ianthe-tridentarius-apologist

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

commander--wake/beyonces_fiancee's top ten TLT fic rec list!

these are my top ten bestest fics thus far in no particular order. criteria to get on this list: I think about them all the time. my mouth was hanging open when I finished them for the first time. I recommend anyone read them, especially you, YES YOU. some of these are deservedly popular/widely read and some are criminally neglected.

I have a taste for dark fic, perverted kinky shit, intimate character studies, slow-burn tragedies, beautiful prose, and good sex writing. assume all of these are bittersweetly tragic at a minimum, fucked-up at a maximum.

the soul that seeketh him by bittybelle

john/a lot of ppl. all of this author's stuff is preposterously amazing but I had to pick one as a representative. so let's pick john fucking the pain away through the cohort, his lyctors, and everyone else within grabbing range, including before and after the Resurrection and his daughter and his other daughter and his surrogate daughter and all the women in the world. john is depicted with such compassion and with no mercy. "the dove in the clefts of the rock" is so good it makes me want to barf too. bittybelle has an amazing faculty for packing a sentence or a paragraph with information, characterization, and beauty as densely as a neutron star yet making it all seem effortless.

the 86 escapes of gideon nav by gimmeshellder (@jeejyboard on tumblr)

gideon & the 9th. my comment on jeej's fic: "This is freaking unbelievably amazing and gives me everything I wanted and didn't get from canon. Gideon's evolution and character are perfectly fleshed out in a way that fanfiction is all about. You have such a wonderfully deft hand and your style has evolved so much into a beautiful direction that marries rly well with canon but also has its own zesty angsty unique spice. Write Alecto pls xoxoxoxoxo" jeej understands gideon's internal workings in a way that I don't think anyone else does (at least not anyone I've read, so if you find that person, direct their works to me pls) and this fic is really important to me for that reason. it respects her life so much in a way that makes me want to cry

pretty when you cry by Elldritch (@elldritch-horror on tumblr)

gideon/cytherea. knuckle-bitingly sexy very slight canon divergence: what if palamedes hadn't interrupted just as "the old panic of confession seemed to rise up", and "dulcinea" groomed and manipulated gideon into becoming her cavalier to replace loveday? my comment: "it's really rare to find someone who writes a skillfully manipulative character who can think on both the level of that character and the one they're manipulating." Elldritch's cytherea is soooooo casual and careful and methodical and the starved orphan gideon is putty in her hands, in an extremely sick and believable way. and the kink/sex writing is so dark and twisted and mmnfnnfnfffff

and my burdens are light by elijah_was_a_prophet

alfred & cristabel, among others. an absolutely insane exploration of cristabel & alfred egging each other on, against a backdrop of all the other lyctors driving one another into sadomasochistic suicidal madness. the academic apologetics at the start warms the reader for what is to come. my comment: "I was already slavering and licking my chops at the footnotes and you did not disappoint!!!!! I’m completely fucking coocoo at John’s stupid memes being inscribed into divine writ and cited alongside the gospels. and the secret note… we need to talk more in this fandom about CILICES and HAIRSHIRTS and the SCOURGE!!! *clap emojis* [redacted spoilers] love the Lyctoral mutual destruction because real life has become so unreal that ripping each other’s bodies apart is the only way to touch the edge (my personal favorite headcanon). bravo!!!!!"

there is a light that never goes out by reconquer (@sophelstien on tumblr)

coronabeth/&ianthe, with a wide variety of side dishes. this is the quintessential corona fic, that explores two separate eras of grief in her life and all the ways that she has been fucked up and fucked everyone else up in her turn. her relationship with ianthe is so searchingly and intelligently explored, and fills in so much around the edges of canon in an unexpected yet "how-could-it-have-been otherwise" way, which is what the best fanfiction is meant to do. bpd coronabeth is my lodestone and this fic is my heartsong

feeling good was easy when he sang the blues by forjodssake

pyrrha/g1deon/wake. can't believe this is less than 6k words, it feels like a whole world unfolding before my eyes. the pre-Rez stuff is so heartbreaking and sparely crafted and the tangled tension between wake, pyrrha, g1deon, the ticking clock in the background, and the keenly-felt deprivation of life and culture that john perpetuated on the resurrected world... music is so lacking in the TLT 'verse but I never realized it until this fic shot a bolt through my chest with the pain and joy of "me and bobby mcgee" - a masterwork

more than the mountain by Raxheim (@theriverbeyond on tumblr)

g1deon/john, plus g1deon/pyrrha/wake. the quintessential g1deon fic. this fic more than anything gave me an understanding of g1deon's mentality: his devotion to john, how he could let it fall by the wayside for wake, how he could live without pyrrha for so many thousands of years... an excerpt from my comment: "the split gideon/pyrrha perspective is so f***ing effective and tragic. I half-wonder sometimes why she was heartless enough not to tell him somehow that she was still alive, but tbh, some things you just can't tell. she's been dead and gone so long that he's calcified into a living rictus without her... and even if she did tell him, they can never have each other again the way they did before. GAWD." and yes the splattergore is PHE NOM EN AL

so I open the window to hear sounds of people by oriflamme (@sunderedstar on tumblr)

