#and development with the queer characters in CoT

[brightwoods]

Does anyone else feel like almost all of the conflicts that had to do with the various character dynamics in Chain of Thorns didn’t actually get resolved, they just unexplainably ceased to exist after two books of building them up because CC didn’t feel like writing them anymore and she didn’t know how to resolve it naturally after how she’d built the issues up so much?

Like how none of the characters but Cordelia and Thomas had any clue about the Alastair and Charles situation and then suddenly in CoT it was like who doesn’t know? Of course Matthew knew and didn’t say anything before and then randomly brought it up to Cordelia in Paris while assuming she knew too

Or how Alastair and Thomas went from how things were at the end of CoI with Alastair thinking it could never work because Thomas’s friends hate him to oh look everyone suddenly is friends with Alastair with no grudge with no development of that in this book at all, just an abrupt shift

Especially the Alastair and Matthew dynamic where Matthew hated Alastair and wanted him to have nothing to do with any of their friends and he spent CoI ranting about him to Cordelia. And then suddenly in CoT it’s like of course Matthew is supportive of Thomas and Alastair and oh look Matthew and Alastair are suddenly not just tolerating each other for Thomas’s sake but friends despite barely interacting and no development actually showing and never getting any mention of the other in their own POVs, just having Cordelia be like Alastair stop being dumb, you’re literally friends with him now

Or like everyone other than Christopher and Grace where it was like oh we don’t like her for how she’s treated us and her friends straight to anyway she’s one of us. Like yes Grace was useful and yes Tatiana manipulated her whole life, but none of that was why anyone changed their minds or opinions? It was just suddenly the flip of a switch when it was convenient for CC

Or Anna and Ariadne where it didn’t so much develop as Anna just acted mean to Ariadne on and off throughout the series and at the end of CoI she wanted nothing to do with a relationship and then in CoT she was just suddenly like sure I guess I do. Also, slightly different note, but I did not like that Anna barely interacted with anyone else for the entire book and she was just off in the corner being an irrelevant romantic subplot for almost all of the book except when she showed up to barely even be shown in the background being sad about her brother being dead

(Although Anna still got more of a reaction than everyone else and his death was poorly executed all around in the sense of how did you write this so predictably and poorly that no one even knows when he died and it’s so background and 99% of the characters don’t care at all and we don’t see his parents finding out or much of Thomas’s reaction or anything and it’s just as if he wasn’t a character anymore 2 seconds later which is a different genre of issue with CoT but similar problem in the sense that both issues made the book feel a lot more emotionless to read)

And how the issues of Thomas and Alastair being together as two men and Anna and Ariadne being together as two women in this time and the issues of what would happen if the fact that Charles and Alastair were gay got out to the entire Clave just disappeared and never got addressed at all. We know how the ClVe reacted to Alec Lightwood YEARS later. We know society was homophobic at the time TLH is set and that it seems like shadowhunter society was a lot less open-minded than mundanes a century later

I understand that Charles being blackmailed and making shitty decisions was annoying but it was like suddenly everyone finding out wouldn’t have consequences and all the other queer men characters were like how could you possibly be worried about this :/ as if they haven’t spent the whole series knowing they have to be careful about who they tell. And then suddenly it was just of course it’s totally fine and safe to have everyone find out and why wouldn’t you be fine with that. And it was really written in a way that had other queer characters like oh Charles is such a coward for not being ready to publicly tell a bunch of homophobic people his sexuality and it just wasn’t it??? And super weird after Thomas was terrified of telling even Anna and Matthew for years. And also, I did not care for the fact that when Charles did go risk getting outed to finally do the right thing, we didn’t even get to see it through any character’s perspective or how that important meeting went, we just got one line of dialogue from somebody else saying that it happened with no details at all. And I can’t think of other examples right now but there were quite a few moments like that where we got one line saying that something had happened that was important to the plot and to characters’ development that seemed like it would have been more interesting than some of what we did get to see where it was just totally breezed over and way too easy and totally background to less important stuff

