thornschild

[thornschild]

Kevin Day and his golden boys

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life changing field trip in kyoshi island

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post-practice nap (they're going to wake up with the worst cramps known to man)

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Was idly scrolling through @gaenzlichtot blog and found this old fanart I drew 6-7 years ago (What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck) Decided to quickly sketch a redraw while my phone was charging, ended up sweating over it for longer than intended. The power of procrastination

The original is also under the cut. Had to link it to my friends blog, because I did a purge of all my aftg fanart in a fit of pique like five years ago

[thornschild]

Hi Cassie!! Sorry to bother you but I feel like Ty would be more likely to have panic attacks than Dru. I have evaluated the situation and Ty seems to have more trauma and anxiety than her. Adding onto that I’m hoping Kit and Ash don’t have too similar powers. I feel like Kit should be more powerful as Ash only as Ash didn’t get much powers especially since the king didn’t have the black volume the whole time he had Ash. I also think Kit she be more powerful than Magnus for reasons.

I've gotten a lot of emails about how Ty should be the one who has panic attacks, not Dru. Usually the idea is that he should have panic attacks because he has 'more trauma and anxiety' than Dru, specifically because of Livvy's death and Ty being "more close" to her.

The thing is, that isn't how characters work because it isn't how people work. “Amount of trauma” is not an objective measurable thing, and not everyone responds the same ways even to the same things happening to them.

Of course Ty and Dru have both experienced trauma. But it is not as if there is a certain "level of trauma", like "level 6" beyond which everyone has panic attacks, and Ty is a trauma 7 while Dru is only a trauma 5. None of that is how people work or panic disorders work or really how anything works. The question is a lot about, I think, an anxiety that somehow because Dru has panic attacks this means the narrative will consider Ty to have no trauma at all and be dandy about everything, and I can only say that that's not the case.

One thing I rarely see acknowledged in these letters is that Ty is not grieving Livvy currently. Everyone else in his family is, but he lives with her, she talks to him all the time, she's entirely present in his life. Yes, she is a ghost, but people can get by on a lot less than Ty has with Livvy. I think it's worth noting that what Ty is currently experiencing re: Livvy is not grief but denial.

At the end of the day, there are all sorts of ways of responding to trauma and grief. The acknowledgement that someone has been through trauma is not something they have to earn, nor are panic attacks a thing given to one character at the expense of another who has somehow deserved them more. What is important about how characters respond to loss and trauma is that it be consistent with the character and their growth, and that's something that can't be evaluated before a book is read. :)

As for Kit having the most powers of anyone, well, we will see. It's not really how power works in the Shadowhunter world. We don't spend a lot of time thinking about whether Clary or Magnus is more powerful because what they can do is so different, and what Kit and Ash can do is also very different. Also in evaluating who gets what power level I would say it's important to consider whether they will be friends or deadly enemies – which is something we don't yet know!

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Hi Cassie! Thank you so much for your work I couldn’t explain how much your books mean to me. I’m looking forward to reading new shadowhunters books 😭😭😭 The question is: we know from the previous books that Ty uses his headphones as the way to get rid of anxiety. So, what’s his favourite music now? artist/band Thank you so much!❤️

He only listens to classical music, I'm afraid. Maybe Kit can introduce him to something else he'll like? ;)

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Harry is just being Harry. Again

Art teacher and daddy AU part.2 ♡

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Context: Regulus is Harry's art teacher, James is the one that picks him up and has a huge crush on Regulus, and Harry, being Harry, tells him.

This will be a series.... I think.

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Kitty doodle ^.^ Happy valentine's day and newsletter everyone 💓

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your honor, he is an angel.

#i love his hair and hands #i love him #ty blackthorn #tiberius blackthorn #twp #the wicked powers #art by cassandra jean #tda #the dark artifices #secrets of blackthorn hall #sobh #the last king of faerie #tlkof #kit herondale #kitty #kit x ty #cassandra clare

[thornschild]

OH MY FUCKING GOD

#LOOK AT THEM #i cant believe this #kitty #the wicked powers #twp #the last king of faerie #tlkof #the dark artifices #tda #ty blackthorn #kit herondale #cassandra clare #secrets of blackthorn hall #sobh #art by cassandra jean #the shadowhunter chronicles #tsc

[thornschild]

Hellooo idk if this is a spoiler but I loved seeing all the sensitivity readers for sword catcher and I wondered if you ended up having any for TWP (or whether that comes further down the line!) at all? If I remember rightly, there were a couple of Spanish consultants on TDA, so I wondered if we had anything like that ahead in TWP?

I don't think it's a spoiler — I've been using sensitivity readers for a while, including for the Carstairs family in TLH, for Anna, for Thomas and Matthew, and in TDA for Diana, for Ty, for the Rosales and even for Jules in terms of parenting a child with autism. And that is not a complete list!

