Something I love about the romance in The Locked Tomb is how Gideon as our first POV narrator is like "this is Harrowhark Nonagesimus, she thrives on scorn and ambition and death" and as a seasoned enemies-to-lovers fan, my first reaction was "I love it, I support women's rights and wrongs, and I can't wait to see this cold evil character discover feelings eventually" but then the plot twist is actually that Harrow is a pathetic desperate emo who barely needs an excuse to say the most romantic shit imaginable. Which is already a good payoff and the characterization is superb, but then you see inside Harrow's head in the next book and discover that despite her trauma and 35 mental illnesses, she is so much of a fucking soft marshmallow simp that not even her DIY lobotomy can keep her from indulging in a coffeeshop AU (?!?!) to soothe her yearning soul. Which makes rereading GtN delightful because now you can read between the lines and realise like "oh wow, she was down bad the whole time and Gideon just didn't notice". It gives so much lesbian Pride and Prejudice that you can only fully appreciate during a reread. I adore it.
A while back my pharmacist saw my deadname on my profile and accidentially called it out, he corrected and deleted my deadname from the system so only my preferred name shows up now. There was a crowd of people behind me, so as he hands over the pills he apologized, in equal tone and volume as when he called my deadname and lied saying it's been a long day and he didn't mean to call out -his own- name. I quietly told him it was fine and he didn't need to do that for my sake.
His response: "No, it's my name now."
I went to the pharmacist yesterday, his nametag is my deadname. He informed me he's immigrating and in the process he's changed his first name to my deadname to have an English sounding name. That's why he's now able to get a reprint of his nametag to be my deadname. And repeated, with the intense seriousness of someone who is going to die on this hill: "It's mine now. Not yours. I'm taking." His tone indicated that decision is final.
Bro literally deadnamed me once, and has committed to flat out stealing my deadname. It's his now. Legally. Officially. I over heard his co-workers call him by the name.
One of my favorite things is modern adaptations that leave people with the same careers they had in the original material, because unless you’re a cop or a doctor that practically never happens.
Irene Adler’s an opera singer. We still have those! They don’t have the same subtext exactly, but nothing is going to because we aren’t the Victorians. She could continue to be an opera singer. I have never seen this happen.
Jonathan Harker can still be in real estate. That’s a job people have. A modern story that still involves Dracula contacting his firm to help him purchase property sounds amazing actually.
Ianthe thought she was so fucking smart when she achieved lyctorhood before anyone else without seeing any of the chambers. Thought she was so clever to just eat her cavalier whole against the will of everyone.
How stupid must she have felt when she watched the birth of Paul, and realized that if she'd done more work, tried just a little harder, taken a step back and slowed down she could have united hers and Corona's souls for eternity.
Corona who cried that she hadn't been chosen at her sister's ascension. Ianthe who hadn't chosen her because she couldn't bear to lose her, like a naive fool. Choosing immortality condemned Ianthe to inevitably lose Corona. That moment she started the stop watch, and I'll bet never even realized until that impromptu birthday party.
And to rub it in Paul tells her there is still time for her and Naberius to be perfect, like she cared a scrap about Naberius. but there is no time for her and Corona, she and Corona will never have that chance again.
i think everyone owes a debt of gratitude to jimmy eat world for the middle. you ARE in the middle of the ride. and everything WILL be just fine. and you SHOULD live right now and be yourself. and it DOESN'T matter if it's good enough for someone else. thank you jimmy eat world
Kind of hilarious to me how poorly the title "Mob Psycho 100" localized to English-speaking areas. To someone whose first language is English, it scans as:
Mob (Yakuza, Mafia)
Psycho (violent person with "crazy" behaviors)
Thus: a particularly violent member of organized crime.
But in Japanese it scans as:
Mob (background characters in crowd scenes in manga or anime)
Psycho (short for psychic)
Thus: a psychic who looks/acts like someone you'd never pick out of a crowd scene in a comic.
I love you thunderstorm lullabies. I love you foggy mornings. I love you misty days. I love you birds playing in puddles. I love you raindrop-bejeweled blades of grass. I love you cool breeze.
[video description: a man playing saxophone in front of a large pipe. everything he plays echoes back through the pipe, resulting in a call-and-response type song. the person behind the camera claps along to the beat. end description.]
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.