And then there was the whole no one reacting to Ariadne and Anna dancing together publicly thing was like yeah that’s nice I guess but not realistic and it doesn’t go with the way things have been presented up to that point, it also just feels like a situation where CC was like well this would be easier for me so there just won’t be consequences and then they can easily end up happily together

And then there was the whole Thomas and Alastair thinking they couldn’t realistically be together thing and knowing they couldn’t get married or be known to be together by anyone they’re not close to and then at the end it’s still not really addressed how they’re going to be together? Like there was the laziest write off of the family tree being wrong and then we still are just left to assume that eventually they move in together and suddenly it’s not a problem and everyone’s fine with it? And then I also feel like we don’t actually know if everyone found out about Alastair and Charles’ sexualities after the blackmail or if people are going to assume about Thomas and Alastair or if that’ll cause issues or if no one knows outside of who they’ve told and they have to be careful or what. Which like wouldn’t necessarily need to be addressed if it wasn’t for the logistics of being together as two men in that time being part of the obstacle that they were struggling with being in their way and then it felt like it was totally forgotten to even be one at the end by CC

Idk like I’d love to think they just lived in a world where homophobia didn’t exist but it felt like homophobia was a plot point when CC wanted it to be an inconvenience and then suddenly disappeared just to make her writing easier the moment she didn’t want it there anymore instead of actually addressing the plots she raised with it if that makes sense?

And sorry, I really did not mean to go on a rant this long. And maybe everyone else had a very different reading experience than I did and other people don’t agree with some or all of this. I personally am just very confused about how the book was almost 800 pages long and it felt like so much of the development in it was us abruptly being told that development had happened rather than actually getting to see it and how so many of the issues were abruptly solved in an I don’t want to write this issue anymore kind of way rather than anything actually needing to be worked at outside of the Belial situation

Edit: You know what, I mentioned it in my tags but I feel like it’s annoying enough to put in the body of the post and make it even longer. What the fuck was with everyone outing or potentially outing everyone else just so that characters could openly talk about the queer characters and tell them to do what they want them to? Why did Matthew out his brother multiple times? Like yes, the people he said it to coincidentally already knew, but he didn’t know that. And why was Thomas outing Alastair? The straights got to keep their secrets as long as they wanted and fix their problems more naturally. Why did I have to sit through queer characters constantly having their sexualities and romantic histories to everyone else when they clearly had not okayed it? Why were the queer characters doing so much of the outing? Why were people who cared about them and knew what it felt like to be afraid of the wrong person finding out just broadcasting their sexualities to make it easier for CC to breeze past development to have their things get resolved fast? Why did no character have an issue with it at all?

[alparlaboratories]

Gonna ramble about Inyssa for a little bit.

Is it conceited to make a post about your own character's themes and stuff? Maybe. Whatever.

@inpurpleandred has been rereading and commenting on CoT and some of the stuff they said gave me ThoughtsTM about Niss, so here they are under the cut. It's long, and y'know... warning for all the stuff Niss goes through.

So you know that tumblr post that goes something like 'I'm probably X (trans, queer, bi, etc.) but I got much more pressing shit going on to deal with that at the moment'? That's how I viewed Niss'... everything while writing CoT. Partly because yeah, Niss really has so much shit going on that more urgently requires her attention during much of her story, 90% of it being Shadi's fault of course.

And she does deal with a good amount of it during the fic itself, mostly regarding her own self-worth, her feelings about her family and her own warped view of strength and heroism. And it's only near the end and the epilogue that she can even begin to consider anything else about her life.

And I think in that time, in those years between CoT and my future story, Niss does think about it, and tries things out, experiments and tries to find a place for herself in herself. And she realizes that she both has severe self-image issues and also some gender stuff going on maybe, but they're not actually related.

