As everyone and their pet kitten knows, I am IN. LOVE. with V. E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy. The characters are mainly why I’m so attached to it; they feel like my best friends, and with such 4-dimensional development, it’s easy to imagine how they would act in any situation. So easy, in fact, that I know exactly what they’d do in our current world. [don’t @ me about any of this]

Lila…

1. gets in a car chase

Oh boy, she would LOVE this. Alucard would be cheering her on while Kell pretended to disapprove and Rhy just looked on with amusement. I want to get in a car chase myself just thinking about it.

2. has Kell bake her cookies

Can’t you totally imagine Kell baking a pan of wonderful chocolate chip cookies for Lila every week? It’s the foundation of their relationship. Kell would sooner buy $1000 sugar from a sketchy black market merchant than leave Lila cookieless. 

3. steals everyone else’s food

Never eat curly fries near Lila because she’ll inhale them all when your back is turned. She’s also that fucker who steals your cookie dough ice cream from the communal fridge. Maybe I should rethink my love for her…

Kell…

1. avoids parties like the plague

“Now came the truly unfortunate task of socializing.”

-Kell during the Essen Tasch ball in A Gathering of Shadows

Kell is the grumpy kid who would rather hug a mountain lion than attend a party (or—shudder—a family gathering), during which he generally holds the couch down with the cat, and honestly? I admire him. That’s RELATABLE.

2. spends a ton of time in thrift stores

When you don’t have a magical peculiar coat, you just gotta make do by amassing as many coats as possible. So in order to be stylish AND economical, Kell spends lots of time in thrift stores buying random coats. He never even wears most of them but shhh thrift stores are amazing.

3. proposes to Lila with a knife

They are so in love, he’s probably going to propose to her at some point, but what the everloving hell would Lila Bard want with a diamond ring? When the time comes, Kell gets down on one knee with the most perfect knife he could find.

Rhy…

1. is on Tinder 24/7

This is self-explanatory. Before he and Alucard get back together, he is just this total flirt who has perfected the art of maximizing his hookups.

2. owns like 5 cats

His cat person vibes are off the charts. I am an expert on this.

Alucard…

1. probably is amazing at creating memes

You just know he’d be Internet famous.

2. has definitely been disowned

No matter which universe Alucard is living in, his blood family will always find a reason to disown him. He just has those vibes, ya know?

Holland…

1. was emo in middle school

This is not up for debate.

2. leaves everyone who texts him on read

Holland is shady in group chats and never texts back. But he’s too apathetic to figure out how to turn off read notifications, and he hopes it’ll teach people to not text him or interact with him in general in the first place.

Astrid and Athos Dane…

…I guess they’d be politicians?