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Not now, Malcolm 😌

Jesse, Lucie, and Malcolm are from The Last Hours series by @cassandraclare 😊❤️

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I mean, I HAD to draw it 😌 This was the first scene I read in the book that I just KNEW I had to make into a comic 😂

Thomas, Alastair, Christopher, and Charles are from The Last Hours series by @cassandraclare 😊❤️

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A girl’s natural habitat is in a bed with many blankets and pillows and it’s inhumane to remove her from her natural habitat

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Cassie 🤝 making Lightwood siblings in sets of 3 and leaving them in sets of 2

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the fact I've seen a couple people say the reason for the lack of mourning for Kit in ChoT was because cc "didn't want to write sad scenes"... if she didn't want to write sad scenes she shouldn't have killed off a main character????? like why kill off someone and then not follow through with some sort of narrative weight (which is probably going to be sad. because someone died.)

like writing 101 is to not kill off characters unless it serves some sort of purpose, whether plot wise or character wise. even if that purpose is to show how dangerous the situation is for everyone else. but for that to be effective it can't just... exist in a vacuum. there should be notable changes in other characters behaviour bc of the loss, or how the plot unfolds afterwards. death is kinda a big deal & the writing should reflect that! there should be a gaping hole in the group you can feel, a definitive change story that wouldn't exist if the death hadn't happened, especially for a main character.

and the way Kit's death is written... doesn't reflect any of this. like he hadn't died the book would have ended exactly the same. and honestly the whole thing is kinda a slap in the face for readers just because we have read three books with Kit & fallen in love with him as a character. we deserve mourn him! we deserve to have moment where we get to cry alongside the characters for more than a couple sentences! and the fact we don't makes the whole thing feel unfinished & that the ending is undeserved. like for me at least, reading the epilogue was a "that's it?" moment, it all felt too good to be true (and a bit fan-servicey). like I was just expecting this moment that never came & it left me feel unbalanced. at the very least someone could have spared an "ave atque vale" like come on now.

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On ✨that✨ death

Chain of Thorns spoilers below … obviously lol

I’ve been thinking a lot about why Christopher’s death in Chain of Thorns just didn't hit right, and looking at Livvy's death in Lord of Shadows is probably the best way to explain how I feel:

Livvy's death is like the Gold Standard™️ of character deaths for me. It was done perfectly.

She's a secondary character just like Christopher, but readers have more of a connection to her because our mc (Julian) has pledged his life to protect her. We know that everything he's done is to keep his siblings safe, happy and together. We are invested in her safety because of him.

Then there's the fact Julian's actions led to her death. He lied and manipulated to get Annabel on that dais. We hurt for him, knowing the guilt he’ll rightfully feel.

But we also get her death from his POV. Readers feel the pain first-hand. The drawing of the iratzes over and over, the blood, the memories, the helplessness.

It's brutal and very public. It's a shock to all involved. An innocent child murdered in cold blood in front of everyone — specifically her family, who’s already been wronged by the Clave.

Most importantly though, it moves the entire story forward. Everything after her death is because of her death. Julian is now more motivated as he has to clean up the mess he made while also seeking revenge. And the younger siblings then start going on their own personal grief missions. It's a domino effect for our characters.

Whereas Christopher's death had several degrees of separation.

Our Merry Thieves are close and protect each other, but they're all very independent. They don’t necessarily rely on each other for survival, and because of the time period, are more adult-like despite their age. Even Anna is a more hands-off sister simply because of circumstance.

Nobody is to blame for Christopher’s death except Tatiana, who dies immediately after. We get that instant revenge, and any guilt the group feels afterward is manufactured.

We also don't get Anna's POV in the moment. There's little concern as it happens and battle continues. It's a quiet, private death because of the poison and them being alone, so there's nothing to truly hold onto as a "scene". It's easy to forget. Our characters move on rather quickly, we don't get a funeral, no pyre burning, no mourning, no emotional payout.

It's a safe death with little-to-no impact on the narrative. Everything that happens would have happened even if Christopher survived. Nothing changes. Despite the lab scene between Grace and Kit, Grace could've figured out fire message on her own (ghost Christopher even says as much). Sure our characters remember him and talk about the grief of losing him, but they are more focused on the task at hand — whereas Livvy's death was all-consuming in QoAaD.

I think because I know Cassie can write a great character death, it makes this one worse. She took the easy way out. A death just for the sake of death. She said she changed ChoT to be less sad, and you can tell. The narrative is worse for that.

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Dare I say classic literature? Also, the only thing keeping me going.

