#ft. alecto

[sybillctrelawney]

⭐️

during her sixth year when sybill was using her gift on any student who asked, she felt shame. she walked with her head held low both in an attempt to clear it but also out of disappointment in herself. in a moment when she looked up she ran into alecto before going into potions and saw something. she stammered and ran into the classroom, never letting alecto know what she had seen -- about amycus.

@alecctoccarrow

[pciscnparkinscn]

@ofxalectox

#getting Vanessa's son, River, to play Choni's son named Dale is pretty clever actually

[dahliaxxgreengrass]

where: entrance to the great hall. who: alecto; @alecctoccarrow.

Dahlia and Alecto walked into the Great Hall arm in arm as sisters. Dahlia was beaming in her black, form-fitting dress. Being accompanied by Alecto was a privilege, one Dahlia took seriously. Though she would be lying if she didn't say she was full of girlish glee on the inside. She couldn't stop smiling or feeling like the luckiest person in the room.

As they stood in the entrance, Dahlia looked over at Alecto and asked, "Are you ready for this evening?" With a smile gracing her pale face, she answered her own question. "I can't wait."

[deirdresart]

Alectamene early days where Aiglamene is Anastasia and something’s wrong with her but she’s God’s creation and so and so...

[thanergetic-hyperlinks]

Tamsyn Muir's writing beyond The Locked Tomb

Y'all, turns out there's lots of imagery and themes in TLT that Muir was already playing with in her earlier fiction. A lot of it is easily available online, in which case I'll link to it. (The short stories that aren't can also be easily read if googled, to be quite honest—that's how I read The Deepwater Bride and Why the Mermaids Left Boralus). • The House That Made the Sixteen Loops of Time (2011)

5K. Short sort-of-cozy romance (?) with (you guessed it) a time travel loop. Explores a very queer potential relationship. CamPal enjoyers might find a similar sweetness.

• The Magician's Apprentice (2012, Lightspeed Magazine)

5K. This is the one that stopped me dead on my tracks. It features an older, male mentor figure called John (a “very ordinary man” with “dark eyes”) who introduces the young, female main character to magic that has a terrible cost—and to literature such as Lolita. This excellent post by @familyabolisher does an incredible job of analyzing the very deliberate intertextual links between TLT and Lolita.

• The Woman in the Hill (2015, Lightspeed Magazine, originally for Dreams From the Witch House anthology of Lovecraftian horror by women)

4K. Possibly my favorite! It's a straightforward Lovecraftian horror, centered on the image of the woman (is it human though?) trapped in an unnatural pool inside a cursed cave. Chain imagery too. It does something different from Alecto, mind, but you can see links, ways of playing with facets of a strong central image. It's fun to consider how reliable the two narrators are. Here's an analysis and afterthought from Reactor Mag.

• Chew (2013) 4K. Zombie abuse and cannibalistic revenge story ft. an uncanny woman revenant, told from the eyes of a traumatized German boy. I was strongly reminded of Harrow's conversations with the Body. Tamsyn gave an interview on the themes and her intentions. Interesting to read in light of Alecto, I think, although I don't think she's going the same route in TLT: “the idea of post-war rebuilding connecting to rebuilding the body of the zombie; a Frankenstein who once rebuilt doesn’t act as planned or desired. […] I love cannibalism […] it’s innately spiritual […] any afterlife she goes to, he’s going too.”

• Apothecia (2014, published on Tumblr and tapas.io)

Short webcomic where an alien monster tries to corrupt the ruthless human girl who holds it captive. Musings on responsibility and murder, mention of child abuse. The alien's speech patterns remind me of a Resurrection Beast. You get wonderful dialogue like “Murder is a profession. Job. Employment, you tiny leg dog. There you are, walking along. Walk walk walk. Now you are a walker. Good job. Special child. Murder is like this.” Art by Shelby Cragg.