During much of the fic, Niss sees her body as separate from herself, as early on as the first chapter. It's a form of detachment that allows her to be angry at herself in self-harming ways that -in her head at least- don't clash with her vow to never hurt herself again like she did in the past.

And she is very, very angry at her body. It's a bitterness that keeps boiling under the surface of her skin whenever she's unable to do something she feels like she should. She sees her body as just a thing covering the real Inyssa, and feels like a chick who never got to break out of its shell. And though she tries not to admit it, one of her biggest fantasies is to literally rip herself apart like a molting snake and for the 'real' Inyssa to come out of the dregs, pristine and perfect.

And in a way, it's true, but it's not her fault. It's both Shadi and Johanna's (And Sarah's too, but for different reasons). Who is the most to blame is debatable, but regardless, it's because of them that Inyssa feels this way.

Because yeah, as one of my readers once said, the Dawn family is full of women who are made of stick and stones, but Inyssa takes that to an extreme. There's a chapter where Barry mentions that Niss was once noticeably taller than him, and she was! And she would've continued that trend, eventually growing as tall as Shadi if not taller, if she'd had a normal childhood.

But she didn't. Johanna neglected both of her daughters, and partly because of that -and her own bad tendencies- Shadi ended up doing much worse, especially psychologically, to Inyssa. And then she left. So Inyssa was left severely depressed and gaunt for arguably the most important years in terms of physical growth and development. Johanna says so herself; she practically starved herself, eating only as much to keep herself alive and not doing anything else. And she kept getting worse, and worse, until eventually she attempted suicide. Which, of course, only made the situation worse.

And by the time she was forced to start taking care of herself, it was too late. Her body was frail, and the malnutrition she'd suffered caused invisible scars that stunted her growth for the following years, making Inyssa feel like there was a disconnect between how strong her willpower was compared to her actual body. And so she went on hating said body, cursing it for all her problems because she didn't know who was really to blame.

It's also an endless spiral, because she could've gotten better if she'd taken better care of her body, but why would she, from her own perspective? So she treated her body worse, and it inevitably got worse, so she got even angrier, etc. It's only when she goes on her trainer journey alongside Barry, someone who cares to help her, that she starts getting better. And of course, following the end of the fic and the Epilogue, she's actively trying to eat and sleep more, to treat her body more kindly, like it always tried to do with her.

And it's only then that she has enough time and peace of mind to think about herself, her gender and all that. Now, Niss has always been bi. One of the few good things about Johanna as a mom is that she was unapologetically bi herself, and supported her daughters in learning their own sexual identities, Niss coming out as bi eventually, and Shadi as a lesbian.

After that, I think Niss would happily try new things, whenever she got the time. And though she would keep doing so even years and years after the fact (well into this new Hoenn fic and beyond) from an author perspective I think she'd eventually see herself as a baby butch, a pretty boygirl who loves wearing suits and ties and looking like she's straight out of a visual novel full of bishonen men.

And I love that for her, honestly.

[thechangeling]

I was reading your co-signing the narrative post- great post btw- and your thoughts on Kit Lightwood helped me figure out exactly what bothers me about the way other characters talk about and treat him.

So, there’s this kind of this running “joke” in TLH that Christopher’s interests are boring, that everyone else puts up with it him as though it’s this big nuisance, that everyone zones out hearing him talk… and on and on and on.*** And then there’s this scene where Grace is genuinely interested or at least not bringing him down about his self-expression and the things that bring him joy, and that’s romanticized as special when it’s really kind of the bare fuckin minimum. Like, I’m not saying James/Matthew/Thomas had to immerse themselves completely in every sciency detail but the constant “jokes” implying that Christopher’s work is boring or incomprehensible or not worth their time is just so tiring. There’s always an undercurrent of “Christopher’s just playing around uselessly” (which is not true and even when he’s having fun with his work then it’s still automatically WORTHY and VALUABLE because it makes him happy!) Not to mention this recurring problem directly contradicts the value that Christopher’s work has (beyond its inherent value) when he sends it into the world to literally save lives: the poison antidote, the fire messages that will probably come about in CoT.

