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sepublic · 4 years

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The Infinity Train’s All-or-Nothing Gamble

Oh, Simon Laurent, you… MESSED UP, messed up… I don’t even know what to call you… A pile of ash? That seems a bit too soon, but then so was bragging about murdering Tuba, so I mean. Mm.

A lot of people are rightfully discussing how small Simon’s number was, how he was just a kid when he got abducted by the Infinity Train! And it makes you wonder, surely he could’ve figured things out on his own, had the Infinity Train NOT kidnapped him, right…?

…But by that logic, we could also say that surely he would’ve improved HAD it taken him? Obviously having seen that option through, Simon didn’t improve and instead became a straight-up murderer and traitor. Given what Oweeeeeen Dennis had to say about the Infinity Train appearing to people who are at a ‘crossroads’ in life, it makes me think…

…What if Simon was, in a sense… destined to be messed-up? That had the Infinity Train not picked him up, it could see into his future, and it would’ve seen that Simon would’ve become just as screwed-up an adult in the human world, as he did on the Infinity Train?

But the Infinity Train is WEIRD, to say the least. There are a lot of variables. Perhaps Fate isn’t as determined on the Infinity Train, as it is in our world. So, the Infinity Train kidnaps Simon, under the belief that… Either he’ll still become as messed-up as he was fated to be due to his circumstances and mindset, OR there was a chance he’d improve! And even the smallest chance is better than NO chance at all, so one might argue that the Infinity Train was justified!

Of course, Oweeeeen also said that the Infinity Train and One-One can be wrong. So…?

(I’d ask him myself, but somehow I doubt I’d get a straightforward answer.)

Does the Infinity Train appear to people, ideally at moments when their hypothetical numbers would be at their lowest? It never appeared to Amelia until after Alrick’s death… But then again, why appear before his death, what would she fix/learn then? How to cope with the death of a loved one BEFORE they died???

Oweeeeen mentioned crossroads. It makes me wonder if once a person has an issue, then the moment they’re at a crossroads, where they could proceed to fall down a slippery slope no matter how low their number is, OR change for the better… That either option is equally likely… Then the Infinity Train comes in to hopefully tip the scales in the balance of their emotional healing. Healing is a weird process… Could a passenger’s number stay stagnant for a long while, or would it inevitably climb because of this, as that’s proof they’re not improving and being stuck in their old ways?

What if the Infinity Train knew Simon was messed-up no matter what, and picked him up because his interactions with others (not just Grace but the kids who joined the Apex) could teach them a lesson? Though with Grace, I’d question this… Which makes me wonder if SHE was also gonna be super-messed up, with or without Simon. So in the end, Simon and Grace were put on for the sake of some other kids destined to board the Infinity Train, while still given the chance to improve themselves… Who knows? Maybe not even Oweeeeen!

Discussing Simon “Boy am I MESSED UP or what?” Laurent further, it’s worth noting that Grace, at least initially, is willing to take the blame for misleading Simon. That part of her growth came from acknowledging that she DID deceive him. For a moment Grace said that Simon could absolve himself of the blame, that could he change while not actually having to confront himself over HIS own mistakes by dumping them onto Grace! But the whole time he tries to kill her, it’s not over lying to him and causing Simon to become a murderer… Rather, Simon is under the impression that Grace only started lying recently.

Does he know, deep in his heart, that he really CAN’T blame Grace for this- That should it turn out that Amelia was telling the truth, he was still accountable for his actions no matter what Grace said at the time… And her admitting that she’s not supposed to take care of him basically confirmed this? Was Simon latching onto the IDEA of Grace, the idea of a Grace that was never wrong… And now he was trying to kill off this ‘corrupted’ Grace to preserve the perfect one in his memory?

Because admitting she was wrong, even if he tries to scapegoat the blame onto Grace… I think Simon would’ve been more horrified by the thought of a Grace who was always wrong up until now, VS a Grace who had actually been totally right and had only recently gone down the wrong path! And he’s more betrayed by the former option than the latter… So Simon just opts to shut up Grace, because clearly she’s become a liability if she’s wrong now! And if turned out that Grace had been wrong from the beginning, well then why suddenly start trusting her at all, period? I mean, look at how she threw Hazel under the bus! (Train? Well not really only TUBA was thrown underneath the train…)

Of course, Simon only acknowledges that Hazel was genuinely betrayed if it’s in a context that justifies his dislike of Grace, because otherwise you can’t betray a thing, right? Because otherwise fully acknowledging that moment as a betrayal also means fully acknowledging Hazel as a person, which means fully acknowledging that Simon considered killing a CHILD and that her grief over Tuba was real… you get the idea. I swear it’s like I’m taking a Criminal Psychology course and Simon is my case-study…!

Going off what @fermented-writers-block reminded me, of what Oweeeeeen said about the Infinity Train ‘trying to account for all possibilities’ with its many, MANY cars, some of inexplicable practicality…? I have to wonder if the implication is that, be it on a literal or metaphorical sense, the chaotic environment of the Infinity Train provides more means and basis for change, for a passenger to pick a certain path and go down it… Versus the more orderly structure back home.

Granted, what if the Infinity Train were to rescue a passenger from a war-torn environment? Surely THAT would be a lot less ‘orderly’ than the Infinity Train! But then again its objective is more towards healing, so… Either the Infinity Train rescues someone from a bad situation and they’re in a better one on the Infinity Train so they can heal! OR it’s just as bad… but also chaotic enough that the randomness of events and experiences could cause a change in –hopefully- the right direction!

That is to say… The Infinity Train doesn’t know what it’s doing either. If we DO get a Book 4, I have to wonder if the direction will be One-One taking a more proactive role as Conductor and making sure passengers are less messed-up… Of course once he DOES start stepping up with his role, then why stop there? Why not keep breaking MORE rules, until you eventually decided to stop putting people aboard the Infinity Train in the first place? And I have to wonder if the hypothetical Book 4 will go more into the determinism of the denizens, especially since Lake is a pretty vocal indication in the direction of them being able to make their own destiny, for the most part.