• The Deepwater Bride (2015, Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

The opening line is: “In the time of our crawling Night Lord's ascendancy, foretold by exodus of starlight into his sucking astral wounds, I turned sixteen and received Barbie's Dream Car.” Need I say more? Extremely fun. A novelette where a young queer girl from a clairvoyant family struggles with an apocalyptic event while being annoyed by another very plucky girl. Lots of descriptions with nerdy marine zoology terms. Close in tone to Gideon. In the background, someone dies EXACTLY like that one death at the end of Gideon, which makes me wonder what happened to make Tamsyn interested in this particular image. I also liked that Tamsyn is aware of Nightwish. No link, but you'll get a PDF immediately if you Google.

• Union (2015, Clarkesworld Magazine)

5.5K. Very weird, extremely Kiwi story about a town that gets sent lab-grown wives by the government, but they're not made the usual way so they're Weird and people have feelings about it. Fascinating and eerie description of non-human (in some people's eyes, sub-human) women (?) who cannot be observed to have recognizable feelings or thoughts, yet have some sort of inner life. Quite touching, very uncanny.

• Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (2020)

Short novel (~200 pages). Very funny. I was reminded of Coronabeth because the whole plot is “princess finds herself branching out into decidedly non-princess-like activities”, but other than that—this is a fairytale for adults about people who make eachother worse. No particular links to TLT but a very fun read with some gut punches. Extremely Tamsyn through and through, what with the dubious morality and all.

• Why the Mermaids Left Boralus (2021, in Folk & Fairy Tales of Azeroth by Blizzard Entertainment)

Set in the World of Warcraft universe. Haven't read this one yet, will report back lmao. As with The Deepwater Bride, no link but I easily found a PDF of the entire compilation. It's illustrated!

• Undercover (2022, from Into Shadow, Amazon Original Collection)

Haven't read it either. Will edit once I do.

[pciscnparkinscn]

@ofxalectox

CHONI WEEK ► day seven: free choice - madnessa during production of S7

[theriverbeyond]

just woke up from a nightmare that I had gotten an early access copy of Alecto the Ninth, it was 6,833 pages long held together with zip ties and divided into 3 main sections:

the first section was arranged in an extremely long 5 act in-universe bible (1: Bones 2: Heuristics 3: Incrjdhshs (dream giberish) 4: Zryryryeie (more dream gibberish) 5: Appocalypse) with no relation to any of the existing named characters (including John) and included several in-universe calenders, stories about statues with teeth, moral exercises ft the vague frameworks of the TLT universe, and a forward from the author every 100 pages or so justifying this experimental take with each one more incomprehensible than the last.

the second section was extremely short (<200 pages) and was 1 act long called something like "Alectectaliakis" or some other dream giberish and was written from the perspective of Alecto about eating Harrow (??????????)

the third and final section was again extremely long about Gideon/Kiriona being very dead and living in some sort of recognizably-modern city pining about Harrow (who was as described earlier eaten by Alecto, but it's unsure if Kiriona knew about that specifically) and being very depressed but in the middle it devolved into a portfolio of fan art, sort of like those anime art books but all the art had been submitted by fans and none of it had any recognizable relation to actual events or characters of any of the books

Anyway in the dream I was sitting on the couch reading it surrounded by my friends and mutuals and we were all discussing how deeply incomprehensible and confusing these creative choices were but generally appreciative of Tamsyn Muir for taking a big swing. send post.

[dahliaxxgreengrass]

🔮

send me a 🔮 and I'll tell you where I think your muse will be in 20 years.

alecto will have been seen as a hero for her work in the war. no one will be able to deny what she did for the cause and will praise her for it. she will take all the encouragement well into her later years. it’s what she worked so hard for. she’s alecto and will always be someone dahlia will look up to — if she lives that long.

@alecctoccarrow

[saddest-girl-in-the-whole-world]

Describing Alecto as inspired by Hollywood Hair Barbie is on the one hand objectively a genius choice and hilarious but it also undeniably did irreparable damage to the fuck up looking Alecto economy, I need more depictions of her looking like the frozen corpse that she is STOP yassifying my 8 ft tall rage filled lip biter!!!!

