#its a parabatai thing you wouldn't understand

[alexanderlightweight]

hello~ wensday prompt: what happens if alec was 6-7 years older. he wouldn't be parabatai with jace because he will be 18 and jace like 12 ? or he start date magnus much earlier before clary show up?

I hope you doing great! also have you seen "bodies bodies bodies"? great comedy horror. recommend to see it~

thank you for writing all of these prompts 💕

Hello! you are not the only person to be interested in that idea and i love it! in my opinion, an alec who was 6-7 years older than izzy wouldn't be raised by maryse and robert. alec and jonathon were born during the circle, after they left. so this is part of a universe called walls of adoration, claws of desperations

there is another porition of this written and jsyk it's alec and magnus secret relationship.

also valentine wants soldiers and experiments, he'd encourage his soldiers to keeps the kids, maybe even convince them. but maryse wouldn't take a toddler or a baby with her, it would be a tactical error and distraction.

in my opinion and headcanon, alec is left with the trueblood or lightwood grandparents and if i'm going to go with either, i'm gonna go with the trueblood tbh. i'm biased cause i like maryse better than robert. alec has been living in idris with the disgrace of circle member parents because this is before its hidden. he's about to get his first rune and he's been raised loyal and to disdain his parents because they're traitors.

he's going to refuse to go with them and he's about to get his first rune and maryse is pregnant and will have another heir and the truebloods need one.

so yeah, thats kinda my meta for the background and hows and whys of this.

i am doing great! thank you so much for asking and today has been lovely and i have so many prompts i'm excited about.

I really am enjoying them so you're welcome and thank you for sending in a prompt

also i have not but it is now on the list!

<3 lumine

-

Alec prefers the parts of his life that are him living in the outskirts of Alicante. His grandparents have passed and while he is sent to train hunters at Institute’s across the world, he’s had no real interest or reason to officially be called to serve as a Commander.

At least until now.

With Maryse and Robert Lightwood being recalled to Idris, Alec is the only one related who has the qualifications and the right background for it. Robert and Maryse won’t be able to claim the clave is trying to strip the Institute from their family, not when Alec is heir to one of them.

Which is fine, it’s not the worst thing Alec has done and while he dreads the tedium of bringing an entire Institute full of hunters up to his personal standards, it’s not the worst thing he’s done.

It’s a bit annoying to have to stop his current study and projects and while Aline promised to keep him updated, Alec hopes that Sebastian will help remind her. Otherwise, he’ll be hearing about things once every six months.

Alec isn’t interested in politics the way his parents are.

He’s seen what they did to Maryse and Robert and now that he’s older, he understands things better and dislikes them more.

So, it’s with indifference that he goes to New York and it’s with prejudice that he kicks shadowhunters back to New York.

Izzy thinking she’s a shadowhunter informant at fifteen and that she can seduce information from seelies is the ridiculous thing Alec’s ever heard and while she wails and begs, he ignores her petulant whining. She’s her parent’s princess and he knows she’s rarely been told a ‘no’ that she didn’t ignore.

Jace is just as stubborn and the third time he gets himself and other shadowhunters injured, Alec has him with Izzy, Starkweather, and about a fifth of his Institute ready to be shipped back to Alicante.

“It’s a conflict of interest.” He tells Jia with a smirk over the video call that night. “They’re my precious little siblings, Jia. How could I put them through the same kind of training as the others?”

“You just don’t want to deal with them.” Jia accuses, having apparently already found out how much of a headache the two are.

Alec merely raises a brow because it is a conflict of interest and Jia knows it. Everyone knows it, which is why it’s hilarious that she’s still trying.

“Fine. But did you have to send us Starkweather? This is a mess, Trueblood.”

Alec simply hums and signs off, because at least now it’s not his mess.

#lumine writes #writing wednesday #writing wednesdays #malec #shadowhunters #walls of adoration claws of desperation #magnus bane #alec lightwood #shadowhunters au #my fics #my fanfics #my ficlets

[mistwraiths]

3 stars

The Last Hours has to be the most dramatic, messiest, frustrating trilogy CC has written so far. It's funny to me particularly since I didn't like TID much nor do I like Will Herondale or Tessa, but I don't remember being particularly so frustrated. Chain of Thorns is a better book than Chain of Iron in my opinion, it doesn't feel as long and boring as COI did. But there is still FAR too much unnecessary drama and miscommunication to this series.

For me there was only three characters I loved very dearly and were rooting for the entire time. Grace Blackthorn, Alistair Carstairs, and Christopher Lightwood. I loved Grace from the beginning and I will defend her with my dying breath, I loved every part she had in this book. Alistair has come a long way and I loved his character arc. And then, tragedy struck.

I KNEW someone was going to die. There's always a death of the main group, I knew it was coming. My money was on Matthew. It honestly made sense to me that he, being one of the unconnected to another character except for James, along with him suffering through withdrawals and going to Edom where he was not expected to go. It would have been a bit poetic since James' father Will had experienced something similar. But instead, CC kills off Christopher Lightwood.

I was shocked and furious, and I could have possibly accepted it better if it felt like any of the characters grieved or felt something for more than a page or two and then a half-hearted mention later. You're telling me that someone they've known their ENTIRE LIVES, someone who was so kind and genius, that you can't spare more than a mention here or there or GIVE GRIEF FOR HIM ON ACTUAL PAGES?? Instead, I have to read a whole intermission chapter on someone grieving TWO CHARACTERS WHO ARE ALIVE AND MADE A CHOICE (one they didn't have much choice but still) TO GO TO EDOM??? It felt like a slap to the face, an insult to the character. Grace and Christopher deserved to be a science nerds together. Of course the magic sword conveniently couldn't help heal and Lucie's powers to talk and raise the dead conveniently only worked on specific circumstances.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's discuss other things. The whole Belial plot felt super weak to me. He wants to possess James to walk on earth and become King of England?? Sir aren't you a fallen angel?? A Prince of Hell? Shouldn't your goal be more I WILL KILL SHADOWHUNTERS AND BURN THE EARTH or something?? Belial was also just all talk. He hardly ever really felt like a THREAT. Like oh shit this guy is going to SLAUGHTER people. I did like the part of him burning through the hosts because that felt horrific and violent and proper Prince of Hell stuff. Also the whole traveling to Edom's capital was very boring.

