#jod is not who i expected ^^;

[torisprlng]

R.I.P. 33

SKELETON CREW | 1.07: WE'RE GONNA BE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE

[katakaluptastrophy]

Periodically, I remember how absolutely fucked up the necromancers in TLT are meant to look. Like, necromancy does an absolute number on people physically.

Harrow is "rather small and feeble".

Necromantic Ianthe is "the starved shadow" of her non-necromantic twin.

Our first description of Palamedes is "a rangy, underfed young man" who is "gaunt".

Silas is "knife-faced...He had a necromancer build."

Ianthe parodies make-over scenes in House novels with "if the hero’s a necromancer it’ll be described like, ‘His frailty made his unearthly handsomeness all the more ephemeral'"

Jod acknowledges to Wake that even small children with aptitude would look odd to non-House eyes: "“I have access to any number of cute pictures of necromantic toddlers with their first bone. They don’t make for fat-cheeked roly-poly babies, but they’ve got a certain something."

In As Yet Unsent, Judith brags about her previous physical fitness: "I could run a kilometre in ten minutes, which was among the fastest for my adept group in the junior reserves." Which is about double the time you might expect for a physically fit woman her age.

In non-necromancer-friendly New Rho, Harrow's body is mistaken for a child's and has to be explained as a result of starvation and trauma to seem plausible: "Pyrrha explained without missing a beat that what with everything Nona had gone through she had been ill and still didn’t eat very much, which was why she was so knobbly and undergrown. The nice lady said that yes, many of the children had problems like that, but it was still hard to imagine Nona was anywhere over fourteen, wasn’t it?"

Tamsyn Muir's descriptions of the Canaan House gang on Tumblr back this up: "Judith is somewhat less completely scrawny than other necromancers on the cast, though she should be less built than Marta is", Palamedes is "seriously underfed" and "bony", Harrow is "scrawny".

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head - I'm sure there's more.

Anyway, necromancers aren't slender in a conventionally attractive way, they're gaunt in a concerning way...and probably the only reason no one instantly clocked that Coronabeth wasn't a necromancer was because they all just thought it was par for the course that a Third House princess would have had a lot of plastic surgery flesh magic.

[beguilingcorpse]

weaponry in the locked tomb is so interesting because when you break it down it's like:

guns exist in-universe but are used by the freedom fighter terrorist organization almost exclusively

swords are (were?) commonplace enough that gideon was able to find and train with a decently well-balanced two-hander on the ninth, despite the fact that the ninth has no military force or even interplanetary traffic. gideon's sword is at least 20 years old, probably older

swords are definitely still in use within the empire, at least by cavaliers, but likely within the cohort as a whole. to my memory there are no mentions of cohort members carrying military-issue guns

even though they're trained in a variety of weapons and techniques, cavaliers (are supposed to) carry exclusively rapiers. gideon prefers her two-hander and cam carries twin shortswords, but these seem to be rare and shocking exceptions to the standard.

rapiers are used by cavaliers explicitly for the purpose of lyctorhood. they're light enough that a scrawny necromancer without swordfighting experience can pick it up and rely on their cav's training without needing to build the muscle to wield the sword effectively

because of the secretive nature of the megatheorem, and lyctorhood as a whole, most people just follow the rapier rule because it's tradition. it is what is done. harrow makes this pretty clear at the beginning of gtn

cavaliers can carry a variety of offhand weapons. it seems like the full spectrum of middle age weaponry is possible - but still, no guns. not even secretly, as with cam's dual blades. some cavs choose to carry material for their necromancers as their offhand - ortus carries a bowl of bones for harrow, and i can only assume "the powder" mentioned as harrow's choice for gideon's offhand towards the beginning of gtn is some kind of bone dust

from a doylist perspective, all of this creates a aesthetic that starts very analog and gothic and gradually grows into a more standard sci-fi space opera through the series. by ntn, we've hit most of the established genre weaponry tropes that we've come to expect from older futuristic space media like star wars and alien. blasters and guns are standard fare, and it makes sense to hold off on introducing them until the scope of the story gets broader and more interplanetary

