#the strange blackthorn siblings

[someonewhogotanaccount]

are your prounouns her/she?

...question answered?

[ash-morgensterns]

Post Chain of Thorns Rant pt.2

[pt.1]

Now that she no longer was busy treating Ari like shit and using women like objects, Anna was a lot more tolerable. I even liked the glimpses of her relationship with Matthew we got. Maybe if she could react like a person whose brother just died in her arms I would like her a lot better. And if we got to see her mourning in her own POV rather than in Ari's buried between paragraphs of her wanting to kiss Anna. 

Jesse came back from the dead, literally everyone and their mother knows it, yet his literal family barely bats an eyelid. The very same folks who had begged him to come live with them when he was a kid. Now to them, he's just 'Jesse the new strange boy'. The whole Jeremy Blackthorn plan was just cheap, I cannot believe it worked for as long as it did. This guy here is the spitting image of his father, yet when he showed up at a party full of people who had known him for years, they just drink up the American relative excuse just because apparently all Blackthorns look the same???? Also wouldn't they know Jesse as well considering he was running around London, possessed by a Prince of Hell and murdering Shadowhunters just yesterday??? Nobody found it even a little suspicious that a new Blackthorn just showed up right after that??? Whatever, the necromancy plot was just an afterthought and it showed. #Jesse and James best brothers-in-law. 

I absolutely loathed how everyone villainized Charles just because he wanted to keep his relationship with Alastair and homosexuality a secret. And then, to make things worse, he was literally forced into coming out by his own brother and his friend, and got treated like shit because he dared prioritize his career over any relationship he might have in the future. God forbid someone doesn't put romance in the first place right??? And don't even get me started on how everyone just dismissed him after he did come out. Because apparently 'nobody cares if he fancies men'!!! Where did Charles get the impression he would get ostracized if the truth ever came out??? That's so silly of him!!! I'm raging.

A few more thoughts about the book/plot in general:

Elias' funeral anyone???

CC totally forgot one of the characters was supposed to end up exiled at the Scholomance.

The Carstairs owe the Herondales because????

Wasn't there supposed to be a surprise baby that needed adoption?

Ariadne changed her name to Ari/Arati but we never get a last name. Does she keep Bridgestock since she made up with her mother?

After four completed series and six (that I can remember) dead siblings, I can safely say that the one who got the most (and better written) amount of mourning is Sebastian, of all the people.

These characters have such a black and white perception of the word and it's just annoying.

How TF did Charlotte manage to get pregnant, she is like 50… And twins.

Bridget coming into the fray last minute and starting to slay demons was insane. I love her for it.

New Belial's pact about him and Herondales staying away from each other is totally tying in either the last TEC's book or TWP.

Anna and Ari already planning to adopt a baby feels incredibly rushed.

Forever be bitter that we never got to see Gideon's reaction to Jesse resurrection and them interact.

Congratulations to Sona for making it out alive when so many people (me included) gave her for dead.

Cordelia's relationship with both Herondale is totally rushed and built around nothingness. I wish CC would stop trying to sell either as "childhood friendships turned into more" because… it's simply not that. It's blatantly obvious that despite writing to each other for years (plus the occasional meeting) Lucie and Cordelia barely know each other, and James doesn't even have that… Am I really supposed to believe that it took him as little as her reading to him when he was nearly comatose with fever to make him fall in love with her?

It was very nice to see all the characters finally come together and interact as a group.

Lucie and Jesse best ship.

If Tessa hadn't been so stubborn about keeping her head under sand about the identity of her father and had acted accordingly (especially when Jem did all the research work for her and clearly warned her that her father was one of the Princes of Hell) all that mess about getting the Institute removed from their custody would have been avoided. Not to mention, she could have had her children learn how to defend themselves, insead of leaving them to fend off alone until the problem became too big to ignore.

The falling out for the necromancy plot was incredibly underwhelming.

I don't think we are ever getting another (accurate) family tree.

[thechangeling]

The Wall

For the longest time I said I wasn't going to write a fic where Ty figures out he's autistic because I don't remember a time where I didn't know. I was diagnosed when I was two.

However in the end I decided I wanted to put my own spin on it. Happy disability pride month.

Cw: mentions of ableism, ableist abuse, trauma, autistic self dehumanization, dissociation and depersonalization. Also a not so favorable look at Andrew Blackthorn.

It's 3:35 am and Tiberius Nero Blackthorn is autistic.

It was something Julian had mentioned to him in passing after dinner, telling Ty to look it up. He hadn't thought much of it at first, although granted it was a little peculiar. But Ty had done as he asked that evening and now many hours and many websites, instagram posts and tiktok  later, he was spiraling.

Not for the reasons one might assume. It wasn't exactly surprising, the idea that there was something different about him that separated him from the rest of his siblings, from almost everyone else he had met actually. Although according to the extensive research he had done, different sets of traits could present themselves differently in each autistic person.

Autistic

There was a word for people like him.

There were people like him.

Ty was trying to focus on the information, on the facts and not let his emotions overwhelm him. But the irrefutable proof that there was a reason. A reason for him being this way. It wasn't his fault. He wasn't broken or weird or strange. He wasn't some creature other than human.

As a child he always thought he must be a changeling of some sort. Some alien creature left amongst humans either by mistake or as some kind of experiment. He never felt as though he fully fit in with his family, even his twin. It was always as though there was a giant wall of ice separating him from the world.

He had tried so hard all these years to break it down. To feel apart of something fully and truly. To feel loved. But there was always something missing. Even reading these posts online and watching these videos he still felt seperate in some ways. He had a community, a place of people of shared his thoughts and experiences, but it still wasn't exactly right. Like a shirt that fits a little small. Something felt off.

He watched a Netflix comedy special by an autistic comedian named Hannah Gadsby who stated that "it is lonely being on the spectrum because my brain takes me to places that nobody else lives." And that was it wasn't it? The simple truth. Ty existed in places that the people he loved just couldn't reach. Sometimes that was fortunate. When he wanted to get away. He could just leave. He could leave his body and float away.

There were also moments when he felt so disconnected from any sense of his self or who he was. As Tiberius Nero Blackthorn. What did that name mean? Who was that? When he looked in the mirror he saw a face, but had no connection to it what so ever.

The internet called this dissociation, depersonalization in particular. It was a symptom of trauma, but often associated with being autistic. 

Trauma. Another new and exciting word.

Ty thought about everything he and his siblings had gone through. He thought about the death of his parents, his parents in general. His father was hyper aware of the reputation their family had for being different. It dated long back before he had fathered two half bloods but that certainly didn't help. And then he had the audacity to take his anxieties out on Ty.

Andrew had never liked that he was different, strange. He thought that he could teach Ty to be normal. He probably thought he was doing him a favor.

He would try and hold Ty's hand down to his sides while he stimmed and try to hold him steady when got upset and rocked back and forth. When Ty had what he now knew was called a meltdown, he would just get angry. As if Ty was doing it on purpose. He could remember one time his father had locked him in his room and refused to let him out until he calmed down.

Ty shook himself from the memory and attempted to regulate his breathing. He rubbed his fingers together, feeling the pads moving against each other.

Then there was his mother, she wasn't as bad but she never tried to stop his father. She was always telling him that she loved him but he needed to learn how to control these things. That she knew how harsh and brutal and loud the world could be but he needed to learn to cope as she did. He need to learn to keep still and blend in.

Ty had found his attention drifting over to articles about symptoms in women. Autistic women and girls talking about their lives and experiences. He thought about his mother, so clearly uncomfortable and obsessed with presenting a certain way right up until the bitter end. He thought of Livvy, his own twin with her obsessions and her tendency to pack bond with her weapons. Of the way she was always moving, not like he was, but twirling her hair or tapping her leg or pacing back and forth.

And dancing. She loved to dance and belt out the lyrics to her favorite songs. She always said it calmed her down. She was always talking with her hands as well. It was like his twin always had a switch that was on. Even in death. Livvy's ghost hovered beside him offering moral support and helpful criticism. And when he turned to her and asked if she was ok as he tried to remember to do from time to time, she smiled her perfect wide Livvy smile and told him she was ok. It sounded exactly the same as it always did.

It sounded almost rehearsed.

He was worried about her. But amongst his worry for Livvy and all of his siblings was crushing realization that he just didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to put all if their peices back together. Everyone was so fucked up. It wasn't just him. None of the Blackthorns were normal. All dealing with trauma in their own ways. The dark war, so many dead. Julian had been forced to kill their father.

Ty had been so furious at the time. So emotionally unbalanced that during a meltdown he punched a mirror. It was strange. How you could love someone who hurt you so badly and still miss them. It didn't make what they did ok, but it made things messy. And then Mark and Helen were taken.

Ty found he didn't remember much from that period of time. When they knew Mark was lost to them and they were being told that Helen had to leave. It all blurred together. At a certain point Ty just stopped. Stopped being. It was all too much so he had just left himself behind.

He thought about Mark some more. How Mark was the one who would always listen to him no matter how many times Ty had repeated the same information. Never getting bored or frustrated. How Mark matched his enthusiasm for whatever thing he was currently obsessed with, a special interest Ty had learned they were called, by rambling about whatever he was passionate about in that moment. Mark never had year long intense loves for certain subjects like animals or cats or Sherlock but he would occassionally spend a few days completely buried in something and eager to share with whoever would listen.

Ty recieved the same joy he felt hearing about Mark's passions when he saw videos and posts if other autistics rambling about their special interests. It was tangible proof that there was joy and passion and love in this life even when he himself could not find it. And that rush of feeling, just feeling so deeply about something, or someone. It was like a drug. Although that line of thinking was bound to lead him somewhere dangerous if he pursued it. Thinking about autism and love would lead him somewhere he didn't want to be. Couldn't be. So he aggressively ignored and references to relationships in his research or romance.

He thought about Mark's relationships and how he had always been sensitive like how Ty was sensitive. And as he got older that sensitivity had grown into insecurity and a profound self hatred preventing him from seeing how people really felt about him.

His fear of rejection often led him to actively push people away, like Cristina and Kieran.

It was a good thing Ty wasn't like that.

But there had always been similarities between the two of them, and an unspoken solidarity.

Now we both have hurt hands.

Maybe that was something. Ty didn't think Mark was like him but...something.

It was then Ty realized how exhausted he was. Not just exhausted physically but exhausted all the way through into his brain. Exhausted emotionally and mentally. He can't sleep though. There's still too much energy vibrating through him. He gets like this sometimes, where he is unable to to sleep. According to the internet it's yet another symptom. Insomnia.

For fucks sake.

It was starting to feel like everything in his life was an autistic trait or at least related to autism in some way. As if there was no way to tell where he ends and the disability begins.

Livvy tells him that maybe that's the point. Maybe there is no end and beginning, maybe this is just him. The good and the bad.

"We're all made up of good bits and bad bits and some that are just ok," she murmers to him softly. "That's life. That's human nature."

Ty thinks about this. He thinks about his life, his mind, his thoughts and feelings. The good the bad and the parts that are just ok. And in spite of everything, he loves it.

He loves his crazy wild and wonderful big beautiful brain. Because it's him. And bared underneath all the trauma and anger, underneath all the despair there is a burning urge. An urge to live.

Not just to survive.

He lays in bed and listens to music from his headphones, not classical this time but something soft and calming. A song called The right way around. He let's his mind wander as it does when he hears music, concocting different fictional scenarios in his mind. He lets his imagination take him away.

