Shadowhunters

_{Cassie's answer to Shadowhunter names}

_{Hi! first off I love your books. I just have a question(s) for you, if someone ascends and becomes a shadow hunter, what last name do they have/take? If they are not a female with the intention of getting married like Sophie Collins what would they do?}

When people ascend and become Shadowhunters, they pick from a list of existing names that have become defunct, because the families have died off, etc.* That’s the case no matter what — Sophie doesn’t take the name Lightwood. She gets a different name: 

“You are Nephilim now,” she said. “I name you Sophia Ashdown, of the blood of Jonathan Shadowhunter.”

and takes Lightwood when she marries Gideon, but she has to be a Shadowhunter first, to marry him. 

They can also submit a new name for approval.

_{and also what becomes}

_{spoiler under cut}

_{Simon’s shadowhunter name? thank you! — tessisthebestnz}

Simon’s story does continue — we’ll find out if he becomes a Shadowhunter and if he does, what name he takes … if he survives the Ascension!

*If Jace hadn’t decided to take the Herondale name, Herondale might eventually have been added to the list of retired names and a new family formed…but they usually wait some years in between the last member and retiring the name.

Cassie's answer for "safe sex in Hell"

Spoilers for City of Heavenly Fire.

cookiestyles101 said: So i dont know if this is weird or anything but it’s actually a very popular question in the fandom right now and I’m just going to ask it before I chicken out (: ..Why does Jace have a condom with him in the demon realm?

youhavemademefree asked you: First off I wanted to thank you for the amazing world you have created, I adore your books :) something I was curious about after CoHF was why did Jace bring a condom along on their voyage into hell? Did he have time to pack that or was it something he’s been carrying around for a while? (I had an image of him going condom shopping and dragging an embarrassed Alec along lol) Is there such a thing as a birth control rune? Thanks again!

Hi first I’m going to start with I love all your books, I have read all the them and I love all things shadowhunters. My friend and I just want to clear up why did Jace have a condom in hell? Was he like I know I have heavenly fire and I can’t touch my girlfriend that much without burning her but why not pack a condom? Better safe than sorry right kids? I appreciate if you just clear this up, once again I love you and your work!!!!!!! — grabyourstele

Just a small sampling of the one billion versions of this question I have gotten. :) You have to love a fandom whose biggest concern is why someone would bring prophylactics to Hell.

I’ve heard the theory that Jace stole Alec’s condoms while he was sleeping and I kind of like it, but logically speaking, Jace is the kind of guy who would have condoms with him. Yes, he hasn’t been able to do much with Clary lately, but he’s been working on that and would hardly want to be caught unprepared if he did manage to fix his on-fire problem.

He doesn’t need to have packed condoms to go to Hell. He just needs to have not stopped before going to Hell to throw out the condoms he already had in his pocket/wallet/weapons belt/duffel bag. 

And a good thing he had them. I do not think of Clary as the kind of girl who would have agreed to have sex, even in Hell, without protection. :)

(As for a birth control rune, City of Fallen Angels, p 228: ““Protection. You know. So you can be careful,” Isabelle said. She sounded as practical as if she were talking about extra buttons. “You’d think the Angel would have been foresighted enough to give us a birth-control rune, but no dice.”)

CASSIE'S TAKE ON THE CLAVE <---Most important part of this post

Why does no one challenge the Clave unless they’re a villain? 

Actually, the heroes/Team Good challenge the Clave all the time. Villains are the only ones who wage open warfare against the Clave, but that has more to do with the “waging open warfare that kills innocent people as well as guilty ones is an evil thing to do” than anything else.

Clary challenges the Clave when she goes to search for Jace. Charlotte challenges the Clave when the London Institute goes to fight Mortmain. Alec and Izzy challenge the Clave when they spring Jace from prison. They challenge the Clave when they go to Edom. Team Good challenges the Clave on the constant. They just don’t try to overthrow it, because they aren’t quite there yet, and because revolutions generally involve bloodshed (there are lots of great books about the cost of revolution — The Hunger Games touches on this in some detail.)

And the thing is, the Clave is neither wholly good nor wholly evil. They are an organization made up of people, some of whom are good and some of whom are bad. And some of whom are trying. In CoHF, with Jia, I tried to show some of what happens when enormous political pressures are brought to bear on a basically good person. The Clave in City of Glass/CoFA seemed to be trying to institute some reforms and improve themselves. They then went back on that in a big way with their decision regarding Mark, Helen and the Fair Folk. They are back to being a pretty brutal and pretty bad organization. Is that going to be dealt with later? Yes: That is a large part of the reason the Dark Artifices and Wicked Powers exist: to deal with the fact that the Shadowhunters are governed by a body that may now be more a force for darkness than a force for good. How does that turn out? We’ll have to wait and see.

Tessa's descendants

according to the author will (reasonably) have demon blood and will definetely show itself. i can't find the direct quote but I remember reading it.

Apparently Ty DOES in fact have autisim.

Cassie's answer to some random spoilery questions about CoHF

spoilers

Hi!I wanted to thank you for those books you write,they’re just incredible and it make me wish to live inside that world you created, and of course i have some questions. Why does Magnus wonder what would Jocelyn think if she would know the name of Jessamine? can’t stop thinking about it.”

