#70q

[parcai]

Why is TID your favorite of the shadowhunters books? (It's mine too and I get excited when you post about it)

AHH hi!!! 😭💗 i get excited being asked about it PLEASE

OKAY so obvi there are many many reasons, but one of the most obvious ones is cassie's writing improved a lot in tid. tmi, while cherished as the original, is painfully obvious at times that it's her first series. the dialogue and development is somewhat sloppy.

tid, on the other hand, is FABULOUS :3 the plot might be more low-key than her other books, but good GOD the characters and extended metaphors 🙇‍♀️ i've said it time and time again but i am the biggest whore for platonic relationships, and almost queerplatonic relationships, and while ik some people ship herongraystairs as polygamous and others ship heronstairs by itself, i am a firm believer in queerplatonic/regular platonic heronstairs. i would Die for it.

the heartbreaking ending/epilogue (made me cry the first time :'))

the carried theme of love being carried through time and never forgotten (tessa is immortal, jem in the silent city is proof that there are worse things than death, and will dies, but their love is carried and referred to in all the other books, even tmi tho it was written before), that love should never be taken for granted and while tessa and jem (will never gets to find out 😭💔) have lived a long time and understand the burden of carrying a broken heart for eternity, they know loving once and fiercely is more valuable than never having loved at all...and one day jem, too, will leave, and just stab me in the heart

the sacrificial nature of both jem and will and the elimination of an absurd selfish love triangle or a girl getting between two brother-like best friends

this prominent idea that family can influence you in strange ways--that tessa never becomes cruel despite her sellout of a brother and rather finds family (found family trope ftw!!) in will and jem and the branwells, and jem uncharacteristically punches will for fucking around w drugs, and will becomes softer w jem, and you slowly adopt pieces of the people you love to become a better person

the branwells x will, and his distanced relationship and self-punishment to avoid love, but love needn't be orally expressed to be felt, which we see again w magnus x will

and the goddamn branwells being the sweetest couple, and charlotte is a role model that tessa never had, and a soft father-like figure being glorified through henry branwell

and the yin fen addiction w jem vs will's faux curse, this carrying of trauma, and jem carries it with grace despite knowing his time limit, and will on the other hand retreats into himself and self-loathing and blame and lashes out, and the way that they are both so similar yet starkly different, and jem will never quite understand will, but understanding is not necessary to love someone--it is UNCONDITIONAL and unyielding, and there are definitely some parallels here but we will not get into it (there are also some w jessamine x will, and also like five million other people)

and jessamine fucking lovelace, queen of nuance, who ultimately does the right thing in tda, and her and will's ghosts, and nobody you love ever leaves you, bc love and pain are like matter, in that they never leave this universe, they are simply transformed and bestowed upon another, they are universal constants and you can’t escape it and you wouldn’t want to anyway, and just-

😭😭😭😭😭💔

tl;dr: it’stheloveineverythinggoodgodit’stheloveineverythinggoodgodit’stheLove- feat. HERONSTAIRS </3

[parcai]

What's something you would want to see in YA?

ooh okay!! i feel like an agent drafting a mswl 😭💗 in no particular order:

1. siblings, siblings, siblings. siblings getting along, siblings who resent each other, large age gaps, small age gaps, (no twins bc that's been done to death), angsty siblings, hilarious duos. orphan or abandoned or only child who saves the universe is too common these days and i would like to see this instead 🤲

2. new settings!! this is smth i will actually give kudos to grishaverse for: the seamless integration of post imperialist russian culture is absolutely riveting. i want more books in asia and in lesser known parts of europe and south america and africa. want a metropolis for ur next urban fantasy? maybe consider singapore or manila instead of ur typical ny or chicago!

