#bc theres literally no falling out of love except in really extreme circumstances like the aforementioned genocidal maniac situation

[sprolden]

honestly another thing that makes tsc so fun is that there's so many implicit little worldbuilding rules going on that you're aware of as a reader but the moment a character states them out loud you go "Haha, What?" like jocelyn casually mentioning that shadowhunters love extremely intensely and that virtually all of them fall in love only once. girl I thought everyone just suffered from YA Protagonist Always Meets Their Soulmate At 16 Disease what do you MEAN that this is an actual Thing. and that thats the reason why your current husband spent 20 years pining over you because he was physically incapable of falling out of love. and that it took you 15 years to even think of the possibility of loving him back because your first husband turned out to be a genocidal maniac and you were like well thats it for me then no more romance too bad I wasted it on him! what do you MEAN

[galimatios]

t/a rambles 1

back on my bullshit part 1

... should look into the tactics ogre games for novel inspo bc my novel is also a political drama ... UNINTENTIONALLY actually id call it a coming of age story in rhe new adult genre since mc is probably 23-25 i have so many feelings about the novel ugh i love my ocs so much and i put them all om opposing sides for this novel the most complex relationship i have in it i think is alex and his mother or rather prince kreutzer in this au queen elaine and her son prince kreutzer .. god its so fucked up bc kreutzer loves his mother- he was largely isolated as a child and his mother was always so loving and sweet and they were so so close but the prince never knew of the shit his mother did as queen she is a tyrant she must have lost a child once. a princess, i think probably to the king who she may have ... overthrew or usurped maybe but regardless of that shes in power now and because she lost a child she became overly protective of kreu and consolidated her power heard of a plot to infiltrate her kingdom and assassinate the son of the previous tyrant king (?) and she just fucking ruled with an iron fist because she has so little trust in the goodness of people that she thinks the only way to achieve good is to force it and as a result she kills anyone who steps out of line thus making the people resent her deeply but to kreutzer shes his mother his loving and doting mother who does all she can to protect him the novel actually starts um after the queen is assassinated h a its not her story but shes a big part of it even after her death bc a big portion of the theme is like coming to terms with the complexity of individuals no one is all good or all bad and kreu starts out unable to understand this he has a very black and white view of moralitt like his mother at the beginning on his coronation day theres an assassination attempt made on him but he gets whisked away by the court jester after that a coup is staged and rebels take over the country and the prince is forced to hide with a traveling circus that the jester brings him to where every performer... is a fugitive or criminal! and thats where his personal growth really begins bc he learns abt these people and realizes his world view was wrong people are complex people do bad things... for just reasons and vice versa esp Keith who makes a major appearance in the novel his entire bg story takes place outside the novel as well hahaha but its a lot after a raid on his village, hes orphaned along w his little sister who is ill so to make ends meet / buy medicine he does literally every fucking crime under the sun starting off with petty theft and scaling up to murder literally sacrificing every last shred of innocence he has for the sake of his ailing sister who... dies anyway! and im thinking, tbh, its a fantine/cosette/thenardiers type sitch where this quack doctor is basically scamming him except instead of fantine dying cosette does anyway thats where he fucking hits rock bottom he could handle things as long as he had someone to fight for you know he was alright with it bc his sister was there, his saving grace but when she dies hes all alone thats probably when lydia finds him i imagine he would he on the verge of suicide or at the very least dying of self imposed starvation and neglect but honestly probably suicide julie's death on top of the crushinf weight of all the crimes hes committed the innocence he lost, the lives he took its just way too much and hes just a naive kid lydia finds him and takes him back to the circus takes care of him gives him food and water and shelter and slowly tries to reach him slowly teaching him that there is still life to be lived that he is so young, and it is far too soon for him to lay down and die that he should live for his dead family, because that is what they would want to keep their memory alive in his heart and he begins to come around slowly starts doing chores for the troup then he finally sees one of their performances acrobats and the trapeze and the glitz and the glamor its the first time in years where he ... wasnt thinking about his dead sister or his trauma he asks lydia to teach him how to "do that" he says while pointing at the stage and so she does and ever since then hes taken up performing full time as a .. daredevil type act doing outrageously dangerous things for the thrill of it it excites him, the risk he loves to see how close to the edge of death he can walk without falling and it fuels him makes him enjoy being alive again and he's.. happy god by the time you meet keith in the novel he's just this happy go lucky teen with this smugness about him a kind of dangerousness belying a sweet exterior he's all jokes and laughs at this point and you'd never be able to tell what he went thru at first glance or at all really bc honestly, at this point he honest to god is okay lies and dirt - Last Thursday at 6:00 AM he... doesnt need anyone's pity. he doesn't need anything but the feeling of being alive now and one of the major points of the novel is prince kreu's relationship with him... bc at first they really clash and kreu is just... he's a fucking criminal and all of then deserve to hang keith plays this off w jokes at first but kreu keeps being antagonistic bc he just cant believe a criminal like him is getting away without punishment but then one day keith snaps at him knife to the prince's throat dangerous, cat like eyes, the usual smile on his face no where to be found you're right. i'm a thief. a liar. a criminal. a murderer. i'm all those things. but i'll tell you one thing, prince: i'm not worthless. he pulls the knife away and walks off leaving the prince stunned after this lydia talks to kreu explaining that maybe he shouldn't judge keith so quickly hinting that the circumstances of his life were... not ideal when i first found him, he was already half dead. perhaps not physically, but in the eyes. you could see the reaper in them. hhmgmgn i need to think more abt the circumstances around this scene ah keith must have been looking for a good place to die

