#without atn

[beguilingcorpse]

alright that's it. i'm pushing my sexy colum asht agenda. YES he's missing at least one finger on his left hand. YES he's weathered and beaten and leathery. YES he looks jaundiced. YES his hair color and his skin color are strikingly similar. so maybe he isn't showing up with bishie sparkles like babs and maybe he doesn't have charming fatherly qualities like magnus and maybe he doesn't have a particularly pretty feature like pal. maybe he is in fact a little uncomfortable to look at. maybe that too is hot. god forbid a fucked up manbattery in his early thirties be sexy

[summergoodwife]

Thinking about how our current understanding is that Pyrrha and John are the last ones around who know Alecto from before.

And I keep wondering: what would Mercy and Augustine be feeling now if they had survived? What would Cytherea be feeling? How would they interact with her? They hated her so much, we know at least that Mercy and Augustine were the two who pushed hardest for her entombment, but 10,000 years have passed, and as hard as they all try to pretend that radical emotion renewal begins at the point of soul absorption, they have changed. Cytherea seemed to imply that she was planning to wake Alecto using Gideon. Sure, it seems that was about using her rather than becoming her friend.

But just how much can someone use Alecto before coming to the inevitable conclusion that her rage is justified? That she isn't a monster, or that her monstrosity doesn't make her lesser than humans? I feel like this is what soul permeability, as described in "The Unwanted Guest," was about. You can't choose to be unaffected by someone. To a very real extent, you can't choose how they affect you.

Maybe God's lyctors would find themselves, 10,000 years later, much closer to the monster than to the man. Who knows if this would breed forgiveness, further hatred, or something else entirely?

[harrows-soup-kitchen]

I think about Harrow and Crux a lot actually and I need to talk about it a little bit or I might scream. because like- Crux sucks right?? we all agree on this, he is an awful, wretched old man who was abjectly abusive to one of two little girls left in his care after the deaths of their primary care takers.

but then his relationship with Harrow in specific makes me insane bc he loved that girl SO MUCH. that was his daughter!!!! maybe even more so than she was Priamhark and Pelleamena’s she was his!!!

and HE KNEW just like they did exactly what had to be done to create her, he watched her grow up reviled by her parents and he looked at that little girl and just… loved her? no questions asked, no morality hang ups, she was worth every sin committed to get her.

because that’s the thing about Crux i think for me, the moment he conceived of Harrow’s existence she was what he was loyal to, not the ninth or the reverend parents or even god just his kid; the rest of the ninth loved Harrow because she was The Reverend Daughter, Crux loved Harrow because she was Harrow. and because she was Harrow she was literally more important than anyone else.

and what does that do to a person? because I can guarantee right now that it was not good for either of them, like at all. Harrow was traumatised, fundamentally hubristic and a literal actual child, with a very confused moral compass, who by age ten had become fully complicit in the abuse of the only other child she had ever met!!! she did not need yet another grown adult enabling her to become worse!!

not to mention that he did abuse his position as the final arbiter of her reality to lie to her on more than one occasion, including but not limited to that one time he deadass killed two whole people for going even slightly against his special little lady (not to mention the several times he seemingly tried to kill Gideon without Harrow noticing)

an idea I see thrown around a lot when discussing the potential kiriona-John dynamic that I think works really well and is also interesting when applied to Harrow and Crux, albeit in a slightly different way is : what if your dad was the worst man in the universe and also literally the only person who really wanted you? how do you contend with that?

ALSO the fact that in Nona we find out that half his grudge with Gideon is that she didn’t die for Harrow!! her parents fear it but Crux is BITTER about it!! he’s so angry that she, in his eyes, has been failing to do right by Harrow her entire life because she could never die right!!

anyway, all this to say I can’t wait to see Harrow try to navigate her grief over Crux’s death in AtN while contending with the fact that he was fundamentally complicit in her continued abuse of Gideon for years and years, which ultimately led to gideons degradation of self and set the groundwork for her sacrificial suicide.

not to mention yet another person she desperately loved dying in a way that is unquestionably in service of her continued existence, unasked for and without giving her a snowflakes chance in hell of saying goodbye. again.

[linkspooky]

PITY VS. EMPATHY

Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 265 quickly surpassed Gojo's death chapter as my favorite chapter in the entire manga. It's a high point in both Yuji's character development and the Sukuna fight, a notion most of the fandom agrees with. That being said, it's once again time for me to take a stance contrary to most of the fandom opinion. I was going to make this post two weeks ago but I'm glad I waited, because this week's chapter helps me illustrate my point in the contrasting way Yuji treats Sukuna and Megumi.

As you can probably tell by the title, my hot take of the week is that what Yuji is showing Sukuna isn't true empathy. It's not atn attempt to understand Sukuna's worldview, but rather condescending pity from a place looking down on Sukuna, which is why it infuriates him so much. This is illustrated in Yuji's atual actions this chapter, which is to go at great length to show memories from his past to make Sukuna understand HIM and not the other way around.

Whereas, what Yuji shows Megumi is compassion, because he's not telling Megumi what to feel or imposing his own views on him but rather accepting the fact that Megumi might be suffering too much to keep living on.

I'll explain more under the cut:

Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy

Yuji is, not as far along in his character development as he might seem. I don't want to undervalue his growth, this chapter shows definite progress, and I understand why it would seem that this is the completion of his arc of being a cog in society because he straight up says people don't need roles, and it seems like the manga is quickly coming to a close.

However, sometimes characters words don't exactly match their actions. Sometimes characters aren't self aware. People often call characters multi-layered and complex, but what does that mean exactly? For me, a mutli-layered character is the embodiment of "people are never what they appear to be."

A story has multiple layers when you're not supposed to take everything the author says at face value. Every time you read a story, whether you are aware of it or not you engage in some level of personal interpretation. You're not supposed to automatically accept everything the author feeds you without question. Therefore characters are not exactly what they are stated to be, and good character writing allows room for interpretation for what is going on in a character's head beneath the surface.

