#Cristabel Oct

[not-well-not-wholesomely]

if we dont get more cristabel and alfred content im gonna die its so obvious that they were both absolute Freaks and their necromancers just blamed their freak qualities on the other one. "one flesh, one end" = freak behavior, "that sounds like instructions for a sex toy" = normal behavior

[dammit-tazmuir]

Hey do you guys remember how when John asked Augustine and Mercymorn the last time they talked to Cyth, Mercy said it had been twenty years because "she laughed too much"?

I've seen people suggest that reminds her too much of Cristabel and it hurt too much, and I don't disagree, but I will see that and raise you:

Mercy against her will did enjoy Cytherea's sense of humor.

Mercy did not always enjoy Cyth's sense of humor.

But I'd bet "absolute delight" Cristabel did.

Proposal: Mercy made a point of leaning into her anger and surrounding herself with cynicism and misery not even just in a normal if extremely long grieving way— not just an "it's a betrayal to the one I lost to be happy again" way— but specifically because she can never be sure any joy she experiences is just her own, and sometimes she knows it's influenced by Cristabel. And she could never bring herself to think of it like carrying part of Cris with her; she shouldn't be carrying anything, and it always hurt too much to be reminded she was.

[biracy]

Funny tlt thing I've noticed is that while people seem to have latched onto [Necromancer's name] [Cavalier's name] for the full name of Lyctors for some characters (in canon you have Cytherea Loveday and Ianthe Naberius, in fandom you get Mercymorn Cristabel), you never hear "Gideon Pyrrha" or "Harrowhark Gideon." Probably because Pyrrha and Gideon are characters we actually know and it feels weird to use their names that way, but that makes it even funnier that "Ianthe Naberius" is seen as acceptable. Goodbye white boy

[bloodbroox]

how i love doomed yuri…

commission for @thelockedtombcfp 🍉

[cutetanuki-chan]

Mercy and Cristabel commission for @shifuaang and @thelockedtombcfp

[franzias-cave]

CRINGE: The world is ending and you're in love with your best friend who is a nun. and your roots are showing.

[fawntastic]

Hey who are these old freaks

[sunfloowerlatte-art]

cristabel and mercymorn for @thelockedtombcfp :)

[featherbreak]

holy fuck we're back from Dragoncon and TLT COSPLAYERS REMAIN UNDEFEATED YAAAAAAARGH

without further ado, I present an initial dump of selected photos I took at the official TLT meetup -

Third/Fifth/Eighth House serving absolute cunt:

Cristabel Oct, the Woman that you Are, completely wrecking everyone's day:

Dios Apate, complete with traumatized Ianthe & Harrow:

all the Harrows & Gideons flipping one another off:

Individual mentions go to this INCREDIBLE Matthias Nonius, Ms. Gideon Frizzle, & a self-indulgent nod to the doomed triad:

feat. @eldritchw1tch and @incandescentorrery as two of our Ianthes, me as Cam, @archety-pal as Pal, and @aduck8myshoes as a pitch-perfect Dulcie. if you're also in any of these, definitely let me know (& tag me if you upload them, here or on IG at @feather.break) - I'd love to keep in touch!

I'll be editing and posting more individual images & solo shoots of various friends & co-conspirators for weeks, probably - stay tuned!

[ludicrousluna]

Lovable Mercymorn

[dammit-tazmuir]

On one hand, there several reasons I don't care for romantic Mercy x Cristabel. I'm arospec and polyamorous myself, so I don't like the implication that Mercy couldn't be this eternally devastated over her actual best friend— that Cristabel couldn't be the most important person in the universe to her and also platonic— and I don't like the way it often feels like people push it to downplay or erase the polycule. I could ramble a bit more, but those are the big ones.

ON THE OTHER HAND... Christabel, with the h, very much is the name of titular character in a roughly-1800 unfinished sapphic and maybe-vampire poem, as the main thing the name is associated with, so like. This doesn't give me evidence for Mercy but you know what?

My new terrible headcanon:

Mercy was not romantically in love with Cristabel. Cristabel was in love with Mercy, but first she was a celibate nun and then she didn't want to overstep when, well, yeah Mercy was polyamorous but her love life was clearly complicated enough, and she wouldn't wanna put any pressure on her, so she simply did not say anything Ever.

:) Mercy learned about this via permeability of the soul and starting to experience Cristabel's memories.

You're welcome.

[smapis]

🫁 cover for @mercyisms’ necro elysium (yuck!!): a combination of my two favorite things (mercy and disco elysium’s skill system)

[blueberry-puffin]

no denying how repeatedly linked harrow and mercymorn are (tricky & wretched of john to entrust harrow to the person who also had a nun in their equation, and tag ianthe onto someone connected to franticide) but ortus’s declaration towards the end of the book applies more to mercymorn than to harrow — who do we blame when the one we lost is both the victim and the killer? where does that hate go, can we really stomach it? these words a bullet that grazed but ultimately missed harrow, because she could never allow herself to hate gideon again. so she hates the person hating whom is second nature, self blame as familiar as breathing. but mercymorn had resisted leading that emotion to its source, and she lived beside this grief's river mouth for 10k years, and she held that emotion close, but slightly to the side.

mercymorn, shrill, critical, unlikeable pink haired mercymorn rattles my brain because female rage can sometimes work like a bargain. scraps and empties, bruses and falsehoods, anything to placate, to pacify, to pin that rage in place for a little while longer. was there really no other way? was our mission truly worth it? did you love cristabel?

and there was another way, and the mission was not worth it. and god never liked cristabel. the second time she died, mercymorn was there to pick up the pieces, but the first time god left her body and soul alone, bloody and shattered on the cold floor. did that mercymorn, - not mercymorn the first, but the first mercymorn - find cristabel? did she go into that room where he'd left her because she checked for her everywhere? did she go on to die herself for john with ignorance or radical acceptance?

the unloveable mercymorn dooming all the nine planets because she was an atheist in love with a nun; someone who loved god well enough to die for him twice, and did not love mercymorn well enough to live for her once.

and god did not even like her.

edit: since this post is making rounds again, a few additions to make just to not mislead: a) there's no canon support for m-- going back to find the body, more of my personal musing b) john's relationship with cristabel is not as bleak on closer inspection, check out these additions [x]

[wyntings]

not reading the bible for religious reasons but so i can understand tlt better

[fawntastic]

I FUCKING LOVE CRISTABEL OCT!!!!!!!

[mayasaura]

Wait fuck. shit. ooog my fucking god. Mercy's fun double layered way of interacting with John. the way she talks to him both like he's her god and like he's her most annoying friend. It's Cristabel. She's talking to him like she's Cristabel. permeability of the soul ft. the nun and the atheist