#lilipopthebard

[liesmyth]

Okay but when John says "all of them" in response to "how many babies died" I think like, there's also some tragedy in the fact he's probably not lying at all. Like, obviously everyone died when the bombs went off, but what about the resurrection? I think it's like, extremely possible that John just didn't really bring back anyone other than adults. We're shown that even with his godlike powers there are limits, and Harrow especially I think gives a hint children might be one of them. He seems more in awe about what Harrow's parents did than anything, he talks about how he tried doing it and failed, and I think he feels some regret about his abilities.

We're only given a small idea of what life is like after resurrection, but from what we understand it's a lot of learning and a lot of weirdness. Additionally like, kids and babies have weirdness. They have parts of their brains that need to change levels depending on the lifespan, they have hormones that need to start more and stop more as they get older. They have bones that are soft bones that merge together and bones that form. We also know small scale is where God has some trouble, like being able to stop tumors but not blood cancer

I think it's really likely that John didn't attempt to resurrect kids, or was unable. He didn't want to put newly resurrected people in caretaker positions, he didn't want to risk messing up or causing problems. I think it's likely that later on he even tried, and just outright failed and has some guilt over it

My personal head canon is that he might have even tried to create a kid for himself in the past. The way he specifically calls out what Harrow's parents did as something he knows the logistics of tells me he's probably thought of it. My like, theory is that while he was killing planets and stuff he at one point attempted to try and use the bloom to create a kid for him and Alecto or to resurrect kids, and just had no idea how to make it work SO yeah TLDR: I think God talking about how all the babies died has actually some guilt on John's part, and ties into his guilt he angrily refuses to release himself from. Both that he's potentially unable to resurrect kids, but also that he was potentially unable to make a kid of his own like Harrow's parents did

THIS FUCKED ME UP. THANK YOu.

Ok. Listen. I actually never considered "he couldn't bring back children" before (or "he tried and went horribly wrong") but this is a 10/10 chef kiss heartbreaking headcanon. Terrible. All of them. Wow

Also. I lowkey think that John's bone crown is made of baby fingers specifically for a purpose, and IMO it's as a reminder to himself. I know this is somewhat #controversial, but I really don't read the baby bone crown as an Evil Symbol of Evil — House culture seem very much to be pro carrying around bits of your dead. I think it'd be a very John thing to make a symbol of office out of the dead children of humanity, and then interpret it as a memento to himself that there can be no forgiveness, as long as I have breath in my body etc, instead of a reminder that he shouldn't fucking nuke a planet. Anyway, I think the bone crown is, like, 40% a way to show respect to the dead and 60% because he thought it looked cool.

(Doylistically, the bone crown absoluely exists because Taz thought it looked cool)

Anyway. Before seeing this ask, my personal interpretation of John's familiarity with the details of what Harrow's parents did is that he understands the mechanics because resurrecting humanity + necromancy involved using some of that death energy, and possibly souls as fuel, to introduce necromancy to humanity. I'm not married to this theory because IMO if John had been able to pick and choose who was to be resurrected as an adept, we wouldn't have ended up with quite the same necro/cav pairings, but I'm not married to this guess either... it's just a whole bunch of guessing. Now this sad headcanon rerooted my brain so I'm again Considering Things

[parker-d-bloodrose]

Drew @lilipopthebard's fursona, a little deer girl.

[liesmyth]

Cursed Dios Apate realization: everyone was trying to get laid and failed

-dios apate minor started but got cut short by the incenerator alarm

-Ianthe tried pulling a "my room instead of murder?" With Harrow

-G1deon left early and we next see him getting almost murdered by Wake. Its likely Phyrra took over and went to meet up with Wake for another weird "give Harrow nightmares" moment and it turned into attempted murder

So you have:

a young adult trying to get her crush to notice her for long enough so she can get laid (and the crush can avoid pursuing a more dangerous activity). nearly wholesome

three friends reconnecting after twenty years of loneliness in the death of space. sharing memories, wine, fondness and stories. also plotting murder but like. also nearly wholesome

a guy who just wanted some air and then blacked out and nearly fucked a corpse and got incinerated alive

And this is only the SECOND most disastrous dinner they've had.

