#Chrissy reads the locked tomb

[phantomrose96]

Nona being canonically pretty is funny to me because that means HARROW is canonically pretty, and this fact has been heretofore avoided for about 1,000 pages owing to Harrow's unwavering commitment to existing, at all times, as a drowned wet rat scrabbling against the slick shore rock, heaving out sea water and blood and insisting against every offered hand because no, she's GOT this on her own, before vomiting a few mollusks and floating belly up. It took 2 lobotomies to fix this.

[zerosuitsammi3]

Tagged by @u-u-h

Last Song: Paper Machete by Queens of the Stone Age

Last Movie: Sunshine Cleaning

Currently Watching: Markiplier 😅😅😅

Currently Reading: The Locked Tomb series (I've barely cracked into it yet no spoilers plz)

Currently Craving: heckin foods of the Wendy's variety or sweet and sticky pork with sticky rice

Last Thing I Researched: stonks

I'm tagging @maidenofmadness @mizznox @shieldmaidenjul @chrissy-kaos @torianoir @empressviolet

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Last Song: Last Movie: Currently Watching: Currently Reading: Currently Craving: Last Thing I Researched:

[slumped-in-the-arms-of-fiction]

Tagged by @enoughtotemptme (on my main, but this is where the real content happens LOL)

3 ships: Eddie Munson/Chrissy Cunningham, Jessica Day/Nick Miller, Rory Gilmore/Jess Mariano

First ever ship: I was a latecomer to fandom and was knee-deep in gen in early SPN rather than a ship, but I think the first ship I dabbled in was Sookie/Eric in True Blood? Definitely not J2... nope, definitely not.

Last song: Ace of Spades by Motörhead

Currently reading: I have been so so bad at reading this year, but currently on book 2 of the Locked Tomb series, Harrow the Ninth

Last movie: rewatched 10 Things I Hate About You last night because I'm sick and needed a warm hug from a comfort movie

Currently consuming: food-wise, nothing right now!? So I'm gonna reinterpret this and say I'm consuming Hellcheer LMAO

Currently watching: just finished The Boys (hellooooooooo Soldier Boy) so will have to decide on a new show!

Currently craving: sleep, honestly. And the motivation to write again after a crappy/busy few weeks. That's a downer to end on LOL

Completely without pressure to do so I tag @barriss @-animalcrackers @lokinightfury @stellaluna33 @ksfd892 or whoever wants to do it!

[phantomrose96]

[Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth]

Funniest part of my The Locked Tomb experience was getting to the end of GtN and seeing Gideon's death flags pile up into an undeniable flag-mountain and going "damn. the fanart really hard me thinking Gideon was gonna be a prominent character for the whole series. no she's just the coffee shop au favorite who gets iced in book 1."

To THEN be proven both right and wrong as Gideon bites it only to be tacked up like a wet blanket over the clothesline of the narrative's meanest possible facsimile of undeath. She's hanging out to dry like beef jerky and two subsequent books have not been enough to convince the narrative to let this girl die for real. She goes to bed every night cursing the good luck of Naberius Tern, the guy who got cannibalized to death, which should really tell you a lot about the relative badness of the hand Gideon has been dealt here.

[phantomrose96]

I had some thoughts

[phantomrose96]

Considering their relationship and the trajectory of their lives, I think it makes a lot of sense that Harrow is a War Crime and Gideon is a Failed War Crime

[phantomrose96]

Hello I come seeking Locked Tomb opinions.

I have tried and am currently failing to get momentum with Nona the Ninth. The Nona POV is a big barrier lol. I know for a fact I would love the Nona POV if the book were a rotating-POV story, and the Nona POVs were a periodic chance to view the world at large through very naive, innocent, childish eyes. To recontextualize dark happenings through a view too immature to see any bad. I do enjoy that part to an extent.

But the entire book being from this POV is...! A challenge, for me.

Does this change? Do you just kinda get used to it? I'm like 65 pages through, which I've been reading in tiny portions at a time without momentum.

[phantomrose96]

I could say more if I did a proper character analysis here but, for now, I’m just musing on how John Gaius absolutely captures a very specific kind of It’s Never My Fault guy.

And John is SMART and he’s good at talking and so he weaves it in so smoothly and like. His uninterrupted monologues in NtN absolutely make you want to be frustrated for him! That dude got put through the wringer!

