#also yes that is a TLT reference up there

[thelibrarina]

Okay but are we ready to talk about the malleability of identity in Goncharov, particularly the way Andre(i/y)'s name is spelled?

We see it spelled both ways in the film, with a y in Katya's letter to him and and i on his (presumably real) passport. The passport is official and might be "correct," but is it true? What's more vital, words issued by the government or by a (would-be) lover? Is it like a pet-name to him? Then there's the Westernization aspect--hiding his Soviet background, conforming by changing the i to a y. (I mean as soon as he speaks you hear the accent, so--on paper he can be someone else, but he can't fully escape his reality. )

Praying for someone to uncover a scene where Goncharov himself writes Andrey's name and then I will go TRULY feral-academic with whatever spelling he uses.

Also I know there's an anti-theory out there that it's just a mistake (LOOKING AT YOU, CINEMASINS), but come on. Guys as careful as Scorsese don't make mistakes. Even the credits have different spellings, depending on which edition of the film you're watching. The man knows what he is doing, okay?

[familyabolisher]

Do you think any of the frameworks you've developed for analyzing love in TLT could be applied to Pyrrha's relationship to cam/pal? Since Nona doesn't understand it well, it's hard for me to get a handle on how those characters relate to each other, but I was wondering where it might stand on what the series considers "perfect love," what the significance of its presence/ambiguity is, etc.

I’m really locked on to this idea of illegibility, actually, and the kind of work that gets done in Nona to problematise efforts to easily name, define, & categorise a relationship or set of relationships. I’m thinking of what Muir said here:

It’s a very strange household. And they are a found family, but I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that in the last movement of the book Nona questions what that even means—their motives, what they all truly wanted out of each other, their pretenses: are they a family, or are they all just a psychosexual mess of roleplaying and bad meals? (The answer is yes.)

and like, her suggestion that ‘family’ can plausibly be collapsed into a ‘psychosexual mess of roleplaying’ and that the drive of Nona is less about asking whether Cam/Pal/Pyrrha/Nona ‘are’ a family as much as it’s about asking what it actually means to identify them as such; and particularly to identify them as such in a text which does very significant work elsewhere to identify ‘the family’ as a site of violence, a mechanism by which particular forms of violence can be enacted. I’m honing in on that ‘last movement of the book’ comment to say that, like—so, the two narratives in Nona (the ‘main’ narrative ie. Nona et al. on Lemuria, and the John narrative) are spliced together, right, so it makes sense to try and read them as though they’re in dialogue with one another, and the obvious entrypoint for doing so is the fact that they’re both working as an account of the ‘creation’ of Alecto; first through John literally creating her and then through Nona remembering his having done so and thus rebecoming what she had forgotten she was. What does it mean to ‘create’ Alecto?—what are the conditions that Alecto’s creation ushers in, what are the conditions that her creation does away with? The ‘last movement’ of the book is to ‘create’ Alecto for the second time—so, what does Alecto represent, and what about her ‘creation’ leads the text to ask what it means to describe something as a ‘family’ in the first place?

The reason I’m drawn to this reading of Cam/Pal/Pyrrha as like, ultimately illegible, incoherent in that we as audience cannot coherently put words to it and make sense of it in the language readily available to us, is because I think the text understands these processes of ordering, taxonomising, delineating, and categorising as tactics of fascism. This is a tension also at play in Lolita; Humbert ‘orders’ and constructs his narrative via the available tools of literary discourse and similarly constructs his ‘Lolita’ as a labyrinth of cultural references and taxonomies; but Dolores is a ‘Haze,’ Annabel Leigh is a ‘tangle of thorns,’ there exists a being who is able to remain indistinct and impenetrable in a narrative which enacts violence on her by trying to make taxonomical sense of her. Coherence and legibility are mechanisms of visibility; under fascism, to be easily made sense of can be dangerous. The first two books were all about coherence, legibility, interpellation, and the consequences of Living In A Society; what it means to ‘be’ or ‘become’ a cavalier, what the necromancer-cavalier relationship ‘means,’ what Lyctorhood ‘means,’ how these relations of hierarchised sexuality and the interpersonal relationships articulated within the normative language given to them exist to shore up conditions of imperialism. This question of ‘ordering’ goes right down to eg. enumeration (First, Second, Third, etc.) and pretty tightly contained and atomised cultural associations, and the fact that that enumeration can be traced back to Alecto—

D’you know why you’re really the First? Because in a very real way, you and the others are A.L.’s children … There would be none of you, if not for her.

—which cribs this passage, from Lolita:

‘[…] for I must confess that depending on the condition of my glands and ganglia, I could switch in the course of the same day from one pole of insanity to the other—from the thought that around 1950 I would have to get rid somehow of a difficult adolescent whose magic nymphage had evaporated—to the thought that with patience and luck I might have her produce eventually a nymphet with my blood in her exquisite veins, a Lolita the Second, who would be eight or nine around 1960, when I would still be dans la force de l’âge; indeed, the telescopy of my mind, or un-mind, was strong enough to distinguish in the remoteness of time a vieillard encore vert—or was it green rot?—bizarre, tender, salivating Dr. Humbert, practicing on supremely lovely Lolita the Third the art of being a granddad. In the days of that wild journey of ours, I doubted not that as father to Lolita the First I was a ridiculous failure.

—very evenly ties together ideas of reproduction as imperial sustention figured in the language of sexual assault. The point is: as far as the empire is concerned, processes of ordering and taxonomising are equivocal to the mechanical maintenance of conditions of fascism.

Conversely, Nona is a text about when John’s precise demarcation of the world starts to fail and people have to make sense of themselves between the cracks; from Pyrrha as both failed cavalier and failed Lyctor to Cam and Palamedes and then Paul as if not ‘failed’ then at least a new ordering of necromancer/cavalier-ism to the Tower Princes as John’s kind of scrambling effort to rearticulate hegemony post-losing all but one of his Lyctors. Regarding how we are to read Cam/Pal/Pyrrha, I think it’s pretty clear that the text understands the obligations, normative assumptions and expectations, and material consequences of normative kinship relations identified as ‘family’ as part and parcel with the social ordering of a fascistic imperial hegemony; Kiriona, Alecto, and Harrow make up the three key points of contact for this reading, though it’s pretty diffuse across the whole work. We see kinship relations as structuring imperialist hierarchies and we understand the currency of those hierarchies to be death/abuse/sexual violence/totalised control, articulated most profoundly through Kiriona; we also see the destruction of social formations as part and parcel with conquest—

Palamedes said mildly, “You know we’re conversant with the concept of family in the Nine Houses, right?” Pash seemed genuinely surprised. “Why the hell would it matter to you? [...] You don’t give a fuck about families when you’re carving them up—”

—this of course being in keeping with the general conditions of mixed cultures, mixed languages, variances on kinship structures, refugees seemingly thrown together on Lemuria. The bolstering of the social articulations of the conquerors and denaturing of the social articulations of the conquered is rendered as a tactic of conquest; ‘family’ here is figured as a cudgel of imperialism.

Diegetically, as I said, Cam + Pal + Pyrrha + Nona’s social arrangement is not ‘normative,’ neither in the fact that others on Lemuria can make easy sense of it (and thus attempt to do so by referring to peripheralised and marginalised social relations ie. sex work) nor in the fact that they can coherently make sense of themselves via the imperial taxonomy (is Pyrrha a Lyctor greatest thread in the history of forums). Nor is it normative on our end; relative to the nuclear family structure, it’s the ‘wrong’ number of parents, the ‘wrong’ configurations of gender, the ‘wrong’ configurations of blood relation (Nona is a ‘child’ but not an ‘heir’ to anything and not a blood relation of either; Cam and Palamedes as ‘parents’ are blood-related), even the ‘wrong’ overall kinship relations—I put ‘child’ and ‘parents’ in quotations there precisely because I don’t think they’re conditions uncritically reified by the narrative as much as they’re discursive gestures made for the sake of being problematised. Is Nona their ‘child’ in a text where to be the ‘child’ of someone means to be what Kiriona is to John? Is this a ‘family’ when ‘family’ is the mechanic of imperial refortification? Again, like—what does it mean to call them a family at all?

‘Family’ is a label we deploy to give legibility to relations that we are otherwise struggling to make sense of. Setting aside Paul for the moment because I don’t quite know what to do with them and probably won’t have a Take that I can confidently commit to until after Alecto—I think the kind of difficulty that the text has in articulating exactly what Cam + Pal + Pyrrha ‘had’ between them that we see in that final scene is intentional, and I think it’s best understood left that way rather than wrangled into a taxonomy that the rest of the text is v determined to critically unpack. So to answer your question, I think the ambiguity is key—one overarching theme of the series is how people can love each other and articulate that love when the language available for them to do so carries obligations of disparate power, hierarchy, serves a particular purpose that we come to understand as ethically unconscionable; whether that love has to be made sense of within hierarchy, or contravene it, or try and stake a place outside of it. Cam + Palamedes + Pyrrha become the next stage of development in the unravelling of such a discourse; to try and make coherent sense of them could all too easily mean falling back on the language that the text works to identify as socially constructed and thus as limited, and thus imposing those limitations.

[liesmyth]

Anon with the friend who's reading tlt on the reverse order: Yes, he knows he's being a lab rat, he doesn't keep motes on the books because he's very much a casual reader (and thus perfect for the experiment) and so far we have only done Nona The Ninth and The Unwanted Guest, plus some chapters of HTN & Doctor Sex. There's the slight chance of osmosis corruption because I occasionally reblog modern au memes on my main blog, which I think is how he got Palamedes' whole deal.

There's not much he guessed, and even less he guessed correctly. He did call the fact Crown and Ianthe are related a pleasant plot twist, and he initially thought John was Varun.

The most interesting guess he had, which he arrived through flawed means, was Paul's existence, and the fact Pyrrha had some sort of connection to Gideon The Ninth — mostly because he guessed the average Lyctorhood to be Camilla and Palamedes', and with the reference of Gideon and G1deon as 1) permanently dead, in a setting where he's aware necromancy exists and he thought zombies to be actual resurrected people 2) connected to Pyrrha, and 3) the fact Pyrrha had "some weird vibes" (he refused to elaborate) led him to thinking Pyrrha was half Gideon, half someone else, and the reason Kiriona was vaguely off-putting to people was because she didn't have a full soul. Anyways he did think the same would happen to Palamedes and Camilla, which it did, and that Kiriona was pissed at Pyrrha because of an ambiguous degree of relationship

We have paused rn, as the labrat experiment is in return for me reading a webcomic per book

Oh yeah also im doing this because i either dreamt a post proposing it up or actually saw it, and honestly i wanted to see how much biases and previous narrative impacted the relationship of the reader with tlt characters, their relationships, and worldbuilding, as i absorbed tlt by osmosis as an agender aroace. so yeah giving a gay guy tlt without previous context in the reverse order to complete the trifecta (lesbian woman reading it in the correct order, aroace agender getting to know it by osmosis and figuring out the plot best I could before reading it, gay guy reading it in reverse)

ANON THANK YOU FOR COMING BACK! @mayasaura and everyone who wanted a follow-up to the first part.

"Thought John was Varun at first" is soooo big brained actually! I'm always thinking about John's more RB-like traits. I'm also very amused that he cast Pyrrha as the zombie puppeteer, I bet he's going to love tiny Harrow walking around her dead parent's bodies for a decade.

I also feel like the worldbuilding in NtN is veeery different from the general #vibe of the first two books — it feels like an "anime filler arc" kind of sidequest plot — and I'm very curious if going from NtN to HtN is going to make the settings vibe changes feel stronger or weaker than reading it normally would.

Anyway, I love that you decided to do this, and please let us know what he thinks about HtN! I hope you enjoy the webcomic :D

[doubleboneswithdoctorskelebone]

so any locked tomb reader out there knows how much alecto is called annabel lee which is a poem by edgar allen poe (stating the obvious ik) and here’s my very surface level analysis of the poem in regards to her:

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

So it seems like this could be taken in that the many a year ago is pre resurrection with alecto living in earth (the kingdom by the sea) and im definitely interpreting this from john’s perspective so to love and be loved by him definitely lines up

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.