The whole Cortana sword having some paladin bond to heal the wounds it creates felt so ridiculously contrived and stupid to me. I can get behind a healing sword. I can get behind the sword only healing its paladin. But only healing the wounds it creates is so silly and only felt necessary to have this plot finished with the HEA intact. I knew James wouldn't die since we learned that he's alive to see Will pass away from old age. But honestly??? I think it would have been a very good ending if he had died. It would have had an impact.

Cordelia was overall a very average heroine for me, I don't think she's particularly my favorite mostly because of the drama and lies and miscommunication and pride/fear of being pitied. For the life of me, I don't understand why Lucie and her became parabatai. What deep friendship do they have because we certainly see no evidence of it. I did like James and Cordelia a little better when all that nonsense was finished, but again they don't have chemistry to me and their bond seems only physical to me.

I think I was a bit irritated that I'm being told after the bracelet is broken and done having been a plot device for two books, that it has had all these effects that we don't particularly get to see. Most everyone didn't understand James being in love with Grace but like... Grace was also secluded from everyone and they knew he spent summers with her. That to me personally isn't enough evidence to say "the bracelet kept you from considering it". Like I would have liked to see some examples of them thinking about it and becoming fuzzy or distracted or something. Also, we don't really get a chance to see James BEFORE the bracelet so telling me it utterly changed how he was/acted gives me nothing if I never knew him in the first place??

My heart goes out to Matthew it does but again, it very much felt like he didn't have much of an importance to the whole story. Which again, begs the question why wasn't he killed. It just blows my mind that Belial just allowed him to stay.

I actually really loved Jesse in the first two books but not only was he kind of boring and pushed to the side in this one, his attitude towards Grace really pissed me off. Jesse more than anyone should know how awful his mother could be and Grace was a CHILD and had to live with her. When she tells him everything, he reacts so poorly. Like, of course he can be upset, but GRACE IS YOUR SISTER AND A VICTIM. Like??? It made me so angry. Even Cordelia had better grace than her own brother.

I'm happy that Grace, Alistair, Thomas, Anna, and Ari get to be happy. Justice for Malcolm Fade in this book. I understand the whole interrogation thing with Tessa and Will and the others keeping such huge secrets. We know the truth that they are well-meaning but no one else does. There is a huge favoritism and lying doesn't give anyone a reason to trust. Would it have caused tension to be truthful? Yes. But it would have allowed trust and good faith. But of course obviously it all happened very conveniently to get everyone authoritative and Jem out of London and The Silent City so no one could stop the kids.

Overall, this book at least felt like everything was moving forward at a better pace and it was an okay ending.

#chain of thorns #cassandra clare #steph's book review #book review #steph reads #2023 reads

[achaiapelides]

All The Stories Are True (Red, White & Royal Blue Shadowhunter AU)

Part 1

Disclaimer: I'm bad at writing male POVs, so I made Henry female (and Alex obviously too because we have to keep the gay) but all the other characters have their normal gender.

Understandably, Henrietta was fairly pissed when the priest, who had married them, turned out to be a shape-shifting demon after almost all guests left the party. Not only was she incredibly tired and awaited nothing more than her bed and Alex' cuddles, but there were only two more Shadowhunters present, Pez, her parabatai, and her sister Beatrice, all unarmed. To be fair, who on earth expects a demon of all things, to crash a royal wedding? Accidently falling into an expensive cake was way more convenient. But no, it had to be a demon, who right now was munching on the dead body of that one paparazzi, who had hidden behind a curtain and had not yet left. Well, now it was too late anyway. The Royal Family would probably release a statement tomorrow with an creative explanation on how the man had died. And they really had other problems right now.

Henry's remaining part of the family (her grandma, mother, siblings and the Swedish Royal Family) was not really that shocked, just negatively surprised, as most of them, in fact, had Shadowhunter heritage. The majority of the Mountchristens though, chose not to be actively involved in Shadowhunter's duties or, as Queen Mary, Princess Catherine and Prince Phillip, were restricted to minimal participation, as they all were direct heirs to the throne.

Those of them, who had held a weapon before, immediately ran to the walls of the hall, that were decorated with old swords, daggers, knives and other weapons that Henry's ancestors had used in war. Before the wedding both Henry and Alex had agreed, that they opposed to such a violent decoration, but had forgotten to remind the staff to take them down. Now, Henry admitted to herself, she was rather grateful for that, as there would be more dead people by now, if they had removed the weapons.

Alex' part of the family however had retreated to one side of the room and made shocked faces. Well, almost all of them.

Nora Holleran and Rafael Luna had both grabbed knives from the wall behind them and were already throwing them at the demon, which disappearand and appeared again on the other side of the hall.

Zara had blocked the way to President Claremont, holding a long sword with both hands and Alex, without thinking, had stepped in front of Henry with nothing, but a half eaten piece of cake on a plate in her left and a fork in her right hand, that she threw right at the demon.

The demon, which now had a fork in sticking in its arm and buttercream smeared on its back, snarled and turned in their direction.

"Alex, you dumbass, get behind me!", Henry whispered, shoved her wife behind herself and caught the sword that Pez had thrown into her direction, knowing too well, that Alex, as brave as she was, wouldn't be able to defend herself without any training and weapons.

The demon looked at her, snarled again, prepared to jump on her and then exploded, leaving a big splash of ichor on her and her grandma, who had stabbed the thing from behind. "Bloody hell!", Queen Mary exclaimed angrily, looking at her ruined dress. "Who forgot to check if the priest is any danger? Is anyone hurt? Where is the security and the staff?"

