#WCBAG screaming

[zukkacore]

⭐⭐ pls pls pls share thoughts about who can blame a girl

Thanks so much for this!!! Tbh it's fun to talk abt Who Can Blame a Girl b/c its so short n sweet so it does kinda feel like the one that takes up the least oxygen but i am. proud of it and it is cute but to be fair it also is kinda uncomplicated in my mind so i'll see if i have any thoughts...

(For the record im very "she let me hit b/c i use his pronouns interchangeably" about dyke!Jace. I don't care how she's referred to really. In fact, for most of this i just use he bc idc. In case that's confusing.)

It's a song rec in the notes but actually the inspiration for Who Can Blame Girl is b/c i'd had the song Susie Save Your Love by Allie x n Mitski stuck in head for like forever (That and like A Ton of Chappell Roan) and the song is basically about this girl who is like. In love with her friend who is asking for a ride b/c she needs a break from a shitty boyfriend. Which. Zarajaceporter anyone. I just was really taken with this idea of Zara being very taken by Jace in this kind of... vulnerable, messy, unpalatable state i guess? B/c Jace is so buttoned up and curated at Aguefort. And like. I don't expect everyone to get on the dyke!Jace train but obviously i'm very taken with her and love her she is the soft butch of my life < 3

I guess what i CAN talk about is that. I think it was a fun thought experiment to kinda. Be in Zara's head. I have so much affection for her in canon and i think she just has this very playful, impish, yet ultimately very kind center to her based on how she interacts with Fig that is very heartwarming and as much as i love to torment Jace and put him in Situations, I do think the person who could understand and empathize with his situtation the most truly is zara.

I've talked abt the parallels between Vampirism and Jace in his post shatterstar state. They're both liminal undead existences that are based on this fundamental want that if satisfied would bring harm to others and make the people they love hate them! And like. Zara is very kinda uncomplicatedly Good in FHJY but it was fun to play around with the interiority of a warlock vampire who is in a relationship with a celestial! The whole Thing sort of revolves around this weird unspoken arrangement that concocts out of the blue when Jace calls zara. Zara is all about agreements. Negotiations that you make with the people around you. So when it comes to the gender stuff:

Jace is quiet. “No one would ever want to see that. I—I’m not brave like you, Zara. You’re always you, and—My life is petty, and small, and I—” His voice breaks. “I—I’m comfortable keeping things the way that—” “Hey. You think I don’t make compromises?” says Zara. She's thinking about that word—brave. Jace has no idea what it takes for a vampire like her to "be herself" in a way he imagines. “I make compromises every day.

It's like. This ties so into my belief that pre-shatterstar jace is egoless. He doesn't want to rock the boat. He's comfortable, until Porter comes along. In a way, Zara is unflinchingly herself. She's a hot goth vampire and she's not shy about that. But I think she'd have to reconcile with. Just living in a world that is afraid of her existence. She's free from Jace's POV, but she's not as free as he thinks. She has to be at peace with the idea ther her very existence is just going to be an abomination to some people (and like. It's dnd so i don't know how popular that attitude would be but we have seen religious zealots in text so im sure those people exist). And she's talking about gender stuff but she's also unwittingly kinda speaking to the shatterstar part of his life. Be unflinchingly yourself. You want to live. And sometimes, people will hate you, or you will do harm.

Meanwhile, what is Zara getting out of this time with Jace? Some sort of connection? I think feeling a connection was very thrilling for Jace. That's why he asks, "You felt it, too?" But what does Zara want?

I feel like Zara's motivation is summed up here. Initially, it was curiousity and obligation. She liked seeing him in a state she never had. And he needed a favor, so she felt like she ought to come through. But this is the real reason:

"We can drive for as long as you want. My entire night is free. Obviously"

To me, this is her expressing patience. Patience that she's willing to extend b/c she feels for Jace. But it's also expressing loneliness.

I very much did contrive this bc I'm just a silly billy who has been wanting to write something about Jace n Zara hooking up in a car. And like. I'm cringefail and writing hookups is hard so im always obsessed with what the emotional throughline is for a scene like that and like. I kept coming back to Zara and her celestial lover. I think it's Zara wanting something tangible and messy and faulty.

and yet Zara for a brief terrible moment wants this, with her, over transcendence, over ethereal, ascended, over purity and goodness because this is real , it’s mundane, it’s here , it’s something she doesn’t have to wait for every time her lover comes calling, if anyone knew how desperate Zara truly is they’d never see her the same way again

Like. It's tangible and present and we don't KNOW what a relationship with and angel would be like. But it sounds so... pure. So sterile almost? And textually in FHJY Zara is very mature and healed, but I was like. The idea of a warlock finding a relationship so tantalizing that they would be willing to fuck up their other contracts was just so delicious to me. And Vampires are all about temptation.

Zara can’t help herself, she wants —the same dark want that compels her feed, the same hunger for something she knows is going to destroy her, destroy everyone around her—and seriously, fuck Porter anyway, how could he ever want Jace as profoundly and completely as she feels herself wanting right now,

Like!!!! Yes Zara is better than this but im toxic and want to reduce her to the gutter w the boys! As if it's my fault! I'm not gonna quote the hornier parts but like esp the stuff about like. Zara reconciling with darker wants that—she's not as bad as Porter, but she's a vampire, it's about consumption, about taking, about predation, about desire (it’s also about penetration. lol). She's doesn't let that shit rule her, its there, she does stumble. Like. Was it a good or bad thing that she left it open-ended at the end? I mean. It's good for us for sure. I want them to get into a messy situationship in the wake of Jace's messy breakup with Porter (yes. In my mind this is THEE breakup from IYWD too. The real one).

But like. It was always going to be open ended. Zara did him a favor. This is a contract. There's always a give and take in a relationship. He'll be there for her too at some point. That's how it works.