#sh critical

[faejilly]

a while ago i watched someone react to 1.03 and were praising izzy for being an ally and like i love izzy but almost every time she brought up alec’s sexuality it made me super uncomfortable bc who would really want to be constantly in fear that your sibling is going to out you in a very homophobic society while trying to be supportive? and like there’s no way that izzy doesn’t know that the clave is homophobic and she still brings up it up all the time, it just seems weird that she can understand that the clave is racist but can’t comprehend that it is also homophobic, and she never really dropped the topic despite alec being uncomfortable with it

#mood

HOWEVER

The question arises... was Alec uncomfortable, or were pretty much all the queer viewers uncomfortable?

There's a thing with most media, but TV shows & movies especially, which have so many people involved in making them, and so many constraints behind the scenes that we the viewers may or may not know anything about, that sometimes the way a scene appears to the viewer is NOT the way it was intended/the way the characters take it.

Shadowhunters is a particularly egregious example of this, being a (relatively) cheap YA melodrama on a third-rate network whose entire production staff got swapped out between seasons 1 and 2, so 'lol what is consistency or planning?!?' is visible everywhere.

SO.

Is Izzy in-universe actually clueless/dangerous Straight People™️or were the writers/showrunners clueless Straight/White People™️who had no idea that half of their 'rule of cool' / 'quick banter' / etc. came across as micro-aggressions to the audience?

You can go either way, it's all a question of which you think is more fun/interesting/necessary for your own peace of mind/enjoyment of canon. (Fandom is supposed to be fun after all.)

A lot of people settle on 'they are that bad in canon' and write a lot of fix-it fic or 'nephilim have to deal with CONSEQUENCES!' fanworks, and those are great! A lot of other people go with "clearly everyone else in canon acts like they have positive relationships, so this is a failure of execution and I'm going to write fic/make art assuming that these people are who they SAY they are, and figure out what that looks like to me" and those are also great!

Just decide which one you're doing when you start, because combining both in one fic gets... a little weird? Hard to follow, at least. 🤣

SO: Is Alec uncomfortable? How does he deal with that, what does that say about his relationship with Izzy, with other nephilim, with the Clave & Council & Alicante? How does that contrast with how he feels interacting with the downworld, which is canonically a lot more self-aware and accepting of queer people and minorities?

If Alec isn't uncomfortable with Izzy's behavior, if no one else seems to pick up on it, why? Do we go with other people's reactions in canon and assume that she is in fact very careful with what she says where and it seems overt to us the viewers because we're allowed to see it? (Much like inter-party banter over comms in heist movies or tv shows; no one else ever hears it or sees it, so we can see and hear it for storytelling purposes, not for 'reality' purposes.)

If that's the case, what does their relationship look like to people in public? How different are public-facing Alec & Jace & Isabelle from what we the viewers see of their private relationships to each other?

Do you want to assume some mish-mash of both? It's more subtle in the setting than it seems so we can see it, and also Alec knows she means well even if we don't? OR SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY?

IDK, I have no conclusions here. I mostly assume that the show is a disaster, and these people all seem to like each other, so how can I write them that fits the results rather than all the dumb-ass details? (I like a lot of authors/artists who go the other way though.) This is encouraged by the fact that the technical/magical worldbuilding is nonsense so I'm making up shit all the time anyway, might as well add characterization to that too! 🤣🤣🤣

[takaraphoenix]

There is something that feels inexplicably... straight... in a way that’s uncomfortable, stiff and also just unenjoyable for me, personally, about the narrative of “bravery and inspiration” when it comes to coming outs.

We all - who we have been there and come out - do know that there is an angle of feeling inspired. Sure. Of course. Knowing there’s others like us out there gives us strength. That can come from a place of fiction, when you see yourself represented in media for the very first time. That can come from a place of connection, when you get to interact with another queer person for the first time.

The arc of having The Gay One Of The Main Characters have their coming out and then, down the road, have other, minor characters come out too, and have them express that they felt inspired by the bravery of the Gay Main. I hate that. I hate that so much. Urgh, that just tastes icky to me.

It tastes straight to me. Because straight people love to imagine us as brave, because they often struggle to imagine us as just existing. Our existence must be brave. Our existence must be hardships. And they are, obviously do we face those things. But this framework feels so reductive.

It reduces the coming out to bravery, when a coming out story can be about so much more. Should be about so much more. We deserve to have stories told about so much more than just our hardships and struggles, we deserve to be more than just brave.

Why do the minor queer characters need to be inspired to come out? Why do they need to be so desperately closeted, so incredibly afraid to be themselves that it takes this act of bravery? Why did the author feel the need to create a fictional world that is so oppressive, so harmful and constrictive? That’s a deliberate choice that’s being made.

And sometimes, it’s a choice that makes me feel tired, to be honest. I mean, we can accept werewolves and witches being real and all of that, and bend reality, but let’s not get too unreal, we should definitely keep the homophobia.

Even in a world where we do keep the homophobia, the act of bravery of one singular queer character... ain’t gonna actually change that. Honestly, your choice here is worse than if you just... decided to write about a world where there isn’t any homophobia?

