine, but surely the effects last longer than that?

What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything (And Who You're Not Officially Dating Anyway)

This is the first one I actually found kind of funny. I liked the demon coming with useless gift advice. (And as a Povel Ramel fan, I thought, "Hey, at least you're not buying a zebra...")

I'm also really warming up to Book!Raphael, who is amusing precisely because he's not trying to be. There's something so relatable about characters who are So. Done. With. Everything.

I continue to be entirely lukewarm on the book!Malec relationship, though, more's the pity.

The Last Stand of the New York Institute

I am wondering what, if anything, Catarina's magic can do for the AIDS patients. It's not really explained. I'm also not sure how I feel about the AIDS crisis being used as a backdrop like this. I get the parallell with various types of prejudice, but it still feels a little too close to just a way to say "hey, it's the 80s", like Magnus's clothes. IDK, I keep wavering back on forth on this one.

I am, however, pleased at my namesake being so awesome.

While I appreciate the irony of Lucian/Luke going after werewolves, I'm a bit "eh" on how the Circle members are written here. They come off as pretty flat, and not in a "threatening crowds are a scary mass of anonymousness" way (because nothing is really scary in this book). Valentine's evil is at least more vivid, even if it is a bit moustachio-twirling.

nd the stuff about the Herondale family dying out, again, seems very focused on family names rather than actual family. I mean, I assume Tessa had some female descendants at some point? So from her perspective, shouldn't their families count as well?

I did like the way Lucian saved the werewolf girl - that was mentioned in an earlier book, wasn't it? It seemed familiar when I read it.

The pacing of this particular story felt off; I wrote in my notes: "Summarizing stuff that should have been spelled out and spelling out things that should be summarized."

Fuck the joke about how Jane Austen would have claimed the TV was full of demons and hit it with her parasol. The woman was a literary genius living in a time of inventions. I hate the trope that everyone from the past was a moron.

The ending was kind of sweet. (Though I do wonder at almost-two-year-old Clary sitting still in her mother's arms long enough that Magnus thought she was a little baby. If nothing else, wouldn't the sheer size of the bundle give her away?)

The Course of True Love (And First Dates)

I have to admit, when Alec is described as this young and insecure, their relationship kind of squicks me. I know he's legal and everything, but legal isn't always the same as adult, and Alec is written as a very young kind of 18-year-old. I couldn't get away from the thought, "Jesus, Magnus, you're dating a kid." Which brings it right back to the disbelief I feel in general with paranormal YA romances, of "...but why would you even WANT to... they're not REMOTELY ready..." Which, of course, is because I'm twice as old as the intended audience, and I see it from the perspective of the immortal lover, not the teenager.

I never get that feeling with show!Alec. He's inexperienced, but he's still comfortably an adult, who knows how to handle responsibilities and how to stand up for himself. (Of course, the fact Matthew Daddario is almost 30 helps.) Then there's the fact that I get second-hand embarrassment easily and just found most of the date mortifying.

So, yeah. I read this one with a vague sense of discomfort, more than anything else. I liked the werewolf fight, though.

The Voicemail of Magnus Bane

Eh. This strikes me as something authors write to amuse themselves - or in this case, three authors amusing each other. I've got nothing against that. Just not sure it needed to be published. But then, I have a tendency to not be terribly amused by comedy in general. (I laugh at stuff. Just usually not stuff that goes I AM BEING FUNNY the way a lot of comedy does.)

It also served to put Isabelle on the list of "characters who are dicks in the books". Teenager or not, who the hell thinks that's appropriate?

But people who are not me may have found it funny, and if so, it served its purpose.

#magnus bane #shadowhunters #the bane chronicles

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