on the cinthorne train

character moodboard: linh cinder

well, i personally am not a big fan of it. they’re both ambitious manipulators and i fear they’d only have romantic desires for the other if they had something to gain. if you like toxic yuri, then i guess it’s perfect. i like my ships healthy (and bland… it makes me happy). sybil obeys levana because she knows she can’t climb any further. the queen’s right hand is a pretty good place to be. she can’t beat levana in a fight, and she wasn’t born with royal blood. so she’ll be loyal to the crown because the crown gives her power. if there was a chance where sybil could overtake levana and become queen herself, i think she’d take it. maybe sybil looked up to levana and even admired her at times. do i think sybil respected levana? yes. they definitely held the same twisted values. do i think she cared about levana as a person? …nahhh. if anything, levana was an idol who sybil yearned to become.

on the other hand, i don’t levana gave a crap about sybil. when she died, levana was like “damn, that was my favorite pawn… now i have to use aimery???” she definitely saw herself in sybil, they’re so alike. perhaps she was fond a sybil and secretly wished her to succeed. then sybil went and died at selene’s hands. lost potential. levana doesn’t have the capacity to love. or she never learned it properly. we saw it in fairest. she viewed people as objects, saw love as a conquest. oh! speaking of fairest, i don’t she’ll ever try anything romantic ever again after evret. she’ll never allow herself to feel anything similar to love (it’s obsession in reality but she doesn’t know that).

the only way i see them working is creating a relationship purely for pleasure/self-indulgence.if levana starts to fall, she’ll think of evret and completely block herself out. if sybil ever falls (highly doubt it), she’ll convince herself that her plan to manipulate the queen is working. sybil’s objective here would be to control the monarchy via levana. it’s so sick and twisted. they’re so evil. maybe levana would use the relationship to keep sybil in check as well. wait this is kind of cool. it would be a pretty sick concept to write… if you love toxic yuri, then this ship is great for you!

Imagine Cinder exploring Artemisia Palace for the first time, still in disbelief that it belongs to her. But she starts noticing a pattern. The servants are terrified of her. She comms Kai in a panic: "how do I convince them I'm not trying to kill them 😭???"

Kai's solution is his fallback strategy: be charming. Cinder argues that she lacks that ability, which he strongly disagrees with. So she begins stopping every servant she comes across. They are instantly on guard, afraid of any and every Blackburn monarch. But she simply introduces herself, asks for their name and how long they've worked here. Thanks to her retina display's facial recognition, she can remember every servant in the palace by name.

When a chef makes a dish she doesn't like, they are trembling, expecting to be executed. So Cinder heads right down into the palace kitchen and asks the chefs to teach her how to cook. A maid trips and drops a load, ruining freshly-ironed clothes. So she immediately drops to her knees and helps them despite their protests. Then she helps them re-iron the clothes because she wants to learn how to do it.

When Winter and Jacin are away on diplomatic missions, meals are lonely in the Palace. Cinder would never eat with the pompous Artemisian families, so she starts joining the staff in the servants' cafeteria. Some of them recount stories of her as a toddler running through the halls and playing hide-and-seek with Winter.

HOWEVER

I imagine that he messes with Jacin just to try and get him to react. Kai starts calling him his brother-in-law, and Jacin gets fed up and asks, "how could I possibly be your brother-in-law?"

Kai says, "It's so obvious! You're my wife's cousin's husband. We're related now, buddy! Technically that's only extended family, but you and I are closer than that. We're practically brothers."

Honestly, I want to know how much of his personality is an act. Like it seems like something he’d grow out of. Like I know he’s still young and stuff, but Thorne in the main series when he’s 20 and Thorne in Stars Above when he’s like 13 are literally the same character. With everyone else when they’re younger you can tell they’re younger and still need to develop into who we see in the series. But with Thorne, he’s the same, even when there’s 7 years for him to change. Most people grow out of who they were when they were 13.

And his parents enforce the idea that he’s an idiot, from what I remember. That kind of thing isn’t hard to shake off. So I wonder if his parents saw him at 13, acting like a 13 year old and decided that was who he would always be. And then he fell into those expectations because he’d never live up to what they want, until he couldn’t separate himself from his parents ideas of him, so those ideas became him.