In a jungian sense this would be the ice berg model of consciousness. There's the persona, or the ego, which is what the person presents to the world and the people around them. Their own-self conceived image. Then there's the part of the ice berg that submerged, which accounts for all of their internal mechanisms and facets of their personality they aren't aware of. This could range from anything to like, how trauma can affect people's actions without them realizing it, things they are in denial of and don't want to admit to themselves or just like someone who's bossy but not self-aware about that trait until someone else points it out for them.

Everyone's have that friend who you try to call them out on their bad behavior, but no matter how hard you try they just won't admit it. That alone illustrates there's a difference between self-perception, how we view ourselves, behavior - how we actually interact with the world, and pther people's perception of us. Somewhere in between these multiple points of view there exists a vague outline of a person, and personality, whatever "personality" means exactly.

To step away from Jung, in a character writing sense this means a good character's motivations, personality, and actions can be viewed from multiple angles. There is conflict between how Yuji views himself, his actual actions in the story, how other characters might view him, and how he's framed in the story. The first two, Yuji's self-assigned roles, and what his actual actions amount to is a conflict that's run over the entire story.

It starts from chapter three, where Yuji's answer for why he wants to become a sorcerer is that he wants to fulfill his grandfather's dying wish, and Yaga immediately says "Is that what you really believe, or are you just using your grandfather as an excuse?" The story shows us Yaga was right to point out the discord between Yuji's stated motivation and his actual desires because Yuji changes his answer.

This stated motivation, "To do something that only I can do", or have a role as another way of putting it is Yuji's central motivation for most of the manga. Of course as I said people have multiple layers, so he can also have multiple motivations. Yuji's desire to have a good death, him wanting to be surrounded by people when he dies, his belief that fulfilling his role as a sorcerer will save other people from curses, all of these things are equally true but that one desire to have a role to play in the grand scheme of things is at the center of it.

The role Yuji has chosen is to kill curses so people can have more natural deaths, and also to stop more victims of curses from piling up. He's also resolved from the start to die with Sukuna in his body, to also spare victims of curses Sukuna might attract, and also kill Sukuna for good.

Even these stated motions are challenged right away, and then again continually through the comic.

I'm not going to go over Yuji's entire arc here, but the fact that Yuji is someone constantly interrogated for his motivations and even punished in story for his altruism is a constant pattern in his character arc.

It extends deeper than just the fact that Yuji is a selfless person in a world where selfish people like Mei Mei, and Sukuna get ahead while people like Nanami die young. A world where it is in your best interest to stick out your neck for others.

For me a lot of the harsh consequences Yuji's conflict in the story also centers around the fact that he can never live up to the role that he has assigned himself. Not only is Yuji mistaken in his perception of himself, but the fandom in general is as well, because most people tend to take Yuji's stated desire to guide people to good deaths and save them at face value.

For example, people were excited to point out the Guanyin symbolism directly referenced this chapter, and also the significance of the seal for Yuji's domain.

There is much speculation, but it seems certain that this hand sign is an invocation of Ksitigarbha, a revered bodhisattva in East Asian Buddhism. Ksitigarbha is also known as Jizo Bodhisattva in Japan. His name can be translated as Earth Womb, Earth Matrix, and Earth Store. These translations evoke the image of a vessel, which seems relevant to Yuji's role as Sukuna's vessel.

While I agree the symbolism is well suited for Yuji's goals, someone who wished to guide people to a more peaceful death, and also the way Yuji opposes Sukuna right now determined to kill him who lingers in this world as a parasite for a thousand years finally back to the cycle of reincarnation. It even alligns with his desire to try and make Sukuna understand the value in one individual's life by showing him his memories. In that way Yuji is fitting the role of someone guiding others to enlightenment.

However, Yuji is not a bodhivista in the end. He is a normal teenage boy. In fact this is the crux of Yuji's character to me, he is a good kid, but he's not as good as he thinks he is. If anything this is what this chapter goes to great length to demonstrate, that Yuji despite being a science experiment to create the perfect vessel for Sukuna for Kenjaku's 1,000 year plan, had a normal childhood. All of the things Yuji says in this chapter are for the most parts the musing of a normal kid his age.

This isn't me criticizing Yuji. I'm just trying to state the message I believe Gege is getting across in this chapter. It's similiar to the conclusion Yuji himself comes to, the conclusion that the value in life lies in the memories you make on a day to day basis, even if you're not living a life full of adventure.

Yuji's conflict is that he pursues the role of a bodhisvatta, and he holds himself to the standard too of someone who exists to be a sorcerer because by doing his job as a sorcerer people will get saved as a result. However, Yuji as a person will always fall short of this ideal, because ideals by the nature of them being IDEAL and therefore not compatible with reality.

To use an example for another media, it doesn't matter how hard Shirou Emiya strives to save others, or how selfless he tries to be, he will always fall short because the ideal of saving absolutely everyone is impossible. However, in most versions of Fate's story Shirou absolutely refuses to compromise on this and in the future, Shirou will continue to strive towards the ideal of saving everyone until his inability to achieve that ideal and the number of people he's failed to save eventually breaks him.

So Yuji may genuinely hold onto an unbreakable ideal, but is his inability to let go of that ideal necessarily a good thing? His ideal might break but what about Yuji as a person? Yuji will in the end always fall short of that ideal because of his humanity, especially since Yuji is the most human character in the story and practically the only one with a normal background.

There's also as I stated above Yuji might not be aware himself of the ways he falls short of his ideal, because he has a flawed self perception. Yuji is getting closer with his revelation in this chapter of looking at reality instead of trying to have a role like a character in the story, but that doesn't mean he's finished (since the story's not finished) or he's become a fully realized character.

One of my favorite quotes from my favorite Yuji video helps describe the point I'm getting at with Yuji's lack of self awareness and the way he sometimes falls short of the savior he sees himself as.

By assigning himself the role as heroes, and the other characters as victims to be saved Yuji sort of condescends to the people he endeavors to save. I describe this as condescending because this way he doesn't see the people he saves as fully fleshed out human beings who are separate individuals from himself.

Yuji is alligned with Higuruma of all people, someone who shares Yuji's savior complex and becomes disillusioned because the people he decided of his own free will to protect as a defense attorney are not perfect victims.

Someone who becomes disillusioned when looking at flaws in other people, and also cannot deal with his own guilt when he too, becomes like the crimminals he once defended after becoming a murderer.

