#to me this is intertwined with alecto/john which is like. yeah those people are fucking or necromantic equivalent

[gideonisms]

Nona/John Gaius

wow so we are rising to the challenge of finding a ship I can't get into Immediately, huh?

I don't exactly ship this one, but that's because for me there's no way to reduce this one to ship/don't ship, considering nona's complicated identity and the variety of power dynamics at play

why don't I ship it? There's actually a lot about this dynamic that I find interesting, ie exploring the reason alecto might have chosen John originally + the fact that nona is a version of alecto without the trauma. john is not the entirety of her trauma, but he's the most extreme example of the fact that alecto loves humanity deeply, and they keep hurting her. we see her fury in alecto, but not in nona, because nona is the way she's compartmentalized her anger and pain. So I find the nona/alecto dynamic with john really fascinating and relevant to muir's themes. it's also not something I'd necessarily read a sweet fluffy romance about, if that makes sense?

what would have made me like it? if tamsyn muir had written nona/john, I would trust her to make it fucked up enough

despite not shipping it, do I have anything positive to say about it? it's extremely relevant to the themes of tlt. It makes me deeply uncomfortable in a way that I think is kind of the point? muir's writing for john is so brilliant because she continually comes THIS close to the line of where I think people would find him completely unsympathetic even as a villain. she's playing with fire, bad faith reception-wise, and I can only respect it. to me, nona/john is that

[flowerflamestars]

not a fic ask but i absolutely have to know if you have any theories on lyctorhood??

I love you for asking this but truly, fair warning, the murderboard of locked tomb theories in my head is a MESS

In no particular order:

1) I think the main tenet that Harrow accepted as truth vis a vis you become a tomb/ ‘a soul consumed in eternal death’ is almost certainly wrong. That her lobotomy in an attempt to preserve Gideon wasn’t necessary.

For one thing, Pyrrha Dve. Whole enough to a) pilot her necro’s body...without his consent? and b)take over his body full when his soul is extinguished fighting the resurrection beast.

Further it sounds good, but doesn’t super make sense with what we know about necromantic power. Palamedes and Harrow have that whole ‘glass canon’ conversation- give them a death and they can go for a few more minutes but thanergy always dissipates? Why would the consumption of a soul be a battery? Why would it not, actually, matter that the bond preserved that moment of death, the energy bloom that powers everything?

If the cavaliers are still there, imperfect Lyctorhood preserves the soul, but perfect lyctorhood is true necromancy: the preservation of the cav’s body, brought back.

2) I think Anastasia was doing it right, and that’s why JohnGod killed Samael

3). Alecto. Murderwife my monster babe- I don’t think whatever bond ended up being the Lyctoral concept was on purpose. I hesitate to say this, but while JohnGod is clearly a very smart and dangerous as hell, I lean toward the off the walls idea that Alecto (or a part of who Alecto once was) is the source of necromancy. 

Those eyes- the visible death monster cue, that belonged to her. 

But also the two divergent stories of AL- the woman John loved. The woman, who according the Mercy, isn’t a woman at all, might not even have dna. A monster, piloting a human suit.

Whose eyes, John has worn, since August met him pre/during Great Resurrection. 

Let’s paint an off the walls picture: AL the first necromancer, power gained from the slow death of a world. John, the second necromancer. LOVE. AL dies- John, long before he’s God, brings her back. But he can’t do it right- he has yet to ascended on the insane blast of power that is million’s dying at once- BUT THEN THE WORLD DOES DIE- and John, failing, frantic, tries to remake her.

And you know what’s there to do it? Not her original necromancy, or soul, but the souls of thousands, right there to be shoved in a vessel. Perhaps, even more interestingly, the after echo of all that death, something John has no idea if can even be killed: the resurrection beast.

He brings back her body- he is tangled in her power, but the woman he loved? Gone. 

Alecto. John’s guardian. The Lyctors are all her children (as John SO CREEPILY SAYS) because the experiments, the impetus all along, was to reverse engineer what he did. Mercy says it herself- John wanted to fix Alecto, but accidentally made her worse instead. 