3. this is pretty weird but standalones! dualogies! series w more than 3 books! i am slowly growing tired of trilogies and i believe authors are either cramming books into 3 to fit that appeal or drawing out something that shouldn't be drawn out. let's change it up a little :3

4. i want to bring back male protags. (or better yet nonbinary or someone who deserves more of a voice 👀) recently male protags have been subverted to middle grade and females to ya. this in general contributes to these same plotlines that bore me to death that i've complained about in the past. i would like to see some guy be the one saving the world instead of only playing the brooding role once more. (and by the same vein--i want to get away from the common ya archetypes for characters. give me soft characters. selfish characters. kind characters (and remember that kind doesn't necessarily equal nice). a female protag whose entire personality isn't just stubbornness and stupidity lol. we contain multitudes, so why shouldn't they?)

5. and finally, as always, more rep :) particular interests for me atm: ocd, non-american characters (african characters FROM africa, asian characters FROM asia, etc.), bisexuality that isn't stereotypical, gender non-conforming protags (let's see a he/they lesbian), ace/aro, and finally underrepresented religions esp. in a world already based on contradicting lore (e.g. a sikh in a story based off idk celtic mythology or smth).

6. more speculative w politically critical undertoned fiction--why is this genre dying out it's one of the best 🥲

[parcai]

what did you think of the high king implications in acosf?

i didn't like it. like by a lot lol. in general i think everything in acosf except for nessian and nesta's relationships were handled poorly and probably had the worst planning sjm has ever had. acosf is still one of my faves bc nessian and nesta's relationships/arc were just that good but like it was really messy and stupid at times

the high king implication was definitely part of the long list of things that weren't planned properly, and amren pissed me off in that scene a little, and having a high king and queen would be extremely boring imo. having 7 equal courts is more fun and the idea of rhys being open in personality to everyone instead of just lurking way up north in prythian and keeping to himself and his people and his family seems very...ooc to me, even if sjm wrote it. he'd be a good high king no doubt, but absolute monarchy always strikes me the wrong way, and even if he's the most powerful high lord it really doesn't suit his private personality and his philosophy on life (and he even conveys this himself by adamantly and repeatedly refusing amren’s suggestion).

strongly against this subplot, but i feel like someone's going to get that position in the end or else i doubt sjm would've brought it up (she has a long history of revealing info on a need to know basis and often foreshadows heavily), so that's kinda disappointing.

[parcai]

Do you have a favorite book cover for acotar?

HATE the news ones lmfao!! those like ink swirl design ones--v much dislike them. they’re awful for a multitude of reasons. as for the originals...

i actually quite like the originals! there’s definitely a story to them, and i believe all good cover art should serve their purpose--teasing what the book is about. there’s a lot of symbolism is seeing only half of feyre at the begin (when she enters prythian as a human), to her slowly emerging into the frame (acomaf), to being in the front and center of the faerie realm and hybern war (acowar) and then finally turning her back on battle and hoping to live in peace and prosperity (acofas). v snazzy.

ultimately acomaf is my favorite bc i like the hand tattoo leading into the frame, hinting at the importance of her and rhysand’s newfound allyship. i LOVE the velaris teaser in the background. it’s almost glossed over at first glance, but if u look closely u can see how it’s supposed to be a window into the city of starlight, and that’s gorgeous. it also symbolizes her freedom from tamlin. overall a fantastic cover. acotar as in the 1st book has my second fav cover.

but even to the original art, i actually prefer elithien’s dust jacket redos! like the tier goes elithien>originals>bloomberg's weird ink remakes. elithien’s do the best job at fulfilling the purpose of book covers, the spines have such great detailing w the little symbols at the top for each book’s main theme, the care put into every piece--including the backs!--is incredible, and it’s bringing back a more flat color style of art into mainstream young adult/new adult, and i love that! 12/10, glorious, go support @/elithien even if they have 0 idea who i am and this is not endorsed lol :3

[parcai]

thoughts on feyre's name?

