#dios apate trio

[twink-with-an-agenda]

These three make me absolutely loose my mind on a daily basis

[heydragonfly]

i’ve been reading the locked tomb series recently and i’m obsessed, currently reading Nona the Ninth! i adore all the characters but here are my favorite drearburh lesbians

[belovedblabber]

1, 3, 4, tlt?

<3 thank youuu I always have so much fun with these

1. which character do you relate to the most from your fandom?

Oh this is tricky. Funnily I think it might be Palamedes, who I adore but do not talk about enough on here. The reasons for my relating to him would take an essay for me to parse the why though sdfrtyhjk

3. what is your favorite ship?

This one is hard because for some reason with tlt sorting ships in my head gets tricky! I know not why. I do love Griddlehark, because of all of the STUFF contained therein, there's so much to unpack there, there's so much going on, devotion to the point of ruin and fragmenting et al. Ianthe/Harrow is also fun to me, as is Ianthe/Kiriona (in a 'gay sex is going to make this worse but I think we should give it a shot anyway' way asdfg)

Also a big fan of Jaugustine idk what's going on there but I want to bottle it

I did a bad job of answering this I was supposed to just give one oops

4. what is your favorite CANON ship?

This is kind of cheating because I already mentioned John/Augustine above, but I love whatever the fuck John Augustine and Mercy have going on. Does this count as an answer here? I'm going with yes.

Actually my TRUE favorite canon ship is me/Abigale Pent milf extraordinaire. Just kidding I would never ruin her marriage I'm not going to be a homewrecker AGAIN

[vaguely-concerned]

I always feel somehow insulted on the guy's behalf when people ascribe every single sign of personality g1deon ever exhibits to pyrrha peeking through. he is a fairly inscrutable character seen through harrow's eyes (she is also, understandably, distracted by the fact that he keeps trying to murder her lol), but credit him with at least a little bit of interiority and depth of character, huh. there must have been something there for pyrrha to have loved and trusted him so much. him saluting harrow for almost turning him inside out at dinner makes perfect sense seen in context with the way he hilariously and casually is like 'sorry about this whole thing btw, this wasn't my idea' the last time he tries to kill her, and it being pyrrha instead only opens questions of how augustine at least wouldn't have noticed the changing eye colour (HUGE risk for pyrrha to take for no good reason, if so). g1deon clearly has a kind of deep respect for a worthy opponent, as we also see with wake, and there are several times when the dios apate disaster trio are being. well, themselves, where it's noted that g1deon looks at harrow as if in quiet solidarity (even if it just freaks her out fhdssdfa). this poor guy has been sure he's losing his mind for ten thousand years and when he found out he'd apparently been fucking The one person he shouldn't during his blackouts he just. he just went with it? for a while??? it seems????? listen I'm saying this guy has got layers and he provably has Weird ideas about the capacity for coexistence between cameraderie, respect and attempted murder

idk. he's not the most charismatic presence in the books, I know, but I feel bad about the idea of denying him basic humanity and depth. and if nothing else will convince people, HOW could you disrespect pyrrha like this by assuming she was once upon a time ready to give her whole soul to a guy who's genuinely thoroughly boring and swagless

[theriverbeyond]

thinking about how the gideon/harrow/ianthe situationship mirrors the dios apate trio--a blonde and a redhead are devoted to their insane dark haired friend, but are also trying to get into the aformentioned insane friend's pants, which is complicated by the fact that their friend is in love with a (different, but equally unhinged) blonde

anon YOU understand!!! dios apate jr.!!!

[macbcth]

thinking about them (dios apate trio): 🥰

[griseldagimpel]

Nona the Ninth: Story Construction Choices

I'm thinking about Nona the Ninth and the story construction choices made. After all, everything that happens in a book is the product of a choice that somebody made.

Muir could have had Nona being raised by Hot Sauce and the Angel and had the setting be New Rho under the active control of the Empire. She didn't do that.

Instead, Nona's found family is made up of Pyrrha (literal co-founder of the Imperial military), Palamedes (Heir of one of the Houses, albeit one that has seceded), and Camilla (right hand to Palamedes). And they're political hostages.

The setting is New Rho after the Empire has largely lost control. It's set in the post-Revolution chaos where the Blood of Eden is scapegoating the local disabled population because Varun is making it an End of the World situation, and the BoE is desperate to be seen as doing something because social cohesion is breaking down as more and more people realize that the End is Nigh.