And the thing is, the merry thieves’ disinterest is directly meant to foil grace’s interest in order to lend the Grace/Kit relationship a certain significance, as CC assigns to it. I’m not saying shared excitement over an interest/hobby/career/field/etc isn’t sweet platonically or romantically. I just really dislike how the idea CC is using is “no one else can bear to tolerate Kit’s ‘quirks’ but Grace, and that is Endearing, and so they are Soulmates (TM)” rather than the much healthier and positive idea that “Kit does cool sciencey stuff which his family and friends generally don’t share as strong a passion for but still don’t huff about it like it’s somehow a chore or a burden on them, and then Grace comes along and she does happen to share a similar passion and that’s the beginning of their ties to one another.” That second reasoning is what could make their friendship really refreshing; we don’t need ableism poorly twined into romance to enjoy that relationship.

I haven’t read TDA in a while but I’m thinking we could also find touches of this with Ty partly because so much of when we see him is from Kit’s POV? Not that Kit means harm or thinks himself heroic but CC on the other hand is a repeat offender in “abled/white/straight/cis character is ultimately and completely responsible for the salvation of disabled/POC/queer character in this aspect.” And I’m kind of half dreading the wicked powers for that reason among others …

I apologize if all this seems obvious or rambly. I do sometimes have trouble articulating things exactly but when I read your post i had a lightbulb moment and I wanted to note it down.

Have a great day!

***Side Note: this is why I really enjoy fan-created content that explores Christopher’s relationships with people (even people he didn’t interact with on-page in the canon) without that annoying and problematic aspect built into the framework of the relationship.

^^^^^^^^^THIS ALL OF THIS!!!!!!

Full disclosure this is gonna be kind of long sorry. But you have stumbled across my favourite topic to rant about. Allistic saviorism. Basically the name is pretty self explanatory. It's when an allistic person fictional or otherwise has the desire to or actively attempts to essentially "save" the autistic person from the horrors of the world or their life, or even themselves because they think that the autistic person isn't strong or capable enough to fix/handle it on their own. All of this is usually done for very self serving reasons. Part of this is also allistic people being praised as heroes for being nice to autistic people or asking them out, or loving them.

I don't neccesarily think that kitty is an allistic savior ship on it's own. I think that there are definitely peices of those beliefs scattered throughout the books and it might get worse in TWP. That's honestly something that I'm worried about too tbh. But honestly I think that the fandom made it a billion times worse.

This mainly allistic fandom wanted to romanticize the idea of Kit taking care of Ty and shouldering the burden of his "unpredictability." Kit is the only one who can get through to Ty. The only one who understands the mystery that is Ty 🙄. Some of this is canon too. For example, Ty can look Kit in the eye, he lets him touch him. He doesn't wear the headphones when Kit's around right? And Kit was able to calm him down during his meltdown.

And while some of this is really cute from a romantic perspective, it's also kinda problematic because it reeks of allistic saviorism. It promotes the idea that Kit is like Ty's "cure." And that's just impossible.

And honestly I know I've contributed to this in some ways. Because if I'm being perfectly honest with you, there's a part of me that enjoys that. The romantization of autism.

The idea of being taken care of.

The idea that someone could love an autistic person and see them as "beautiful" and "extraordinary" and all the things Kit calls Ty, was incredibly moving and appealing to me as a kid. It still is. Because I grew up on stories of charity cases and allistic saviorism making headlines with prom dates. I was super secretive about it, but I was always a romantic growing up. But I thought that it was impossible for me to have a real love story because people like me don't get that. (Not to get all sob story on you sorry. I overshare. It's an autistic thing.)

And there are some really compelling things about kitty that really do work. And I'm not trying to suggest that Kit learning to help Ty with the ...shall we say more colourful traits of his disability is a bad thing always. It's not. But I think the issue is with Ty's lack of pov and Ty's lack of a narrative in the books. It makes him seem like less of a completely developed character and more like, "Kit's" you know?