And hey- If Lake can do it, then maybe One-One is capable of learning some sense, and just stopping the Infinity Train, period! Or at the very least, only picking passengers up from objectively-terrible and dangerous situations where they’d TOTALLY die or be further traumatized, and then being more proactive in keeping them safe as they make a journey… Or just dropping them off somewhere else back on Earth!

Honestly I would not be at all shocked if Oweeeeeeen’s idea for a hypothetical ending involved the Infinity Train no longer making any ‘stops’ for passengers, that this is the last ride… It’ll keep moving, but only for its denizens (because we’ve established they’re people and destroying the Train and their lives is unfair). Or, the Infinity Train just keeps going, and GOING… Because they don’t call it the Infinity Train for nothing!

Jeez, this train is making me go mad. No wonder Simon went nuts. Overall, if I HAD to guess… I think the Infinity Train, as pointed out to me by @fermented-writers-block, is just as chaotic as Earth, that both Earth and the Infinity Train allow people to choose their own fates respectively, that your destiny isn’t pre-determined on Earth when you’re potentially rescued by the Infinity Train! It’s just that to the Infinity Train, if you’re at a crossroads in your head, it may as well pick you up because the chaotic environment provides more potential…

More potential for growth, but also more potential for becoming messed-up, so it’s an All-or-Nothing Gambit, like some messed-up Gambler designed this automaton! Like the train WANTS you to go ALL THE WAY with your healing, or go all the way with becoming messed-up, because apparently Earth is too stagnant for meaningful progress in either direction right?

#infinity train #infinity train book 3 #infinity train cult of the conductor #speculation #analysis #infinity train simon #simon laurent #owen dennis

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ralfstrashcan · 5 years

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3x21 Reaction / Commentary

I was seriously wondering if this was Alec because Magnus loss = melt down = shaky fingers but Alec would never voluntarily drink something so pretentious. But uuhhh I had thought Jonathan angry-flapped through the rift to Edom? Why he now here still?

More seelie queen crown, yeah!!

Not buying that whole “your demon blood is burning away your humanity” because, again, he lived years without being bonded to Clary so what's taken that “transformation” so long? Also, will he become like, a raven? A harpy? Oh no, I saw the promo. He'll be blond. Makes sense.

He just showed that he's not interested, stop harassing him you sick cougar.

Uhhhhh, objection your honor. That fake blade only contained like three atoms of the original Glorious. But whatever, details amiright.

Also if they wanna tell me it's the blade that triggered the transformation then a) wtf why would a blade designed to break something evil make the evil actually MORE evil wtf for a shit equipment is that b) can we expect some ridic changes for Clary too, that make her even more Mary Sue? c) if Lucifer was so badass, where is he? Something killed him, maybe? Since Jonathan is declared most uniquest thing to ever unique?

“A splendid pet bird. And he died a few decades back so I'd like to recruit you as replacement,. Whatcha say? I'll even drop bird themed pick up lines around you all day.” God I'm making myself sick.

BS when you think about it, because every individual is unique. Good luck salvaging the climate change and what not, seelie queen, on your heroic quest to preserve all that is unique.

#rejected, take that you prowling predator. Can you believe she annoyed him so much he just abandoned his pretentious cream drink thingy? So rude. Also nice touch that they remembered that thing with the flowers and Jonathan making them poor flowers wilt. Btw would that have worked if they were plastic flowers?? Haha ok sorry.

Wtf I'm very much not on board with the seelie queen having a weird Jonathan fetish. Also, if the sole reason she has it is that Jonathan is “one of a kind” then I wonder why she wasn't ruthlessly hitting on Simon the same way? Or technically, before Simon became a daylighter, on Cain, getting him to leave the sewers and chill in the seelie realm instead?

1) Wow can you believe they managed to spare Malec's drama 3 seconds of consideration before getting absorbed in themselves again? Amazing. 2) Dude, you weren't in control of your actions while Clary was brainwashed and very much in control of her actions. That's not really comparable? But whatever.

Some great “love” you've got going on there, Maryse, writing Magnus off after, what? Half a day? Two days? Smh.

???????????????????? So they want to tell me Magnus plastered his magic like a bandaid over the rift but didn't really close it? Well, I am prepared with outrage to point out all the ways in which this is bullshit.

1) There clearly was no such thing to be seen from the other side.

Since Edom and Earth are two different dimensions and on Earth's side there was no rift in the dimension's fabric anymore that obviously means if the wraiths slipped through that Edom crack they'd either be lost in limbo or flapping around in some inter-dimesional space. But they couldn't reach Earth. So I fail to see how this is a problem.

2) How the hell do the NY Shadowhunters know about this? Since from their side the rift was well and truly closed? They don't know that Magnus has to keep his magical band-aid in place? The only thing they have to wonder about is why the hell Magnus hasn't returned yet since Magnus proved in 3x20 that apparently interdimensional travel works with normal warlock portals and those fancy pentagram things aren't necessary.

3) Uhhhh if Magnus has to stay there to keep up the magical band-aid (since exit options clearly aren't the issue here) wtf won't he tire at some point? Am I supposed to believe exhausting isn't a thing in Edom? What happens if he has to sleep? (Sidenote, what the hell do they eat in Edom anyway? Will he have to roast some shax demons? Disturbing.) Anyway back to the topic at hand, if I'm supposed to believe that Magnus is THAT strong he can keep up this magic (a magic that was so enormous he couldn't even achieve it from Earth) for eternity without taking a break, then I doubly don't get why he can't just SEAL the goddamn rift?! And don't tell me it's because band-aid magic is something he can do, and different from rift sealing magic which is something he can't do. Because again, 2x20 is a thing where Magnus proves that he is capable of sealing a rift; so the only explanation of why he didn't do it in 3x20 is because the rift was too powerful. Now correct me if I'm wrong but to me Magnus + Enhanced Edom Powers equals He Closes The Rift, not Weird Band-Aid Magic. Wtf.

HAHAHAH I CAN'T!!!!! THANKS MAGNUS FOR POINTING THIS OUT!!! AND IN THE SASSIEST WAY POSSIBLE!!!!! IT'S BEEN BUGGING ME SINCE 3x10 XD XD XD

Love that shot.

