ob·ses·sion: a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling.
In your world I am ashes, I am ancestors, my memories and hopes and dreams have gone to build the City of Bones. In your world, I am lucky, because I do not have to live in a world without you.
I finally finished QOAAD, so there are long, rambly thoughts underneath the cut:
Things I liked:
-Kieran, Mark, and Cristina as an OT3! Their ending was bittersweet in some ways but I’m happy that they’ve all decided to be together, and they had such great scenes throughout the book.
-Diana! Diana was great. Some favorite parts: her power & presence in Council meetings, her coming out to Julian and Emma, that time she sliced off Horace’s arm and jumped out a window, and all the scenes with Gwyn. (How is every single one of their scenes together so sweet?)
-All the little Rosastairs quotes scattered in this book make me so happy.
-Thule was a fascinating, if depressing, section. It’s interesting to see the ways that world diverged from this one, and I love rebel Livvy and her letter to Ty.
-Oh, and Raphael and Tessa were awesome! Poor Tessa has been through so much. And Raphael still has that pretends-not-to-care-but-does thing going. Loved his reaction to Rafael’s name.
-Helen and Aline were so wonderful! I’m so happy to see them as a couple, although I wish they’d gotten to be more present in the book. Helen’s moments with her family were also really good. She had a few nice scenes with Dru and Mark, a hug with Jia, and her meeting Kieran was so funny.
-I like that Alec is Consul now, and the Shadowhunters moving out of Alicante is interesting. Unfortunately, it also means we’re not done with the Cohort yet, but I guess I can’t have everything.
-MALEC WEDDING. I already gushed about it but I just … I love it so much ❤
Things I Didn’t Like:
-Julian and Emma’s storyline. It’s not that I hate them (as a couple or as characters), but I’m not at all emotionally invested in them, so for me their relationship drama & mission in Faerie & parabatai curse angst (and sex scenes, why were there so many of those??) was pretty boring. But I’m glad they ended up happy, if only for the sake of Blackstairs shippers.
-Not the biggest fan of how the parabatai curse was resolved. The fire-giant thing was cool (especially the history behind it), but I just liked some of the theories I’ve seen better, so it felt like a bit of a letdown. The part where their family & friends talk them down was nice.
-The Cohort subplot. I’m just … so tired of reading about them. Which is unfortunate, since they’re the main villains of this book and that made most plot-related things, even the big confrontation and battle with Horace, less interesting to me.
-What happened to Annabel? After her actions/backstory in LoS, I was expecting her to play a significant role in QOAAD, but she was barely present.
-I’m not sure how I feel about Thule!Jace as one of the villains for TWP. Ash has potential, but I feel like we’ve already done the whole dark!Jace thing and I don’t want to read about it again.
-There are too many POVs and things going on. It makes it hard to follow the plot and focus on characters. Honestly, half the reason I enjoyed Thule was because we finally got to stay in one place for a while instead of jumping around.
Other:
-Apparently we’re going to find out about Jem and Tessa’s wedding in one of the TEC books instead of QOAAD, so we’ll be waiting a while.
-I’m glad Ragnor is alive, but I wish we’d seen a proper reunion between him and Magnus and Cat. They thought he was dead in TFSA (right?), so it was weird to have no reunions or explanations.
-Kit and Ty’s arc isolated them from the main story but it was still good. It’s sad how things ended up, with Ty going to the Scholomance and Kit living with Jessa, but it makes me excited to see how they’ve changed by TWP.
-I liked this book even more than I expected. I know parts of this post are rather negative but I did like a lot of things! The plot was solid, I liked most of the ships, we got Heline and a Malec wedding, it made me care about characters I didn’t expect to care about – in general, I thought it was a really good book, and likely my favorite of TDA.
So I just found out I got into my top-choice college and that was really exciting 😁😁😁
Oh my god, THE WEDDING. Alec’s proposal and what he says about wanting to change the world for Magnus. Catarina fighting Ragnor to walk Magnus down the aisle and joking about cold feet. The rings and the runes, Alec’s Nephilim vows and Magnus saying ‘aku cinta kamu’. Every single thing about it was perfect and I’m never going to be over it.
I thought that Helen
and Aline would be my favorite part of the book, and they definitely were!
I love how protective
Aline is whenever someone upsets her wife.
I love that conversation near the beach, with quotes like ‘who hates you? I’ll kill them’ and Aline hugging/reassuring Helen.
I love their bravery when they pull
that trick with the Downworlder registry.
I love them running the Institute together, and bits like Aline yelling & throwing a lamp so everyone listens to Helen or “We do
what I say, and I do what Helen wants. What do you want, baby?” “I want a war
council”.
I love their conversation about having a baby and when Aline says ‘every single minute I’ve spent with you has been my real life’.
I just love everything about them.
‘Cristina started to laugh, and for a moment, under her quiet sadness, Emma saw the girl she must have been in Mexico City when she was a child, tearing around with the Rosales brothers and getting into trouble.
She couldn’t help but smile. I wish I’d known you then, Tina. I hope we’ll be friends our whole lives.’
They’re in love and you cannot convince me otherwise.
Alec being badass in the Council meeting was 10/10. I wasn’t expecting the Cohort to do that, but he responded so well.
can i just be in my head with you? – blackhallow – The Dark Artifices Series – Cassandra Clare [Archive of Our Own]
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Dark Artifices Series – Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles – Cassandra Clare
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Emma Carstairs/Cristina Rosales
Characters: Emma Carstairs, Cristina Rosales, Diana Wrayburn, All other TDA characters are mentioned
Additional Tags: canon AU, there’s some fighting, and some humor, and some angst, Pining, also they share a bed and watch movies, basically cristina saves emma’s life 16 times, in more than one way
Summary:Emma came forward, pulling Cristina behind her. “Everyone, this is Cristina,” she said. “She’s saved my life about sixteen times this summer, so be nice to her.”
The one where Emma really hadn’t been exaggerating.
Or, Emma tries to run from loneliness, and Cristina tries to run from her home. They run directly into each other.
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