Them both being children could be taken as talking about pre tomb era for her, the love line is obvious, one flesh one end and all that, and the winged seraphs can be taken as representing the lyctors

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

Not totally sure what the chilling line means (i haven’t reread all of harrow and nona yet so idk the specifics of the lore too well) but the last four lines definitely represent getting shut in the tomb which would switch the kingdom by the sea to the ninth rather than earth/the first which is interesting also sepulchre almost directly means the tomb so 👍

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

The lyctors aren’t happy anymore, the envying could also reference perfect vs imperfect lyctorhood, which again references her chilling and being killed which is the process of getting shut in the tomb

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

one flesh one end again, talks about how neither the lyctors (angels) nor resurrection beasts i think (demons down under the sea) or it could be the river/people in it, soul permeability stuff and how they’re perfect lyctors that can’t be pulled apart

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea—

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

not sure about the first bit but i assume it’s talking about him always feeling her presence, also bright eyes! because of her gold ones, in her sepulchre (tomb) by the sea so we’ve definitely switched from the kingdom of tomb by the sea meaning earth to the ninth and then her tomb by the sea which is pretty clear

i’m probably pulling a lot of this out of my ass but i had fun analyzing this in the lens of tlt and feel free to repost or reply and add on to what i said

[femmespoiled]

also on the topic of harrow being femme [tlt spoilers] - theres a lot of coding that goes into harrow and gideon as simultaneously oppositional and complementary; the obvious layer stuff, like cavalier/necromancer dynamics, the reveal of how lyctors are made and the end of GtN. but also in the coding: they have, imo, 3 linked dichotomies: mars and venus, jesus and lucifer, and masculinity and femininity (although both through a lesbian lens). (also all 3 of these are intertwined). so mars/masculinity and venus/feminity is well-established; the astrological symbols for those planets give us the gendered symbols: the lucifer/venus connection is less well-known: lucifer comes from the latin word translating literally to light-bringer and in practical use to the morning star - venus. Harrow owes her existence to a terrible crime; furthermore harrows own name could be a reference to the harrowing of hell, a biblical event that took place while Jesus was temporarily dead: Gideon has a number of Jesus parallels - the GtN pool scene where she absolves Harrow of the sin that created her, the fact that her literal biological father is god, and that, having died in sacrifice, she is revived with her stigmata intact. Gideon's butchness is obvious, surface level, but people struggle with the idea of Harrowhark as a femme for reasons I don't quite understand.

Yes! That's actually a great analysis of the characters.

I think in this I'll address your last point a bit more:

"Gideon's butchness is obvious, surface level, but people struggle with the idea of Harrowhark as a femme for reasons I don't quite understand."

I think femmes have always been kind of a mystery outside of our own community, it makes me think about that piece, I can't remember where it's from, but it talks about this femme who bought and started wearing boots and the people outside her community would perceive her as butch for that, compared to when she was back with her community and people, butches specifically, would recognise all of it clearly as femme. I think people are somewhat misguided on these identities because, even outside of butch/femme circles, they've been somewhat used to when thinking of lesbians noticing and expecting butch signs, in such a way that femmes flew under the radar as an identity and definition and we still deal with that heavily today, even more so than the confusion between feminine lesbians and femmes.

When people look and see Gideon it's what they expect of butch, it's easily identifiable, now femme takes a little more, to understand the intention.

When it comes to this particular subject, I'll leave some parts I love of Persistence Desire by Joan Nestle:

"the femme is the lesbian who poses this problem of misinterpreted choice in the deepest way... Femmes are women who have made choices, but we need to be able to read between the cultural lines to appreciate their strength. Lesbians should be mistresses of discrepancies, knowing that resistance lies in the change of context."

"Butches were known by their appearance, femmes by their choices."

"I think that straight people know that there is something different about me, but I'm not always sure they know what it is." (Which I think fits for lgbtq+ people outside of butch/femme circles too)

And Butch Is A Noun by S. Bear Bergman:

"(For the record, I believe that the same is true of femmes; the femmes who get the most admiration, the most approbation in the queer community in which I live seem to be the ones who cherry-pick exactly what of femininity they want, mix it with a hearty dash of traditionally masculine characteristics like sexual agency, stompy boots, assertiveness, fondness for power tools, and so on, and shake up a gendered cocktail that makes traditional unexamined cultural femininity look a little watery, a little pale. This is what I see, as a longtime admirer of femmes in all their variations, but I freely acknowledge that I only see what any femme cares to show me, and it's really not for me to say."

Now, when it comes to tlt, I think for me Harrow's subtle behaviours and her little intricate rituals point very strongly to femme and I respect people who don't agree, but the notion of the impossibility of her as femme using arguments that would dismiss and invalidate a lot of femmes I know, even myself, femmes through and through, were odd to see, it's very constricted and it looks more like not considering her a feminine lesbian (sure, I'll take that) than not considering her femme and yes, there's a difference.

[wifegideonnav]

Hi hello I'm so sorry to appear out of nowhere but having stumbled on your blog. Are you reading Homestuck after reading Locked Tomb??? Because like. I just finished Harrow and the concept of someone not being aware of the fingerprints all over it now reading HS is incredible and I am very excited for you

hi! yeah lol, i started gtn in november of 2021 and now i started hs in december 2022 after having read all three tlt books that are out. it's definitely a very interesting experience reading hs after tlt, especially when i have a friend who's currently doing the reverse (we traded). it's been quite interesting as we both come across parallels from opposite sides of the equation; when we started out, we were reading together and she gets to a line in the first chapter or two of gtn about a bell falling down an endless flight of stairs, and she just yells out "that's a fucking homestuck reference!!!"

meanwhile i'm aware of some of the homestuck influences on tlt simply through the posts that other people make, like i know that the river bubbles are a clear homestuck parallel.

but yes, gaining a deeper understanding of tlt - from the meme level to the theme level - is a huge motivator for me to actually take homestuck on! this is not where i saw myself ending up when i plucked gtn off the shelf in barnes and noble, but tbh i don't hate it.

also, please no one ever feel like you can't just hop into my askbox and yell, i love chatting with people! anyway, thanks for the lovely ask, anon, and have fun with nona :)

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

mIN- MIN I HAVE THE MOST URGENT OF DILEMMAS /hj

Okay so I have this AU that I've FINALLY gotten the motivation to work on- at least at a planning stage- and in the two and a half years I've had this AU, I have literally never been able to give it a name and so I ask, dear co-captain of the Thomceit ship, for your assistance on this as I have nary a soul to turn to-

For reference: It's a Thomceit superhero AU that I want to draw/animate where the whole shtick is that the show is just the adventures of C!Thomas dealing with school whilst adjusting to becoming a superhero, whilst Janus is dealing with being a superhero and adjusting to school because this is his first year not being homeschooled and also there's kissy kissy mwah mwah shenanigans with some good old fashioned secret identity nonsense, and like an overarching villain plot ig- but the Thomceit is obvi way more important!!!

If you can help me dear friend I would be very very grateful, but if not- that's okay too, I haven't managed in two and a half years so I have no idea how well you'll fare- /lh

hi! yes. HI. oh fuck I'm so bad at naming things - I only just settled on a title for the TLT fic and it's been a full eight months on that bitch.

my advice for you is to either: pick a single pretty but obscure word that vaguely relates to the themes and use that (i usually end up combing the Phrontistery), name it after one or both of their Superhero Names, pick a lyric/line from the song/poem you inexplicably associate with the AU, or just call it something like the Masks AU.

[taylorrama]

The Locked Tomb + mewithoutYou pt. 10/17

Was he a violent man? Well, he had his genocidal moments... Or penned by fiction’s hand? To whom could that phrase not apply?

Song: Red Cow Album: Pale Horses

Something something, cows have complex social relationships. Naturally, I had to see if this song has any interesting images for TLT purposes.

Much of this song is about false idol worship as seen in the Old Testament, but highly recontextualized. This alone is very interesting if we want to read Jod as a false idol, and I think that's a valid reading that he himself might even agree with.

The first chorus.

Behold the snake of brass, the wind was blowing backwards Behold a golden calf, blighted leaves of Law O for the land we knew before the frogs withdrew In the fragrant pomegranate blooms where the tender locust flew

The golden calf is a pretty well-known Bible story about the Israelites crafting various gods while they were stranded in the desert after the Exodus, so that's what's invoked here. What's also invoked is this sense of longing for the place they'd left. What does this have to do with TLT? If Jod is a false idol, and if there is any wide-spread in-world realization of how this universe came to be, then suddenly this sentiment hits very, very hard. There could be longing for a world either before Jod nuked and resurrected everyone, OR for a world before this truth became known, where it was easier to believe in the gentle King Undying.

We get a reference to "milk white tombs" in the second verse, but the only connection there is "hey look, the word 'tomb.'"

The second chorus, though, gives us another interesting idea.

In the wells of livestock vans with shells and garden sands Iron mixed with oxygen as per the laws of chemistry and chance A shape was roughly human, it was only roughly human Apparition eyes apparition eyes Knock Apparition Knock eyes apparition eyes

These lines are about seeing religious/spiritual figures in otherwise random, mundane objects, and believing there's some great meaning behind it. Even if the image is "only roughly human," we might still perceive this as a spiritual experience. In TLT, anything being "roughly human" is much more literal, whether it be constructs, nearly-immortal Lyctors, Jod, necromancers formed of all the dead children of the Ninth House, or cavs reanimated into bodies with speed holes.

Finally, the last part of the song gives quite a kick.

Was he a violent man? Well, he had his genocidal moments... Or penned by fiction’s hand? To whom could that phrase not apply? How much are even lifeless sounds responsive to our listening ear! What Pharoah now, what Paroah now, or Jew or picture holds us here?

The tone of this first line is basically the tone of Jod's entire backstory. It's honestly a line that could easily appear in the books. The next line makes it even funnier and more meta because yes, Jod was, in fact, penned by fiction's hand. And the third line digs at this tendency to find meaning in things that don't actually have life–a huge callout for literally all fans of anything anywhere, including myself writing these silly posts about a weird band and a lesbian space nun book series.

Before cringing at the last line, know that Aaron Weiss, the song-writer, had a Jewish father and grew up in a very eclectic religious environment. Since this song incorporates imagery of Moses and the Red Sea, the reference could be a call back to him, or it could be a more personal reference to the faith of Aaron's father. The idea in general is to question the hold or authority that these powerful figures of have over religious understanding, and that question becomes extremely easy to ask when, in TLT, we learn that God is just some guy.

---

TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 1; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 2; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 3; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 4; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 5; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 6; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 7; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 8; TLT + mewithoutYou pt. 9

[imnotgrimimjustagrumpyreaper]

If anyone wants to read my essay on queerness in TLT that turned into a nonsensical ramble and went 450 words over the word count, I'll put it under the cut. Yes I'm an English major yes my citations are incorrect FUCK YOU.

Queerness in Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb Series

According to queer criticism, queerness of media goes beyond just the characters being queer (though that is, unfortunately, still very rare in media, even today). Queerness in media can be examined, yes through queer characters, but also the text itself presenting queer themes, subtle queercoded signals, and general deviance from the norm in media or transgressiveness (Tyson). With that being said The Locked Tomb series is likely one of the queerest sets of books ever put to print. A vast majority of its main characters and side characters are queer; hell, God himself in the series, or John (dubbed “Jod” by the fandom), is a bisexual man. The series takes place in a world where queerness is normalized. Relationships and gender in the series are both treated very flippantly in regard to “Rules.” The series itself is incredibly fluid in its identity and storytelling. With all of these elements combined, The Locked Tomb series becomes a hell of a ride. The way the series explores and defies genre, gender and relationships is a refreshing and oftentimes confusing break from the norm.