1) Thanks, Lilith, for confirming that Magnus is in fact constantly supplying the band-aid with magic and thus exposing this whole plot line as completely frakkin illogical. 2) Wtf Lilith, why the heck did you go back to Edom in 3x16 if you wanted to murder Jonathan????? IT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL WTF 3) Where tf is Cain?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I CAN'T

Wow that escalated quickly. I hate that even though Magnus knows it's just a trick to get into his head it still hurts him, because this is how he is: alwasy second-guessing his worth. He deserves better from all of them, deserves more from them, so he wouldn't feel this so keenly.

Ok, good save, I was just gearing up for a rage about why the hell Magnus is more powerful than the literal mother of demons who could defeat everyone, even with his Ddom-Edition-Powers because come on. However, Magnus must know that this is just a temporal solution because recovering means at some point she'll be recovered and, well.

Also, this shot haha.

Hahahaha I see he inherited the hell puns from Asmodeus along with the real estate XD

I mean, yeah, and then he acted like a total fool in his last few days. Great way to go, man. #stillbitter

“People mattered to Jordan. People, their troubles, their pain...”

That was sweet.

HAHAHAHA THAT WAS HILARIOUS

Probably off to do something to enrage me, so same as always.

Oh look, he's robbing a bakery because being jobless and needing food doesn't mix well.

OMG I SUDDENLY REMEMBER THIS FROM THE 3B TRAILER. You know, Luke being all creepy in the back of a car? Wtf, honestly I think I'll have even less patience for Human!Luke than I have Inapt!Werewolf!Luke. They're really testing me.

“....like Sizzy” Hahahah okay I'll try to behave myself. And I had time to prepare, it was obvious they'd use that inspirational thing Maia said for Sizzy purposes.

Yeah...... #irony #obviously me behaving myself isn't working out, who's surprised? I'm not.

Don't they have fire extinguishers in the Institute somewhere? I mean, there's regulations for that, right? Lemme guess, that's remnants of the Glorious fake sword that pierced her? And now she can't be with Simon without killing him, hahaha, all Sizzy problems solved XD

When I saw this (in the Sneak Peek, but still counts) my first thought was “Aha NOW he tries to find a solution but when Magnus first lost his magic he couldn't be bothered RUDE ALEC WTF” lol ahahahah

Question time: 1) Didn't he have plants in there last episode?

OH RIGHT HE HAD!!! What happened to them? *Sherlock Voice* Did he eat them??

2) Why didn't Alec wonder where the hell Lorenzo was? Sure, he's a little preoccupied atm with losing Magnus, but he should have realized Lorenzo was weirdly absent about five hours into his happy little loft occupation???

3) I fully expected the scratching to be Chameleon!Lorenzo vying for attention, but seeing it, omg my heart broke a little. Can you imagine the desperation?? Poor evil lizard baby.

You know, I find it inherently troubling that Alec assumes Magnus always had this lizard and has only now decided to relocate its terrarium into the loft's main room, instead of thinking Magnus got the lizard as, idk, a pick-me-up after the breakup. I mean, what kind of lousy pet holder does he take Magnus for? Not even mentioning he has one, never taking care of it? That's not Magnus. Alec should know better.

Als Bohemian so incisively pointed out, why would he have created a pet cobra that he calls “baby” if he hated reptiles? And while, granted, Alec might not know about this, I believe Cat should. So wtf.

.....................................they honestly felt the need to tell her this? In grave detail and that this was their first kiss? Why would they do that?? Or did she look at the tapes??? So many questions.

Lol okay I didn't even intend to be so spot on with the Sizzy prediction. More importantly though, she won't be able to shadowhunt anymore.

Why is anyone (except Magnus (and occasionally Alec)) left in charge of anything, ever. *sigh*

But I mean, at least there's this

Small mercies (aka comedic pockets in a vast sea of illogic shit) I guess XD

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA I AM DEAD I CAN'T HAHAHAH HIS FACE!!!!!!!!!!

Jace is me, I am Jace

So.... many....... questions...............

Okay, so I'm severely confused. If this demon has info on what's happening in Edom right now, then either he left Edom after Lilith started gathering her army so there's a rift there somewhere, OR there's a way for news to travel between Edom and Earth, probably through, you guessed it, a tiny rift. So wtf, show, please explain because I don't understand.

..............................................................

The audacity. The fucking audacity. MAGNUS WILL BE DEAD, IS WHAT YOU SHOULD TAKE AWAY FROM THAT. NOT THAT THE RIFT REOPENS ARE YOU KIDDING ME WTF JACE I CAN'T BELIEVE IT I EVEN CURSED EXPLICITLY I NEVER DO THAT WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Wow. Alec, can you please punch him?

Don't get me wrong. They're shadowhunters, of course it is their duty to prevent this to protect the mundanes. But, delivery?! Show some worry at the prospect of the love of your parabatai's life dying??? before continuing with business as usual?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SAME CLARY, BECAUSE WTF?! I REPEAT, WTF!!!! Didn't she listen to Helen at all? It's not going to protect her, it's going to blast her to frakking pieces. Wtf how dumb is she??? Hääääääääääää?????

lol Simon, you'd just stab yourself in the eye with it XD But I appreciate the sentiment XD

I AM THIS CLOSE TO JUST, RECORD MY LAUGHTER BECAUSE I'M DYYYYYING OVER HERE OKAY HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHA Also he should call Maia, because life as a werewolf suxx way less than life as a vampire. Then again, IMMORTAL HUSBANDS SIGN ME THE F UP, IMMORTAL ALEC WAS ENDGAME ALL ALONG AHAHAHAHAHA YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Okay, on a more coherent note. I LOVE this line. I was so painfully deprived of Alec throwing himself into risk and action just to protect and help Magnus during 3B that it's not even funny. So this was really awesome. But, consider this: if he really wanted to go through with it he'd have to wait like a whole day before the transformation is completed, so uhhh impracitcal.

