#TID spoilers

[shima-draws]

Carmine: Kiki’s been acting REAL weird since he got back

Carmine: He trains nonstop, barely even sleeps…

Carmine: He even beat Drayton and took his position as the BB League Champion

Carmine: I’m actually kind of afraid to interact with him now, I mean look at how awfully he treats other trainers that he sees as “weak”

Carmine: Oh but I’m sure it’s just a phase!

Me:

[garvalhaminho]

girl help i thought about jem carstairs for a little too long and now i want to cry. he was only 17.............he was and has been alive much longer than that but has he been living? when the only thing that kept him human and sane was the thought of the people that awaited him? w the littlest hope he'd make it out of the brotherhood but crushed by the truth that he could never? the people that made what jem thought to be his last years on earth worth living? the people whose love ran through jem's veins and kept him alive when nothing else would? jem carstairs, who lived more when was dying than when he was immortal?

[clockwork-carstairs]

rereading clockwork angel and i’m thinking about the parallels between will/jessamine and tessa/jem.

will and jessamine: both come from parents who left the shadowhunter life, spending their childhoods in the mundane world. their behaviour is often rude, volatile, they shout and argue, both masking their pain by lashing out and rejecting the love charlotte & henry offer them (for wildly different reasons, but the outward behaviour is not dissimilar). they have moments of raw vulnerability before rapidly closing off (jessamine and her dollhouse; will when tessa sees too much of his real self). will and jessamine’s lives both make them hopeless — will because he cannot let anyone get close, and jessamine who says she’d rather die than live this life she never wanted. will chooses the shadowhunter life, because he cannot go home; jessamine wants nothing to do with it, but she cannot get out. they’re both desperate for their lives to change (though we see more of this from will in cp1).

and then you have jem and tessa: both travelled from different continents after basically losing everything, to arrive in london. both tortured repeatedly, forced to recalibrate to the world after. they feel out of place initially, yearning for the lives they had before everything changed, before they had to travel so far from home (which brings the most pain, as jem says). people see them as different for what they are, for things they cannot change — the “half one thing and half another, like me” conversation. they take on more nurturing roles, so in the rare moments when they do express anger, it hits extra hard. they both want something essential: jem to experience the kind of love his parents had, and tessa to know who she is, to not be alone in the world.

they all carry their histories in different ways, i guess is the point here, and it’s interesting how certain characters’ backgrounds/stories parallel others. this isn’t to compare either pair, rather i’m just observing the similarities — it’s always struck me how will and jessamine seem pretty similar at the start of clockwork angel, (which shows in the way they argue and shout at each other a lot) though obviously their needs/reasons/values are incredibly different. and then there’s jem and tessa, who are more shy and yet, contradictorily, more openly feeling, who i think because of their nature often have their pain overlooked (especially the fact that they were both tortured!!) and tessa representing a reason to hope for both will and jem but also jessamine, who later projects this onto nate, bec she’s desperate for a way out, while jem and will have a reason to not be resigned to their fates.

anyway stan tid for breaking my heart again!

[clockwork-carstairs]

oh wow this was amazingly written. it always felt like a waste of such an incredible character that we DIDN’T GET JEM’S POV in the series he was a main character of like?!!! ik cc had her reasons for plot or WHATEVER but it was a waste. in 2008 jem remembers being so frustrated after tessa left after the cp1 bedroom scene that he tore his sheets to shreds. WHY DIDN’T WE SEE THIS? why do we never see jem being angry on his own behalf? yes he's kind, yes he accepts so much of his pain with total equanimity, but between me and you, some of my favourite jem moments are when he shows his anger and frustration. fierce midnight has always been the most affecting chapter to me and it's because jem gets upset for himself, for once. (although later he's like ridiculously forgiving about it. he was rightfully upset). and these moments are too few. we see will get frustrated and angry all the time in tid. but jem.....? whose backstory has always, to me, been the standout most devastating in tsc? gah. and i'm saying this as a massive jem stan like he's always been my favourite, but it's also true that i've liked him most when he shows his anger, his frustration, his wants, his despair. everything you've said is 100%.