the music from the circus reminded him of better days, when he played songs with his family. i imagine him.. outside the tent, somewhere obscured and there's music flowing from its interior... he's tired. he sits down against a barrel and he's been starving, exhausted... letting sleep take him away on the songs from the circus back to a time he used to be happy...

lydia fines him and shakes him but his eyes look glassy and he's unresponsive

he's taken poison must have been something from his former days working as an assassin something he saved for himself just in case and that's when lydia takes him in and nurses him back to health she's a water mage w healing capabilities so she's able to do it and i imagine at first keith is hurt, angry why am i still alive? i im fucking myself up in the feels i hate this THIS ISNT EBEN IN THE FUCKINF BOOK IT ALL HAPPENS BEFORE IT KEITJS NOT THE MAIN CHARACTER HERE BUT IM SO FUCKED UP ugh after kreutzer learns a bit abt keiiths origins he actually thinks a lot. and tries to make amends. apologizes to keith who doesnt say anything much he's sitting, eyes away from the prince, fiddling with the knives he uses for his performances

"a raid took my parents away. illness took away my sister."

"i did a lot of things for money. most of it i'm not proud of. but i would have done anything to save her... you know?"

"you've got someone you love too, don't you?" kreutzer thinks of his mother. the surrogate brother who disappeared on him and never returned "i do." "then, you get it." after this they start to really bond almost as siblings.. which is really funny bc kreutzer doesnt need to be protective of keith keith can MORE THAN take care of himself but its new for kreutzer to feel.. responsibility for someone else like this he was always the one protected before keith laughs at this a lot what're you trying to do? be my big bro? but secretly he ...really likes having family again as idiotic as kreutzer is ofc lydia has always been there for him but as a surrogate mother an older sib is new and.. kind of nice in canon modern au they really are basically bros LOL actually cousins via mothers but alex/kreu goes to live w keiths family after his mom (lain) dies so they essentially grow up like brothers i didn't even get started w the fucking mess that is alan and kreutzer alan goes by calisto also and he hes the court jester but he was trained from a young age as a snake in the kings court he was supposed to kill the prince when the time was right but alan and his dumb fucking gay ass FALLS IN LOVE WITH HIM INSTEAD spoiler alert: its unrequited btwn alex and alan is NEVER requited in ALL aus its because alan ... doesnt love himself at all. he has no sense of... purpose or identity alex can never love someone like that but either way he becomes the prince's personal servant and entertainer and this idiot falls for him the naivete he displays, the timid stateliness, the unfitting title of prince bestowed on his shoulders- kreutzer is far too soft to be the leader of this kingdom and alan increasingly has the desire to protect him even as kreu grows older and more skilled in his studies there is always the anxious trepidation they also grow up together from around ages 11-present at the time of the novels start god alan loves him so much it hurts me but its so one sided alex loves cyrus in modern au ): alan could never be more than just a phase tbh poor guy alan and his low self esteem and depression the worst part of this thougg is that because alan feels aimless and without purpose when he falls for kreutzer he ... finally has his OWN cause to fight for and he takes it to the extreme betraying everyone that trusted him to do his job for the sake of a man who wont ever love him it bites him in the ass too bc i kill him off as a catalyst for other stuff h ahahahhahahahahahahaha not just kill him off but horribly because HE FUCKING BETRAYED HIS ENTIRE SIDE THEY ARE, UNDERSTANDABLY, PISSED Alan is so fuckong