i don't actually mind it!! usually i hate the quirky white girl protag names bc it’s there purely to make her special or whatever, but in acotar most everyone's names are strange in an ancient sort of way rather than just an unorthodox spelling kind of way, and i kind of fw that

plus her name has lots of meaning. the archeron last name is a nod to greek mythology and the underworld, which is a ref to the persephone x hades parallels in feysand. and then feyre itself is an old name for beautiful/elf/fairy, which is super on point for a girl entering the fae realm and prythian

nothing weird was done just for the sake of being edgy, so i like it, and i love when fictional names are symbolic of smth larger 🥰

[parcai]

Would you want there to be an adaptation for The Infernal Devices or any of the other Shadowhunters spinoff series?

i heard there was actually supposed to be a tid adaptation in the near future, but idk if they're actually gonna go through w it

tbh not really!! i tend to dislike adaptations when they're of YA material/new adult, just bc i think it gets messed up really easily. plus tid is my fav of all tsc, so that being ruined would really wound me lol. i remember being unable to get kat and dominic out of my head for clary and jace for a long, long time, and that really sucked.

but i have to admit that i'm curious, and if i had to pick, ofc i'd want tid to get an adaptation first. it's the best :) i also think twp would be cool once twp actually like comes out lol, just bc it's supposed to have the highest stakes of all the books, which prob means a lot of magic, which means insane effects <3

[parcai]

whats something you dislike about ya?

this is such a good question 🥰🥺 <3

obvi i dislike many things lol, but smth that especially bugs me is the way insecurity tends to be handled in ya!

i feel like this is predominately an issue w white female protags, but it definitely pertains to some male characters too, also white: a lot of ya authors fail to acknowledge that insecurity usually, oh idk, stems from something??? it doesn’t just come out of thin air lol, like there is history linked w it. and i feel like that trivialization of insecurity is so harmful and so...victimizing of people w insurmountable amounts of privilege, yk what i mean? and even beyond its problematic nature, it’s just straight up dull and trope-y and frustrating to read.

when a character of color speaks amount their insecurities, they usually tie in w their ethnic background, and that makes sense!! and ya’s trend from like 2005-2015 of having that blonde protag who’s biggest problem insecurity-wise is being short just cheapens the whole experience.

[parcai]

Don't know if you answered this before, but what do you think of the Shadowhunters tv series?

u haven't!!

so i actually don’t mind it too much! i know most book fans Hate it lmao, and while i agree that i dislike the plot they went with more than original books (like that alec demon possessed side plot? jgdsklgjlsd what was that??) and hate like 99% of the casting (the actors themselves are v nice people :3, but it’s not really close at all to how i imagined some of them), it was super entertaining if you kind of separate it from the books in your head

PLUS the show did a lot of good in filtering out some...weird...things cassie did. for one, they got rid of that slut shaming bullshit our fav freewheeling bisexual magnus received in the books. it also treated izzy w more respect for the same sort of reason. they didn’t screw up w the casting identity-wise like netflix might have, and actually made luke black, and kept maia a dark-skinned black girl and gave her and jordan more interesting roles than how cassie just sort of abandoned them as side characters, and casted izzy, aka the one of prettiest characters canonically as a lebanese girl! they killed jocelyn, which like, i might be biased a lot little, but i actually hate her SO MUCH and while i’m glad she wasn’t killed in the books for literary reasons, it was such a relief not to have to physically watch her stupidity DJGKLJSGS.

i really don’t think it deserved the amount of hate book fans gave it, and considering how insanely popular it was, i don’t think i’m the only one holding that opinion. i wish it hadn’t been rushed and then cancelled w only a 2 hr series finale. the ending was awkward and weird. we didn’t get enough development. idk i feel like the fact that it was trending for so long once the cancellation was announced was reason enough to save it, but freeform is stupid so. rip an icon.

i will say that they made jace and clary extremely unlikeable tho and that pisses me off bc i love them sm in the books, and for the most part, except for like 2 or 3 characters, everyone’s personalities were heavily watered down, and thus it’s hard to like them at all if you didn’t enjoy the books first

also i like all the world building images we got from that. like we have an official set design of the institute and stuff, and i love that. led to amazing edits and fanart