AND i also feel like because we see jem upset so rarely in the series the other characters, while aware that he must be in pain, they're not as aware as they should be until they're reminded that he might really die. like because jem is so kind and self-sacrificing it becomes too easy to forget that this comes at a cost. that it takes effort. and in fierce midnight we see tessa realising this for the first time – that jem lost his whole family. he was tortured. he lost everything and is reminded every day of it because of the drug. he is pain every day. to accept this the way jem has requires something. it's not easy. just because you carry it well doesn't mean it's not heavy. but yeah to conclude some of my favourite jem moments was when he actually got angry and wasn't so self-sacrificing and kind but actually wanted things for himself and got mad for himself but this happened way too rarely. ok i'm out of coherency i'm afraid but i think about this a lot.

what did cassie get wrong w Jem iyo? like to me he’s very proud and stubborn in an Asian way (it’s hard to explain but there’s something very chinese about it, culturally, how he’s optimistic and dramatic in equal parts but needs to be seen as separate from his illness so badly) and very conscious of the value of life yet resigned to his own fate yet holding his head up the way people in inspiration porn do (but it’s from a place of wanting to be normal, wanting to fit in and live and have meaning and love and responsibility in his life like a teenager). I’m curious though how could his character have popped more? and what does not seem realistic?? actual so curious

Okay love, bear with me, I'm just going to go on a bit of a ramble. I haven't put a lot of thought into my answer so it may be a bit incoherent.

So, as context for anyone else, I mentioned in another post where I was examining chronic pain and illness in fiction using TSC characters that I felt that while Jem was done quite well (he means a lot to me as a character and I relate to him like I haven't been able to with other characters before), there were some missed opportunities for his character to really pop and some things I felt Cassie didn't really do realistically.

Honestly, I think the two kind of tie together. While my illness is not terminal, there were many times I either wished for death or wished to live a fuller life unhampered by the pain and sickness. This still happens sometimes, but more of the latter. It's hard to look at healthy, able-bodied people. I marvel at just... how much easier existence must be for them. And I wish we saw more of this perspective with Jem.

While we do see him having a crisis over feeling like he's only half-living, half a man, and so he must take more yin-fen to be his full self for Tessa (this really hit hard as someone who was on steroids and felt unshackled for the first time in years, only for the pain to come back again and trip me up again sometime after I had stopped taking the meds), I also feel that we didn't quite reach a catharsis or angst that truly would have rounded his experience as a character. Optimism, pride, stubbornness, and his own subtler dramatics all do come into this, but I really would have liked to see a moment of weakness.

I think that night when he first kisses Tessa and is ranting about how she acts like a nurse and as if he is her patient, that he knows she cannot even see him as a full man, one who might desire her -- that was good. That was a moment of weakness. Emphasised when he sent her away because he did not want her to see him on his knees dusting up the drugs that give him life. That was so frickin' YES. I cannot even tell you the amount of times I feared as a teenager and even now into adulthood that I will not be seen romantically because I am just someone to take care of, a liability, and I try so hard to compensate for that to not be a burden, because I need to be seen as a "full person" to anyone able-bodied. This was just chef's kiss fantastic as a demonstration of something Cassie did so, so right to me with Jem. It's a common insecurity but not to be overlooked. For Jem it is his weakness and shorter life span, for me it's physical disfigurement (so far it's just one funky collarbone) that may worsen with age and limited physical ability (I say it so many times, but it really haunts me that I turned down a dance offered by a guy I had a major crush on because I was in too much pain to move much let alone dance, and the fact that many people avoided me when I was in my worst bouts of pain because they didn't know what to do).

Anyway, that was an example of something Cassie did right. What I would have also liked to see though is a moment where Jem is not calm and it has nothing to do with Tessa (well, it's at least not centred around Tessa). For a long time, I just wanted the pain to end. I had made peace with death because I wished for it. And there was a calmness to it. The same everyone sees in Jem. Acceptance. He argues not willingness because he fights for every second of life he gets to spend with those he loves, but I really think what would have popped is seeing him realise how much he wants for there to be a cure. He does give everyone permission to look before he calls it off to take the last resort option he never wanted before to be a Silent Brother, but I wanted to see him break down -- even if it's in private because most of our battles are when you're chronically ill -- and realise he wants to live because there is so much more he wants.

I know it's seen as very cool to accept a death that's coming to you in a lot of media, but honestly once I got past wishing for it, I became so absolutely terrified of it. The idea of losing control over my body, of my joints being too stiff and painful to create or do simple tasks, and the idea of any of my chronic illnesses being severe enough to become what might kill me in the end, before my time, scares me so much. There is a frantic need in me to do and see everything before I am unable to. I feel like I am constantly in a rush for everything in life.

It's basically rule of thumb in writing that a character who is calm needs a scene where they are not calm, when they snap, when the unthinkable happens, where the unshakeable are suddenly shook, and I needed that deep, deep terror in Jem to be about him, and not just Tessa or the people he's leaving behind that he does not want to cause grief for.

