with-my-murder-flute

[with-my-murder-flute]

I think a very important unwritten piece of locked tomb canon is that corona and ianthe are absolutely both writing home regularly to mummy throughout the entire series - not with any helpful plot points or anything, they just want pocket money. Their mother, hatefully running a planet that she also hates, has the knack of silently wiring pocket money in an incredibly nasty and hurtful way - despite not accompanying it with a note or anything - just a sort of careful psychic warfare involving timing, amounts of money, the transfer service, etc.

(Although at at one point she asks if one of them has Babs, or if he’s dead or what. Corona ghosts her and ianthe texts back “who”)

Anyway, breaking off your meeting with god or the rebels or whatever because mummy has just sent you $465.73 in THEE bitchiest possible way

#jesus christ elodie has entered the TLT chat #i'm jazzed #may abigail pent have mercy on our souls

[with-my-murder-flute]

birth of a saint

#holy shit #she WOULD #the locked tomb #ianthe tridentarius

[with-my-murder-flute]

Yes and I LOVE it. So much. I never imagined her so free and expressive, but I completely love her portrayal like that.

I hate you all. I have hated you for millennia…except you, my lord. I merely want to put you in a jail, and fill up the jail with acid once for every time you made a frivolous remark, or ate peanuts in a Cohort Admiralty meeting, or said, ‘What would I know, I’m only God.’ Then, at the end of a thousand years, you would say, ‘Mercy, I have learned not to do any of these things, because I hated the acid you put on me.’ And I would say, ‘That is why I did it, Lord. I did it for you, and for your empire.’ I often think about this.

[with-my-murder-flute]

There's a bit of ambiguity about C—. A lot of people read it and think C— is Cristabel, but I think things match up more if it's Cassiopeia.

The Nun: M—'s best friend. Extremely Catholic. Makes some bizarre choices. Theoretically possesses an ounce of human kindness

C—: Lawyer/solicitor from England, contract specialist, marries N—, somewhat critical of Jod's methods

Cristabel: Mercymorn's cavalier. A "sickening twerp." Founder of a House based around extreme religious legalism and a bank-balance approach to sin and forgiveness

Cassiopeia: Nigella's necromancer. Founder of a House based around accumulating and analyzing knowledge and evidence. Built a "break clause" into the House's founding agreement with the Emperor that lets them secede from the Nine Houses if there's enough evidence of, it looks like, deception or moral turpitude on the Emperor's behalf

Soooo yeah! That's why I think that

In other news:

It would be amazing if C—'s original name was Cassandra, right? Like, nothing would ever be so appropriate

I have that theory about Jod basically having lobotomized Cristabel when he resurrected her, possibly because he had trouble putting her soul back in right, or because he wanted her especially not to remember what came before.

And like, M— was already a doctor before the Resurrection. But there's something horrible and sad about her, the doctor, a) not receiving Jod's magical healing powers before, but getting his necromancy after, and b) possibly getting this friend she can't precisely remember but who Came Back Wrong, came back completely willing to be a live test subject ("only Cris didn’t mind being trepanned on the regular") and to sacrifice herself, and convince others to sacrifice theirs, for lyctorhood.

And Mercymorn is the person whose skills most approach the ability to figure out that was wrong with Cris's brain and fix things. But before she became a Lyctor, she just didn't have the power or experience. Her greatest ability was being able to push Cris's soul out of her body, and using the empty space to siphon energy to fuel the work (which Jod actually got off his ass to condemn, for once). And like being blamed for "daddy issues" when there was a whole dad whose fuckups are the actual problem, it's Mercy who's unlovable, critical, and unforgiving. And in her past she was stuck in a deeply terrible position and had none of the right tools to fix it.

re: M—'s nun BEING CRISTABEL: HOW DID I NOT CLOCK THIS POSSIBILITY. WHAT THE HELL. I GOTTA GO READ NONA AGAIN. I KNOW IT WAS POSSIBLY DELIBERATE BUT WTF;

OH um! yeah! I had essentially assumed that Jod was censoring out the full names but that M-- was Mercymorn (or whatever her name was before he reset reality and dragged her soul back to his keeping), A-- was Augustine, P-- was Pyrrha, and so forth--all the initials match up very, very, neatly, and so do the dynamics as described (e.g. all pronouns, all lyctor/cavalier combinations, all references to interpersonal dynamics as e.g. with Mercymorn and Augustine). @with-my-murder-flute thoughts?