"I think the doors are locked.", Henry's cousin, who was standing in front of his boyfriend, helplessly holding a dagger, observed. "The one responsible for this is probably outside and locked us in here.", the Queen of Sweden, her aunt, added. "Well, that's nothing that an opening rune can't fix", pointed Nora out and pulled out her stele. Surprised, Henry looked at her and saw a few runes through the thin fabric of Nora's dress. Apparently, there were more Shadowhunters in here, than she thought.

"Umm", Alex said behind her "Can anyone explain what the heck is going on?"

#shadowhunters #the shadowhunter chronicles #tsc #rwrb #red white and royal blue #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #royal wedding #casey mcquiston #cassandra clare #firstprince #or rather firstprincess #female henry and alex #rwrb au #shadowhunter au #all the stories are true #did i write Phillip's name right? oh wait i don't care

[matthewfairchildssilverflask]

I feel like James and Matthew can manage well enough on their own but when they are together, their braincells just cancel eachother out.

#its a parabatai thing you wouldn't understand #matthew fairchild #james herondale #the shadowhunter chronicles #cassandra clare #lucie herondale #cordelia carstairs #chain of gold #chain of iron #jesse blackthorn #thomastair #christopher lightwood #chain of thorns

[astriefer]

Please have this messy, badly written scenario as a humble gift to you, because I wanted to do something since I reached 200 followers!

Bits of Truth

They stood in front of the Carstairs' townhouse in Cornwall Gardens. Christopher seemed mildly confused about what they were doing there as if he had not been paying attention. James shared one last glance with Thomas before he knocked on the door.

A few bits of silence flew by, in which they had held their breaths. Then footsteps tapped on the floor, and the door cracked open.

A wave of relief passed through James that not Sona nor Risa or any other maid came to open the door. Then he thought what a peculiar thought it was for him to be relieved by. Alastair looked at them, frozen in place, blinking a few times as if he didn't believe they were truly there. He rejoined his composure hastily. He didn't let them in - he stood in the front door and his eyes searched theirs for an explanation. It was like a weird staring contest. Eventually, Alastair spoke first. "Cordelia is not here. You know it fairly well."

He moved to close the door. "We haven't come for Cordelia," he said quickly, which received another incredulous glance from Alastair. "Well, we have. But not because we thought she'd show up here. We came to talk to you."

Alastair narrowed his eyes, expressionless, and considered James. Then he glanced at Christopher and Thomas, noting their desperate eyes. "About my sister?"

"We won't take long," promised James, despite he wasn't sure it's true. Alastair studied him, and James felt himself going rigid. He leveled Alastair with his indecipherable gaze.

