#or as close as Ianthe can get

[silasoctakiseron]

The thing about Locked Tomb gender roles too is that you can see in NtN how hard Ianthe is attempting to do Augustine and yet never can because she's a woman. She had to suck up to Augustine in this specifically feminine, ingratiating way to get close to him at all, and now that he's dead she's trying to step into his shoes as the cool, aloof, well-if-needs-truly-must new Lyctor. And yet she's still in charge of managing John's feelings, making sure Daddy's happy, doing his bidding as a Lyctor while simultaneously running emotional triage on her depressed alcoholic fatherboss. Augustine didn't have to do that shit! Augustine wasn't expected to tend to John's every need and be personally responsible for his happiness! That's a job that John specifically delegates to women in his life ⁠— he did it to Alecto, he did it to Mercy, and now he's doing it to Ianthe. And as the third in this illustrious line of corpses, Ianthe knows what awaits her if John gets tired of her insufferable habit of having a personhood that exists outside of him.

[harrowharkwife]

i'm so used to there just being random unidentified bones laying around everywhere in these damn books that it finally occurred to me, just now, to wonder where the bones on new rho came from. y'know, the bones palamedes always tried to teach nona necromancy on.

they're his.

palamedes, who always loved teaching, living on borrowed time in a body that's not his own. palamedes, mentoring, teaching- parenting, by sixth standards, mind you. and that boy is sixth, through and through.

and the entire point of teaching nona necromancy in the first place was to try and determine if nona is, well, nonagesimus, right? so it has to be bones, it can't not be bones. bones are, like, her whole thing.

but they're not in the nine houses, anymore. things are different, on new rho.

they burn bones here. dig up the cemeteries. a society terrified of zombies will evolve to dispose of its dead differently.

the only bones he has access to now are his own. (camilla wouldn't let anyone take them- skull or hand, doesn't matter. they're still him, and she doesn't let go, remember? it's her one thing.)

palamedes woke up every morning wearing someone else's body to then gently place the shrapnel of his own in the cupped palms of a girl who's the closest thing he'll ever have to a daughter and try to teach her- how did the angel put it, again? normal school, as much as possible, for as long as possible.

(but hey, in a roundabout way, at least it's a chance for him to touch camilla again, right? nevermind that she's not there to feel any of it because he's in the driver's seat, that he can only stay for fifteen minutes at a time. it's atoms that belong to camilla touching atoms that used to belong to him, and that's close enough. he'll take what he can get, these days- if she can be their flesh, he can be the end. so what if holding his own bones is a mindfuck? so what if looking at them makes him nauseous? surely he can suck it up and deal with it for fifteen minutes. it's the least he can do— his poor camilla was the one who had to scrape the bloody pulp of them off the floors of canaan house.)

(speaking of, here's a fun fact: we actually only see nona practicing with the bones one time, on-page. camilla's final line in that scene, before palamedes takes over, is none other than: 'keep going. there are some bones left.' ow!)

remember, too, that the only part of dulcinea, the real dulcinea, that palamedes ever physically touched, was her tooth- the one that ianthe gave him, pulled from the ashes cytherea burnt her down to. he only ever touched dulcie once, and it wasn't until after she was already gone, but that doesn't matter- it still happened, and you can't take loved away.

in this same roundabout, bittersweet, by-proxy sort of way, palamedes has been physically touched by nona, too: the atoms she currently occupies, touching atoms that he used to occupy, and never will again.

the main interaction we've seen between palamedes and his mother took place back on the sixth, with her acting as mentor and him as pupil: the two of them studying a set of hand bones, juno encouraging him every step of the way.

we know that harrowhark's "most vivid memory of her mother was of her hands guiding harrow's over an inexpertly rendered portion of skull, her fingers encircling the fat baby bracelets of harrow's wrists, tightening this cuff to indicate correct technique."

they're still small for a nineteen year old, but the wrists are bigger, in this new set of memories nona's making. and it's not an inexpertly rendered portion of skull anymore- it's a hand, now, albeit one crafted from [a piece of skull reassembled (painstakingly—passionately—laboriously reassembled) from fragments, manually, and not by a bone magician, from the skull of someone who, soon after death or symptomatically during, had exploded.] and the identity and origin of these bones is no mystery at all. they belong to palamedes, and he's consented to their use for this purpose, and that matters.

but the details are just set dressing, really. the foundation of the memory is the same.

palamedes and his mother, juno and her son.

harrow and her mother; pelleamena and her daughter.

nona and her father-mother-teacher; palamedes and his daughter.

#these fucking books. every 2-3 business days i'll find some new detail to be insane about #this post took me like three hours to write. what the fuck #palamedes sextus #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #nona #palamedes the sixth #tlt #ntn #camilla hect #tlt spoilers #pal honey. im :( :( :( #spiritually that man is a MOM okay! there's a reason tamsyn specifically assigned him the same imagery in this scene #that she's been using to represent crucial bonding moments between mother/mother figure and child/child figure #that and the 'sextus you'll make a very irritating wife someday' joke and cam's 'i'll talk to your mother later' face #ie: talk to palamedes about nona #that boy is momcoded i don't make the rules!

[katakaluptastrophy]

What do the Fifth House actually do?

Sure, yes, ghosts and tradition and the Heart of the Emperor, and Watchers Over the River - but none of those things give you the kind of assets that mean you can dress your cavalier in a coat that "probably cost more than the Ninth House had in its coffers" for a dinner party.

It's made clear very early on that the Fifth are a power to be reckoned with. When they first receive the letter about the Lyctoral pilgrimage, Gideon assumes it would be on the Third or Fifth. Harrow, meanwhile, has frequently-repeated anxieties about the Ninth being subsumed by the Third or Fifth, to the point that she worries that the anniversary party invitation may be an attempt to wipe out the other Houses. Teacher describes the Fifth's relationship with the Fourth as "hegemonic". The Fifth loom so large in the cultural imagination, they even inform the name of the made up porn magazine that Gideon offers to Crux.

The links between the Third and the Fifth that both Gideon and Harrow make seem to reflect both the fact that these two Houses have particular power and influence, but also that they frequently cooperate. Judith writes about the close cooperation of the Second, Third, and Fifth, a relationship which becomes a source of tension as the scions seek to establish authority after the Fifth are murdered. Judith says:

“The Fifth are dead. I take authority for the Fifth. I say we need military intervention, and we need it right now. As the highest-ranked Cohort officer present, that decision falls to me.” “A Cohort captain,” said Naberius, “don’t rank higher than a Third official.” “I’m very much afraid that it does, Tern.” “Prince Tern, if you please,” said Ianthe.

Which makes it sound as though Abigail might technically have been considered the highest ranking person at Canaan House (likely because she was head of her House and not an heir in waiting like Judith or Coronabeth), and that following her death there is some question as to whether the Second or the Third should take control, but notably no suggestion that anyone else might.

We know what the Second do: they are the leaders of the Cohort and the Bureau, the military and intelligence that forms the core of imperial expansion. Most of the information that we get about the other Houses talks only about their cultural or ritual roles in the empire - we get very little in the way of gritty details of what happens outside of the Dominicus system.

We know a little bit about what the Third does - according to Tor they are cultural trendsetters and players in soft power, but the one detail we get in GTN itself is revealing: when Gideon imagines her glorious future in the Cohort, one of the assignments she considers boring is the prospect of being "in some foreign city babysitting some Third governor." Which makes it sound rather like the Second are conquering the planets and the Third are then running them. But the books are even lighter in details about what the Fifth do, beyond ghosts and manners.

However, there is one suggestive detail: an important topic in HTN is stele travel - the necromantic FTL used by the Nine Houses. And Mercymorn, in describing a stele, specifically states that Fifth House adepts are required for their construction. Which rather makes it sound like the Fifth have a monopoly on the manufacturer of the technology required for FTL travel. Now that in and of itself could be the basis of their enormous wealth - selling aerospace tech to an ever expansionist military is probably quite lucrative.

But there's another element of House imperialism that only gets mentioned in passing that doesn't seem to be entirely accounted for, which Judith describes in As Yet Unsent:

"Their other line of attack is the business contracts. They claim that the services asked of them by the Emperor were set down in lifetime contracts by previous generations, who assumed the contracts would be terminated upon the Emperor’s death."

There are obviously some unanswered questions about the imperialist project of the Nine Houses - both Augustine and Coronabeth question quite why it works the way it does - but from the above it sounds like in many respects it functions exactly as you would expect an empire to: as a vehicle for the exploitation of others' resources.

Perhaps the Cohort themselves administer these business contracts. Perhaps they fall under the purview of the Third House planetary governors. But if you're exporting resources from the living planets of your empire to the mostly desolate planets of the Dominicus system, you're going to need some FTL ships and a whole lot of bureaucracy.

And if there's one other detail that we get about the Fifth, it's that there is something significant about the political power of their bureaucracy. As Judith puts it: "Quinn himself is a Fifth House bureaucrat with all that entails."

Are the Second, Third, and Fifth so close and so powerful because they form the bedrock of the empire: the conquest, control, and exploitation of planets beyond the Dominicus system?

#the locked tomb #tlt #abigail pent #magnus quinn #judith deuteros #coronabeth tridentarius #the fifth house #the third house #the second house #We regret to inform you that spreadsheets dad is maybe running the necromantic East India Company

[lorcandidlucienwill]

The most disturbing things portrayed in ACOTAR

Victim-blaming: Lucien tries to help Feyre and gets physically abused by Tamlin as a result. Feyre then proceeds to call him a dog despite Lucien doing everything he could in a difficult situation. And we're supposed to...support Feyre on this? And Rhysand throws around words like "can never forgive" man stfu you prick.

Sexual Assault: The most disturbing thing is not that Rhysand sexually assaulted Feyre. It's that he's never held accountable for this and never even apologizes at ANY point in the series. There are so many examples but this is the one that is the most disturbing.

Double Standards: We have Tamlin locking Feyre up for her own good being vilified, yet Rhysand is championed for locking Lucien and Nesta up in houses for their own good. Huh? WTF.

