#i'm having fun decoding the secret message in the title

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - John 15:23

the imagery of the numbered days, specifically three days, seems very biblical to me, and John’s discovery of necromancy and eventual resurrection of the Nine Houses seems to tie in a lot to how the Gospel of John features the resurrection of Lazarus, and Jesus’s death & resurrection. i also find it very interesting that it was A— who was the first to believe him apparently 

and his eyes have now changed to that yellow colour that will eventually be Alecto’s. characters really weren’t just being dramatic when they said Gideon or Alecto’s eyes were golden, they really are some weird unearthly shade. 

listen objectively I knew that this is set sometime in our (present-day) future, but C— describing Twilight as an old movie is something else

and he and the narrator (Harrow? Alecto? Halecto??) are hiking through some kind of destruction, cars and other man-made objects being submerged in water, presumably caused by the apocalypse. where exactly are they headed hmm

poor C—, some random lawyer whose ended up getting involved in all these crazy scientists weird experiments on non-rotting dead bodies

‘I only wanted to be with my bodies’ haha John what the fuck

ooh and the way John describes these newfound powers and having heightened senses of sound and people and animals is very similar to the way Harrow experienced Lyctorhood, being able to sense everyone on the Erebos’s hearts. i also find it intriguing that the other similarity to gaining Lyctorhood here is the previously mentioned eye colour change … not entirely certain what it could mean, its not exactly the same as they haven’t changed colours completely. but there has definitely been some kind of change to his soul 

okay, Ulysses and Titania were the later names of some of the other Lyctors - I’m guessing John renamed everyone after the Resurrection, and just kept those? also he named Ulysses after a dog? poor Ulysses. also also apparently dogs are a running theme in this book as well??

and oh shit he finally has properly discovered necromancy. not just the ability to preserve dead bodies, but to puppet them around, just like Harrow later does with her parents. also John is very casual about it here, but the imagery of him just uncontrollably laughing while remotely moving around dead bodies is … disturbing. no wonder M— threw up. 

And so far the coded message reads: ‘THE/TOW’. i suppose it could be ‘the to [word beginning with w]’ but i don’t think that would make much grammatical sense? unless its something very abstract

[riacte]

Unconventional format / mixed media / meta / epistolary fic ideas:

Script format but the characters slowly break fourth wall until they grow self aware and scream to leave but the script confines them.

Mock up notes of an author's fic outline only for a "fan favourite" / "author's darling" character to gain sentience and influence the story. The character changes the outline to suit their own agenda, and their changes are marked with a different colour whereas black text means it's the author's will. Maybe another character using another colour gains sentience. The different colours fight for dominance. Mom says it's my turn with the keyboard hey what the fuck man excuse me I'm literally trying to save my family can you guys let go and let me write your character arcs in peace OH FUCK OFF

Recipe fic. The story is told via those unnecessarily long backstories on a recipe blog in which you learn about someone's grandma or a breakup or literally anything. Bonus points if the actual recipe deals with worldbuilding (what ingredients are available? What utensils are used? How to serve this meal? Woohoo Dungeon Meshi) or in-cheek recipes (eg. "Recipe for making up with your estranged mother - Step 1: Mix patience, nostalgia, and filial piety and let it marinate for ten years. Step 2: Throw that shit into the trash because you're better than that")

Travel fic. A character is lost and trying to find their way somewhere. GPS directions, googling "x place to x place", tickets and dates, train station maps, leaflets. It gets weirder and weirder. You never get closer to your destination. You're walking around in circles. It's always 10 meters away. Where are you going and where have you been?

Receipts. Try to infer what a character is doing judging from the weird things they buy together. Also yipppee inflation tracker. On the other side, maybe it can be about a cashier/ shop owner getting to know their customers and what they order.

Written from the pov of an non-native English speaker, all the English words are italicized whereas their native tongue are the only words not italicized. Inspired by Kupu rere kē by Alice Te Punga Somerville. This is because I got salty about people from Ao3 Reddit saying they won't read a fic in all italics.

Murder mystery / "Among Us" style impersonation fic strictly using the chatfic format. Characters and readers will have to figure out which character has been killed and replaced from the way they text and use emojis. This is also because I got salty about Ao3 Reddit being a wee bit pretentious about emoji usage in fics. Maybe emojis can be important plot devices! Some people prefer to sign off messages with a heart emoji of their signature colour, so won't it be weird if they use another coloured heart? How about someone using lapslock suddenly using proper capitalisation and full stops? Can you tell if someone's phone has been stolen? What if someone's mother is pretending to text like their child? Why is someone suddenly only using UwU speak? Is it a bit, or have they been replaced?

Innocuous second person POV until the last line where it's suddenly revealed to be first person POV all along and the "I" has been stalking and narrating "you".

Other fun bits / Easter eggs / secrets to hide:

Decoding within the text itself. Maybe we get given instructions to find a word in x chapter on page y on the nth line. And when we as readers collect all the words, they form a sentence that spells out an important fact which the characters are oblivious to. Or maybe the in-universe characters find a book with the same title as the irl fic with a bookmark in it, and if you go to where the bookmark is stuck irl, you'll find the murderer plainly stated. The rest of the fic is about the readers having hard confirmation of who the murderer is while characters don't know.

A phrase is subtly repeated throughout the text of the fic and is spelled out with the letter that begins a sentence. It gives off the effect that the narrator is screaming and crying into the void (to the readers in the fourth wall) while trying to avoid detection. Bonus points if the same word is repeated for pages and pages to the point the lack of sentence variation feels weird and clunky.

Morse code!! I love morse code! Using onomatopoeia to convey the dots and dashes! The sound of rain pattering on the tin rooftop— drop, drop, drop. A low whistle of a train rumbling in the distance. He slowly sharpens his knife, creating a shiiing sound. A lengthy, high pitched squeal from his kettle. A dog barks. A sharp knock. His heart thumps. Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. SOS. Maybe a character's death scene spells out the name of their mysterious murderer. Maybe a character is reminiscing their deceased loved one and the scene spells out what the deceased person would've wanted to tell them— "LIVE ON" or "I LOVE YOU" or something.