flawed hes a fuckinf mess and i love it ugh im thinkijg of another scene in the novel once kreutzer gets captured bt the coup rebels he actuallt submits himself voluntarily bc keith gets kidnapped and used as ransom keith tells him hes a fucking idiot keiths life doesnt matter dont fucking come for me! but kreu doesnt listen obviously and they torture kreutzer bc i love suffering and after that they make him listen in a mock trial to the testimonials of all the people hurt by his mother death to the queen! death to elaine of koel! all the horrible stories of lives unjustly cut short because of his mother it breaks him because he loves his mother so much but she's done all these horrible things he doesn't know what to do how to make amends the damage was done and he takes their wrath their scorn and anguish and i'm sorry as if sorry could ever fix anything but it is his burden to carry, his punishment to suffer in place of the queen ironically this makes lilya have a change of heart she was infiltrating the queens court just as alan did and she is directly responsible for her death her assassination, i think or the king's? either way shes part of the rebel forces and she DESPISES the queen good fucking riddance as far as she's concerned that woman made her life hell(edited) so she can rot in it for all lilya cares for but seeing kreutzer there bloodied tortured sobbing broken and taking the punishment doled out to him without so much as a word of protest(edited) she thinks... this... isnt right this is wrong. because kreutzer was not responsible for the sins of his mother as much as people want to blame him, take out their anger on him lilya was at first all gung ho about ending the royal bloodline lies and dirt - Last Thursday at 7:02 AM but she reconsiders this moment feels something tugging at her this isnt right

she remembers her sister back at the circus— lydia. who she always loved dearly but clashed with, leading to her abandoning the circus and joining the rebellion.

retribution is deserved, but should it be served? what then makes us different from our oppressors?

or sth like that so she rescues kreutzer takes him back to the circus. and reunites with her sister after so many years after that ik not entirely sure what to do w the novel LOL bc i know there has to he a big battle bc the rebellion forces begin to quell opposition like how the communist regime in other countries started in ernest bc people felt oppressed but then they went too far and started culling the middle class so then kreutzer leads his own rebellion force against them to take back the country then once he wins he uses his kinghood to dissolve the monarchy and embrace democracy instead asking lydia to lead hes much too tired to lead, and she is much better suited for it but hm inhabe to think more about that entire segment after this he takes over lydias spot in the circus as its owner and organizer and with keith he spends the rest of his days helping people just like keith also they properly mourn alans death it takes forever for kreu to come to terms w his mothers assassination and crimes he probably never truly works it out but he begins to be able to recognize that she is both the tyrant queen and his loving mother that they do not cancel eachother out, that they are not mutually exclusive they are one in the same UGH IM SO UPSET I WISH ID FUCKING WRITE THIS BC I WANT TO FUCKING READ IT the message i wanna convey is like people.. are complex, imperfect, and the systems they create are also subjected to that but everyone does things for a reason. no matter what that reason is and i want lydia to address this too when she becomes the new prime minister of koel a democracy is not perfect, because man is not perfect. there will be hardship, mistakes made along the way. but together we can grow, improve, and learn about one another— and better our society for it. and i believe anywhere injustice goes, justice will always follow(edited) sth like that ig