Clary Fairchild Fan Account

no matter what the situation is, they're always bringing the social interaction to a screeching halt with these jokes. nobody ever wants to participate in this joke with them. nobody agrees with the premise. nobody ever knows what to say afterwards, it's just an awkward moment and a subject change. but they just keep doing it.

(also when someone Down With The Kids does let you know what boyfriend moments are, please share with the class. I feel very out of touch)

Alas, no Pickles or Elyaas in TLKOF. I like to think they're off having a good time, drinking mocktails on the beach at a resort that does not harshly judge tentacles.

In the new flower book it was revealed that Ash sometimes plays the piano, so I was wondering how he learned to play? Did he teach himself or does he have secret tutors Janus doesn't know about??

My question is: Will Kit ever find out what his mother was like? I mean something beyond just descriptions—perhaps a photograph?

I’m also curious about Kit’s opinion of his mother. It feels like, considering all the sacrifices Rosemary made for him, Kit doesn't really know much about her; he doesn't even own anything that belonged to her—nothing to keep her present in his daily life (except for the heron necklace, but Ty has that, not Kit). It's like Rosemary’s presence in Kit’s life has been somewhat sidelined, which I find a bit sad. Will we see him thinking or talking about her in TLKoF?

Thanks for your answer! ♡

Hi! ❤️

As of right now what Kit's relationship to Rosemary's memory will look like in TWP seems a bit spoilery! — but it's an interesting question (though indeed when you are in a fantasy adventure and always running you don't get to introspect as much as you might like.)

Rosemary’s story intersects with Jem’s, and with Tessa’s — they only go looking for Kit when Rosemary dies, and they don’t immediately tell him about her because it would be devastating to find out your mother had been alive without you knowing and then died extremely recently. At that point Kit is not ready to hear it. It becomes clear in TWP though that they've discussed Rosemary with Kit and he is aware of her story.

It's worth keeping in mind that these are Kit's own thoughts regarding his mother, before he really finds out much about Rosemary. "Maybe there was something wrong with him, Kit thought as he followed Alec into the hallway. Maybe he didn’t have the right kind of feelings. He’d never wondered that much about his mother, who she was: Wouldn’t someone who knew how to feel properly wonder that?"

So in some sense the issue is what Kit thinks of his own emotional capabilities. It is clear to us he doesn't have the "right kind of feelings" because that would be too painful. And that becomes more complex for him when he learns the story of his mother. The fact that she sacrificed herself for him would make him more likely to want to hold his feelings at a distance, not more likely to want a photograph or a keepsake. She is also tied up in his mind with him being the Heir which he hates and regards as something that has almost ruined his life.

We do know now that he has blurry memories of her singing to him. But that isn't the same as knowing her. What Kit would be mourning, if he let himself really mourn Rosemary, isn't the loss of someone he remembers. It's the loss of the chance to ever know her at all. For someone in that position, being surrounded by reminders of a life that barely intersected with their own might be comforting, or it might simply emphasize what was lost before it could ever exist.

“It's like Rosemary’s presence in Kit’s life has been somewhat sidelined, which I find a bit sad.”

You’re not wrong; it is sad, and that's okay, because the situation is sad in a way that cannot be undone. Tessa cannot have Will back. Will could not have Jem back. Julian can't have Livvy back. Jocelyn never got her son back. The Merry Thieves don't get Christopher back. And Kit does not get to have a life with Rosemary in it. That is one of the recurring themes throughout the Shadowhunter books when sad things happen and cannot be reversed. The question the books keep asking isn't, "How can this be fixed and made not sad?" It's, "How do we go on after loss and how do we understand that it can be part of our history without becoming our entire present? How can we understand that moving on is not a wrong done to the people we lost but is rather what they would want for us? How do we understand that acceptance is not erasure, and how do we, as Shadowhunters, keep doing what needs to be done instead of being ourselves undone by sadness?”

These are all things that Kit needs to think about and has deliberately not thought about. Rosemary’s presence is minimized in Kit’s life because he never really knew her and he doesn't want to think about her or really about Johnny either. Whether he can keep all that up without cracking is the part that seems spoilery.