In fact Yuji sees himself in Higuruma's inability to live with his guilt, and only being able to see himself atoning with his death. Yet, despite Yuji seeing himself Yuji also seems uneasy with Higuruma being unable to see one other way forward in life.

Also, remember that Higuruma is a defense attorney. The whole point is he's supposed to defend crimminals even if he knows they did the crime and try to get them off their sentence and win the trial. Therefore at this moment Higuruma has failed to live up to his ideal.

There's another character Yuji is paralleled to constantly, who also shares Yuji's symbolism of being associated with a divine, and benevolent figure.

Geto's ears, his dressing as a monk in a Gojo-gesa, this official art all connect Geto to be Budha and yet it's quite obvious that Geto has failed entirely to live up to his role as the budha.

There's so much symbolism aligning Geto as a divine figure bringing salvation to others, and this corresponds to his original ideal as a sorcerer who belived that sorcerers had an obligation to use their powers to protect others, because in a just society the strong protect the weak.

Geto is an outsider who wasn't born into the Jujutsu World who entered in with an attitude different from most sorcerers by trying to become a sorcerer for altruistic reasons. However, Geto, like Higuruma grows disillusioned when he's confronted with the fact that the people he wants to save are flawed.

However, Geto's ideal was mistaken to begin with because much like Yuji, by distinctly separating people into the weak and the strong, he's separating them into two categories where the former is inherently inferior to the latter. Other people existed to be saved by Geto. He couldn't cope with the fact that the people he wanted to save were people and not victims.

So we finally circle back to chapter 265 where Yuji is attempting to relate to Sukuna and see some humanity in him... or is he?

Yuji shares the same flaw of both Geto, and Higuruma where he sees the people he wants to save as existing in a separate category than himself. So, is what Yuji is offering Sukuna understanding and an attempt to emotionally reach out to him, or is he attempting to show Sukuna the mercy of a conqueror.

Even if Yuji wins the battle and spares Sukuna's life in the end, it won't be Yuji's compassion or empathy that won him the fight. If Yuji wins against Sukuna it's simply because he's stronger. Yuji only feels confident trying to offer Sukuna in the first place because this time he's finally confident he's stronger. It's mercy, offered at a threat with the same time. Yuji, like Geto, is still separating people in categories of strong and weak, he's just showing mercy to someone he now considers weaker than him which is why Sukuna reacted the way he did.

As I said above, Sukuna begins by just assuming that Yuji had just let go of his anger, and was now trying to reach out to him on some other way. He calls him weak for being unable to keep hating his worst enemy, because in Sukuna's world view Yuji should keep hating him and wanting to defeat him with all his strength to the end. Sukuna mistakenly believes for a moment that Yuji is the kind of person who, cannot sustain his anger even towards his worst enemy.

It's when he realizes that Yuji is just showing him simple pity that he snaps. Yuji doesn't care for understanding Sukuna's worldview or seeing the humanity in him, in the same chapter he says he can't forgive people who act like lives are worthless.

To Yuji's credit he admits he doesn't really know which side of the fight is truly human, or whether or not he's right, he admits it's his own personal belief. A lot of Yuji's wisdom this chapter, I'd argue, comes from admitting the things he does not know, and acknowledging that there's no objective truth or "meaning" to the world. However, he still separates people into "good guys, and bad guys".

Yuji isn't actually that interested in considering the perspective of those he considers the "bad guys" he just still had a faint hope that he could somehow convince Sukuna to see worth in his life by sharing memories, therefore convince Sukuna that an individual's life can have value.

He doesn't want to understand what Sukuna thinks, he wanted to change the way Sukuna thought so it was more like himself. Yuji doesn't ask Sukuna any real questions about himself while exploring his memories. Kind of ironic, because for some reason Sukuna of all people was patiently listening and even engaging Yuji in conversation while he went through the most mundane memories of his childhood.

Irony on top of irony, Yuji's worldview does resemble Sukuna's in some ways. They're supposed to mirror each other after all, Yuji is literally the son of his identical twin brother reincarnated. First and foremost Yuji's offer of mercy isn't really breaking away from Sukuna's ultimate ideal of "Might Makes Right." Yuji isn't seeking some other way of settling this besides fighting Sukuna, he's going to make Sukuna submit because he's stronger.

Maybe there was no hypothetical "third way" for Yuji to put down Sukuna other than fist fighting him into submission. There probably wasn't, Sukuna's pretty up front what he's about, and what he's about is being the strongest and nothing more. He lives and dies by violence, a Sukuna who isn't the strongest is nothing more than a corpse so can that person be reached? However, I just wanted to point out that Yuji wasn't interest in solving this in any way other than a fist fight to begin with. As opposed to say, the way that Takaba handled Kenjaku taking a third route by making Kenjaku feel entertained for the first time in 1,000 years.

In the middle of that fight Takaba even APOLOGIZES to Kenjaku, for saying that it doens't matter if he doesn't understand his audience and he fails to make 1% of them laugh as long as the other 99% of them are laughing and states it's his duty to make everyone laugh otherwise he's failed as a comedian.

Yet, another reason why this is the greatest fight in the manga. Yuta even remarks in the end that Takaba isn't someone who can kill people. Not only does his cursed technique negate most damage to him by turning it into cartoonish antics, but Takaba's comedy is also all about understanding his audience and trying to get his audience to understand him because his comedy began when he clowned around as a kid when he was lonely. All of this to say we've been shown more points of view than just "Might makes Right" and there are characters who've resolved conflicts in other ways. Kenjaku is also, probably as monstrous as Sukuna, and yet Takaba engaged him right from the start by asking him about his motivations and if there was some other way he'd be happy than the merger.

You could argue that maybe Sukuna can't be understood. Characters in the story certainly try to and all they amount to doing is projecting their own ideas onto Sukuna. Yorozu projects her obsession with love onto Sukuna and we get the idea that Sukuna must somehow be lonely at the top, but in the end Gege subverts this expectation by showing us that Sukuna was never lonely, rather characters like Kashimo and Gojo projected their feelings of unresolved loneliness onto him. They are strong, and he is strong, ergo he must feel the same crushing loneliness as them. Gojo himself demosntrates not understanding Sukuna as he expresses regret in the afterlife that he was unable to make Sukuna go all out and that he related to that guy's loneliness only for Sukuna's response to be a very gratified "You cleared my skies."