YES. YES. PLEASE MORE OF ENRAGED ALEC SCOLDING THEM LIKE THE KIDS THEY ARE. (But, uh, ragefully running away from his sire in spe wasn't the cleverest move if he wants to go through with it immediately ahaha XD)

I mean, nice of them to contriubute. All it took was Alec (!!!!!) flipping his shit. It seems they didn't have the idea to look into something themselves. Lol I'm inclined to be with Lilith on that one, are they even worth it??? Smh.

Full disclosure, for the longest time I was sure those were burning dog shit piles XD

Can we talk about how Jonathan is at a point where he doesn't really seem to care if he lives or dies because everything is pointless to him? (Btw if I manage to actually write the epic 3x21+22 rewrite I have in mind then it'd start here.)

I mean this was smooth and all, but......? Wasn't Meliorn like, totally over Izzy? I'm meaning this in a premonition-y way, not just this line. His rekindled feelings come pretty much out of nowhere.

I get that this is the alliance rune from the books. But why the hell would she do that in this situation instead of a rune that allows Shadowhunters to survive in Edom? In which universe is alliance rune your first thought instead of resiliance rune?? Or just a plain Accio Magnus rune, ffs!!!Makes no sense.

This is epic and all, but excuse me while I roll my eyes real hard.

Also ignoring the seelie queen and her weird fetish 2.0 because who cares.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I CCCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT LORENZO IS A FANBOY HAHAHAHA I BET YOU HE WILL CORNER SIMON AT SOME POINT AND BEG HIM FOR AN AUTOGRAPH HAHAHAHAHA

“As my first act on the Downworld Council...”

So you mean to tell me that from 3x02 til 3x21 actually only a week passed? Because the Downworld Council meetings are weekly scheduled??? Tf hahaha.

Hahahhahhaa I mean I totally get why he reacts that way. Also, may I ask the dreaded question: WHERE THE F IS CATARINA???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No honestly, I give up. I just. I give up.

Hahahahaha

“The angels wouldn't have given me this power if they didn't want me to use it.”

Premonition!Ralf: Ha. Hahahhahaha. Ha.

THE COMEDY WE DESERVE HAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA PERFECT!!!! Not least because it's immediately followed by

which makes it seem as if Lorenzo is complimenting Meliorn's prowess as a lover LOL

SIGH. So in 3x10 it was the portal that allowed Magnus to EASILY travel back to Earth, not Asmodeus kindly giving him a lift. So then let me ask why the hell he didn't make a portal like this in 3x20?! Did he already know he wouldn't be able to seal the rift but would have to keep it closed 24/7? Ridiculous. Also, why does Alec even ask this, since he saw Magnus use that exact same portal in 3x10.

I think you should have held frikkin hands.

HAHAHA ALEC, HONEY, WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE ANYWAY???? “We're right here, next to those withered trees. There's sand on the ground and wraiths in the sky. Everything looks red. And from here I can see that one ruin!!”

Weird Lorenzo & Alec bonding is intriguing. That's all I'm saying on the matter for now. I'm reserving judgement.

(Edit: After watching both 3x21 and 3x22 this clearly marks the point where Lorenzo's Instant Redemption Arc sets in and simultaneously comes to a close. Thanks, I hate it. Let antagonists be antagonists, dammit. At the end of the day not everyone is a goody two-shoes. That's life. UGH. Also, let me introduce my theory that while traveling between Earth and Edom Lorenzo's character was ripped from him in a severe Plot Convenience Turbulence. What a shame.)

But hell yeah to Alec's emotions running rampant and him being unable to control the magic. Another headcanon confirmed (that I didn't really knew I had, lol).

Hahahahha dude could you be any more pretentious XD XD XD

Hahahahahahaha this is the best day of my life.

Hahahaha Meliorn just got promoted to one of my favorites. Better late than never amiright.

I get this, this taking stock conversation, from a meta standpoint. But BITCH CAN YOU FOCUS ON MAGNUS FOR ONCE IN YOUR SELF-ABSORBED LIFE IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK WTF DAMMIT

Yeah, me too. Who knew demonic transformations came with a villain hairdo make over?? Nature truly is beautiful.

Me, watching: I might be totally oblivous, but did this crown always have a stripe thing on the top, too? Ralf, editing this reaction post: Yes. Yes it did. You're not as observant as you like to think. Me, reading that: .......harsh

..........do I have to understand why he isn't running away screaming? I get the instinct to wreak havoc because everything hurts and is pointless but wtf, the seelie queen is doing the exact same things Lilith did to him. Using him, only seeing him as a power source that has to be cultivated but has no feelings, no worth, and weirdly kissing him. He should, for all intents and purposes, be running for the hills. (But also, uh, neat nail polish and rings, seelie queen. You've got style.)

HAHAHAHA I mean, I already prepared two Jeliorn Dumb Comics, but this is reaching ridiculous levels XD XD XD I'm soooo here for it.

Hahahahaha XD XD XD

“Runes bubbling back, incredible” Yeah, no shit. I'm not buying. I could even largely argue my point, making references to the seelies that got “treated” in 3x17 that weren't rendered half-human-half-angel but mundane, meaning they lost their angelic part, too, meaning the serum removes angelic blood as well as demon blood. But since I couldn't care less about Luke (right now or in general? That's your guess to make) I'm not even getting worked up over it XD

Dude, you're aware this is like the perfect opening for getting a verbal diss, right?

Wow, three seconds a shadowhunter and here we are with the racist jokes again. That was quick.

Also, let me say how exceedingly ridiculous it is that Luke just walks out of there with a “No thank you” and Evil Praetor Guy does nothing against it literally because Luke said “But blackmailing me would mean you're evil ;__;”

bitch please

Look, can we appreciate this a little more? Like, a lot more??? Can I pause the episode here and stare at this for half an hour or something????? Alec saying he's willing to just, leave behind life as he knew it, very possibly never seeing anyone of his family again, just so he gets to stay with Magnus? I mean, that's some Major Immortal Alec Energy right there. Serve me more please.

..................wow instead I get Clary depriving me of a Malec Reunion Smooch wtf?! Uuuhhhh no thank you!!!!