Then Alastair had stepped back from the door and ushered them in. "My mother is in her bedroom, resting, and Risa went shopping for supper. So, you have to be quiet. Make it quick.'

~~~~

Alastair took their coats and tilted his head towered the parlor. A kettle whiselted in the kitchen. As he gestured them inside he turned the other way. A fire burned in the chimney, and a book rested peacefully on the armchair. When James examined closer he discovered it was written in Persian. Thomas mumbled something about Persian poetry.

Alastair came inside with a tray and James thought he was, for a change, being hospitable, but he ignored them and disappeared up the stairs. When he got back, empty-handed, James assumed the tea was for his mother. Alastair placed the book on the table as he sat down in front of them. Thomas and Christopher set on a love sofa and James set stoned on another armchair. He didn't waste time being the kind host, James presumed. "What it is about my sister?"

The golden-eyed boy decided the best tactic was started from what he knew. That wasn't much, but it was the most important thing, and he was certain about it, at the very least. "I love your sister."

Alastair raised his eyebrows, amused. "Yes, that's something that tends to happen between married couples, I've been told."

James shook his head. "This marriage, of Cordelia and I," just saying her name on his lips made a treacherous skip of his heartbeat, full of hurt and love. "It was a sham marriage."

Alastair pools of dark marble were fixed on James when he explained, rather awkwardly, the events that led to their marriage. And then events that led to Cordelia leaving the country. He prospected Alastair would be outraged, throw spears at them, maybe even recite some very angry poetry phrases in Persian. Instead, Alastair was very still for very long. When he did speak, the words weren't the James expected them to be. "I knew the marriage wasn't out of love," Alastair said calmly. "But I didn't expect you to tell all that rubbish."

James blinked. "It's the truth."

"Oh, I know," Alastair returned with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I doubt you would come up with such a ludicrous idea on your own, even if just to spite me. and I also know Cordelia wouldn't have slept with you unwedded, no matter how much she loved you."

All the thieves caught their breath when Alastair leaned forward, his month curving in an odd angle. "I also know being married to you was a wish she never thought would come true, and that you cared for her. You claimed her as yours and you defended her. It was good for Cordelia, and so I said nothing."

James snorted, although he hadn't found the conversation funny. Not the least. "I thought I loved Grace at that time. I felt bad when the thought of living with Cordelia was more appealing than I expected." The thought of Grace made his features harden. "And because of Grace, for years I've been blind. Manipulated. I lost my wife and Parabatai. She played with me like a doll; messed with my feelings, messed with my life. This is unforgivable."

He did not notice Christopher who tensed up and fixed his spectacles on his nose. "She did some bad things," he said, surprising them all. "But I don't think she's evil."

James furrowed his brow. "She's like a siren: beautiful and compelling, but going after her will only end in you being drowned."

"I see," Alastair said, turning back to James. "But why? Why did she do it?"

"Does it matter?" James asked. "She hurt so many people. She doesn't even deserve to apologize. It won't matter anyhow - the damage is done. After all she has done...sorry will never be enough. Nothing will."

"It matters," Alastair said. "Because you don't know her side of the tale. You don't know what she thinks. What she feels. You don't know if she had to do what she did."

He was tempted to say Grace has no feelings at all. "I believe I'm allowed to be angry."

"I do agree that what she had done to you is far above a jest or a play with hearts," there was a strange flame burning in the deep ponds of Alastair's dark eyes. "And you have no obligation to forgive her. But why not hear what she has to say? You are the one with the power. You know the truth. She can not affect you any longer."

James shook his head. "You don't know Grace," he said coldly, gravely. "She will try to use me. She will try and make me do as she wishes. I will not be a pawn in her game again. She controlled my life long enough."

Alastair glanced away, pondering over something. Thomas turned his head nervously between James and Alastair. For the first time since the beginning of their conversation, Thomas inquired, "Why do you insist James will hear her out?"

"You have no idea of her motives," Alastair retorted. "What she's done - she must know it's wrong. And she will have to live with this knowledge for the rest of her days. You are allowed to be angry, James, and rightfully so. But don't let it blind you. That you have been kept from certain kinds of evil doesn't mean everyone else had. You have no clue what led her to those decisions." Alastair looked distanced. James managed to guess he's not been talking only about Grace. "You should talk to her. You may not forgive her, but you deserve to understand, to know why to hear the plain truth. And you should let her mourn what she could have had and lost."

James wasn't sure he fully comprehended. "I wouldn't have loved her. Even without the bracelet issue - my heart belongs to Cordelia."

"What do you mean?" Christopher asked. "That not everyone had been kept from evil."

Alastair shrugged. "I met Tatiana Blackthorn only once. She's a madwoman. She doesn't seem like the kind of caring, kind mother to pet her daughter's shoulder. Besides, Grace seemed to be controlled by Tatiana, rather than working alone or alongside her."

"She took the love of my life away from me," James growled. "Nothing can atone for that."

"The love of your life is my sister," he reminded James. "I can hardly find the idea of her being heartbroken a good thing. And the one who caused this pain is not much liked, as well. But you shouldn't think that just because you would've done it otherwise, it was an option for her. You can't know what are the options in front of people. You can't know how they feel unless you talk to them. So talk to Grace, James. Then seek out my sister. If you love her like you claim you do, will you give up on her so easily?"

"No," James stood up, "I will not."

Alastair nodded. "why did you come and tell me about your little schemes? Why now?"

Now, after so much time of lying, why tell the truth? Why not keep it in its cage of delicately made lies?

James cut his gaze to the book on the table. Thomas answered instead in a quiet voice. "She is your sister. You must have been worried about her. We wanted to tell you because - because you deserve to know the truth and understand why things happened the way they did."

What Thomas did not say was what none of them wanted to admit. Cordelia ran away to Paris with Matthew. Even if she'll be back in only two weeks - they all were worried sick. James couldn't blame her, he was awful and blind. All of this was a mess. If she needed time to calm down in Paris, he couldn't deny it of her, even if he had a say in this choice.

Alastair studied Thomas, and James felt the half-Persian hadn't quite believed them. It was true - they needed his help in the future. But it was a start. "Anything else? A ghost friend? Another evil aunt?"

"No," Christopher affirmed.

"Good," Alastair said. James might have imagined it but he thought he saw Alastair sneak a glance at Thomas before standing up. "Now get out of my house. Risa will be here any minute."

~~~~

I- how?? Thank you so much, everyone!! 🙈 Thank you, you can't understand how much it means to me. 🥺

This is mind-blowing. Truly. For whatever reason you follow me, know that I love you <3

Tagging some of my mutuals, you are all wonderful and make my time here so much better (not all of them because my brain is all wonky, but I mean all of you): @kit-12 @littlx-songbxrd @pink-party-dino @shadowhuntertrash @gummybears-4u @itsdaughterofthemoon @mcrrythievcs @fictionally-fantastic @reyna-herondale I'll tag more but I don't want to bother anyone so... thank you!! I don't know what people find in my blog, but I am grateful, and I appreciate all of you endlessly.

#alastair carstairs #the last hours #tlh #chain of gold #tsc #chain of iron #the shadowhunter chronicles #thomas lightwood #chog #cordelia carstairs #james herondale #christopher lighwood #the merry thieves #merry theives #post coi #choi spoilers #coi spoilers #chain of iron spoilers #grace blackthorn #tlh fanfic #the last hours tlh #200 celebration #my writing #my fics #fanfiction #writing #mine #my posts #my fanfic #styx's fanfics

[beclynn-herondale]

hi! ❤ hope you are well, i'm so happy to know you liked my last robert analysis. it feels very safe and nice to write about him to you, so it makes me really glad that you're enjoying too. forgive me, it took me a while to write this one!

between the points you mentioned, what you said you think about his trauma got my attention first. what you think is right, and i thought it would be a good idea to help you with your conclusions if i explained robert's trauma in details.

to examine it closely, i separate robert's childhood trauma into three parts. i guess we could say he had three different childhood traumas. you probably remember it generally: rune experience, parents, and discrimination. each one was deeply connected to the others but had a different effect in some ways.