Genuinely. I’d much rather read about a world where we say acceptance is the norm from the get-go, rather than “and all the queers lived in fear, until The Chosen Queer One finally found the bravery to come out of the closet, and every other queer character followed them out of the closet, inspired by their bravery, and... everything was just dandy, actually”.

Because - because - there isn’t any homophobia here, in the end. Everything was just fine, in the end. Nobody faced any homophobia. You just needed the queers to be afraid until the Queer Main was “brave”, so they could all come out and realize that all the straights are actually really nice.

And that’s what makes it taste real straight.

Because the straights aren’t a threat. The straights are actually real nice! There is nothing bad happening here. The queers are being oh-so brave, but they have nothing to fear from us, we’re the good straights. We wouldn’t want to write about uncomfy things like actually bad straight people and actual homophobia. No, that’s going too far, we wouldn’t want to do that.

And I’m just kind of... tired, that just existing is enough to be seen as brave, and that the straight authors still need to feel comfy enough in their little worlds to not go too far, and that we do ridiculous shit like pretending nobody was ever out before the Queer Main. I’m just tired.

[lynne-monstr]

lol that "canon (derogatory)" post sums up that period of time that was me watching 3b every week

[flower-of-the-desert]

I know lots of other people have already said this but I’m putting down my own thoughts about Clary’s ending.

Before the ep aired I said that I was against any character losing their memories because then their journey feels wasted. I stand by that but I have to say I actually very much like the idea of Raziel taking Clary’s memories as punishment for disobeying him.

That makes sense. The angels being finally presented as the assholes they are (I mean they did create the shadowhunters who are... what they are so like) and also punishing someone for not bending to their will is perfectly in character for an entity like that and makes sense. That’s what I think anyway. Also Clary bringing Valentine against the will of the angels was one of my biggest pet peeves with the show and one of the biggest plot holes in my opinion because Clary’s powers literally come from the angels - she doesnt just create whichever rune she feels like (at least to my understanding), she creates the runes the angels want her to create. So her going I’mma bring Valentine back from the dead although the angels didnt want her to do that and then following no consequnces for her actions felt to me like a massive break in the world-building of the verse. Also illogical because I couldnt understand how the angels couldnt stop her if they didnt want her to do it.

So I’m so very glad the narrative actually fixed that problem and framed that as the angels warning Clary to stop doing that and when she refused to listen (even if her intentions were good but they are angels, they dont care about good vs bad intentions clearly; otherwise Raziel would have smitten Valentine 20 years ago), punished her.

That’s fine. I like that idea. And I like the idea of Clary and the gang fighting against that unfair punishment and rising against the angels themselves because fuck that noise. Normal brain: the Clave is the enemy; Galaxy brain: the angels are the enemy. Honestly I’m here for that s04.

But, as usual with this show, the idea is good, the execution is a mess. In no particular order:

1) Clary starts losing her runes during the wedding and nobody notices? Her runes disappearing on her very naked arms? The arms that are very visible to everyone? Nobody notices? Mmmmkay.

2) Clary leaves the Institute and after completely losing her memory, just goes on her merry way? She doesnt freak out about suddenly finding herself in the park in the middle of the night? She doesnt wonder how she ended up there or why or why she’s dressed for a party she doesnt remember? Where does she go after that? She has no family, no home, no money, no id, no nothing. How is she going to go back to her old life when there’s literally nothing left of it?

3) How does the memory thing work? Does she just forget the past couple of months that she was part of the shadow world with her previous memories remaining? So the last thing she remembers is the night she and Simon went to Pandemonium? How is she going to deal with the fact that her home is burnt down, her mother, father and best friend are no where to be found and depending on how the mundane side of things is handled she might even be told that her mother and best friend are dead and her father was arrested for mass murder and then disappeared somewhere without a word after getting the charges mysteriously dropped? Or is she going to have some fake memories to avoid all these issues? How much of a dick is Raziel?

4) The characters’ reactions in the fast-forward make no sense and turn Clary’s precious family into a bunch of assholes. It’s been a year and nobody is thinking about her, except Jace? Nobody is trying to help her? Nobody is looking into a way to save her? Everyone is living their best life with their loving partner and like they didnt loss a dear friend because she sacrificed herself to stop her evil brother?

Simon isnt fighting tooth and nail to get his best friend back? The girl he’s loved - whether romantically or platonically - all his life?

Luke is more interested in oggling Maryse on a paddle boat than caring about the girl he literally raised as his daughter and ordered his own pack to die for her sake because he put her before everyone else?

Magnus doesnt care to return the memories of the girl he watched grow up and treated like his goddaughter/niece and the girl he cared enough for to take time away from his own grief to mourn her death at the beginning?

Isabelle is perfectly fine being HOI and dating the best friend of the woman she literally asked to be her parabatai not a year ago? She had the balls to build an angelic sword and go alone to hell but she’s not interested is saving the person who means so much to her?