It's now 4:55 am and Tiberius Nero Blackthorn is autistic.

And he is going to be ok.

Tagging: @lavender-scented-rat   @littlx-songbxrd    @have-a-holly-jolly-angstmas @amchara @wagner-fell @sandersgrey @the-wckd-powers @spooky-drusilla @ellexu

[nephilimborn]

➻ MEET THE BLACKTHORNS. pt 1

( from eldest to youngest, the nephilim blackthorn family )

➻ HELEN.

also born out of the union of lady narissa and andrew blackthorn, the first blackthorn child was born half-fae. raised in the shadowhunter culture / the bright glass towers of alicante seen from her childhood bedroom's window / she is a young kind woman that has been exiled away from her family after the cold peace. unlike mark, helen was allowed to keep contact with the rest of the siblings, for her exile had been masked as a business trip to investigate certain anomalities on the magic wards that protect idris, the shadowhunter headquarters and HOME. helen lives with her wife aline in a remote location known by no members of the family, fulfilling her duty with pride and resentment, before finally returning as the head of the los angeles institute, where most of the blackthorns reside, after the canon events of the books. mark misses his older sister constantly, for she is the only one of the blackthorns to truly understand the stigma that comes with being part fae, specially after the cold peace was installed.

➻ MARK.

second son, half-fae, adopted the eldest sibling role until he was ripped from his family and exiled to faerieland. there, he lost notion of time and identity under countless tortures and starving days. finally, he is reunited with his family under strange circumstances, used by the faerie courts to sabotage nephilim and wage another war. nonetheless, mark's strong love for his siblings and guilt over having abandoned his responsabilities would override every mind-trick and manipulation tactic used by his captors to ensure his loyalty. he feels deep hatred towards the clave for what has been done to his family and thousands other families just like his, yet he feels an even stronger hate towards himself for believing the lies, for thinking that his siblings were dead and there was nothing he could do, for disappearing when they needed their older brother the most.

➻ JULIAN.

eldest human son, an artistic soul crushed and broken by the weight on his shoulders. since the blackthorn parents were turned and murdered on the dark war, julian has been responsible for each blackthorn sibling. for their training, their hygiene, how much do they eat, what allergies they have. there is nothing that the eldest brother in the los angeles institute cannot do, taking care of the bills, the reports, and every important thing that you could ever imagine. of course, a sixteen year old can't be the official head of the institute, yet their uncle arthur, the actual director, was a shell of a man, obsessed with dark magic and possibly overriden by the shadowy claws of dementia / it left them no choice, if the blackthorns wanted to continue living in their home, it falls on julian to keep the façade. to continue the illusion. it will break him, it already is. just as his multiple obsessions, that thirst that cannot be quenched, will kill him. julian is obsessed with art, painting, drawing, and studying it. there's a secret hidden room in the institute where he disappears for hours at a time, mostly when the tide is down and the sea is calm, when the clave hasn't sent any messages and the fridge is full. specially, he is obsessed with drawing emma, his parabatai. a parabatai is a partner, a friend to cover your back until your last breath. her beautiful golden locks, in a perfectly crafted disarrey of aurean light, and those lioness' eyes. mark is sure their connection, and the tons in julian's shoulders, will be the start of the demise of the blackthorn family. ➻ TIBERIUS AND LIVIA

the twins, around fourteen years old when mark returns to the institute, he almost cannot recognise them. ty, a smart and shy young boy constantly engrossed in a detective novel ; livvy, a strong and extroverted girl, always ready to nag and scold her twin brother for this and that. they are joint by the hip, almost never found without the other close by, and of course, always getting into some mischief. investigating leads way too dangerous for them, spying on kind of suspicious allies, and turning every mundane activity into an exciting game of wits.

it is them who bring the most pain to mark, when he thinks about the years lost. he was never there to comfort ty when it got too loud, too crowded. he was never there to ask livvy gently to help him, to hear about her adventures and infamous deeds. it is them, ty with his kind caution around him, as if he's a feral animal. livvy with her scared looks, only there for a second but enough for him to retreat once again. it is livvy's death what ends up breaking them, what ends up pushing julian to his limit, mark to the deep pit of guilt, emma to recklessness.

[hesperio]

The trip to see his family goes as well as he's imagining it will -- and a little better, because dropping in unannounced is one thing, but doing so on the tail end of a world tournament with the champion of your region is another.

It's funny, seeing people faun over Geeta and Rika and Larry. Hassel makes it through most of the day before he catches sight of Iyokan on the edges of his vision and remembers why he's actually here. It's not to just show Larry the waterfall he's dived off of or Rika the mountain caves he called home.

Apart, it's easy to say the similarities between them are coincidence. Together, it's hard to imagine them as anything but siblings. They are both tall, their shoulders broad. Hassel (Hassaku, she says in her accented tongue) has let his hair grow long, while she keeps hers short to her head. Their eyes are the same sunset-golden that captivates those they speak to.

They look each other up and down in a quiet judgement before her face breaks into a smile.

You look like you're doing well.

The smile is almost enough to make him cry then and there. It lightens the sternness of her features back to the girl who had chased Magikarp in the Den with him.

Meeting with his father, on the other hand, is hardly fun. He's old now, among the elders of their clan, and finding him in the depths of the Den at this time of the day means facing them all. His father's terms for him are simple: he either comes home and resumes his duties, or he relinquishes all claim to his inheritance.

The elders murmur that he will keep his Blackthorn title. He passed the trials, he tames dragons. He must keep his title, but the land? That will pass to his sister.

The agreement couldn't come faster. Fine.

He feels lighter just for saying it. When he steps out of the Den and into the afternoon sun, Iyokan is waiting, and she smiles.

He'll die in a few years and then you don't have to worry about it anymore. Come on.

They have flights to catch that night, so she invites them to lunch instead. He gets to meet Touri, his niece, who turns seventeen in the next month. There's a Dratini wound around her ankles, a promise that she has already completed the trials.

It's strange, to come home with such dread and leave with a promise to visit more often (or else, his sister had added).

He looks to his friends, beloved support they are, and grins as well. They have a few hours left to kill time, after all, and he has so much to show them.

[wiildroses]

cristina didn't think it was POSSIBLE for the blackthorn manor to feel empty with only one person gone. with a house full of people, one person gone shouldn't make so much of a different. however, without julian, the house felt strange and EMPTY. even with the kids running about, arguing or just overall being loud and making their own presence very known.

perhaps it was also felt in the way every blackthorn sibling, and emma acted when julian wasn't around. they also felt the lack of his presence and even though they're all able to go on about their day, julian was an integral part and when he wasn't there, it was like they didn't know what to do with themselves. cristina tried her best to fill in the void. cook breakfast, more specifically pancakes on PANCAKE DAY. or just overall cook and clean up whenever it was needed.

watching tavvy proved to be very tasking on her own. too used to switching off with julian from time to time. the twins were helpful and so was drusilla. however, even tavvy knew his eldest brother was gone and ACTED OUT a bit. it felt like a breath of fresh air when julian finally came home. she'd know the sound of his footsteps anywhere.

she had just finished putting tavvy down for the night and the others were watching a movie that livvy had picked out since dru had picked the one the night before. perhaps they'd already fallen asleep, but she wasn't sure. she's EAGER to greet him with kisses. peppering his cheeks as a greeting without saying a word. she can't help but grin at the sound of his laugh. she really missed the sound of his laugh.

her dark chocolate hues meet his sea-colored pair as he cups her face and HOLDS her gaze for a moment. she can feel her cheeks flush for a moment before he returns her gesture with a kiss on each of her cheeks. the way his hand LINGERS on her cheek causes her to still as she keeps her gaze on him.

"maybe it's a little bit of BOTH." she admits with a light chuckle. "i wasn't sure if you were coming home tonight or tomorrow. i'm glad you're back, though."

@fatescattered ; cont.

[mistwraiths]

4 stars

LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD

Chain of Gold is set in the early 1900s, following the children of Tessa Gray and Will Herondale, along with Cordelia Carstairs. Like all of Cassandra's books, it's an ensemble cast and it's written to enjoyably enough to devour it pretty quickly. This book was just okay to me, I actually found it to be a bit slow and dragged in places. Some of things that happened seemed to be a little too convenient or contrived to have more drama too it.

The whole demons attacking in daylight and passing along a terrible poison that no one could cure and was killing Shadowhunters was very interesting. However, it felt like we only had two Shadowhunters die so honestly it didn't feel like much of a threat level. Oh several were injured and in a magic sleep, but I would have liked some more actual loss and fear there. Along with the two that died, one was an actual child of one of the characters in the Clockwork series and it was strange that the death itself didn't have that much of an impact on the characters? Especially since they were related and one character was the sibling!! It just felt so odd that it didn't feel like much of a big deal, especially Thomas who we know he's grieving but it's not really given to us. So, I'd actually have liked more danger and death and it's impact.

Will Herondale and Tessa Gray have NEVER been my favorites, but shockingly their children are pretty okay all things considered. James Herondale isn't particularly my favorite on his own however the two things he's involved in are very intriguing to me. First, I do love that Tessa's demon blood has consequences in her offspring and has set them apart. The fact that James can go into a shadow realm of sorts, basically a demon realm his demon grandfather controls, is very cool and I love that the whole demon stuff was used to capture him and get him to become his heir basically. I'm also super interested in the whole bracelet binding him and how he can't remember how or why but he loves Grace Blackthorn. I want to know more about it! I want to see that part played out more.

Lucie feels a little too young and naive/innocent for me to really love her, especially if she's supposedly a trained Shadowhunter etc. But I do like her and I'm interested to see more of her. Especially since she can command ghosts and saw Jesse Blackthorn, and has promised to raise him from the dead.

I loved the Blackthorns in the Dark Artifices and you know, I still love them now. I loved Jesse and I'm obsessed with Grace Blackthorn. I think it's easy to think her cruel and callous and conniving, but I think she's a victim and possible a part of her upbringing. What has she had to do and deal with to survive Tatiana and the necromantic magic and demons brought around.

I also very much love the Carstairs and I do like Cordelia. I like that she wants to be a hero. I don't like that Cordelia has two nicknames that are actual completely different names: Daisy and Layla. It just feels unnecessary because I'm already trying to remember who is related to who and what their last names are, etc so more names just make more confusion. Cordelia is in love with James and while they're both the old usual "there's no way they could like me" about each other occasionally, it is clear to us that James also loves Cordelia. Although the bracelet might not fully let him. I love a good tragic romance however this wasn't doing anything for me. I actually don't really like James and Cordelia together, other than that very hot make out session that was done well, they don't really click for me. I could take back my words later for sure but for now, I don't really care about Cordelia's love for James not being reciprocated.

I like Alastair as well, and did not expect there to be drama involving a lavender engagement situation. My heart hurts for Alistair because I think I bullied lonely boy became the worst version of himself and a terrible bully, and he's still dealing with the consequences. He doesn't deny any of the things he did, in fact he does apologize or asks if they can be put behind them. Honestly, that whole part where everyone got mad at Alastair for what he said was a little ridiculous for me. We're really not told how old they are when they were at the academy but I think maybe it's like 13??? Maybe a year or two older, because there was time between them getting expelled and not being old enough to go to Enclave meetings. But, my thing is what teenagers especially on the younger end, not say shitty things about people and their mothers? The whole part where Thomas was like "my mom cried, my sisters shamed". Excuse me, who is telling a grown ass woman teenager bullshit from school and why is happily married Sophie bothered???? Also his sisters are older than him so how were they affected if Alistair when to school with the boys? That thing was just silly to me. People aren't what they say or do in high school. If they own up to it and apologize and act better, all things Alastair was doing, I don't think it matters.