#the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #the locked tomb spoilers #mercymorn the first #cristabel oct

[with-my-murder-flute]

I hate you all. I have hated you for millennia…except you, my lord. I merely want to put you in a jail, and fill up the jail with acid once for every time you made a frivolous remark, or ate peanuts in a Cohort Admiralty meeting, or said, ‘What would I know, I’m only God.’ Then, at the end of a thousand years, you would say, ‘Mercy, I have learned not to do any of these things, because I hated the acid you put on me.’ And I would say, ‘That is why I did it, Lord. I did it for you, and for your empire.’ I often think about this.

#this is THE monologue of all time #would pay money to see a cosplayer deliver it

[with-my-murder-flute]

Cristabel and the proverbial sandwich

(Spoilers for Harrow and Nona the Ninth)

I have not known inner peace since I saw someone say, "But come on, does anyone ACTUALLY buy John's story about how the nun died?"

Because honestly, I'd just kind of gone, "Super random, very weird interaction, boy there sure are cult mindworms at play here," and moved on to the next page.

But as soon as I saw that question asked, the amount I did not buy that story hit me like a load of bricks, to the point I'm kind of amazed that I ever did believe it.

Two people. A locked door. A nuclear standoff. A close-range head injury.

On one side, a full-fledged Catholic nun—well done, that’s the classic—who's best friends with a staunchly atheist world-class scientist and believes, if we're to believe John, that Jesus's problem is that he didn't stick to office hours.

On the other, a woman described as, "A total delight. Effervescent. Kind to animals and children. A master of the sword. Did not have the intellect you’d ordinarily find in a sandwich or an orange, and was a sickening twerp into the bargain."

Oh, and in the middle, there's also a necromancer who wants to bring back his friends... minus any little details about things he they might have done wrong. He "knows where memory lives in the brain", and they "won't have any of it." And "guys as careful as me don't make mistakes," but then again, all that means is that if he kills someone, he did it on purpose.

C— talks her way into a locked room with John, who's on the phone threatening some world leaders with a nuke, expresses care and concern for him, and then... decides he needs more data on the soul? And kills herself to provide that for him?

I'll be honest, I just don't believe that John was an ordinary guy, totally normal, could be any of us, and he just got put in a really stressful situation and made some bad choices but who HASN'T done things they aren't proud of??? I reject that point of view completely. Like, Elon Musk in any given interaction probably is really stressed out and unhappy and having trouble responding in a way that's at all well-considered or emotionally mature, but that doesn't mean that Musk isn't also, at baseline, a deeply stupid, petty, immature, grandiose, entitled, egocentric person. No matter what situation you put him in, he's going to keep on being those things.

I think that John's initial idea was to put the entire human population of Earth, minus some necessary staff, into some giant cryonic freezers, and give the Earth some amount of time to rest and recover from the effects of human-caused pollution. A plan about which I will confess some hesitation myself; being told "just lie down in this coffin, bro, you'll only be a little dead, I'll totally bring you back to life* in a couple centuries (*98% effective!) " does not fill me with an enthusiasm to hop on board.

And then his project got cut. And he decided, "Well, if they won't agree, I can just make them agree." After all, all that end game needs is 10 billion frozen corpses hanging out in those tin cans, and a small team of staff left to keep the place running. How it gets there is something he can afford to be flexible about. If people won't climb in on their own, he can put them there.

So when C— or the nun tell him to stop focusing on revenge, to bend all his energies to saving the world, I think he thinks: Well, I am. He's gonna wash the earth clean at the end of this! He just needs to be able to set the dominoes in motion. He just needs to engineer a situation that will justify taking his nuke out of the vault and making the pieces fall.

A situation that would be sabotaged, ruined, if anyone made a true deep sincere good-faith effort to talk him out of Plan Nuke and called the legitimacy of this crisis into any sort of question. He needs to prevent that from happening.

Actually. Also. He needs one more thing than that.

He needs an excuse to use the nuke, but also, he's finishing his homework at the very last minute. He still hasn't mastered the soul. He does need a few more test subjects.

Maybe he let her in and thought: Two birds with one stone, eh?