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Cast Long Shadows

Chain of Gold

Chain of Iron

Chain of Thorns

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A comprehensive guide to why Aburame Shino is peak Autistic Representation

( This is poorly organized and doesn't actually include everything, but you know :] )

It starts with the flashback to when Torune was taken and flashbacks to early academy days, during which Shino is about 7.

He showed no interest in playing with other children, or in making friends. He didn't see a point in talking to people who didn't want to discuss his special interest, which he dedicated all his free time to, and he didn't emote when Torune was taken away, even though it impacted him very deeply. Even as a small child he talked "like an adult", monotonous, strange phrasing, over-explaining, and too quietly. When he wasn't being ignored by his classmates, they were trying to use him.

Later on when you see him socialize more, in Pre-Teen and Teenage years, more things become apparent.

In general he seems semi-verbal, most of the time silent, and becomes agitated when forced to repeat himself. Konoha Hiden expands on this, saying that he wishes people just knew what he meant and felt without him having to talk, and that he is bonded to Akamaru because he feels that Akamaru is the only one who he can communicate with in that way. When he's upset he isolates and at one point is even seen hitting his head when he was trying to cool down and was interrupted by unwanted social interaction.

He doesn't understand why people need to see his face, and usually doesn't look in the direction of the person he is addressing. He also doesn't understand jokes, rarely laughs, and angrily dissects puns…but then later puns become his entire sense of humor. He's never dressed for the season, either. Aburames tend to be very covered up by default but besides his Part 1 outfit he is always in multiple layers regardless of the season. (Year round trench coats are a huge autistic stereotype.) He gets along better with people outside of his age group, respected by adults and looked up to by younger kids who think he is cool and knowledgeable. Konoha Hiden also states that during this period he was suffering with comorbid Anxiety and Depression.

There's a lot of black and white thinking on display, for example he is anti-alcohol-- obviously he would have been taught not to drink as an Aburame, but he also doesn't like when others drink. He sees it as universally bad. He's a stickler for the rules and often scolds his peers for not following rules and guidelines. He also seems like a bit of a prude even though it is suggested that he himself has a dirty mind (noticing girls' cup sizes and the implications of Road to Ninja treating his Personal Business as a personality trait) which is a funny hypocrisy I have noticed in a lot of autistic people. He holds a hell of a grudge and ruminates endlessly, which is documented at higher rates in autistic people due to rigid thinking.

He is trying to make friends like Torune wanted, and is now aware that not having friends is a bad thing. He starts feeling the pain of being ostracized not only in general but also by his friend group and isn't even sure if he has friends. He is 17 years old before he understands what allistics consider friend status.

We start to see some of his sensory issues pop up too. He is seen wearing sunglasses even at night and while sleeping. He hates any food that smells strongly and his favorites are pretty bland. He pulls a piece of meat out of his mouth, in public, uncharacteristically violating taboo. He was able to identify the number of people in a distant group only by sound at a time when this would have been above his skill level. (Which makes sense. Team 8 is thus Eyes, Ears, Nose. More on this later.) By Boruto, he has added ear protection and stronger eye protection that he wears when he is expecting to be near fluorescent lights or crowds. Suddenly his overall mood is greatly improved and he can smile openly.

He shows signs of hyperempathy in being overly distressed when losing insects, as he has many millions of them, and having an exaggerated physical response to anticipating Sakura and Naruto's despair.

He has chronic bitchy resting face and is extremely blunt to a a degree of being insulting, which makes people assume he is a mean person. He also comes across as pedantic to his peers, when from his perspective he's just didactic, and even though he over-explains everything his peers still have difficulty understanding what he's saying.

He will also randomly connect the topic of discussion to his special interest and begin infodumping about bugs, and isn't aware that people around him are not interested or worse, repulsed by his special interest until told, at which point he feels personally hurt. Generally his interests are very stereotypical of an autistic person: bugs, comics, ecology, strategy, etc.

He seems level-headed and robotically analytical until he reaches a certain threshold when he suddenly over-emotes in dramatic and awkward ways.

You might notice that when his hands aren't in his pockets, he doesn't seem to know what to do with them; they're always balled into fists, which smells of someone who was taught not to stim. Even so, when he gets really excited in Konoha Hiden and is being himself, he starts spinning around. His speech quirk preceding frequent over-explanations (Why? Because... / The reason is because...) is also considered a type of echolalia.

Mentioning Hiden, in the Blank Period we start to see changes associated with the autistic experience of starting to understand that you are awkward, not knowing how to fix it, and all the anxiety that comes with that. He is stuck riding the lag train and is fully ready to become a hermit in the woods.