Confusing in that nine times out of ten, neither the reader nor the characters have any clue what the hell is going on. The Locked Tomb does not limit itself to being only one thing. Even its title was in flux, frequently referred to in the past as “The Locked Tomb Trilogy” ; it has now been confirmed to instead have four books. The three that have been released as this paper is being written, in order: Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth and Nona the Ninth all have entirely different tones and are arguably all entirely different genres, all tied together only by the characters, who themselves undergo significant changes throughout the story, often changing names, titles and or bodies. 

Gideon follows the titular Gideon Nav as she, for the promise of her freedom, becomes the unwilling cavalier to her necromancer and lifelong ‘Enemies-to-almost-lovers” frenemy, Harrowhark. Harrow, trying to save her dying house ( house meaning planet, and or country), wants to become a Lyctor, essentially an immortal angel of Jod. The book in the beginning is a light sci-fi fantasy and a magical-school-esque story. A wacky cast of characters is introduced and they explore the ruins of an ancient castle and enter dangerous, forbidden areas to complete challenges. Things take a turn for the worst, and it becomes a tense murder mystery as cavalier and necromancer teams start turning up mangled and dead. Then, around the last act it becomes something else entirely as the hardcore lore shows up and starts flying over the audience’s head. Said lore, who although this is unimportant is named Cytherea, causes Gideon Nav to sacrifice herself and force Harrow to absorb her soul and become a Lyctor. 

The second, Harrow, is hard to describe. It is a tense waiting game filled with family drama between a group of 10,000 year old people, Jod and his original Lyctors, and their two new recruits, Harrow and another necromancer from the first book, Ianthe. An ancient, terrible monster is making its slow approach intent on killing them all. All of this is told from the point of view of Harrow who gave herself a homemade lobotomy and spends most of her time puking and being haunted by either hallucinations or a ghost. The story cuts back and forth between the antics of said messed up family, told in the second person from Harrow’s POV. That, and a bastardized retelling of the events of the Gideon, also from Harrow’s perspective, but told in the third person. These semi-flashbacks are Harrow’s cut up brain attempting to regain its memory while accounting for the absence of Gideon Nav, who she tried very hard to forget (as well as a malevolent ghost haunting her, different from the hallucination ghost, but that gets complicated). 

The third, Nona, becomes a post-apocalyptic story twice over. It is told from the perspective of an unknown soul in Harrow’s body, Nona, and her found-family living on a dying refugee camp hell-planet. This is interjected with weird “Dreams” Nona is having, titled like biblical chapters (“John:16”), where Harrow converses with Jod. The audience knew that Jod resurrected the world, this has been a fact from the beginning of the series, but it is through these chapters with Jod that they learn not only that he destroyed it, but that it is their world that he destroyed. Thanks to a brief period where Jod himself was dead towards the end of Harrow, the world is dying again. The nine houses as the reader came to know them by the end of Gideon are gone. The majority of necromancers and their cavaliers, and other peoples from the houses, have been killed and everyone left in that corner of the universe is huddled on refugee camp planets waiting to be shuffled off to the next one. In this way it is not just a post apocalypse story where the reader sees the distant, forever scarred but not still freshly bleeding world, but as well a story where the reader is up close and personal with a very real new apocalypse. One that is threatening to destroy that same world again. As mentioned, the books can feel almost like they belong in separate series, it is the characters and their messy, complicated relationships that keep the series connected.

Cavalier and Necromancer relationships often teeter on boundaries. The first and most prominent example is that of Gideon Nav and Harrowhark. Their relationship is explicitly romantic but it also isn’t. The two grew up together as the only two surviving children of their house (house here meaning, planet or country). They also explicitly hated one another to the point of physical violence, while simultaneously having an obsessive, codependent relationship. Gideon killed herself to force Harrow’s hand and make her become a Lyctor to save herself. Harrow cared for Gideon enough to give herself a lobotomy to avoid completely absorbing her soul. However, while the two almost explicitly love one another romantically, Harrow is actually explicitly in love with someone else. That someone else just happens to be a 10,000 year old corpse and the soul of the earth (who has too many names) incarnate. Harrow has been in love with, more accurately obsessed with, the body of Alecto, or Annabell Lee, since she was 10 years old. Gideon knows this and knows that this means she does not have a chance. In a heartbreaking line towards the end of Harrow Gideon declares she does not care, it doesn’t matter that she will never be Harrow’s lover, she’s something more important, she’s her cavalier (Muir, Harrow). Other examples of relationships that cross boundaries include that of Camila and Palamedes, two characters from Gideon that become very important in Nona (they are a part of Nona’s family). Camila and Palamedes are the cavalier and necromancer of the sixth house and are a healthier version of Gideon and Harrow. Although, they are explicitly platonic with no hint of romance or perhaps they could be read as a queer-platonic relationship. A queer-platonic relationship is a relationship that is not explicitly romantic or platonic and is outside of those defined boundaries; they are often between, but not limited to, aromantic individuals. The two are extremely dependent on one another and after Palamedes’s death in Gideon, Camila becomes obsessed with getting him back. By Nona the two are both sharing Camila’s body, and by the end of Nona they find a perfect version of Lyctorhood, wherein no soul becomes absorbed and lost forever, but instead the two become one, and they become a new person entirely. Beyond that there is Ianthe and Coronabeth, a pair of twin sisters with a deeply codependent and toxic relationship that has very unfortunate incestuous undertones. They are prime examples of both the “Same Sex Doubles” trope and of “Transgressive sexuality” (Tyson). Another example of transgressive sexuality to be found is Jod and his polycule, who although are coded as a found family unit with Jod as the father figure have spent the last 10,000 years dating and sleeping with one another. There is also the case of Gideon the First, Pyrrha Dve and Commander Wake. Gideon the first and Pyrrha were original Lyctors, but like most, did not do the process right. This meant that both Gideon and Pyrrha’s souls were alive in Gideon’s body and fighting for control at any given time. In an utterly bizarre relationship dynamic, they both wound up dating the same person, Wake. 

On the subject of Pyrrha, The Locked Tomb is a series that is quite flippant with gender, nowhere is this more prominent than in Nona. Characters like Gideon (or Kiriona, as she has been renamed) and Ianthe, though both women, are referred to with traditionally masculine titles such as “Prince.” Ianthe shows up later in the novel, possessing the dead body of her cavalier and yet she is still herself, not a him. Another fantastic example is Pyrrha. Pyrrha in Nona is a member of Nona’s family. At the end of Harrow she saves Gideon Nav (in Harrow’s body) and the reader learns that she has been dormant in Gideon the First’s body for 10,000 years, but his soul is dead now. In this way, her body is his. Pyrrha is an imperfect metaphor for transness. Her body is not technically hers, but she is never shown to be uncomfortable in it. This differs from trans-ness, wherein, the body is their own, though they may often feel like it isn’t. It is important to state that trans people are allowed to be comfortable in their own bodies, it is not a “Requirement” to be trans, even though many aren’t. It is how she is treated that makes her more explicitly trans-coded. She, although explicitly a she, is frequently misgendered by people outside of Nona’s little family. She is referred to as Nona’s father many times, and people see her as a threat; she is often, less kindly, referred to as Camila and Nona’s pimp (Tamsin, Nona). Indeed, Lyctorhood causes all sorts of gender and identity wildness. In the process of becoming “Jod,” just plain John, back on Earth, merged with the soul of Earth (who has too many names) to become John Gaius. Although it is unclear how much control Alecto or Annabel Lee, or Nona (yep, she’s Earth), or Earth has, John states in Nona that he lost a part of himself (Tamsin, Nona). So, he is not still entirely himself, he is himself and a part of her; just like all Lyctors are themselves and a part of their cavaliers. This, however, is not the case with Paul. Paul, who was Camila and Palamedes, is a new person in Camila’s body. They, so far, explicitly use only They/them pronouns. While, another bizarre and imperfect trans coded character, they are still deeply welcomed they/them user representation. 

To summarize: The Locked Tomb is an incredibly queer series, not just in its plethora of representation but just in its general feeling of “Queerness.” From genre-bending, to playing with gender and body swapping, to numerous examples of out of the ordinary and transgressive relationships, the series loves to break down boundaries. Gideon, Harrow and Nona have done so much for young, queer people, everywhere and a very positive community has sprung up surrounding the books. Time will only tell what will come with the fourth book, Alecto-or Annabell Lee, or Nona, or Earth, or, you know, whatever her name is. 

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Day Two

[This is the third part of a collected liveblog/analysis of Nona the Ninth! See here for the other parts.]

In this section, I fixate on character names and other weird worldbuilding details!

Chapter 7

-Yup, so Nona is also the one dreaming. And it appears that John is seeing Nona-in-Harrowbod, hence the conflation!

Guessing we’ll get one of these whenever Nona sleeps, so in between each day.

[Later me: Wow, past me sure was confidently wrong here!]

-The weird thing is that the dreams Nona described to Cam are nothing like the chapters we just read…

-Oh? Red eyes in the darkness - those are from Harrow’s skeletons guarding the pool. So yes, this is very likely the pool scene.

-p80 And here is the infamous cheeseburger t-shirt!

-p82 - We Suffer doesn’t like Pyrrha because she makes them think of God being a man? That’s a confusing one. Was We Suffer a House defector? Why would she care about John-as-God? Surely the BOE doesn’t think of him in those terms.

-I really need to start taking notes on who calls who what.  Pal and Pyrrha are mostly on last name basis. Pal uses Cam for Camilla. That kind of thing.

[Later me: as a side note - for Japanese media fandoms, which I’m most familiar with, I’ve often made extensive tables and lists to keep track of which honorifics different characters use for each other when writing fanfic. And writing TLT actually feels surprisingly similar - the characters usually have at least 4+ different ways of referring to each other. First name, last name, House affiliation, House-specific title, and potentially multiple nicknames which they are only called by certain characters in certain circumstances. Like, does Harrow use “Griddle” for Gideon while in public? Is it generally accepted to refer to Coronabeth as “Corona” to her face? These are the kinds of nuances that keep me up at night!

If I ever undertake a full series re-read project, I am legitimately considering making an extensive spreadsheet to keep track of all the combinatorics…]

-p84 - Ah, so here we’re again getting into the question of brain meat. Seems like Cam and Pal can’t last like what they’re doing.

Interesting to hear more about the Transference trial from Pyrrha’s side! Sounds like that could also have been something that killed Gideon by accident, like the Avulsion trial. Whoopsie.

-p86 Huh! According to Pyrrha, the Ninth was settled (and grim) even before Anastasia arrived. Another note to add to the timeline!

-p93 People with white/no eyes in a cargo trawler, that all look up at the same time, hm? I’m not even sure what that could be. Possibly necromancy of a sort? Perhaps they were constructs?

-p94 One of the big mysteries of the book appears to be “what is the Convoy.” Pyrrha knows what a normal convoy is, but this seems to be something else, something bigger that the kids don’t have the right word for.

[Later me: That being said, apart from “who/what is Nona?” - something that can be guessed even before reading the story - this book is surprisingly absent of (murder) mysteries and intrigue. It’s yet another aspect that sets it apart from GtN and HtN. I personally love mysteries, so I did miss it, but I’m sure lots of people feel the opposite!]

Chapter 8

-Noodle is a Good Dog (even when wriggling out of his shoes) and Nona’s fake conversation is... exactly what I would expect from her, so I really don’t have anything to say about this chapter? It is a very short chapter!

I am still very curious what Crown’s deal is, but it feels like something the narrative will eventually answer more clearly.

John 15:23

-Perhaps the numbers are the time on a military clock when the chapter takes place? But the chapters often skim over quite a bit of time…

-p98 - I’d been wondering about that! Gideon/John’s gold eyes are just barely possible in real life, if we’re assuming the descriptions are a bit of poetic license. But apparently the gold description is not an exaggeration - they’re outright supernatural.

-Oh my god. I was not expecting an outright Twilight reference in THESE books. Wow.

-p101 So John’s dead bodies were Ulysses and his cav. T-? Unlike Nigella, I can’t remember her name. It was also a literature reference I believe?

