#the mortal queens

[dragons-library]

ACOMAF thoughts:

THOSE FILTHY MORTAL QUEENS 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

[floweroflaurelin]

I would have been lost without you. Thank you for guiding me, and always protecting me.

I don’t think you ever needed me as a guardian, though it was my life’s honour to do so.

—

Baby Emhira having a bright moment with her guardians Purvan and Galdric! I can’t stop thinking about Purvan helping to raise the Raven Queen as a baby. The mortal who became a goddess who became a mortal, and he’s there to watch her grow up. It makes me so emotional 🥲

[shizzlesisntevenaword]

Cardan not going after Jude during her exile always makes me cry because the only reason he wasn’t is because he wanted to respect her wants and autonomy so bad. He didn’t want to make her come back if she didn’t want to, didn’t look for her because he genuinely believed Jude would come back if she wanted to be found. And again it’s just so in-character of him to automatically think she’s just found something better than him because no one ever willingly picked and stayed with him when they had a choice so why would she?

[helenofblackthorns]

I'm constantly thinking about this passage & I need other people to talk about

like "here is someone you already know"????????

[illustratinghan]

cardan is convinced the bubbles in boba tea are magical and of course jude supports his beliefs (even if it’s just to tease him about later😅)

another little chibi cardan and jude enjoying boba tea in the mortal world @hollyblack 🧋✨

follow me on instagram! @/illustratinghan

[hughmanbean]

How Do You Do, Fellow Humans?

Now, Fright Knight is a very experienced ghost. He's served millennia, gone through the whole ordeal that was Pariah Dark, tolerated the Observants, and generally has a large area of competence.

But perhaps he should expand his skillset.

As he was guarding an outing of the Royal family, his Queen had inquired of his pastimes. He had answered with his duties.

"I mean, you should definitely get out some more, dude. Chill a bit. Not in the Far Frozen sense."

The Princess had agreed, saying that traveling would be quite the eye opening experience for him

His Queen assured him that the royal family could suffice without his presence "for a year or two, just make sure to visit."

So the Knight of Autumn sets out to find a mortal settlement that will work. He comes across Gotham City and its respective city spirit, Lady Gotham. She graciously invites him in, and he vows to remember her contribution. She merely gives an amused smile.

Within Gotham City, Fright Knight comes across a mortal woman controlling plant life, and even if subconsciously, follows her due to the familiarity to another ghost the Queen had "known."

She has a rendezvous with another mortal woman, and they go inside a house/haunt that radiates their love. Fright Knight stands outside of it for a week straight, attempting to deduce a way for him to meet them.

Harley, on the other hand, had just opened the door at like, 2:48 in the morning and her hyenas shoot straight out the door and around the house, barking. They jump around the legs of- a giant suit of armor? Really? Just staring at the wall, is it?

Gotham, truly, is delightful.

[carelessflower]

love as religion; a sacrament of devotion / malec special

quote / the mortal instruments graphic novel / the red scrolls of magic - cassandra clare / 'say yes to heaven' - lana del rey / ruhlare / the mortal instruments coloring book / gaston leroux - the phantom of the opera / 'evermore' - taylor swift / magnus's letter to alec / tag - anne carson / 'take me to church' - hozier / cassandra jean / selected letters - john keats / queen of air and darkness - cassandra clare / quote / deathless - catherynne m. valente / sweeney - anne sexton

tag list: @magnus-the-maqnificent @literallytypogod @hoezier-than-thou @sociallyineptbibliophile @queenlilith43

@khaleesiofalicante @wandererbyheart @raziyekroos @onetimetwotimesthreetimess @alexandergideonslightwood

@noah-herondale-lightwood @elettralightwood @dustandducks @deliciousdetectivestranger @delightfullyterrible

@letsgofortacos

@kita-no @thelightofthebane @secrettryst @goldendreams3 @cityofdownwardspirals

@stupidfuckindinosaur

@i-have-not-slept @rinadragomir @potato-jem @kasper-tag

@banesapothecary @culiehua @izzysimcns

[cusswordsbutmakeitgay]

My favorite thing that Holly Black did with Locke was having him be obsessed with stories, convinced he was the main character and puppet master and then killing him off in a footnote

[viceandmature]

#She tore

[dearreader-12]

We don't talk about Helen Blackthorn enough imo.

Her father was killed during the war, and yet her loyalties were still questioned because her mom was a faerie.

She was sent to Siberia in exile for YEARS!!!!

Meanwhile her brother was kidnapped and the Clave was like "well he's fae what do we care?"

Her other brother ended up having to almost become a father figure to his other siblings at the age of 12, because Helen wasn't allowed to take care of them!

She was only able to get permission to get married in exchange for being made a public example and humiliated!

