#LOVE IS TOO LONG AND LIFE IS TOO SHORT

[serpentmessmer]

thinking about the campal tape recorder conversation and i am on the floor again leaking

[cannellaeluce]

one thing that I can’t let go of re: the locked tomb series is the statement I think it makes about identity and permanence and love. Like, I guess we all finished gideon the ninth being in love with gideon’s pov and with harrow as the person she is in relation to gideon. Then we landed in harrow the ninth and we were robbed of both, and I’m sure we all felt like we lost something, and we thought the end goal would be to get to the point where we would go back to having the thing that we lost: gideon’s vibrant voice and harrow’s whole psyche. and then we landed in nona the ninth and... 

I don’t know for ya’ll, but that’s when something in me shifted. phyrra was in the body of her most beloved adept and got to live with her longing for him and for wake redefining her identity; we didn’t care for her in the previous books, but we got to care for her now, and she was worth it. camilla’s body was both hers and palamedes’ and the coronation of their arc wasn’t to go back to how they were when we first learned to love them; it was to let go of both their individualities to become a whole new person, and we readers - just as nona - got to experience the pang at understanding that we were to let go of our concept of camilla and palamedes as individuals, while having to accept that that was the truest form they both could possibly achieve, that they felt no loss whatsoever, that what we perceived as loss was in fact their triumph. gideon - our beloved gideon - came back and she wore another name and we got to love her again, but names matter in this universe, and we had to deal with the pang of knowing that we could love her all the same, but she was - in fact - not the same at all, and when she antagonised our new main characters we found out in surprise that we resented her for it, that our loyalties had partially shifted. and then...

and then there was nona. nona in the body of harrow, who got to be loved as a person separated from harrow because bodies are transient and the soul is what matters. nona who was born to disappear in mere months, something the people around her knew well and which didn’t prevent any of them from getting to know her as a fully fleshed individual and to learn to love her all the same. nona whom we readers too understood at one point that was a character built to fade away. we could have decided not to invest in her, then. we could have decided to be annoyed at not finding harrow in her, at not finding gideon in her. but we didn’t. well, I didn’t. I understood she was born to die, and I chose to love her all the same. because isn’t it how it is? isn’t this how love is? we are mortal things who fall for mortal things knowing full well they won’t last. but we choose to love all the same. the impermanence of things isn’t a flaw ruining what should have been perfect; it is the very essence of things. we got to love nona even though she wouldn’t last. we got to love nona because she wouldn’t last. that’s all fine, in the end, because we got to love someone, and you can’t take loved away.

[lyctorism]

going insane thinking about the paralleled relationships of palamedes’ fondness for harrow and camilla’s fondness of gideon. and their respective simularities! harrow being jealous of gideon mooning over dulcinea. camilla being jealous of palamedes being in love with dulcinea since he was 8. camilla being fond of gideon after realizing gideon also has a melodramatic necromancer. palamedes and harrow’s “necromantic pissing contest”. gideon and camilla’s love of swords. palamedes “I'm the greatest necromancer of my generation”, harrow “like hell you are”. palamedes suiciding detonating himself to take out cytherea. gideon suiciding throwing herself on spikes to send harrow full lyctor to take out cytherea. palamedes “i miss harrow terribly” sextus. harrow “i can’t envision a universe without you in it” nonagesimus, camilla “life is too short and love is too long” hect. gideon “you’ll know what to do” nav, palamedes “she knows what to do” sextus. crazy! crazy insane! thinking about them

[siribunbun]

"I'm putting down the bet. I'm taking the gamble. I'm claiming the win. I'll let fate spin the wheel, a daring gamble. Walking the brink of death...for rebirth.

All for the Amber Lord!"

[elfsyellowflowerzart]

take two of yesterdays little doodle, using the ref this time

[imjustcryinginthecorner]

“Arguing with the Ghost of Peter Laughner About His Coney Island Baby Review”, The Mountain Goats // Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

[bb-enablefreebuild]

None of you are ready for my Everlark TLT fanfic

[acephodel]

Hi, just thinking about how Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus are in unambiguous romantic love with each other. 🥰🥰🥰 They kiss with tongue in the library and all the books watch and clap.

[artbyfee]

We will make this end, and this beginning, together.