War Crimes: What Feyre did to the Spring Court, manipulating the sentries with the whole Ianthe thing and basically getting them killed, then weakening the Spring Court rulership which resulted in all those villagers in the Spring Court getting killed, then laying the Summer Court bare to Hybern as well, are nothing short of war crimes. And...instead of feeling regret, we have the main characters saying "Hybern's actions are their own." Like bitch what? Hybern wouldn't have been able to do shit if it wasn't for you! Have some damn accountability! And the fact that Tamlin and Tarquin are vilified for this never ceases to irk me.

Grooming: Rhysand groomed Feyre. He made excuses for everything he did with trauma, then sent Feyre out to do tasks for him like she's some kind of weapon he can use. WITHOUT giving her proper information, there is no choice. And everything he does is constantly explained away, until eventually Feyre becomes his trophy wife. Rhysand basically assigns Cassian to do the same for Nesta. I'm holding out hope that Elain will be saved from the Night Court.

The pregnancy debacle: the whole thing with the baby having wings and Rhysand withholding information from Feyre is just...disturbing. Idc if you're not telling her FoR hEr OwN gOoD, it is HER life at stake and she deserves to know. They didn't even try to shapeshift her to try and save her life? Like why is everybody seemingly more concerned about the baby than the mother? Disgusting. And why is Nesta vilified for being the only one to tell Feyre? She said it to hurt her, blah blah blah. She also wanted to show Feyre that their situations are similar. That they're BOTH being shit on by the Night Court. And when she's close to a breaking point...Nesta is forced to hike a mountain? That is physical abuse. Also, Rhysand being extremely territorial putting a shield over her and barely letting Feyre go anywhere is beyond weird.

Suicide baiting: What Rhysand did to Tamlin in ACOFAS is nothing short of suicide baiting. And...only Lucien seems to really be that concerned about it? Like...are you telling me I'm supposed to be supporting Rhysand after he basically told a depressed male to kill himself?

Segregation: Separating the Hewn City from Velaris IS segregation, no matter what excuse you try to come up with. You can't claim they're all shitty people, since your bestie Mor comes from the CoN. So, there are good people stuck in the CoN unable to get out of their torment because Rhysand decided that only certain individuals are allowed in Velaris.

Performance Feminism: Establishing laws to help women and not doing shit to enforce them is performance feminism. If he's as powerful as he says, he can 100% stop wing-cutting and r*pe. But, he's a goddamn virtue signaler so he doesn't fucking care. The thing is, SJM could've handled these topics in a much better way and it would've been fine. But she completely fucked shit up here and it's crazy that some people don't see it. Part of me is still waiting for the final book where she says, psych rhysand was the villain the whole time. If so, I'll take everything back.

#lucien vanserra #pro lucien vanserra #pro nesta archeron #nesta archeron #tamlin #feyre archeron #anti rhysand #anti feysand #anti nessian #anti inner circle #anti ic #anti e/riel #sjm critical #pro tamlin

[mayasaura]

sorry if this has been answered before or if there's a post about this, but I've been seeing a lot of posts labeling harrow as schizophrenic and/or having trouble recognizing reality, including the one you just made about crux as harrow's caretaker and reality-indicator.

I realize that these interpretations come from htn, but I'm curious as why people feel that it's always been a trait of harrow's instead of a side effect of the lobotomy?

I was under the impression that she created the reality problems as an excuse to cover the blocks in her memory, especially since we know that wake/the sleeper didn't possess her until after gtn and most of her confusion happens in the river bubble.

even the "hallucinations" of the body don't really impact her perception of reality, and it's actually alecto's soul not a real hallucination. the only questionable moment I can remember is when she sees cytheria under the bed and ianthe says there's nothing there, but we know ianthe is a duplicitous legend so I read it as ianthe lying to harrow lol

long story short, I was wondering if there was scenes in gtn, ntn, or post-realization htn that indicate harrow has had these reality problems pre-lobotomy? or if you know of a post analyzing it further? sorry to throw this at you, I just haven't seen any analysis of it but I saw your post so I was hoping you would have more info :) I really adore all of your tlt analysis posts!

Hi! Yeah, if you go into my '#harrow's schizophrenia' tag, I've made several posts about it, and other people have added on to a few of them with further elaboration.

But I don't think I've ever laid it out fully like a thesis. And I have several stressful things I should be doing right now, so I can't think of a better time to get into it.

When Harrow's brain is editing Gideon out, there's an effect a little like a record skip. Her memory snags on something, very briefly, and then quickly moves on. Or she'll make an assumption or say something that doesn't actually make sense without Gideon in the picture, but she won't notice. The most prominent example is the details in chapter 3 surrounding her opening of the Tomb:

Just ellipsis "found out" ellipsis to skim over the very large part Gideon had to play in those events. If she were to interrogate the memory, it would be strange that she doesn't remember how her parents found out, but doing so would make her brain bleed. She would black out, and most likely forget what she was trying to remember.

And an example from the same chapter of a statement that doesn't make sense, unless you know about Gideon:

Two things are important about these examples, the first being that they don't upset Harrow. She doesn't think they're strange, because she barely thinks about them, which was sort of the point of the lobotomy in the first place. The second is that they can be immediately explained by plugging Gideon into the Gideon-shaped hole in Harrow's memory. If you know about Gideon, and what Harrow's done, there's no mystery remaining.

In contrast, there are other details in chapter 3 about Harrow's childhood that Harrow did, and does, find strange and upsetting.

Gideon didn't attend services, and she most definitely didn't participate in chants. Putting Gideon back in the picture does nothing to explain the "weird, thuddering beat" Harrow finds disruptive. But it does sound an awful lot like an auditory hallucination, as does hearing doors open and close where no doors were opening and closing.

Maybe we could try to explain the doors by supposing she was hearing Gideon coming and going without remembering the source, but that doesn't really track with how we know her mind processes the missing pieces. If Harrow were papering Gideon over in her memory, it wouldn't be important who was or wasn't opening doors and where. The focus of her memory would quickly shift, just like it did when trying to remember how her parents found out about the Tomb, in order to avoid looking at what she's hidden from herself.

Then there's the next paragraph:

Again, plugging Gideon into this memory does nothing to explain it. Even if Gideon had been in the habit of sneaking up behind Harrow and attempting to choke her out—which, yikes—Harrow has already seamlessly blocked out the memory of one attempted strangulation. Then there are the phantom ropes she sees, her parents' method of suicide haunting her.

The forgetting where she was, losing time, and false memories do seem at first glance like they could be explained by the lobotomy, seeing as that is sort of the whole purpose and effect. But I'm pretty sure even these are real memories. Again, because of the focus of her attention. She's remembering having forgotten, while the lobotomy make her forget to remember.

Then there's Harrow's overall behavior. Her reactions to her hallucinations, especially in the River bubble, which imply that not all of this is new to her. She isn't shocked, or caught off-guard. She has coping mechanisms. She's figured out what evidence she can probably rely on to rule out hallucinations, and what's more likely to be suspect. A lobotomy, even a necromantic lobotomy, doesn't come with built-in tools for coping with its effects. Her memory of her past without Gideon in it is fractured and incomplete, not an entirely new life story with new life lessons.

Finally, from Nona the Ninth, some evidence that Harrow's problems with reality definitely predate the lobotomy:

Crux remembers them.

#the locked tomb #harrow nonagesimus #harrowhark nonagesimus #harrow's schizophrenia #tlt meta #ntn spoilers #harrow the ninth #htn spoilers #long post #such a very long post sorry #op

[racefortheironthrone]

Thoughts About the OG Lyctors

Introduction

For my money, one of the most satisfying elements in Nona the Ninth was that we finally got an account of everything leading up to the destruction of Earth - notably, Harrow cuts off the retelling before the Resurrection, the establishment of the Empire, and the lyctoral ascension at Canaan House - in no small part because we get some really comprehensive information about who the original lyctors were and what they were up to. 

So in this post, I want to talk about what we learned about the lyctor’s pre-Resurrection lives and what we can infer from them about their post-Resurrection lives. 

M- and A-

I’ve decided to start with the “usual double act,” both because M- and A- spend so much of the narrative in close proximity, often described one right after the other, and because I think their arcs taken together are an interesting example of the ways in which Tamsyn Muir is playing with repetition and mirroring between pre- and post-Resurrection dynamics. 

M- and A- aren’t just John’s first followers, they were the first team members in the original group that was trying to cryogenically preserve eleven billion people. M- was the group’s doctor, which suggests a strong continuity with her later lyctor specialty as an anatomist. Notably, John 19:18 establishes that M- made it a special cause of hers to fight against reproductive injustice in space, which is quite interesting given her post-Resurrection distaste for all thing having to do with children. A- seems to have been the chief cryobiologist - he’s described in John 20:8 as the “glycerol-6 genius,” and  glycerol-6 is a cryoprotective agent that prevents the freezing process from damage physical tissues. (Interestingly, we never learn what John’s specialty is on the project.) Here, we don’t get as strong a link between pre- and post-Resurrection interests, although there may be some link to the unexplained experiments with the apples that Ianthe was doing on the Mithraeum.

John 15:23 establishes that “their usual double act” of squabbling frenemyship was absolutely a dynamic of their pre-Resurrection lives, and throughout the rest of the bubble narrative we see M- and A- acting as a pair - sometimes in opposition and other times acting as a united front. In 15:23, for example, A- is the first to believe in John’s new powers, whereas M- “was so frantic to prove something in the science had gone wrong, or right,” and insisted on putting the immaculate corpses through elaborate experiments - to the point where she has something of an atheist’s crisis of faith in John 5:18. 

At the same time, both M- and A- act in concert most of the time - they’re the first to move into John’s compound full-time, they try to keep an eye on his mental wellbeing, and once they come to terms with the idea that John’s a necromancer, they’re the ones who “go raid a fucking graveyard” to see whether John can do it to more than just the specially-treated corpses of the cryo-project. Most significantly, it’s M- and A- who act as “good cop and bad cop” in negotiating with what seems to be the U.S government for billions of dollars and a suitcase nuke in the early stages of their conflict with the FTL project - a revelation that gives them a significant degree of responsibility for the dstruction of the ten billion. 