[xgeorgetteollivanderx]

There had never been pain like this. Unforgivable curses; she supposed she they were unforgivable for a reason now. No one deserved this hurt. Georgette had emotional scars and now she imagined her body would never heal from what what being done to her. She was sure she would always feel the pain scouring through her veins. If she stayed alive that is.

“Pretty when she begged.” If only she had something to say. Even if she did her voice box wouldn’t allow it. A tear fell down Georgette’s cheek. Not only was she being physically tortured, whoever this was wanted to mess with her mind as well. It was was working.

Finally the masked individual took the wand from Georgette’s side. A small relief. However it was short lived. This person put the wand to her head. Georgette was terrified about what this would mean.

She barely heard the curse before feeling the pain soar through her head. Georgette’s brain was on fire. It crawled down to her chest. Her heart felt like it was going to explode. She groaned and attempted to grab the stone slab with no luck. All she could do was shake and shiver. Her head was slamming back and forth. Georgette grabbed on to her memories of the shop as much as she could to get her through this ordeal. But the pain — the pain. It was unreal. Was she going to make it?

Alecto knew that their time together was limited. To remove a memory, a short term memory, would only allow for a certain period of time. "You sound so pretty when you beg." She sneered, wanting the witch to pay for the way she treated her. No one insulted Alecto Carrow and got away with it. The edge of the wand digging into the other's side is removed, instead Georgette can feel it glide down her cheek. "Crucio." The pain from the unforgiveable curse strikes the witch confined to the stone table. A delightful smile seeps on her features, enthralled by the withering body in front of her.

Moving around the table, hazel hues glance over Georgette, deciding where she wanted to mark the witch, leaving her with a scar that would confuse her come the morning.

[softfocusgremlins]

Truly hope Alecto the ninth picks up directly after this.

Ft. Ianthe as a drowned cat.

[dandyseedlings]

when i first read nona i thought that alecto was just straight up a barbie. like a 7 ft tall plastic monstrosity. and then i was like oh, wait, john could've just made a meat woman that was modeled after a barbie. im still attached to my original interpretation but idk what do you think

[catcas22]

Height Headcanons

Made a chart with my approximate height headcanons for Prince of Death. Seeing it all laid out was... eye-opening.

https://multmetric.com/?person0=0-Miquella-152.4-%23cebfe8&person1=1-Ranni-213.36-%2374a2ec&person2=1-Malenia-243.84-%23e16e3d&person3=0-Godwyn-289.56-%23f7d426&person4=1-Marika-304.8-%23f5c105&person5=0-Radagon-304.8-%23fe0606&person6=0-Rykard-320.04-%237233d1&person7=1-Rennala-365.76-%231462A9&person8=0-Morgott-365.76-%23858585&person9=0-Mohg-426.72-%23000000&person10=0-Radahn-609.6-%23ce2727&person11=0-Vyke-162.56-%23878787&person12=0-Kristoff-187.96-%23dac910&person13=1-Lansseax-213.36-%23ffffff&person14=0-Godskin-274.32-%23c8b3f9&person15=1-Finlay-213.36-%23fec52a&person16=1-Alecto-226.06-%23050505&person17=0-Blaidd-335.28000000000003-%230a0094¤tMetric=ft

[xrodolphusxlestrangex]

Rodolphus mouthed to Alecto: I've got you. It was true that he and Rabastan's ways of handling things were different. However, he felt that it was best that it was he who was on this mission simply because he knew Angus. He already had the connection. He was aware that Alecto wished she had been with Rabastan but he needed her to trust him. Rodolphus was rough around the edges but when it came to the very few people he cared about he cared with verocity. That included Alecto. He sat there hoping she would just trust him enough.