[ifyourereadingthisblinktwice]

I appreciate how nona the ninth deals with loss and grief and change so much. in the moment when pyrrah is comforting nona, she doesn’t try and tell nona that no, she will be okay, nothing will change and we will stay a family and nona will remember and she will still love all of them. because it’s not true. nona will be changed and she will be different. and that is okay. and yes, she may not love them anymore, but that’s also okay. it doesn’t changed the fact that she loved them, and that love being in the past doesn’t change it’s importance.

i had a best friend in middle and high school. i loved her. my family loved her. she came on vacations with us, family events, and practically lived at my house during the summer. then, first year of college, we stopped being friends. she broke things off, and it was sad and awful and it hurt. we started talking again, and things aren’t quite the same. i don’t love her anymore. we are friendly with each other, but we are different people. the love that was there is gone. but it still happened. we did love each other, even if it was in the past. it happened. we have changed, and things will never go back to how they were, but that doesn’t diminish the time we did have together. it’s still important. it’s still valuable, even if it’s gone. people change, people move on, people drift apart, but that’s okay.

[ghostlymarcy]

the way in which throughout all of NtN, Camilla’s autonomy and ownership of her own body is always maintained and respected. whenever Palamedes is at the helm, it is still always Camilla’s body, never his. “Pal moved Cam’s hand” “Pal moved Cam’s body forward.” The body only becomes both of theirs after the merge; until then, it’s always Cam’s (although even after that, in Nona’s POV, it’s still Cam’s.) This is congruent with Pal’s respect for Cam’s individuality and value seperate for him all the way back in GtN. He always understood the weight of a fight and was never willing to throw her into something without her agreement and consent. Everything was always her choice; she always had agency. Even up until the end she was always making decisions for herself. It’s Pal’s deep respect for that and Camilla’s stubborn understanding of her own value that motivates their mutual refusal of lyctorhood in GtN.

[astriiformes]

Deeply self-indulgent of me, but if I ever properly write that Locked Tomb community theater Hamlet AU, I'm going to make Palamedes an overachieving double major in both something pre-med and some sort of STS/History and Philosophy of Science program, because first of all, he would, and second of all, people don't give characters weird interdisciplinary degrees often enough.

[bao-dur]

mr house never being able to replicate his courier six because they never let him scan them, so all he has are a few shoddy recordings he took to recreate the courier from. his replicas of courier six are flawed: none are as perceptive, resourceful and proactive. they aren't good at out-of-the-box thinking or improvising. their problemsolving, diplomacy skills and technological innovation ideas fall short of the original and are just another disappointment every time. they end up hollow shells like jane, marilyn and victor. letting new vegas go, ruin itself in pursuit of recreating his perfect right hand again, hope for another fruitful partnership and bright future of the mojave like they did before is so delicious it makes me sick actually send tweet ✌

[phoenixcatch7]

The thing I like about my writing is that I never write a story the same way twice. Everything I write demands a different flow.

For example, of the two stories I'm writing now, one wanted present tense (which I am, it turns out, terrible at) and lots of Internet slang/grammar, and the other one decided it had to be made of very short snippets, with one or two longer scenes forming naturally and lots of run on sentences. Both of them I originally tried in my 'more typical' style and both times it failed miserably to click until I scrapped it entirely and restarted.

Ironically enough, the present tense one I'd been intending to write in more episodic bursts, and the snippets one is the start of a long and twisting story delving into deeper themes than I ever have before. But that's the way they wanted to be written! It's more thinking on my behalf than I might have wanted (I am truly fighting my instinct for past tense), but in return I'm finding a rhythm and pattern that's working so well!

I guess the morale of the story is that if you've just started a story or art piece or whatever but it's just not working out, try approaching it from an unusual angle, something you haven't tried before. Something about it isn't clicking, so try a new method entirely!

But most importantly, have a folder somewhere you can move all the little bits and pieces you made but had to take out. It's old advice, but the problem is usually further back than you think. Doesn't mean you have to lose your progress.

[musubiki]

Hi!!! I saw the tcwg relationship chart and noticed that sulluvan has a white arrow pointed to mochi! I always thought that he just wanted to marry her bc of his own interests, but does this mean that he actually loves her? Hope you're doing well!

OOF.......,,,. YA KNOW.....MAYBE.....

in my head its always been one of those things that for a majority of the series it is just him wanting the cat witch trophy wife without any feelings involved. after all, how can a 15000 (give or take) year old entity (??) possibly get feelings for this...human?? its like developing feelings for a picked flower, it just wilts so fast theres no way

but i think over the series (and especially in the timeskip half) he does gain a lot of respect for her. and its one of those things that isnt brought up until the very end when someone else (most likely the merchant or madam springs) asks him "You didn't really care for her, did you?" and he just stays quiet

(i hope youre doing well too!!! its almost finals which means i get summer relaxation soon ;; )

[hypogryffin]

how do u draw so much so fast

well,