AHAHAHA THAT SUFFERING FACE HAHAHAHAHA OMG AMAZING Kicked Pouting Suffering Puppy Jace <3<3<3

Btw what Jace said about Simon really gave me something to think about. I'm confused but intrigued. I like.

#shadowhunters #3x21 #magnus bane #alec lightwood #clary fray #jace wayland #simon lewis #isabelle lightwood #lorenzo rey #maia roberts #luke garroway #meliorn #the seelie queen #jonathan morgenstern #lilith #reaction

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ayearofpike · 5 years

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Thirst No. 4: The Shadow of Death

Simon Pulse, 2011 492 pages, 28 chapters + epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-1319-1 LOC: PZ7.P626 Th 2011 OCLC: 731720997 Released August 9, 2011 (per B&N)

The immortal Sita has died. Only not — her soul still lives, in the body of her descendant. How did this happen? In seeking the answer, Sita will learn the secret to defeating the ancient race that imperils humanity. The search won’t be easy, though. Sita must traverse time and space, heaven and hell, the physical and the spiritual, and what the hell is even going on my head hurts.

Honestly, I’m not sure what Pike is going for in this book. Is it trying to be smarter than other authors of the era and genre by bending the rules of continuity? Is it striving for a narrative that is just beyond his reach? Is it just pounding out Another Damn Sita Book against deadline to get that green? It could be any of those. At least it ties up the story of the Telar and the IIC relatively well, although there’s still enough loose ends to keep our vampire going if necessary (and of course it is; Thirst 5 is still on the horizon).

One thing Pike has totally bought into is the arbitrary capitalization of the names of things to make them Important Artifacts. You remember this: probably the impetus was Suzanne Collins, naming specific elements of the Hunger Games to showcase why they were relevant and how the country had accepted them as elements of the competition. But then every single friggin’ YA book about a post-apocalyptic dystopia started adopting the shit. At least Collins tried to come up with catchy names for her Artifacts. The other authors just come up with a word to call something and throw an initial cap on it, and Pike leaps happily aboard the Proper Name Train. And every time you think he’s drilled down to the smallest level of a Category, he names a smaller subgroup that needs its own Capital. Eventually it makes me want to put the Book down and kick the Ass.

Is it obvious I’m teaching again? Not just because I’m going all loco on repetitive cliches, but also because it’s taken me like three weeks to write this.

Let’s just bore down into the summary. We start with Sita in her descendant Teri’s body, awakening to that fact at her own funeral. Apparently she had a couple of days that are just blank or at best hazy, but then Miracle Baby Teen took Teri’s hands and looked into her eyes, and crystallized Sita’s presence. Nobody is sure what this means, exactly, but Sita is feeling blood hunger for the first time in years. The new body doesn’t have the five thousand years of experience and transfusions from multiple vampires and gods and saviors to abate it, after all. So when she gets back to her hotel, she orders room service — only they don’t offer blood. But the delivery boy has some, and dude does she drink it ALL. So then there’s some wacky hijinks as she has to clumsily get the body out of the hotel and dispose of it.

She’s not ready to reveal herself to Immortal Boyfriend yet, though. He was against her turning Teri into a vampire in the first place, remember, and in her weak state she figures he’d kill her. So she carefully and strategically reveals some info like Sita told Teri as they try to figure out what to do about the bigger threats of the virus wielded by the immortals and the crippling mental focus of the monster corporation. The Telar-ites want to focus on mass producing the cure to the virus and getting it distributed, but Sita thinks the only way they can do that is to involve IIC. Someone’s research has turned up that all of the main members were students of the same parapsychology professor at Berkeley(?), and so Sita, Seymour, Miracle Teen’s mom, and the young Indian girl who has been sucked into this life all drive out to meet him.

But before they go, Sita/Teri has to clean up her mess. Apparently she’s not as stealthy as she used to be either, because some dumbass kid saw her taking the room service cart with a body stuffed under it down to the garage, and his mom reported this Olympic champion to the police. So she has to try to wipe out any trace of suspicion from the cops’ minds, as well as finding a safe source of blood to feed on. Turns out one of them has a wife who is a doctor, and after an overreaching act of hypnotism, Sita gets into the hospital blood bank and takes all of it, then goes back home with the doctor and wipes out her memory as well as her husband’s. So it’s cool that she still has her vampire hypnosis, but it’s super clumsy, just like everything else in this new body. And what happened to Teri? Miracle Teen seems to think she’s dead, but that can’t be right. But why not? And if not, how come Sita is so in control?

The professor is quite a font of information, and he sure is scared of the IIC boss. He suggests they go talk to her ex from school, who was one of the major catalysts in the discovery of group-focused mind control via ESP. This dude and his girlfriend are still living in Santa Cruz, and they aren’t at all surprised to find four random diverse strangers at their door. Sita is confused, though, that the math doesn’t add up in regard to how old these people are. According to the research, their studies happened in the ’60s, but there’s no way this dude can be older than 40 when he ought to be knocking on 70. It gets late quickly, and so the couple offers our ramshackle group a couple of rooms for the night. Sita takes the opportunity to decode some more of Original Vampire’s book, and learn more about the deep and true love between him and the Telar he married. She also calls Teri’s parents to check in, and learns that the cops are still looking for her in connection with the missing room service dude, so that sucks.

In the morning, the CEO’s ex tells them more about his research and how IIC stole it to find exactly the right sociopaths to use in its mind-control device. Basically it was an astrological predictor, so that you could tell with a high degree of accuracy what someone would be like and how their extrasensory facility would manifest based on where and when they were born. Sita realizes, all of a sudden, that the creepy kid she ran into at the CEO’s house is actually conceived with this ex, because of his own predilection for ESP and his familiarity with the needs of the astrological predictor. He talks about having been targeted by the device himself, and his girlfriend says that she managed to shake him free by pushing him down the well on the property. They’ve mentioned this well before, and how it provides such amazing water, so now Sita is curious.