gen john worldbuilding, with some john & alecto. the seven days of creation, post-apocalypse. marvelous characterization and very clever structure and a john that is so so so so understandable and so homely-sketched and human that the constant drumbeat of repellent death he cultivates like a garden around himself is almost, almost, almost offset. almost. seeing his relationship with alecto grow makes you understand just what is happening for him in a very upsetting way. this is really, truly excellent and I don't have to tell you about depression-blasting mitski and "the ice cream machines" to beg you to READ IT NOW

lux perpetua luceat eis by skvadern

pyrrha/g1deon, pre- and post-Rez. yet another <5k work that rips my fucking heart out. a brilliantly paralleled pyrrha pov of the two kisses they gave each other: before g—'s death by nuclear bomb, and before pyrrha's death by ascension. my comment: "the mirrored single kisses... gideon being a nerdy devoted engineer (bad posture, shitty fashion, chapped lips, struggles to cry, giant heart) who pyrrha can't help but sacrifice herself for in every lifetime makes me sob buckets of sobs. extremely essential very well done and assigned reading for everyone"

all that singing at the fingers by dire_quail (@direquail on tumblr)

nona/camilla. another one of those "a world in a sentence" authors, writing something that feels ripped straight from canon. a good nona voice (with a flash of alecto that punches through the text like a knife ripping through wallpaper) has a price beyond rubies, and stone top grieving longing suicidal camilla breaks me. that plus the achingly sensual sex language ("petaled swollen and ruined," "drawn helplessly tight on that talented and holy finger") just hooks this fic into my heart.

(honorable mention: three fics on my "marked for later" list that I'm hyped to read!)

at the last trumpet by liesmyth (@liesmyth on tumblr)

LUV me some christian exegesis in conversation with TLT themes. luv me some character explorations of the ninth. can't wait 2 read!

and rising in the dead time of night by a_big_apple (@a-big-apple on tumblr)

I think jeej described this as "in which ianthe tries to vat-baby-trap kiriona" so a of all yes and 2 of all it's a_big_apple so u know that shit is gonna be elegantly crafted

beauty, blossom, die by rnanqo (@rnanqo on tumblr)

idk it just looks dope as fuck and i'm not even an au person like that! I'm just ever so interested to see where the author goes with the notion and how they choose to flesh out the OG lyctors and cavs that we didn't get to meet ^_^

happy reading!

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

jodybeth for @thelockedtombcfp !!

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

every locked tomb character is one of the characters of all time but ortus nigenad really is The Character Of All Time my guy brought a fanfiction to the gun fight AND WON

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

as far as i'm concerned all "yuri" is "toxic yuri" because women are ontologically evil thanks to eve's original sin

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

not to be an apologist or anything but you know. some days you just gotta wonder if maybe john gaius had a point. maybe we should just nuke it all and try again

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

her life is so sucks

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

harrow definitely thought they were like dating and in love after the pool scene meanwhile gideon is like shit she’s in love with a dead body not me i guess i’ll kill myself (for her)

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

i just need to reread harrow the ninth. i’m okay i just need to reread harrow the ninth. haha yeah i’ll be fine i just need to reread harrow the ninth. everything’s good i just need to reread harrow ninth. no it’s alright i just need to reread harrow the ninth. yes it’ll be ok i just need to reread harrow the ninth. i just have to reread harrow the ninth

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

JUDITH DEUTEROS RAAHH🦅🔥‼️

I drew Marta but didn’t finish her yet

also I realised that there’s no way I’m gonna render so many illustrations on time. I’m just gonna include simplified sketches of the characters but make the illustrations fully-fledged

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

remember when augustine told mercymorn “my bones will rest easy next to your bones” and then they didn’t. mercymorn erupted and augustine was dragged to hell. they hated each other to the last but even in death they couldn’t use that as a comfort

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

we moved on from the unwanted guest way more quickly than we should have…ianthe boobs out, palamedes smoking, both of them serving dyke drama realness, the reveal that souls in close proximity rub off on each other…it was too good

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

i wish camilla and palamedes were a garnet situation in the sense that they could unfuse and both have their own bodies simply because i miss palamedes and yes he was in nona the ninth but it’s not the same because he was in cam’s body. the scene where cam goes and sits in the empty bathtub because nona kisses her hand in the same way that palamedes did is so gut wrenching to me. life truly is too short and love truly is too long

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

Wow, what a great previous chapter where Gideon called a shuttle for the children, and they hugged her and told her how cool she is, and then they left to go be safe at home with Magnus and Abigail, who had taken a previous shuttle. I am sure glad everyone got out of there safe and sound and untraumatized, and absolutely zero people were impaled on anything.

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

I love that there is a point in both Harrow and Gideon's lives when things are bad enough that suddenly hanging out with Ianthe starts to feel like a good idea.

I hope that happens to Alecto too.

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

HtN is amazing because it manages to make awkward and weird a kiss between two characters but then also manages to make super sensual and erotic an amputation and regrowth of an arm between those same 2 characters

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

Who even cares about Babs?

[ianthe-tridentarius-apologist]

I wish the take I see most often on hollywood barbie alecto wasn't that john chose that because he wanted a sex symbol because it's missing out on a lot of thematic resonance about how john cannot help but return to frameworks of western imperialism and even at the moment he is seeking comfort in his childhood he ends up with one the symbols of western capitalism and how that relates to him recreating the same systems that harmed him and were destroying the world when he becomes god