[liesmyth]

Canaan House, but Jod is there and hes acting like hes Chris on Total Drama Island. He was gonna do eliminations, but SOMEONE destroyed the spaceships (not cool dude). Instead people who are eliminated just get their room downgraded. Harrow is desperate for the idea of nor dealing with luxuries winners get, but she doesnt want to disapoint God

Cytherea is only not recognized because John is worried hed look ableist or rude to Dulcinea if he brought it up, and besides Gideons already confusing him with her looking like Wake. Ianthe, Coronabeth, and Babs have a bet going on to see who can sleep with God first. Harrow and God both are trying to hide the fact their girlfriends ghost is t posing in the corner, and God is confused why Alecto keeps helping the ninth

God is angry that the age limit was not assumed by the nine houses, because now he has to shut down the orgy room and come up with a new icebreaker exercise at the last minute

This sounds like a reality show. I bet John WISHES he could make it a reality show except not really because he's a secretive bitch.

The icebreaker is 2 truths 1 lie. He briefly considered making it spin the bottle, though.

Also, John doesn't call out Cytherea because he doesn't want to look rude but Cytherea thinks he HAS recognised her and they're playing a game of chicken. She attempts to kill the other guests in ways that can be explained away as accidents and John always casually intervenes like "oh, guess that shaft really is tricky, isn't it? sorry I forgot to lock the hatch." Cytherea sweats bullets. John thinks it's Teacher's fault for not condoning off the dangerous areas.

John ends up sleeping with Babs. They meet late at night in the cafeteria and bond over being haunted by blonde women. As a results Babs isn't around when Ianthe wants to ascend (fucking God) and Corona tries very very hard to convince Ianthe to eat her instead.

[liesmyth]

Undercover Boss 9th house edition. Is like, five minutes long because God just shows up in black nun robes, gives a brief interview talking about how important the ninth house. He says how he's excited to see how well it's held up, steps off the ship, and is greeted by a scene he didn't expect. He's not off the shuttle for five seconds before skeletons are raiding the luggage dragging a screaming Gideon off, and he finds out literally most of the planet is dead. His dead girlfriend's ghost is t-posing in the corner, and a 13 year old girl is greeting him with two mostly rotten corpses she says are her parents who took a vow of silence

He lets out a sigh of annoyance, turns around, and just tells Sarpedon he's not doing this. The episode ends on him just saying the Ninth House is a complete mess, a decaying house, and it's a miracle it's still around 10,000 years later.

He also didn't expect it to be around longer than a century though, so all things considered it's holding up better than expected

He's 10 minutes out of the planet before he realises he forgot his daughter.

Also, I have an important question; did the Undercover Boss tour start with the Ninth House, being the outermost planet in the system, and rotting Drearburh was the first stop on his Boss Tour. Or

He visited the Houses in order of number, starting with the Second. He was just coming from the Eight having met "I have a portrait of the emperor in my bedroom" "but also fuck you and your lyctorhood" Octakiseron and left in a big rush being reminded of Mercy in all the wrong ways; or

He visited the Houses in order of distance starting with the closest to the sun (the Sixth) and he was just coming from the Third, where he set off a political crisis by casually revealing that Corona isn't a necromancer.

Someone write this crackfic. Please.

[liesmyth]

I kinda wonder if Alecto is going to deal some with like, Alecto's love of humanity being at odds with her being betrayed by John and her love of him. Like, she chose to help save humanity, she loved John, and was both betrayed by him purposefully and by accident. Now she's in a position though where revenge against John would kill humanity, something she loves, but she's obviously also got some extremely mixed feelings on the man himself. Especially since the Nona John chapters gave me the sense Alecto still loves John, but those feelings are at odds with what he did. She both loves this man and has been traumatized by him, and she's neither in a position to forgive him or remove him from her life Idk if any of this makes any sense I need caffeine, and I say this while on a cup of coffee and three mugs of english breakfast

I don't think she wants revenge against John but I think she absolutely has feelings of animosity for him (and love. rip). I also wonder if her feelings are in any way influenced by the fact that 1) he imprisoned her because the lyctors asked him to; and 2) they have since killed 5 resurrection beasts / solar system planetary revenants, Alecto's 'siblings'

Anyway I'm always thinking about this

She was afraid to die. Is she still, now that John has taught her what death might feel like?