”Their old names” - Oho. Incontrovertible confirmation that characters’ names were different back in the old world, and John changed them to be what they were post-Resurrection!

Like, it often feels slightly dissonant to me whenever I read Modern AU fanfics and the character names are the exact same as in the books. Mercymorns and Augustines and Harrowharks all passing without comment. On the other hand, “translating” the book names into “modern English conventions” would probably come across even weirder - I imagine it would end up sounding like old, bad anime dubs, super awkward and shoehorned. And no two authors would ever use the same names, haha.

Still, while I wouldn’t ever use them in anything, they sure seem fun to speculate about. What were the OG Lyctor’s original names back in the modern world?

-Lots of details of John’s life in the old world! His Nan and his dog. 

Weird to think about how half of Gideon’s closest relatives have been dead for 10,000 years...

-Huhh. So early John can move bodies remotely. That sounds more like normal necromancy than his unique God powers.

Chapter 9

-p106 So Nona can swim? I assume CamPal taught her. (I’ve been meaning to look up whether Gideon knew how, I’m sure it must have come up but I can’t remember... so this might be a clue to Nona’s identity and I’m missing it.)

-106 Of course, BOE would destroy corpse bones and graveyards, can’t leave ammo for necros!

-108 Does Nona’s love of saltwater derive from the Pool Scene? Here, it reads as if that might be what’s going on. Though given the way saltwater tends to come up in a lot of significant places,  I suspect Nona is conflating the Pool Scene with something else (perhaps even her tomb as Alecto?).

-p110 So the Empire’s language is just called “House.” As in, “speak House.” Fair enough. It’s not like the word “English” has meaning anymore. Though given John’s origins, I assume it really is supposed to be modern English that everyone speaks - there’s no implicit translation convention going on.

-p111 Ooooh. So CamPal can be in the same body at the same time. And Lyctor heterochromia! Fanficers and fanartists must be happy~

-p112 Huhhh. Nona calls the CamPal hybrid a “new person.” A new person like herself? Maybe there is some of Gideon-and-Harrow in her after all…

-113 Hm. So when the CamPal hybrid uses necromancy, it results in blood sweat. Odd. Would have thought a Lyctor wouldn’t bleed anymore.

Oh? Or are they *not* Lyctors, and this was them going slightly down the Eightfold path?

Yeah, Pyrrha’s reaction makes me really think the latter.

Chapter 10

-It occurs to me that Nona’s vanity might be Gideon’s vanity without the baggage of Gideon and Harrow’s weird relationship influencing her opinions of Harrow’s appearance.

-p118 Heh, now that’s a thought! What would Gideon and Harrow think of Nona’s gang of kids? I agree with Cam’s read, I think. Gideon would love them. Harrow… hmm, maybe. 

More specifically, I imagine Harrow wouldn’t like them at all, but she’d still feel compelled to protect them to some degree due to her sense of guilt.

-p118 …space elevator… *continues scribbling notes on TLT tech*

-p120 Pal has worked on a Lyctor body before? Is he referring to Cyth?

-p121 And here we get a bit more worldbuilding on reproduction in the Nine Houses. Apparently the Sixth doesn’t even do pregnancy except for research! Can I move there, please? America sucks.

Meanwhile, from backstory details I think it’s implied that the Second (Judith was born interstellar, and why would anyone take a vat interstellar?) and Ninth (Harrow’s parents’ difficulties) still do births the old fashioned way. The Third is ambiguous - I guess there’s nothing preventing Ianthe from almost dying in a vat womb same as a normal one. The Fourth definitely uses vats (which we knew from Isaac). And there’s no data on the Fifth, Seventh, or Eighth that I know of. Though the level of genetic engineering present in Silas and Colum’s backstory makes me think the Eighth might use them too.

-p122 Oooh. Confirmation. CamPal aren’t a full Lyctor, not at all. They’ve just done part of the theorem. Enough to change their eye colors and share a body, but it seems little more.

-p122 Okay, yeah, so it was as I thought with the cages. They burn necros - or people they think are necros - alive. Yeesh, even the fanfics don’t go that hard, but it checks out quite well with what the materials at the end of HtN suggest about BOE’s hatred of necromancy.

Also - given the burning, and the way the mob probably doesn’t even have real necros, I imagine the similarities with suspected witches or heretics being burned at stake is quite intentional.

Like, “necromancy is witchcraft” has always been an undercurrent - Harrow is a bone witch, after all - but this is the most on the nose the connection has been to historical witchcraft, rather than fantasy mages and wizards and whatnot.

-Oooh, so Pal is so worried because he thinks the victims might be Sixth House people. Yikes, what a quandary.

Aw. And for Pal, it isn’t even about that, or about them being Sixth House at all. Three people being burnt to death is horrible regardless of who they are.

In a series full of terrible people, Cam and Pal are often acting as the moral compass, aren’t they?

-p123 Oh hey, Cam has a half-sister ten years older named Kiki! She can join Abigail’s brother in canon relations everyone always forgets about, heh.

-p125 Well, even if I was wrong about the Angel, I was right about Nona having a special connection to the RB! (And it is called “Varun.”)

-p125 “I don’t let go,” said Camilla. “It’s my one thing.” (yesss, we stan a determinator queen <3)

John 5:18

-p128 Oh good, other religions at least still existed in the old world. Interesting that Mercy was atheist but friends with a nun. Maybe Cristabel was the nun? And resurrected Mercy went on to found the Eighth… she’s a woman of many contradictions.

-p129 Two scientists (A- and M-?) an engineer (G-?) and a detective (P-) and a lawyer (C-) and an artist (N-). Or at least I think that’s the right name-to-job matching.

-p129 pffhahaha so they just streamed it? Wow.

Also lol the dig at the internet. Also confirmation that the Nine Houses don’t have it!

They do seem to have some electronic communication, given Judith’s signal for help. But I’ve always wondered about things like Cam, Pal, and Dulcie’s letters. Do they just enjoy writing letters? Or is there truly nothing comparable to personal computers and email?

Quick Thoughts

-It was at this point that following an afternoon of reading, I had to go eat dinner. As good a time as any to pause for some general thoughts!

-I’m surprised at how little we’re getting of everything else going on! Presumably Judith and Corona are off doing things, but we don’t even know what happened to them! -We also don’t have any of John and Ianthe’s side of things. Do I miss Ianthe? Maybe a little, ha.

-Opinion so far: As usual, Muir’s writing is a delight to read despite the incredibly bleak subject matter. My general thoughts on the series are unchanged - I haven’t found anything to dislike, but I also have yet to find anything that immediately grabs me the way the other books did. Nothing new that makes me want to jump up and recommend this series to everyone I know.

But it’s still very early in the story!

Day Three >>

[familyabolisher]

haphazard assortment of thoughts on the unwanted guest:

firstly, it really does have to be said—crazy good, probably my favourite of all the tlt short pieces, and i say that as someone who lost my mind over as yet unsent for like a week. excellent conceit and excellent execution, just a really gorgeous piece of writing. the play format of course reminds me of what abigail says to harrow in htn—that the river bubble is a ‘play [she’s] directing’—the inside of one’s head as a stage in which other actors can intervene & whereby mileage can be gotten out of Symbolism as immediately “real,” tangible presences that the kind of realist baggage that a more quotidian prose form would usher in would probably falter in accomplishing. it’s a lot!! i think even if i wasn’t already a tazmuir writing style defender (contra the insistence that she’s yknow homestuck fanfiction serial numbers filed off hack) then this would have had me floored anyway. 

the play format also works in the way that muir’s general dexterity in form and willingness to really make use of craft as a technical space where discourse can be generated always works—i’m talking about the ‘fanfictiony’ voice in gtn which manages to say something both about fanfiction and about the text itself, the use of the dramatis personae as a space where atmosphere can be established and plot points hinted towards (thus blurring the lines between what is and is not diegesis), the drastic shifts in style between different close thirds, the shifting from third- to second- to epistolary first-person, the use of poetry both diegetic and not (the noniad, the epigraph poems…), the mimicry of the ‘voice’ of the king james bible in the nona epilogue—she never stays in one place for too long and she never seems to stick to one central style or form, and it really works in her favour. insofar as tlt as a whole is a very ‘patchwork’ kind of work, building itself up from its big big index of references and intertexts and memes with hugely variant levels of ‘prestige’ or legitimacy attached to them, the ‘patchwork’ use of form really works in muir’s favour. however i am also fuming because i was right in the middle of writing a tlt fic which jumps into a play format two-thirds of the way through and now my idea doesn’t look ORIGINAL but ANYWAY—

& i really do need to flag my good friend vee’s mercy/augustine fic, which makes use of a similar conceit and pulls it off masterfully—i am deeply jealous of vee’s talent and i think the unwanted guest makes this piece (from 2021!) shine even more, if anything.

i am DYING to see where muir is going with the use of hamlet, of all things—dulcie quoting it to palamedes immediately catapulted my mind back to abigail’s reference to ‘that undiscovered country’ in htn. obviously muir likes to drop contemporary (or contemporarily canonical) references and turns of phrase all over the place, but the attention drawn to the quote as diegetically referential (“I like that. Is it from something?” / “Yes. It’s complicated.”) has me wondering about a) the survival of ‘pre-res’ literatures ~over the river and like WHY and b) what a thematic interlocking of tlt and hamlet can do, here…….real aveheads remember cytherea ophelia theory where i tried to use ophelia as a point of reference for teasing out some arguments about cytherea and death and aesthetics and white femininity and whatnot. all of which is to say i need to sit with this hamlet reading a lot more but i love it, i am so here for it.

of course ‘kissing or feeding, we can’t be sure’ calls to mind ‘how meat loves meat,’ alecto biting harrow’s mouth by way of a kiss…and the general thematic throughline of, you know, certain practices of love as practices of consumption, naberius later being figured as the ‘meat’ in question contains echoes of this eroticism which ofc guides the contours of the necromancer/cavalier dynamic, eroticism as a currency of power, we know all of this stuff because it’s all over the text but i am just thumbs-upping it from the sidelines

the coffins had me thinking of utena’s black rose arc, which is a fun link to make considering the equivalent moment in the main body of nona is also referencing utena, ie. with the ‘rules’ of the duel being that cam has to get the handkerchief out of ianthe’s pocket as kind of an equivalent to skewering the rose. i feel like the tlt/utena overlap is pretty self-explanatory but it’s just fun to see the fingerprints all over lol

i think a lot of this was treading old ground thematically (erotics of consumption, dog motifs, we’ve seen it already!) but i will say that i did Yell Out Loud over ‘who's she got dawdling behind her but that creature—tugging visibly at her leash like an overeager dog.’ reminded of the other memorable use of ‘leash’—’even the devil bent for god to put a leash around her neck’—and, of course, the endless parade of commonalities between gideon & alecto. anyway there’s not really anything in this line that we didn’t already know about gid as a character, thematically speaking, but i point it out because it inflicted +100 psychic damage when i read it. gideon as a ‘creature’ is particularly slimy, & sort of puts me in mind of ianthe's tendency to talk about what appears to us as 'butch masculinity' (as opposed to the more effete masculinity of augustine or even babs) with a notably derogatory slant (the 'hurtful threats of sexual violence' line comes to mind); i don't know that i have much to say about it here specifically but it's an interesting one that i think informs the kirianthe dynamic pretty heavily (especially when held up against, like, harrianthe ... ianthe has a kind of respect for whatever harrow's gay and stupid gender is Doing (at least insofar as she can mould it to her own desires; i'm thinking of the dios apate forcefemme scene lol) in ways that i don't think she has for kiriona? but this is v off-topic, lol).

i have never been especially taken by dulcie as a character but i think this may finally have forced me to fold and admit that she’s great. her haters!!! her agonies!!! camilla would have to cook!! the balance between levity and sincerity was really well-managed. & i love the double meaning of “unwanted guest” as both palamedes intruding on ianthe’s mind palace and naberius setting up shop inside of her.

