leamarierojas

source: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db3xMKvjidL/?igsh=b2psdGNqNDQyOTBr

you built this cage... 🕯🖤

•••

not like the most technically perfect thing i've ever drawn?? but i feel like it does still kind of eat aesthetically and so what the hell!! the people deserve their morgenthorn!!! 😌✨️

Yayyy I'm finally done with this

Credits for art: @toka_sketch (insta) @arudrawing @ragnaei @diguza-blog @lemoncielart @alana.rene.art (insta) @camisala01-art @cassandrajean @cthalerart @shadowhunter9210 @charliebowater

Ash: I'm reading a fanfic Dru wrote about you and Ty.

Kit (turning to Dru): YOU did WHAT?!

Oh great... now I wonder what Manuel (and probably Zara too) will do with this!!!

~~~~~

Yes — Dru, unlike the rest of her family, knows Livvy is a ghost. Everyone else has moved on — not like they don't still grieve, but they've accepted. Ty and Dru are stuck in this similar place of not having moved through any stages of grief as we would know them.

Dru's story does include sort-of flashbacks because there are things that happened to her that she herself doesn't remember. As she recovers those memories, the reader learns them alongside her, so those scenes are part of the present story rather than looking backward. They are key things we don't yet know.

Ty and Kit are a little different. Between Queen of Air and Darkness and The Wicked Powers, they were not having life-changing adventures (the most exciting things that probably happened to Kit are in Secrets of Blackthorn Hall). They were growing up, and changing emotionally—but they weren't secretly having another trilogy's worth of stories off-page. They were both in a sort of suspended life between TDA and TWP in which they were not learning big new information, not yet dealing with the consequences of any of their choices, and not experiencing great losses or gains that we don't already know about. Kit being the Heir doesn't mean much during those skipped years, nor does Ty having raised Livvy mean much during those skipped years (as nothing about that changes until TWP) and those are the backbones of their personal arcs. And where they experienced personal growth, they were both in some sense stuck in time while they didn't deal with their issues or feelings regarding each other. In some ways, that is a big part of their story.

ty and kit: "....And where they experienced personal growth, they were both in some sense stuck in time while they didn't deal with their issues or feelings regarding each other. In some ways, that is a big part of their story."

That's an interesting question because Ash's "parents" aren't exactly people you'd look to as role models.

What I think Ash inherits from them isn't negative or positive traits so much as qualities that are morally neutral. Those qualities can become virtues or vices depending on the choices he makes and the reasons he makes them.

Sebastian, for instance, is/was extraordinarily determined. He achieved some truly lunatic goals. Determination is an admirable quality in the abstract; it's what lets people persevere through impossible circumstances. But determination without empathy becomes selfish ambition, and that can lead to terrible things. Ash has inherited that determination — but we don't yet know where he'll take it.

The Seelie Queen is incredibly intelligent and politically perceptive. She understands power, people's desires, and how to influence them. None of those qualities are inherently evil; in fact, they're often the mark of a gifted leader. But she uses them primarily to control and manipulate others and she does not limit her cruelty. Ash has inherited her instinct for reading people and her strategic way of thinking. The question for him is whether he uses these insights to manipulate people or to understand them.

Janus probably had the greatest influence on the person Ash became. At one point, Janus genuinely cared for him and protected him in the ways he knew how, but Janus also believes that the ends justify almost any means. He wants Clary and he doesn't much care if she wants him back, or what he has to do in order to have her. He is also willing to use Ash in any way to get what he wants. Janus may have taught Ash some things about love, but all Janus' love is twisted up and eventually destructive. Ash needs to understand that love is an important good, but love isn't not caring about the other person's free will and agency.