He isn't understood in the way that he wants to be understood. He can't let himself get comfortable in other people's homes. He uses his trench coat as a barrier between himself and other people, treating it like a security blanket. He still doesn't understand how his choice of attire affects people's perception of him and becomes agitated when he's told it makes him look suspicious. He doesn't appear to be pursuing any intimate relationships, and displays a lack of boundaries when picking Choji up with his insects when he gets excited.

The lag train becomes even more apparent in Boruto. He hasn't found a partner, his friends are growing even further away from him, and possibly worst of all he's seen as more childish-- too grown-up as a kid, too immature as an adult.

He is masking extremely heavily for the sake of his career, mirroring Iruka, removing almost all of his personal identity from his appearance including the parts that made him feel safe-- everything has to be professional. This actually hurts his ability to work with kids because he already knew how to talk to them, but he is now trying to emulate the image of a teacher for the sake of professionalism.

In the classroom he struggles with things I have seen real-life autistic teachers talk about: He works well with the younger kids, they love him and his fun facts, but the older ones can tell that there is something different about him and they will ignore or outright bully him. It's very difficult to control them or hold their interest. (He later develops stomach problems due to stress from working with said older kids)

The big problem is that he is not good at masking. In traditional settings with very clearly defined roles and rules of how to act and what to say he gets by just fine, but in organic interactions it's nothing but spaghetti and this causes him severe stress. He is proud of himself for being able to speak to many people in a day now but at what cost? Pattern recognition and rigid thinking of course leads to rumination spirals, and under extreme pressure he starts reverting to childish things. He has only had Kura-maa a short time before he becomes attached and starts personifying it. This may seem childish, but autistic people are more likely to do this and will continue to do so later into life than their allistic peers. (See Object Personification in Autism: This paper will be very sad if you don’t read it)

He has become a real people-pleaser, allowing himself to be imposed upon constantly, and apologizes excessively even for situations that were not his fault, which are both behaviors many autistic people pick up. And, for all his masking, he can't hide that he is still terrible at understanding and constructing metaphors, ie "bad insects" and the yakisoba bun analogy.

He is trying his damnedest to adapt and accommodate himself in a rapidly changing world that wasn't very friendly to him to begin with. He was able to slide under the radar as respectable and somewhat normal when the world was as rigid as he is. Now every day he's facing new challenges that he isn't used to and he's acting a little fucked up and neurotic, overcompensating and making it worse.

So yeah, maybe he's not 'cool' by most standards. Not everyone gets a happy ending where they become the most ideal version of themselves. Not in real life, and not in animes that have hundreds of characters. What's important is that he is exactly on the trajectory set by previous installments to the series and very accurately and thoroughly depicting autistic struggles in every aspect of life. And that's pretty cool to me. :)

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TLH Characters and Textposts 🤩💅 pt.2

Alastair

Thomas

Matthew

Thomastair ❤️

Luciejesse

Cordelia

Thomas

Alastair

Lucie

Jordelia

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tlh cast going ice skating, because it's that time of the year 🌨️⛸️

cordelia: incredible, an absolute queen, no one is doing it like her. she's a combination of natural skills, immaculate technique and that extremely elegant bearing that just carstairs own. everyone looks at her in awe (especially james), like 'can't believe she's a professional ice skater and we didn't know? this girl is insane'

james: he's fairly good, of course nothing to do with cordelia, but he handles it. he is content of going around the rink two, three times...but then he gets easily bored. this of course unless cordelia skates on his side...then he could spend hours ice skating and simping for his wife.

christopher: read a bunch of books about ice skating, took a little look at the rink, checked the ice's thickness and consistency and...fell at the first step on ice. but after that first slip he actually learns pretty quickly and everyone is kind of amazed. he even manages to do some little jumps emulating cordelia.

grace: she's trying, she's really trying, but ice skating is just not her thing. she remains very close to the border the whole time and refuses to take even one little step ahead. at some point christopher offers her his arm and after a little moment of hesitatation she takes it. he starts rambling about science almost immediately and the girl visibly relaxes. she even enjoys the whole experiences, since kit doesn't leave her alone for a second.

matthew: as infuriating as it is (cit alastair) he is a natural. his movements are kinda rough and he doesn't have cordelia's perfect technique, but god if he knows how to skate. he's incredibly skilled and definitely the fastest. he also acts like a little kid once he steps foot on the rink: he gets super excited, wants to make speed races all the time and skate backwards just because 'it's so fun!!' ('christopher's brother is way more mature' cit alastair pt II)

lucie: same kid attitude as matthew but less skilled. she's more on james's level but has twice fun while skating. she puts everyone in a good mood with her sparkling excitement and is basically a born motivator, like 'you can do it kit!! yeah!! that's what i was talking about!! by the angel, daisy that was awesome!!! please teach me!!!' everyone just adores her.