I'm very interested in Matthew because we don't get a lot about him and I want to know more. It's obvious that he also likes Cordelia and honestly it feels so similar to the Tess, Will, and Jem thing that it makes me very sad. I actually like Matthew and Cordelia interacting and I know I'm probably doomed rooting for them but I am.

I LOVED Anna. Thomas and Christopher were both good characters that again I'm begging for more to understand them. I did have a really hard time remembering how they were all related and who is whose cousin or sibling or parent.

The last hundred pages were a bit messy and dramatic to me. Especially Cordelia's excuse as why James couldn't have burned the house down. WHEN I TELL YOU I WAS SO EMBARRASSED. Of COURSE James is noble enough and indebted to marry her so her reputation isn't ruined. It makes the most sense. I don't love it but I'm going to see how it goes. Very interested in seeing what Tatiana and Belial have planned. I also had a little issue of when James almost died and Cordelia was like "life would have no meaning" and I think that's a terrible message in general. It would be devastating to lose someone you loved but life always goes on and life has meaning regardless of love.

Overall, it was a good book but nothing really WOWED me.

[levi-supreme]

Slytherin!Levi Headcanons

Character: Levi

Genre: Wizarding World!au, with some canon divergence

Warnings: SFW. Brief mentions of other characters

A/N: Say hello to D-13 before Levi's birthday! I love Harry Potter and I am an extremely HUGE Potterhead, so of course I'll be doing something like this for Levi. Enjoy these headcanons of Levi as a student in Hogwarts.

Disclaimer: Please note that the veterans have varying ages in Canonverse. But for the sake of these headcanons, their ages will range from 15 - 17 years old and they will be in their fifth to seventh year in Hogwarts.

Also, school starts on 1 September in Hogwarts and therefore, Levi starts his first year at Hogwarts when he was 12 years old instead of 11, just like Hermione Granger.

Name: Levi Ackerman

Birthday: 25 December 1987

Blood status: Pure-blood

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Allegiance: Ackerman Family

Pet: Barking owl

Wand wood: Blackthorn

Wand core: Dragon heartstring

Wand length and flexibility: Twelve and a half inch, solid

Patronus: Black stallion

Favourite subjects: Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts

Least liked subjects: Divination, History of Magic

Levi Ackerman was born on 25 December 1987, few years after the First Wizarding War. Levi was the only son of Kuchel Ackerman, and nephew of Kenny Ackerman.

The Ackerman family is one of the most respected Pure Blood families in the Wizarding World. Despite being a Pure Blood family, they did not swear allegiance to Lord Voldemort and did not follow the Pure-blood Supremacy where many of the other families did, even during the height of the Wizarding War.

Unlike the Black family who were known for striking off 'blood traitors' from their family tree, the Ackerman family did not follow such traditions and practices, and embraced diversity in their family. Levi was taught by his family that all individuals are equal, and regardless of blood status, anyone worthy of a wand was worthy to wield magic.

Growing up, Levi was alone most of the time but he had a happy childhood. He didn't have any siblings, as such his playmates were his toys and occasionally his other cousins and the children of his mother's friends.

Levi's favourite hobby was reading. The Ackermans have a huge library with many books on wizarding history, the Dark Arts, magical creatures, charms, potions, duelling and the like. Levi loved reading and spending time in the library. Uncle Kenny secretly taught him how to engage in fist fights on top of wizard duelling, something that Kuchel was not happy about.

Levi was 12 and about to start his first year at Hogwarts when the Second Wizarding War began in 1998. When school began on 1 September, Levi was sorted into Slytherin, just like majority of his relatives. Even though he was young, Levi hated how everyone associated Slytherin with nothing but the Dark Arts, and the misconceptions everyone had of Slytherin. Levi was determined to change people's minds.

Levi was a hardworking student and liked by his professors and peers. Although he was aloof, sarcastic, and crude with his words, Levi treated everyone as equals. Many who were in Hogwarts long enough felt that the young Levi Ackerman strangely resembled and reminded them of Tom Riddle, before he was known to others as Lord Voldemort. The main difference between them was that Levi didn't dabble into the Dark Arts like Tom Riddle did.

Levi hardly got into trouble and rarely got detention. With his good grades and good behaviour, Levi was naturally made Prefect in his fifth year in Hogwarts along with fellow Slytherin Nanaba.

Levi also did well for his O.W.Ls, achieving 'Acceptable' in History of Magic, Divination and Astronomy. Levi also got 'Exceeds Expectations' in Transfiguration, Potions, Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology. Levi achieved an 'Outstanding' for his Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Levi went on to pursue Charms, Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Potions and Herbology in his N.E.W.T level.

Levi was initially at loggerheads with Head Boy Erwin Smith from Ravenclaw. Like him, Erwin was a pure-blood and hailed from a family with rich wizarding history. Erwin excelled in academics, he was the House Captain and Seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team, and also performed his Prefect duties very well. Levi hated how pompous Erwin was sometimes and he found Erwin to be a little of a showoff. However, he came to admire Erwin's intelligence and leadership, and formed an unlikely friendship with him. Levi liked Erwin as a study buddy, and they frequently engaged in friendly wizard duels. They enjoyed exchanging books from their family library.

Erwin also introduced Hange Zoe, a fellow Ravenclaw in Levi's year, to him. Hange was loud but very knowledgeable, and Levi found himself seeing Hange as a friendly rival. Levi and Hange would study in the library together and vet each other's homework. Hange's favourite subject was Care of Magical Creatues and idolised Newt Scamander, writer of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

Another person Levi formed a friendship with was Mike Zacharias, a half-blood from Gryffindor. Levi found him to be an oddball and didn't liked him. Mike was quiet and had a weird habit of sniffing people which Levi found it disgusting. But during one of their night patrolling along the schools grounds, Levi witnessed how Mike dealt with two brats who were breaking school rules. Mike also once told Levi that he smelt good, which Levi took as a compliment. Levi realised that despite his quiet and withdrawn behaviour, Mike had a good heart, and his opinion of him changed. Mike introduced Levi to basketball and muggle contraptions like the Gameboy and the computer, and once a week during their holidays, Levi has a sleepover at Mike's where he experiences his friend's muggle lifestyle.

Upon his graduation from Hogwarts in 2004, Levi did not immediately seek a job as his mother had fallen ill. It was only in 2007 after his mother recovered when he chose to seek a job. With only one goal in mind, Levi chose to work as an Auror like his good friend Mike who went on with Auror training since graduation.

By then, Erwin was an Auror working directly under Harry Potter who was the Head of the Auror Office. Erwin has recommended Levi to Harry and he immediately took a liking to him. Levi passed all interviews and tests with flying colours and with a recommendation letter from the Head himself, Levi started working as a junior auror. Coincidentally, he was placed in the same team as Mike, who had Erwin as his supervisor. The two men were glad to see Levi again, and pleased to know they had a talented individual like Levi on their team.

The Wizarding World was still facing its aftermath from the Second Wizarding War, and there were still loyal supporters of Lord Voldemort on the run. Levi was determined to eradicate these roots of evil and swore his allegiance to the new reformed Ministry to abolish old wizarding laws and biases of the past.

Tagging: @ack3rlady @hashaneeee @levi-lover @hauntedhousecat @leviswhorewifex @venusackerman @notgoodforlife @starstruckkittensweets @axoxtxhxh @roralore @imkumichan @kristinecharmm @jean-prettyboy-kirschtein @michiboo @sweet-assh0le @hannie2kay @deludedimagines @ack3rlevi @ackermandick @lavenderdaisyhoney

Event masterlist | Event taglist | Rei's taglist

[ohnotoomanyfandoms]

I'm really interested in your analysis of the plot twist being that matthew is in love with james instead of cordelia. Many people (including me) have joked about how it would make more sense but I never really consider it... In a canon way? But it could make sense. I like what you say about his (lack of) pov. Maybe there is something to analyse too in his reaction to james and grace vs jordelia. Like from the start he didn't really like grace but because he struggled to believe her. Ok I don't know where I'm going with this I need to reread chog. But just so you know that at least 1 person is interested in what you have to say about this theory.

Thank you! 

I shall try my best to explain why I’m choosing to believe Matthew is in love with James and not Cordelia until I am proven wrong by canon. 

1) The lack of POV that I mentioned in my other post is very telling. Cassandra’s choice indicates Matthew has a secret. We already know about his dark sin, so it’s not that. It’s something us readers aren’t supposed to know, so that it can come as a revelation later. 

2) Matthew hates Grace. He always has and he still does. Now, remember, Matthew was the only person James confided in about Grace. If James told him he was in love, shouldn't Matthew have been happy for him? If he had reservations about Grace specifically, why not make them known? No, in those initial years he didn’t loathe Grace specifically, he’d never even met her, but he was jealous of her for holding James’s heart. And then obviously he grows angry and bitter when Grace breaks James’s heart and leaves him for Charles of all people, proving, in Matthew’s eyes, that she’s just a social climber.

3) Cordelia. Matthew and Cordelia get along marvelously. He adores her as a person, and she him. They immediately build this camaraderie built upon how much they love the Herondales. As the book progresses and they get to know each other more, they start caring about each other and understanding each other as friends do. Now, I know everyone assumes those are signs of Matthew falling in love with her, but if the storyline was that linear, then why not have his POV? Why not show us how he was falling for her? Because it’s a red herring, that’s why. 

Hear me out: you can whip out ANY passage in Chain of Gold or snippet from Chain of Iron where you think the hidden subtext is that Matthew is developing feelings for Cordelia. I dare you, any passage, read it through the lens of “Matthew actually loves James.” You’ll see. I can provide examples in another post, if you want, let me know. 

Every time you think Matthew is jealous of James, it’s actually James he’s looking at, not Cordelia. Every time he’s angry, it’s on James’s behalf, for his sake. Now, you could of course just read this as parabatai protectiveness and I wouldn’t fault you for it. It’s how I read it as for nearly a year, after all. And then I re-read some old theories of mine from like 2015 and things clicked. I re-read the book and it all made sense through those lenses. 

I always said there was something suspicious about Matthew’s alleged feelings for Cordelia. They came too fast. I even theorized Grace compelled him to feel things for her, so as to mess things up a bit. Now I realize those feelings were never there in the first place. 

Now, let me address some of your potential reservations: 

A) “But this would mean Matthew is in love with both Herondale siblings! Isn’t that a bit odd?” No odder than James and Lucie Herondale being in love with Grace and Jesse Blackthorn, another set of siblings. I mean what are the odds of THAT happening, right? (Unless you believe Jesse is also making Lucie fall for him like Grace did with James.) It’s actually way less strange if a bisexual boy falls for his best friend and his little sister. Or falls for the sister as a result of his love for his best friend being literally impossible. As in, James can’t reciprocate because he’s straight, and even if that weren’t the case, any romantic or sexual relationship between them is forbidden by the Law. 

B) “Would this be another parabatai love story?” No, this wouldn’t be another TDA situation, because James doesn’t and can’t love Matthew back romantically. If anything, this is unrequited love in its purest form (which, by the way, isn’t even forbidden by the Clave. What is forbidden is if you actually have a relationship, consummate, but it takes two to tango, so there is no chance of Matthew facing legal consequences like exile or mark-stripping for this, thankfully). We’ve seen some unrequited love situation in other TSC books, but it was never a main thing. Alec got over his imaginary crush on Jace the second he met Magnus. Same for Simon with Clary and Izzy. For Matthew, this could be yet another reason for his torment. 

