My third attempt at art art since the election. I'm working on a colored version but it's taking a while so I thought in the meantime I'd post the lineart. It's inspired by and in reference to the song "Farewell Kabarista" by Vagabond Opera, especially the lines:
"Farewell, kabarista, the writing's on the wall
Der Letzte beißen die Hunde, it's your final curtain call
Kabarista, farewell
...
One day again, the sun will rise when fascist walls meet their demise
And topple into spring
And you and I shall raise our flags in memory of those who died in drag
And for who we sing"
Halfway through the year already! Here's the first half of my angel of the month series, which I've been chipping at over on Patreon since January. So far this has been a fun project and I've enjoyed seeing the way that things have changed as the year progresses.
Six more months to go before I can post the full set -- See you then!
i find it kinda silly that warlocks have marks but nephilim don’t, considering the fact that angle blood is potent as fuck
Thus the eternal popularity of wing!fic/wing!art, yes? 💘
On the one hand, this could just be because angels and demons are opposing forces, one cancelling out the other, diametrically opposed on a metaphysical/magical level, so their powers manifest in different ways in their children.
(They're mostly all rather absurdly beautiful after all. Maybe that's their angel mark? *snickers*)
On the other hand, in a slightly more jilly likes making up magic lore point... maybe nephilim aren't half-angel in at all the same way warlocks are half-demon?
And this got long and rambly, so:
It is canon that the children of nephilim are always nephilim... which isn't how inheritance works, generally speaking.
If nephilim were half-angel/half-human in a biological sense, then shadowhunters would presumably be sterile, a combination of two barely compatible bloodlines just like warlocks.
But they can have children. Perhaps that's just something about angelic bloodlines, a power aimed more at life than the demonic bloodlines that seem more like death? (If that was it though, one wonders why would demons be able to have half-human children at all?)
If it was somehow just inheritance, even hand-wavey magical inheritance, nephilim should, one would think, be getting less and less angelic over time, no matter how carefully the Clave tries to manage their family lines.
(And losing the Mortal Cup really would be a death knell for the world, because the nephilim would in fact die out no matter how many children they tried to have, and then the demons would win. It might take awhile, depending on how frequent one thinks incursions are, and how many nephilim there were before the uprising, but still. There is no balance, just inevitable defeat.)
But modern shadowhunters are still capable of killing demons, can still use adamas and runes, can still (however reprehensible this is) overpower and subjugate the down world.
They continue to have angelic power no matter how removed they are from their founders.
They also continue to have angelic powers even when infected/attack by demonic ones. You literally can't take the angel out of a nephilim.
Otherwise Jonathan Morgenstern wouldn't have been able to bear runes, Tessa wouldn't have been able to have children in the books, Luke wouldn't have been a shadowhunter again after his lycanthropy was cured in the TV show. (Deruned shadowhunters wouldn't explicitly be so tempting to demons once they lose their protections.) Which does at first sound like they're still half-angel under the demonic corruption...
BUT!
Fallen angels also still have angelic power, despite being 100% demon.
Magnus' ability to interact with adamas/shadowhunter tools makes that explicit: he's partially angelic even as a half-demon/half-human warlock.
Which is too many halves if nephilim abilities came from being half-angel!
Perhaps, angelic power literally can't be broken down, regardless of anything else happening around it or containing it... instead, angelic grace is simply eternal. Immutable, irresistible, unavoidable... once seen it is never ever forgotten.
Thus purging the angelic core works against Lilith without also making the Institute defenseless, the so-called Herondale birthmark never fades. (Does this mean Clary and her bloodline will also be marked somehow, in a way we have yet to see defined in canon, Ithuriel's grace made manifest on them forever?)
If we follow that logic through the aforementioned Tessa/Jonathan/Luke (perhaps even Max Trueblood and any other deruned shadowhunters who go on to live mundane lives) maybe nephilim are actually still just human. They have children, they live, they grow old, they die.
Perhaps nephilim are forever touched by angelic grace, but never actually part of it?
(Is this in fact part of what makes angels different than demons? They will not corrupt or twist humanity into something other, but they will grant a gift. One that is inhuman, amoral, one that burns cold and eternal and is necessary, perhaps, but not kind. Is this their true problem with Clary's use of runes in the TV show, that she is twisting humanity into something else, that she is corrupting them by combining angelic and demonic and human in a way that is anathema and dangerous to angelic grace? Angels do not interfere with humanity, except to try and prevent demons from interfering with humanity. Thus never stopping Valentine, or interfering with the Clave no matter how ruthless they became. Their sins were still human sins, not demonic ones.)
Maybe nephilim are not inherently immune to demonic influence, to possession or bearing demonic children. The gift of grace allows them to access angelic power, lets them use it to actively protect themselves, much like they're trained to fight and use runes and forge adamas etc. but they are still just human.
This makes Valentine's ability to 'create' a demon that can sneak into the Institute and possess shadowhunters (can kill Jocelyn and poison Izzy) much more palatable. He's not creating something that can bypass nephilim nature. He just found a way past the tools they use to protect themselves.
SO!
Back to my meta on your actual original comment.
Perhaps nephilim do not have marks in the way that warlocks do because they're not half angel.
They're infected like werewolves or vampires, just with a more difficult transmission, only possible through children rather than blood or violence. (And isn't that actually the first thing that does make sense as an angelic trait? Family and bonds and love and life, not death, as the only way to succeed, as the only way to continue.)
They have symptoms of angelic grace, a magical counter to demonic corruption: fortitude and beauty and the ability to use angelic tools. They're the opposing force to vampire speed and seduction and fangs, to werewolf strength and pack and transformation.
This is why they can't do magic like warlocks and seelies, even if they are supernatural. This is why they're still mortal. They're still just human however hard they try to pretend otherwise.
At some level, this is probably part of why the Clave despises werewolves and vampires even more than fae and warlocks. They're all too similar, too clearly an illustration of there but for the grace of angels...
An angel for @insidiousink for the bird fund. Thank you again!
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