jesse: a fan of the border like his sister. he really didn't want to do this, but lucie's adorable face makes him do things he would have never imagined. he even learns some fundamentals after lucie drags him with her in the middle of the rink. and he also falls several times, but lucie's laugh makes it completely worth it <3

alastair: he's the only one who can keep up with cordelia. initially no one really noticed because he didn't want to draw attention, but when cordelia challenged him? no way he would just back off. so he gave his little perfect performance shocking everyone in the process. but he didn't spend much time showing off (even if he definitely could if he wanted), because he had something else to take care of.

thomas: he's that something. the man is absolutely terrified, looks at the ice rink once and immediately goes 'nope, this ain't for me'. but alastair insists like 'c'mon tom, just give it a try' 'why can't i just look at you being perfect on those skates?' 'i don't want to force you...but wouldn't it be nice if you at least try it once?' '*violently puts the skates on* UGH FINE.' worst decision of his life, instantly regrets it. he grips on alastair's jacket all the time like he's going to die at any moment and when alastair finally convinces him that he's got it and he's not going to fall- thomas falls. completely on alastair.

bonus for thomastair because i am a clown:

thomas: *apologizing in every possible language, regretting all his life decisions, thinking he's somehow caused brain damage to alastair with that fall*

alastair: *lying on this back with thomas's body pressed on him, noticing little snowflakes stuck in thomas's hair, looking at thomas's red cheeks, lingering on thomas's lips moving, thomas's lips moving, thomas's lips, thomas's lips, thomas-*

matthew passing by and taking one (1) look at them: if you start making out now, i will not hang out with you two ever again.

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you ever wait nine years for a single book? because same.

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IM BREAKING MY SILENCE ON YESTERDAY'S SOBH INSTALLMENT

Everyone's annoyed at Jem and Tessa bc their reactions were 'not it', right?

But I think that they just don't talk about their children because of the pain of whatever happens in chot. Like everyone deals with grief differently and through the whole 'i don't want to think of James Lucie etc' they don't really think about what they're saying to kit, even though USUALLY they're always really loving and caring people. People aren't perfect and neither are Jem nor Tessa.

So yes, while Jem and Tessa may not have reacted amazingly it's understandable why they were acting that way if that makes sense. For example, in qoaad I'm pretty sure Ty says some stuff to Kit after they've brought Livvy back and Kit says how he didn't want to go through with it (idr exactly what happens so bear with me here). In this instance, Kit feels understandably extremely hurt and yet no-ones annoyed at ty ( for obv reasons, and I'm not saying we should bc it's understandable again) because it's HIS way of dealing with his grief.

Therefore, if Ty is allowed to feel grief and other characters are too, why is everyone hating on Jem and Tessa? Yes they're adults, but adults aren't allowed to feel pain?And, on top of that, I'm pretty sure neither of them have actually dealt with any of the trauma that happens in chot, fully I mean. Eg. after Will's death Tessa leaves her children and moves away. When she does, Im like 99% sure she doesn't spend that time reflecting and trying to gain closeure, beacuse she's just trying to survive without her love

On the other hand, Jem was a silent brother, once again meaning he never fully processed the emotions of what was happening during that time. I think that in the cp2 epilogue it says that before meeting Tessa he took some time for himself to grieve personally over Will's death bc he hadn't really processed or dealt with it prior. Consequently, I'm pretty sure that in that time, he's not gonna have rehashed EVERY single bad memory because it can get too much for even the most seemingly perfect person. And therefore he's not dealt with the stuff that happened in chot.

And so in yesterdays sobh installment, I don't think that they were fully present when they saw Cordelia's scabbard and James' gun considering James WAS her son and Cordelia was Jem's cousin and practically a child to Tessa. They were kinda transported back to those days whose trauma they haven't fully coped with yet. So HOW THE FUCK can we expect them to be 100% okay when talking to kit not even a couple seconds later. YES I understand Kit is hurt and it hurts me too but it's no fucking excuse to hate on people who have lost their children because it's a painful thing no matter how many years have gone by.

I saw a thing a while ago that said something on the lines of the sweetest people have gone through the most traina. It applies in this instance. So please please don't hate on them. Even Cassie said that it was the way that Tessa and Jem deal with their grief.

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Jin with little Easter birds 😍

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Great work @kf1n3 😍

Wanted to compile all my 1 hour teacup painting studies together ☕

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Please don’t feel bad for resting when your body or soul needs it! 💛

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