from a watsonian perspective, it's a little more difficult to draw concrete conclusions without the context that atn will inevitably provide. but if i had to hedge a guess, i'd say that, as with most things, It's All John Gaius's Fault. when he resurrected the galaxy i'd assume that he wanted to keep the aesthetics of medieval imperialism, and given his 21st century liberalism probably didn't want guns to be part of the equation. but they were anyways - we know this because wake carries a big one - and instead of standardizing firearms within his military and for his lyctors, he clings to the aesthetics of swordplay. please correct me if i'm remembering it wrong, but to my knowledge every gun shown in the series is either directly linked to boe or implied to be sourced from them. jod dooms his own lyctors and military by refusing to update their weaponry.

all of this poses a lot of questions about atn: who will carry a gun, and why? where did the gun come from? why DON'T the lyctors just use firearms? and most importantly: will they be fighting zombies with swords???

[riverssongs13]

Obviously I love Harrowhark and I worship the very ground she treads upon, and I'm glad we've established that. But I finally got to the SOUP and hot damn!

Have you any idea how difficult it is to properly make bone broth reduction? She didn't even use proper meat, she siphoned MARROW from her own bones, and created essentially jus. And that's coming from someone who knows ass about cooking! They have ✨GRUEL✨ at the Ninth House—that's about as gourmet as they get.

You're telling me there's this infant who wouldn't know the difference between beef mutton veal or pork, who looks like she hasn't been fed properly in any of her 18 years of existence, spent 6 days reading instructional materials on complex, restaurant-grade cooking, and essentially made bourguignon from scratch? Granted she panicked and drowned it in too much water, but SHE KNEW NOT TO ADD A FUCK TON OF SALT, something people with no cooking experience would definitely do.

AND! AND! AND! Used that very same, watered down soup as delivery method for an assassination attempt! WTF! GENIUS. Fucking inspired, man.

If I were Jod, I, too, would have my mind blown. The level of genius this absolute madwoman has is phenomenal it should be studied. Giving Ianthe the arm is another feat of Harry's inherent bone talents, but that's just something to be expected. SOUP! Fucking soup, man. Something a line cook with 10 yrs experience could still fumble on in a bad day.

[loverboy1717]

So like, I would never WANT Magnus to get ate, but I would also love to see Abigail as a lyctor meeting Mercy and Augustine, and the saint of duty (who I won’t name cus bestie is still reading harrow.)

Like I know the power dynamics between gen 1 and gen 2 lyctors are from their literal ages, but I also truly think it’s from their perceived ages. Like Mercy looks late thirties and talks down to Ianthe and Harrow cus they are infants. What would happen if Abigail mother fucking Pent mobbed up ya know? How would Mercy handle that? Also would love to see Abigail and Augustine talk about the fifth. And for her to dunk on Jod and debunk all his bullshit. Plus she’d for sure clock the saint of duty and his best bud cus she’s observant af and pays attention to details nobody expects.

Basically Abigail Pent is my hero. Bye.

[billyshakesp]

One for his Lyctors

Something that will never cease to amaze me is how well TazMuir writes the Lyctors. So I'm making it your problem ;). CW: Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth.

Let's start off by stating the obvious: the Lyctors are old. Whenever I mention "the Lyctors" in this post, I'm referring to Jod's original crew of eight Lyctors, and, more specifically, Augustine the First, Mercymorn the First, Gideon the First, and Cytherea the First. Those four are the ones we have met at the time of writing this. And they are old. They are each ten thousand years old. However, ten thousand is a number which may not mean much to you since you (presumably) have not even reached the age of two hundred. To quickly contextualise how colossal a number ten thousand years is, just remember that written history only extends as far back as five thousand years. In not so many words, my bbygirls are not actually very baby, and are, in fact, fucking ancient.