He drank the beer -- if that's what it really was. Werewolves obviously had a different taste for their alcohol but Rodolphus engaged without a wince, no matter how much he wanted to spit out the swill. It appeared that the pack was relatively comfortable with he and Alecto's presence which was positive. No need to go near the wand. Just a need to keep an eye on Alecto and the other on the pack -- just in case. Both could be unpredictable.

As Rodolphus gave Alecto the floor he saw Angus put his hand on her. He was getting ready to interfere when Alecto began to speak. He didn't dare disrupt her but he watched and his hand sat next to his wand. If Angus tried anything funny the wand would come out in two seconds flat.

She handled the situation perfectly. Rodolphus was proud of how she approached them, talking about how they were presently being treated versus how they could be treated under the Dark Lord's reign. When she laid a hand on Angus', Rodolphus relented slightly. She was taking the opportunity in front of her but he still didn't like it and held his hand steady.

When Angus finally turned and got his hands off Alecto Rodolphus lowered his wand hand. He also put his mug down and reached both hands out to Angus. "Let's shake on it," he encouraged. Angus took some time to think and looked to his pack.

"Do we want to roam free?" "YES!" "Do we want to destroy without worry?" "YES!" "Do we want to stop being tracked by damned wizards who want our pelt?" "YES! YES!" "Do we support this man who wants to give it to us?" "YES!"

Rodolphus smiled and looked over at Alecto. They had done it. Angus' pack was in their hands. Alecto laid it out and Rodolphus got Angus to hurry on that couple of days. Angus got up and interacted with the riled up and excited pack, clanking their mugs of beer and cheering. Rodolphus winked at Alecto. He got up and walked to her.

"Nice job. I would cheers you but this so-called beer is rubbish. We deserve a real drink when we get home."

Alecto felt herself starting to regret asking Rodolphus to go with her. She knew Rabastan would be disappointed if she travelled alone, considering most missions like this she would have preferred to be with him, but being his brother, she knew trusting him would not be an issue. That he would be there for her, with her importance to Rabastan. Instead, she said nothing, the expression on her features saying it all, a stoic disdained one.

The more she drank of the beer, the more she felt disturbed by it, this was not her usual indulgence, but she was still able to consume it. She pushed off that feeling and had a few more gulps before putting her mug down. She sat there quietly, observing around them, looking for weak points, and allowing the males to chat. It was all mundane in retrospect, to her at least.

Her body turned in Angus' direction, watching the werewolf lean forward and place a hand on her thigh. She kept the disgust from seeping into her eyes and reminded herself to keep to the part.

"From what I've learnt of your kind, you hate the fact that you have been resorted to live in the woods. Hide who you really are in free of what the mudbloods would do." The corners of her mouth twitch into a malicious smirk. "They hunt you and if caught in your true form, they skin your kind and hang on the wall for decor. That is not jest." She does the unthinkable and places her hand on top of his. "Come to the side, where you don't have to hide and when the Dark Lord has taken over, you can roam freely anywhere over this great land and be proud."

Alecto saw the light form in his eyes, this smirk matching hers, a finger leaning forward to tuck hair behind her ears. "I like this one. She may have sold me." He glances towards his people. She could feel the vibration of their powers fill the air. They wanted what she said the Dark Lord could give him. "Give me a few days." His body turns forward, removing his hand from her thigh.

[adolin]

has something from a tlt fic ever become headcanon to you? i ask because i find this happening to me all the damn time with this fandom but not others

OK SO, my tlt headcanons are like schrodinger's cat, they explicitly contradict each other sometimes and all of them exist at the same time in different quantum states of canon. So in that sense I've never read a fic and thought, okay, THIS is my canon from now on.

But I've read so so many fics that burst my third eye wide open and made me consider different perspectives on a character / dynamic, or helped me shape some I already had. A few favourites:

the soul that seeketh him by bittybelle — missing scene pre NtN ft. John and Kiriona. Wherein John Gaius meets his daughter, remembers the women he left behind, and deals poorly with being the male god of a universe in which the divine is essentially feminine.