Nona has to learn to be careful about what she says (read: not mention that she lives with a necromancer) because the Empire isn't in power anymore and the Blood of Eden has actively genocidal goals. Hot Sauce and the Angel both hurt Nona in the story when they learn the truth about her. Like, several BoE characters get some solid character development by the end of the book, but they are very much not the idealized main-movie Star Wars rebels who are the unambiguous good guys.

And all of this? Was a deliberate choice by Muir.

I think the reason for this has to do with the themes of reconciliation in the series. You've got Gideon forgiving Harrow. You've got a failure of reconciliation with the Dios Apate trio. You've got Nona arguing on behalf of humanity to Varun. It's Camilla and Palamedes (and thus Paul) wanting to Save Everyone and John in the past having wanted to do that and then failed. The stakes aren't "Can the plucky rebels overthrow the Empire?" They're "Can Paul save everyone?"

[liesmyth]

Re your tags qnd answer about the Dios Apate trio, I really don't get the idea that some fandom segments have that Mercy and Augustine have clean hands. Like, even taking jnto account that John's qn unreliable narrator, they were right there with him through the end of the world and they had no problems with the baby bomb plan!

Like, they're not innocent at all.

They are SO bad (lovingly)

I see the same for Cytherea, tbh. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" except it's "they tried to kill god so nevermind about everyone else they also did kill"

A & M were ABSOLUTELY the biggest enablers pre resurrection; I think that when John says "the man you had been before would hate the idea of letting go of the past" he actually is totally right. But also it's a moot point because you made sure that man wasn't around any longer :) so

[writtenbyleguin]

DIOS APATE TRIO LAST??? THE DISRESPECT

Book names + authors under the cut

Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji- Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grand Master of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

John Gaius/Augustine the First/Mercymorn the First- The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir

Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus- The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir

[thelonghairedone]

A particular similarity

If I had a nickel every time I read a book series written by a  homestuck fanfic writer that had an older Male-Male-Female polyamorous trio that includes a space emperor, murder, dubious immortality and ends with only one of them left alive, I would have two nickels.

Which isn’t much but it is weird it happened twice.

[twink-with-an-agenda]

Honestly I think that one of the main reasons for the animosity between Mercymorn and Augustine, aside from what happened with Cristabel and Alfred and simply not having the most compatible personalities, is the radically different ways they handle their grief, their emotions generally and their immortality. Augustine is all carefully cultivated charm, hollow humour, a genteel mask of nonchalance and elegance. Very fifth. And as Harrow points out, its all farce!! This man is an empty shell!! He avoids any earnest emotion, any genuine affect, like the plague. Now, Mercy is the stark opposite - she's all affect, all earnest emotion. She looses her composure, she says what she thinks. She's almost painfully blunt.

And I think they absolutely hate each other for how the other handles their grief, general emotions and life situation. I think Augustine is repulsed by how terribly earnest Mercy is - she carries her bitterness, her immeasurable grief, her fury and hate, on her sleeve. No filter, no mask. Mercy who yells at John, Mercy who flies into a rage at the mention of Cristabel, Mercy who never even attempts a personable, charming facade. Augustine cannot stand this - perhaps he resents her for how cathartic her approach seems to be, compared to his. She can be a fine enough actress, he knows, so why can't she put any effort into suppressing her emotions like him a normal person? Now, Mercy!!! She explicitly reacts upset at Augustines carefully crafted compartmentalisation, his fake cool composure. She's irate that he has gone through the same pain and grief as she has and yet plays at being so cool and unaffected over it. How dare he! How dare he casually talk about their cavaliers so calmly and jovially! Mercy is done masking her grief, her anger and frustration, done with making herself likeable and palatable. And yet Augustine made exactly that his whole personality, and it seems to work, at least on John. She is repulsed by his cooler-than-you attitude, which makes her seem emotional and unrefined next to him.