We, as humans, do not have any living reference for a ten-thousand-year-old being, aside from an occasional tree or a sponge, or perhaps a condiment bottle so deep in the back of your fridge that it would warrant a paleontological dig, but I digress. So how does Muir write her Lyctors so effectively?

Vicious dehumanisation

One of the most striking things about the Lyctors is the dehumanisation they have suffered over the past myriad. The first thing I noticed while diving into this subject (and by diving into, I mean I took a long shower one day and pissed off my family) is that the Lyctors do not have last names, and their first names function more as titles. Furthermore, the Lyctors are referred to as the hands, fingers, and gestures of the Emperor. In short, the readers and the characters of the Locked Tomb, including the Lyctors themselves, don't see the Lyctors as individuals anymore. Rather, their sole purpose in life has been reduced to just a soldier of the Emperor. Muir really shows the effects of the Lyctors' age; they are ancient, to the point where they have lost their own humanity and the only reason for their existence that they still hold onto is to serve the Emperor.

2. Their morals

Are extremely fucked up. Like, I cannot emphasise enough how fucked up the Lyctors are as people. Their morals are twisted in a way which can only come about from ten thousand years, rotting in deep space. For example, G1deon probably makes like 56 attempts on Harrow's life, and he doesn't give a second thought about it. When the other Lyctors find him, they don't really condemn his actions the way a human would expect another human to condemn attempted murder. To the Lyctors, life and death are both abstract concepts: life has lost all its meaning to the Lyctors, and thus, they do not see value in others' lives, especially the life of another Lyctor. Especially the life of a "Half-Lyctor." Additionally, Cytherea's plot to destroy the Nine Houses, while technically noble in its intent, is just insanely messed up. Yet, it makes sense in the context of her being a Lyctor, and, furthermore, someone who has suffered abuse for the last ten thousand years. She wants to bring justice to Jod, and for her, a small genocide is completely insubstantial. These people do not value nor understand life the way a human would, because they are unbelievably old.

3. The ways they break

Every one of the original Lyctors we see has a point in which they break, and when they break, we see a glimpse of the humanity peeking through. I could do character analysis on all of the Lyctors, but that would take a really long time. In short, we, the reader, get to see shreds of the people the Lyctors once were, and yet this only demonstrates just how shattered they are under the inexorable weight of time (yes, I use inexorable excessively now that I've read these books). Muir feeds us these pieces of the Lyctors' former selves to show just how buried that former self is.

In short, Muir does such a good job writing her Lyctors. They really are some of the most beautifully tragic characters I've ever read. I'm really just compiling some of the elements which I think Muir used to achieve the effect of "this character is bloody ancient." Feel free to add anything you feel that I missed (and I'm sure I missed a lot of stuff), and thanks for reading!

[thamechanist]

So, initial thoughts on skeleton crew(spoiler free):

At-aatin is definitely sketchy, but maybe not intentionally? My personal theory is that it was one of Chancellor Soh's great works - a managed, ordered research world which was built to contain "all the treasures of the galactic republic" i.e. it's people, and their dreams/ambitions/hopes. And so the population are all expected to contribute to the great work of scientific discovery and advancement.

That would also explain the heavy use of droids, since a science world would be unlikely to have much in the way of a manual labour class.

The mural in Fern's home also reminded me very much of the phase 2 high republic/hyperspace rush era - which would be the sort of thing that a home on a science world would want to remember.

But I'm thinking: during the nihil crisis, they either had access to stormwall tech, or the research that created it, and decided to use it to protect themselves and effectively seal off the wider galaxy - which is where the barrier comes from. Then over hundreds of years, memories of the world faded until all the wider galaxy could remember was just the name & the idea of treasure.

And speaking of the pirates, I feel like it's a 50/50 coin flip whether Jod is just a pirate who happens to be force sensitive, or a Jedi who turned to piracy to survive order 66. I'm leaning towards the latter, as he really seems to remind me of Cade from the Legacy comics for some reason

[a-merciful-end]

The dark haired pirate captain frowned poking his head around the corner of the planet they had decided to rest on for the night thinking he was going to be safe.