i need a week to sit with where this idea of the consumed soul as being literally ‘digested’ such that it can begin to ‘inhabit,’ however immaterially, the host body, or like to alter the characteristics of the host body such that to carry out such a consumption is to kind of kill yourself as well, slots in with lolita theory. or like, i need alecto right now. i am however reminded of chew, a short story that muir wrote in 2013, which also plays with these ideas of sexual assault as a forcing of a part of yourself meaningfully ‘into’ another person, and cannibalism as the reenactment of such a process, figured in the story as kind of a reclamation or at least an assertion of permanence—“I was always going to be in the ground with him in me,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure.”—which the unwanted guest seems to kind of, play with in reverse? i don’t know, but i’m interested—as ever—in where muir wants to take these ideas of rape and consumption and absorption that she’s got in her hands.

i keep returning to…i hesitate to say ‘parallels’ because i think that imposes a narrative onus that i’m not actually that convinced by, but these, like, commonalities between babs and gideon. gideon is played off against so many people (cristabel, loveday, alecto being the big ones) that it feels kind of inane to add another person to the pile, but like…they’re the two who get got in canaan house, they’re both ironically ‘false’ cavaliers and expressions of the ‘truest’ or most paradigmatic form that cavalierhood ‘can’/’should’ take, they both have unconventionally gendered names (‘babs’ is a shortened form of ‘barbara,’ it is a typically feminine name imo) and (by our standards) somewhat unconventional genders (gideon is butch, babs effete)—and of course the unwanted guest places a lot of emphasis on the coercive ‘making’ of cavalierhood (the reference to babs being ‘fixed’ were he to have a disability! ianthe’s glib ‘society really is to blame’ comment—ironic, obviously, but not wholly untrue) not dissimilar to the emphasis that gtn puts on cytherea moulding gideon into the state she comes to be in at the end. babs and gideon as the two possessed corpses in nona, obviously. two wildly diverse but ultimately converging trajectories! a dialectical tension between their fundamental ‘opposition’ (as by-the-book cavalier vs whatever gideon is doing) and their fundamental ‘sameness’ whereby the dialectic is resolved in their mutual deaths. also just, of course, continuing the throughline that muir has had going for a while now, of gender/gendering as a set of coercive enforcements loyal to a hegemonic structuring of the world.

that’s all i’ve got, i think. just. really good everyone say thank you tazmuir

[skellebonez]

Since it's been a while since I prompted you, 38/51 for Traffic Light Trio and Spicynoodleshipping?

It’s also been a while since you... sent this... I am getting through my prompts slowly but surely! Hopefully the wait was worth it, it has been a while since I have written TLT or SpicyNoodles alone so this was really enjoyable! I apparently missed this more than I realized as this is quite long! (There are references to a past fill as well, but this can be read stand alone.)

If you move from that spot, so help me, I will tie you down/Can you two save the kissing for later?

“For the love of- stop trying to get up Noodle-Brain!” Red Son snapped, albeit more with exasperated worry than anger this time. “You’re only going to make it worse!”

“No, really, I’m fine!” Xiaotian insisted, moving to once again attempt to stand.

He was not fine and his face soon came into contact with an impromptu date with Red Son’s open palm, catching him before he landed on the floor instead. Normally Xiaotian would have pulled his face back with a muttered "sorry" or "thanks" or "wow Red that was shockingly nice of you".

Instead he groaned and allowed himself to just kind of... hang there, his weight being held by that palm that probably felt oddly normal temperatured to him at the moment. Understandable given that his face was flushed red and that even to Red's naturally warmer body temperature touch he felt overheated in fever.

This was not quite the sight Red Son had expected to see when he had ventured out into the city on his own, just wanting to have some kind of time away from his work to gather his thoughts about... well, a lot of things. Ever since the entire fiasco with the Lunar New Year festival his mind had been wandering back toward when he worked with Xiaotian and Xiaojiao and things that happened afterwards.

He still had the phone he had accidentally kept from the green dragon and they had talked a few times. More than a few times. ... ok, maybe they had been texting near daily and had calls every other night and maybe he started watching her streams out of curiosity, and maybe he had been added to a group chat with the Noodle Boy and started to text him too, but he didn't really have anyone else to talk to outside of the his parents and Bull Clones! They were still enemies, just friendly ones! Frenemies! And it had been... nice. To talk to someone who seemed interested in what he wanted to say. And maybe understood him a little. Maybe possibly... didn't actually dislike him as much as he had believed initially.

... and maybe Red Son was deluding himself when he said he didn't actually like either of them, but that was neither here nor there! His thoughts were getting away from him!

The point was thus- he'd gone into the city for a break with the intention of heading to his private apartment he had for such occasions, happened upon one Noodle Boy laying face down on the seat of his (otherwise empty and clearly not being used for work that day) delivery vehicle looking absolutely miserable and burning up, and against his better judgment he took him back to said apartment. That was shockingly easy considering Xiaotian was pretty much passed out due to the high fever combined with his moving around and the fact Red Son could lift the vehicle himself if he wanted to (he didn't, he just took the keys with them so no one would make off with it).

And so that was how Red Son found himself in this predicament. In his apartment with the AC on just enough to be slightly uncomfortable, one sick Monkie Kid doing his best to remove himself from his couch with a cold compress on his forehead while insisting he was fine when he clearly was not, debating on whether or not he should have taken this dumbass to the hospital instead. If only because he was being frustrating to keep still.

"You are most clearly not 'fine', now lay back down," Red Son said with a warning growl, pushing his rival (gently, he wouldn't be so callous as to kick someone while they were down like this) back into the mound of pillows he had laid out for him. He never had visitors so he may as well make the best of this and pull out what he had in storage so they could be used for once. "If you move from that spot, so help me, I will tie you down."

"... ok," Xiaotian finally acquiesced, closing his eyes and laying back into the plush around him and looking even worse than he had before he had been trying to convince the other he was fine. (Though had he not looked clearly sick the sight would have been almost cute to-NO! Red was not going to think that.)

Red Son didn't know what precisely was wrong with him, though based on his symptoms and reactions it was likely a basic but now out of control flu (regardless, he knew he himself was in little to no danger of most human illnesses) and helping him recuperate here (because no one except Red Son was allowed to defeat the Monkie Kid, not even an illness!) was looking like a more reasonable idea now. But he couldn't help but wonder how had the other man allowed himself to get this bad. Why had he even gone outside in his state? He wasn't working, his lack of normal uniform or delivery orders was evidence enough of that, so it wasn't as if he had been forced to go out by his boss. Was he just too stubborn? Did he think he would be ok for a few minutes and not realize he was this ill? The delivery boy was of no help in that regard, brushing off every attempt from the fire demon to learn the answers to those questions. He wasn't delirious, he just refused to answer!

So instead of trying to push again Red Son sighed and stood up. When Xiaotian opened his eyes to look at him in curiosity he frowned at the deep dark bags under them (had he ever been sleeping?) and the dull sheen they seemed to have before he held his hand up in a "stop" motion.

"You stay right there. I meant that threat. I am going to be back in 10 minutes. Do not test me..." Red stood, lifting both his arms for a moment before giving the other another glance. "And don't, uh... die, I guess."

And then Red was gone in a wave of his arms and a flash of fire.

~

He landed at the entrance to a nearby convenience store, not somewhere one would normally think he would frequent but convenience was convenience. And they had very good coffee to grab when he ran out in his apartment. Yes, he was a Villain with a capital V and could just torment the staff for free goods... but he knew that if he did that long enough the stores would start causing him trouble or close down and that would negate the convenience.

No, it wasn't because the first cashier that greeted him was willing to pay for his goods believing he had forgotten his wallet and thus felt guilty for his first attempt at doing so. And he would deny that until the day he died.

That wasn't his goal for the day, however. Red Son may not get ill the way humans did, but it felt useful to him to know how how to treat the more common ailments in the event his family may be forced to work with one. So he grabbed a basket and made a quick beeline straight for the nearest aisle with medicine.

In even less than the 10 minutes he cited he had a basket filled with flu medicine, more cold compresses, soup broth, and much more. Yes, all of this was absolutely necessary. He didn't care that much about his nemesis, he just wouldn't let an illness make him weak. Nope. That was the only reason. Nothing else. He totally wasn't caring for someone he considered a friend, he didn't have friends, not even Xiaojiao was a-

"Red?"

Crap.

"What are you doing standing in line at a convenience store?" Xiaojiao asked, and as Red turned back to her he saw that she had... some very similar items in her own basket, plus some comics. At his eyes widened in realization she looked down at his own basket and sighed. "... either this is a very interesting coincidence or Xiaotian did something he shouldn't have."

~

Red entered his apartment through the door, the noise rousing the apparently lightly sleeping man on his couch.

"Red? You're back alrea-!?" Xiaotian snapped his mouth shut as he turned his head and opened his eyes to see the wide smiling face of a, clearly to someone who knew her well, angry Xiaojiao. "... I'm in trouble aren't I?"

"Oh you have no idea," she replied lightly, setting down the snacks and books and other assorted items she had purchased while Red made his way into the kitchen with his purchases. "I told you I would be at your apartment with stuff after I finished covering your shift for you, so would you like to explain why Red Son found you nearly passed out in your tuk-tuk half way to the nearest store?"

Though her words were sharp and snappy, it was clear to the listening Red that they were so in genuine concern for her friend. There was a mutter from Xiaotian and a questioning sound from Xiaojiao before the man cleared his throat and repeated himself.

"You already helped me out... I just wanted to try to get that stuff myself so you wouldn't have to do more. I was feeling pretty ok until I drove for a while..."

Ah. So that explained it. Xiaotian had just been going out for medication himself. Not the best idea with a fever of his magnitude, but understandable if he believed he could handle something that simple. Red had begun to wonder if he had been trying to head to Flower Fruit Mountain with bow evasive he was being, but this was a much less disastrous answer.

"Xiaotian, you're my best friend," he heard Xiaojiao say in a much softer tone, and there was the sound of the shuffling on the couch. "I wanted to help you, it didn't matter to me how much it was. I've helped you get to Flower Fruit Mountain and kick demon ass! A delivery shift or two and a convenience store run is something I'd do in a heartbeat. Now open your mouth, I grabbed a thermometer so we can see how bad off you actually are."

There was an agreeable sound and a chuckle, then silence as Red continued what he had been doing. Taking out a dose of medication and preparing something for Xiaotian to eat. Or, rather, drink along side the tea he was also preparing for himself and Xiaojiao. It was little more than chunks of tofu and soup broth with some mild flavoring, something simple and easy to make and eat while sick and-

Red Son held his face in his hands and groaned softly as he waited for the broth to warm. What was he doing? His greatest enemies were in his living room, one sick with fever, and he was preparing medicine and food for him. Frenemies? Only he could defeat them? Is that really what he was telling himself to justify his actions? That they were friend-enemies and they were his to beat?

That was a bold faced lie and he knew it. Had known it for a while. Maybe since he first called Xiaojiao just to speak with someone who would listen to him. Maybe since he first watched her stream in curiosity. Certainly, though, since he accepted being added to the group text she had named "Traffic Light Trio" (really? What kind of name that that?). He would have never done that had he not considered them his friends, he knew that deep down. He just didn't want to admit it (and he super did not want to admit that he maybe felt his own face warm up when they complimented him or that he had butterflies in his stomach the off times they called him by nicknames).

As he turned off the now lightly boiling broth and set it to the side to cool, Red Son began to admit to himself that maybe he was just as much of a dumbass as the Noodle Boy. It seemed that out of the three of them Xiaojiao had firm hold on the only available brain cells when it came to interpersonal relationships.

But that train of thought was not helpful at the moment, so he pushed it down (deeeeeeep down) as he gathered everything up and made his way to the couch again.

The sight that greeted him gave him pause Xiaojiao sitting on the arm of the couch and running a hairbrush through Xiaotian's tangled hair, Xiaotian looking slightly better thanks to the compress against his forehead and smiling softly against the pillows.

There were those butterflies. Oh. Red Son had it bad.

"So?" He asked, drawing their attention to himself as he sat everything on the nearby table. "How bad is it?"