[liesmyth]

Harrow apparently knows enough about sewing to have giant needles and thread on hand, so you know Gideon at least once just cut paper or cut open a box in front of Harrow with her scissors to piss her off

I choose to believe the scissors are also made of bones. She has serveral, some are just for thread and cloth and some are for scary necrorituals, but ALL of them can't be used to cut paper and Gideon does it anyway. Harrow threatens to stab her with the needles.

[liesmyth]

Okay but can you imagine Ned Stark's face when hes in his study and Jon bursts through the door holding some silver haired purple eyed baby like "can we have a moment"

ESPECIALLY if this is a chill AU where Jon married some minor lord's daughter and just dreams of spending his life chilling below the Wall being Robb's vassal. And then... surprise!

[liesmyth]

My theory is Pyrrha's current condition is possibly G1deon literally doing a less extreme version of what Harrow did. That because G1deon had time and Pyrrha and him could do it slowly, the fact he didn't want to do it but she was encouraging him to let her not get fully absorbed. IE, Crystabel and Gideon and Alfred were loved by their cavaliers, and their necromancers didn't want to eat them, but it was under short notice. They had seconds to do the ritual and make the choice, and during the days where they were resisting eating the soul they were already too far along. Harrow literally lobotomized herself to slow the process It seems G1deon had that same sort of hesitance and regret Harrow or Mercymorn did, but he was allowed to take it slow. He wasn't using his magic to keep himself functioning like Cytherea, so he had a bit more control over himself. So I think in the end he perhaps had more time to not fully eat her during the initial process, more control of his power to resist holding onto her more than he had. Accidentally creating something like Palamedes and Cam at the start of Nona, where he has had the time and ability to stop the process at a specific point This was said in like 200 words too many but I'm tired

OH I love this theory. Do you think he did it consciously or unconsciously? My main sticking point re: G1deon and Pyrrha is how he didn't figure it out in 10k years when he cared So Much about her

/alo SORRY this has been in my inbox for the past Hell Week

[liesmyth]

Maybe its for the best for Kiriona that Griddlehark never happens. Cytherea did give Harrow a "win an argument free" card by the fact Harrow may now just anytime declare "remember what happened the last time you didnt listen to me? You died"

Ok but counterpoint, Harrow didn't listen either when Gideon told her to lift weights and she got skewered in the back

(yes it wouldn't have changed much. no this isn't going to stop her from bringing it up)

[liesmyth]

I saw you say how shipping everyone to Cersei makes her more toxic. The challenge though is, what ship makes Cersei less toxic

Cersei/Ned. He's too much of a good egg, he WILL make Cersei a bit less toxic. She would make him A LOT worse but it's still Ned so it doesn't matter.

[liesmyth]

John, eating one spoonful of soup, realizing it's human flesh. Immediately wondering when the last time he checked on Cytherea's corpse was and wtf Harrow did

On the Ninth they make soup from the bones of their fallen enemies

[liesmyth]

I haven't really written fanfiction since I did a lot of Emsider fanfiction in High School, and this blog of all things has reminded me there's whole genres I could explore

DO IT DO IT I WILL ENABLE YOU LOVINGLY

[liesmyth]

The idea of John realizing he doesn't know how to resurrect kids and having a breakdown is tragic and sad, but I can't help to laugh because all I can imagine is that fake Harrow quote that's like "do you want to return to how many bones you had as a baby, I can bring you back to that"

@lilipopthebard ur impact

now that I'm thinking about it I think it's actually honestly possible that he brought back children and they died, or at least the % of the population that came back with necromantic aptitude. Think of how necros are physically stunted, and this doesn't really apply to the first gen lyctors because they were grown adults (G1deon is all muscle; Mercy and Augustine both escape those descriptions of necromancer physical frailty every other necro character gets.) I feel like it's possible that a very young body wouldn't have survived the shock of resurrection thanergy or whatever it was. It's also a terrible (nice) callback to John & M taking extra time on the cryo project to try and fix the maternity issue, and how it later was used against them as an excuse for why their funding was cut.

Anyway... out with the tragic and sad in with the fun. I love that quote. We need a fic where Harrow says it for real

[liesmyth]

placing bets on how long before there's a Paul/Kiriona fic on ao3 called "You're telling me a ginger bred this man?"

I HOPE SOON. @lilipopthebard YOUR IMPACT

[parker-d-bloodrose]

@lilipopthebard: "Should I make this setting have an environmental message?"

*Me, who rides a bicycle and a loves literally every Ghibli film with an environmental message* "Yes."