And these parts are so Good to me because like, if you pay just a little bit of extra attention the patterns emerge. Everyone external to him and his group is an idiot, and can only be cast as such. And they’re stupid and scared and they Wrongly demonize John when he was only trying to help and wait John what was that part in the middle. Repeat that part in the middle. You did WHAT to the cops exactly.

HE never wants to be the Guy Who Says It. He wants to be liked too much. So he relies on people like P— and G— and A— and M— to say it for him. Negotiating for a nuclear warhead but HE John didn’t really wanna be a jerk about it you know? That was everyone else. The cows the cops the people who die on his compound are all brushed over or mocked. His sleepless mad actions, his raising of the dead, his setting off the nuke these are all just, actions. Unfortunate. Necessary. Of a guy who’s been having a REALLY hard time and has been victimized by EVERYONE and he really just wants to save the world, guys, if you’ll just LISTEN.

He’s gotta be the Funny Guy. Everything’s gotta be a Joke because, oh, was that bad? No, I was just joking, you’re taking it too seriously man chill out. He needs to be Liked he needs everyone to Like him and the biggest injustices he faces, in light of nuclear warfare and the eradication of humanity, is that people are being so mean to him.

And the closest he gets to letting flashes of his wrongdoing through are when it challenges his ego to deny it otherwise. Because he’s Smart and he’s Competent and you need to know and recognize and worship this. He didn’t kill all those cops by accident. “Come on, love. Guys as careful as me don’t have accidents.”

He’s just! He’s so! He’s entirely This Guy and he’s GOD. He’s bisexual he’s depressed he’s an obsessive Funnyman he’s blinded by his own ego he’s immortal he’s never to blame he’s more tormented than Jesus if you ask him and don’t ask the people he’s victimized in ways so much worse and he’s. LITERALLY. MADE HIMSELF GOD. I’m obsessed with him.

[phantomrose96]

I started Harrow the Ninth and I gotta say… the second-person is a hard sell

[phantomrose96]

This is my Locked Tomb OC Bob. Harrow says stuff to him like "I see you were bred from the stock of those in competition to push the limits of human stupidity." and Bob says "Oh, okay." and then the next thing he was already going to say because how do you respond to that. as a normal person.

Locked Tomb unrealistic because every single character is fighting to have the sharpest wit in the room. Serious lack of guy who's just normal who has no idea how to respond to the deeply Unnormal shit everyone says.

[phantomrose96]

To be compared on the flipside to Harrow, who has maybe technically not even died yet, but whose mind and soul have gotten flayed into a different kind of ground beef every book such that calling her alive starts to feel more like a bad referee call. Looking at her makes you look back over at Gideon and go "well that thing is basically fine. it's literally just got one sword hole in it."

[Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth]

Funniest part of my The Locked Tomb experience was getting to the end of GtN and seeing Gideon's death flags pile up into an undeniable flag-mountain and going "damn. the fanart really hard me thinking Gideon was gonna be a prominent character for the whole series. no she's just the coffee shop au favorite who gets iced in book 1."

To THEN be proven both right and wrong as Gideon bites it only to be tacked up like a wet blanket over the clothesline of the narrative's meanest possible facsimile of undeath. She's hanging out to dry like beef jerky and two subsequent books have not been enough to convince the narrative to let this girl die for real. She goes to bed every night cursing the good luck of Naberius Tern, the guy who got cannibalized to death, which should really tell you a lot about the relative badness of the hand Gideon has been dealt here.

[phantomrose96]

Alternatively. Maybe people DID know she's pretty, but GtN is narrated by her arch-rival bullying-victim homoeroticgirlbestenemy who'd sooner swallow sea slugs than admit Harrow has a nice face. And HtN's Harrow was so intent on setting the record for how inside-out exploded a human body can become and survive which is something that distracts a lot from seeing a person's face and passing any judgements.

Nona being canonically pretty is funny to me because that means HARROW is canonically pretty, and this fact has been heretofore avoided for about 1,000 pages owing to Harrow's unwavering commitment to existing, at all times, as a drowned wet rat scrabbling against the slick shore rock, heaving out sea water and blood and insisting against every offered hand because no, she's GOT this on her own, before vomiting a few mollusks and floating belly up. It took 2 lobotomies to fix this.

[phantomrose96]

Harrowhark “I’m alive because of the successful war crime my mother carried out which gave birth to me” Nonagesimus vs Gideon “I’m alive because of the failed war crime my mother created me for that was supposed to kill me” Nav, fight

Considering their relationship and the trajectory of their lives, I think it makes a lot of sense that Harrow is a War Crime and Gideon is a Failed War Crime