I love the shadowhunter chronicles because it's truly one of a kind. what other book series can you say "Julian Blackthorn is related to every single parabatai and love interest of a Carstairs* yay soulmates" and that be a normal sentence. exactly, none.
(*main relevant Carstairs anyway who are not direct ancestors of Emma's)
my tsc conspiracy theory is that the orginial versions of Christopher and Thomas as characters were swapped in 2014. I'm so serious too like nobody can convince me otherwise
Begging someone else to tell me what they think about Alastair and Thomas being surrounded by a baby carriage and a baby shoe in the better in black cover
My first thought was Zachary! the ending of chot has a bit of a focus on Alastair & Zachary especially, so I feel like it's the obvious direction for CC to go in. plus with her comment that it has a rom com vibe, I feel like it would make sense if their story is them babysitting Zachary for a day & everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. the cover definitely gives the impression that they're running after the carriage lmao
ik lot of people are slightly worried about how short Ty is in the spoilers comic but honestly I think it's probably fine. like I've never seen official art where they've gotten Thomas's height right. he's 6'5 and noticeably taller than everyone else (James is the next tallest at 6') and yet from literally every single art you would never know that lmao
most unrealistic part of tlh actually is there being no scene where someone opens a door & discovers everyone's parents trying (& failing) to pretend they all didn't have their ear pressed to the door 1.5 seconds ago
honestly paris 1902 makes no sense, like there's not revealing things in a character's internal narration and then there's thomas in his own head acting like he never cared about alastair, only for him to pull an 'it was you all along' in the next book. like i enjoy their relationship obviously but the lack of consistency should not be happening at this level anyways the more i think about this series the more i want to rewrite the whole thing as a fun writing experiment
If I was capable of committing to project long term I would rewrite tlh so I get it, so much missed potential 😔
I so badly want to like Paris 1902 & I do to an extent but. Why is Thomas acting like he hated Alastair at the Academy like the rest of the Merry Thieves in his own narration.... like that's a blatant lie & it's never addressed (like you said, consistency? never heard of her) what happened to "I like his nonsense" Cassandra??? what happened?????
(this got way too long i'm sorry lol) don't even get me started on the timeline there's so much that doesn't make sense!! i've tried to map it out because i am insane but i am definitely putting more thought into this than cc herself. like, in the days past 1900 chapter cordelia mentions that she's 13, when it's literally impossible for her to be 13 that year ????
and lowkey i am just very excited to see someone else mention the mess that it is the timeline because i've been thinking about when alastair and thomas must have gone on their travel year (and also during that travel year when thomas must have gone to paris because they wouldn't just give him a holiday immediately right, like it must have been december 1902 they met, yes i am overthinking this) for years lol
my best guess is that charles arranged to marry ariadne in early 1901 but it wasn't officially announced?? it was just an arrangement/promise and then he went to paris and met alastair later that year (though i think they'd already met yikes) and they dated sometime in 1901 (where alastair would have been 16-17 /yikes/), for any of this to work i think we just have to accept that shadowhunters can go on their year abroad before they turn 18, or maybe alastair wanted to get out of the house :( and then maybe charles told alastair of the engagement a little bit into their relationship?? don't even get me started on thomas' travel year, we know it lasted 9 months, was from 1902 to 1903 and he had come back fairly recently in august (and tbh i'm gonna stretch that definition of recent and just say the thieves are all being dramatic when they're still toasting him coming back at the beginning of chog). but he also took two weeks holiday in 1902 and saw alastair (who i have to assume was secretly visiting charles since if he was still on his travel year, he could have just said that instead of being cryptic and hilarious lol) anyways in conclusion the timeline is a mess
i thought cordelia's birthday must be really late in the year but i did not realise this means it would be impossible for her to have her parabatai ceremony lol, okay i can't work out that one unless everyone's straight up lying or don't know their own birthdays
anyways i clearly think about this way too much, sorry for rambling in your inbox, you did not ask for this lmao i have just had many thoughts about timelines from like two years ago that all bubbled up to the surface when i saw your post
okay I am finally answering this, I am so so sorry about the wait </3
honestly when it comes to timelines, I think cc just kinda says things vaguely enough that it makes sense as long as you don't think about it too hard lmao. Also I did not know Cordelia said she was 13 in 1900... In order for that to be possible she'd have to be born in either 1886 or 1887. I wonder if cc just forgot she had said Cordelia was born in 1885? that seems like the only viable option here 😭
Paris 1902 is so bad because a lot of the things that contradict it are in the same book 💀 like with other stuff at the very least you can give cc the benefit of the doubt that she forgot between writing short stories and whatnot. but the same book!! insanity!!