I have way too many thoughts about these old bastards

[theriverbeyond]

OMG ok this is fun rubs my hands together

Favorite houses: 9th!!! my favorite skeleton death cult..... but then also in runners up the 8th they just have that ambiance... then of course i LOVE the second and sixth../ but we cannot forget the thi--- (i'm pulled off stage with a large hook)

Favorite book: HtN!!! hands down. NtN would be up there if I could think about the ending without having to curl up into a ball on the floor

Four favorites: GIDEON, Harrow, Mercymorn, Ianthe (Runners up: G1deon, John, Camilla)

Favorite ship: GRIDDLEHARK 4 LIFE special mention to dios apate jr (harrow/ianthe/gideon) and all variations therein, Cytherea/Gideon for the darksided yuri flavor, dios apate major trio for all their shenanigans, wake/g1deon/pyrrha, alecto/harr--- (I am once again removed from the stage with a large hook)

Favorite scene: John 1:20. All of it. The whole thing. I'm walking into the sea. Special mention to Gideon coming back in act 5 HtN, in Palamades' dream bubble "you would have never guessed he had seen me", Kiriona's "It didn't feel good FUCK why didn't it feel good", Nona in the megatruck closing her eyes thinking what if it all ended here, (my eyes begin to bleed as I explode into a cloud of dust)

Another favorite scene: OH we got another one of these ok so uhh. Gideon when she packs her pornographies and her sword and her shoes. BEST character intro ever I was in love instantly. Honorable mention to any time Mercymorn opens her mouth on page. Any necromancer battle ever. OK IM DONE U CAN PUT THE HOOK AWAY

Favorite quote: 3 way tie between 1) "I'm sick of roses and horny for revenge" and 2) "You remember how the fuck-off great-aunts always used to say, Suffer and learn? If they were right, Nonagesimus, how much more can we take until you and me achieve omniscience?" and 3) "I wanted you like a caveman wants a wildfire … or the sun [...] I was babbling, Show me. Come on. I’m ready. You kept screaming and screaming … like a baby in pain. So I tried to hurt you—I did hurt you. I reached out for you, and it hurt you … but I wasn’t strong enough. The caveman. The wildfire. The Neolithic priest staggering in front of the falling star.” MANY other faves but. sits on my hands

Fav ATN theory: chekhov's gun augustine same as above he IS coming back

tagging: @nooomagnus, @nose-coffee, @gideonisms, @valancietrinit, @lady-harrowhark @mayasaura and YOU! if you are reading this and wanna join :D

While we're waiting for Alecto to come out, I thought we could have some fun in the tlt fandom :)

I'm not sure if anyone's done this before, but I haven't seen any so I thought I'd make a tag game. just for funsies.

there's absolutely no pressure to tag or to even play, I just wanted to compile all my favorite parts of the series and I thought it'd be fun to share! so without further ado...

_____________________________

My TLT Favorites

Favorite house(s): 4th and 2nd

Favorite book: Gideon the Ninth

Four favorite characters: Gideon Nav, Teacher (Canaan house), Jeannemary Chatur, John Gaius

Favorite ship: Jodybeth

A favorite scene: Nonius vs Wake fight

Another favorite scene: Nona's 3rd tantrum

A favorite quote: "Won't you say one real thing to me? Won't you show me one single solitary human thing? Or are you going to die talking to me like it's just another party you wish was over already?" (HTN pg. 546)

Favorite ATN theory: Alecto is a hideous corpse. (not sure what this entails yet, but I love Teacher so much, and I don't think we spent that much time on him for nothing)

_____________________________

Thought I'd keep it short and sweet, but please, please, feel free to make it your own :)

I was intending for this to be a tag game, so I nominate:

@onefleshoneend0 @transbutchbluess @orionsystem6 @koshertaako @susurra-el-arroyo-manso

but like I said, no pressure! just for funsies!

[belovedblabber]

the locked tomb! or if someone already asked, dragon age!

Thank youuuu for asking!

Favorite Male Character: It's John, we all know it's John. I stand by my cancelled wife <3

Favorite Female Character: I legit do not know how to answer this because that list is, so long and frequently neck and neck but today while zoning out I ended up thinking about Harrow and had a resurgence of how much I adore her so I'll say Harrow rn!