Sukuna: Others love us for our strength, and we respond to that love.

The twist of that is Kashimo and by extension the audience assume that Sukuna must not understand love, and therefore he's lonely. However, Sukuna all along had his own definition of love, that people express their love and admiration for him by trying to fight him and he receives their love by facing them at his full strength and giving them the chance to prove themselves. Sukuna's habit of toying with his opponents is an extension of this he wants to see them realize their full potential in their fights with him. Sukuna does understand love, he just REJECTS our understanding of love. Sukuna does not think in the way that we do, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have things he values, or is devoid of positive traits. Respect for his opponents, honoring strength, these are all values they're just not Yuji's values.

As stated above, the irony of all this is that Yuji does buy into "Might makes Right" to an extent. To reiterate, following Geto's "the strong exist to protect the weak" still divides people into two categories strong and weak and implies the weak are helpless. A benevolent might makes right, as you might say. Yuji wants to show compassion to the weak, but he also loathes weakness, he loathes himself for being weak.

"There still may be lots of people who are weak like you."

Higuruma even points out the flaw in his mindset, well if you loathe yourself for being weak, then what about other people who are weak do you loathe them too? I think it's no coincidence that Yuji is paralleled not one, but two (Geto, Higuruma) people who tried to use their strength in benevolent ways only to start out loathing the people they were trying to help. I'm not saying that Yuji secretly hates weak people, but his mindset of black and white, weak and strong, a mindset that can't accept the greys of reality is a dangerous mindset to have and Yuji has the potential to become like those two.

However, these parallels exist for us the audience to see just how close Yuji was to repeating the cycle, because it makes it that much more meaningful when Yuji grows in ways that Geto and Higuruma doesn't to move one step forward towards breaking that cycle instead.

Yuji is someone who experiences the same loneliness as Sukuna and Gojo for being the strongest, though to a lesser extent because he wasn't born into the realm of sorcerers. At the start of the manga we're introduced to Yuji a kid who despite being someone friendly to everyone he meets and incredibly social, has a friend group consisting of two friends. Two friends who hang out with him because they need a third member for their occult club. Yuji for the whole manga excluding one exception really only knows how to form relationships based on someone else needing him.

Noritoshi Kamo: Itadori why did you become a Jujutsu Sorcerer? Itadori Yuji: It just sort of happened. i'm a loner. I wanna help a lot of people so when I die I'll be surrounded by people.

Yuji has also appeared in flashbacks in early culling game as someone who doesn't really understand, or even take notice of weak people. Yuji in Amai Rin's flashback is beating up bullies, a heroic notion, but from the perspective of somone spineless like Amai who was just going along with the bullies so he himself wouldn't be bullied because he didn't have the strength to stand up with them, and wasn't born with the body of an MMA fighter at fifteen, Yuji looks scary.

The reason why reducing people to labels like strong and weak is reductive is that humans are complex and contradictory creatures. Let's take Amai Rin for example, an incredibly minor character. In the real world, Amai Rin would be someone as equally complex as Gojo Satoru. Amai Rin a middle school bully would have just as many layers to his personality, inconsistencies, contradictory behavior, different sides of himself as Gojo Satoru himself.

Humans are complex in the first place because we can't see inside their heads, we can only see inside our own heads and know that we're complex and sometimes say things we don't mean, behave differently depending on the situation, do things we're not proud of, but we also usually don't perceive others the same way because we are not inside their heads like our own. Amai Rin is just as complex and multifaceted a human being as Gojo Satoru, he is a person with his own memories and life experiences that shape him, but from Gojo's worldview Amai Rin is a minor character. By reducing him into someone weak, Gojo doesn't care to try understanding him.

So Yuji for the longest time does not try to see the humanity in weak people (except for his big moment with Junpei) he just sees them as people to be saved. Which is why his real moment of progress to me comes the next chapter, with the way he shows empathy to Megumi.

Yuji begins when speaking to Megumi by relating his frustration with his grandfather for not wanting to go through chemo and accepting his own death in old age. Yuji is now mature enough to understand that just because his young body is tough enough to endure chemo, doesn't mean an old man's body can withstand that pain. When he was young Yuji had a very immature viewset of "Well, I can endure it, so why can't they?"

Yuji then compares the situation with his grandfather to Megumi. Yuji wanted his grandfather to keep living, so he couldn't understand why he wouldn't even try the chemo. Yuji wants Megumi to keep living, but he now understand why Megumi wants to give up. Yuji' fe elings of wanting Megumi to live are not more important than Megumi's own feelings of despair and wanting to escape pain.

Yuji is no longer imposing his feelings onto Megumi. Yuji is respecting Megumi's feelings, because in the end he can't FORCE Megumi to live. It has to be Megumi's choice whether he wants to live or not.

Yuji is no longer pushing Megumi away, or acting protective of him, while disregarding his feelings. He has gone from "as long as I'm around you'll suffer" to "I'll be lonely without you." Yuji doesn't ASK Megumi to live even though he wants to, because he knows he can't tell Megumi to keep on living. What Yuji does is just an honest expression of his own feelings. He's sharing his own feelings after listening to Megumi's ideal life with Tsumiki and Yuji, because that's what empathy is, an exchange, a conversation.

People often jokingly use the term "yap sessh" on Twitter, but yeah that's the different between a conversation and a "yap sessh" in the former you actually care what the other person has to say, in a latter it's only about expressing your own opinion.

That's why this panel, is such a perfect contrast with this panel.

One is Yuji offering Megumi a choice. The other is Gojo taking Megumi's choices away by giving him the false choice of "go to the Zen'in Clan and be a sorcerer and your sister will be abused, or come with me and be a sorcerer." Gojo railroaded Megumi into being a sorcerer and never let him decide for himself if he wanted a normal life. Gojo didn't see Megumi as his own person either, he, just like the Zen'in Clan just saw Megumi as the holder of the Ten Shadows Technique.