C) “Must everyone be gay???? stop making every character gay” I’m sorry, Matthew is canonically bisexual and therefore what I am suggesting is canonically possible. 

If you don’t agree with this theory, I am curious to hear what you think the “big plot twist in the love triangle” is going to be! 

[melanielocke]

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter one

Lucie, Cordelia, Thomas and Alastair are spending the summer in a small town at the edge of a forest. Lucie hopes she can finally tell Cordelia how she really feels, while Thomas hopes to get to know Alastair a bit better. Alastair and Cordelia are glad to get some time away from their family and their parents separating. But something is not right in the forest. People are disappearing, and a creature warns Thomas that he is in danger, that a debt to a powerful being has not yet been repaid and they will need to combine all their abilities to stop what’s coming, and save Thomas.

CW: past toxic relationship, past abuse, mentions of alcoholism, PTSD It won't be super gory, but can be creepy

Tag list: @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @nott-the-best

Tagging @julywood because Thomas is one of the main characters

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32505550/chapters/80620474

‘Are you finished packing, Lulu?’

Lucie heard her father’s voice from behind the door of her bedroom, but she didn’t respond immediately. She was working on her story, and needed to finish this chapter so she could email it to Cordelia. She needed to concentrate, and that required blocking out all sounds coming from the outside world. The chapter had taken a bit longer than anticipated and the ghost of one of Cordelia’s dead boyfriends had somehow made its way into the chapter. Fictional Cordelia had had many boyfriends and all had died tragic deaths to make way for the next. She currently didn’t have a boyfriend and Lucie wasn’t planning another one yet. The real Cordelia had only dated her brother James for a while a year ago. Lucie didn’t think she wanted real Cordelia to have a boyfriend either.

The door opened and her father peeked inside. ‘You haven’t started packing at all, have you?’

‘I need to finish my chapter for Cordelia,’ Lucie insisted. ‘She will be stuck in a very long car ride with only Alastair for company and she needs something to occupy herself with.’

Lucie would be staying the summer with her parents in her grandmother’s manor, whereas her grandmother would be traveling to southern Italy with a couple of friends. While Lucie was usually excited about spending her summer there, she had feared it would be lonely considering her brother James wouldn’t be coming this year. He’d graduated school and he and his best friend Matthew were going to travel across the continent by themselves. She’d feared she’d be alone all summer, but then Thomas, her closest friend besides Cordelia, had convinced his parents to travel to the same town this summer, renting a cottage nearby her grandmother’s house.

‘Alright, I’ll pack for you,’ her father said. ‘But if you find your swimsuit or your sparrow plush toy is missing, then I will not be held responsible.’

‘Jack is coming,’ Lucie insisted, referring to her sparrow plush toy she’d once named after Jack Sparrow, and she put her laptop away to put her plush toy in her bag.

After a short moment of contemplation she put her new pink bikini and an older black and red striped one piece in there too. There was a lake close to grandmother’s manor and Lucie expected she’d go swimming regularly. She returned to her laptop, and tried to think of a good ending for the chapter. She didn’t like to end everything in a cliffhanger, but the story needed to remain intriguing.

‘No clothes? Underwear?’ her father asked.

Lucie considered just bringing everything suitable for the summer but realized they didn’t have that much space in the car. So instead she opened her closet, picked out some tops, skirts, dresses and jumpsuits and put them into her bag. She would probably regret leaving something behind later on but there was no time. Just to be sure, she went over the closet again and added a couple more dresses. She couldn’t leave her new yellow wrap dress behind, she’d sent Cordelia a picture of her wearing it a couple of weeks ago after she’d bought it and Cordelia had commented that she looked gorgeous. Lucie suspected it was just Cordelia being nice but the comment had still made her heart run wild.

She added enough underwear to last her several weeks and then went back to adding clothes at random until the bags were full.

‘Done,’ she announced, and she went back to her laptop, finishing her chapter.

Adding in a ghost was a difficult choice, but Lucie had decided fictional ghosts behaved similarly to real ghosts. Lucie had never seen a ghost of a dead boyfriend though. She hadn’t seen Jesse Blackthorn even once since he’d died four years ago.

When the chapter was finished, she emailed it to Cordelia, hoping she would receive it before she and her brother left home. Cordelia had almost not been allowed to come stay with her family this summer, her father tended to be strict and wanted to keep Cordelia at home. There had been some trouble lately at the Carstairs home though, and Cordelia’s mother had decided it would be good for her to go spend time with Lucie. Cordelia’s brother Alastair had decided to come with her, although Lucie wasn’t sure why. Either way, Lucie had decided she and Cordelia were going to have the greatest summer ever.

 ***

Thomas hadn’t been this excited about going on a vacation with his parents in a while. The small town where they’d be staying sounded boring, and certainly wasn’t the location most boys his age wanted to spend the summer, but then Thomas wasn’t interested in drinking and partying all night and would much rather explore forests and go swimming in lakes with Lucie Herondale. That wasn’t the main reason he was excited though. A week ago, Lucie had confirmed her close friend Cordelia Carstairs would be staying the summer with her, and a couple of days later Lucie had informed him Cordelia’s brother Alastair would be coming as well.

Thomas had gone to school with Alastair for a year, Alastair a year ahead of him, and at the time Alastair had been rather awful, especially to Thomas’ friends James and Matthew. To be fair, Alastair’s jokes about Matthew behaving like his mother were funny. Matthew did behave like his mother, always coming to collect him when he’d spent too much time around Alastair. Why he’d fallen in love with Alastair anyway, he wasn’t sure. He’d been intrigued by the mystery, he guessed, Alastair’s sad eyes and vicious tongue.

But after that year, Alastair had changed schools, and had gone to school with Lucie and Cordelia instead and he’d heard much from Lucie about him. Alastair had defended Lucie from bullies had kept to himself and created this image of someone who was untouchable, no longer a bully, but he would destroy you if you even considered hurting his sister or her friend Lucie. Thomas was once more intrigued. While James and Matthew were still angry, Thomas had decided he must have changed and he was thankful Alastair had protected Lucie, heaven knew that girl knew how to get herself into trouble.

Thomas checked his phone for the millionth time. He was done packing, but his parents were not. Lucie hadn’t send any new texts and Thomas suspected she needed to pack or finish the latest chapter of her novel before her parents left. She’d listed some ideas that might help him spend more time alone with Alastair, although Thomas was not yet sure if he wanted that. He wasn’t out to anyone but Lucie yet, and although he intended to tell his parents, he wasn’t yet sure how. He wasn’t yet sure he was ready for a relationship, and although he liked Alastair, he was also a bit intimidated by him.

Barbara had sent a message, and Thomas opened it. It was a picture of her and Oliver in front of the Eiffel Tower. Barbara and her boyfriend Oliver had gone to Paris to celebrate their two year anniversary and to celebrate Barbara graduating as a nurse.

Thomas texted a response and put his phone in his bag and walked outside, checking to see if his parents needed any help. A couple of gnomes were running around the garden. Thomas didn’t mind them, they took good care of the garden, and were far from dangerous, but they could get up to mischief. He’d learned that whenever cookies, forks or socks went missing, it was usually the garden gnomes. They lived in forests sometimes, but also liked to build their homes in human gardens. Of course, most humans had no idea they were there, but Thomas could see all sorts of strange creatures. Most were harmless, so Thomas never minded much. He didn’t seek out the supernatural, but he didn’t mind its presence.

Both his mother and Barbara had the same gift, and although Eugenia didn’t she had learnt to see the gnomes. Thomas had found out everyone could learn to see the supernatural if they knew what to look for and knew it was out there. Most people didn’t believe so they didn’t see, but Eugenia had grown up with a mother and siblings who saw everything whether they wanted to or not. She had always known what was out there.

Eugenia and her friend Kamala would be spending the summer in India this year, they’d saved up for months for their big trip. Thomas suspected they might be more than just friends but so far Eugenia had not confirmed this.

‘We’re almost done,’ his mother promised, handing him a plate of cookies. ‘Give some to the gnomes, will you? To show them our thanks for taking care of the garden.’

Thomas went into the backyard where even more gnomes had gathered. It was difficult to imagine most people could look at this scene and see nothing out of the ordinary, when several gnomes were running around, holding something shiny in their hands.

‘The car keys,’ Thomas groaned out loud and he put the plate of cookies on the ground.

‘You can have these, but please give me the keys back,’ he said.

The gnomes said something, but Thomas didn’t understand their language, and then attacked the plate of cookies, dropping the car keys in the process. Thomas picked them up before the gnomes realized anything, and picked up the plate as soon as it was empty. Gnomes could be monsters when it came to cookies and they didn’t have table manners, they just attacked any food they saw. Thomas couldn’t blame them.

Thomas quickly washed the plate and put it back with the others before joining his parents again, who were finally finished with everything.

‘Feeding the gnomes again, Sophie?’ his father asked. ‘Are you sure that many cookies are healthy for them?’

His mother shrugged. ‘They’re gnomes, Gideon. Who knows what’s healthy for them?’

His father couldn’t argue with that logic. Thomas wondered if there would be gnomes too at the cottage where they would be staying, or if other creatures would show themselves. Thomas had learned that if there was a myth or any kind of story depicting it, it probably existed somewhere, but most such beings were very rare and so far Thomas had mostly encountered gnomes.

Checking the car one last time to see if they had everything, Thomas got into the passenger seat next to his mother who would be driving, his father behind. Thomas had gotten too tall to fit in the backseat of this car and sitting there for a long drive would be unnecessarily painful. Besides, Thomas was better at reading maps than his father, and if they got lost they would depend on him to find the way.

As they drove, Thomas couldn’t help but think of Alastair Carstairs. Why had he decided to join the Herondales? Thomas didn’t think he was particularly close to Lucie, although he knew Will Herondale had a weak spot for anything that carried the name Carstairs. He wasn’t surprised the Herondales had invited him along. Could he be thinking of Thomas? And would Lucie’s plans to get them to spend time together help, or only make everything worse?

 ***

‘I cannot get this bag to close,’ Cordelia complained.

‘Perhaps that’s because there’s a limit to how much fits in there,’ Alastair said without looking up.

He was finished packing, of course. Cordelia, on the other hand, had decided she had not yet enough clothes packed and with some suggestions from her mother and aunt Risa had tried to add more.

‘Don’t you have another bag for me?’ Cordelia asked, annoyed.

She loved Alastair, but sharing a room with him was a bit too much and they’d gotten on each other’s nerves. They were currently staying with their aunt Risa, their mother too, but Risa’s apartment was a bit small for all of them. It was a temporary situation and Cordelia hoped that after the summer she and Alastair didn’t have to share a room anymore. At least in the Herondale manor, there were plenty of rooms and Cordelia intended to get one as far away from her brother as possible. Alastair tended to be neat, and his half of the room was always perfectly in order, whereas Cordelia was a bit messier, and both were irritated with the other.

‘You can check if any of my bags have some space left. Or you can leave the bag opened and put it in the car like this and hope it doesn’t end with clothes littered everywhere.’

Cordelia went to the building’s parking garage and to the car and put the bag there, half open, making sure nothing fell out. No one but the two of them would be fitting in there with how much Alastair had packed. Cordelia couldn’t imagine he’d need all that, but she knew better than to attempt to convince her brother he could leave something behind.