Least Favorite Character: I'm not sure honestly, I don't really think I have one? Maybe currently Paul just because we don't know them very well yet and also I'm so mad to have lost Pal and Cam so let's go with Paul

Favorite Ship: This is another tough one oh god. I love Harrow/Gideon, and Harrow/Ianthe, and Gideon/Ianthe in a 'gay sex won't fix this situation in fact it may make it worse but I think we should give it a shot anyway' sorta way fghj. Idk if that last one is a ship or a 'I think they make each other worse and I love that' thing. Also between Gideon/Harrow and Ianthe/Harrow I like. Gideon/Harrow more in terms of just pure shippines, I guess? I want them to be happy and kiss but I'm aware that may be a tall order. I'm terrible at answering ship questions especially with this series dfghj. Also the entire dios apate trio situation is just the absolute tastiest although I've been thinking a lot about John and Augustine in particular lately I think just because that's where my brain is kicking around atm. I love them, obsessed with that fucked up lil' jaugustine dynamic it makes my brain spin

Favorite Friendship: Gideon and Palamedes, I know we didn't get to see much of that dynamic but what we did see was so sweet and I love it. Also Harrow and Palamedes. I LOVE Palamedes he's up there as one of my fave characters

Favorite Quote: This one is just cruel I have so many I legit cannot pick. But currently I have the whole quote that ends in "Something will satisfy them eventually, but nothing satisfies me. Nothing" stuck in my head and am wanting to draw smth from it so I'll just go with that, John that was sooo sexy of u babygirl. (Also "Is that the truth, or the truth you tell yourself?" "What is the difference?" said God'" hit me like a sack of bricks the first time I read it and continues to do so. But I also have so many other fave quotes asdfg, I just need to leave it off here or I'll write a novel length list of them).

Worst Character Death (if any): This one is ALSO hard but I will say that the one that shocked me the most was honestly Jeannemary. After that it was hard to rattle me although oh god Gideon's death at the end of GtN did have me crying

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment: When I read the NtN preview on amazon and saw that it opened with a John thing and I got so excited that I shrieked out loud alone in my dark room and then messaged my partner rapid fire while literally vibrating and then was so jazzed that I couldn't sleep. Because I'm a freak.

Saddest Moment: How do I pick? The one freshest in my head is the creation of Paul because OUCH

Favorite Location: Canaan house, I love the vibes in a way I can't articulate

[theriverbeyond]

2, 17 & 27 for the fanfic writer ask meme

Do you read/reread your own fics?

KJHDSJKDHS sometimes? It's weird like I will reread something 65464 times when editing but as soon as I hit post, reading it fills me with the same kind of revulsion as hearing my recorded voice. I can do it if it's been like, a long while since I posted it? But even then I have to hold a pillow over the part of me that cringes.

I am also so worried I will find a terrible typo and if I don't look then it doesn't exist. to me <3

What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

probably not a ton, mostly because most fics I've written have fallen pretty neatly within my existing sphere of knowledge (anatomy! medical things! body horror! emotional exploration!). The fic I probably learned the most with was probably YouAreCalledToServe_WIP.docx, because that was the first time i'd ever done workskins on ao3 which was a learning experience

Is there a fic you were nervous to post/share? Why?

SO MANY of them ngl. perhaps even all of them! but one of them recently that I felt particularly nervous about was alors que l'eau est bleue, mostly because I decided to write Augustine Quinque 1st person POV in addition to it being the first dios apate trio fic i've published and like, I REALLY wanted to get those old peoples' voices right. A lot of it was definitely outside my comfort zone (in a fun way!) in that I was SO nervous about if it would go over well or not, if the characters would "feel right" etc. but everyone has been SO nice so it worked out :D

also I discovered like, 15 typos in the last 2 minutes before the collection opened and was frantically trying to fix them all and catch any more I had missed asdkjh

send me fanfic writing asks!

[saltwaterconfessions]

htn ruins my life on a daily basis because the answer to a lot of questions involving harrow, such as why did no one stop gideon the first, why did no one figure out what the fuck was wrong with her, why did no one HELP HER, why didn't the older lyctors do ANYTHING USEFUL to help their new siblings process the grief and stress and transition into a new life that only they could understand, why did things happen the way they did, is mostly - no one cared, or no one cared in a useful way.

because i think objectively, john and ianthe, to different extents, do care about harrow. john cares in a shitty way, presuming he knows what's better for harrow than harrow herself. i don't know if he's capable of caring for her in the way she might have thought he would, as her god, but that's a touchy subject anyway. he is, at the same time, just some guy, and also an absolute nightmare of a god. ianthe is a whole situation in herself but also, cares about harrow in her own, maybe not always useful, way.