This is entirely different to Yuji who respects Megumi's feelings. Yuji expresses that he'll be lonely without Megumi, but that's just laying the cards on the table. In the end Yuji leaves what happens next entirely in Megumi's hands. Yuji cannot tell Megumi to live, even though he wants him to live so badly, he cannot tell Megumi to just get stronger and keep on trucking because he's not Megumi, he's not experiencing Megumi's pain right now.

Yuji does not tell Megumi to live and therefore becomes the first person in Megumi's entire life to give him a choice. This choice is the most important choice of all, a choice we make every day of our lives. The choice of whether we want to keep on living in this world.

Hopefully, Megumi chooses yes.

[cryptidotter]

I want the tinies from Nona to meet Harrowhark in AtN and run to her excitedly and say "We missed you Nona!!!" and ask what happened to her hair.

After the inevitable panic and freeze, I then want Harrow to explain the soul situation and introduce them to Alecto and have the tinies look up at this giant blonde who fails at acting human and shyly go "Nona you got so bigggggg. I bet you could clean the ceiling without needing to stand on a chair now."

NtN spoiled me and now I only crave scenes of the weird girls interacting with normal kids

[harrowing-of-hell]

i do think a lot of the fandom lacks an imagination. things could always get worse in alecto the ninth.

"they aren't going to kill john that would undermine the whole theme of forgiveness." okay, but consider: things could always get worse. maybe forgiveness doesn't exist for someone who can't even admit they were wrong in the first place.

"gideon has to be fully revived and fixed in AtN harrow wouldn't just leave her like she is." okay, but consider: things could always get worse. maybe john wasn't completely bullshitting when he said he couldn't separate harrow and gideon without killing them both. maybe lyctorhood (even if it's incomplete) does in fact change the soul in a way that is unsalvageable.

i have no reason to expect that the characters we know will do "the right thing" (whatever that even means) and i'm not sure why this is the default assumption.

negative character development is still character development babes. it's what gideon experienced in GtN when she essentially got groomed in cavalierhood. what makes you think that something similar can't possibly happen in AtN?

[inphront]

thinking tonight about griddlehark as doomed by not seeing power and control as linked/trying to have one without the other.

harrow is desperate for control over every aspect of her situation, breaking down the moment anything happens that she can't predict or change or have agency in, but she's consumed by guilt and horror at the idea of being in power. she takes so much pride in necromancy as an element of her world and life where she is capable and a genius and in control, and it's a massive source of internal contention because one of the biggest gears turning her character is the cost of that control, and the fact that necromancy is inherently caught up in power dynamics. ianthe notices this about her in the epiparados: she's used to having her hands on the reins, can't cope when they're taken off, and doesn't have the personality to put them back on. harrow wants to run the ninth for the sake of having control over it, but situations like her birth where she has clear power over it make her want to die. she wants control over gideon, but is horrified by the power differential involved within necro/cav relationships. harrowhark deals horribly with uncertainty. she doesn't want power, just certainty, and therefore control. much of her arc involves the recognition that it is impossible to control an equal, which is her fundamentally impossible want: to be gideon's equal without giving her the right to leave, to be necromantically capable without the leveraging of power over her house that this requires, and the ability to align the world with what is just without the social position or the force so often involved in making meaningful change.

meanwhile, gideon has never felt important to anyone. her most fundamental desire is to be important to someone, and this manifests in her military fantasies and rebellion against authority as a desire for power. she wants the status and the catharsis of being at the top of a podium she's spent her life crushed underneath. but she doesn't put much thought into actually using any of this power she wants so badly. gideon doesn't want power for the sake of agency, but for the sake of admiration, which is how she ends up as a figurehead-- someone theoretically in a position of total power, with no control over even her own body. even her self-actualization as a cavalier was, to some extent, an acceptance of a title and a position within the empire under the understanding that she would be used. expressions of power, such as killing crux, don't feel good to her, but the concept of power itself, of having important parents and prestige and a big sword and recognition, do.

and how can they explain this to each other? they're both trying to take opposite halves of a mutually inclusive set. it's no wonder, then, that the tragedies of their relationship are desperate attempts to give each other things they don't want: gideon's death makes harrow far more powerful under terms harrow can't control. harrow then attemps to control those terms, and by extension to give gideon back her life and her agency, which gideon interprets as revoking the power she had over harrow's emotions and memory (as well as her imperial title, which may not indicate much power but sure does mean more than "indentured servant to the ninth"). for much of gtn, harrow had both power and control, while gideon had neither, and i expect this to switch when they interact in atn because it is impossible to only have one. in this way, their relationship raises a lot of questions about power structures as a whole: what do you do when changing the world requires you to leverage power against other people? what do you do when positive recognition inherently comes with a responsibility to be cruel? when relinquishing your capacity to hurt people limits your capacity to help, and when getting out from under the boot means putting it on? how do interactions with power and control interpersonally reflect systemic influence?

idk mostly i just shake them

[doorp]

the fandom kind of misinterprets the term “perfect lyctorhood” in terms of like debating wether it’s real or not bc like. That. Isnt really the point of the term. Like all terms relating to necromancy in tlt, perfect lyctorhood is a label. The original lyctors in tlt wanted to figure out a way to become immortal without relying on John’s magic, and so they labeled this state of immortality ‘Lyctorhood’. But the immortality they discovered came at an extreme personal cost: you have to consume a soul that will power this immortal life, thus losing the person that soul belonged to forever. This is imperfection to them. So when mercy uses the term ‘perfect’ lyctorhood, she’s not referring to some mythological fabled lyctorhood, she’s literally just saying that there was a way for the original 18 necromancers and cavaliers to accomplish their goal without halving their numbers. The characters in the series have invented and defined the term ‘perfect lyctorhood’ to mean ‘when a cavalier and their necromancer perform the eightfold word and both of them come out alive and immortal in their own body’ does this mean that ‘perfect lyctorhood’ is the best or most ethical way to do this? No. And i understand that this is what people mean when they say there is no perfect lyctorhood- becoming immortal is generally Bad, and subsisting off another persons spirit energy is generally Bad- regardless of if both parties remain living, if they fuse to become one, or if one dies so the other can remain. If anythin,g the argument that ‘perfect lyctorhood’ isnt real, would just be that perfect lyctorhood itself is a misnomer. Lyctorhood, no matter which form it takes, is Bad News Bears.