I would address one thing about the heron pendant, though, because I think it's interesting that people might look at him giving it to Ty as him sidelining Rosemary. I think about it the opposite way (and this does come up in TWP) — Kit’s mother’s legacy was one of sacrificial and protective love. Kit has given this necklace to Ty as a gesture of protective love. Ty having that pendant is the thing — the first thing in TWP — that Kit thinks of as connecting him to his bio-mom. When he sees Ty with the necklace, he thinks that his mother protected him and in turn he has honored that legacy by giving something that symbolizes her to the person he most wants to protect. He thinks she would be pleased. It's pretty much the only thing he's let himself think about as regards her. So I think of it as connecting him to Rosemary rather than putting her aside.

I'm afraid this might be a bit long so I apologize in advance.

Ash has endured years of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse, and it seems clear that prolonged trauma has shaped who he is. You’ve mentioned that he’s the way he is because of “layers of trauma,” and that he’ll bond with Dru over their experiences. I was wondering if you wrote Ash with C-PTSD in mind, or if he’ll display symptoms commonly associated with it, such as flashbacks, anxiety, or dissociation? I don’t mean to suggest how he should be written. I’m just curious about your inspiration.

I understand this is a very heavy topic so I hope it's ok to ask about this.

That is a thoughtful question and it is definitely okay to ask.

Ash has certainly experienced profound and prolonged trauma, and I don't think it's possible to write his story without that trauma shaping who he is. The way he relates to other people, the choices he makes, and the ways he protects himself all grow out of what he's lived through.

That said, I don't think it's for me, as the author, to diagnose a character unless that diagnosis is something I intend to make explicit on the page. While readers are always welcome to see their own experiences reflected in characters and may recognize thoughts and behavior that resonate with them, I don't feel comfortable claiming representation of a specific condition after the fact if it wasn't something I deliberately wrote into the story.

I didn't write Ash with C-PTSD specifically in mind. I wrote him as someone who has survived years of abuse, manipulation, and loss, and I tried to be truthful to the emotional consequences of those experiences. Readers may certainly see aspects of C-PTSD in him, and I understand why, but I wouldn't want to say, "Yes, that's what he has," because I don't think it would be fair to people looking for explicit representation. I also strongly feel that if readers see C-PTSD in him that is a valid interpretation and no one could fairly tell you that you were wrong, including me.

It's neat that this scene demonstrates the ways in which, despite Tessa's relative youth, she's still experienced things that Magnus never has. Magnus is over 400 years old, so he thinks he understands how it works: you love someone, they die, you keep living. Tessa, on the other hand, is the one who knows what it's like to truly find your soulmate and to outlive them.

I think part of Tessa's different approach to love comes from the fact that she was welcomed into a found family while she was still a teenager. She met Will and Sophie and the rest as peers, even though she eventually watched them grow old in ways that she couldn't. Magnus, on the other hand, spent most of his youth with the Silent Brothers. He didn't start really interacting with mortal humans until he was already aware of his warlock nature, and so all of his relationships kind of left him as an outsider. Magnus was the mysterious stranger who blows into someone's life, or the powerful warlock they go to for help. He describes how even the people who lived with him until their deaths still saw him as something temporary, because they assumed that they must be temporary to him. This is why Alec is different, because he fully sees Magnus as an equal human partner. He welcomes Magnus into his friend group and into his family, because that's what you do with a boyfriend. For the first time, Magnus is being treated the same way Tessa was treated in 1878: as another messy person who needs friends.

When someone starts dating it's not only normalized but near-universally expected that they'll put their friends second to their partner, regardless of the length or depth of the respective relationships. The "friendzone" is where you hang out when you're hoping for a "real relationship." When there's a romantic or sexual aspect they're "more than friends."

I just don't think she imagines there would be any point. Forgetting the precise color of Will's eyes isn't about the color. It is about forgetting Will. She doesn't just forget his eye color, she forgets his laugh, and as time passes, she knows she will forget more.

It's like Will turning around to talk to Jem and realizing he isn't there. Eventually he'll stop doing that, and that stopping is also a loss, because it's the acceptance that Jem is gone. Tessa turning into Jem wouldn't help Will, and her turning into Will wouldn't help her.