And because we don't have Ty's pov we don't really get what makes Kit have this sort of calming effect on him or why it's different. And more importantly we don't get why Ty's letting him in, we only get Kit pushing past his boundries. The entire thing becomes about Kit essentially and that's at the root of all allistic saviorism.

Also like you mentioned before, Kit is seen as special to a certain extent because he can handle Ty. That's not neccesarily something the character believes obviously, but again with CC co-signing the damn narrative with the way she makes the impact Kit has on Ty such a big deal in everyone's eyes and in QOAAD she really emphasizes the drain Ty's necromancy plan is taking on Kit, suddenly Ty's grief becomes all about Kit and with no pov from Ty, it's more allistic savior bs.

Honestly most of this isnt actually THAT bad it's just when you throw it all together and look at the ugly history and let's be honest present, of autistic people being silenced and spoken over by our caregivers and loved ones and we are treated like burdens on them, and how those people are praised for loving us, it kinda looks bad. But the fandom definitely made it worse.

I always get criticized for criticizing kitty by allistic people with, " well if you think they're so toxic then why do you even ship them?" Which is a piss poor take lacking in any nuance. An autistic person has the right to critique a dynamic involving an autistic character. More to the point, you can love something and be critical of it. I swear when this fandom finally figures that one out... we could accomplish so much.

I'm really hoping this is making sense it's like 2 in the morning. As for Grace and Christopher's dynamic I agree with you. I basically have nothing to add. Bare minimum. Should not be idolized. The way the others treat him should not just be brushed off as no big deal. It's ableism.

Basically it's just a bunch of classic mistakes that come from a neurotypical abled writer writing nd characters. Some mistakes are more damning then others. But it does make me scared for TWP.

I can only hope.

[bemtevis]

So I saw a bunch of Matthew asks and I have some thoughts. One of the things that annoys me the most about Matthew is what he could have been. Matthew could have been a complex character with an interesting arc showing him recovering from his alcoholism growing from his past, forgiving Alastair and also apologizing for the things that he did at the academy, and ending the series in a way better place than he starts. However instead CC just said 'ah yes another Jace/Will clone in a love triangle, and give him basically no development between coi and cot. He doesn't change at all, unless you count being 12 times worse in coi, and I'm betting that cot will end with matthew somehow magically being cured of Alcoholism and Matthew being basically the same character. Honestly if CC did give him more of an arc (I know that cot isn't out yet and that she might still give him a satisfying ending, but I'm 99% sure that cot won't be satisfying and that Matthews character will be handled badly) and showed him changing and becoming a better person than I wouldn't mind how Matthew acts at the academy and during chog, and coi, like he can be a shitty guy at first if he changed and grew as a character across tlh, however that does not seem to be happening. It honestly makes me upset the amount of wasted potential with Matthew, and basically the other queer characters in tlh. Like at this point CC is basically just using the queer characters to get representation brownie points. None of the queer characters have a role in the plot, unless you count a few pages of fight scenes or them helping the main characters for a few pages, before disappearing again, because appearly you can't have more than 5 pages of queer people a book. Also none of them really seem to have much thought put into them. It seems like well writing tlh CC was thinking 'ah yes i will put a shit ton of queer rep in this series,' and then just took five seconds each to come up with actually characters. Like, Matthew = Alcoholic Jace. Thomas = Nice Guy. Anna = Heartbreaker Lesbian who wears suits. Like it honestly hurts to think of what tlh could have been and what all the characters could have been. Sorry for how ridiculously long this is.

Ok, I'm breaking this into two points first. Thank you for the ask and don't worry about it being long, I loved answering it :3

What Matthew could have been:

I know right! I don't think I would ever like him even if his arc was well done, he just doesn't seem like the character I could love. Buuuut that wouldn't have stopped me from admiring his character development or from being happy he's healed. It was never gonna happen tho 😔

He's gradually getting worst with each book, it's confirmed he's gonna make a move on Cordelia in Paris. Can't wait to find out whatever bullshit he has prepared for us /s

CC will probably pull the ‘Love cures mental illness’ trope on Matthew, and I shouldn't have to clarify on how ableist that is *sigh* did we expect more?

