#the change was good and necessary and obviously we've only seen one group so far | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

anarmorofwords · 3 years

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I'm obviously not the previous anon, but your answer got me thinking. Firstly, I'll say that I do like what cc's doing with tlh, so this isn't hate per se? But I think her biggest mistake tlh-wise is how much of her original writing process she's shared with us.

That's what's prompted most of the 'show and not tell', in my opinion. Look at the characters's wiki pages. There's lots of trivia we've never been shown. Thomas's songwriting? Never even mentioned. James's passion for poem-making? Never heard of her. The Carstairs were going to be white (possibly half-french) ffs.

I'm an amateur writer; I'll by no means try to compare myself with a woman that has been an author for almost two decades, but I do know that characters change. Heck, my main characters changed a fuck ton in the few months it took me to come up with a plot; imagine how much cc's characters changed since 2013.

The thing is, cc overshared a lot of stuff about these foetus characters that she --ultimately-- must have realised had no true purpose to the story she was creating. That's completely normal, but nevertheless, it's information that should absolutely not have been shared with her big-ass following; who in turn came to expect something (or is currently expecting something) that simply won't happen for logistic --thus valid-- reasons.

Leaving original expectations aside and focusing on canon, I do think what she says is shown; but not to the necessary degree. This, however, is for obvious reasons concerning the plot.

Take TMT. We've seen they care for each other --we've seen them together as a friend group arguably quite often-- but:

1) James's drama with the gracelet, which we've seen greatly dampens his emotions (one of the first things he does after getting the damn thing off is try to go to Matthew to explain himself and basically tell him he loves him and say sorry)

2) Matthew's alcoholism and the secretiveness that came after his sibling's death

3) Thomas's massive crush on Alastair, who has bad blood with Matthew and James (I could talk more about this situation, because I have FEELINGS)

4) Christopher's probable fixation on Grace (there was actually no problem with him pre-coi, but oh boy will we have drama because of Gracetopher)

Are factors that greatly damage the confidentiality of a group, no matter how close they are. If we took them away, we'd see how J+M+C protested against T going on patrol alone, how TMT had a hiding out of sorts, how J trusted in them his marriage arrangement with Cordelia, how M+C+T are among the few J tells about his shit with Belial and accepts help from, or simply their interactions. We'd see all those things, and (possibly) think they are --indeed-- close.

I'd like to take a vote of faith, and say cc will resolve these issues satisfyingly in chot, but only time will tell.

(Concerning Matthew and Anna, I do have something to say, but I'm afraid this ask is getting too annoyingly long for you, lol)

(And this is clearly just my humble opinion)

hii!!! I'm probably repetitive, but, uhm, sorry for taking forever to answer!!

While I have issues with TLH (especially CHOI) that go far beyond the inconsistency between showing and telling, I do think you have a point and that might be part of the problem.

What makes this worse, however, is that for all her interacting with fans,CC never disproved any of that. It would make things so much easier.

And you know, she does rely on information included outside of books. She expects fans to know the short stories, she sends out Musicale and other bonus content, so it's not that we're being unreasonable trying to catch up with her additional content/info.

She doesn't, however, care enough to tell us which of those are still relevant and what changed, so it's all a little bit like wandering in a mist.

Concerning TMT, I kinda agree, and I personally don't hate their friendship, the dynamic between them, or think they can't be friends. Maybe it's because of my own experiences or the ones I heard about, but I don't think friends (just as other relationships) can't have problems without immediately being written off, especially when we consider how many truly intense things they're struggling with atm. I don't doubt that they love each other and have the potential to be amazing friends again, it's just that currently their dynamic is really lacking, and while some of that is understandable considering ~the plot~, some of it seems unnecessary to me?

The four months between ChoH and ChoI were apparently rather uneventful plot-wise, and while that didn't change gracelet, or erase Matthew's alcoholism, we could have been shown some of their interactions then?

The thing about writing is, I get that there needs to be conflict and issues and all that. But you need to also get it across that this wasn't always the case, you need to show that default state (aka them being good friends) as something believable, not just say it was the case. It's a challenge, but CC is an experienced author, she should be able to pull it off.

I hope I'm making sense - to provide another example, I read a book this year where MC's loved ones were murdered at the beginning. And I get it, in that case you can't see them interacting in the plot, but you still need to show how important they were to her, sell it to the reader. That's kinda the whole deal with writing.

Well, we certainly agree here, I also hope she can still resolve all that in ChoT. Hope dies last or sth.

If you feel like it, go ahead and share what you have to say about Matthew and Anna!

Oh totally! As you can see, I don't necessarily agree, but I get that we can see those things differently, that's absolutely fine.

Have a nice day/evening/night! <3

#q #cleaning out the inbox #sorry it took so long #but i lpve your guys' asks!!!#anti cc #i guess #i dont necessarily consider it anti more like criticism but just to be safe #ask answered #the last hours #tlh #the shadowhuter chronicles #spilling the tea

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