She ends up climbing down the bucket rope in the middle of the night, into a vast cavern with a faint glow at one end. Following the light leads her to: her own body. Sita’s body, that is, the one that was supposed to have been buried in Denver. Sitting by it is the astrological researcher’s girlfriend, who Sita immediately realizes is more than she’s revealed herself to be. Yep: it’s Original Vampire’s wife, Immortal Boyfriend’s mom, and one of the oldest and most ancient Telar still in existence. But it’s not like that. She took the body to protect what it holds, not just to keep it from these creepy evils that are trying to get more power but also because — check this shit out — it’s healing.

Sita can get back into her body, Ancient Telar says. All she has to do is let Teri finish dying.

Obviously when he finds out, Immortal Boyfriend is pissed. He is totally ready to murder Sita, without actually ritualizing it so she returns to her body. And Sita knows she deserves it, sort of. She’s as much to blame as anyone for the mess they’re all in, and she loved Teri as much as any of them, maybe even more. So she’s not going to fight back if Immortal Boyfriend exacts his rage. But he can’t do it, and he does realize that having a full-strength Sita will help their cause. So they all end up back down in the cave, where they reconnect the appropriate bodies by ripping Teri’s femoral artery and allowing Sita’s corpse to drink the blood. The transfer happens fast, and lucky for Immortal Boyfriend Teri has just enough consciousness to say goodbye.

I have to step out of summary for a minute to flat-out state how GROSSLY DISSATISFYING this is. Like, for seven books now we’ve known Sita as this inhuman giant, capable of defeating everyone and anything. Now she’s in a newer body, with a younger brain and less experienced reflexes even if it has all her consciousness, and she’s supposed to start figuring out how to overcome that. To just un-write the whole thing and stick her back in her old body not even half a book later strikes me as Pike didn’t want to commit to a decision he’d already made, rather than any kind of grand plan that this was always gonna happen. And yeah, I get it, Sita’s body has all kinds of implications, but why did it have to come back almost immediately? I’d go so far as to say that this makes Teri Raine practically irrelevant to the grander scheme of the story. And it sticks the whole personality quirk we’ve just learned about Sita — where she has followed and cared about her line of descendency, one that never actually seemed believable having read the first six — even deeper into the grave.

So now the gang is all together and ready to carry out their plan. Sita waltzes into the IIC office, releasing the deadly virus as she does so, and makes her demand: use the mind control group to destroy all of the high-ranking Telar or die painfully and frightened today. This is where the Arbitrary Capitalization makes its most insidious entrance. The top Telar, the Source, can meld to form the Link, which makes them unbeatable. But IIC can focus its Array through the Cradle, powered by a smaller group known as the Lens, and at least find where they are. So once she learns a Location, Sita can use her Knowledge to open up a Can of Whoop-Ass. But to join the Lens, she’s required to offer up a sacrifice, and she figures the best candidate is the mole who keeps feeding up information on where the group is, and not least the DNA of Immortal Boyfriend so he could get possessed. Who is it? Probably the math teacher who conveniently keeps not being with the group every time they get attacked. Only as the Lens forces her to climb to the top of Truman College’s bell tower and hurl herself off it, Sita sees inside her mind and knows she was innocent the whole time.

As it happens, she feels claws on her shoulders. Ancient Telar warned her that this would probably happen: in order to tap into the powers of the extrasensory, one has to connect to a Familiar. Sita can see the ones clinging to the kids in the room, but is not permitted to look back at her own, which makes her suspect that it’s probably the most powerful demon of all — a demon that was never actually a demon, but an angel that refused to accept its grace in being less than God and ended up falling into the deepest of despair. Yeah, that one.

She calls back to base and lets her crew know what’s going on, then tries to use her newly replenished powers to fix the police detective whose brain she screwed. Only he starts feeling scared and disturbed, and she realizes that this Familiar that is now attached to her is having a negative effect on her powers. IIC Boss comes in and they talk about the computer game that everyone’s playing, the one about being saved and moving to higher planes of heavenly ability, which is (not coincidentally) being constantly written and updated by the kids in the Lens when they’re not out brain-murdering.

Have I talked about this game before? It feels like I did, but maybe I’m thinking of Alosha. Miracle Teen loves it, and he said his presence in game was literally just to make himself known. But there are obvious creepy levels behind it, and IIC Boss reveals that there is no possible way to delete or destroy the code because of how it’s been embedded into the Internet. What’s it for? We don’t know yet! We do know that there’s significant backmasking and subliminal messages which echo the invocations the Lens uses to get into its power state. So maybe this game somehow charges telepathic batteries? I’m pretty sure this is the last time Pike mentions it in this book.

But now they’re getting ready to attack the major players in the Telar, so they have to work fast and without many breaks. They get two by melting them with too much chlorine in a hot tub, and then there are four in an LA hotel that they attack by forcing one of the guards to disrupt them and break their Link. But before they can kill all the Telar, one invokes a name that throws the psychic connection into the garbage. Sita knows where they are, though, and attacks in person. We get some more Matrix shit as she leaps from a helicopter and uses stairs like trampolines, and she ends up leaving the last Telar alive with a command that he use his high-ranking government contacts to launch a missile strike on a location that she will psychically contact him with in a few hours. That is, once she figures out where the rest of the Source is hiding.

The rest of Team Vampire shows up (well, not Miracle Teen, who is smart enough to keep the hell away from the demon-summoning corporation that would love all of his power) to help Sita fight the final battle. Seymour and Immortal Boyfriend are going to vaccinate the IIC against the virus, which is dormant but not totally gone as Sita’s bargaining chip. Only not the kids in the Cradle and the Lens: Sita has arranged for them to get a full dose of the virus instead, so the company can’t wield its devilish mind-control device with impunity once its primary antagonists are all dead. Yeah, we’re murdering children now. Sweet. Oh, and also, Ancient Telar is also the mother of the leader of the Source, and Sita has learned that you can control someone who is related to the person with the blood (or DNA, or whatever the fuck marker it is they’re actually using) and so attacking the dude might kill her too. It’s a risk Ancient Telar is willing to take.

