#the secret treasons

[generalcollectionparadise]

in each pair of parabatai there is one who is eager to find adventures on his head, and their faithful parabatai who is trying to save him:

[claveandcovenant]

— The Circle of Raziel (Pt. 1)

morior invictus.

“I hereby render unconditional obedience to the Circle and its principles… I will be ready to risk my life at any time for the Circle, in order to preserve the purity of Idris, and for the mortal world whose safety we are charged”

[tiredandoptimistic]

What I really enjoy about Luke and Maryse's interactions in City of Ashes is that they clearly grew up separate from each other. Both of them are in their late thirties, but they hold this image in their heads of who the other was when they were teenagers, when they were enthralled by Valentine's hateful rhetoric.

From how he describes them to Clary, it's clear that Luke looks down on the Lightwoods. He says that they were Valentine's closest lieutenants and the most dedicated to his doctrine, and yet he ignores the fact that he was Valentine's second-in-command for most of the Circle's existence. He knows that he had doubts at the time and then grew into a kind and accepting adult, but Robert and Maryse appeared dedicated to Valentine from the outside and have been separate from Luke ever since, so to him they must still be as cruel as they ever were. He sees himself as superior because he got out first, but forgets that he stuck around until Valentine literally told him to kill himself, while Robert and Maryse surrendered to the Clave voluntarily.

Then there's Maryse, who's still bitter over Luke's betrayal. Not because he turned against Valentine, but because he and Jocelyn set a trap that ended with every member of the Circle (other than the Lightwoods, Hodge, and Michael) being killed by the combined forces of the Clave and the Downworlders. Of course Maryse is being pretty hypocritical here, since she was fully in on the plan to murder a bunch of unarmed diplomats, but she does have a point that Luke and Jocelyn did nothing to protect their former friends. Their plan saved lives in the long run, but it resulted in far more bloodshed that night than Valentine's simple massacre.

After Valentine's supposed death, Jocelyn, Luke, Robert, and Maryse all went into a sort of retirement in New York City. For Luke and Jocelyn it was their mundane employment and for Maryse and Robert is was their place as Institute heads, but both couples spent fifteen years raising their kids and learning to be better people. By the time we see them in TMI, all four former circle members had come to terms with how atrocious Valentine had been and dedicated themselves to doing better with their adult lives, but since it happened in relative isolation, they all still remember each other as they were at age twenty. To Maryse, Luke is still the man who left his friends to die, and to Luke, Maryse is still the woman who stuck by a murderer until the end.

I just think it's very interesting that there are so few survivors of the Circle left in 2007, and barely any of them communicate with each other at all. Amatis was left alone in Idris, Hodge felt so abandoned by the Clave that he went back to Valentine, Robert and Maryse trapped themselves in a loveless marriage rather than give up the illusion of stability they'd built for their kids, Luke and Jocelyn denied their past until it came to find them, and Michael was killed with his family in a scheme that would never have worked if a single person came to check up on him in the ten years Valentine inhabited his life. They could have found a community through this common experience, but instead they saw each other as monsters for the things they all did.

[kaitcreates]

Things we know about Eliza Rosewain

Went on at least 4 dates with Michael Wayland during their time at the academy

Fell in love with Michael and later married him

Had a kid with him who they named Jonathan (middle name of Christopher possible but unlikely considering Jace learned his middle name through Valentine’s journals which might’ve been talking about Sebastian)

Was an activist for uniting downworlders, mundanes, and shadowhunters

Wasn’t very popular at the academy due to her activist activities

Was somehow related to Eleanor Blackthorn

Presumedly died sometime around the Uprising

Presumedly looked something like Jace

[darcyolsson]

i love the bits of lore we have about the circle and i think it's a really underrated and under-discussed aspect of tsc, but i dont think the secret treasons/any other story which focuses solely on the circle could ever be something that fits into tsc as a whole, and i know that any real version of it would only ever disappoint me. so i while my curiosity for what tst wouldve been like will never go away i unfortunately do ultimately prefer the circle as this background story which only ever leaves you wondering about what truly happened

[omgserafinablog]

Okay, I honestly don't understand why Jocelyn chose Valentine out of the two of them, with his fascist hairstyle and the eternal expression of a rested bitch on his face, and that's not to mention his shitty character. Luke is a hundred times more attractive, and in general, he's a good guy❤️😍 who always took care of her, unlike the fascist

Moreover, she had managed to ignore him for so many years🤷

p.s. Oh, and no wonder Valentine got jealous and decided to get rid of Luke-deep down in his disgusting soul, he knew that his parabatai was better than himself!

art by cassandra jean

[pastafingers]

yes… reposting Valentine with a better background for reasons

[iveneverbeenanaturalt]

i actually find this so funny. valentine had NO SHAME 😂😂 he used the same speech for everyone, bro didn't even bother to say different things

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

I saw this post and had Waywood feelings

[helenofblackthorns]

do you guys ever think about how after meeting Valentine, Stephen burned all his things & started dressing just like Valentine. and how Clary describes Jace's room as neat and tidy and empty like it belongs to a monk & not a teenage boy, just like Valentine. because by being Valentine's son, Jace is Stephen's

[beclynn-herondale]

I'm emotional about Michael Wayland and Céline Montclaire again.

[sharraus]

@light-wayland

[tiredandoptimistic]

The Shadowhunter Chronicles Fandom Survey

Hey squad, I made a survey! (Link here). It's got a bunch of different categories related to TSC (best series, best ship, best villain, etc), and allows ranked choice voting so you can say what your favorites and least favorites are in each category.

This doesn't serve an official purpose, I just have a lot of vague impressions about what is and isn't popular in this fandom and wanna see if it matches up with what people actually think. I'll publish the data after a little while, and if you'd help in the meantime by filling it out and reblogging this post so more people see it, I'd be most appreciative! I really want to get this around to every corner of the fandom if possible, since we've got so many different things going on.

Also, for the ship questions, I only included canon endgame ships (with the exception of Herongraystairs, because it's basically canon and I really wanna see how Wessa vs Jessa vs Herongraystairs fair in the hearts of the people; and Gracetopher, because they're canonically each other's Most Special Guy and it's not like they have other endgames).

If enough people are interested, then I might make a bunch of polls that are more series specific and include stuff with less basis in canon (like a TMI quiz that lets you choose between Clace and Jimon and Clizzy). So sound off if that's something you wanna see.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enter So Many Tags.

Editing to say that it works a lot better on a computer than on mobile!

[kaitcreates]

How do you guys think Valentine killed Michael and Johnathan?

Personally, I think he stabbed Michael and then burnt the house down while Johnathan was still alive so he wouldn’t have to do it with as little work and as quickly as possible while still making sure Michael couldn’t pick up his son and manage to escape the fire.

[generalcollectionparadise]

I watched a movie about a sect, and this moment strongly associated Stephen and his relationship to Valentine and the circle. in the end, this smile is fanatically sick. and the fact that Stephen knelt in front of Valentine seems to be canon, judging from the graphic novel by Cassandra Jean...

A moment from the movie "Jackals" 2017; Music - Gothic Lullaby Eric Vargas; The text of Cassandra Clare from Stephen's letter to Jace

[omgserafinablog]

Jocelyn's story

I need a fanfiction about Valentine and Jocelyn fighting over Luke, and Luke awkwardly tries to reconcile them, wondering when he managed to become such an important person that his two best friends fought over him.

I love this unhappy triangle of hopeless teenagers💔