You are right, they haven't always been in the acknowledgements, because it's up to the sensitivity readers in question whether they want to be mentioned or not. With Sword Catcher, I went through my publisher to find sensitivity readers as opposed to reaching out through networks (I found sensitivity readers for Diana, for instance, by reaching out through my local health center which provides gender-affirming care), which resulted I think in a lot more people who were cool with being in the acknowlegements.

Which is to say: I will definitely be using sensitivity readers in TWP, specifically to address Ty, and also to work with trauma issues and representations of sexuality, among other things.

[thornschild]

*sighs a bit* Okay. Guys. I have been asked this question a lot, and answered it a lot. I don't know how to give a better answer — Dru & Ty&Kit share significance as main characters — so I guess I'll talk a little about comparison and structures.

First, all series have different structures. I don't think it's super useful or predictive to try to map an upcoming, unknown book series onto an existing series. In TLH the main character was Cordelia, everyone else was secondary to her, and people's roles and the significance of them altered from book to book. It was a big ensemble cast and they mostly stayed put in London especially in book 1.

TWP focuses on a smaller group of people. It also has a very different structure. In book one, Dru is not with Kit and Ty. They are in different places, both of which have their own stories that are significant to the plot. There is no way to see Place One without following Dru. There is no way to see Place Two without following Kit and Ty.

I know that TWP is a long way off. I know there are people who are very angry with me that there's such a gap, but there isn't anything currently I can do about that, or about the fact that I don't yet have the schedule for my upcoming books. That rests in the hands of several different publishers who must coordinate the release times and production schedules for four different series. I am not withholding any information about when these books come out. I simply don't know it yet.

I understand that TWP being a long way off makes for anxiety, and that those who are worried Kit and Ty will somehow be secondary are looking for tiny clues in microscopic details — micro-reading the of placement of the word "and" in my newsletter and such — that are meaningless, but I get that it all comes from anxiety. (FTR, those worried Dru will be secondary are equally anxious.)

I think there is only so much I can say. Because there's a big gap between TLH and TWP everything I do say or every image or hint about it is freighted with a weight of assumption it can't really support. Anxiety is always going to trump reassurance. And truly, at the end of the day, if you only care about Kit and Ty and find the idea of a Dru story tiresome, you will feel like they got shafted because when you absolutely hate a plotline, you will always feel like it's taking up way too much space. That's just how our minds work.

I've been doing this long enough that I know no book can survive a hostile reading. I know that Book Three of a trilogy is the one people hate until they don't. (When Clockwork Princess came out people hated it so much I considered quitting writing!) I know that it's wonderful to love a character but can also be a problem for people when I put out books that aren't about that particular character or dynamic. I know that for a lot of people, Sword Catcher and Ragpicker King are just tiresome things that have no business on my schedule because they're not Shadowhunter books. And I get it. But I also have to block it out, because I've been writing a long time, and I've gotten to a point where I know that I have to write the thing I want to be writing, because if I don't, if I sit down and try to force myself to write something I'm not feeling like writing at that time, I'll be making myself physically and mentally sick. And that's no good for anyone, really.

I suppose the positive thing is that, while this would not have been true five years ago, I am at the place where I want very much to be writing Wicked Powers. I missed these characters and am glad to be back with them. I consider this a story in which there are three main characters. And that is all I can say right now because it's all that I know.

(And this was much more of a general response to a lot of things than a specific response to this question, but I did feel like it was stuff that I needed to say. Creators are at the end of the day, just people. Sometimes we are powerless to reassure. Sometimes we are tired. Sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes we try things and they don't work. Sometimes we can't explain to you what our story is going to make you feel, because only reading it is going to tell you that. This may be one of those times.)

[thornschild]

I don't know how far you've gotten writing TWP, but have you ever written a Kit scene with Mina, Tessa, and Jem? Could we have a Teaser?

There are super cute scenes in Secrets of Blackthorn Hall and Ghosts of the Shadow Market with Mina, Tessa, Kit and Jem. And we start off the Kit and Ty storyline at Cirenworth in TWP, so we will see Kit with his family, and Mina is always cute. :) No teasers yet tho!

#holy shit

[thornschild]

OH MY FUCKING GOD

Could you share a small KitTy snippet with us? 🥹

I can say that if you are a Kitty fan, I think you will like the next (Valentine's Day) newsletter. ;)

[thornschild]

What's your favorite part of TWP?

Right now, the romance. Kit and Ty are delightful as are Ash & Dru.

#LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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The ending of QOAAD with KitTy separated was necessary, since they both weren‘t ready for a relationship at this point. They need those three years to grow and learn as individuals before they can commit themselves to a relationship.

#100% accurate #and they were grieving