1- rune experience: it's kinda hard to people to understand what happened because its horribleness was complex. i'll try to summarize. it was robert's 12th birthday. first of all, robert was being burned alive non-stop. he wasn't having his flesh burned, he was something like "burning inside." how intense the pain was: it consumed his entire being, he lost the ability to think, the pain blocked any thought or memory he could have, so robert didn't know who he was, where he was or what was happening, because all his body/mind/soul were processing was the extreme pain. it was mortal pain, it was supposed to kill robert, he was supposed to die consumed but the burning pain. but it didn't. somehow, while he hadn't the ability to think or feel anything but pain, he had strenght to stay alive in pain instead of die. he was enduring something people shouldn't be able to survive to. in his state where his sould/mind was enduring differently of his body, there were demons, and they tortured robert physically and verbally. then, his family members appeared to him, basically saying he was worthless and should die. he really was supposed to be dead by then, and he could see it, he literally could see hell right waiting for him to finally expire. but it didn't happen. somehow he endured it. now, all of this, lasted one entire month. it's actually hard to imagine someone somehow enduring this for one entire month. i don't think any other character had to endure something like this, except maybe annabel. it's the worse i ever saw happen to a tsc character, it was an entire month. (it's very depressing how nobody could ever understand robert cuz no one else around survived something like this. annabel was tortured, buried alive and then painfully ressurrected, and went literally insane because of it.)

this had multiple consequences to robert. physically, he took a while to recover, but then it was stated his body was fine. the effects were mostly mental. after receiving his first rune, robert was supposed to continue his training, but he couldn't. other kids of his age were evolving their training, while he was doing nothing about it. he both hadn't the energy and couldn't do it, cuz he was afraid of steeles. something perfectly logical since a steele caused that month of agony. you know he eventually managed to learn to use steeles to be an actual shadowhunter. but it wasn't all.

the first rune is something normal that happens to all shadowhunters, and it's mostly something good. the way it was horrible to robert in a way no one could have expected, made robert develop extreme anxiety; because the worst happened to him triggered by something common. so while doing common things, robert would be always scared and anxious, thinking about the worst of the worst that could happen. while it wasn't much notable to other people, it harmed his development and behavior a lot, consequently harming his self-steem, cuz he couldn't do things right, he was always worried and overthinking everything.

to compensate it, robert became somebody who worked on two extremes: he was always overthinking everything, except in battle. in battle he wasn't what we define as brave i guess. he was fearless. valentine is the one who helped robert to achieve that. (we know his actual motivations, this isn't important now) the mental process valentine taught him was: robert's inherent fear and anxiety made him fail, and that made him despise himself (that's something robert does a lot for countless reasons). robert should not only embrace the fury he felt against himself, but it should dominate him, and he use its intensity to block his fear. then basically, robert should do a mental form of self harm, letting the strenght of his hate for himself take his mind and use this strenght to control his actions. robert's fury leading his actions, not his fear and anxiety. as expected with this process, robert then was able to engage in normal shadowhunter activities, but fearless when it came to physical risk. logically this would be very dangerous, but we can imagine how useful it was for valentine to have on his team a warrior like this who was such a big and strong man and centainly could take a lot of physical damage and pain (and i guess it shouldn't be any doubt that being so tough helped robert a lot to survive through the years). we know it was because of this robert felt he owed loyalty to valentine.

2- parents: first, something kinda interesting is that robert had other relatives and they were there when robert's first rune was made. we are informed that his state during that month of agony was a scandal and robert's parents were the ones being absurd. so we can assume his other relatives had nothing to do with it. another strong evidence is robert naming two of his children with names from his family, what indicates he didn't saw his entire family negatively. now his parents... let's never forget what happened to robert was supposed to kill him on incredible intense pain. andrew and phoebe deliberately let their child to die in pain so he wouldn't be a mundane. i personally classify them between the worst shadowhunters parents along with céline's, annabel's, valentine and tatiana.

after robert woke up, they (or anyone else) never cared to ask robert how he felt. all they wanted was to make everything seem normal, without caring about how robert was taking it. they never showed any regret about what they've done: they did the opposite of that, telling robert right on his face what they did and how they were sure that it was totally worth it to make him go through that to not be a mundane. it hurt (and traumatized) robert a lot.

love from parents and relatives is supposed to be the first love someone gets. and robert didn't have that. if his parents showed love to him on his first years alive, it never mattered because these two traumas mentioned made robert forget anything about his parents from before his first rune. he couldn't ever remember them as actual parental figures of love. the only parents he remembered and recognized were the ones who left him to endure that, looked proud of it and never cared about its effects on him afterwards. as far as it counted, robert lived a loveless childhood. as i mentioned, andrew and phoebe wanted everything to be as normal possible, so they just acted as robert's parents as if anything happened, but it was pointless and felt cold. after knowing what they did to him (what they let happen to him), knowing that they didn't actually love him as their child, robert couldn't have a bond with them, he couldn't even be comfortable around them. it's described that their presence was what intensified robert's loneliness the most. so he didn't spend much time around them, he stayed in his room.

without his parents' love, robert's first experience with love was when he was 13 years old, with michael. it was setting a standard of love to him, with the long-term consequences afterwards being devastating. (i guess someone could even connect robert not recognizing his parents affection with his future performance of fatherhood, but that would be mostly guessing and i rather work with things i can prove. another good guess i think would be connecting his loveless childhood to how robert during his teenagehood had messy limits between his love for michael and his affection for maryse and didn't know how to handle or recognize it. i mean mostly things like, if michael was robert's best friend/parabatai and maryse his romantic partner and probably future wife, why did robert see maryse and women in general as a threat to michael's place in his life and their parabatai and best friend relationship? he saw valentine having a parabatai he loved and a girlfriend he wanted to get married to, and still freaked out about a woman as his wife replacing michael who was his parabatai, what didn't make any sense. i know people joke about robert being "clueless" about michael but it isn't much funny with this context. finally, another guess would be connecting robert's discovery that his parents' love for him was faulty through they letting him hurt to his beliefs that what he did to michael proved his love for michael was faulty. you can deliberate about all of these conjectures if you want).