As the crisis escalates, it’s M- who puts the final pieces together that there is no second wave of the FTL project, whereas A- is the one who pushes John to prioritize stopping the first wave from leaving - which leads to the crisis escalating. Furthermore, when John reveals to the group his intent to use nuclear blackmail to stop the first wave from leaving, M- and A- both side with John - although M- does get cold feet in the final hour and tries to get John to stop. 

And in the final moments, M- and A- express their intent to “go out together.” A- is shot first in front of M- and John, and M- is shot trying to get their assailants to spare John’s life - which is a detail that particularly grabbed me as an inversion of her death in HTN.

G- and P-

The second pair I want to talk about is G- and P-, who seem to have been the next pair brought on to the project. Although it does seem like G- was the project’s engineer - hence the bit about “we even lent them G- at the time because they wanted to talk about coating,” presumably having to do with how to shield both spaceships and cryo cans from the harmful effects of radiation and the like - the dominant theme of both G- and P-’s arcs have to do with loyalty and familiarity. 

Throughout the narrative, John makes much of the fact that “G- and I were both hometown boys” and that “he and I had grown up on the same street. I’d spotted him for mince pies all the time as kids.” On the other hand, P- "knew G- from way back” but doesn’t seem to have been as close with John - and I get the sense from the way that John keeps passively-aggressively denigrating her skills and qualifications that he was somewhat jealous of her closeness with his childhood mate. 

P-’s role on the project is somewhat ambiguous - she seems to function as a kind of volunteer head of security, but all we really learn is that “she’d made detective by that point; was going on to big things in the MoD.” Unlike G- who doesn’t seem to have followed up on his engineering post-Resurrection, P-’s skills clearly put her in good stead as Commander of the Second House and Head of Trentham Special Intelligence. 

G- somewhat drops out of the narrative in this middle section, while P- plays a more significant role as the one who “said...if they’re going to let us fix the world, you’ve got to make them take us seriously. Get some leverage,” and seems to have been the one to set up the deal with the U.S government. Likewise, it’s P-’s police and military connections that the group turn to in order to investigate the FTL Potemkin village. At the same time, P- has a moment of crisis when John kills the hundred military and police surrounding the compound, challenging John’s actions - although she does ultimately fall for John’s deception that it was all an accident. 

The crucial moment is when John chooses G- to carry the suitcase nuit to Melbourne for the negotiations with the government(s). “I wanted G-. P- volunteered to go with him, but G- said he wouldn’t arm it if P- was in range. P- went off at him, but it was one of those times where he held his ground against her.” It’s a fascinating example of dueling sacrifices, as P- is either trying to save G- from being sniped or is trying to go down with him, while G- prioritizes saving P- at his own expense - which is an interesting reversal of what happened during their Lyctoral ascension. While they die later, their fate is essentially sealed the moment that they are separated.

C- (and N-)

One character who speaks to the potential opportunities and dangers that lay in opening up the group is C-. As we learn in John 20;8, “C- was brought on by the oversight execs for contracts, you know, checks and balanced, but look where that ended up, she was on our side before the first year was over.” While it is somewhat surprising that C- was a corporate lawyer specializing in contracts rather than an academic (given her post-Resurrection pursuits), we do see right off the bat the way that John was able to use his significant charisma to circumvent attempts to control him from the outside. 

C-’s outsider status is further confirmed by the fact that we learn in John 5:20 that C- was the one member of the original team who was English rather than a Kiwi (I’m assuming that M- and A- were Kiwis, given the way that John seems to have stuck to people he knew pretty well for his early team, and his education was solidly in the home country). It was in NZ that C- meets her cavalier-to-be N- (a local artist), which starts the extended plotline where C- refuses to admit to her relationship with N- until the very end - which could be a result of the fact that “C- had been raised little-England Anglican.” (Incidentally, I’m not quite clear what Muir means by that - the “little-England” movement was an anti-imperialist movement in the UK but from a rather conservative and xenophobic perspective. It’s not used very often in conjunction with “Anglican” - the only thing I could find is that T.S Eliot was described as a “little-England Anglican.”)

In the middle phase of the narrative, C- is present mostly as the project’s legal advisor who is active in trying to prevent the Energy department from cutting off power, and then “she’d managed all the contracts and told the cops we needed to be in there to make sure disposal and records were handled properly,” in order to buy the project breathing from. Notably however, C- chooses to live with N- offsite rather than move into the compoung, suggesting a degree of independence even as she leaves her job. At the same time, C- does get stuck in to M-’s experiments despite really not being cut out for working with dead bodies. (A sign of her predeliction for matters of the spirit?)

C- somewhat drops out of the narrative for a bit, until after John acquires his suitcase nuke. However, she really comes to the fore in the wake of this acquisition as the one member of the team who really challenges John on this point: “Pick one. Are we more interested in proving this new plan is bullshit, or in saving you...it can’t be both. Pick one and stick to it. Decide what you give a fuck about.” Similarly, when it comes down to the final conflict between John and the FTL project, it’s C- who pushes for John to use his growing necromantic powers to actually do something about climate change: “can’t we gin up some kind of miracle...any way to stabilize the North American glacier? Any way to trap atmosphere over the North Territory, show them we can fix things here?” This opposition culminates in C-’s final challenge to John once he initiates nuclear brinksmanship:

“C- said, John your problem is that you care less about being a saviour than you do about meeting out punishment.

I said, C-, I was just your best man!

C- said, You still are. That doesn’t change the fact that you can be quite the most appallingly vindicative person I have ever met.”

More than any other of the original lyctors, it’s C- who manages to see John Gaius for who he really is - a man whose genuine desire to save the Earth and the ten billion living on it was ultimately outstripped by his wounded need for revenge against the trillionaires who had undermined his solution and destroyed his reputation. While I’ll get into issues of post-Resurrection memory later, I don’t think it’s an accident that it is seemingly Cassiopeia of the Sixth who is the first of the lyctors to reach out to the Blood of Eden and enact a secret plan for the secession of the Sixth. My guess is that Cassiopeia’s relentless intellect wouldn’t let her remain content with the narrative that John had spun about the Resurrection and the Empire’s mission - and that this led her to make contact with the Messenger cadre of the Blood of Eden, who seem to be focused on the preservation of old Earth knowledge, allowing her to check their records against the Imperial records held by the Sixth and come to some sort of understanding of the lies that John had been telling for five thousand years. 

In contrast to C-’s thematic importance to the bubble narrative, N- is really only present as a romantic interest - with C- finally deciding to come out of the closet and marry N- in the final day before the destruction of the Earth, which serves as a kind of final moment of happiness before the inevitable downfall. N-’s one main contribution to the project seems to have been that, once John decided that “they want to call us a cult, let’s be a cult” that it was N- who designed the new religion’s aesthetic presentation, since “N- already had eyeliner and capes.” This suggests that Anastasia wasn’t the only goth among John’s lyctors...

M’s nun  

Perhaps the most surprising revelation from John’s narrative is the dramatic role played by the unnamed person who can only be Cristabel - she’s a nun and the Eighth is the most pious of the orthodox Houses, she’s M-’s best friend and works closely with her, her only other association in the group is with A- Jr. the brother of A-, and her major act is a suicide meant to provoke metaphysical transformation - rather than Anastasia. 

Cristabel enters the narrative somewhat late, after John’s made the discovery of necromancy and has begun raising the dead and healing the sick. While the rest of John’s scientific buddies are flying in the dark somewhat, Cristabel uses her deep knowledge of the New Testament to provide advice about how to handle a burgeoning religion - “Christ never said no and never asked anyone to pay and got way too much attention and brought the heat down on everybody” - and help the group get religious cover from the Vatican to avoid being labelled a dangerous cult. 

Most significantly, Cristabel is the one who makes the most consequential discovery in the burgeoning field of necromancy by pointing John in the direction of the soul: she tells John that the reason he can’t bring people back from the dead is that “their souls are gone,” and then later tells him that “the last frontier I couldn’t cross was the soul. M-’s nun of all people was convinced that this was the element I was missing, and that finding it...would bring us closer to God.” And then, during the final 24 hours, Cristabel decides to force John’s hand by making him witness her suicide - although given the context of her earlier speech about reaching out to God versus pushing away from God and fear and grace, she clearly sees what she’s doing as an act of sacred martyrdom - which enables John to first perceive the nature of the individual human soul, and then to make contact with the world-soul that is Alecto, enabling John to become the Necrolord Prime and gain the power needed to destroy the sun and the solar system. This makes her possibly the most consequential Catholic figure in human history - and it lends an entirely different, equally tragic air to her and Alfred’s suicide pact at Canaan House, suggesting both an inevitability where the same personality drives push to the same conclusion but also suggesting that John probably anticipated what was going to happen and chose to do nothing to prevent it. 

At the same time, I don’t want to reduce Cristabel to a martyr complex. Cristabel also had a close wortking relationship with both M- and A- Jr., working with them to uncover the FTL project’s fraudulent manifests, and working with A- Jr. to attempt a last-minute mediation during the nuclear standoff. 

Ulysses and Titania

The second-most surprising revelation to come from John’s narrative is that we learn that Ulysses the First and Titania Tetra, the sexy-party-having founders of the Fourth House, were the first two corpses that John was able to preserve and pilot around in the very advent of his discovery of necromancy: 

“my two kids, the guinea pigs, they were U- and T- on their certificates, youi know their old names. I thought about using those but it didn’t seem appropriate. They weren’t around to say yes or no. I was starting to really care about that. What they would’ve thought, what they would’ve wanted...so I brought them into the room with the bodies and I was all, Let me introduce you to...Ulysses. Let me introduce you to Titania.”

Ulysses and Titania are obviously distinct both from the rest of the original first wave of lyctors and the second wave of lyctors who John met after the Resurrection, in that they were fully dead already before necromancy was even a thing. This raises a rather important question: where did their souls come from? This in turn raises a bunch of others: Did John somehow manage to pull their original souls from the River when he resurrected the rest of the original Lyctors? (Did the River even exist prior to the Resurrection?) Did he stuff completely new souls from the ten billion floating around into these pre-existing bodies? 

Leaving aside matters of the soul, I’m fascinated by the interpersonal implications. How did John treat Ulysses and Titania once they were up and alive, since on the one hand he had this deep Pygmalion-like obsession with their bodies in a way that really presages everything he got into with Alecto, while on the other he didn’t have the pre-existing relationship with them that he had with the original lyctors he had known in life? Were they his favorites? 