"Not enough to take him to a doctor yet," Xiaojiao answered with a chuckle as she hopped down. "Though I think what you did before helped with that."

Red flushed a bit himself in response, grumbling under his breathe as he shoved the medicine and a cup of water into Xiaotian's hands. "WELL. Take this and. Maybe it’ll stay that way!" He attempted to sound as snappy as normal but the looks on both his guests faces told him he failed miserably in that regard.

"Thanks, Red," Xiaotian said with an earnest smile, and the butterflies were back and Red Son couldn't help the slight sparking of his hair in response.

"Don't mention it. Ever." He grumbled a bit, taking the cup before sighing and helping Xiaotian sit up straighter. "You shouldn't eat half laying down." He maneuvered the pillows to make a little wall between Xiaotian and a space next to the arm of the couch. A space he quickly occupied himself before handing him the bowl of broth over his shoulder. "So you don't have to move more."

The other two looked at each other with surprise on their faces before Xiaojiao smiled and sat on the other arm as they grew silent. Xiaotian eating, Xiaojiao playing on her phone, and Red... well. He tried to look like he was doing something on "his" phone, the one he took from Xiaojiao and replaced the old case with a showy flame covered one. But in reality he was just sitting there staring into space thinking "holy crap this is happening what have I done what happens next oh crap".

"Hey Red?"

"YES!?" He asked far too loud and quick with a squeak in his voice as his hair flared at Xiaotian's words, clearing his throat before repeating himself in a much more appropriate tone (only to earn a giggle from Xiaojiao).

He felt the other man lean back against him, and before he could even begin to fight his flush on his face he heard him chuckle as well. "I appreciate your help."

"L-like I said... don't mention it..."

Xiaotian chuckled again in reply and sighed, leaning completely against Red Son and as he looked over and down he saw his relaxed face and flushed deeper and... it felt nice.

He wondered why he ever pushed down his feelings before.

Xiaojiao grabbed the dishes with a knowing smirk, heading into the kitchen with a few parting words.

"Can you two save the kissing for later? Maybe when Xiaotian isn't sick?"

Both men flushed as deep as they could and sputtered out denials in response, and if that wasn't an indication that Xiaotian maybe felt similarly to Red as Red did to him...

[sendme-2hell]

Ranking the books I read in April

aka just ranting about the books I read in april pls ignore me

1. The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson 

I cannot believe this book wasn’t nominated for a Hugo! I like the Hugo list (of the books I’ve read) but cmon. This book is like if you combined the social commentary in The City We Became and the queerness of Harrow the Ninth. Seriously this book had everything I wanted: parallel universes, great character development, social commentary, woc sapphic slow burn, satisfying ending. Also I feel like the title is paying homage to W. E. Dubois which is cool. “Between me and the other world, there is ever an unasked question: How does it feel to be a problem?” Like there is just this very cool idea of talking about other worlds as in literally other universes but also different worlds due to social and racial hierarchies. 

2. Plain Bad Heroines - Emily m. Danforth 

Horror, Hollywood, boarding school, everyone is gay, the narrator talks directly to the reader and it is hilarious, copious footnotes, have I mentioned how many sapphics there are? It’s hard to keep track. Plus polyamory. I just really loved this book and I felt it all came together in a way that was worth it. 

3. Steel Crow Saga - Paul Krueger 

This godamn book. I loved this book so much. I was so ready to yell about it on tumblr and tell people to read it. But apparently the author is someone who has harassed a lot of women so...uh...yeah. Nevermind I guess.

 I do want to say it is the most accurate depicition of a Sherlock Holmes superfan that I have ever seen in media. 

4. The Tiger’s Daughter - K. Arsenault Rivera

What if we went on a long trip on horseback and we were both lesbian warriors...jk unless…

Yeah so I loved this book so much. A lot of it is about navigating familial responsibility, fighting literal and metaphorical demons, fighting the patriarchy, fighting your anger, fighting tigers, etc...and yet I kept thinking to myself “this is the most romantic book I have ever read” and honestly I am gonna stick by that. It also has the “you think me a monster so I will become one” trope which is great. It is set in an Asian-based fantasy world and I did read a goodreads review that said it was as accurate to the countries it draws inspiration from as Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse is to the Russian and Scandinavian cultures it takes from. So that’s not great. 

5. Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo

Speaking of! A few months ago I tried to read Shadow and Bone in preparation for the tv show and I could not finish it. The writing was...bad. Anyway I really liked Six of Crows and even though, yeah it’s tropey (I’m looking at you, Helnik backstory), there’s a reason those tropes work. Plus you cannot go wrong with a heist. About halfway through I did realize that there are six mcs and three couples so its kinda just like a giant triple date, which really changed how I read the whole story.

I’m very glad I did read it before seeing the tv show because I was able to be appropriately excited for the Crows and catch the Wylan reference and everything, but I also got to see the Alina stuff without having to read about it. 

6. Crooked  Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo 

I think I somehow liked this even more than Six of Crows, but for narrative simplicity I’ll put it after. I really like it when you put people in an impossible situation and see how they figure it out. Especially if they get out in a clever and reasonably possible way that ties together many different plot threads and has a few good fake-outs. This did all of that, and also developed every character in a way I found satisfying (except [redacted] *cry emoji*). 

Kaz pulls a Baru Cormorant with some money stuff and now I wonder if they would be friends. 

I read this after watching the show which was good because I knew who Zoya and Genya were but bad because there is a point where Nina is like “here is how shadow and bone ends.” She’s just talking to Mattias and casually spoiling everything for me. So there goes my dreams of living spoiler free until the end of the show. 

7. The Miseducation of Cameron Post - Emily m Danforth

My expectations for this book were....very different than it turned out, and I’m glad for it. After reading Plain Bad Heroines I shouldn’t have been surprised at how well written it is. I really appreciated how nuanced it is. It doesn’t spell out its ideas or themes and therefore lets you really sit with them. I would rank it higher but I don’t really enjoy reading about high school. 

8. Foundryside - Robert Jackson Bennett

I love a good found family, especially if at the beginning of the book they are on opposing sides. Enemies to friends = best trope! Also it’s sapphic that’s always good. But the best part of this book was the worldbuilding which was so cool. 

9. Malice - Heather Walter

Remember what I was saying about “you think me a monster so I will become one”? This book is the definition of that trope. Women becoming unhinged after being treated like shit, we love to see it! Especially if it’s gay. I do have to say, authors who write duologies where the first book ends on a cliffhanger, I see what you’re doing but yes, I will be preordering the next book. 

10. Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells

I don’t have much to say because Murderbot is so consistently excellent.  uh why is it so cathartic when xenophobes disrespect Murderbot and it’s humans step in and shut that shit down. Gets me every single time. 

11. Queen of Coins and Whispers - Helen Corcoran 

This book was like half romance half politics and unfortunately I did not find the politics that interesting or well written. But the romance was A+. It reminded me of Priory of the Orange Tree a LOT. Though significantly less dragons and I’m taking many points off for that. 

12. The First Sister - Linden A. Lewis

I wanted to like this book a little more than I did. There was just maybe too much body horror for me. Interesting characters and world though. There was  a location named Cytherea that they mentioned a lot and it was very distracting. I guess I still have tlt brainrot. 

13. Shorefall - Robert Jackson Bennett 

I think this book was well plotted out but it didn’t quite have my attention like Foundryside did. Also yet another book where a woman’s girlfriend ends up in her head. This time no one had to die so that’s nice. TM and SD take notes! 

14. The Deathless Girls - Kiran Milwood Hargrave 

Ok I LOVED the Mercies by KMH so I was a little disappointed in this Dracula retelling. It got interesting in the last 50 pages, but unfortunately that is not enough for me.

proud of myself for not reading a single straight book this April 

[thejudgingtrash]

would you class percy as a morally grey character? i’m really interested to hear your input

Anon 2: Would u class percy as an Morally Gray character?

Hey there! Let me write that essay for you about morally gray Percy ^^

It’s not about whether Percy is a morally gray character or not, it’s about he has to be otherwise the story doesn’t make any sense. At least for me it wouldn’t.

Ashley (@gr33kg0ds) said in the tags of my dark!Percy post something along the line of people diminishing Percy’s character because they need him to be pure and fluffy and I wholeheartedly agree with that!

Just because Percy’s twelve doesn’t mean he’s pure and didn’t do unproblematic things. I’ll mostly refer to The Lightning Thief because that book is the Magnus Opus for Riordan and perfectly stands for Percy as a morally gray character from the very beginning of the saga. (Also the only book I’ve recently re-read)

As much as I love fanon with all the amazing artworks, debates, memes and jokes, analysis, cool edits and wonderful fanfics, projecting your version of Percy doesn’t make the image in your head real. Percy in canon is not the fun and fluffy boy you imagine him to be or which social media sites (Reddit, Twitter, Instagram and yes, also Tumblr) tend to make him to be. He’s a scrawny little sarcastic twerp that was the unpopular kid. He isn’t that cringy dude Tony Lopez doing that fucking weird TikTok dance (side note: I don’t even know who this person is and I don't care, I saw the video and immediately wanted to delete every social media app on my phone, so thanks Tony?), kissing his Yeezys goodnight, vibing to our lord and gay icon Taylord “T. Swizzle” Swift song and flexing them iPhone 11 Max Pros. Percy literally said that going to Burger King with his mother once in a while would be considered a luxury. He’s a poor bastard in literal sense.

Part of the problem with the distinction of Percy’s character and his motives stem from the fact that Percy is a sneaky unreliable narrator and we as the audience (especially if you’re younger) don’t question most of his behavior if you even question some (pretty sure that most of us only picked up weird stuff as adults). Everything seems plausible to you. But does it mean that his behavior is necessarily good? Something that would paint his character as good?

Like I’ve said, let’s take a look at TLT. The very beginning of everything and the wonderful line that gets quoted everywhere: “Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood”. 

The very first line that quoted everywhere or used as in moodboard and edits but its meaning and significance get brushed off for the most part. It immediately sets the tone and the atmosphere for the book and for Percy as a character. A(n in my opinion) morally gray character. The very first thing we hear from Percy is that he doesn’t want to be in this world. He’s an involuntary participant who has been (upon further reading) blackmailed and forced into this world and is only cooperating to get his mother back and said in regards to his father (who also stands for the Greek pantheon) ”well yeah, would be nice to know about my dad but I’ve survived without him the past twelve years so I don’t know, he wouldn’t be missed necessarily I guess?“ That pretty much tells you, it foreshadows, that we will be dealing with someone with grit, someone that fights back, someone that went through shit, someone that isn’t a goody two-shoed character. Does it mean he’s a terrible (in the sense of evil or bad) character from the get go? Not really, but it tells you in nuances that he won’t be the white shining knight you might expect from a fairy tale.

There is so much that little Perseus Jackson has to offer you directly in the first book. So much that paints him as a morally gray character. From the illegal candy stash all the way to tricking Procrustes into his own trap. He knows right from wrong and isn’t innocent by any means. He wants you to think he’s innocent. Yes, he hunts monsters and the book also tells you that some adults (Gabe) can also be monsters, but Percy’s personality is so interesting and full of facets which I love! He’s misleading you on purpose. Deflects, plays events down. He lies in front of you to others but you don’t really doubt it. Instead of questioning it, you understand it.

What distinguishes Percy from other male protagonists in that notion that the author doesn’t try to paint him as particularly good (the reader connects the dots, in reality) is pretty much that. Percy is neither inherently good or bad. He’s in the middle. He does lots of questionable things and his personality adds to it. Something that immediately comes to my mind is his lack of fear of consequences. He thinks in the short term and not in the long term. Of course, he’s caring about those that are close and important to him (Grover, Annabeth and his mother of course. And well. The world not getting destroyed by his weird father and fucking crazy uncle would be a plus). But Percy isn’t really a strategist (yet). Look at the Medusa head thingy. Annabeth and Grover warn him, that he’s gonna get his ass beat and he doesn’t care. That these gods could squish him in the end didn’t matter to him.