3- discrimination: before his first rune, robert had other kids to play with, but he wouldn't remember much of it. yeah, we can say robert doesn't remember anything about how he was treated by people before his first rune. robert doesn't know a life without trauma.

since what happened to robert was a political scandal, with everyone trying to save robert and his parents wanting him to keep his painful and mortal rune, what happened to him was kind of general knowledge. then, no kid wanted to play or train with him. at first he was still recovering, but then he couldn't move foward because he didn't have anyone. he didn't want to be around his parents' coldness and no one else wanted to be around him, quite literally. other people would be around him only when being forced, and then would stay the most distant of him possible, to never get physically close of him, as if to not catch a disease. this is absolutely dreadful to a child.

being treated like this hurt and traumatized robert terribly. being around any one was horrible, so he spent most of the time hidden in his room. not being able to improve on anything because of his fears and anxiety and not having anyone to train with or even to socialize with, and basically never being able to move on about what happened, robert hated to be alive and wished to be dead, wished the rune had killed him as it should have, because he thought no death could be worse than his life, so be dead would be better. this state of mind dured an entire year before michael came around. a lot of damage had been done by then.

being treated like he was "sick" and ostracized left a huge psychological wound on him. to him, discrimination was one of the worst things ever, for something that was never his fault and he never choose to.

(one may think that if robert hates discrimination, it doesn't make sense to him to dislike downworlders, but it actually does. all robert wanted was to be a normal shadowhunter, and he had deeper reasons than most to be passionate about being one. disliking downworlders would be an ideal average shadowhunter thing to do. but robert was far from ignorant. he didn't think downworlders were animals or demons and was far more inclined to defend downworlder segregation than downworlder extermination. of course segregation is something horrible in general and should never be defended, but with downworlders being different sub-species, it wasn't as absurd as the extermination valentine defended, and robert being actually smart and open minded, we know he actually changed his beliefs).

now, to him, one being discriminated by their peers was one of the worst things that could happen, and the perspective of being discriminated terrified and triggered robert deeply. we know the perspective of homosexuality freaks robert out because of the discrimination, marginalization and "anormality" experience that comes with it (and robert is a 60s kid and shadowhunter society is a conservative mess, so it would naturally seem so much more taboo to him), what scared him deeply. we see him getting extremely anxious over himself, michael and alec about the perspective of homophobic discrimination.

robert only started training with runes after his 14th birthday. his training was late, and between his 12th and 14th birthdays, half of the time was extremely traumatizing, the other half he spent most with michael (who helped him a lot about everything). but still, it was a very big share of his childhood-teenagehood and he didn't have the feeling or normality. everything i said about his anxiety over shadowhunting, specially over runes, applied intensely during his entire teenagehood, but robert went to the academy with michael where he was having normal training and final got to socialize a little. he loved so much to feel a little normal. he still felt like a weak and useless trash, but at least he was doing normal shadowhunting things and living like a teenager. the problem was: he wanted to live his entire teenagehood, and he just couldn't do that. training is supposed to end when shadowhunters are 18 years old. robert would stay at the academy until he was 19, and still didn't seem enough. while he was older than his fellows, he felt far less mature. much of his development time had been lost, and he would never get it back. in this context, it made very sense to robert's girlfriend be a younger girl and his admiration for a younger boy (valentine), and there were jokes about him being old, but what bothered robert the most was that he should soon live an adult man average life with wife and kids, when his perspective of life was being with michael in the academy. we also know how that went... and he married maryse when he was about 21/22 years old and maryse about 19.

forgive me for any grammar mistakes. i think this summary can help a lot! at least i hope it's useful to you or anyone else who read it! writing it was very thoughtful (and it's really a huge joy for me to explain things about robert, if you haven't guessed) and i hope to start working on my next ask soon

xoxo, take care of yourself, kind fellow ☺ thank you for your attention

First of all,. I'm sorry for getting to this late.

Second, I don't think I need to add anything. This is written very well, and gave me a deeper understanding.

And I am once again saying: let Shadowhunters get help with their trauma 😭

Also, TSC has a lot of bad parents. But it sadly represents real life 😔

Thank you for taking the time to write this out. I enjoyed reading it. And I agree with a lot that was said.

#robert lightwood #tsc asks #beau peeps 💛🧡

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

I never read the Shadow Hunter books, and I all I knew from the series was from the movie, wich I saw and didn't like, and because of that pretty much forgot everything about the story. When I reluctantly started the series,out of pure curiosity and because it has supernatural elements,what I liked the most was the relationship between Alec and Jace.I noticed Alec's feelings from the first few episodes, and was actually hoping that they would end up together.When I figured out they wouldn't, ...

2/3 ...I was actually dissapointed, and honestly surprisedthat Alec would end up with Magnus, not only because I'm pretty sure there wasno Malec content in the movie (my only previous source), but also because I sawlittle to no chemistry between the actors from the series. I think Jalec wouldhave been much better (at least cting wise), and honestly, since they changedso much from the books, couldn't they have made that move? I know why theydidn't (business wise), but still, I think it would...

3/3 ...have been more interesting to watch. Itcould have been like an AU from the books (and from what I learned about thestory of the books, the show is pretty much an AU already). What do you thinkwould have been like if Jalec happened on the show? How do you think it wouldhave impacted other characters arcs (Clary's story would probably change a lotin my opinion, same as Magnus)? (Final)

I enjoy the books. I wouldn’t say they’re fantastic and whenI first read them a decade ago, I was completely in love with the series. 10years later, I can see the flaws the books have but for the most part, thoseflaws are really just a product of the time the books were written in and Istill enjoy the books for what they are. The YA genre was a different world tenyears ago.

The movie isn’t the greatest. But I don’t think it’sabsolutely terrible but I do think you have to have knowledge of the books inorder to properly enjoy it. For me, the movie started off good but the longerit went on, it just kept on losing traction. But I could find enjoyment in itbecause I knew what the movie was trying to set up for (because I’d read thebooks). In reality, the first book, City of Bones, is just a really bad book totry to adapt into a movie because so much of it is world-building and the maincharacter just running around trying to understand the world. So much of thatbook is set-up for later books and the movie tried to do the same thing butultimately it just turned into this really boring thing because reading aboutworld-building and having to watch world-building are two completely differentthings and the movie didn’t quite pull it off. Honestly, I’m not too terriblysurprised that the movie flopped. I wish they had continued with making themovies because I guarantee the next book, City of Ashes, would probably haveworked better. The movie didn’t have a whole lot of Malec content but I can confirmthat Malec is one of the main ships in the books. In the movie, it was onlyvery subtly hinted at mostly because it’s an adaptation of the first book whichadmittedly also doesn’t have a whole lot of Malec content. They kind of existmore in the background. Malec, gradually over time, gets more of a focus in thebooks and that’s more of a reflection on what the author was able to get awaywith when publishing under the YA genre over the years. As I said before, theYA genre was a very different beast ten years ago.