Was what John did, in any sense of the word, perfect? No. He murdered the planet earth, the entire solar system, and every living thing heretofore mentioned. But did he accomplish immortality in the form that the original lyctors were attempting to accomplish? Yes. he achieved immortality through swapping soul bits with the soul of the planet earth. 2 beings, using each others life force to keep going through the decay of time: much like the original lyctors used the souls of their cavaliers to keep going through the decay of time. To the lyctors, this was the ideal outcome- this would have been the perfect arrangement for them , those who invented the term Lyctorhood.

so is there a perfect lyctorhood? Yes. The characters in the series have termed an existing thing/concept: perfect lyctorhood, and use this term to reference and label a specific concept, that has been done and does exist. Is perfect lyctorhood at all perfect? No. It’s messed up. But this is what it is called in universe, so perfect lyctorhood does exist, it’s just not actually perfect, or ethical, or advised in any way.

The only question left is: what is *sextus’* definition of perfect lyctorhood? Because it isnt grand lysis. Grand lysis was a last resort for pal and cam, cam was dying and pal was dead: to them there was no other option. So what was perfect lyctorhood to him? What would he have done if all the cards were left on the table? He asks harrow if she ‘did it right’ what did he mean by that? Did he mean the definition of perfect lyctohood as we know it today, or did he mean some other process we have yet to discover? we could find out through Paul in atn but like personally. anything Paul does in atn will have me clapping like a seal

[fkapommel]

I believe that it is thematically necessary for griddlehark full lyctorhood, or on Harrowhark Christ

Together, Harrow and Gideon complete the symbolism of Christ. You have the obvious Christographic imagery in the start and end of Gideon's life: she is a "virgin" birth, a genetic product of God without any sexual interaction between her mother and father; she was concieved in order to die, specifically to be sacrificed to save the souls - in a literal and metaphorical sense - of the innocent, i.e. non-necros; and she died ultimately by her own choice, dying with the use of pentrative weapons.

But Harrow is literally the "child of man" - she is the cumulation of a generation, not one but many, the many made one. Harrow resembles young Jesus debating and educating the priests of the Temple, already knowing more about the arts of the spirit, of life and death, than his teachers as an infant. Both are prodigies of their craft. She is literally and figurarively carrying her cross all of HtN, the sword physically resembles a cross and is a burden of both her and Gideon's sins. And Harrow, in her soup making era, pulled off the Eucharist, transforming Mithraeum family dinner night into sacrifical, (not metaphysical) cannibalism night. Though both G & H have lain entombed and miraculously resurected, it was Harrow that descended into Hell to interact with the dead (more on this when ATN reveals what she did in Hell).

In one way, this creates friction, a literary rivalry, between the two characters. Who is more Jesus-like? Who is more central to the narrative? I argue that its in merging them that we see a clearer narrative reflection of the scriptural material of both the physical book series and the religio-imperalist model Jod based his empire on. This meta-textual symbolism HAS to be incorporated within the narrative itself given the device of lyctohood, wherein two souls literally meld to become inseperable and indistinguishable. By becoming full lyctors (and seperately i suspect that theyll become perfect lyctor numero dos), the Christographic symbolism embodied by both Gideon and Harrow will become literal and plot relevant, and solidify their lyctorhood not just as a narrative goalpost, a "hell yea" moment for the reader, or a completion of the main narrative conflict of their constant division. Their merging via the Eightfold Path will be semi-prophetic and imbued with religious significance as they both represent a halved Christ.

Gideon and Harrow HAVE to become full/perfect lyctors not just to release the symphonic tension of their constant coming togethers and going aparts, but to complete the image of a divided messiah.

Tldr: yes gideon is jesus, but harrow is jesus too and together they make Double Jesus. Jesus pt. 2 WILL become canon via full or perfect lyctorization!!!

Edit: I do NOT think ATN will /end/ with lyctor!griddlehark; thats just not in character for either of them, nor would that provide a morally satisfying end that is in contrast to Jod's ethos. I believe they will uncover the process and either temporarily inhabit full/perfect lyctorhood, find a way to balance their soul melange equally, or sever their soul bond completely (worst option!) Them uncovering the truth to lyctorhood, however, is necessary to resolve (meta)narrative tension.

[katakaluptastrophy]

Love your TLT meta! I'm curious - what do you make of Nona's "You looked like you wanted to be kissed, that's all." and Alecto's " This is how meat loves meat."?

Thank you!

I don't really have a coherent answer, and I suspect we won't really get one until ATN. We know that Alecto is...a Resurrection Beast...a fully Lyctorised cavalier...that is, some combination of the collective soul of planet earth and the soul of a human guy called John (plus or minus 10 billion ghosts). But just what is Nona?

You kept screaming and screaming...like a baby in pain. So I tried to hurt you - I did hurt you. I reached out for you and it hurt you... He said, I put my hands around your neck. He said, I cupped your soul in my hands. He said, I took you into myself and we became one. ...He said, As the world went up I remade us both. I hid me in you... I hid you in me. And when we were together...once the shaman had claimed the sun... I became God. (John 1:20)

This excerpt elides some of the full horror of John's description, in which Alecto screams rather a lot more and John is vomiting dirt and tearing his ribs out and blaming it all on human nature and his id while he binds her into some horrifying nightmare Barbie body and worries that she'll "escape" before he finishes.

We know Nona doesn't enjoy having a body. And we know necromancy makes Nona feel sad.

There's one particularly horrifying moment in NTN where these two things come together:

She wanted to shout. She wanted to be listened to. She wished the barrier had taken her hands. She wished she had thrust herself into it - become that big seething mass of flesh and meat and tendrils - ruined her body, just melted it; come back messed up, so that nobody could want her body but her, so that it would be hers and nobody else's. (NTN ch 24)

The language that Tamsyn Muir uses to describe both what John did to Alecto and the way that Nona's borrowed body subconsciously remembers that violence is so viscerally uncomfortable.