The second generation

So what do we say about who’s left? Well, one thing that we can say is that we have to revise something of our understanding of the different generations of lyctors - the Locked Tomb wiki has Cyrus and Valancy as first generation lyctors when they don’t appear at all in John’s bubble narrative and so must have come up post-Resurrection, while Ulysses and Titania are described as second wave when we know that they were there in body, if not in spirit, along with A-, M-, G-, C-, N-, Cristabel, and A- Jr. 

Another thing we have to grapple with is the fact that, as we learn during John’s raising the dead and healing the sick for online clout period, John was fully capable of curing cancer long before his powers were enhanced by lyctorhood with the earth. This has understandably raised some comments because of the implications for Cytherea the First. A lot of people have asked why John allowed her to live with cancer for ten thousand years when he could have cured her at any time - and I’m certainly one of those. However, after talking it over, I think I have the answer: we know that Cytherea and Loveday only went along with the lyctoral process because they thought it would save Cytherea’s life. If John had cured her cancer before they went through with the Eightfold Word, Loveday would have flatly refused to go through with it and would have resisted any attempt to make them proceed, given how hostile she was to John and the other lyctors for putting a sick woman through the rigors of travel and scientific investigation. If John had cured Cytherea’s cancer after they went through with the Eightfold Word, she would have turned on John instantly instead of waiting for ten thousand years. I think John did nothing because he wanted Cytherea as a lyctor in his service, one more finger to hurl at his enemies, and nothing more. 

Finally, I want to say a few words about Anastasia. The last chapter of Nona answered a lot of theories that had been floating around about Anastasia, Alecto, and the Locked Tomb: no, the Locked Tomb on the Ninth wasn’t a decoy with the true tomb being located at Canaan House, yes, Alecto was inside the Locked Tomb, and no, Anastasia was not the Body or the Nonabody. However, we do learn that inside the Locked Tomb there is “Anastasia, tucked where nobody would find jher: Anastasia, all bones. Not really Anastasia. but Anastasia’s body without the meat on it, snuggled right into the curve of the rock, ready to close the door whenever it was opened.”

This tells us a lot about what happened to Anastasia: it doesn’t seem that she completed the Lyctoral process, but rather seems to have gone the revenant-haunting-your-own-bones route pioneered by Doctor Sex and later by Palamedes. More importantly, at some point - possibly when Anastasia and Alecto were sealed inside the Tomb? - Anastasia and Alecto entered into a pact that bound Alecto to the line of Anastasia, a pact whih includes some unspecified favor to be done and a cavalier-like pact of service.  

Initials and Memory

Finally, I want to close by talking about the most consequential decision John made in the Resurrection - namely the decision to bring back both “my loved ones” and “anyone I feel didn’t do it. Anyone I feel had no part in it. Anyone I can look in the face of and forgive” without their memories. I’ll quote the section in detail:

“In fact, G-’ll be easiest - he won’t remember the compound - none of them will have to remember anything. I know where rememberance lives in the brain, and he won’t have any of it...”

“Teacher, why?”

“They won’t forgive themselves...they’ll spend the rest of their lives asking what-ifs. “What should we have done? How could we have done it differently? Did you need to do it?”

While John posits his actions as esentially benevolent, driven by a desire to prevent mental suffering, and imbue his loved ones with a “blessed ignorance” as he put it in HTN, it’s abundantly obvious that what he really cares about is avoiding that last question. He wants his friends back, but he doesn’t want them to be able to question or challenge him for having gotten them and everyone else killed. We see him already beginning to think about this during the final siege of the compound when he says “People don’t forgive, not really. Once they doubt, you’ve already lost them. That’s what was sacaring me about the others. Had I already lost my best friends.” 

So while John displays an enormous amount of self-pity because he’s the only one left who’ll remember the old world and who’ll laugh at his jokes, ultimately John chooses his own isolation by remaking his friends without their memories. As with Ulysses and Titania, he tries to remake them while staying as close to the original as possible, changing the names but keeping the same initials because he’s unimaginative and nostalgic. 

But anyone who knows even a little bit about the brain knows that it’s pretty much impossible to separate personality from memory - the existence of the self is essentially the result of the brain constantly rewiring and reinforcing itself over time, creating new connections and new associations, resulting in a constantly evolving moving target that we think of as a continuous and authentic whole. And from everything we’ve been able to compare about the original Lyctors before and after Resurrection, they’re way too similar to their prior selves. They have the same personalities, the same relationships, they make the same decisions and the same mistakes, over and over again. So rather than being pure blank slates, I think John left quite a bit of their previous selves intact - I doubt he would have wanted to start with object permanence, language acquisition, and not touching fire, and he definitely would have wanted to hang on to useful things like Mercymorn’s medical skills or Gideon’s engineering know-how or Cassiopeia’s facility with logic. 

Here’s another thing about the brain: it’s incredibly plastic. Even when parts of the brain are damaged by injury or disease, it has this fascinating ability to re-wire itself, forging new connections that reconnect separated areas. Who’s to say that, across ten thousand years, this didn’t happen to at least some of the original Lyctors as they pondered the mystery of the Resurrection?

One last thought:

“You want Cyrus, Augustine, Cassiopeia...you want Gideon the First, and Gideon the First is dead. He’s not coming back. Oh, God, Gideon,” said Pyrrha suddenly. “Gideon...G-, you died for nothing.”

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth spoilers #ntn spoilers #spoilers #mercymorn the first #augustine the first #cassiopeia the first #nigella shodash #cristabel oct #alfred quinque #ulysses the first #titantia tetra #gideon the first #pyrrha dve #anastasia the first #samael novenary #alecto #nona the ninth

[the-sword-lesbian]

Hello Locked Tomb fans!!

Today we’re going to talk about the ways in which Mercymorn is a walking domestic abuse/systemic domestic abuse allegory.

For a more comprehensive breakdown of some of themes of abuse in HtN you can check out this amazing post by Sophelstien

A lot of the glimpses of Mercy’s backstory have some pretty clear indicators of her perpetual abuse by John and her behaviors, especially towards Harrow and Ianthe just perpetuate the same abuse she suffered for years as she turns a mostly blind eye to what John is doing with them.

So let’s get started with all the things straight out of the domestic abuse playbook.

1. Isolation from loved ones:

In this instance he did this to all the Lyctors, not just Mercy. The OG Lyctors were already dependent on proximity to John for their very survival. But with the deaths of their Cavaliers they’ve now experienced a horrifying trauma that cemented that bond further. Their loved ones were gone, the ones they cared for the most, who supported them above all else. They were cone and never coming back. But it’s a good thing John was there for them. Good ole John would always be there for them, right?

You can(and probably will) argue that John himself didn’t do the isolating here(except in the case of Samael whom he definitely admits to killing). Especially in the case of Cristabel and Alfred. But John set up the system. The religious, fatherly but always your pal John at the top. And what better way to serve him, to help him, to be with him. Then to annihilate your support system.

So Cristabel is dead, Mercy’s brotherly icon in the form of Augustine has now become a perpetual antagonist towards her for something she didn’t do, and the only person she can seemingly lean on for comfort and support, is John.

2: Pressure to conform to uncomfortable situations and further self-isolation

Mercy always hated the sexy parties. This one should seem pretty self explanatory but there are other ways we can look at it as well.

So Mercy, now in a perpetually grieving state and entirely reliant on John and her fellow lyctors(who are also dealing with their own grief and trauma) is being pushed to attend what seems to be implied to be quite raucous events put on by her brothers and sisters. I’m sure a great many of them are also just doing it to cope with their own problems in the form of excess. Except John, who is the instigator of most of their traumas, who’s probably having a fantastic time.

Furthermore we see how this has long term shaped Mercy’s general attitude, and personality. She’s bitter, closed off, and a pretty significant shut in. She hardly ever leaves Mithraeum these days. She goes to collect John(and her new baby sister’s/children) from the Erebus and bring them home, to Mithraeum. And that whole scene is just dripping with imagery of a desperate wife/daughter pleading to get her husband/father to come home from the bar, overlooks his probable dalliances(Sarpedon) and his obsessive attention towards a younger subject(Harrow), and just begs him to come back.

And while we’re on the subject

3: Unhealthy attachment and willingness to overlook red flags.

Mercy loves John, and yes, a lot of that can be chalked up to soul permeability and Cristabel. But Mercy loves for him and cares about him as deeply as she can. We can see this in the resurrection beast meeting. Everyone deserves to die for mocking her. But John? John just needs to be locked up for a bit. It will do him some good. He is good, he just needs to learn. Surely there’s goodness inside of him. Surely she hasn’t just spent ten thousand years in service to a man who’s done nothing but torment her with a smile and a false family dynamic. She thinks about this often.

And speaking of overlooking red flags, Mercy’s barest protection of Harrow, only enough to survive. Because that’s what you do in this family. You survive. She doesn’t stop John from what he’s doing to Harrow, she knows what he’s doing surely. But she leaves Harrow to largely fend for herself. Because John isn’t bad, surely. She just needs to learn. Like Mercy did.

4: Plotting escape and the relief when it’s achieved

Mercy, with the help of others, has spent centuries planning John’s downfall. She and Augustine have tailored an incredibly long game plan to open the tomb and bring about John’s end. They got outside help to do it. They didn’t want it to come back at them. They didn’t want to face John’s consequences themselves. And really this couldn’t more obviously be an example of hiring someone to kill your abuser for you.

But the plan falls through, and that’s okay because Mercymorn, has a backup. She devoted thousands of years to a skill that Augustine flat out says would only be good for killing those like themselves. Those with power, and invisibility.

And the relief when it happens. The sheer joy and sadness and desperate exhaustion when she’s done it, and they’re finally free.

5: Retaliation

Mercy and Augustine were right to try and do it all as secretly as they could. They were right to fear a reprisal. Because the very second John comes back, he kills Mercymorn the first. He then attempts to use this display of violence as an intimidation tactic to try and sway the others.

“She made me do it, I had no choice. surely you all believe me? Surely you wouldn’t betray me all the same?”