Back inside, she saw Alastair sitting on his bed, vaguely staring into the distance as if he was daydreaming.

‘Alastair, stop doing that,’ Cordelia said.

Calling his name usually brought him out even when his senses were closed off from the world around him. Alastair had an ability that Cordelia best described as him being Harry Potter’s pensieve. He could revisit his own memories, and if they allowed it, other people’s memories as well, as well as bring people with him into memories. Alastair tended to stay out of other people’s memories, but could get lost in his own. Outside their family, no one knew about it and Alastair preferred to keep it that way.  

The Carstairs family had always been aware of the supernatural, of course. Once their father Elias had carried the magic sword cortana and fought evil creatures with it. That had been a long time ago though, and Cordelia owned cortana now, but she had never used it to fight anything beyond straw men in the backyard. She didn’t have any abilities though, not beyond her connection the sword, nothing like Alastair’s odd memory. Neither of them understood why he was that way.

‘Were you revisiting your break up again?’ Cordelia asked then.

She knew he’d been revisiting that memory over and over lately, although she didn’t understand why. It couldn’t possibly make him feel better, could it? Of course, Alastair wasn’t exactly known for making the healthiest choices when it came to coping.

‘Charles has been texting me,’ Alastair said, his face blank. ‘I made sure that when I broke up with him, I was very clear about not wanting him to contact me. I wanted to see if there was anything I said that might have made my meaning unclear, any invitation for him to keep texting me.’

‘I don’t think Charles has ever listened to a thing you said,’ Cordelia said. ‘That’s his problem, not yours. Have you blocked his number yet?’

Alastair didn’t say anything.

‘You can block him,’ Cordelia insisted. ‘And you should. It’s creepy how he keeps texting you.’

As far as Cordelia was concerned, Charles had been creepy long before that, ever since he began a relationship with her brother despite Alastair only being sixteen at the time when Charles was six years older than him. Charles must have known how wrong and creepy that was, even if Alastair hadn’t.

Alastair hadn’t told anyone about his relationship, not ready to come out yet, which must have been convenient to Charles. Cordelia had only found out four months ago when she’d started to worry about Alastair, how he’d seemed more nervous and prickly than usual, how he’d lost weight from not eating. Reluctantly, Alastair had told her about his relationship, and Cordelia had been horrified to learn just how much abuse he’d accepted, believing that was how relationships worked. After a month of Cordelia trying to convince him of how toxic Charles was, Alastair had broken up with him. She’d been very protective of him ever since finding out, and was glad he’d decided to come stay with the Herondales with her this summer. Some time away from everything would be good for him, right?

Then Cordelia had found out Alastair had been keeping even more secrets from her, this one surrounding their father. Cordelia had always loved her father and looked up to him, a former warrior who’d slain the supernatural horror that had taken his brother and sister in law, a former hero who’d fallen ill in later life. A while ago their cousin Jem, who was a psychiatrist, had visited, despite their father trying to keep him away from their family, and he’d noticed Alastair was not doing well after an anger outburst. Cordelia and her mother had always assumed Alastair’s moodiness and anger outbursts were just him being a difficult teenager, although at eighteen he was getting a bit old for that. Jem, familiar with mental disorders, had recognized symptoms of something more.

He had recommended Alastair see a therapist. After some pressure from both her and Jem, Alastair had gone and he’d been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. Cordelia had found out father was not sick, but addicted to alcohol instead. Alastair had spent years protecting her from the effects, attempting to take care of father while he was drunk so she have the illusion of a normal childhood. Now that she knew, she guessed she understood a bit better why Alastair had thought what Charles had offered was love.

‘I guess I can block him,’ Alastair said.

‘I’m serious,’ Cordelia insisted. ‘You have to stop revisiting bad memories, you’ll only get hurt again. I don’t like seeing you hurt.’

Alastair took his phone out his pocket, presumably blocked Charles’ number, and put it back.

‘Are you ready to go, Layla?’ he asked.

When Cordelia was young, she’d loved the story of Layla and Majnun her mother used to tell her, and Alastair and her mother had taken to calling her Layla.

‘Ready when you are,’ Cordelia said. ‘Lucie just emailed me the latest chapter of the beautiful Cordelia. I’ll have plenty to do on the way.’

[someonewhogotanaccount]

hey kitkat :p

BWAHAHAHAHAHA STOP STOP I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING!!!!! HELP!!! I NEED TO BREATHE-

Holy Killercat, that's even funnier than the last one - oh and look, smiley's laughing too XD. Nice. Damn I miss you three so much ouch ouch ouch. My master and I will take care of smiley, don't worry about that. We won't let her run away again (it was enough pain in the ass to find her the last time ;).

Also I'm proud (again) that you keep up with duolingo, as my best bad friend always complains about it. And if you ever despair of grammar that is too difficult or something like that, I can only say: "Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache." Oh, and "Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung", of course (have fun with that one ;).

Thank you thank you thank you for sending me this, Aylin, I can imagine being the... uh... "middle teenager" can't be easy :). How are you doing? NOnnonono scratch that. Better question: What are the "travelling cat chronicles"??? Maybe I'll have to correct my wish list for christmas, who knows.

[make-me-ur-aphrodite]

simultas

*latin for togetherness*

as requested by @ninacarstairss i just chose blackstairs cause you didn't give me any other ships and they're my babies :)

this is the first thing ive ever written so sorry if it sucks XD

just a "blackstairs" one shot basically all fluff no warnings love ya babes!!

set before the dark artifices but after the mortal instruments so julian and emma are around fifteen and the blackthorn kids caught the scalding fever. but in all honesty there is no plot whatsoever next time i do this i need to ask for a prompt or something smh

I leaned against Julian's door frame watching him move around fiftfully in his sleep. I knew this was the first time he had shut his eyes this entire week, he had been so busy running back and forth making sure all the kids had what they needed that he forgot what he needed. That was Jules though, he would work himself to death for the kids and make sure they thought he was fine. Which was why I considered it my job as his parabatai to see to it that he actually slept every once in a while.

A small cry came from down the hall that I immediately recognized as Tavvy. He was only five and so attached to Julian that even when he wasn't sick he had trouble sleeping without him. As i turned to go to Tavvy I saw Julian stir on the bed and cursed internally.

"Was that Tavvy?" He asked trying to rub the sleep away from his eyes. I thought he looked sort of adorable in that moment and then immediately took it back wondering what was up with me.

"Yeah but I can help him go back to sleep." Jules gave me a look, we both knew that there was no way he would go back to sleep, not while one of the kids was in need, and not when I was doing something he could help with.

"No I'll go with you we gotta honor our parabatai bond you know." He responded with a tired grin.

"Okay but after this you should go back to sleep Julian because Im fairly certain those ten short minutes of sleep back there was all you've gotten this week." I said as we approached Tavvy's door. Julian paused before opening it.

"Don't worry about me Ems I'll be able to sleep more when they all feel better, this is sort of my fault anyways I should've caught the fever with Ty before it spread to everyone. Least I have you though." He said and before I could get the chance to inform him he wasn't at fault for everything that happened to his siblings Tavvy whimpered again and Julian walked into the room.

I stayed outside for a second watching Jules curl Tavvy into his arms and murmur quietly to him. I had been watching Julian a lot recently and even though a small part of me said it was strange, the rest of me decided it was just the parabatai bond.

With a conflicted sigh I followed Julain into the room in time to hear Tavvy claiming that he didn't feel well.

"I know baby but you'll get better soon," Jules said softly to him. "You know when Emma got scalding fever she got thought that she would never get better and that she would have to live in sickness for the rest of her life."

"Well it was a valid concern," I pointed out. "But I did get better Tavvy because I had Julian with me and he makes everything better" I exclaimed shooting a wild grin towards Jules. "Besides Tavs you'll get better before you know it because Im pretty sure you're the strongest shadowhunter ever."

Tavvy giggled. "Really?" He asked.

"Really." I proclaimed grinning at him.

"But you know what helps you get better?" Jules asked Tavvy, "Sleep."

Tavvy seemed to be considering this before he nodded seriously. "Okay but you and Memma stay."

I smiled at him and climed into his fort with Julian. Tavvy was out cold in five minutes and Julian didn't seem to be far off.

"I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning, Emma, and do all of this if I didn't have you." Jules said his voice heavy with sleep. I hadn't been expecting this and before I could respond he had drifted off.

"o-h j-u-l-e-s" I traced onto his sleeping figure before leaning my forehead against his and letting our breaths mix together.

hope that wasn't too bad! >3

taglist: ik whole lotta firsts today @shadowhuntingdemigod tell me if you wanna be added or removed

[thechangeling]

Not gonna write you a love song

I was having the aro blues so consider this my way of dealing.

Cw: mentions of arophobia, internalized arophobia, sex and reckless drinking/unhealthy drinking habits.

///////////////////

Alyssa was lonely, but not for the reasons everyone thought.

She sat at the dinner table with her parents, with all her aunts and uncles, cousins, her siblings and of course their parners. Their husbands and wives. It wasn't really something she had noticed until she started getting older. How everyone was conveniently paired off by a certain age.

And now everyone was looking at her expectantly.

When are you going to get married Alyssa?

When will you settle down?

When will you grow up, the unsaid question.

She stared at all her little nieces and nephews and younger cousins. She had never really been entirely happy or free as a child. She always been the freak. But now she misses the days when she was allowed to just be a child and be adored and doted on for no reason other then she was the new baby and that's supposedly what you do with children.

There were less expectations, less judgement. Less questions.

When will you settle down and be normal?

She can't look at old photos of herself without crying. Without aching. Without wanting to scream.

What happened to that little girl? That little girl who was so beloved? She would never be that again. Now she was tainted. Broken. Queer.

And incapable of loving the way everyone else said she should.

Anush once asked her what she would do when Ty got married. Alyssa didn't understand the question. Anush explained to her, like she was an idiot that when Kit and Ty finally married and started their own family, he would have less time for her. They couldn't always be so attached at the hip.

Aly remembered thinking that he would never betray her like that. What they had mattered. Mattered enough not to be thrown aside for some stupid boy.

The wedding was strange as all weddings were. Alyssa loved a good party with some dancing but the ceremony? The vows? She didn't understand the flourish. The show. If you love someone that's enough. And then she watched as her best friend promised to love and cherish Kit above all else and it felt like a betrayal. Like a knife wound and the pain bloomed even more from the knowledge that no one else would understand.

Aly watched women and men and basically everyone single at the wedding excitedly gather together for the bouquet toss. Kit said that even though it was a heteronormative tradition he still wanted to do it. For the sake of holding pretty flowers and for the sake of getting to throw something. Gotta respect that.

But she couldn't help but genuinely puzzle over how clusters of full grown adults were screaming and pushing each other out of the way in an effort to catch the bouquet. To be the next one married. Julian Blackthorn jokingly asked her why she wasn't scrambling for the bouquet with the others and she honestly replied that she would rather die then be married.

And then she got that all too familiar feeling warning her that she had broken a social rule as his face fell.

Freak. It rang in her head as she made a beeline for the free bar. As she downed tequila shots. (Tequilla is for when you hate yourself) her sister always joked. It rang in her head as she danced with a pretty girl with dark thick braids, with ebony skin and round cheeks. Took her home and pulled her into bed as Aly tried to lose herself in pleasure and put weddings put of her mind.

When they woke everything was fine until the other girl asked for Alyssa's number.