Just a few chapters later, Nona begins to remember who she is:

"Did you think this was fun, Pyrrah Dve? Did you think this was lovely? Family. Blood. Together. Kiss, kiss. A child's game. You say nice words and everyone pretends they are the words you say. Here is a house. We live in it. Worms slithering over each other... Did you like playing pretend? Did you like being mother and father? You should have given into your desires and eaten us. Chew and swallow. More natural. Would have respected you for it..." (NTN ch 28)

Who have we met who likes to play a twisted game of happy families but who at the end of the day will justify his desire to own and consume and destroy as natural and understandable?

What "lessons of the hand and the mouth" did Alecto learn when John "saw the face of Earth and choked the life out of it and ate it whole"? (John 5:4).

I'm never not haunted by the line in HTN where John reaches out for Harrow and she physically cannot refuse him: "the meat of your meat and the flesh of your flesh belonged to God." (ch 9), which so closely echoes Alecto's "this is how meat loves meat".

"I might not help you when... I'm back," she said, not quite understanding I. "I'll be different. I'll remember everything... I'll remember the thing I'm trying to forget... I won't love anything... I won't know how. I won't be me at all, or I'll be the me who knows the thing, and knowing the thing means I'm not Nona - I'm someone else." (ch 31)

Nona is, in some way we don't quite understand yet, Alecto without John.

And that fills me with quite a lot of sorrow for Alecto and trepidation for Alecto the Ninth.

[beguilingcorpse]

weaponry in the locked tomb is so interesting because when you break it down it's like:

guns exist in-universe but are used by the freedom fighter terrorist organization almost exclusively

swords are (were?) commonplace enough that gideon was able to find and train with a decently well-balanced two-hander on the ninth, despite the fact that the ninth has no military force or even interplanetary traffic. gideon's sword is at least 20 years old, probably older

swords are definitely still in use within the empire, at least by cavaliers, but likely within the cohort as a whole. to my memory there are no mentions of cohort members carrying military-issue guns

even though they're trained in a variety of weapons and techniques, cavaliers (are supposed to) carry exclusively rapiers. gideon prefers her two-hander and cam carries twin shortswords, but these seem to be rare and shocking exceptions to the standard.

rapiers are used by cavaliers explicitly for the purpose of lyctorhood. they're light enough that a scrawny necromancer without swordfighting experience can pick it up and rely on their cav's training without needing to build the muscle to wield the sword effectively

because of the secretive nature of the megatheorem, and lyctorhood as a whole, most people just follow the rapier rule because it's tradition. it is what is done. harrow makes this pretty clear at the beginning of gtn

cavaliers can carry a variety of offhand weapons. it seems like the full spectrum of middle age weaponry is possible - but still, no guns. not even secretly, as with cam's dual blades. some cavs choose to carry material for their necromancers as their offhand - ortus carries a bowl of bones for harrow, and i can only assume "the powder" mentioned as harrow's choice for gideon's offhand towards the beginning of gtn is some kind of bone dust

from a doylist perspective, all of this creates a aesthetic that starts very analog and gothic and gradually grows into a more standard sci-fi space opera through the series. by ntn, we've hit most of the established genre weaponry tropes that we've come to expect from older futuristic space media like star wars and alien. blasters and guns are standard fare, and it makes sense to hold off on introducing them until the scope of the story gets broader and more interplanetary

from a watsonian perspective, it's a little more difficult to draw concrete conclusions without the context that atn will inevitably provide. but if i had to hedge a guess, i'd say that, as with most things, It's All John Gaius's Fault. when he resurrected the galaxy i'd assume that he wanted to keep the aesthetics of medieval imperialism, and given his 21st century liberalism probably didn't want guns to be part of the equation. but they were anyways - we know this because wake carries a big one - and instead of standardizing firearms within his military and for his lyctors, he clings to the aesthetics of swordplay. please correct me if i'm remembering it wrong, but to my knowledge every gun shown in the series is either directly linked to boe or implied to be sourced from them. jod dooms his own lyctors and military by refusing to update their weaponry.

all of this poses a lot of questions about atn: who will carry a gun, and why? where did the gun come from? why DON'T the lyctors just use firearms? and most importantly: will they be fighting zombies with swords???

[bowserbowser29]

Mental image that Honey had an AMAZING run during the metal virus. She was nearly infected at the start but realized contact is a no-ni, so she just ripped one of her sewing machines out of the tables and just start smashing skulls. She was one of the last few grounded survivors who was only pushed out of her camp when the Zeti showed up

I love survivor Honey, and that's canon to ATN! now. One of the only people to make it through the pandemic without being infected

[thanergetic-hyperlinks]

TLT analysis masterpost

I seemingly never find time and executive function to sit down and finish this index lmao

This Tumblr aims to collect resources for a deeper understanding and enjoyment of the Locked Tomb series. There's an absurd wealth of material online, much of it on Tumblr, Reddit but also Discord, and I want to help centralize it so it can be easily consulted. I want the full content of this blog to be searchable, so this masterpost will grow until it contains an index of the material I will share, reblog and write.

I will use hashtags such as #after HtN to indicate material that is best read after competing a certain novel, to enhance your understanding without spoiling anything, or to prepare for a reread.

Thank you!

INDEX:

• My list of Tamsyn's non-TLT fiction, where I discuss motifs and themes that later pop up throughout TLT.

Posts for after reading Gideon the Ninth: #after GtN #GtN #Gideon the Ninth Posts for after reading The Mysterious Study of Dr Sex: #Dr Sex

Posts for after reading Harrow the Ninth: #after HtN #HtN #Harrow the Ninth Posts for after reading As Yet Unsent: #As Yet Unsent #AYU

Posts for after reading Nona the Ninth: #after NtN #NtN #Nona the Ninth Posts for after reading The Unwanted Guest: #The Unwanted Guest #TUG Posts for the Alectopause: #Alectopause #Alecto speculation #Alecto the Ninth #AtN #Alecto bingo #Alectopause bingo (yes)

#interviews #Tamsyn Muir masterpost incoming. #references #shitposting

All posts are tagged #TLT and #The Locked Tomb. I will add a list of character hashtags, just give me some time.