How many thousands upon thousands of stories have there been throughout history, of abuse victims escaping, or attempting escape, only to be killed or maimed for their efforts.

She was free. They were all free. She’d saved everyone from him. They were safe. She was safe.

And then she wasn’t.

#the locked tomb #mercymorn the first #augustine the first #john gaius #harrow the ninth #harrow the ninth spoilers #tw domestic abuse #tw abuse #tlt meta

[danikamariewrites]

can i please request a feysand x reader where they’re at the high lord meeting at the dawn court and tamlin runs his mouth. When he said ”have you ever noticed that little noise she makes when she climaxes” i was so disgusted by him. Literally ew. Could i pls request a drabble where reader punches him for it. She’s not dumb, she won’t do it in the middle of the meeting. She waits until he’s in a hallway and leaps on him and punches him. reader is newly mated to them so her protective instincts are running like crazy. all the things feyre and rhys told her tamlin did to them is blinding her with rage and she almost kills him bc obviously she’s the stonger one😎 PROTECTIVE READER IS GOATEDDDDD

You

Feysand x reader

A/n: I love protective reader

Warnings: violence

After that very exciting meeting you needed to blow off some steam. Tamlin’s words kept ringing in your mind. He might as well have called Feyre a whore. Rhys had to hold you back with his magic so you wouldn’t launch yourself at Tamlin.

At least Beron got what he deserved. You were so proud of Feyre for that display of power. It showed how wrong Ianthe and Tamlin were. You smiled to yourself as you aimlessly walked around.

The smile melted off your face as the scent of spring hot your nose. Anger flooded through your body as you saw Tamlin round the corner. You both stopped and stared at each other. “You,” you growled at him.

“Now y/n let’s be rash.” “Rash! You want me to think when you insulted my mates!” You rushed over to him and before Tamlin could react you had him pinned on the ground. Your knee was digging into his chest as you screamed bloody murder at the High Lord.

Your fist kept hitting his face over and over again. “How dare you?” Tamlin’s nose cracked under your fist. As you drew back to hit him again, your teeth bared at him, Tamlin caught your fist.

He squeezed your hand in a bone crushing grip. “Get. Off.” Tamlin flung you backwards and you slid halfway down the hall. You crouch and dive down into your power. The hall rumbles around you. Tamlin looked petrified. Good, you thought.

Before you could make another move Rhys and Cassian picked you up, Rhys pulled you to his chest and ran his fingers through your hair to calm you down. Thesan came running around the other corner helping Tamlin up.

The males were yelling at each other but you couldn’t hear anything. Your ears were ringing with the echoes of your power.

You closed your eyes and the next time you opened them you were back in your quarters with your mates. Feyre was in front of you cleaning Tamlin’s blood off your hands. You blinked confusingly at them before the memories of what happened came flooding back.

“I’m-I’m so sorry. He was just there and I was so mad at him.” Rhys cups your face in his hands. “Love, it’s ok. You were just defending your mates. The bond is so new that’s what we’re blaming it on, ok.” You nod at him.

Feyre places her hand on Rhys’s chest pushing him back. She takes your face in her hands now, leaning in and placing a chaste kiss on your lips. “It’s not a big deal y/n. I love you so much.” You nod in agreement. “I love you too, both of you. I’m going to take a bath and then we’ll relax.” You kissed them both on their cheeks and headed for the bathroom.

#acotar #acotar fanfiction #acotar reader fic #acotar reader imagine #acotar imagine #rhysand #rhysand fluff #rhysand x reader #rhysand imagine #rhysand acotar #rhys x feyre x reader #feyre x you #feyre x reader #feyre archeron #feyre acotar #high lady feyre #poly!feysand x you #poly!feysand #poly!feysand x reader #feysand x reader #feysand

[acourtofthought]

But what does that mean, exactly?

The ribbon was a test to see if someone was ready for something.

If you can complete the test, you're ready for more. No matter how quickly you accomplish it.

Gwyn is completely focused on accomplishing the task.

Gwyn not only achieves exactly what she set out to to do (going so far as to practice when everyone else is sleeping) but...

She achieved with a warriors spirit and didn't treat it like it was just a game.

So then what does it mean when Nesta tells Az he's Gwyn's new ribbon?

Az and Cassian laid down a challenge for the Valkyries, then he and Cassian stood off to the side smiling when they knew it was going to be difficult for them to achieve. But it was only Az that Gwyn taunted in response.

Nesta didn't say the obstacle was the new ribbon, she said Az was which to me means that Gwyn will be approaching him with the same determination she did the ribbon.

First off, we're told that it doesn't matter how quickly something is achieved, when you're ready you're ready "even if they'd only been training for a little while". That's for all the Gwynriel haters who claim she couldn't be ready for a sexual relationship when it's time for her book because of how "kinky" Az is.

Second, Az is closed off, he really doesn't open up to anyone (even Cassian), he believes no one could accept his darkness. There's a line that says only Mor was able to get Az to say anything after badgering him. So Gwyn, with a single minded focus when it came to the ribbon, is not going to be put off by Azriel's challenging and quiet nature. Gwyn doesn't care how difficult something is, she's not deterred and she'll get him to open up one way or another.

Third, though she's competitive and enjoys taking on the challenge, she doesn't treat it lightly. She didn't cut the ribbon and break down into giggles as if it were all just a game. She was serious about having achieved what she set out to do and continued her pursuit of wanting to become a Valkyrie.

Lucien once said of Jesminda:

She had teased him, taunted him—seduced him so thoroughly that he hadn’t wanted anything but her.

I know people try to twist the Gwyn narrative, that her singing has lured and seduced the good guys but that is NOT how SJM writes the best friends of her main characters. It was clear from the start that Ianthe wasn't a true friend to Feyre. It was obvious Maeve wasn't likeable from her first moments on page.

Az chased Mor and he was the one to initiate the near kiss with Elain (I'm pretty sure she would have never taken control of the situation with him) but SJM likes the girl in charge for the first time. Feyre initiated her first kiss with Rhys. Nesta grabbed Cassian and pulled him to her. Rowan waited for Aelin to kiss him and we have the same with Quinlar. Lucien's POV clearly demonstrates he enjoyed Jesminda's pursuit of him.

"Seducing" a love interest isn't a bad thing in certain context, in ACOMAF, Feyre wonders why Rhys never seduced her with looks and smiles (and Rhys was a SA victim too). She wanted that from him. So Gwyn pursuing Az doesn't make her evil, it makes her 99% of every guy's dream, especially one who has never had a female chase after him.

Az might be Gwyns new ribbon, she might be the one to taunt and tease him and maybe she'll be the one to pursue him (especially when we know Az is aware of her history) but Gwyns character has shown that she's not flighty. She commits to something and once accomplished, she focuses on how to get better.

By the end of SF, she is still committed to becoming a Valkyrie as it's confirmed Az and Cassian compiled a list of things they did wrong in the Rite.

If Az is Gwyns new ribbon, there's little chance she's not going to succeed 🤷

Elain might have had a real crush on Az or maybe she was just trying to prove to herself she could feel something for someone other than her mate (It's doubtful she's not drawn to Lucien though I think she's trying to pretend she's not). But in the end, she easily walked away from whatever happened on Solstice and there was zero indication it was a struggle for her to do that (versus the very obvious tension filled reactions she and Lucien have toward one another).

It's not that Elain isn't capable of fighting for someone and she's definitely a worthy someone to be had but we're not going to see it until she's with the right person. And the author has already made it clear which of the two females is going to be all in with Az.

#pro gwynriel #gwynriel #acotar mates #pro elucien #gwyn acotar #azriel x gwyn #gwyneth berdara

[multifunctionalnitroglycerin]

The Locked Tomb Series- Alecto Theory

Brace yourselves this is 3000 words of me connecting dots that aren't even there.

First things first, this post is an amalgam of various brilliant theories I have seen posted on Tumblr, so if anything feels familiar, that will be the main reason. I am just going to present my own take on this, and hopefully add something new to what we already have.

                The subjects of today’s conspiracy theory are Alecto and Anastasia -and Cassiopeia in part, the vow to Anastasia’s bloodline and what could very possible be, Dios Apate MAJOR.

                So let’s start with what we have from the books, and feel free to correct me or add sth I might have forgotten.

                Anastasia and Samael are the only ones of the original Lyctor batch, that didn’t complete the Lyctorhood process, thanks to - in no small part – John, and/or possibly Alecto. (“I am sorry about Samael”). Which could mean that Alecto was somehow involved in the whole process going wrong, and thus she feels responsible for Samael’s death, or that she was close enough with Anastasia and Samael, that she herself felt Samael’s loss, or she felt for Anastasia’s grief. (I like to believe that they did have a tentative friendship even before the vow thing happened.)

                Anastasia is also the only one of the Lyctors we know, so far, to have had children. Which is an important bit on its own, (Can full Lyctors, have children? If so, are they different from other children, necromantic or not? Is there a reason that in spite of biological capability- if it exists-the other Lyctors have chosen not to have children? Even with Augustine’s and Mercymorn’s plan we see that in the end Gideon is conceived with Wake’s material – John is a whole different story as far as Lyctorhood goes so he doesn’t count.)

Back to our discussion though, Anastasia’s bloodline was so important to the Ninth House that it has been preserved for 10.000 years. We do not really get a clear picture on whether the Reverend Family knows why the continuation of the bloodline is important, Harrow certainly doesn’t, but it was so deeply ingrained to them that Anastasia’s bloodline must remain intact, that they effectively committed genocide, dooming the House’s future, in order to produce one more direct descendant of the Saint that wasn’t.

We do get a hint, a rather big one, on why the preservation of Anastasia’s blood is so important, in Nona’s Epilogue. Alecto states that Harrow is “the blood of the tombkeeper” after kissing her and drawing blood. What did she taste on Harrow’s blood I wonder? And how did she recognize the taste, as the taste of Anastasia’s line? Did the vow she initially made to Anastasia herself involve them drawing blood? Did it bind them to one another, so deeply that they ingrained themselves into each other on a molecular level?

