#runed stuff

tagged by @voxofthevoid-furious, which makes me feel EXTREMELY loved <3

Rules: In a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew/sewed/etc) and tag as many people as there are words (or however many you like).

“Get me out of here,” Cas said. “Ana can help me—foda-se!—get stable, and I can work on the rest after.”

Tagging @starsparksoda @lexi-little-italy @antimatterghost @kitkatbooboo @dracavy

As requested, you can now find <i>Ruining You With Runed: A Reader’s Guide</i> on ao3!

This is intended as a quick, non-spoilery guide to the OCs, worldbuilding, and runes in Runed. I encourage you to just use ctrl+F for whatever you’re looking for; you definitely don’t need to have the whole thing memorised.

For a moment, the Hudson runs with blood and wine.

The High Inquisitor hesitated. “I hope you’re wrong. Nonetheless, the Law is clear; Symeon is my priority—”

The air whistled as the kalassa’s blade whipped through it, the shining-sharp point abruptly at the Inquisitor’s throat.

“Fuck the Law,” Sariel snarled.

https://www.tumblr.com/luxken/721646990728003584/sariel-when-iolmozyor-gave-up-parn-life-trying-to?source=share

OH NO

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT

NOW I'M CRYING

I am packing two years of heartbreak and terror into the next chapter of City of Knives and I regret nothing.

OKAY HI WTF

So apparently you sent this to me in 2016 @ikeea-world but my notifications have been fucked for years and also, somehow this posted??? Even though I hadn’t answered it??? And it was invisible in many views???

I don’t even know

BUT HI I’LL TRY TO ANSWER

FIVE YEARS LATE BUT W/E

In Idris, Shadowhunters attend the Academy, and most purebloods will also have private tutors before+during their time at the Academy. They definitely have field trips, but they’re of the ‘let’s test your demon-killing skills’ variety so I’m not sure they count!

(And they have no art classes except music, so. No drama performances or movie nights, etc, so definitely no school trips to go see them. All those things are a Distraction!)

Non-Shadowhunter kids, on the other hand, have a ton more options. Depending on your caste, you might end up in an apprenticeship when you’re older, and most of those don’t have field trips but they do have days off + possible journeying around Idris with your teacher, so you might see some things. Younger kids, or older ones on their days off, can visit various libraries and Alicante’s museums (they have a few of them, one which is mostly Nephilim history and another for [super]natural history (aka magical creatures + demons etc)(yes demon bodies dissolve when they die UNLESS they are quickly+specially treated, they can be preserved it’s just a lot of effort). The Clave is also really big on art, there are art museums and galleries that are open to the public. No zoos or aquariums, though.

They definitely have hospitals, including facilities for physical therapy (as we see in City of Knives, Nephilim prosthetics are pretty damn impressive). And there are mental health services, but, it’s considered Unacceptable for Shadowhunters specifically to use these. It’s not other Nephilim who really think this, it’s a prejudice that’s grown within the Shadowhunter caste over time. Shadowhunters exist to defend the world; anything that makes them ‘sub-optimal’ (their phrasing not mine!) is taboo. Plus, most Shadowhunters aren’t aware of how fucked-up they are, so they wouldn’t ask for help anyway.

Universities mostly don’t exist in any format we’d be familiar with; instead of college, Nephilim will study either one-on-one or in small groups under someone who is specialised in the thing they want to learn. That being said, again, there is  peripatetic teaching available for non-Shadowhunters - teachers paid by the Idrian government to offer free (to the students) lessons in things like music, runes, and the basics of various art forms (these teachers are usually the ones who connect promising students with ‘masters’ in the subjects they want to continue with). Although this kind of teaching is mostly for kids and teenagers, it’s open to adults as well. 

If you want to learn about the Light World, your only real option is to study with and join the merchant adventurer caste, since these are the people who leave Idris to work in what we think of as the normal world. Like Shadowhunters, most people are born into the caste, but those born outside the caste can join it as well (with much less work + facing far less prejudice than those who want to become Shadowhunters). Some merchant adventurers actually specialise in Light Worlder pop culture, since keeping an eye on what humans think of magic and fantasy things is potentially very relevant. 

Becoming a merchant adventurer means very rarely coming home to Idris, though, since most of them have Light Worlder identities that they live almost 24/7. 

Alternatively, you could join the scholae caste, who are literally scholars of various subjects. Scholae study at the Studion, which is the closest thing to a university that Idris has - it’s part university, part research center, part record-keeping office, and part Very Restricted Library. (Alchemists and various others spend time here too, and lots of representatives of other castes visit when they’re seeking guidance or information.) There are scholae who specialise in Light Worlder studies, for sure - they tend to work pretty closely with merchant adventurers and/or serve as advisors to the Clave, helping explain developments in the Light World and giving advice on new laws/interactions with Light Worlder governments. Even scholae who don’t specialise in Light World stuff get to take research trips out of Idris, depending on their field of study - a bunch of the ones who study Downworlders showed up in City of Knives to try and help sort out the threat to the Accords.

(The secretari are a sect of the scholae, scholars who specialise in angelic history and magic etc; they spend time in the Studion, for sure, but they also have their own special clubhouse, the Ziggurat.)

(Also, while the Studion is dedicated to Uriel, archangel of wisdom, the Ziggurat is consecrated to Raziel, in xyr office as archangel of mysteries and keeper of sacred secrets.)

The Shadowhunter Academy does have courses on Light Worlders, but they are, as you might imagine, not very in-depth, and the lessons on Downworlders are also, um, let’s go with lacking. Like, they EXIST, those lessons, but Simon + Clary would be Extremely Unimpressed with them. They’re far more about how to kill xyz and what parts of the Law apply to them then they are about what werewolf culture is like, for example. Shadowhunters kind of roll on the assumption that if they need to know about ‘nerd stuff’ they can just call the scholae to come explain things.