He sighed turning toward the kids who he hadn't expected to be behind him. "I told you to wait on the ship." He groaned not realizing how loud he was talking.

“We found another Jedi!” Wim grins.

“I’m not a Jedi.” The helmeted woman replies. “I just have the force.”

“She’s a Mandelorian dummy!” Fern replies.

“She’s going to help us.” Wim replies.

“My name is Merci. Your younglings told me your ship needs repairs.” She extends a hand to shake Jod’s.

[salubriousbean]

So I watched Skeleton Crew

AND I LOVE IT

LIKE

PIRATES

It's so much cooler than I thought it would be. I love the main four and there's so much to find and figure out especially with Jod.

And of course the music slaps. More spoilery things under cut (for all 6 current released episodes)

Ok first off I love KB, she's my favorite. (She's autism coded ngl)

Also KB lore drop in episode 6??? Like girl what was the accident?

ALSO WHAT THERES ONLY TWO MORE EPISODES IN S1???

Ngl it kinda bothered me how they didn't pronounce the T's in At Attin.

Ah yes. Jod, Silvo, who is this guy?? (Also i know they mention Silvo in the first ep but I can't for the life of me remember what that bit was about.)

HE SAID THE QUI-GON QUOTE your focus determines your reality LIKE WHAT

Also they've used "kriffing" twice now and that makes me really happy. It is part of my daily vocabulary and I even heard one of my best friends say it and j was like what (i think all she knows is that it's a star wars cuss word) ANYWAYS

I need Jod backstory like now. He's a Force user, and he knew the Qui-Gon quote, and he has a lightsaber, but how did he get to where he is in the show I NEED ANSWERS

Speaking of backstories I also need full KB backstory. I love how she has two moms. Also what the kriff happened to Wim's mom? It seems like with such a perfect (too perfect) society she'd still be alive, especially since it seems KB had a terrible accident yet she was saved by technology. So what about Wim's mom?

And I also love how determined the parents are to break the rules for their kids, it's adorable. Also who the kriff is the Supervisor. Watch it be like the Red- something pirate dude (I'm kidding)

Speaking of the pirate dude (cannot remember his name rn) how long ago was that ship crashed? Cuz like Jod knows about him, but there was also a whole lot of growth over the ship? Granted Jod could have just heard and read about him not actually seen him. Idk.

Yas Neel you preach peace to the whoever clan they are, with Hayna or whatever her name was (why can't I remember). He's so precious.

Wim's name is so silly I love it. He's a silly little guy i love him.

Fern is such a character oh my gosh. At first I didn't like her but with the character development I'm liking her more and more.

Also (last point) At Attin is way sus. Too perfect. Actually all the At planets are sus (once again I need backstory). Also the beginning episodes didn't really feel like Star Wars, especially the like suburbia bits and stuff.

Anyways yea i think Skeleton Crew's really cool, better than I was expecting. I really like the piratey music, though they do lean a little too hard into the aesthetic to feel completely like Star Wars, in my opinion. However it's unique, so.

[thecoffeelorian]

Fandom Friday, 1/03: Fanart!

Hello again, everyone…and welcome to another installment of Fandom Friday, the two-post series where I go off to find new and interesting fanworks that might need a bit more visibility.

Before we begin, I would first like to apologize that this is a bit late...yet seeing as how I wasn't exactly at my best after work yesterday and I still needed to recharge after the New Year's-related insanity, I wanted to put my best version of this forward rather than submitting it incomplete.

Second, Happy New Year to everybody reading this, and I really hope it turns out a lot better than expected!

And third...if you're still waiting on a response from the last Fandom Friday, I'll be sure to get on that sometime today.

Anyways, before I get too distracted or lost...here, now, are my picks of the week.