"To hook up again?" Aly had asked. "Or to hang out?"

There was only a moment of genuine peace and serenity from the warmth of human companionship, before she said, "actually I was hoping we could go out? You know like on a date." And Alyssa's stomach had  dropped.

And then next came then infamous let down speech of "it's not you it's definitely me" and the familiar shame and guilt over hurting somebody this way again took hold.

A

Ty tried his best to be there for her. But he wasn't always. He had a job to do that was very time consuming, which he constantly reminded her of. Sometimes he only saw Kit because they lived together. Aly couldn't help but think that if she was living with Ty this problem would be solved. But of course that would be ridiculous wouldn't it? A married man also living with his bestfriend from his teenage years?

Alyssa thought it sounded pretty normal, but she had always clashed with the rest of society of what was supposedly normal.

Anush suggested to her that she should get a partner too after he started dating a girl who he went to the scholomance with. To help with her loneliness and distract her from missing Ty.

Right because of course that's why you should date, she thought sarcastically. To fill a void.

Alyssa was lonely but not for the reasons people thought. She was lonely because she knew that no one would ever love her or prioritize her as much as she would them. She was lonely because she would always love Ty more then he loved her.

Her therapist seemed to take issue with this thought. She told Aly that just because Ty loved Kit, that didn't mean he loved him more, or didn't love her as well. But Aly knew how this worked. You prioritize your spouse. Your one true love over everything. And she could never do that, be that.

Ty was the love of her fucking life but she wasn't his.

The first time Alyssa heard the word aromantic was from Kit of all people. But in the end she supposed Kit was her reflection in a crude way. Mirror mirror. In some ways he understood her pain and loneliness because he was the same. Which is why it honestly didn't surprise her when he showed up in New York looking to talk.

He told her that Ty didn't love her any less and he wasn't trying to prioritize his marriage over his friendships it was just a matter of conviemce seeing as they lived together and often worked together seeing as they both had jobs associated with shadowhunters (Ty being a centurian and Kit being a therapist for both downworlders and shadowhunters alike). Alyssa lived in a different city and she and Ty didn't work together anymore.

Alyssa had given up being the downworlder lesion to the scholomance in favor of going back to school to get a degree in special ed. She desperately wanted to become a dance teacher, but one who specifically ran a program for autistic and neurodivergint students. (It wasn't the most well paying job which her parents wouldn't be to happy about but Alyssa was determined to make it work.) She gave the lesion gig to another werewolf of the New York pack.

She would always be happy that she did it, seeing as that was how she met Ty and Anush, but honestly it wasn't her passion and she just didn't gave the stomach for it anymore.

Kit told her that Ty probably would have been telling her all of this himself but he honestly didn't know she was so unhappy because she never actually said anything. Which was fair. And Aly understood that. But that wasn't the biggest problem. That wasn't the reason she was feeling like such shit lately. And she couldn't even explain it to Kit because he wouldn't understand.

The problem was the looks her parents gave her everytime she showed up for a holiday single. The problem was the fact that she couldn't afford an apartment on her own and everyone she knew was planning on moving in, or spreading living with their partners. And Alyssa couldn't live with the pack forever. The problem was that she wished she could live with Ty but packing up everything to move across the country for your married friend was seen as more then a little weird and was practically unheard of.

The problem was that her entire life she had been surrounded by fairytales and romcoms and metaphorically beaten over the head with the idea that love, romantic love conquers all. Anyone who is capable of falling in love is capable of being saved from the dark side.

Finding the word aromantic and learning what she was was vindicating, but it was also depressing. Because this meant that this was something that she would always have to put up with forever and nobody would ever understand. Not really. Not when they could go home to their spouses and she was left out in the cold as a designated non-person.

Not worth saving.

And it was really starting to wear her down.

One of Aly's favorite things about hanging out with Jaime Rosales, besides the general good vibes all around was that there was no talking about romance. Well... occassionally the fictional kind but only if there was a certain level of unreal to it like scifi or fantasy. No one talking about their boyfriends or girlfriends or whoever. No one talking about marriage. She and Jaime talked about music or family, dancing and just life in general. So many people seemed to forget that there was a whole world beyond falling in love. Alyssa didn't get it.

She hadn't realized how sick she was of constantly having to follow up every critique of amatonormativity with "it's ok if you want to fall in love! There's nothing wrong with that!" As if the world ever said anything different. As if they were the ones in the minority.

Jaime offered to marry her in order to get her family off of her back. Of course she would still be free to hook up with whoever she wanted and Jaime would be free to persue nobody because he wasn't interested in any of it. She loved the idea of the two of them just hanging out and calling it a marriage. It felt like cheating the system. But it probably wouldn't work out. They would need to make up a mundane career and cover story for Jaime and Aly was just so sick of lying to her parents about everything.

But it still meant a lot that he offered.

When Alyssa got out of class that day she recieved a text from Ty.

Hey Aly. Kit informed me that you were unhappy. I regret not checking in with you sooner. That was my fault. I don't want you to think I've been avoiding you or that I don't care about you. I've simply just been very busy.

I know societal expectations dictate that you prioritize your romantic partner above all else, but as you know I have never been much for following societal norms. Neither is Kit. Janessa is over at our house constantly, and as slightly irritating as this is, (they are both very loud when they are together) I am happy to make him happy. I know he feels the same way about me. I would love it if you came and stayed with us for awhile. However, I understand if you are far too busy with school.

I'm sorry I don't say it very often but I hope you know how much I love you. If you want to talk, you have my number.

Always,

Your Ty.

He texted like an old man. It was one of the things Alyssa adored about him. She shook her head, trying not to fall apart in the middle of the hallway.

Breathe in, breathe out.

She texted Ty back,

Thank u. I love u too 🖤

The black heart was theirs.

Alyssa wasn't lonley anymore.

Tagging: @lavender-scented-rat   @littlx-songbxrd    @have-a-holly-jolly-angstmas @amchara @wagner-fell @sandersgrey @the-wckd-powers @spooky-drusilla @arangiajoan

[originalwinnercheesecake]

Chain of Iron theories: Who is the Killer

Its coming up on a week since last made a COI theory post. I said that I was going to try to post all my theories on COI BEFORE it comes out next month, so this posed a problem. So mow I am going to give my input on one of the biggest Mystery’s for COI, Who is the Killer? So in COI Belial will have a new minion who will target the shadowhunters, manages to kill 5 of them (same number Tatiana needed for the ritual) and is difficult for them to apprehend because they are somehow able to disappear. CC has left some hints that the killer is actually another Shadowhunter that Belial has somehow managed taken Possession of, despite protection rituals that should have been placed on this individual at birth ( My theory on that is that since this book is called “Chain of Iron” we will learn that Belial controls all his pawns with “chains of iron”. All hidden on their persons and glamored to look like ordinary accessories.) Our synapse for the book says that James Herondale has been having strange nightmares and fears he may actually be the killer. In COI he will start to tie himself up to sleep at night. We all know its not James right? In mysteries like this you always throw out your first guess/ the obvious guess. I have seen a lot of posts theorizing on who the true identity could be. I have seen some theories do not make much sense to me and some that were really good.

One theory that seems off to me is the idea that the killer is actually multiple killers, more specifically a collection of the survivors of Belial’s illness. If you support this theory I get your reasoning:Belial was able to briefly posses these people before, and the illness may have left biological changes in them. But here’s where I am confused, the killer is implied to be a massive threat wielding enhanced dark magic. At the end of COA there are 30something cured shadowhunters released from Silent City. CC says that the killers body count will be 5. If Belial has 30something new pawns that he can posses, gift his terrible powers to, and send out to prey on shadowhunters, I feel like there should be a lot more than 5 victims. I know Beial is not yet at full strength from battling Cortana, but he should at least be stronger than that. I have also heard theories that it is one of the Blackthorns. This also does not make much sense to me, given that for one thing none of them have training, Tatiana and Grace already have established rolls in Belial’s plans, and while I know Jesse is a part of Belial’s plan I believe his part will be save for COT after he has been resurrected. IF Belial were using Jesse’s empty body to walk the earth, then wouldn’t he also need to stop anyone from trying to resurrect Jesse?

 I have heard many theories on Elias Carstairs being the killer. Many of them just want to make Elias out to be CC’s newest and most horrible monster parent, and absolve Alastair of any responsibility or need to apologize for the cruelty he has shown to our mains. If this is your reasoning for believing Elias is the killer than let me stop you right there. CC has written multiple series and her skills have evolved beyond the need to rely on such easy black and white tricks. But I also saw some people posting about how Elias goes home so late and stopped writing to his family. Some are theorizing that the real Elias Carstairs was intercepted and killed on his way back home and that the being that arrives in COI is actually an eidolon demon pretending to be Elias. This theory is AMAZING. It makes a lot of scenes, would give Belial another spy in a key place, and could potentially explain why Cortana starts acting so weird. I love this theory I do. I am just putting it t the side right now because I need the real Elias alive for other Carstairs family theories, and again have been working with the theory that the killer is a real shadowhunter whom Belial is controlling with another “chain of iron”. My theories are below.

1.) Lucie Herondale is the Killer

 I am working with he theory that all Belial’s pawns have “chains of Iron” on them, which means all three blackthorns have them. In old art CC released of Grace she is seen wearing a pearl necklace that I was convinced had to be her’s. Tatiana’s (who probably consented to wearing hers) could be anything, maybe that stupid, creepy bird, she wears in her hat. Jesse... is mentioned several times to wear a locket.... that we know is connected to Belial.... and was weakened when he took it off to give to Lucie... who is wearing it now. Do you people see where I am going with this? It can also be noted that one of the parts of Lucie’s arc is that she is frequently overlooked in favor of James and how that is a mistake on peoples parts.  Everybody knows that James has powers, he has had 4-5 years of people helping him figure out what they are and how to control them. Nobody but ghosts know that Lucie has powers, she has no training, and is only starting to understand what they mean. James is vulnerable but so is Lucie. I do not want her to be the killer. Lucie is such a fun character, and I was so happy to finally have a female Herondale play a role that was close in size to her male relative’s. I truly feel that Lucie deserves better than to be just a tragic character in the story. I want her to be that plus a hero, but I cannot deny that she is a possibility.

2.) Charles Fairchild is the Killer

I have seen Charles name appear on multiple lists of theory’s on the killer’s identity. People never really give reasons as to why they believe he is the killer. They are just mad at him for choosing to put his career higher on his list of priorities than his relationship with Alastair, or him being the killer would hurt less because he is not written to be a fan favorite. If you are someone who wants the killer to be Charles, but are unsure how likely it is your in luck. Because I can give you a whole list of reasons it is likely

Charles is already acting strange. We know he made some kinda screw up in Paris and had to come home. Apparently Charlotte is sending Tessa and Will to Paris to Start the fix up and Charles will go back afterwards. Well based on what we have gotten on Charles making a mistake like that is unlike him. Casting Long Shadow’s reveals that Charles has been working as a politician since he was 13 and is normally known for being very dependable and reliable. That’s part of the reason he is considered such a shoe-in for Counselor once his mother retires.??? I have theories on Charles mental state (which I will address in a later theory post that will be centered around the Fairchild’s) and do consider the possibility that he was sett off by fear over the outbreak or grief over losing Alastair... But this sudden change could be from other things as well

As of COG2 Charles is engaged to Grace Blackthorn, who controls him like a puppet. Grace herself is the puppet of Tatiana Blackthorn, who is the puppet of Belial. So Charles is now part of a very dangerous carnival. Charles decade of study and knowledge of clave politics at the top could be very useful to Belial in taking them down. Also previous short stories say that Charles spends most of his time in Idris for work and when in London usually stays at home going through law books and records. So I could easily believe he does not completely  know his way around London and (like the killer is hinted to) would need to use a map to get around.