I spoke a bit about his supposed arc in CHOT here :D

Wasted potential of the queer characters:

I know right!! She and her stans brag about the amount of queer characters in TLH, which isn't even that high. It doesn't have to be, just stop congratulating yourself for the bare minimum!

None of them have any weight on the plot, they're just there as a supportive cast and they barely do that! Do you ever just stop and think about the unimportance of Thomas' trial? About what even was Matthew's role in CHOI? About how most of the main cast has never even talked to Kamala? They mean less than nothing to the story.

Oh, speaking of annoying tropes, you forgot!

Alastair: CC's misinterpretation of what a mean gay is.

Kamala: Heartbreaker Lesbian's side bitch.

Matthew's potential novella:

Tbh I'd rather him having a novella than having to read about him in the trilogy. I can just not read it, you know? And it makes sense for CC to write it, but JFC, if that happens, I am gonna attempt putting an entire spoon inside my own ear. I feel like that'd be better for my health, therapeutic even /j

[fucking-gabriel]

Chapters: 75/75 Fandom: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley, Aziraphale & Crowley, Uriel/Other Character(s), Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Sergeant Shadwell/Madame Tracy, Hastur/Ligur, Raphael/Uriel (Good Omens), Brian & Pepper & Wensleydale & Adam Young (Good Omens), Adam Young (Good Omens)/Original Female Character(s) Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley, Anathema Device, Newton Pulsifer, Adam Young, Pepper (Pippin Galadriel Moonchild), Brian (Good Omens), Wensleydale (Good Omens), Sergeant Shadwell, Madame Tracy, Gabriel (Good Omens), Dagon, Mouse, Agnes Nutter, Original Characters, Jaime Hernez, Mary Hodges, The Them (Good Omens), Death (Good Omens), Dagon (Good Omens), Uriel (Good Omens), Raphael (Good Omens), Michael (Good Omens) Additional Tags: Series, Slash, Drama, Humor, Het, Apocalypse, Angels, Fallen Angels, Archangels, Demons, Supernatural Elements, Families of Choice, Unconventional Families, Older Characters, Female Characters, Character(s) of Color, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon Related, Canon Compliant, Illustrated, Intersex Character, Autism Spectrum, Female Character of Color, Male Character of Color, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Idiots in Love, Historical Accuracy, Original Character(s), Slice of Life, Ducks, Neighbors, Cards Against Humanity, Good Omens Holiday Exchange, cottage in the south downs, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), First Kiss, First Time, Firsts, Established Relationship, Old Married Couple, Old Friends, Historical, Historical References, Travel, Food, Gardens & Gardening, Plants, Wine, England (Country), World Travel, Friends to Lovers, Male-Female Friendship, Female Friendship, Male Friendship, Literary References & Allusions, References to Shakespeare, References to Canon, Nerdiness, Hobbies, Flashbacks, Phone Calls & Telephones, Texting, Time Skips, Platonic Cuddling, Cuddling & Snuggling, Post-Coital Cuddling, Sex, Emotional Sex, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Falling In Love, Love Confessions, Childhood Friends, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Siblings, Protective Siblings, Parent-Child Relationship, Hastur Is A Hot Mess, Kink Negotiation Series: Part 1 of CoT ’Verse (& Extended Environs) Summary:

“D’you realize,” [Crowley] said, “that we never tire of things humans get bored with on the regular?”

Aziraphale shrugged, lazily basking. “I’ve always assumed it’s that we don’t tire of each other.”

[FINALLY COMPLETE! #75 added 14 February 2019; ran from 10/1/05 - 4/14/19. My love to GO fandom, always.]