Alec is living his best life and not giving a shit about the woman he was willing to risk his life and his people’s lives to not let her be alone when she faced her brother? I mean this one admittedly makes the most sense since Alec of all people has the least concern and interest in Clary’s well-being but it still doesnt jive with how adamant he was about having her back.

The memory loss could have been well-done. It could have been heartwrenching and powerful and emotional. It could have done that without shitting on every single character in the process. As it is, I’m left to believe the show that was all about family and bonds ended its finale episode - the same episode where they had one of the characters explicitly talk about the importance of found family - with the main character’s family not giving a single flying fuck about her.

[visander]

I liked the initial scene where Magnus and Asmodeus walked into the loft. Magnus is not an evil character but I loved this dynamic because it was so human to me. I even liked the end of the scene, where Asmodeus turned Lorenzo into an animal and I especially loved Magnus’ reaction to it, which was to stand there and do nothing at all. Humans have stood by for centuries and watched horrible things unfold without stepping in. It’s one of the most evil parts of human nature but that's what it is, human nature. It was so realistic to me for Magnus to do nothing in that moment. I even loved that scene for it. Magnus is a good person but even the best people, if put in the darkest spots, can choose not to act when they should have. I even liked Magnus’ witty response to his father doing this horrible thing. That line about Lorenzo being a quiet house guest strikes me as Magnus standing there, shocked, a little caught off guard and a little horrified but not yet fully registering what's happening and falling back on humor because he doesn’t know what else to do.

The next scene though, after Magnus talks to Maryse and walks back inside, that's where they lose me. The second that scene ended with Maryse, I was so excited for Magnus to fix it. I was so excited to see Magnus go back in there, fully realizing what’s happening, how horrible this man is and how he stood by and did nothing to stop him and I just… Didn’t get that. When the scene opened with Magnus standing there, staring at Lorenzo listlessly... All my hope was gone. That's where the episode completely lost me. I loved Magnus standing by while his father did bad things, I loved this careless dark natured Magnus coming out because he’s in so much pain but this moment right here, after Magnus knows what his father is doing and sees everything for the truth of what it is, that's the scene were Magnus should have done something more. Magnus should not have walked back into that loft calmly and stood there, watching this warlock his father put in a cage. He should not have calmly turned to his father. Even given what happens after, with Magnus throwing his father into a portal unconscious, it just wasn’t fucking enough. This is Magnus Bane with all his full power back again. Magnus should have stormed into that loft, horrified with his actions and made it right. Magnus should have blown up the ground he walked on to make this whole thing right and he didn’t. The whole scene was played off with this carelessness that didn’t fit the situation at all. Magnus Bane, who is horrified by his bloodline and his darker nature, should have realized what was happening and his role in it and he should have gone to the ends of the earth to fix it and make it right and instead, he walked into the loft with this calm calculated nature that didn’t fit at all and even the scene with him throwing Asmodeus into the portal wasn’t played with enough urgency, with enough righteousness, with enough Magnus fucking Bane realizing his father had made him slip again and being desperate to fix it and prove he’s better, be better than his demonic bloodline. 

And the fact that all Magnus had to say was about what Asmodeus made Alec do is so wrong to me. I never thought a scene would be too focused on Malec for me. Yes, Magnus should have been so furious that his father did this but this is the moment where Magnus is realizing how horrible his father is and the way that Magnus realizes this and doesn’t even have anything to say about the fact that he just walked into the ‘home’ of the High Warlock of Brooklyn, threatened him with his demonic bloodline and then stood by while his father turned him into an animal is just so earth-shatteringly wrong and out of character to me. In what fucking universe would Magnus Bane act like this and not even address the horrible stuff he let happen.  

[jcmorgenstern]

Ok so I cheated I didnt watch the episode yet but I read the spoilers and holy shit that is one shitty ending after all Clary did this is the ending they gave her. Its depressing and infuriating

if you don’t like my clary takes don’t read further lmao

i just….clary’s story is about taking back power and control from those who’ve used it against her and those she’s defending and it doesn’t sit right with me that her ending is being powerless and alone as the angels strip every last bit of her life away from her, and the people she gave her life to defend don’t even look up (apart from jace). the institute is her home—she doesn’t have an apartment or a place to live, that was burned by jocelyn. she can’t live with luke or simon. she has no home, no life, no friends, just this empty canvas and nothing to go to, and somehow rebuilds herself in a single year. honestly after being abandoned like that im not sure i’d want back into the shadow world. like the shadow world isn’t just a role she performs its everything left of her family and her home, and to have that played off for a little “ooo look we referenced the beginning” with 0 appreciation of everythign she’s given and lost….sat badly with me. anyway!! that’s my take.

[sprnklersplashes]

me: shadowhunters isn't perfect, but it cares about its characters and treats them well

shadowhunters: puts malec through non-stop angst, breaks up simaia for no good reason, has jordan be forgiven by and welcomed by maia

me: is nothing sacred?

[biconbane]

while episode 10 ended up being great and all....i’m still really angry that they wrote the whole jordan plot for maia just so they didnt have to give her any character development and just so people wouldnt question why she’s not in the final episodes