To add to this, young Harrow, young desolate Harrow, who had had enough with her life and was prepared to die, young Harrow who opened the Tomb for that express purpose, loves Alecto from sight. And decides to keep living for her. And there is something exceedingly weird to just how much Harrow loves Alecto. Alecto is probably the most attractive person Harow lay her eyes upon to that day, true, but this instant infatuation, and its persistence throughout the years has something more to it, don’t you think? As Gideon points out, both to herself and to Ianthe, Harrow’s heart belongs to the dead cold body in the Tomb. And said cold dead body in the Tomb, recognizes Harrow from sight when she wakes “Alecto recalled her, for it was a face once dreamed in Alecto’s dream.”

And this line begs the question. Could Alecto dream, in the tomb? If so, how? And what did she dream of? Did she dream of Harrow? Why did she dream of Harrow if that is the case? Or did she dream of Anastasia, and the resemblance is that great? On the other hand, if this refers to Harrow first opening the Tomb, and looking at Alecto, does that mean that she was in some form conscious throughout that stasis? Does this mean that she could have heard and felt Anastasia while they were both locked in the Tomb, for however long the other woman lived?

(The scene where Nona describes the feeling of Anastasia's hands in the water and feeling safe. I am going to cry.)

I do have an interesting theory about Alecto’s “dreams” but we’ll get there in a bit.

Something else that is fishy, is that the Ninth, is the House of the Sewn Tongue. It sounds a bit like too much flesh magic for a bone magic house to specialize in, right? The cure to the Sewn Tongue on the other hand? Removing the mandible and all that? That sounds like a Bone Magic solution to a flesh magic problem. And I wonder if the fact that the Ninth House’s emblem is the Jawless skull, insinuates that the Ninth is not so much a house where many secrets are kept – though this is undoubtedly true, as the Ninth is known as the House of secrets by the other houses – as much that in the Ninth, all secrets are revealed. Where the sewn tongue is healed, and the truth comes to light. And I’d like to point out that it sounds a bit like foreshadowing, and a promise. Anastasia has been betrayed by John and sworn to secrecy, and then locked in the Tomb to die and take his secrets with her. I feel like the jawless skull acts as a constant reminder, that even with the sewn tongue, all curses can be broken, and all secrets will eventually come to light. And it feels like a promise to John, that her House, the house of secrets and unspoken truths, will be the one to rid of the sewn tongue and bring the truth he so fears forward. And this aligns a tad too well with the Sixth’s mantra, Six for the truth, over solace in lies.

And you know what else fits here, in this concordance of the Sixth and Ninth Houses? Cassiopeia and Anastasia’s friendship. Their alliance if you will. We know they both worked closely together trying to figure out the perfect Lyctorhood process, and it is possible that Anastasia made her attempt a bit before Cassiopeia. The exact same attempt, that performed in perfect conditions ended in failure, with John ultimately killing Samael.

 We also know that Cassiopeia left contingency plans in place, should the emperor become a hindrance to the empire. And from what we have seen of Cassiopeia in the books, it is safe to assume that she is driven, determined, exceedingly intelligent, perceptive, logical, and excellent at planning. She is also the one to point out John’s less than favorable qualities pre-Resurrection such as his interest in taking vengeance on those that wronged him being bigger in his interest to save lives.

So, we have, Cassiopeia and her logic driven, truth seeking brilliance, and Anastasia, the thorough, overly methodical researcher. We have them both working on perfect Lyctorhood, and we have them both, in one way or another, being betrayed by John. Chances are, that they were the first post Resurrection to notice John’s flaws, the first to concoct a plan against him. But contrary to Cytherea, Mercy and Augustine, they are more subtle than those cannonball attempts. No, I believe they planned. And they planned long term, and together. Cassiopeia left her House a note, left them instructions, she was preparing them for when John would become a liability. And then an aforementioned amount of time later, Anastasia is asked to design the tomb.

We do not really know anything about Alecto’s relationships with the other lyctors apart from the fact that most found her revolting, a “monster” in Mercy’s words. So here is a thought, perhaps Anastasia, the one of the original Eight to never ascend, perhaps the one whose failure Alecto was involved in – “I am sorry about Samael” – finds kinship in John’s unnerving pet, his undead “cavalier”, the one he betrayed first, the soul of earth. Perhaps they even became friends. Perhaps she and Cassiopeia realize the extend of what John has done and realize that Alecto is the key to undoing it. When John refuses to kill Alecto to appease the others, the plan fully forms.

So, they construct the tomb. And Cassiopeia is well-known for building mechanisms within houses, so maybe her and Anastasia create secret passages, and mechanisms with extra access to the tomb that would be independent of John sneaking in, or whatever he planned to do with that blood-ward.  And hear me out, we know that Cassiopeia stayed 7 minutes in the river before being torn apart by the resurrection beast – at Mercymorn’s account at least, not sure how reliable of a narrator she is. But what happened during those seven minutes? Paul says he thinks he knows how to get to the Locked Tomb via the River. So, the river and the Tomb are connected. What did Cassiopeia do, I wonder? (Here I’d like to say that my other theory is that she did eventually die, or rather was consumed by Varun the eater, much like Judith Deuteros was. The RB burned through her in what, a couple months? How long would a Lyctor last? Perhaps that was the reason that Varun didn’t resurface until 100 years after Cassiopeia’s presumed death. She could have been alive and slowly wasting away, while still making failsafe within failsafe until she lost her sense of self and eventually wasted away)

To recap until now, the first part of my theory is that Anastasia and Cassiopeia dissatisfied with the world John had made and the truth he had served them, probably worked together to find the truth. And they worked together from the shadows, to create a plan, a long-term plan, with which they could bring John down if the need ever arose, and undo what he had done. And Anastasia’s bloodline and their secrets are really bloody important to that plan. (Also, some nice symbolism about the Ninth being about secrets revealed, rather than secrets kept, and that functioning as a bit of foreshadowing.)

Now into the second part of my theory. Anastasia’s bloodline is so important because she has bound her bloodline to Alecto. And I think this happened in the premise of the Vow Alecto has made to her, or they have made to each other. This might be part of the initial vow, of which we know nothing about, apart from the fact that Alecto pledged herself to Anastasia, and that it is important enough that she pledges herself to Harrow, or a failsafe within it. A failsafe to ensure that should Alecto wake after Anastasia has passed, she will not be fooled by any imposters, or anything else John might have planned. Or perhaps, a failsafe to ensure that even if John changes his mind and finds a way to rid of the body within the tomb, to “kill” Alecto, she will not be completely gone, she will keep existing within Anastasia’s line, thus ensuring that the plan for John’s demise can still be enacted and that the soul of the earth will not be dead.

That plays really hard in the Alecto is within Harrow from the beginning theory. And I will explain. I believe I saw something that looked like this in Twitter by lesbian_mothman, but I do not really remember so I apologize if all this has been said before.

In all the dream chapters with John, we relive memories from just before and after the resurrection, and John talks to Harrow as if she is Alecto “You always say that Harrowhark” as a response to “I still love you.” Or when Varun recognizes the Earth’s soul “green thing” within Nona in the car chase scene, or when Judith regaining consciousness asks “Harrowhark?” and Nona replies, “No, and I never was.” So that begs the question of how much of Harrow is Harrow, how much is Alecto and how much are the 200 souls within her? (And there was a crowd of dead children there. They were striving loudly against living children on the far-off shore of the tomb. CHILLS)

In Nona we learn that Palamedes and Camila on the one hand and Pyrrha on the other have two different theories about who Nona is. The Sixth believe that she is an amalgam of Gideon and Harrow, and Pyrrha believes she is Alecto, golden eyes and all. And I am more inclined to believe that it is indeed Alecto, or at least a part of her, that resides within Harrow, and took the wheel when both Harrow and Gideon were gone. Think abt it. Gideon is back in her body, and we have no idea what the hell happened to Harrow, only that she doesn’t have the wheel, and Nona acts nothing like Harrow or Gideon did. It’s like she is learning how to be human for the first time. She learns how to love and be loved for the first time. So with no soul to govern the body, the part of Alecto within Harrow takes the wheel.  

And then there is the candle metaphor in NtN. Alecto’s soul is the candle passed from one necromantic heir of the Ninth to the other.

So long story short, part of the vow, if not all of it, is that part of Alecto will always live within Anastasia’s descendants, so long as they are necromancers. And here comes the part of Alecto’s dreams. Because if indeed she lives within the souls of Anastasia’s necromantic descendants, does she see through their eyes? Does she feel through their hearts? Does she dream of their lives, while locked in the Tomb, while a part of her lives in them? Is she conscious within them? Or does the whole thing act like a cavalier- lyctor sort of connection, where she cannot take the wheel unless the other soul in the body Is gone?

 Part of her soul is bound to Anastasia’s line, and they are bound to her, and over the course of 10.000 years do they spill over? Alecto to Anastasia’s descendants and they to Alecto.  Was this part of the plan to have a failsafe within Anastasia’s line in case something happened to the body in the Tomb? Was it a promise Anastasia made to Alecto, to give her a chance to live, to be human, through the lives of her own descendants?

All in all, I guess I could some it up in a few concise points.

Cassiopeia and Anastasia worked closely together, they were friends and allies and saw in John, the unfulfilled promises he made, and all the faults he tried to cover with rewriting his own version of history.

They decide to make a plan, a long term one, a detailed one, for when John is more a liability than it is worth. And thus, Cassiopeia creates the mechanisms in the Sixth and leaves the protocols for the rest to find. Truth over solace in lies.

Meanwhile Anastasia attempts to ascend, and John kills Samael. Alecto might be consciously or unconsciously involved and harbors guilt over Samael’s death.

Anastasia probably befriends Alecto or finds kinship with this strange being that is the soul of a planet that no longer is.

The planning continues and John after being asked to kill Alecto decides to lock her in the Tomb instead and has Anastasia design it. He later asks her to stay in the tomb and guard Alecto. (Antigone style)

Anastasia designs the tomb, probably with Cassiopeia’s help, probably with a few hidden mechanisms of its own and or a secret pathway through the river, an extra way out.

At some point, Anastasia sires a line, and she makes her vow with Alecto.

The vow probably is in regards of bounding Alecto to Anastasia’s line so long as there are necromantic heirs. A part of Alecto is constantly alive within each descendant of Anastasia’s.