What is John’s favorite alt aspect? Kindly Prince? Man who Became God? Great Resurrector? Teacher. 

Who also has hella power we don’t understand the source of until it’s revealed to be souls? Teacher, on Canaan, an experimental melange.

Does he need powerful Hands? Sure. But is the real sacrifice always toward what John really wants? Yes

4)Speaking of John’s JohnGoding about with his interpretation of history, I think it was always, ALWAYS his plan to have more Lyctors.

(not just for Alecto reasons)

One flesh, one end? Not a coincidence in a society/religion John built, with his friends, on purpose. (There people call the Houses an experiment. A project. Mercy’s out here grumbling that John isn’t supposed to tell Inathe and Harrow her name because they’d all agreed the OG Lyctors names should be forgotten, sacred.)

My point is, they made up the cult aspects. And maybe for the Lyctoral faithful the continued cavalier tradition was almost a suited memorial, something to be cherished. But John? i would bet John always needed and wanted more.

Crack theory time: John, obviously, wants the Lyctors around for personal reasons. He loves them, as much as a normal dude who became (maybe by accident) an eldritch horror in a human body after watching his species implode, can still love.

But John needs the Lyctors for necromancy.

So, I’m deeply suspicious of his powers. Harrow, our born in death literal necromancy genius, says it’s nothing like any necromancy she’s ever felt. He can stop time. He can’t be killed. When Harrow tries to off Gideon with soup, John doesn’t heal Gideon- he stops time and then the injury reels back on itself to wholeness. He somehow pulls the same move on himself, when Mercymorn has her assassination.

Necromancy in the most basic term: the reversal of death

But the Lyctors are the ones out here flipping planets to make necromancy possible on them. When there were more of them, the led battles. John’s great miracle of necromancy is all on his word... I think he needs them to do the things he can’t- the not miracles, the other necromantic acts? Normal necros are glass canons, but John is a bomb.

Further weird proof at least that he always wanted more: every other Lyctor seems to have been against it always- but their labs are perfectly preserved? all their work? after they all fled Canaan? they made the trials as experiments...but the trials are all set up as, you know, trials. In Johns old house, the King who Became God, the God who became king.

5) which leads me to what has been bothering me since like, the second I opened Harrow and we get the whole- these three, the eldest Lyctors, are who is left now.

Anastasia, seems like the only Lyctor who actually became a Lyctor at Canaan House?

“In lab conditions” vs August’s literally under fire vs Lovegood’s heavily implied suicide for Cytherea.

In Cytherea’s telling the story is, we figured it out, I wasn’t going to do it, Lovegood forced my hand because she wanted me to live. 

It also works for the Canaan angle- but she’s the seventh saint, so are we supposed to believe that they all figured it out together, August went off the fight a war (probably with Mercymorn, because of their cavalier’s intertwined maybe love probable suicide pact) August ate his brother, Mercy more reluctantly (maybe because her cav was dying??) consumed Cristobel, AND THEN the other’s went yeah, that sounds good let’s do that?

At least one of the pairs- Cyrus and Valancy- are very heavily implied to have been in love.

We also know, it seems, that each pair did it a little differently- Gideon, who accidentally perfectly preserved Pyrrha so well she’s been piloting him so often he thinks his memory is fucked up. Anastasia, who whatever she did, was so close to right that John interfered. Honestly, whatever is going on with Inathe’s perpetual eye color changes like she ate a bit of Babs AND Coronabeth.

So...was every Lyctor moment like Ianthe, making it up in a vacuum? They all seemingly lived together, knew each other, loved each other- and then when murdertime came no one helped anyone? in this cavalcade of geniuses, gathered at the feet on the One True Necrolord. 

Reasonable theory: there’s something wrong about the story of Canaan House, and we’re going back to it. Those salty ocean’s the Ninth/Alecto signature. The way Harrow thought it was a Tomb as well. The timeline that has never, a for a second, added up that Palamedes wouldn’t stop talking about in the first book.

Crack theory: all that is true, but additionally- John fucks with memory.