And it’s never really bothered me that the show made changesfrom the books, the show just had bad writing and there was definitely achemistry problem with the main ships. And it’s super weird that with all ofthe changes they made from the books, keeping the top 3 ships (Clace, Malec, Sizzy)is what they decided they absolutely couldn’t change? None of thoserelationships worked for me because the actors in those pairings had 0chemistry with each other (and the show was a little heavy-handed in telling uswho we needed to ship). In season one, I could forgive a lack of chemistry. Alot of these actors had never worked with each other before, they’re stillgetting to know each other, I can excuse that. But over the course of the nextcouple of seasons, you can tell that the actors are more familiar with eachother but they’re still lacking that relationship chemistry on-screen andunfortunately that happens sometimes. If you don’t have chemistry with someone,then you don’t have chemistry with someone. No amount of time you spend withthat person is going to make that chemistry suddenly appear. It’s why I’vementioned before that it’s glaringly obvious that no chemistry tests were donewith this cast prior to production beginning. If there were, the showrunnerswould probably have caught on and maybe made some adjustments to who they choseto cast.

But there was a showrunner change in season 2 and ideallyyou would think that as writers invested in the show they’re currently writingfor, they’d say, “you know what, we initially had this plan for Malec beingthis epic romance but they’re just not working on screen, maybe we shoulddiverge a little from the original plan.” But they didn’t. They just kept onchugging away at this couple who has no chemistry with each other and whereas Iwas willing to ignore it for a time, I eventually got to the point that Icouldn’t. It’s not like writers have never changed a relationship focus due tochemistry. That’s why Olicity became a thing in Arrow. Because the showrunnersfound that Stephen and Emily had chemistry they wanted to write a romance for.

I really wish Shadowhunters had decided to diverge from theTop 3 ships and just go off based on the chemistry they saw between theiractors on-screen. Every Jalec scene, despite me not always agreeing with thewriting decisions leading up to it, are just a joy to watch. When you watch aJalec scene, you want to look away because you feel like you’re intruding on aprivate moment. And I love when ships make me do that. I never really shippedJalec on the show because I knew they would never be a thing since the showseemed weirdly committed to keeping the top three relationships intact for somereason. But if I were the writers, I definitely would have shifted from Malecto Jalec. There are of course people who absolutely love the Malec chemistryand they’re free to do so but I’m not one of them. When Matt and Harry are in ascene together, they’re acting just becomes extremely wooden and theircharacters become pale imitations of what they once were. Everything is so forcedwhen they’re in a scene together. Harry and Matt try to make up for it byacting with their eyes and making “heart-eyes” at each other but for me, it’snot enough to overcompensate for their awkward body language around each other.And apart from them having chemistry that just doesn’t work for me, I just didn’tlike their relationship. I don’t understand whar it is about each other thatMalec likes. I have no idea why they’re choosing to stay together, they can’tsurvive a single conflict without their relationship crumbling to pieces.

But thinking about in an alternate universe if Jalec reallywas a thing is interesting, though. If you’ve been following me for a while,you know I love to think about “what if” situations. It obviously would changea lot with practically all of the characters because so much of this show isrelationship based. Like I’ve mentioned before, Shadowhunters is a trash showand only exists to give its audience shipping fodder. And I will say just as ageneral note here that this is completely different from what would happen inthe books. There’s actually a rule in the books that states you can’t fall inlove with your parabatai (bad things will happen and I’ll leave it at that).But just in show context because the show never went into the rules aboutparabatai, I like to imagine that before the show started, Alec and Jace werein this kind of “friends with benefits” type of relationship. It was purelysexual in nature, a way for them to relax after a hard day of hunting and theyjust needed a release. At least, it was like that for Jace. However, Aleccouldn’t quite shake it off. He couldn’t quite just write their relationshipoff as “just sex” and so he decided to end things with Jace because he couldn’tstand the idea of Jace not seeing him as anything more than a means ofrelieving stress. And here is when the show begins. Clary comes into the mixand obviously, if we’re shooting for a Jalec endgame there’s a lot of changesthat have to be made with Clary as she and Jace in both the books and show arethe characters the story centers on. I don’t really want to say that Jace getsinvolved with Clary only to figure out at the eleventh hour that Alec really ishis one true love, that feels a little too juvenile and easy for me, preference-wise,I hate stories that go in that direction, I hate “one true love” nonsense. Atfirst I caught myself thinking, okay, who is Clary’s endgame relationship goingto be if it’s not Jace? And then I realized, does she really need one? I mean,she just found out who she thought she was her entire life is not who sheactually is. When you’re going through something like that, should you reallybe involving yourself in a committed relationship? But I’m not opposed to herending up with someone like Simon or hey, maybe even Lydia (what ever happenedto Lydia by the way? Of all the dumb and pointless original characters the showcame up with, she was my favorite. We never found out if she ever got a happyending. Perhaps ending up with Clary could be her happy ending). We could stillhave a Malec relationship on the show but ultimately, they decide to end thingsas they feel like they can’t overcome the obstacles in their relationship, theystill care about each other deeply but sometimes in relationships, caring abouteach other isn’t enough to make it work. Alec is heartbroken that he had to endthings and he and Jace have a drunken night where they fall into bed again andinto their same old bad habits. But Alec makes it clear to Jace he’s notinterested in continuing what they used to have and because his relationshipwith Magnus made him more communicative in talking out his feelings, he comesclean to Jace about how he really feels about Jace. Jace doesn’t know how torespond so that drama gets milked for maybe half a season and let’s saysomething happens to Alec or Jace is separated from Alec for too long and Jacerealizes how much he does love Alec and the reason he couldn’t say it before isbecause he was afraid to be truly loved by someone. They confess and that’s theirendgame. As for Magnus, there was this original character named Raj that theshow just wrote off as xenophobic and an overall scumbag but when he was firstintroduced, I thought he was in the closet and was secretly crushing on Alec.