She joins the Lens, and her sacrifice is the creepy teenager who leads it. Like, she literally breaks his arm and allows his brain to murder himself. Shit, if Sita knew she could do that! They find the Source and realize it’s impenetrable; their shield is too strong and all the kids will break before they can get through. (Like, I’ll murder kids, but not before I’m done using them to murder immortals.) Ancient Telar tells Sita there is a way — she just has to remember what happened after she died. Like it’s that easy.

But she does. Suddenly, we’re back on the mountain, where Sita has just been lasered in the heart. She finds a cave and follows it down forever, until she sees others and decides she needs to follow them. The path leads to a giant river teeming with inhumanity, all sorts of dead people who are trying to answer a question about their lives in order to take a boat across. Only thing is, if you answer it wrong you’re forced to forget it. We get to remember them, though, because this is a book and not some crazy spiritual encounter.

Sita answers the first question wrong (”what is the most useless human emotion?”), and then finds a beautiful and familiar-looking young woman who tells her not to despair, because she has plenty of time to think about the answer. She’s already gotten her question right, and is waiting for Sita so they can ride together with another woman. After a second missed question (”what quality is both great and dangerous in humans?”), she meets the other woman, who also looks familiar. Weird! She tells Sita that all of the questions may be different, but the answers are all important, and they should come back to us when we need them. So I guess we can yell at the book like it’s Dora the Explorer later on. The third question is “what is the greatest mystery in the universe?” Sita knows this one: it’s that God and his names are all the same, so by invoking the name you are bringing God to you. It does take her a second, because she has to argue with the boat driver over misleading info he’s given her, but in the end she gets to cross the river with her new friends.

On the other side is a mountain full of caves. They each have to go through their own cave, and Sita ends up at an abyss, where she can see the tunnel on the other side but doesn’t know how to get there. A woman with some grotesque facial scars shows up and walks across the space, offering to help Sita do it, for a kiss. She knows about Sita’s final sin, showing a blood-stained syringe like she’s predicting kid-virus-murder, and with a kiss they will bond and the woman will protect her when it comes to final judgment. After all, she did miss the second question. And suddenly it comes flooding back to Sita, with a realization of what the correct answer is: faith. She doesn’t need to get across, necessarily; she just has to take a leap of faith.

She passes out for a minute after jumping, then comes to in a pathway with the syringe on the ground next to her. She makes her way to the obvious judgment house and sees how it works. You state your name and age, put your hands over a scale, and one of them makes diamonds and the other black pearls. Whichever side is heavier determines where you go in the afterlife, and the younger you are the less the scale expects, I guess. The young woman that Sita rode in the boat with offers to go first, and OH HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK IT’S TERI. Because this is happening in the past, remember, Sita doesn’t think Teri is dead, but the other woman says time doesn’t matter here, you can encounter people who are dead from all periods, including apparently the future. But Teri was good, duh, and she goes up. And now we learn just how old Sita is exactly: 5152 years old. Naturally someone with this long of a life and this complicated of a history produces enough gems to bury the scale entirely. Her hands drop with the exhaustion of producing so much junk, and ultimately the dark side of the scale prevails. The devil himself shows up to make a deal with Sita, though: if she destroys the light bearer, he’ll go easy on her.

And now Sita is back in her living body, still channeling into the room that observes the Source, with a bitter realization of what she has to do. Ancient Telar has described their initial Link, the one that granted her people immortality, as one that filled them with light. So she needs to kill this lady in order to make the current Source vulnerable. Which, duh, Ancient Telar knew it the whole time, and is ready to make peace with her twelve thousand years. Her soul’s absence weakens the Link, and Sita makes herself visible through multiple ancient magics to let them know of their fate. Of course they try to reason and bargain with Sita, but as she’s already been tortured nearly to death by the leader she doesn’t think it’s necessary to make a deal, and sticks around long enough to make sure they’re all still present when the last dude she left alive sends in the missile strike.

So now obviously the kids are sick and dying and Team Vampire has to get out of this building. They’re stopped by the CEO and her husband, who insist that they heal all the kids, only Sita refuses and the CEO knows why: this Cradle business has gotten out of their control and the only way out is to let it die. When her husband argues in favor of the kids, she shoots him in the fucking head and then asks Sita for one kid: her daughter. They get in the van, Seymour screaming and protesting the whole time, and they’re only maybe a mile away when the shit blows up. See, while Sita was planning for her child murder to be slow and painful, Immortal Boyfriend laced the whole place with powerful explosives so that they’d just die instantly.

Almost immediately, they get pulled over. Why? There’s no connection between this van and the building they just left, or any of their identities. But CEO confirms that the Internet program just kicked on, which means maybe there’s one person still connected to the Cradle who could make it go. Who the hell could it be? For now, Sita hypnotizes the cops away from the van and they figure out how to make it to a middle-of-nowhere hellhole hotel, where she shares a room with the young Indian girl who had been a part of the Array but has had some unusual powers against it, who had also been scarred in the face before Sita found her, who somehow had the original copy of Original Vampire’s book even though Sita KNOWS she made a copy of it to send back with her. Weird!

And suddenly Sita realizes who is the mole, the rat, the link, the answer to all of the problems. And the young Indian girl slowly drops her facade and reveals that yes, she’s been the human connection for the devil the whole time, and that she was dark and evil even before her arranged fiance threw acid in her face. And just as suddenly, Sita is talking with the devil himself, in a luxury hotel room overlooking ... I dunno, Hell City? He’s kind of pissed that she wiped out the Cradle, and counts himself lucky that the Internet program was able to be started up. Still, he offers her another deal so that his connection to the human realm won’t be lost. Sita wants the answer to the ferryman’s first question in return, but he won’t give it up. But she’s figured something else out: the light bearer is actually this first fallen angel, Lucifer. And now she’s back in the nasty hotel room, where she doesn’t hesitate to rip of the Indian girl’s head and throw it out the window.

And suddenly AGAIN, Sita is back in front of the scale, where she knows the answer to the riddle and realizes just what is holding her down: guilt. It’s her guilt that has caused her hand to rest on the dark side of the scale and pull it down. She releases it and immediately the light side takes over. She is led to a long tunnel, which leads to an intoxicating blue light, and a man with a long braid and a flute. Finally, Krishna has come for Sita. Only he didn’t have to, because he’s always been there for her, and will be even if she chooses to go back to her body.