Now on to my biggest reason for theorizing Charles for the killer. Charles and Matthew’s relationship with each other. Charles and Matthew do not get along, like at all. They did once, but that was a real long time ago. A lot of the reasons they don’t get along is dumb sibling stuff: Charles calling Matthew an immature child, kicking him and his friends out of rooms in their house, and lording his increased age over Matthew. Matthew making more noise to annoy Charles, telling everyone Charles embarrassing middle name, and regularly sneaking into Charles room to steal his cologne instead of just buying his own. We are not hear to discuss any of that. All of that has me laughing because it is peak sibling rivalry. Rivalry aside Charles and Matthew model  the old dynasty trope for Ssons with Charles being “the Heir” and Matthew being “the Spare”. The Heir’s life is decided for them as soon as they are born, they will succeed their parent and continue their legacy. The Spare is just that, a back up plan kept around should the heir die, become disabled, never marry, or turn out to be infertile (happens way more than people like to think about). Charles struggles with the weight of his parents expectations. Matthew is more or less the Black sheep of his family, living his life day by day with no grand plan. Because of this he is cut off from them in a way, and goes through a lot of loneliness and isolation in his own house. Neither brother see’s the others hard time; the other has what they themselves want: Charles has attention, Matthew freedom, so they wrongly assume the other must be doing fine. This is a lot like Matthew and James relationship in Dust and Shadows. Matthew and James talked things over with each other and were good after. Matthew and Charles stay apart and ignore each other when they cannot. They will not just talk and be good after. So maybe if put on different sides they will fight out their issues with each other? On the subject of Matthew having to fight Charles, lets say hypothetically Charles is the killer and is possessed. We know from previous books that clave protocol is to place a kill order on possessed members. If that becomes the case do you think Matthew would be able to follow through with those orders? Be able to hunt, fight, and kill his older brother? No. No matter how rough their relationship I doubt Matthew would ever be able to do that. It would be to much for him, to similar to his “sin”. He would want to catch Charles, then try to find a way to free him from possession. Maybe if Mathew could successfully accomplish this then maybe he could forgive himself for his “sin”. If Matthew tries to save him and fails than at least this time other people would know and could potentially get him some help.  

3.) Filomena DI Angelo is the Killer.

Ahh our upcoming new arrival from  Italy. Why are you coming to London girl? Haven’t you heard about all the crazy things that happens there last fall? What possible role could you play in the story that couldn’t be filled by one of our many already existing characters from COG2? (Do you even know your way around?) How suspicious that Filomena should show up around the same time as this killer? Wouldn’t it be great for the story if the killer came from a different country? Wouldn’t that do wonders for showing how powerful a threat Belial is? His dark influence stretching across country lines, maybe even across oceans! We have already been told that TLH characters will need to travel to other countries. How the villain is less one person and more a force. Filomena could start that. She could provide reason to search countries besides London for Belial’s influence. Proof of it being so wide spread would definitely make Belial feel more like a force. Oh but wait, cheesecake wait. Filomena cannot be the killer! That would make her evil, and CC said she was a nice girl! Oh I am sure Filomena is a nice girl, but people tend to change when under demon control. But she is a girl and the killer is hinted to be a male shadow hunter! Are we sure the killer isn’t presented as male because Belial is presented as male? Is it impossible that while on the hunt as the killer Filomena DI Angelo dress in men’s cloths in order to more safely move through the streets? I feel like we have saw that trick once before in TID.

All we really know about Filomena is that she came to London, will interact with some of our established characters, and she will get a crush on someone we know, thus presenting herself as a possible love interest. Matthew was my first guess, hey he was every bodies first guess. CC shut that down, Filomena is not being brought in to fix the love triangle between James, Cordeila, and Matthew. Matthew is one of the only ones to not have at a least semi-confirmed endgame ship. So this means that Filomena will probably not be endgame with her crush. Why?   My next guess was her crush was on Anna. Ariadne is shown to be relentless in her attempts to “win Anna back” and Anna is not having it. Tweets time and time again depict her basically telling Ariadne “Its not going to happen. Give up and leave me alone”, but falling on deaf ears. So maybe Anna will try to get a new girlfriends and keep her around until she is ready to forgive/ go back to Ariadne. Well Anna is more a secondary character, a loving big sister figure to our mains. She gets less page time because of this. We already know she will spend time with Cordelia, Lucie, Ariadne, Eugenia, Thomas... not much page time left for Filomena. After further analyses I have theorized that Filomena must have a crush on Thomas.

A quick google search on the name Filomena shows that it is an Italian name that means “loving friend” “strong friend” and “lover of music” all these sound kinda like Thomas. (Filomena is also the name of a character in the 14th century Italian collection  of short stories called the Decameron, who liked to make stories up about plagues... or so some digging around google told me ). This could fit quite nicely into Thomas’s story. First of all to everybody who has been calling Thomas “gay” please wait a moment to be sure. Thomas does not yet publicly or self identify as gay. He clearly has an attraction to one man, but CC says that he has not yet realized his sexuality and will spend TLH figuring out. He might be gay, but he could just as easily turn out to be bi or pan. For the sake of this theory lets assume Thomas is Bi. Thomstair is definitely endgame. We know Alastair is gay, and CC usually likes to pair gay characters up with bi characters in queer ships, see Malec and Heline. Should Thomas be bi, should he start to become close and develop feelings for Filomena, it will have to go wrong. More wrong than he considers his feelings for Alastair at the end of COG2 (Filomena do not hurt this boy, he has been through enough). We got a tweet that suggests Thomas is interested in the killer, and a hint that he is planing something big. We got a kinda frightening picture that suggests the Killer may be very interested in Thomas.

If Lucie is the killer she will somehow be freed from Belial’s control,. I can 100% guarantee it, Charles I feel will have a 50/50 chance, Filomena will die from it. It would be a herculean task to free her, and she is not important enough to the mains for them to actively try and do anything more than give her a merciful death. Should she and Thomas become close than it will break his heart. But if Alastair is there for him afterwards, able to emphasizes and offer him comfort that will go along way to redeeming Alastair to Thomas. The whole experience could be love is hard, both men and women have the ability to hurt you. but the right person will make it up to you and it is good to forgive them when they do. I personally think that would be a pretty cool direction for Thomas’s arc to take.

[conatvs]

( nadia parkes, cisfemale, she&her, 25 ) ** ♔ announcing ADELAIDE ORSINI, the PRINCESS OF ITALY ! in a recent portrait, they seem to resemble NADIA PARKES. it is a miracle that she survived the last five years, considering they are REBELLIOUS, SHARP-EYED, and INGENIOUS. i hope the plague has not changed them. they are AGAINST working together with the other kingdoms 

hello everyone !!! it’s june here again, alive and kicking and back at rping. under the cut, you’ll find almost everything about my newest baby: adelaide, princess of italy !! i’m so happy to be back and i’m down to any plots, honestly. 

STATISTICS 

BIRTH NAME:

adelaide lucia marina orsini.

TITLES & OCCUPATION: 

princess of the kingdom of italy.

MONIKERS:

ADA : her most used nickname. all of her family and some friends calls her that, and she’s not bothered by it. however, when it’s a strange or someone she doesn’t trust, adelaide prefers to be called by her given name.

AGE :

twenty & five ( dob. 21st of january, 1622. )

GENDER, ORIENTATION AND PRONOUNS: 

cis female.

pansexual & panromantic.

she & her.

RELIGIOUS VIEWS: 

adelaide was supposed to be a catholic, and while she attends mass and do some charity here and there, she just can’t believe that the god she hears the priest talking about is the same who allowed the plague to exist --- or the one who took her oldest brother away from her. 

FAMILY:

FATHER : utp orsini, king of italy. 

MOTHER : amalia orsini, queen mother of italy. 

BROTHERS : ezio orsini, king of italy ( deceased ); utp orsini, crown prince of italy ( older brother ), utp orsini, prince of italy ( twin brother ). 

SISTER : valentina orsini, queen of italy ( older sister ).

APPEARANCE:

HAIR : brownish, a shade lighter than her mother’s and sister’s. 

EYE COLOUR : brownish green, always with a look of boredom in them. 

DISTINGUISH FEATURES : a beauty mark on her left cheek. 

INSPIRATION:

maki zen’in ( jujutsu kaisen ), lucie herondale ( the last hours ), livia blackthorn ( the dark artifices ), mel medarda ( arcane ), alice baskerville ( pandora hearts ).

BACKGROUND

twins were always seemed as good or bad omens, but italy took the birth of their twin princess and prince as a good one. what else could it be ? after the birth of princess valentina, the queen had two more pregnancies and three babies. if that wasn’t a sign of italy’s future prosperity, the didn’t know what it was. 

as twins, adelaide and her brother were inseparable as children. even if she was just three minutes older than him, ada took her responsibility as his older sister dutifully. she was always at his side, clutching his hands and making sure that he was being heard by the family. however, as a younger sister to two princes and a princess, adelaide was a menace. she was always trying to annoy her older siblings by pranking them, and hated to hear that she needed to be more calm and reserved, like valentina. 

as she grew older, her interests were far beyond what was expected of a princess. she didn’t care for dresses or who she would marry, but the academics were what caught her eye. science, physics, all the new discoveries that were made ada’s heart flutter, but she was aware of the whispers in court --- the princess spent more time in the library than with her ladies, and thus, wouldn’t marry well. adelaide didn’t care for that, but she was afraid to disappoint her family, especially her mother. 

but that didn’t take her love for science away from her, but the plague came. ada wasn’t allowed to stay in the city for more than two hours per week --- while italy wasn’t as affected as other european countries, they couldn’t afford losing one of the heirs --- and that killed her. but such time inside home made her relationship with her brothers grow stronger, while it made her uncomfortable to be at valentina’s side, with all her goodness and love for god. 

at the same time, being confined inside the palace instigated a new hobby to the youngest italian princess: horse-riding. she could only do it inside the palace’s perimeter, but it was still fun nonetheless. her days were spent inside the library, with her horse or with her brothers, and she couldn’t ask for more. 

but the plague ended, and everything went back to normal: balls to attend, people to please and less time doing what she enjoyed to. while her siblings were good at feign courtesies, ada couldn’t do that like them. her smiles weren’t genuine, and her words were too blunt. adelaide hated attended to them --- until she met simon jansen. it was another boring ball until her eyes caught a head full of blond curls, and she couldn’t understand why she was so intrigued by him. ada saw him as her personal science experiment, and she wanted to dissect him and know all of his truths. 

france proved to be a chance for her to know more about other cultures and countries that weren’t italy’s allies, but the death of her brother changed everything. ada couldn’t understand why ezio was the one who was killed --- he was a good kind, and she didn’t see any reasons why someone would try to kill him. however, as much as she was willing to cooperate with other countries before, now adelaide thinks that italy is better alone. they prospered alone while others succumbed together. 

[self-loving-vampire]

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988)

Summary

Ultima 5 is what you could call Ultima 4′s edgier but “cooler” sibling. The gameplay has gained in complexity, dialogue has been greatly expanded, and the ground-breaking system of virtues and morality from the previous game has been twisted by the tyrannical Lord Blackthorn following the disappearance of Lord British.