So for the purposes of this new narrative, let’s say he’s secretly crushing onMagnus and after some time of them being kind of aggressive towards one another,they realize they’re interested and a relationship blooms from that.But that’s the current mental picture of a “whatif” Jalec endgame that’s in my head right now. This would need way more time tothink on but as a story base, it’s not too bad. And actually, now I’m superinto the new Top 3 Ships being Jace/Alec, Magnus/Raj, Clary/Lydia.

#jalec

[sapphicalexaandra]

This is just my personal opinion but I felt like Jace respected Alec ("you're a man of honor, the only person on earth I would trust with this") but in some cases it made sense he wouldn't take on Alec's perspective. Like with meliorn, the downworlders are supposed to be a parallel to racial minorities and the writers have explicitly said they're having a downworlders registry similar to the Muslim ban. So Alec taking Meliorn to be tortured is the fantasy equivalent of profiling a Muslim person

(cont.) this isn’t to say Alec is evil or that Jace is always right but in that case, no matter how much he respects Alec it makes sense he goes against him, because it goes beyond just following rules to support state sanctioned torture. As he says later, he was “saving Alec from himself”.

The thing is, as i say in the other post, that while jace respects alec as a person, what i have said is that for most of season 1 he didn’t respect him as a leader and someone capable of decisions making and having valid opinions. 

go a bit back instead of the whole meliorn situation, which i’ll get to it later, and think about the start of the season when jace started admitting clary into the institute, helping her, spearheading her crusades to save simon and her mother etc.

on a ‘moral’ stand point he wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was helping someone in need, but alec’s doubts throughout were very much justified. a stranger coming into their home and society having just found out she was a shadowhunter?? that they later discover is the worst shadowhunter criminal in recent history’s daughter?? doesn’t that sound a bit fishy to you, like she couldn’t be purposedly infiltrating the institute for valentine, if we hadn’t already known that she was innocent?? this is what alec saw and he had every reason to doubt her and her story. yet jace, for his own reasons that i’m sure you’ve read in the other post, related to her straight away and never stopped to rethink his decision and listen to what alec was saying on the matter. constantly shutting him up and disregarding his protests as him being annoying and ‘’typical alec who doesn’t like anyone’’ (think 1x03). 

that is what i mean when i say he didn’t respect him as his equal, as someone whose opinion he should have taken into account since he was his parabatai and all. and the whole clary situation isn’t the only think he wouldn’t listen to him him about; as the one supposedly in charge alec also made present to them that they needed the clave approval for the missions they wanted to go on, otherwise there would be consequences, which there were, but nobody cared to listen and who had to face them instead of the ones directly responsible for breaking the law??

alec. the clave arrived to punish the lightwoods and as the oldest, most responsible, the one in charge, he saw the situation and knew he had to make sacrifices to restore his family name so that they wouldn’t lose their credibility, job, the respect of their people, which who knows in that kinda society what would have meant for them?? he was left basically alone to deal with that, while jace was busy helping clary. and i repeat, it wasn’t a ‘bad’ thing to do, he was doing a nice thing for her, but still after all the reckless things they had done, it didn’t occur to him that there might be consequences that he should also have had to attend to. 

and here we get to the whole meliorn thing. of course torturing him was a terrible thing to do and what you said is true and jace and the others did have to stop it, but alec being in that tight situation of having to please the clave (having already decided to sacrifice any future happiness to marry a woman) to avoid further backlash on his family, the one person that swore to always be as his side didn’t even try to understand why he would do something like that, why would he thing ‘as a man of honor’ that that was a thing he needed to do. 

instead jace went behind his back, made the ‘’right’’ decision for him and even when after their fight alec told him that following him meant breaking the law which would have immensurable consequences (which they almost did, but again, not on jace but on izzy) he acted like he didn’t even noticed he said something and kept begging him to follow.

so it was a more complex situation for a shadowhunter than simple right and wrong because while the clave is so full of its own superiority, it still rules over these shadowhunters in a dictatorial way so that doing the right thing either dooms your entire family or get your loved ones killed (like for lydia). 

basically, long story short, again what i’m saying is not that jace doesn’t care or respect alec as a person or that he was always in the wrong and didn’t have alec’s best interest when he ‘saved him from himself’’, but that since the start of s1 he did go on his own path which, for how morally right it might have been, wasn’t the absolute right thing to do or way to act, but he didn’t, let’s say respect since this is the word being questioned, respect alec’s opinions as being as valid as his own to even stop to question and look at the other side of what he was doing. which led to a waterfall of consequences that had its climax at the whole meliorn thing. 

#my post #claudia answers #shadowhunters #jace #jalec #hope i was clear? #anonymous #now enough with this topic though because it's making me criticize jace too much than i want to do rn lmao #basically this is how i see it but at this point it's history for the show #and i have personally let it go and am focusing on the current timeline of jalec #which is a whole other mess but oh well

[matthewfairchildssilverflask]

Cordelia: Matthew would throw himself in front of a moving chariot for you.

James: Matthew would throw himself in front a moving chariot for fun.

#matthew fairchild #james herondale #cordelia carstairs #its a parabatai thing you wouldn't understand #parabatai #the shadowhunter chronicles #cassandra clare #the last hours #chain of gold #the chain of iron #chain of iron #jesse blackthorn #lucie herondale #anna lightwood