It might work a bit like the lyctoral process, because Alecto only takes the wheel when there is no Harrow and no Gideon in Nona’s body, aka when there doesn’t seem to be another soul guiding it.

Alecto dreams. Whether she dreams of herself within the tomb and that’s how she recognizes Harrow on sight – from the memory of Harrow first unlocking the Tomb – or her dreams are glimpses of the lives Anastasia’s descendants lead I don’t know.

Alecto is thus bound to Anastasia’s line by blood. She recognizes Harrow by her blood, tasting either Anastasia, or the part of herself residing within it, when she kisses her. It also ensures that the line is intact the vow is intact and it’s not a pretender trying to fool her.

Anastasia and Cassiopeia planned to bring John down by opening the tomb when the time was right and leaving her to Alecto’s (and the RB’S???) mercy. There is still a lot left to be explored.

The tomb is to remain closed until the time has come God has to die. We can all see how that can be misinterpreted to > if the tomb opens God will die. And instead of a promise to be fulfilled it becomes a terrible terrible thing, that will spell everyone’s doom.

The freaking skull of the ninth is a threat, a foreshadow and a promise. The Ninth was a house that should have died with Anastasia in the tomb. But it didn’t. It continued existing its bloodline unbroken for 10.000 years. Nine for the tomb and all that was lost. The Ninth is predominantly I feel a house of mourning – the whole nuns, all black, and skull makeup thing. But it is also a house of secrets. It is a house represented by the cure to even the tightest secret held. So the Ninth, the house that should never have been the house that should have died with its secrets in the tomb of its inception, is the one that will break the sewn tongue, and reveal all the secrets, bringing the truth to light.

#the locked tomb #tlt series #tlt spoilers #alecto the ninth #alecto tlt #john gaius #tlt #alecto the first #anastasia the first #nona the ninth spoilers #cassiopeia the first #anastasia the ninth #harrow the ninth #harrowhark nonagesimus #harrow nonagesimus #lyctorhood #tlt fandom #fan theory #nona the ninth #You know what I cannot unsee the skull thing #It is a bloody symbol #And its bloody brilliant #alecto theory #my girls planned Dios Apate MAJOR #love them #it's all going to hell

[mogitz]

I just saw an E/riel post that claimed (amongst a myriad of other wild claims) that Eluciens don't care about Elain because we want her to leave the Night Court and her sisters, etc. 1) Winnowing is a thing. No one is that far from one another in this place. If Elain can't winnow, luckily her MATE can. 2) Each and every single main character has broken away and created their own found family. Feyre with the Night Court, Nesta with the Valkaries. That doesn't mean Feyre and Nesta love each other any less, and just because the Valkaries and Night Court are still adjacent and in close proximity, means nothing. Nesta isn't off shopping with Mor and Feyre isn't off painting with Gwyn. They have separate lives still, and that's OKAY.

3) Each character has had to leave the environment they were in to grow. Feyre had to leave the Spring Court. Nesta had to leave her apartment in Velaris and start training at the house of wind. NEITHER were happy about those things at first. Even though Feyre was going to call off the wedding, she was pissed at Rhys for taking her away from the Spring Court at first. 4) Elain is a Seer, and Seers are rare, if not extinct. She will likely need to leave the Night Court at some point to learn her powers - likely the Day Court as that's where all the scholars are. I forget... who is the heir of the Day Court?

This post also claimed that we don't care about Elain because we ship her with Lucien who was "responsible" for what happened to her in Hybern.

No, no he wasn't. He just wasn't - stop lying. Ianthe was responsible for that, and Ianthe alone. Feyre trusted Ianthe with information she shouldn't have.

And even if he WAS (which, again, he wasn't), can you honestly tell me his actions have ever been malicious? Truly. The fact that people want to paint Lucien up as a villain is insane to me. Was he a dick on ACOTAR? Sure was. Is one of the best parts about this series a character's growth and change over time? Sure is. Each and every single character has made some bad calls at one point or another, and most get the grace of understanding (cough Nesta cough Rhys cough) but it's as though E/riels need to paint Lucien as this villain to justify their ship and it's gross. Just say you don't like him. Period.

Lastly, something that's been bothering me a lot, is the claims that Lucien doesn't like Elain or hasn't tried or --- whatever. Insert your weird take here. But the fact remains that males feel the mating bond more strongly and it likely physically affects Lucien being in the same room as someone he's that connected with, who won't even acknowledge him. And yet at the end of SF, he still looks at her with longing. The hope is not gone.

This ship will be explored. Saying it's as simple as "well they don't like each other, they will obviously reject the bond" is so dumb to me when we haven't even gotten an Elain POV, or a mini-Lucien POV since ACOWAR. Do you honestly think SJM is just gonna be like "they were mates but decided not to be, the end!" without any kind of storyline or discussion OR CONFRONTATION? Where is the logic here, I can't-

#elucien #elain x lucien #lucien vanserra #elain archeron #acotar #pro elucien #anti e/riel

[llovelyclouds]

notes on cassiopeia the first

here's all my notes on cassiopeia (my beloved) that i thought seemed relevant during my tlt reread!

(you can find the rest of my posts from this project here!)

CASSIOPEIA THE FIRST

titles:

Fourth saint to ascend, (??) gen, founded the sixth

notes from harrow the ninth:

Name origins, from the pronunciation guide at the end of htn: "NOTE: Cassiopeia's most famous namesake is the vain queen of Greek mythology who chained Andromeda to a rock, but this does Cassiopeia the First a disservice, as she was honestly just a universally beloved and clever human being who made beautiful meals with the occasional finger error. The evolutionary pressure of Lyctorhood has, alas, selected for jerks."

Came up with the magma metaphor for the river that John later uses (htn. pg. 94)

The only lyctor to last seven minutes in full physical submersion in the river (htn. pg. 97)

Died trying to lure an RB through the current of the river. It followed her, but the spirits killed her, and the RB emerged unscathed 20 mins later (htn. pg. 97)

Had a ceramics collection (htn. pg. 105)

Was able to perform necromancy her first time in the river (htn. pg. 156)

For some reason, the fact that Harrow was also capable of this was part of what gave John the idea that something was up with her birth… interesting!! What does this say about Cassiopeia?

Specialised in studying the river (htn. pg. 171)

Coined the term "periscoping" in regards to the RB's (htn. pg. 173)

Was great at cooking, but once cut off a finger that fell into the food and didn’t mention it until everyone had eaten it (htn. pg. 231)

was a lightweight lol (htn. pg. 268)

Died fighting the seventh RB, Varun (htn. pg. 333)

Brought the RB into the river alongside its brain (htn. pg. 337)

was the person to tell Mercy that blood wards can be bypassed with the genetic material of a close relative (htn. pg. 474)

notes from nona the ninth:

was originally brought on Johns team by oversight execs to handle contracts as their lawyer, but was "on their side before the first year was over" (ntn. pg. 13)

"C- was panicking because with the project over she was getting recalled to England and didn't want to go, she'd got N- and didn't want to leave her, refused to admit they were dating even though we all knew." - John 5:20 (ntn. pg. 73)

specifically worked in contract law (ntn. pg. 99)

when she found out about the cow wall they had to lock her in the kitchen so she could throw up in private for a while (ntn. pg. 192)

"C- kept saying, Pick one. Are we more invested in proving this new plan is bullshit, or in saving you? I was like, It's both, how can it not be both. C- was like, It can't be both. Pick one and stick to it. Decide what you give a fuck about." (ntn. pg. 280)

"'Does God know why the Sixth House left?' 'I'm assuming some grisly moral reason that you're about to impart,' said Ianthe, 'and I want to warn you against sounding like a tract.' [...] 'Cassiopeia the First left us instructions years ago,' said Camilla. 'We left for a lyctor.'" - Ianthe & Cam (ntn. pg. 335)

"Cassy played long games." - Pyrrha (ntn. pg. 336)

"C- had been saying, Can't we gin up an act of good wizardry? Any way to stabilize the North America glacier? Any way to trap the atmosphere over the Northern Territory, show them we can fix things here?" (ntn. pg. 397)

“C- admitting out of nowhere she’s dating N-. All of us like, What? We've known for a year? Go ahead and get married already, we've got a nun. N- was all, That’s not legal. C- of all people said, Who cares. That’s how bad it was. [...] C- and N- got married right over there, you can’t see it now ‘cause of the rubbish. I made flowers grow for them out of the garden, but they came out… weird. Some of the roses had teeth. C- and N- thought that was hilarious. [...] The dome meant we hadn’t had full sunlight in a while. It was beautiful anyway. I cried the whole service. I couldn't remember the last time I’d eaten food.” (ntn. pg. 400)

“At this point my people were like, John, what the fuck? What the fuck is happening? We were all yelling at each other. First time I’d ever seen C- angry.” (ntn. Pg. 401) 

 “C- said, John, your problem is that you care less about being a saviour than you do about meting out punishment. I said, C-, I was just your best man! C- said, You still are. That doesn’t change the fact that you can be quite the most appallingly vindictive person I have ever met.” (ntn. pg. 401)

“They’d shot C- first… and right in front of my eyes they shot N-. Bubble wrap. I don’t know what happened to them..” (ntn. Pg. 406)

“Cass and Mercy and I worked on cell thanergy- we need thanergy, fresh thanergy, to activate…” - Pyrrha (ntn. pg. 471)

#junos silly little locked tomb thoughts #tlt #the locked tomb #tlt meta #tlt analysis #gtn #htn #ntn #atn #ntn spoilers #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #alecto the ninth #cassiopeia #cassiopeia the first

[alectothinker]

the unwanted guest vs [redacted bc spoilers]

bc im insane about this story and its references

anyone getting jb priestly an inspector calls vibes from the unwanted guest ?? a couple things i noticed:

the stage play format + old timey rich family house setting (fireplace, butler/maid, calling card etc) is very similar to AIC 

from the play: "The dining room is of a fairly large suburban house, belonging to a prosperous manufacturer. It has a good solid furniture of the period. The general effect is a substantial and heavily comfortable but not cosy and homelike."