it's the lyctor trio i have the most issues with - they write her off IMMEDIATELY. augustine takes a more active role as ianthe's mentor and does actually make himself useful for dios apate minor but like. he's definitely got his own agenda. mercymorn ALSO has her own agenda - i wish her motivations were more clear. i think it's so interesting that AYU confirmed that she's working with BOE and KNEW about the ninth cavalier's body, knows harrow's temporal lobe isn't what it should be, and yet? doesn't even take an interest in harrow's necromantic abilities? gideon (first edition) is even more like, dude, just, what the fuck? i know you're super loyal and the saint of duty and you're going to follow orders, but at what point are you doing more harm than good? harrow's cav isn't going to snap out and save her after the first time you tried to kill her, so why would it happen the tenth time?

so i think it makes it even more powerful when someone DOES care (or act) in a meaningful way - abigail's gentle "i would like to hear more about it if you would like to tell me" and her presence in the river bubble, ortus acknowledging the weight harrow took as a child, pyrrha telling her about the blood wards, camilla and palamedes being glad to see her even though they couldn't really help, everyone in the river already being dead but wanting to help harrow as much as they could.

anyway. i've got another post about it to make because apparently my stress coping mechanism for today is crying about htn, but yeah. fucking ouch.

[emcapi]

having thoughts about this now, actually

Most of the Final Boss Battle of GTN goes about the same. Ianthe's arm gets hacked off. Gideon yeets herself on a fencepost, forcing Harrow to ascend. They have Cytheria on the ropes but before they can strike the killing blow, a shuttle comes furiously screaming through the atmosphere, lands, and disgorges a VERY peeved Mercymorn the First.

Cytheria is powerful, but she knows she has little hope of winning a fight with Mercy on a good day, let alone while fighting Palamedes's parting gift of turbo-cancer, and quickly stands down. She immediately falls back into her sweet-innocent persona despite the fact that she's DRENCHED in blood and wearing nothing but the remains of a bedsheet.

Mercy, still in peak Mercy form, verbally tears them all a new one, pulls out most of the turbo-cancer, sticks Ianthe's arm back on since it's only been a couple of minutes (and this way there are comparatively less hard feelings between Cyth and Ianthe), physically drags an inconsolable Harrow away from Gideon's corpse. The pathetic trio of younger Lyctors are hauled off to the Mithraeum. Harrow and Ianthe conduct DIY brain surgery. Cytheria, after groveling convincingly in front of a Merciful And Forgiving God (I don't know what came over me, Lord, etc, etc), is promptly dragged behind closed doors by Augustine and Mercy to get told, at length, all the ways she is an idiot, and to attempt to jointly brainstorm a (marginally) less stupid plan to Fuck Jod's Entire Shit Up.

Harrow, meanwhile, has now been deprived of a convenient corpse to transfer a substantial portion of Wake's revenant into, and thus is very preoccupied with being extremely haunted, puking due to Sword, and bleeding out of various orifices every time someone tries to bring up her dearly departed cav. Cytheria tells her new co-conspirators about Gideon, but without her eyes showing up on Harrow it's not quite enough evidence for them to act immediately - they're immortals, they spent 500 years planning Dios Apate Major, they have time to make their move. (Make no mistake, though - if what Cytheria is telling them is true, Mercy and Augustine are ready to be pissed the fuck off. It's just being kept simmering on a back burner for the time being.)

Thus, the exceptionally dysfunctional found-family of the Mithraeum proceed to co-exist in bizarre orbits around each other, much like in canon only now with 100% more Alive Cytheria, until the Resurrection Beast shows up and everything goes directly to hell in a handbasket.

Cytheria and Ianthe have some utterly weird mix of emotions between them including but not limited to:

You cut my arm off but also I stabbed you and we both got better so we're even (Ianthe)

You're a callous little toddler who didn't give a shit about her cavalier, at least Harrow has the decency to be completely fucked up over it! (Cytheria)

Gideon (Jr)'s Dead this is Not what I wanted, I didn't even think she COULD die (Cytheria)

Gideon's dead GOOD I HATED THAT BITCH BYE (Ianthe)

"what are you two FUCKING talking about" meme format (Harrow, accidentally walking into this conversation and immediately gushing blood)

Cytheria, helpfully, offers her a handkerchief for the blood. They form an inexplicable unspoken truce based mostly on bleeding at inconvenient times. Ianthe is incredibly jealous and tries to figure out how to give herself a chronic illness just so she can be included in their little club.

It's a shame that Cytherea cut off Ianthe's arm and then got fucking murdered, because I would've loved to see their dynamic on the Mithraeum. They're deranged in basically opposite ways.