RESOURCES:

• The DailyKos readalong for the whole series • @katakaluptastrophy's masterpost of TLT metas

[all-together-now]

Jade Lanolin appears in the ATNiverse by mistake without even noticing that she's entered another universe. .

Walking through the Restoration HQ she notices Mighty among the crowd. She walks up and slaps him on the back with a laugh.

"Damn Mighty! Your workouts are paying off! Your muscles are almost as big as mine now! Good job!"

“Oh, great. ‘The fuck do you want lamb- hoLY SHIT!!” Mighty gawked as he turned around.

“What?” Jade!Lanolin asked.

“What do you mean ‘what’?!” Mighty shouted, “How the fuck did you get so jacked?!”

The sheep raised a brow, “Uh…a couple of years of diet and exercise. You know that.”

“ ‘A couple of years’ she says,” Mighty shook his head, “I saw your bitchass yesterday, and you were barely less skinny than Espio! Now all of a sudden you’re built like a goddamn Viking?!”

That got Jade!Lanolin to clock what he was talking about. She groaned quietly and pinched her nose.

“No, hang on,” she sighed, “I get it now. I’m sorry, there’s been a mistake-“

Mighty scoffed and crossed his arms, “You’re a mistake.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Or is all that cotten taped to your face clogging up your ears?”

Jade!Lanolin was taken aback and stared at the armadillo. Then she shook her head lightly and rolled her eyes.

“What is with all my counterparts having such vitriolic drama?” she thought.

“Whatever, man,” she said, waving him off and walking away, “Sorry to bug you.”

Mighty watched her leave, a scowl firmly planted on his face. Just as the muscular sheep was out of sight.

“Mighty!” ATN!Lanolin shouted, walking up to him with a clipboard, “We need that shipment of Wispon parts, and Bark says you were the one handling it.”

Mighty gawked at her. He turned to where Jade!Lanolin had just went, then back at the much smaller Lanolin.

“Oh now I know you’re fucking with me,” he growled.

Lanolin scoffed and rolled her eyes, “Listen, man, I don’t wanna talk to your for longer than I have to either. Just tell me where the crate is and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Fuck you! How the hell did you do that?!”

Lanolin just looked down at her clipboard, “That shell of yours finally cracked?”

Mighty snatched the clipboard out of her hands, “Answer the damn question!!!”

Lanolin grit her teeth, “I DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER ANYTHING THAT COMES FROM A NUTFUCK LIKE YOU!!!”

From around the corner, Jade!Lanolin leaned against the wall and shook her head, disappointed at the argument she was hearing. She turned and walked away, off to find another wormhole portal.

Barry walked out of a supply closet just as she passed. She didn’t notice them, but Barry sure noticed her. They froze up, staring at her enormous biceps.

Jade!Lanolin kept waking until she was out of sight. Once she was, Barry stiffly fell over backwards.

[future-of-freedom]

In the middle of an empty park, a wormhole opened up and soon out came a nervous sungazer lizard. FoF!Trip looked around the area, tapping her fingers together.

"I r-really need to-to stop let-let-ting my curios-sity get the b-be-best of me..." she muttered, "Though...d-d-doesn't seem to be-be anything sp-special here...Weird. These w-w-wormholes usually dro-drop me off right in f-f-f-front of-"

Just then, sneaked around the bushes came a very similar looking lizard ATN!Trip surveyed her surroundings and carefully tiptoed towards a nearby bench, holding a large flat box. Once she sat down she looked around again and then smiled to herself. She opened the box and licked her lip before digging her hand in and tossing a whole donut into her mouth.

FoF!Trip stared at her. More specifically, she stared at her huge, protruding stomach. It looked like she had a balloon hiding under her armor-styled hoodie. It reminded her of Whisper's belly, but seeing on herself was...a little off putting.

After biting into her third donut, ATN!Trip finally spotted her counterpart standing a few feet away.

"Huwwo owher mhe!" she waved, donut sticking out of her mouth.

FOF!Trip looked at her counterpart awkwardly, and waved back. "H-hello...?"

ATN!Trip swallowed her donut as FOF!Trip sat down next to her. "Um... you remember me, right?"

"Oh, n-no, I remember you," FOF!Trip said. "You're the one i-in that p-polycule... I can tell b-because of the hoodie."

ATN!Trip looked at her, pulling out another donut. "What's the problem, then?"

"Th-there's no problem at all!" FOF!Trip answered, waving her hands. "I just don't r-remember you, um..." She was pushing her brain to the limits trying to bring up ATN!Trip's sudden... pudge, without sounding like a complete jerk.

But it seemed that the other sungazer got the message. "...it's my belly, isn't it?"

The thinner sungazer's eyes widened. "N-no! I mean, yes. I-I MEAN-"

"It's okay," ATN!Trip smiled. "To be honest, I didn't even notice it until recently."

FOF!Trip sighed in relief. "...h-how long have you... been l-like that?"

"Since a fiasco involving Blaze's home dimension."

"...hwah?"

"Long story," ATN!Trip said. "Anyway, I was upset with it at first; like, really upset. But it turns out, my girlfriends have no problem with it. Some even flat out admitted they like it..." She blushed at that last part.

That got a laugh out of FOF!Trip.

"Th-that's good to hear," she said. Then she made a mischievous face"...wait, B-Blaze is in your polycule, r-right? That means o-our Blazes have something i-in common..."

"But... you're not chubby," ATN!Trip told her. "And you're not dating Blaze."

"I'm not, b-but my closest f-friend is. That's all I'm g-gonna say."

"What- ...ohhhh!" It suddenly clicked in ATN!Trip's head. "I get your drift."

Both Trips giggled. But it was cut short as a wormhole opened underneath FOF!Trip, and she fell right through it, landing on her rear.

"Owww... s-seriously?!" she yelled, agitated. "We w-weren't done talking!"

Suddenly, she saw something else falling through the hole. She caught it, and found that it was a donut. She looked back up at the hole, and saw her counterpart looking down at her, smiling and waving.

The sungazer smiled and waved back at her as the hole slowly closed. Once it did, she sighed.

I'll get love like she does someday... I hope.

[awareatelier]

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