I don't think there's any way to twist it in order for it to make sense? like something has to be wrong. best I've got is Thomas turned 18 in Jan, went on travel year for roughly 8 months meaning he gets back to London right before the start of ChoG in August. He met Alastair in Paris in like, March or April 1903 when he was finishing up his travel year and Alastair was being cryptic just because. Charles and Alastair met in Sept. 1902 when Alastair went on his travel year to Paris; Charles and Ari are already engaged by this point (technically) and every other conflicting detail gets throw out the nearest window lmao. for me at least, shadowhunters going on their travel year before turning 18 defeats the purpose, which is to go on patrol and fight demons in a different country. and if they were able to at 17, I think there's several characters who would be currently on their travel year, like James and Matthew, and who obviously aren't.
The parabatai ceremony thing is annoying because cc actual reconned it :) in the codex it says you have be in childhood to become parabatai, and this is supported by Jem in clockwork prince. however, in tfsa, Simon is still able to become parabatai with Clary despite already turning 18, so now shadowhunters are considered children up until 19 but this only applies to the parabatai ceremony because in every other aspect of life they become adults at 18. this makes sense (not). personally i am of the option that Cordelia turning 18 and being unable to become parabatai with Lucie would have been more interesting, and added some stakes that chot desperately needed. plus it would be funny if they still became parabatai in the end because Will and Jem pulled some strings (the benefits of nepotism 😌)
the timeline of tlh is one of my great enemies at this point and I've held my tongue about it for far too long, so don't feel bad about rambling! (even if it takes me 3 months to reply 🫣)
the fact nobody got slapped in tlh is a crime, several of those characters should have been humbled asap
in choi there a moment where Cordelia like "oh in the summer I thought Thomas' hair was blond but now I see its actually brown" and idk it's so funny to me because it's the only time anyone describes his hair as blond 😭 like it's called "sandy brown" which considering Gideon's was often described as "sandy blond" I am assuming it's the same colour but like. Thomas' is never directly said to be blond outside this one time. why did you say this Cordelia you never said anything to this degree before???
my favourite useless piece of information I have gained from putting wayyy too much thought into the last hours is that Thomas has canonically been eighteen for nearly 14 months <3
Thomas going from defending Alastair to his friends and doubling down even when they all obviously disagree with him and wistfully remarking that he "like[s] his nonsense" in 1901 to saying him and Alastair are definitely not friends & that Alastair is objectively awful & debating if he should even speak to him in 1902.... like that has to be one of the most bizarre changes in character that has not and will probably never will be explained or even acknowledged
also like, Alastair aside Cast Long Shadows very obviously (imo) establishes a power imbalance in the Merry Thieves that never really gets touched upon again. Like, going off of it, Matthew and Thomas specifically should have had some sort of conflict and the fact they didn't feels very unsatisfactory to me.
Because Matthew is established as being someone who can be pretty controlling. Which is understandable given he spent his childhood insuring his dad and later Christopher didn't accidentally blow themselves up. But that bleeds into Matthew's other relationships too; he remarks in Cast Long Shadows that James doesn't need him in the same way everyone else does & how that makes him feel unnecessary & insecure. Like that's something... Matthew probably should have worked on in some capacity. Especially in relation with Thomas, who's established as being increasingly more frustrated about how everyone treats him. Like Matthew criticises Barbara & Eugenia considering Thomas' business their business but he does the same thing! Thomas is 14 when they start at the academy I think he in capable of making his own judgements and decision without you "saving" him all the time 😭 he's not a child.
Thomas going from defending Alastair to his friends and doubling down even when they all obviously disagree with him and wistfully remarking that he "like[s] his nonsense" in 1901 to saying him and Alastair are definitely not friends & that Alastair is objectively awful & debating if he should even speak to him in 1902.... like that has to be one of the most bizarre changes in character that has not and will probably never will be explained or even acknowledged
also I was bored last night so here are a bunch of other height charts I did
CJ's farewell art vs the characters canonical heights