Even after her uncle died, Helen was still not allowed to become head of the Los Angeles Institute, despite living in Siberia and doing extensive research on wards, which would later become how the Clave knew that Malcolm Fade was up to something! She would only be allowed to be co-head of the Institute after the Clave was exiled from Idris.

And when she was finally able to reunite with her siblings again they had all grown up so much they didn't want anything to do with her and viewed Julian as their go to person when they needed something! They thought of Helen as a stranger and not their older sister.

[essektheylyss]

It is still deeply unclear to me what the outcome of this whole plan is, but it's going to be so funny to me if the gods all just become consecuted mortals who otherwise do regain their memories every lifetime. They're still probably as clever and charismatic and in some cases conniving as they were, just with less firepower. They're reliant on being near beacons if they want to be reborn. Half of them are fundamentally terrified of the concept of permanent death and they've got millennia of experience avoiding it. I give it forty years before there are like seven warring Luxon cults a la the Dynasty just wreaking havoc on Exandria in their obsessive quest for beacons. The Bright Queen suddenly goes from being a fringe theocrat with an overzealous missionary agenda to a paragon of restraint.

[sielaltruist]

"You look at him as if he has changed the world for you"

"He did"

@cassandrajean

[nellasbookplanet]

While I have Many Thoughts on the plan to convince the gods to go mortal, most of which others have already addressed at length (mainly how the fuck is this going to work in practice in both the long and short run, and also really cool idea but could’ve been set up better), I haven’t seen anyone bring up how this particular solution may actually bring a chance at change and growth for the gods that has so far been withheld from them.

Because, until now, the pantheon as a whole has been sort of - stuck. They went from beings of endless possibility in Tengar to being distillied and calcified through trauma into a single trait, the domains of which they became gods. The primes and betrayers aren't different sides of a war but a family locked in a struggle that will never be resolved because neither side will ever relent, nor are they either truly willing or capable of (being immortal) killing each other. They seem incapable of truly changing, and several of them (notably the Arch Heart and the Raven Queen) have expressed simply being tired. They don’t necessarily want to die, but they recognize a need for change, just that they themselves can't be the instigators of it.

The god debate hasn’t really taken this into account, though the overhanging shadow of it has been growing heavier since downfall. The kill-all-gods side obviously has no reason to care whether the gods are locked in endless misery (other than using it as an additional excuse for murder), but the save-all-gods side isn't any more helpful when it comes to this particular issue. Saving the gods won’t heal them.

Maybe becoming mortal (however many, many issues that brings with it) could actually allow them to become whole as people the way mortals are, no longer as strictly tied to their domains. Now that the entirety of Exandria no longer rests on them playing nice, maybe they can find a way to resolve their family feud (through blood or reconciliation). Perhaps, as mortals, they can even eventually even find a way to live a full, final life and find rest at the end of it.

[stardustedknuckles]

Listening to the Matron talk about the previous god of death cements for me the idea that Vax was always meant to have more time before she made good on their deal. She didn't mean for him to know the same eternal separation and grief she had taken upon herself - that she had chosen with eyes wide open. He was supposed to have time and happiness with Keyleth. Maybe even time beyond a natural lifespan, though that's probably pushing it a little. To the max of said lifespan at the very least. She didn't want for him - or for keyleth - what she had been through, but her hand was forced, and the only way to give him back in any capacity was to take away what should have been. His fate was to become her champion, yes, but there was time to live first. That fate was changed as a gift. It was all she could allow as the keeper of her domain and arguably, her mortality is what led her to give it at all.

Yes. She hears the sounds of grief and loss unending, unceasing. Death is less than nothing to her and the sum of who she is. She is synonymous to death in many ways, though she refers to herself as its steward and rightfully so.

But I think what sets her apart is that she never grows numb to it. That mask is to hide the fact that all of it still affects her. It's to hide all of it - her loneliness, yes, but also that she feels every death. She hears every cry, every curse, every regret. She stands before every soul individually and does what she must, and she wears the mask so that she can do so without giving anything of her mortal feelings away. The dead do not need to know that she cares, that she understands. Death is not about her. It is about who is standing in front of her waiting to be ushered into the beyond. She is the great reuniter, forever separated from the one she loves.

So yes. I believe that Vax was always meant to have more time, right up until time was the only thing left to barter. His fate was to die after a long and happy life, to go peacefully and take up the mantle at her side when he was done on Exandria.

But that had to change to save the fate of the world, and nobody in this realm or any other knows better the loss and the grief that came about from cutting that time short. Vax wasn't meant to understand it either. She wanted better for him and, by extension, keyleth.

[cromulentreader]

Do y'all also think about how Cardan went from telling Jude she was destined to and deserving of death to being like Jude dies over my dead body? Or are you normal?

[viserya-firstofhername]

I'm fine. It's fine. Everything is fine.