But like genuinely think he only acts so immature because it’s what his parents expected of him. And then the Rampion Crew reinforced the idea that he was an idiot. I know it was joking and whatever but they still acted like it.

Honestly I think Cress is the first person in years to not treat him like an idiot right away.

Thorne fitting himself into his parents’ expectations of him is such a sad idea tho but it’s likely.

From what I remember:

Cinder wouldn’t have been able to escape jail without the Rampion

Cress would have died in the desert. He stopped her from crying, he had the idea for the towel shoes and their traveling schedule, I’m pretty sure. He knew to lie when they came across that caravan or whatever they were.

He got Iko a body

He found Cress when he was blind. Like yeah she would have been fine but it’s the fact that he was successful in finding her.

Kai wouldn’t have been able to be taken back to Earth.

I feel like he and Cress only survived the satellite crashing because of him? Honestly he was the only reason Cress was able to stop panicking and do stuff, for the most part.

Their plan on Luna would have crumbled immediately. He had the idea for weaving around and confusing the cameras so they could get away safely.

He sacrificed himself so Cress could get to the control rooms. Cress likely wouldn’t have gotten there without that.

We also get to see how impulsive and emotional he is, when he punches Jacin (and I think he pushes Wolf against a wall or something?)

Another thing is we get to see how willing he is to sacrifice himself first, when he runs off to distract the guards when they leave the ship on Artemisia AND when he's with Cress at the coronation-

It proves that what his parents thought and expected of him as a teen really did stick with him for the rest of his life, that he was an idiot, aloof, and unworthy, which is why he never hesitated to put himself in front of the bullet

Can we take a second to think about how quickly Jacin registered the very first time he saw Cress. When Sybil called him into the satellite. Like he must’ve known this is Levana’s top hacker, but the initial shock had to be hilarious. From memory Sybil outright yelled for Jacin and he’s first thoughts were either “what did THIS tiny girl do” or “THIS is Levana’s secret weapon?! This TINY THING”

Then on Luna when Winter asked him to take care of her. Yes he did it because Winter asked but we return to that sweet little conversation. “For a year I knew you were there and did nothing.” I’m sorry nobody cannot convince me his heart wasn’t showing.

“Bring me some cake” she half joked

He paused, then faced her, “’l’ll do my best”.

⟢ HI LUNARTICS ITS ELLIIEEEE I MISSED U ALL SO DEARLY <333 I’m so excited to finally share the themes for this year’s TLC ship weeks!!!!!! We're doing a shortened version this year, 3 days per ship. ⟢ This is a space for all fans to come together and celebrate our favourite 4 lunar chronicles pairings: Jacinter, Cresswell, Wolflet, and Kaider with all the creativity we can summon 🤞🏽 big shout out to @thorneswife for helping me think of some of the themes love uuu

⟢ All creators are welcome !!!! Whether you make fanart, write fanfics, compose songs, craft poems, make edits, or anything else your heart dreams up, we can’t wait to see it !! just make sure to tag your posts with #TLC ship weeks 2025 so we can alll find and reblog your work. And of course as always for those who like ships outside of the main 4 we have a free day at the end, feel free to post any non-main or headcannoned ship (winlet supremacy they r real in my heart)

⟢ The themes are here to spark your ideas,, you can follow them day by day, mix and match, or just pick your faves ♡˚₊

JACINTER (Jacin x Winter) AUGUST 20-22

first meeting (AUG 20)

crazed (AUG 21)

mourning (AUG 22)

CRESSWELL (Cress x Thorne) AUGUST 23-25

new beginnings (AUG 23)

heroism (AUG 24)

pretend (AUG 25)

WOLFLET (Wolf x Scarlet) AUGUST 21-23

nurture (AUG 21)

family (AUG 22)

danger (AUG 23)

KAIDER (Kai x Cinder) AUGUST 24-26

phoenix (AUG 24)

happily ever after (AUG 25)

prosperity (AUG 26)

FREE DAY (Any Pairing) AUGUST 27

parallell hearts (AUG 27)

⟢ Reblog this post to boost, we can't wait to see your work!!!!

tags below :

"But you are crazy."

"I know." She lifted a small box from the basket.

"Do you know how I know?"

Scarlet didn't answer.

"Because the palace walls have been bleeding for years, and no one else sees it."

She shrugged, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say.