#mmmmmmmhm #the locked tomb #the locked tomb spoilers #ntn spoilers

[with-my-murder-flute]

Cristabel and the proverbial sandwich

(Spoilers for Harrow and Nona the Ninth)

I have not known inner peace since I saw someone say, "But come on, does anyone ACTUALLY buy John's story about how the nun died?"

Because honestly, I'd just kind of gone, "Super random, very weird interaction, boy there sure are cult mindworms at play here," and moved on to the next page.

But as soon as I saw that question asked, the amount I did not buy that story hit me like a load of bricks, to the point I'm kind of amazed that I ever did believe it.

Two people. A locked door. A nuclear standoff. A close-range head injury.

On one side, a full-fledged Catholic nun—well done, that’s the classic—who's best friends with a staunchly atheist world-class scientist and believes, if we're to believe John, that Jesus's problem is that he didn't stick to office hours.

On the other, a woman described as, "A total delight. Effervescent. Kind to animals and children. A master of the sword. Did not have the intellect you’d ordinarily find in a sandwich or an orange, and was a sickening twerp into the bargain."

Oh, and in the middle, there's also a necromancer who wants to bring back his friends... minus any little details about things he they might have done wrong. He "knows where memory lives in the brain", and they "won't have any of it." And "guys as careful as me don't make mistakes," but then again, all that means is that if he kills someone, he did it on purpose.

C— talks her way into a locked room with John, who's on the phone threatening some world leaders with a nuke, expresses care and concern for him, and then... decides he needs more data on the soul? And kills herself to provide that for him?

I'll be honest, I just don't believe that John was an ordinary guy, totally normal, could be any of us, and he just got put in a really stressful situation and made some bad choices but who HASN'T done things they aren't proud of??? I reject that point of view completely. Like, Elon Musk in any given interaction probably is really stressed out and unhappy and having trouble responding in a way that's at all well-considered or emotionally mature, but that doesn't mean that Musk isn't also, at baseline, a deeply stupid, petty, immature, grandiose, entitled, egocentric person. No matter what situation you put him in, he's going to keep on being those things.

I think that John's initial idea was to put the entire human population of Earth, minus some necessary staff, into some giant cryonic freezers, and give the Earth some amount of time to rest and recover from the effects of human-caused pollution. A plan about which I will confess some hesitation myself; being told "just lie down in this coffin, bro, you'll only be a little dead, I'll totally bring you back to life* in a couple centuries (*98% effective!) " does not fill me with an enthusiasm to hop on board.

And then his project got cut. And he decided, "Well, if they won't agree, I can just make them agree." After all, all that end game needs is 10 billion frozen corpses hanging out in those tin cans, and a small team of staff left to keep the place running. How it gets there is something he can afford to be flexible about. If people won't climb in on their own, he can put them there.

So when C— or the nun tell him to stop focusing on revenge, to bend all his energies to saving the world, I think he thinks: Well, I am. He's gonna wash the earth clean at the end of this! He just needs to be able to set the dominoes in motion. He just needs to engineer a situation that will justify taking his nuke out of the vault and making the pieces fall.

A situation that would be sabotaged, ruined, if anyone made a true deep sincere good-faith effort to talk him out of Plan Nuke and called the legitimacy of this crisis into any sort of question. He needs to prevent that from happening.

Actually. Also. He needs one more thing than that.

He needs an excuse to use the nuke, but also, he's finishing his homework at the very last minute. He still hasn't mastered the soul. He does need a few more test subjects.

Maybe he let her in and thought: Two birds with one stone, eh?

#lis's tlt theories #the locked tomb #the locked tomb spoilers #ntn spoilers #htn spoilers #cristabel oct #john gaius must die

[with-my-murder-flute]

Me: Okay, brain! You only wanna hyperfixate and read the same books over and over? I can work with that!

My brain: oh MERDE

#yes it is SEVERAL years above my ability level #I literally got the paperback so I could read along and underline words I don't know #because the french audiobook is TOUGH

[with-my-murder-flute]

Rejoice, for onto the world a child was born.

Baby Gesus, only daughter of Jod, the most special girl in the universe

#GESUS #the natural name for the child of Jod I suppose #the locked tomb #the locked tomb spoilers

[with-my-murder-flute]

Semantic Error — Episode 7 (Viki)

#this was delightful #semantic error

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#did this with a friend lately #the locked tomb

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@thehaberdasheress I FINISHED IT AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH I'VE BEEN SCREAMING INTERNALLY SINCE IT CAME OUT OF THE DRYER THANK YOU SO MUCH

I have learned nothing and started my second pattern.