ianthe straight up calls pal "inspector" lol

pal questions ianthe indirectly to reveal her guilt about killing/exploiting babs (v like the inspector vs the birling family)

from sparknotes (lol): "Strangely, the Inspector does not ask questions about what they know about her death. His questions, instead, prompt each family member to struggle with and eventually face guilt for Eva/Daisy’s death." "The Inspector’s questioning unravels the mystery of how each family member has used social standing, influence, and power over others without personal consequence, devastating the young woman’s life." ^ vs pal calling out 3rd house heir and lyctor ianthe tridentarius for seeing+spending babs (who had been assigned cavalier status at birth) as a resource 

 Pal: "you never stop to check the price tag. You just pay whatever's asked, up front, and walk away."

vs AIC: "The play, as events unfold, suggests that an empowered class exploits the underclass without consideration of consequences for its exploitation."

consequence being that tern's whole life was fucked, and ianthe never considered that her own soul would be corrupted (in her pov) by babs'

Lastly, pal vs the moral of AIC: 

"The Birling family’s collective guilt conveys Priestley’s message that it is the social duty of every human being to examine the impact of any action on others and to care for and help them, without self-consideration."

vs everything that pal says in the story, +in ntn, paul still tries to help ianthe/babs: "There’s still time, Ianthe. Time for you, and for Naberius Tern.”

someone on tumblr has probably written this meta but to me TUG is pal (+tamsyn) laying out how systematically exploitative the necro/cav relationship can be (with ianthe helping out a lot lol). which imo aligns pretty closely with what priestly is trying to say with AIC, and also with dulcie's hamlet quote: ‘Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?’

also TUG feels like some sort of. idk awakening in pal? and therefore paul? cant wait to see them fuck shit up in new and interesting ways. ok thats all pls lmk if yall have thoughts!! i last read AIC in middle school for my GCSE's LOL

#leaning heavily on sparknotes here #the unwanted guest #the unwanted guest spoilers #the locked tomb #the locked tomb spoilers #ok spoilers in the tags stop reading now!!!!!! --> #also found it interesting that pal (the most morally principled representative of the most morally principled house) #got to interview ianthe (morals hater of the gaslight gatekeep girlboss house) #and induce an existential and moral crisis #that was bad enough to let him him take over the body for a while #and by interesting i also mean very funny #text

[mayasaura]

You see Gideon as wanting Paul-type synthesis with Harrow? I read her wanting Harrow to eat her as her desire to be useful and important to Harrow, not to totally merge with her.

She talks about blurring the edges between them, "like water spilt over ink outlines," and I read that as two people who are bound together inextricably but you can still make out the original outlines.

Nah, she just wants to be close as she can be to Harrow in any way she can be. She wants Harrow to eat her. She wants Harrow to fight her, to fight for her, to be near her. For Harrow not to be able to take a breath without her feeling it, and to know she can't breathe without Harrow feeling her. She wants Harrow to envelop her. She wants Harrow's attention, and she isn't particular how she gets it.

I wasn't distinguishing between Paul and other methods, because I don't know how much difference there's going to end up really being between them. All paths to speaking the Eightfold Word seem to lead to approximately the same place. Paul is a new person with Palamedes' eyes in Camilla's skin. Naberius Tern has left no body behind for Ianthe Naberius to find.

Gideon's craving for whatever Harrow will give her, Palamedes and Camilla's consummation, John's desperation for Alecto to take him and use him and make him her vessel, I kind of see it all as sort of. They want to go home. They all just want to go home.

#but they can't so crawling inside one another's skin and begging someone else to take the wheel is the next best thing #the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #tug spoilers

[lockedtombbrainworms]

OK so I'm not the first person to say this, but there is some pretty nasty racism involved in the way this fandom talks about Gideon the First, and if even I can fucking see it, as a white person who's on this site relatively intermittently, it's pretty intense.

Like, I know he repeatedly tries to murder Harrow, but like, this is the Everyone Is A Fucked Up Person book series. People are very happy to go "oh, I know Ianthe did war crimes, that's why I love her" (and believe me I'm 100% down with that), but you don't then get to turn round and point at one of the relatively few characters actually described as dark-skinned in the text and say "ew, nasty stinky bastard man, he sucks!" and make meta posts ascribing all sorts of malice to him as a character just because he occasionally ran a spear through Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

Look at the guy. He salutes Harrow with a cigarette after she tries to kill him (yes that's him, nobody notices his eyes changing like they would if it was Pyrrha), he got kissed by Commander Wake at some point and apparently just fucking leaned into the fact that the enemy commander was trying to tongue him. He argues with John about what he's been told to do with Harrow and then John tells Harrow that it's all happening because G1deon has promised something to someone, somewhere and even John can't talk him around. He sits at the table with the other lyctors and when John, Mercy and Augustine start unspooling their repression all over each other over fuck knows how many bottles of wine, he shares a look of something close to solidarity with Harrow before justifiably getting upset and leaving after Augustine brings up Pyrrha. The fandom should be all over him.

And yeah, he's a mess. But that's what the lyctors are. He's a ten-thousand-year-old necrosaint who's spent most of that time either alone or with other ten-thousand-year-old necrosaints. He's gonna have a slightly skewed view of death. He's probably seen other lyctors gore each other to fuck all the time. You can't straightforwardly apply our morality to his actions any more than you can to any of the other lyctors, that's kinda the whole point of them as characters. So why have I seen several posts about how him sticking a spear in Harrow from behind is some sort of metaphor for sexual assault when there is a canonical example of fucky consent stuff in the form of Dios Apate Major to discuss if you really want to bring up that sort of stuff in your analysis?

For fuck's sake he's not even the first person in HtN to stab Harrow (that's Ianthe, in the oath scene), or to try and kill her (that's... whoever it is on the Erebos, which is definitely not ol' G1d). I appreciate this is The Big Book Of Freaky Lesbians and that a lot of the fandom isn't especially interested in the dudes, but give the man a break - I don't see people acting this way about Augustine or Magnus or Naberius.

Rant over. Knock this shit off.

#tlt meta #the locked tomb #not posting in the tlt discourse tag even though I know there probably is one because that tag is gonna be full of all manner of horrors

[fourteentrout]

Acotar Hot Take Time (Again)

Rhys' whole "Everything I love has a tendency to be taken away from me" thing is often lauded as one of the most sentimental, empathetic lines from the book. rhys stans seem genuinely moved by it, even now that more books in the series have come out.

and I think...it's kind of bullshit?

not that people find the sentiment in it, you can like what you like, but the actual claim itself is bullshit.

rhys lost his mother, father, and sister, and I will not deny that it was tragic and traumatizing. by extension, he lost his close friend Tamlin because of his betrayal.

but like...what else? Now that he's been living in his Court after UTM and everyone has moved on from his Evil Guy schtick, tell me, what "everything" is he talking about? He protected velaris, which seems to be the only territory in the Night Court he really cares about. Even when it was attacked, he was able to renew it with seemingly no struggle. he has his entire original inner circle. this guy has like. 5 houses. his Court is intact and thriving (at least, the part of it he cares the most about).

Yes, he was separated from his family for 49 years, but he didn't LOSE them. they were there the whole time, they were there when he got back.

but like, it would be even more obvious if we had an example of someone in the series who ACTUALLY lost everything, right? with no one to compare his experiences to, maybe it really DOES seem like everything he loves has a tendency to be taken from him.

Oh wait. there is an example. Tamlin.

Tamlin lost the exact same things at the same time as Rhys: his immediate family, and his best friend.

But where rhys' loss kind of stagnated, Tamlin's continued once the curse was placed on his Court. His sentries, his friends, sacrificed themselves to help him, to the point where he literally had to stop them from going out because he was overwhelmed with the grief of losing his friends over and over for seemingly NO REASON (as they weren't getting anywhere with the curse. To him, they were giving up their lives for a lost cause.) and unlike with seemingly every member of the Night Court, these guys weren't magically coming back to life. By the time Feyre gets to Spring, the only close remaining friend Tamlin has is Lucien.

And guess what? he lost him, too! feyre left him, and she was valid in doing so, but she TORE HIS COURT APART in the process. she literally fucked with the minds of his new sentries to get them to not trust him, and to get him to not trust them. hell, she made it so he didn't trust the one friend he had left. he fought in the war and his court fell into disrepair because all of his guards LEFT. even after they fought by his side. that's how lasting feyre's impression on the Court was.

Spring was literally abandoned.

So like...let's compare. Rhys has: Cassian, his general and brother, Azriel, his spymaster and brother, Mor, his cousin and third, Amren, his second, Feyre, his mate, wife, and High Lady, Nyx, his son, and his City of Starlight.

He doesn't have: The illyrian and darkbringer troops that died in the war (though there's not much mention of them, save for the illyrians. both nations seem to be pretty removed from Rhys' mind as it is), his mother, his father, and his sister (all of which remain unnamed??? for some reason???), and Tamlin

Tamlin has: maybe some citizens left?? we don't really know. alis?? she went back to the summer court, if I remember correctly, but I could be wrong.

Tamlin doesn't have: Feyre (who, mind you, he already lost once before when he literally watched her die), Lucien (parted ways), Rhys (parted ways), Andras (deceased), all of the unnamed sentries that died during Amarantha's reign, his literal current, living guards (parted ways), his unnamed mother, father, and brothers (all deceased), any kind of love interest (nevermind a mate) (just straight up nonexistent), hell, he even lost Ianthe (deceased). she deserved it, but to him, for the longest time she was just his childhood friend that he TRUSTED. so first he lost her to her own treachery, and then she literally died, presumably without him ever being able to properly confront the fact that she wasn't who he'd thought before she was murdered. he lost troops in the war, and then he lost the living ones to the effects of feyre's destruction of their trust. by Silver Flames, he literally has NOTHING.

I don't know. just knowing all that and re-reading Rhys' line about getting the things he loves taken from him makes me...kind of think that SJM doesn't really know the meaning of having everything taken from someone. cause to me, it really looks like Rhys has...a LOT. like yes, he's experienced loss, but when you have someone like Tamlin, whose Court as far as we know is ABANDONED, it kind of negates the argument before it can even be made.

#acotar #a court of thorns and roses #acotar hot take #acotar rant #tamlin acotar #tamlin a court of thorns and roses #rhysand acotar #rhys acotar #rhys a court of thorns and roses #sjm critical #acotar critical #inner circle critical