AO3 user LesbianJesusLovesYou gave me Big Feelings about Gideon's childhood on the Ninth and her relationship with Harrow, Aiglamene, Ortus and Crux

believing in everything (and knowing nothing at all) — A series of childhood memories from the Ninth

when i call, will you come to me? — “My Lady,” Ortus wheezed, shifting uncomfortably. “I only thought you should know… Gideon Nav was flogged before the congregation.”

A few fics set right after NtN that really stayed with me:

never hear the sound of someone calling me home by @corpsesoldier — Kiriona Gaia returns to the House of the Ninth.

One More Son by captainpeggy — After Nona, Pyrrha Dve walks the Ninth.

two old broads split a cigarette by @forjodssake — Aiglamene/Pyrrha. “sometimes the girl you like becomes one person w her soulmate and you have to jack off about it”

Post HtN missing scenes:

Death in its season by @ancientannoyance — John holds Mercymorn's 24 minutes funeral

recognize them by their fruits by @ceruleanvulpine — John and Ianthe emerge out of the River

Other stuff that Stuck With Me

so I open the window to hear sounds of people by @sunderedstar — post NtN flashbacks. John and Alecto are the only two beings on earth, and he starts working on the Resurrection. This is harrowing and I'm absolutely obsessed with the implications in this fic of WHY John removed everyone's memory.

and they were roommates by @herenortherenearnorfar — pre Resurrection Mercy and Cristabel, from their first meeting onwards and it just really burrowed a hole in my brain and grew roots and sprouts and everything. Latin American nun Cristabel it's all I can see now, and YES they met working with climate refugees when M— was a bright eyed idealistic doctor. It also lines up great with the Asian Mercy headcanon that exist in my head (I have a whole elaborate backstory about M— aged 12 proclaiming to her Filipino Catholic family that she's an atheist now). Anyway, it's just a lovely, gorgeous fic. I think about it every day.

John 25:12 by @halfeatenmoon — pre-Resurrection, John and his friends escape the cow fortress to spend Christmas Day at the beach. With beer, salads, pavlova, and the corpses of a million fish killed by nuclear weapons testing. Ft. Southern hemisphere holidays in Mururoa Atol and 100% canon. To me.

Operation: The Most Honorable Man by @cadmean — Augustine has a proposal for the Saint of Duty (Dios Apate. That's the proposal)

lowkey cheating but I can't choose — absolutely anything AO3 user Raxheim has posted has been SOO up my alley. Every time I read one of their fics I feel like I'm enlightened by some never-before-considered detail. And mean ANYTHING, from Harrow Nova to Wake to Cytherea and the Lyctors to the Universe's #1 Sadgirl Gideon

[mercyisms]

hello anon and apologies for promptly dropping off of the face of the earth after promising to reply to this. in the interest of trying to be useful, i'm going to dash something off-the-cuff, but i hope it helps! i think this idea is already routinely demonstrable in the text, but tamsyn muir was also kind enough to explicitly spell some of this out in this lovely interview: "That said, the God of the Locked Tomb IS a man; he IS the Father and the Teacher; it’s an inherently masc role played by someone who has an uneasy relationship himself to playing a Biblical patriarch. John falls back on hierarchies and roles because they’re familiar even when he’s struggling not to." one of the ways this is dramatized in the text is, y'know, john shoving some of the earth's soul into a barbie. pygmalion the earth into perhaps the most iconic form of white femininity. it's a move that may be complicated by details such as a) john's indigeneity and b) the queerness implicated in john preferring barbie to any of his more 'masculine' toys, but there's a lot to interrogate here on how john's proximity to systemic oppression (across various lines) is retained and the ways in which they're replicated despite his intentions, or the ways they come through even when certain axes of oppression (gender, race) operate differently in the nine houses than on contemporary earth, or what john prioritizes above altering these systems. so on one hand, thinking about john's affinity to tall blondes might lead you there. however, because the 6ft tall blonde is not just alecto but is, in fact, an enduring role, now you can open up some more questions. for me, these questions might look like: what is the relationship between this role and john and john's empire?