#😍

[with-my-murder-flute]

*sits down to write a smut fic* The plot of this smut fic is that Character A believes himself abandoned by God.

#applicable to a surprisingly large number of fandoms

[with-my-murder-flute]

the thing about team 69 is that griddlehark is about exactly as insane as you'd expect given their circumstances, which only serves to make cam and pal even funnier. they don't have any fucking excuse, they had an entire society around them, why are they that bad? why is their closest parallel for unhinged devotion and codependency the two repressed teenage lesbians who were the only children on their entire fucking planet? like team 69 works because each pair looked at the other and very incorrectly went "finally, some normal fucking people" but cam and pal did that to themselves on purpose where gideon and harrow were basically forced into that absolute disaster of a situationship. it's great

#the locked tomb

[with-my-murder-flute]

i really like outsider POV, but the thing is, it fundamentally works better when whatever is going on with the characters in question is so fucking weird that no reasonable outsider could ever discern it

like, the ideal outsider POV should have at least some element of 'what the fuck is wrong with these people'.

#the locked tomb

[with-my-murder-flute]

I am constantly thinking about a review of Harrow the Ninth where the reviewer disliked a lot about the book but specifically complained how it wasn’t sci-fi-y enough for something set 10,000 years in the future. He complained it was unrealistic they were eating ginger biscuits and smoking cigarettes and I’m like … THAT’S INTENTIONAL! IT’S THEMATICALLY SIGNIFICANT!! TAMSYN MUIR IS MAKING A POINT ABOUT HOW CLINGING TO A GLORIFIED PAST WILL DESTROY YOU!!

John Gaius tells us (well, Harrow) in Nona the Ninth that he always hated change, but even in Harrow the Ninth it’s clear—he and his lyctors are stagnating and have been for millennia. They’re constantly talking about how great things used to be (sexy parties, Cassiopeia’s cooking, etc.). They have no hope for the future. John has a spaceship full of bodies in cryosleep—literally frozen in time and undying but also unable to grow or live. He is the Emperor Undying.

The theme becomes more explicit in Nona the Ninth: we see John (and arguably BOE) stuck on this 10,000-year-old grudge and unable to move past it. He thought he could keep Alecto in stasis in a tomb what, forever? He makes Gideon into a non-living preserved version of herself.

Meanwhile the characters who are living and growing are changing, even when it’s sometimes awful, because it’s how they keep doing what needs to be done. Palamedes and Camilla say before they become Paul that it wasn’t inevitable, but it is the best thing they can do now: they will make this imperfect irreversible change because that’s how they keep living and protecting the people they love. On the trip to the Ninth, Nona considers it might be better to just die, instead of continue this uncertain journey forward, but ultimately accepts irrevocable, painful change because NOODLE. And because “You can’t take loved away”: change doesn’t destroy the past or invalidate the good that existed there. Living requires change, but change doesn’t require forgetting.

Anyway, thank you to that reviewer who was so annoyed by the ginger biscuits in Harrow the Ninth that he illuminated a major theme in the series for me.

#the locked tomb

[with-my-murder-flute]

I'm going crazy thinking about Pyrrha and Gideon and the permeability of souls. Bc what first tipped Palamedes off was a habit that he, the intrusive soul, picked up from Ianthe, the host. The osmosis doesn't just go one way. While Pyrrha's soul bled into Gideon, he was seeping into her, too.

Gideon wasn't an attack dog in John's recollection. He was steadfast and devoted, but he was an engineer moonlighting as a grill dad. Reminding John to put airholes in his bovine forcefield, then firing up the barbie to make sure everyone got fed. It was Pyrrha who carried a gun and wanted to hit back hard and fast. Pyrrha who advocated for a show of force.

How much of the Saint of Duty's bloody minded perseverence did Gideon get from Pyrrha, and how much was originally his? Would the Pyrrha of ten thousand years ago have stood at a stove on the eve of an apocalypse flipping pikelets for the kiddie, or is that something she picked up from Gideon?

#oooooooooh #pyrrha dve #the locked tomb #the unwanted guest