Because Jessamine’s name was Jessamine Gray. And Jocelyn knows Tessa Gray.

"Why not just let Sebastian die? i mean he dies and that’s it but Jonathan is there i you made me cry while he was dying, it made me think of him being a good brother and a lovable person." Greetings from Colombia. — need-an-url

That’s why. :)

maraguerra27 said: Hi, I was wondering and this had been bugging me for ages: If Jace is a descendent of Tessa (which in the family tree thing at the end of Clockwork Princess said he is), doesn’t that mean that Jace does in fact have a bit of demon blood in him, no matter how thin, even if it was not Jace that was injected with demon blood, but Sebastian?

I worked it out once and Tessa has about fifty, sixty living descendants. (I think there might be some confusion about how family trees work.) So if Jace does have some trace amount of demon blood, so do like forty-nine other Shadowhunters. It hasn’t shown any noticed effect and would be even less likely to in Jace, given his higher concentration of angel blood.

It does have an effect in James and Lucie, and that’s something we’ll see in The Last Hours.

_{the-high-warlock-of-glitter said: ***** WARNING: CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE SPOILERS ***** I was wondering if Jace was a virgin before Clary. Also, are we ever going to see Ascended Simon?}

No to the first, and maybe to the second — Simon has to train, and then try for Ascension. And that we will see!

The Scoop on The Dark Artifices

Following the story of Emma and Julian

The series follows Emma Carstairs, the fiercest warrior and most skilled young Shadowhunter since Jace Wayland, and Emma’s sworn partner in arms, Julian Blackthorn,” the statement reads. “Despite Emma’s complicated feelings for Julian, the two must band together to investigate a demonic plot that stretches from the warlock-run nightclubs of the Sunset Strip to the enchanted sea that pounds the beaches of Santa Monica.”

Working title: The Dark Artifices. It takes place five years after the end of TMI (ie in 2012) and deals with the Shadowhunters of the Los Angeles Institute. There is a tangential connection to the characters of TMI but they are not main characters. The main characters are teens (meaning that during the events of TMI they’d be 11, 12 years old.)

The main female protagonist’s name is Emma, the main male protagonist’s name is Julian. They are both Shadowhunters. They both have always known they are Shadowhunters.

There is love, magic, romantic confusion, etc. and so on. I have not sold these books; I haven’t written any of them, I won’t until I’m done with what I’m writing now. So I don’t have a pub date beyond “after CoHF”, and I have other, non-Shadowhunter projects I’m also planning on. But thanks for being so interested, everyone!

“If I did Dark Artifices, the surviving main cast of TMI would be 21-24 years old. We would see where they are in life, where their relationships are, how they’re moving into their positions of power in the Clave, etc…”

Okay, a quick recap. I have a plan for another Shadowhunter trilogy (contemporary, but not about the characters from TMI). Working title: The Dark Artifices. It takes place five years after the end of TMI (ie in 2012) and deals with the Shadowhunters of the Los Angeles Institute. There is a tangential connection to the characters of TMI but they are not main characters. The main characters are teens (meaning that during the events of TMI they’d be 11, 12 years old.) The main female protagonist’s name is Emma, the main male protagonist’s name is Julian. They are both Shadowhunters. They both have always known they are Shadowhunters. There is love, magic, romantic confusion, etc. and so on. I have not sold these books; I haven’t written any of them, I won’t until I’m done with what I’m writing now. So I don’t have a pub date beyond “after CoHF.”

As it’s set 5 years after the end of CoHF it is reasonable to assume that surviving characters from TMI will make cameos. They will be in their early twenties so you’ll get to see what they’re up to in their more adult lives…we would see where they are in life, where their relationships are, how they’re moving into their positions of power in the Clave, etc.

Also, if you are curious about the characters from TDA, look out for characters either in or mentioned in CoLS and CoHF who might be 11, 12, 13 years old. (As five years later, they will be sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen.)

Here's the link to all of the direct quotes: http://tmisource.com/the-dark-artifices/more-on-the-dark-artifices

The Scoop on The Last Hours

The Last Hours is a new Shadowhunters series set in 1903. It deals with the next generation after Will, Tessa and Jem as well as Charlotte and Henry’s children, Tatiana Blackthorn’s children, the Lightwood kids, and many more. 1903 is right around the time the Victorian era tips over into the Edwardian era — beautiful clothes, fabulous history and so much more that I’m excited to write about!

The title is taken from the book Great Expectations, of which the series is a retelling: those of you who’ve read The Midnight Heir installment of the Bane Chronicles probably have some ideas about certain of the characters!

You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since — on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hours of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. — Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

There will be three books: Chain of Thorns, Chain of Gold, and Chain of Iron — also a reference to Great Expectations.

(“Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.” — Great Expectations)

The books will interconnect with The Dark Artifices trilogy as two separate trilogies that are also the stories of the Blackthorns, Herondales and Carstairs, much like TMI and The Infernal Devices interconnected despite taking place in different time periods and locations. The exact order of publication isn’t decided yet. Lady Midnight, the first of the Dark Artifices, will certainly be the next Shadowhunter book coming out, and I’ll keep you up to date on the publication order when it’s nailed down.

I am so so excited about these books! The children of Henry and Charlotte, Will and Tessa, Gabriel and Cecy, and Gideon and Sophie. This will be a great tie in to TMI.