The Olympian gods are painted as these unpenetrable huge mighty force and some fuzzy annoyed twelve year old dipshit sends them the severed head of a monster - but not any monster, the monster his father had a role in creating (well, Athena for the most part, but you know what I mean). (Also, I know this kinda reckless behavior gets sorta rewarded but at first, everyone was like ‘NO, NO, NO!’ before Percy was glorious with his attempt). Percy essentially tells these ancient forces that drive the way of his new cosmos how shit‘s gonna work from now on.

Percy isn’t fear riddled and doesn’t think about the possible outcome. He manipulates, he lies, he persuades and all of this as soon as he hits twelve. But probably earlier. Pretty sure he had to become a believable lier in order to trick (survive being around) Gabe. Perseus is angry, he’s agitated. Had Riordan written Percy as a soft spoken, frightened, goody two-shoed kid, almost nothing in TLT and the follow-ups would have made sense. He’s the outcast, but slowly blossoms into the strength and muscles of the group. Of the entire camp. Someone that outsmarts opponents and wins battles. But he didn’t do that by playing nice and being a bootlicker.

TLT would’ve been a perfect standalone book that would have emphasized that Percy is an involuntary person sive) if you skip Kronos, leave a little bit foreshadowing with the prophecy out, tweak the talks with the gods and Annabeth’s first meeting and skip Luke and the scorpion at the end. The ending would’ve been “and so Percy had a first awesome summer vacation and found a group of friends for life” or so (aka PJO movie 1 in less shitty and more cohesive).

The morally gray character shrinks a little bit in the SOM because there lie straighter dangers ahead which dive more into the bigger picture and Percy grows more into the character who takes care of friends and but he does come back with TTC, and definitely BOTL and the St. Helens explosion.

Consequences of Percy’s interactions had people partially dying. There is doubt, there is guilt. But the show must go on. There are battles that have to be won. There is no big giving up, no big overturn for the bad guys.

Also... isn’t it interesting that we start with Percy saying ”look, I don’t want to be in this world“ in TLT and it ends with TLO where he says ”for once I didn’t look back“? The full circle? The way that accepting his fate took five books? To change Percy from being an involuntary participant to becoming voluntary? He didn’t want to be a half-blood, he didn’t want to be the kid in the prophecy, but he actively chose to be in the end. He went from a darker shade of gray to a mayhaps lighter, if you want to say so.

To conclude, I repeat myself again: it’s not about whether Percy is a morally gray character or not, it’s that he has to be.

Thanks for asking me about some meta stuff I really do like diving into these things here and there. Tumblr’s sorta glitchy, I do get notifications but I really don’t see asks, so I’m sorry if my response is mad late ^^

[bright-eyes-strawberry-lies]

Annabeth “triflers need not apply” Chase

In my last post, I said “another Annabeth hot take” as if I’ve ever posted any of my musing about Annabeth’s character (the posts Percy’s Personal Sense Of Evil  and Every Time Annabeth Is Mean To Percy In The Riordanverse] do not count) here on the blue hellscape.

Two disclaimers before I write this: the first is that PJO is my jam. I’ve read those books forward and back more than five times this year. HOO...I’ve read as a whole once; read Son of Neptune twice; and recently skipped through House of Hades specifically for the parts about Tartarus. Every series beyond that in the Riordanverse (Kane, Magnus, Apollo) have been woefully neglected by me as in I haven’t even cracked the spines on them. 

The second disclaimer is that I don’t like Annabeth, she’s basically the Christian Gray of the Percy Jackson series. I ship Percy with everyone who isn’t Annabeth because I think he deserves to be happy. But some people were calling for meta so here are your hot takes, folks. 

Annabeth is only with Percy because he’s the chosen one. 

She disdained Percy from day one, thought that he was worth less than the mud on her shoes and made sure that he knew it. This was before she found out that he’s a child of Poseidon so you can miss me with the “well their parents are enemies” bullshit. After Percy got claimed, Annabeth invited herself on his quest because she’s all about obtaining personal glory and he couldn’t say no because he only had two friends at camp (Luke and Grover). 

“He wouldn’t tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn’t destined to go on a quest yet. She had to until...somebody special came to the camp.” [...] “Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she’s been waiting for.” [Luke] (TLT, pg 102)

“I’ve been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brain.” [Annabeth] (TLT, pg 147)

She was silent for a few more steps. “It’s just that if you died…aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world.” [Annabeth] (TLT, pg 169)

Well, that’s not the only reason she’s with Percy. 

Chiron made Annabeth swear on the River Styx that she would try to keep Percy from danger. Which comes in handy during the Last Olympian, when she takes Ethan’s dagger for Percy (saving his life) but sucks for her because now her life is tied to his forever. Maybe that’s why she calls Percy crazy literally every time that he has a plan. 

“Swear you will do your best to keep Percy from danger,” he insisted. “Swear upon the River Styx.”

“I-I swear it upon the River Styx,” Annabeth said. 

Thunder rumbled outside. [SOM, pg 54) 

Actually Annabeth is the creepy one.

Luke always refers to Annabeth as such: daughter, little sister, cousin, family. From the moment he saw her, it was a familial love for him. He constantly reminds her that they were a family and that he wants to be a family. 

Annabeth, on the other hand, likes to call him “family” but she has a mad crush on Luke for the entire series that has got to be super weird for Luke. It was super weird for me, the reader. This girl can’t even hug Luke without panting like a bitch in heat (yeah, I said it, and I refuse to take it back). 

“This is Luke,” Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could’ve sworn she was blushing. (TLT, pg 84)

Annabeth blushed, like she always did when Luke was around. (TLT, pg 151)

Luke patted Grover’s head between his horns, then gave a goodbye hug to Annabeth, who looked like she might pass out. After Luke was gone, I told her, “You’re hyperventilating.”  (TLT, pg 151)

It isn’t until Luke is literally on his death bed that Annabeth finally agrees that he’s a brother to her.

“Did you...” Luke coughed and his lips glistened red. “Did you love me?” 

“You were like a brother to me, Luke,” she said softly. “But I didn’t love you.” 

He nodded, as if he’d expected it. (TLO, pg 337/338)

NO SHIT HE EXPECTED IT. LUKE HAS BEEN AIMING FOR THIS FOR FIVE FUCKING YEARS. HIS ENTIRE LIFE IS ALL ABOUT FINDING A FAMILY THAT LOVES HIM (and equal rights for all demigods).

Then there’s the other creepy stuff

Remember that time that she stalked Percy and fans are like “well it’s so romantic!” You’re the same people who thought Edward watching Bella sleep without her knowledge or consent was sexy. 

I thought I saw a shadow flicker across the glass – a humanlike shape.  (SOM, pg 3)

As I stepped outside, I glanced at the brownstone building across the street. Just for a second I saw a dark shape in the morning sunlight – a human silhouette against the brick wall, a shadow that belonged to no one. Then it rippled and vanished.  (SOM, pg 7)

 [Percy realizes Annabeth has been stalking him] “Pretty much all morning.” She sheathed her bronze knife. “I’ve been trying to find a good time to talk to you, but you were never alone.” [ … ] “There’s no time to explain!” she snapped, though she looked a little red-faced herself. (SOM, pg 23)

For those of you who are like “well she was waiting for him to be alone!” First of all, bitch it’s called knocking on the door and asking to speak to someone like a normal human being. But if that isn’t good enough for you, HE WAS ALONE RIGHT AFTER HE WALKED OUT OF HIS BUILDING. Talk to him then. 

But we all know the real reason she’s creeping outside Percy’s window. She’s a peeping tom. Anyone who has been around teenage boys (like, say, the girl who lived with teenage boys for five years) would know that the morning isn’t really the best time to be creeping outside a dude’s window unless you’re hoping for a show. 

All she cares about is glory.

Look, we know she’s a glory hound. Annabeth is in this war for the sweet, sweet recognition. She doesn’t care about the unclaimed demigods, she doesn’t care about all of the minor demigods being shoved in one cabin (here’s more info on that). Annabeth is off in her own little world where she’s the only thing that matters. 

Meanwhile, our boy Percy is fighting for his mom. And then he’s fighting for his best friend. He actually looks at Camp Half-Blood and goes “maybe this isn’t really right...” Yes, it takes him forever to get to the point where he’s like “Oh, Luke was right about everything” but he does get there. 

And then there’s our sweet baby angel, Luke Castellan, fighting from the get-go for fair treatment. Because Luke has suffered his whole life (since he was literally an infant); because Hal Green died to save Luke; because Luke has spent five years in a cabin full of kids who are hurting and whose pain is entirely preventable; because at fourteen, he thinks of himself (and Thalia) as heroes but Hermes says that he needs to go on a quest to be a great hero, so Luke does and it turns out to be the worst mistake he made in his life (up until Kronos). 

Which brings up a point, Luke always thought that they were heroes. For him, just being demigods and fighting monsters made them heroes. He didn’t need to go on a quest to prove himself to anyone. But for Annabeth, that is never enough. She needs to go bigger and bigger and bigger. 

Glory and being better than everyone else...

Wow, here we are again talking about Annabeth and Percy’s relationship. I really wish we couldn’t, because I’ve already taken literal days to find every instance of Annabeth being a dick to Percy (in the PJO series) and writing them down, conveniently located here if you’re interested in reading it... But it just keeps coming up. 

So, being better than everyone else. Where do I begin with that? How about the times that Annabeth thinks that the children of Demeter, yes Demeter the major goddess of the earth, are weak? Or the children of Aphrodite, you know, like Piper who charmspoke Gaea to sleep or Silena who charged into battle against a drakon are nothing but whisy washy airheads? Or really, anyone who isn’t booksmart like her. Like Percy, for instance. 

Annabeth’s nickname for Percy means stupid. Every time she uses it, she’s calling him stupid. You know, when she doesn’t actually use the word stupid or idiot. She’s also very fond of calling Percy’s plans crazy, every time he has a plan, despite the fact that his plans have never failed. Now who’s crazy, Annabeth? 

For real, though, she’s doing this because she wants to keep him in his place. Annabeth is shit for Percy’s self esteem. She constantly berates him for every little thing he does. She threatens to (and does) hit him on multiple occasions. Every time Percy says or does anything around Annabeth, he always thinks she’s going to punch me. 

GUYS THAT ISN’T CUTE. GUYS REMEMBER HOW PERCY USED TO GET PUNCHED INTO UNCONSCIOUSNESS BY HIS STEPDAD? 

Oh, and does everyone remember where Annabeth mocked Percy’s every choice in TLT but in Battle Of The Labyrinth where Annabeth is put in charge of the quest for the first time and she spends most of it freaking out and cracking under the pressure. It sounds like someone isn’t actually as good as she thought was. 

I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about this but in Tartarus, Annabeth is scared of Percy. He’s stronger than even she knew. Percy just wakes up from passing out and kills Arachne before Annabeth can even move. That caught her by surprise. Percy manipulates poison in an attempt to kill the goddess of misery, who has just tricked them and is planning on killing them. Annabeth immediately shuts that down. Because Percy isn’t allowed to be that powerful. She also freaks out when Percy jumps blind over a 20ft chasm while holding her because she didn’t know he could do that. 

And Percy is so used to not arguing with her (because she’s going to kick his butt, because it just isn’t worth it) that he just accepts it.

Her home life didn’t suck that bad. 

Because I was just talking about Tartarus, Percy says that it smells like Gabe in Tartarus and Annabeth....laughs? She thinks he’s joking. She thinks he’s trying to cheer her up. Why would she think that when they’re in literal hell and Gabe abused Percy for years? Because she’s on a different plane of existence than everyone else.

Annabeth’s home life didn’t actually suck in the way that she’s told everyone it did. It sucked that she got attacked by monsters. It sucked that Arachne sent spiders to scare her for three nights. 

Her parents don’t suck. Not even Athena. After ten years of hanging around all of these abused, neglected, traumatized people she finally got...what is it called? Oh yeah, some fucking perspective.