the 6 ft tall blonde is always john's bodyguard. that's another key point of comparison. we may consider: when the bodyguard is alecto, she is stylized as a (to really simplify it) romantic counterpart in some ways; she is a caretaker (i'm quite sure there's a line in ntn about how john is unable to sleep unless alecto strokes the bridge of his nose or similar; possibly the only one granted access into the fact that john is afraid); she, based on what we have to go off of, trusting of and ultimately deferential to john's judgment prior to entombment. she is also stylized as a highly, and traditionally, feminine person (see: barbie), though alecto is repulsed by and in conflict with her body and gender presentation. and then you might consider augustine. at the urging of his lyctors, john entombs alecto. john identifies augustine as one of the lyctors most repulsed by and mistrusting of alecto. in her vacancy, the lyctors come into their roles as the emperor's fingers, and augustine, first saint, takes up a particularly key role. we might also note that augustine is staked out by the text as deeply gender ambiguous (g1deon and mercy, among others, are gendered without hesitation. the narration questions augustine's gender), but frequently pivots on misogyny. certainly, he accuses mercymorn of trying to become A.L. bodyguard 2.0 but in a way that a) suggests she is failing and b) while mercymorn and M-- both function as guardians and protecting figures to John, both come to the table with a different texture. augustine (exchanging 'your mom' jokes, etc., with john pre- dios apate minor) and A-- (thinking especially of how john remembers only A-- calling his new eyes 'cool') is also fulfilling a role for john that his other (remaining) lyctors are not. humanizing confidante, perhaps. he is not only a thousand year old friend but a caretaker for a slightly more fallible and human john. augustine also reaches a point where he can no longer support john. where john-as-emperor and the goals and demands of his empire diverge from what augustine sees as morally defensible. and so he's replaced. augustine and john wrestle. they reach an equal impasse. and ianthe -- rather than save her mentor and overthrow god -- chooses to sacrifice augustine and take up his place. of course, kiriona is also present and given some nicer titles, but by the end of nona (see: the tower besties little fight before the tomb is opened) we understand gideon is being used by john, while ianthe is the bodyguard proper, choosing what information to feed back to john (NO new updates on his duplicitous sluts, thanks!) and working very hard to keep john separate from alecto, in order to keep mr. gaius in a state that benefits ianthe and ianthe's goals. ianthe also has some wild and fucky (complimentary) gender shit that may also be fun to track. also, notably, ianthe is not of particular interest to john, who vastly prefers harrowhark. the strain of desire is possibly broken. so we don't just have, you know, a very fun enduring bit of the 6 ft blonde bodyguard, but we also have an interesting progression. we can see how this role evolves. john shaped alecto in one way, and had to set her aside. augustine allowed himself to be shaped by and used by john, up until a point. ianthe is the consequences of john's empires and the decisions or neglect that coalesced into the nine houses' politics and hierarchies, but we've reached a point where john is now (wittingly and unwittingly) in conflict with these hierarchies. the 6 ft tall blonde is not only a signal that certain hierarchies, roles, and systems persist in john's empire, but i think you could compellingly map out ianthe is the logical conclusion of said systems & that provides a really interesting context to read her actions & plots, both in conversation with alecto (and her shifting position) and augustine, but also with john. (and the 'rebrand' john is engaging in during nona, as he moves away from the neo-roman lyctors to tower princes & a flirtation with greater indigenous stylings, ex. 'kiriona' over 'gideon'.) anyway! i hope some of this helped. i know i'm not necessarily spelling out the entirety of my personal reading here, but i hope i've laid out some of the pertinent points of analyses and also some of the 'work' (points of comparison or characterization, etc.) that i think is happening wrt to our tall, tall blondes.