THE PREQUELS

The Prequels Fanart--By @mytardisisparked:

THE CLONE WARS

The Clone Wars Fanart--By @cc-3636-wolffe:

The Clone Wars Fanart--By @hellfiresky:

THE BAD BATCH

The Bad Batch Fanart--By @lulalovez:

The Bad Batch Fanart--By @aaaaawolfquarters:

STAR WARS REBELS

Star Wars Rebels Fanart--By @borealtrooper:

Star Wars Rebels Fanart--By @ang3l0fde4th4ndd0gs:

SKELETON CREW

Skeleton Crew Fanart--By @thelawless7:

In conclusion, as part of my mission to poke around the Star Wars fandom and highlight those artists who might otherwise go unnoticed…I hope you will check out the links I have included for yourselves and like, comment on, and reblog them, as well as also giving the artists a few more followers to their Tumblr pages.

Please also like and reblog this latest installment so that these links can be spread around to as many other fans as possible, just in case not all of them can tune in at the same time.

An additional thank you goes to @djarrex for making the divider I used earlier in this post, but still want to give credit for.

And finally, so that I do not forget…thank you, stay safe, and I’ll see you in the next post!

No Pressure Tags: @melymigo @algo-o-nada @the-osborn-way @everybirdfellsilent @skellymom

@leos-multifandom-corner @maggie-dylan @leenathegreengirl @gun-roswell @tazmbc1

@bluedeedeedoop @its-time-to-rise-above @tlmtwelve @apocalyp-tech-a and anybody else who might be on the lookout for new SW fanart.

[thelockedtome]

One of the small blink-and-you-miss it parts in NTN is that, once Gideon kills Crux, a thing she's wanted to do for so long, who was horrible to her her entire life, who not only offered to die, but goaded her into killing him, that once he is dead she says

"why didn't it feel good...fuck...it didn't feel good. Why didn't it feel good"

In a series where the galvanizing emotion is Jods need for vengeance, of inability to forgive, of wrecking revenge on 10000 years of generations. The entire known universe and society is shaped by this!

And that his daughter was given the chance for revenge, to act out her punishment on a man who undoubtedly abused her, and she took it! But it didn't feel good. It was shocking, she clearly put so much into their moment, must have day dreamed about it, but it didn't live up to expectations

I don't want to put words in Muir's mouth, or read deeper than that this a character arch moment, and not necessarily a societal commentary. But I also feel that this is saying something about retributive justice, about punishment not actually helping people, and foreshadows how Jods vendetta, even if successfull will help no one, least of all himself.

How tragic it is that Jod remade the world in his obsession, and that it will be ultimately futile. That he could have made society in any other way, and it probably would have been better, if he had just listen to his loves, his scientists and lawyer and nun and artist and engineer (well, not the cop and hedge fund manager), what it could have been , instead of being doomed

[katakaluptastrophy]

Abigail Pent literally brought her husband, and look where that got her!

Oh, I can't be normal about this...

Ianthe is saying all of the quiet parts out loud about cavaliership in the Nine Houses:

She says "the cavalier’s job is to die for the necromancer" (Palamedes tries to gloss this to "protect the necromancer", but concedes that "if this entails their own death, then they're expected to accept that"). She talks about Naberius as a commodity, procured at birth, raised for a purpose, modifiable and disposable at will.

She wants to make it clear that she was terribly clever and has no regrets. Which is obviously why she's been thinking about two people she deems "dull and stupid" to the extent that they're her main touchpoint for explaining her position and that she name checks both of them, separately, during her responses... (poor Magnus).

Because the Fifth represent the opposite of how things turned out for the Third: an incidental cavaliership to a relationship of two equals who chose each other (against social currents, quite possibly on several counts). Ianthe made a choice at Canaan House. And Abigail made choices eleven and five years before that. And Ianthe has been thinking about those choices.

So Abigail Pent brought her husband on a research jolly to the First instead of bringing a slave to the killing fields (to paraphrase Harrow). And where did that get her?