Frederick and Mrs. Chase (who doesn’t even have a name) did their best. There’s absolutely nothing unreasonable about Frederick not wanting Annabeth when she floated down from the heavens like the little Grinch she is. The dude had a few conversations with a woman and the next thing he knows, she’s dropping off a baby and won’t even help him raise it? Yeah, no thanks.

Either way, the entire family was getting attacked because of Annabeth’s presence in the house. So Mrs. Chase not letting her kids play with Annabeth? Makes total sense. It’s like quarantining the kid with chicken pox so that the rest don’t get it. 

Fighting about how to handle being attacked regularly? Also makes total sense but the fact that Frederick and Mrs. Chase stayed together is like couple goals. They’re the real power couple of the series. 

You know what else makes total sense? Thinking that Annabeth had a series of bad dreams about spiders because Mrs. Chase and her husband are mortals with mortal sight and cannot see divine shit. 

Is all of this terribly confusing for a child? Yes. Does her family deserve to die or be vilified because she’s too young for logical thought? No. 

Plus they kept asking her to come home. And when she finally did, she ran away again shortly after? She does this twice. Frederick literally flew into battle for her. She is so ungrateful for what she has (she’s rich, with a family who loves her. Literally her only problem is monster attacks).

Annabeth wasn’t homeless for that long

Look, Annabeth ran away  from home between July 12, 2000 (her 7th birthday) and was at Camp Half-Blood by December 22, 2000 (which would have been Thalia’s 13th birthday). Her first couple of months were spent alone...unless you count Athena helping her fight monsters and guiding her towards Luke and Thalia. 

Which directly breaks the Don’t Interfere Rule. You know, the one that Hermes used as an excuse for not helping his nine-year-old son while he was homeless for five years. Yeah. That one. 

Luke and Thalia took really good care of her for those few months. Annabeth mentions that the three of them built shelters all over the place, and since Luke doesn’t mention shelters in his diary or any (pre-Annabeth) flashbacks, we can assume that they built those specifically because they adopted a little girl. 

The whole “Family, Luke. You promised.” Is bullshit.

Here’s why. First of all, Luke was fourteen, a baby, barely out of puberty when he made that promise to be a family. He’s only ever wanted to be loved his entire life so that was him desperately trying to add another member to what he considered to be his family (Thalia never considered them family). He also never hurts her (see my post about holding the sky for more details). 

Annabeth was with Luke and Thalia for a couple of months at maximum. Then Thalia dies. Luke and Annabeth are split up into different cabins so they cannot eat, sleep in the same room, or do activities together except during the off-season. Annabeth does her best to get into Luke’s pants because I don’t know what else to call it when you pant all over the person hugging you. 

Luke also asks Annabeth to join him and be a family again for three whole books to which she repeatedly says no. His last attempt at being a family and keeping his promise happens literally before Kronos possesses him (after which, it is far too late to be a family because Luke barely exists anymore). 

“He came under a flag of truce. He said he only wanted five minutes to talk. He looked scared, Percy. He told me Kronos was going to use him to take over the world. He said he wanted to run away, like the old days. He wanted me to come with him. [...] I told him no way. He got mad. He said...he said I might as well fight him right there, because it was the last chance I’d get.” [Annabeth] (TLO, pg 201). 

Luke asks her to kill him because if he can’t escape Kronos and can’t have his family back, then Luke just doesn’t want to live anymore. Then he dies knowing that Annabeth doesn’t know that familial and platonic love are things so her “you’re my brother but I don’t love you” actually means that Luke dies thinking no one loves him. Probably why Luke immediately turned to Percy with his request for positive change. At least Luke can count on Percy to let him know that his entire life and death weren’t meaningless. 

.Fin. Fucking finally. 

[elliot-elliot]

Things i forgot about in PJO/HOO

TLT:

Percy accidentally fired a war cannon into a school bus

He also accidentally made his entire class fall into an aquarium tank thing

Grover cries when he’s frustrated

Grover has a note excusing him from PE “for the rest of his life”

Halfway though the school year their old math teacher had a nervous breakdown

Once, Percy told Grover that he didn’t think mrs Dodds was human and Grover was deadass just like “yes. You’re right” completely seriously

Chiron has tournament days where he would dress up in Roman armor

Percy assumed all the weird weather was because of global warming

Percy called his English teacher an old sot

Grover is a terrible liar

MASSIVE BLUE SOCK

Grover’s bladder acts up when he gets upset

Sally’s parents died in a plane crash when she was 5, and was raised by her uncle who didn’t really care about her

Sally wanted to be a novelist

She had to quit school her senior year to take care of said uncle, who got cancer

Gabe made Percy provide his gambling funds, and Percy said that if he didn’t, Gabe would “punch his lights out”

Percy has nightmares about Mrs Dodds

Percy genuinely liked Yancy Academy

Percy did the warding off evil gesture towards Gabe, and the screen door shut so hard “it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stairs as if he’d been shot from a cannon”

Percy was stalked by a cyclops in 3rd grade

In preschool, he strangled a snake with his bare hands, and his mom found him playing with it like a rope

At the cabin, grover cursed in Ancient Greek, and Percy understood it perfectly

Percy thought Grover was a donkey from the waist down

Percy tried to get the Minotaurs attention by waving his red rain coat

Percy said he would rather live on the streets or pretend he was 17 and join the army if it meant not living with Gabe

Percy said that Mr D looked like a Cherub

They have satyrs at most schools

There was a different Latin teacher for the first week of the school, but Chiron convinced him to take a leave of absence

Mr D plays pinochle with the satyrs

There’s an orientation film

Grover eats mr D’s Diet Coke cans

Probation in the 1900s was Zeus’s punishment to Mr D

Percy likes basketball

Percy tripped when coming into the Hermes cabin for the first time

Most teachers are literally monsters

For a mortal, nectar and ambrosia turns their blood to fire and their skin to sand

Clarisse calls Annabeth “wise girl”

Percy accidentally sprayed Annabeth with toilet water

Chiron told Percy that he might be considered a myth in 2000 years

Luke pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and Percy thought Luke was gonna gut him

Percy is really good at canoeing

Luke’s the best swordsman they’d had in 300 years

Percy was able to disarm Luke on his first try after he poured water on his head

Hitler was a son of hades, since WW11 was the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of hades on the other

Houdini went on a quest to the underworld

In capture the flag, clarisse tried to cut Percy’s hair

Percy apologized for the water healing his Injuries

Someone left a newspaper about Percy and his mom going missing inside his doorway

Mr D wanted to Spontaneous Combust Percy

It’s illegal to make copies of Zeus’s lightning bolt

CHB has a hydra head from Woodstock

The oracle told Percy the prophecy through the image of Gabe and his friends

Grover eats pinochle cards “like potato chips”

Luke made Percy blush almost as much as Annabeth blushes when she’s around Luke

Chiron told Percy only to use his sword in emergencies

Mortals aren’t important enough to be killed by celestial bronze

Percy was famous for loosing pens at school

Annabeth was explaining the Athens rivalry thing to Percy, and he was like “they must have really liked olives” and Annabeth got mad and then he was like “Now, if she’d invited pizza—*that* i could understand” which made her even more mad, and Argus then winked at Percy

Annabeth gave Percy her hat so he could escape off the bus

Grover was gonna defend himself from the furies with a tin can

Grover ties Mrs Dodds’s legs up with her own whip

Percy told Mrs Dodds to eat his pants in Latin

Medusa turned Grover’s uncle to stone

Medusa is/sounds middle eastern

Percy told Medusa that they were from a traveling circus, and when they were alone Annabeth told Percy “your head is full of kelp”

Grover told Medusa that he takes vitamins for his ears

Satyrs can’t get migraines

Percy fucking mailed Medusa’s head to mount Olympus, and he signed the package “with best wishes”

GLADIOLA THE FUCKING PINK POODLE

Annabeth appeared on her dads doorstep in a golden cradle

Annabeth calls Grover “goat boy”

Percy hates confined spaces

I JUST REALIZED THIS HIS FIRST OUT OF 2 (i think 2?? Maybe there’s more??) TRAUMATIC ELEVATOR EXPERIENCES

The chimera has a rhinestone collar that says “Chimera— rabid, fire-breathing, poisonous— if found, please call Tartarus—ext. 954”

Echidna told Percy what she is— the mother of all monsters, and Percy was like “isn’t that a type of anteater”

The chimera poisoned Percy

Percy jumped from the arch assuming that it would kill him, in order to protect the mortals that were on the arch

Percy fucking lit a lighter at the bottom of the Mississippi

The campers were taking sides— Zeus or Poseidon

Gods can’t steal each other’s items directly

Percy said the leather on ares’s motercycle looked like “Caucasian human skin”

Percy said that ares’s was handsome

Percy said he broke clarisse’s spear and ares was like “oh dope”

Ares threatened to turn Percy into a prairie dog

Ares gave them a bag of double stuffed Oreos

Percy thought that the reason he could talk to zebras but not lions was because of another learning disability

They released a zebra into Las Vegas

Percy snapped Annabeth out of the lotus haze by looking her in the eyes and saying “spiders. Large, hairy spiders”

Percy threw away ares’s backpack, but once they left the lotus hotel, it reappeared on his shoulders

THE WATER BEDS

The lotus card had infinite money, and the cab driver referred to her as “your highness”, which Annabeth likes

They let the cab driver keep the (infinite) change

When at santa monica, percy looked out at the ocean, thought about how 2/3rds of the world is covered in water, and wondered how he could be the son of someone so powerful

Percy just. Fucking walks into the water and annabeth is like “percy what the fuck are you doing” and headass just keeps walking until he’s fully submerged

A mako shark nuzzled him like a dog

Percy used to see sea spirits smiling at him in the waves at Montauk beach

Houdini could “escape even the depths of tartarus… damn, talk about foreshadowing

Percy told the bus driver he was a stunt double for a bunch of child actors

Percy said L.A. reminded him of Ares

They got attacked by a gang

CRUSTY

Percy tricked crusty into getting into his own beds, and percy then cut his head off

Grover told Charon that all 3 of them drowned in a bathtub, and Charon looked mildly impressed

Percy bribed Charon into letting them in

Percy’s Traumatic Elevator Experience count so far: 2

The river Styx is polluted

Annabeth held percy’s hand on the boat

Thomas Jefferson is a judge of the underworld

Grover compared Asphodel to standing in a wheat field in Kansas forever

Cerberus is a purebred Rottweiler

Annabeth played fetch with Cerberus

Annabeth promised Cerberus that she would come back and play fetch with him again

Cerberus considers Annabeth a friend

Percy saw things in the Fields Of Punishment that he “didnt want to describe”

Percy said he wanted to go to the Isles of The Blest when he dies

THEY ALMOST FALL INTO TARTARUS.

Percy said that Hades’s eyes reminded him of Hitler’s

Percy wondered if Hades’s underwear was made of trapped souls like his robe was

Percy interrupted Hades to tell him that Charon wanted a raise

Hades threatened to “stop death”

PERCY TOLD HADES TO PLAY WITH CERBERUS MORE

Annabeth gave percy her necklace to wear for good luck (with fighting ares)

Percy jumped over ares on a 6-foot wave

Percy fucking told the entire city of LA that they could get a free appliance, and he gave them Gabe’s phone number. Fucking love this kid.

Finally, a non-traumatic elevator experience

Zeus went to purify his bolt in the waters of Lemnos

Podeiden told percy that his rebelliousness was because “the sea does not like to be restrained”

Poseidon said that sally is a goddess among women

Gabe fucking made Sally go to work when she got back

Percy didnt know that Gabe had been hitting sally, until he saw her flinch when Gabe raised his hand

Poseiden sent him Medusa’s head back to use against gabe

The ares cabin made Percy’s laurel and painted “loser” on it

Sally sold her “sculpture” to an art collector in Soho, got a new apartment, and started going to college

The Soho gallery called the sculpture “a huge step forward in super-ugly neorealism”

Percy told luke he misses being on the quest

Ares caught luke with the bolt and helm

Grover “confused the (flying shoe) curse”