Not every person who can "put up" with their chronic illness is a saint with infinite patience. I see this a lot. To me it feels unrealistic that Jem feels okay about his illness, about his impending death, about all of it, that the only thing he might feel bad about is making his bride a widow too soon and leaving his best friend who might not cope without him. This is more of a typical trope in media, and by god do I just want to see someone else who isn't me go through what I do and also scream and cry at the injustice of it all. We didn't choose this life, it was given to us, and it feels so unfair. It is rare that I ever break down right in front of a person, I've gotten good at the detachment when talking about my chronic illnesses, but in private it is a whole other monster.

Not only that, but the Jem we see post-Brotherhood is so... different. Granted he had over 100 years to come to terms with no longer dying too early or being ill and weak. But chronic illness really takes its toll on a person. You don't have to make their whole personality their illness, I think we'd all rather not, but there is a fear that every little health problem might be something worse, there is even a begrudgement of those who take their bodies for granted, the fear that your children might inherit your weaknesses and that maybe you have sentenced them to a life of pain like yours was/is, that one day the chronic illness will come back and you've only got so many healthy years left before you get old and start to lose your body all over again.

For every moment of optimism and hope, there are hidden moments of despair and fight and pain. Sometimes we have to claw and bleed for that ounce of hope, for the strength to act "normal" and fit in and not be a downer around everyone else. As restless as you can be, sometimes you just want to sleep it off, even though you know this illness isn't something you can sleep off. I would have liked to see more of that with Jem.

Again, what Cassie did was really good, and I appreciate Jem so much since I have not seen many other chronically ill characters who I relate to in fiction. I just felt some things could have added to his story and character.

[tid-liddell]

My fav moment

Idk why but Nightshade look so silly there

sksksk

[daisymylove]

My issues with chain of thorns aside, Thomas' come out was so fucking funny bc of how in character all the interactions were

Thomas, being the dramatic queen he is, simply decided to yell it out to his whole family without preamble and completely out of the blue that he's in love with a dude

Gideon ,our clueless sweetheart (bless his heart, he's trying), was like I wanna be supportive but I dont understand wtf is going on.you're in love? with carstairs? when did THAT happen? Help

Eugenia, another huge-ass dramatic queen, was like YALL HEARD HIM MOTHERFUCKERS,YOUR OPTIONS HERE ARE ACCEPTANCE OR ACCEPTANCE

And sophie, our always practical babe, was like enough chit chat all of you.When is son in law coming for dinner?

[lizzybeeee]

The time honoured trend of BioWare refusing to acknowledge that Thedas has two moons continues lmao

[inkstainedwhisper]

Some days I'm happy, other days I think about the 𝘊𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 epilogue and burst into tears

[clockworkbee]

When a character so badly wants to do or see something happen and they give their all for it but then they don’t live to see it and people get to know from other people that “they did it. They made it happen. They'd have loved to see it. It’s a shame they didn't live to see it”? Yeah...

[jaimrennnn]

I come back to tumblr after a long while only to discover the first chapter of TLKOF has already come out???????

[helenofblackthorns]

the fact nobody got slapped in tlh is a crime, several of those characters should have been humbled asap

[shima-draws]

Carmine’s reaction to bringing out Ogerpon in battle against her is so cute…

Meanwhile Kieran. Uh. Kieran’s,

😬

[garvalhaminho]

sometimes i wonder what will herondale was thinking when he said, "jem is my great sin." like, in what way does he consider jem his sin?

will believes he is cursed so that everyone that loves him will die, so he doesn't let them love him, and the easiest way to do that is to make them hate him, acting arrogant, childish and egotistic.

when jem meets will, one of the first things he tells him is that doctors think he'll die in two or three years. they were twelve. now they're seventeen, and will notices that jem's illness is getting worse, in turn worsens his quality of life.

what i wonder is if he considers jem his "great sin" because he feels free to love a cursed man, like him, who is destined to die young. or if he believes that, by allowing jem to love him back, he gave him all his woes, including his curse, making will think that, even if jem miraculously didn't die from his illness, he would die young either way, due to the "curse" will thinks he enforced upon jem

[aleclightofmylifewoodbane]

im still not ok you guys

[thebellekeys]

Dearest James Herondale, are you absolutely sure your father has never ever been angry with his parabatai in his life? Are you super sure? Are you doubtless? Are you certain? By chance, have you, uh, tried asking your mother? Just by chance?

[queenhelenblackthorn]

cassie is just killing lightwoods for sport now