Ultima 5 also introduces more of a day/night cycle to the proceedings with the introduction of NPC schedules, enabling a level of world simulation that was very new at the time of release. It goes on to make good use of this system by casting the player in the role of an outlaw fighting against the new government, meeting with members of the resistance in the shadows, and going around the martial law that has been imposed.

Freedom

Just like in Ultima 4, you are dropped into an open world right from the beginning, and your tools to explore the world have been expanded. 

The inclusion of more complex systems also enhance the feeling of being able to interact with the world with less barriers, as there is now furniture you can use, barrels you can search, etc.

Like with Ultima 4, there is only one way to win and a list of absolutely required steps that must be taken to reach that victory, but the order in which these steps can be taken is rather flexible, allowing players to create more of a personal narrative as they follow clues they picked up on wherever their instincts or whims took them first.

It is worth noting that there are actually some optional quests dungeons this time around, which is always nice.

Character Creation/Customization

While it is very nice that you can import your character from Ultima 4 into this game, I would say that this aspect of the game has taken a step back in a sense even as it has made progress in other ways.

The eight classes of the previous games have been reduced to four: The standard Fighter/Mage/Rogue Bard trio plus the Avatar class the main character belongs to, which is an all-rounder. As before, there is not really any customization beyond equipment either.

However, the positive of this is that equipment has been greatly expanded from the previous game. While in Ultima 4 you were limited to merely choosing your character’s weapon and armor set from a very short list, Ultima 5 not only enlarges the list but also allows for equipping multiple armor parts (such as a helm or amulet) while also providing a secondary hand slot.

What this means is that two-handed weapons now also give you a trade-off between their big damage and the option to use a shield in your other hand, or even dual-wield.

This greater variety of equipment allows a greater degree of specialization for your party members, though by modern standards this still isn’t much. The supremacy of ranged weapons also continues here, as magic axes are undoubtedly what you should be equipping everyone with later in the game, and now that class does not restrict equipment every single one of your party members will end up in plate with a magic axe.

Story/Setting

This is, in my opinions, one of the most interesting things about the game. Ultima 5 takes all of the virtues from the former game and turns a corrupted form of them into the law.

The game is pretty explicit about this too. Early in the game, in the town closest to the shack you start in, you can find a man in the stocks together with his son. The man is being punished for failing to donate enough of his income to charity as the Law of Sacrifice demands, while his son (who is barely breathing at this point) is being tortured for not reporting his father to the authorities.

Throughout your travels, you meet many kinds of people. From victims, to resistance fighters, to supporters of the regime and everything in between. Throughout your interactions with these groups you will have to discern who can be trusted (generally easier than it should be since the bad guys tend to be meaner or even cartoonishly evil at times) and learn how to fight Lord Blackthorn and the Shadowlords who corrupted him.

The Shadowlords are, incidentally, the part of the story that I don’t quite enjoy. Fantasy is full of one-dimensional ancient evils and dark overlords. By making the events of the game the result of an unambiguously malevolent supernatural force rather than human failings of the type that are not uncommon in real life, the game makes those events feel more distant and less complex.

This very series already has had plenty of “Defeat this one evil force and everything will be fine” plots. They are generally devoid of the moral complexity that the series is now aiming to explore and I want to know what this game would have looked like without the Shadowlords.

Fortunately, however, this effect is not too pronounced. Blackthorn remains a misguided man with good intentions. He admires you a lot, actually, and seeks avatarhood himself. He has such a positive view of the virtues that he sought to enforce them by law.

(Then again, his actual plans for the shrines make this apparent idolization feel dishonest, or at least inconsistent.)

And there is a real type of authoritarianism that functions a lot like this. Even on this site there are many who would be in favor of things like surveillance, police brutality, and harsher punishments. Even on this site there’s a whole lot of people who seek to punish others over stupid things like shipping the wrong fictional characters.

The people I grew up with even went as far as yearning for a dictator who would unleash death squads to execute all the “bad” people. This is a wish that I still see in many people, even those who grew up outside of the circumstances of my country of birth.

This is not an error that humans need supernatural corruption to fall into.

Other than that, I find the dark twist on the existing setting from the previous game to make for a spicier world to explore. 

This is also the section where I should point out that Ultima 5 introduces a rather large and dangerous “Underworld” map that is easy to get lost in. While it is mostly barren, you do have to visit various parts of it as part of the main quest, and I just find the concept of a massive dark world beneath the earth to be a super interesting one (I mean, I have even run D&D campaigns based primarily in the Underdark).

I kinda wish there was more to it other than some items and a companion to collect. Something like a town would have been interesting.

Immersion

This is one area where the jump from Ultima 4 to Ultima 5 was massive thanks to the day/night cycles, NPC schedules, expanded dialogue, and even the addition of words of power to the magic system.

But the best thing I can say about it is really that it calls on you to actually roleplay and engage in the world as if you were actually there, at least to a degree, and it does so through a combination of atmosphere and gameplay.

You will not only want to be careful with your words when talking to certain people to avoid being reported to the regime, but you can also learn the resistance password and use it to get help and information from other members.

While these systems are all still pretty rough here, they still come together well enough to make this a lot more immersive than the average JRPG.

One thing that does feel really off is that the guards are not only superhumanly tough but you also lose karma for attacking them. They also behave strangely in that even though you are a wanted outlaw they don’t actually hunt you on sight, only trying to arrest or kill you if you refuse to pay tribute (as if they didn’t recognize you or your companions at all). This despite wanted posters.

So there’s definitely some rough aspects to the crime system in this game.

Gameplay

Massive improvements have been made in this area, and I don’t just mean the above-mentioned expansion of items and the addition of NPC schedules.

For one, enemies now drop things other than gold, such as food and armor pieces. The magic system has also been improved so that you can now mix multiples of a spell at once instead of having to do it manually every single time.

Additionally, spells are now cast using a consistent language of magic composed of several words of power, which you can chain together to produce effects.

But I would say that the single most significant improvement in the gameplay is the simple fact that most NPCs now have significantly more keywords that they react to in dialogue, including many that do not come up through normal conversation with them. The system is still not perfect, but you can have more of a conversation with characters now and switch from topic to topic relatively easily.

In terms of combat, you can attack diagonally now (only monsters could do that in Ultima 4) and random overworld encounters are much easier to avoid now, cutting down on what eventually starts to feel kind of like padding in the previous game (but see below).

Despite the fact that the material rewards from combat have been increased and items are much cheaper now, Ultima 5 is actually significantly more difficult than Ultima 4. Not only do you have less health, enemies also seem to do more damage.

Dragons and daemons in particular are a nightmare, as they can summon more daemons (who can posses party members) and are extremely durable. A single dragon is a very tough challenge for an unprepared mid-level party, and even after giving most characters magic axes they still prove tough to take down while also being extremely damaging. Trying to fight multiple ones at once without blowing powerful spells or glass swords is costly at best and foolish at worst. Dragons are best thought of as boss-level enemies probably.

I am pleased to report that the dungeon crawling is better in many significant ways. Not only are the graphics more pleasant and immersive but also fully cleared rooms no longer respawn endlessly the moment you step out of them (in fact, they may not respawn at all).

It is not all positive however. The descend and ascend spells seem to be nearly useless this time around and the spell to instantly exit a dungeon is gone entirely. This can make getting out of the underworld such a pain at times that you might even prefer to literally kill yourself in-game and lose some XP instead of doing that. Fortunately you can now dig up and bury moon stones, so you can create moongates down there to quickly escape that way.

There is one problem in terms of balance though. While obtaining gear is significantly less of a problem now due to many enemies dropping tons of torches, gems, and keys, your experience will lag far behind your itemization and your quest progress. This means that to actually reach the 8th level and unlock all of the ultimate spells you will need to either explore all the dungeons thoroughly while focusing XP on one character, or otherwise just grind a lot.

Enemies just don’t give enough XP for a smooth progression otherwise. This would have been solved entirely by making significant main quest events (such as finding the artifacts of Lord British or destroying the Shadowlords) grant experience, but no such luck.

This makes for a strange endgame where you’ll have so much money that you run out of worthwhile things to spend it on while at the same time still feeling forced to grind out enemies, even if you imported your Ultima 4 character for an XP boost.

You do want to have access to these 8th-level spells too, as the final dungeon can be brutal without them or items that replicate their effects.

Adding to the experience issue is the fact that you can’t level up at will in this game. You have to camp and hope that an apparition of Lord British will appear and level you up (if you have enough experience). He does not always show up, and as far as I can tell he does not appear at all if you sleep on a bed or camp inside a dungeon. It has to be out in the wild in the overworld (and possibly also in the underworld).

I wish leveling up was just not tied to him at all.

Aesthetics

As is often the case for this series, the game looks and sounds really good for its age. The jump from Ultima 4 is particularly notable, as the level of detail is on a whole other level, particularly within the dungeons.

As with the previous game, the aesthetic core of the Ultima series (after the first trilogy) lies in the virtues. While there is still a karma system involved, it is much simpler than having to maximize eight different virtues. The karma system determines how much XP you lose on death and how much shops charge you, encouraging players to behave (or at least atone for their misbehavior).

But the biggest impact on the feel of the game is the above-mentioned corruption and tyranny affecting the land. Some of my favorite moments were early on, when I was just starting to get involved with the resistance and investigating what was happening around the overworld.

That said, I think that if the guards did actually recognize you on sight and hounded you more aggressively after spotting you the atmosphere could be even better (assuming they were balanced a bit better).

I think some of the music some versions of the game have is quite good too.

Accessibility

This game manages to up the complexity from Ultima 4 while not being any harder to play. Chances are that if you’re importing your Ultima 4 character you will need only a little bit of adaptation to do fine in Ultima 5.

As before, you will need to take many notes throughout the game. More so than in Ultima 4 due to the greater size and density of content. However, if you played Ultima 4 and took notes for it, this is somewhat alleviated. The mantras for the shrines remain the same, and the world’s geography should be mostly familiar (though there have been changes there as well).

You will also still need to consult the manuals and map frequently, at least early on.

The difficulty has also increased dramatically. You will likely end the game with about 200-ish HP rather than 800 and every enemy is much more deadly. Both the early game and the final dungeon will challenge the improvident.

For these reasons, the game is not that easy for newcomers to pick up but I would not call it obscure or complex.

Conclusion

I would say that the positives definitely outweigh the negatives on this one. The story and setting are interesting even if I don’t agree with all of the decisions made in crafting it, and the rest of the game is usually tolerable at worst. Nothing nearly as annoying as Ultima 4′s Reaper and Balron sleep spam (in fact, a plot-relevant item you can find renders Reapers pretty much helpless).

My primary complaint about the game is that the balance is poor. You will end the game loaded with all the items you could ever want while struggling to reach level 8 with even a single character even after doing nearly everything you need to do before the final dungeon.

I know there is a remake of this game made using Dungeon Siege, which I have not played. I think this is a good thing and I’d hope that it fixes some of these issues, but even apart from that I wish there were games that set out to achieve the core concept of this game.

What I am talking about is an open world RPG in which you play an outlaw who must hide from the state and meet other rebels in the darkness, but with complex and mechanically-competent systems to enable all the interesting possibilities this should enable.

I do not assign numerical ratings to games with these reviews, but I can definitely say that I liked Ultima 5 better than Ultima 4. I think it is worth trying even today despite the late game grind.