And that’s the end of Thirst No. 4! It seems like this would have been a satisfying enough ending for this whole series, right? We got some closure, we know that the monsters have been dealt with, we are ready to be done. But we can’t, because we know there’s still a fifth book coming. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I’ve never read that one, after two attempts by Pike to end this series. Maybe it won’t suck? Let’s find out.

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babyraphael · 7 years

Text

The 2x09 Rant everyone was expecting:

WARNING: SPOILERS!!

Hi! It’s Jo, and she’s back with her weekly rant of Shadowhunters!

Tonight, I got retweeted by Sadowhunters official twitter again (it happened last week too), but let’s get to the actually motive of my rant shall we?

Okay, first I want to praise the show for giving me Magnus in a much, much better way that I described here. He was angry, but the anger went both ways, because he knows Raphael is better than this, he (like a parent does) knows that most times, teenagers aren’t in love, they’re just addicted or overly fixated in something that their partner has (in human cases a vagina/a penis, in their case, blood/yin fey).

Now, I loved Mags in tonight’s episode because, again, he showed us how much of a father he really is, and a GOOD one at that. He was disappointed, without having to voice it (because that’s something that’s stuck in your head forever trust me, and you don’t want that), he gave advice, and he protected Raphael from being beaten up by Alec (at a cost to his relationship may I add) and he cared for his wounds after the fight.

Again, I was happy with the way they decided to play out Magnus because I feel he is the only character who is awesome without being controversial, because he acts right, he is awesome and he knows how to act accordingly to each event.

I’m not going to talk about Alec, because I’ve mentioned him in my previous rant, just going to say that I was disappointed at first with the way he acted towards Raphael, and then proud because he just served Aldetree and took over the Institute (under Lightwood reign all over again). I didn’t think Izzy’s life should be exploited that way, but in this case it was for the best so I won’t complain about it.

Which brings me to Izzy and Raphael debacle.

My feelings towards Izzy have now changed and are on borderline intense dislike. Listen, these characters are older than in the books. In the books, if Izzy behaved like a totally uncontrolled brat, I would have said, well, ya know, teenagers. Right now, I don’t feel like her rage was justified. Her best friend was facing death by blood-oath, her brother was going through some issues, Jace (her other brother) has gone deep, like knees-deep in a swirl of alcohol drinking depression that is not good to his health at all and plus, the whole Downworld is facing destruction in the form that is Valentine Morgenstern. Izzy does not get to complain that people aren’t paying enough attention to her! People are panicking right now, they have their own problems. And they don’t have time or ability to help Izzy out at the moment.

One way to put it would be to blame her, because she certainly has blame in all of this. Like I said in previous posts, people warned her about the dealings of Yin Fey, like The Iron Sisters, Magnus and then Raphael. She cannot blame everyone else for being like this when in fact, she brought this onto herself. And it seems selfish to blame her brother for not being there when they all live pretty busy and eventful lives.

Then the whole Raphael thing when he says he has feelings for her, she looks shocked and then tells him to let Alec go. I don’t’ think she should be that shocked I mean most facts we know about him, he shared with her. Did she really think a vampire, the New York Clan Leader would open up to just anyone?

Which takes me to the point I’m getting at: Raphael would not have feeling for Isabelle, someone who once mauled him, who looks down on his kind just because. And let’s not forget the casual erasing of his sexuality but making him have “feelings” for Izzy (Enter AMAZING PARENT Mags when he basically told him he was so addicted on her blood that he couldn’t see what he was feeling was not, well, feelings). I’m actually glad for the whole scene in the hotel when he was punched by Alec because that way we got to see Mags as a great parent again and shining some light (see the pun?) on Raphael and practically begging him to see the truth. And Raph looked so sad, because he understood Magnus was disappointed while still caring for him, making sure his cuts weren’t all that bad and was still giving him advice and being, well, a general good dad (you wanna know who wasn’t a good dad this episode? Luke! But I’ll get to that).

Then we have the Climon thing!

I don’t ship it but It wasn’t the worst thing in tonight’s episode except from having Clary pour her heart out to Simon when she CLEARLY doesn’t feel that way and it will only hurt the person she calls her “best friend”, who was in a perfect position to move on from her may I add but whatever lets get him to suffer a bit more shall we? I won’t spend too much time on Climon, because it wasn’t the most fucked up thing of tonight.

I would like to praise Jace and all his glory comeback and how witty and smooth and bluffy he is. Because without that Clary would have died. We finally got Jace back. I was feeling like he was fading into the background for a little bit but now we got to see him in action again and I loved it. He was not some side piece that we can only get when things go bad, he has feelings and his mental health hasn’t been that good (he didn’t drink before and now he orders four shots in a row and bears, and talks about open bars). Jace was breaking my heart in these past episodes, and it was more than fine with me to see him in action.

I think the only way Jace is capable of forgetting his demons is by working, achieving things, being the best at his job, which is hunting demons. He’s a slightly different workaholic, with very serious problems and a golden heart bigger than his human size, cause he’s an angel.

And now Luke. Listen, you and Simon need to chill. Clary isn’t everything that’s left in the world, and you don’t need to put her life over yours okay? Yeah, because you would be the one’s getting cold ass murdered if Valetine activates the sword. She is not what holds the world together okay?

And it was pretty shitty of Luke, a character who was LITERALLY thrown to the wolves, to put a girl, who suffers from PTSD, who told him she was Claustrophobic, who begged him not to lock her in that room, through that much of a trauma again. That was a shitty move.

PTSD, and any tipe of trauma or anxiety should not be taken so lightly. She begged him! BEGGED him not to lock her in there. We know Maia, she had standards and she promised to not go after Clary, but Luke locked her in there anyway. Can you imagine the sheer terror? (I can because I’m claustrophobic too-, but can you?) The panic, the anxiety? That was awful, coming from the guy who surely had panic attacks after his family left him to fend for himself after he turned. It was a shitty move, and uncharacteristic of Luke, and also Miaa wasn’t coming from a completely crazy place.

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