Well, The Unwanted Guest rather confirms Abigail's heretical speculations about the River: it is not the end, but a purgatorial passing point through which one can travel lightly to the further shore, or sink down to the horrors at the bottom. Abigail may not have gained ultimate power and posters of her face, but she did end HTN going off to cross the River to what, in the implied cosmology of TLT, sounds rather like heaven.

And as for Ianthe? Jod's "indelible sin" may not be the most reliable account of Lyctoral River theology, but Lyctors do not seem to travel lightly in the River...and the Stoma did try to grab Ianthe back in HTN. The newly created Paul offers Ianthe - and Naberius - a second chance and she rejects it.

And now the Death of God has been released, Ianthe has bet on God, God is having a mid-dismyriad crisis, and the girl Abigail Pent risked a second and total death to help knows the truth and is off to harrow hell.

Ianthe Naberius used her cavalier for the rotten true purpose of cavaliers, and look where that got her.

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

God, I'm now revisiting Harrow The Ninth and this book is just nothing short of one heartbreak after another.

I can't blame people for forgetting how deeply vulnerable of a person Harrow can be, she is constantly wearing a mask and we only get to hear of her from Gideons perspective, and for good reasons because if she was the one to narrate HtN? It would read as a constant breakdown.

She is dealing with so much that she doesn't understand, not just because she literally lobotomized herself, but also because she was never taught to understand grief. Ever since having to turn her parents into construct, probably even before that, she turned all her grief into guilt, but she can't do it anymore.

The worst part about all of that is that we're constantly being told that Harrow is behaving strange, she's being weird, the lyctors and Jod are treating her like she's some freak that needs fixing, that just needs to stop whining or that just needs to do something normal when she is experiencing the most normal emotions a human can experience.

She's going through grief! She lost the girl that was the whole world to her and they don't get it! Because they're not normal, the most normal person on this ship is Ianthe who shows no signs of grief for Babs whatsoever, they all can't begin to understand that Harrow, maybe for the first time in her life, is being incredibly normal about this situation!

She's being constantly belittled, Ianthe is treating her like a game (a game Ianthe is losing btw), she's being hunted for sport and the guy she thought she worshipped all her life is telling her to just make soup? The only person that even begins to understand her is the drowned out soul of Pyrrha, she's the only person trying to help Harrow and even she can't do much more

Gideon was right she told Ianthe she doesn't know the first thing about Harrow, nobody there did expect for Gideon, and the only thing Gideon could do was watch, it's heartbreaking.

[redstonedragon3]

Cytherean't

Imagine Gideon the Ninth without Cytherea in the first place? Who would ascend to lyctorhood? I might be screaming into the void here, but it's an interesting "what if everything went right?"

Second House: YES. Deuteros pushed Dyas to her limits as seen in her duel against Hect. I feel like there would be some encouragement, heartfelt words, and acceptance of an honorable death.

Third House: DUH. Ianthe becomes a lyctor in the actual book, there is zero chance she doesn't in this au.

Fourth House: YES. Given both of their willingness to sacrifice their lives, they would find this if anything a more productive version of their fates nonetheless.

Fifth House: NO. There is no way in the river that Abigail impales her Husband. I guess that's why necro-cav marriage isn't typical.

Sixth House: MAYBE. If push comes to shove, it's similar to their existing fail safes, so they may hold off and do it later than other houses.

Seventh House: MAYBE. From their relatively brief appearances in Harrow the Ninth, I feel that Dulcinea would be willing to become a lyctor in order to stand up to what was expected of her by her house, but I don't know if Protesilaus would accept the conditions. He might? (What do you think?)

Eighth House: MAYBE. (Sorry for all the maybes) Octakisaron would do whatever is the moral high ground. Doing it would come easy, given what he's done to Colum. The logical moral high ground would be to lyctorize, as Jod encourages it and wants it, but Silas is a strange b*****.

Ninth House: YES. Without Cytherea, there would be less likely reason to bond and develop the connections that did form under the strife of the impostor among us, so Harrow would have zero qualms stabbing the testament to her pain as a final symbol of success for her house.

So, what do you think? Any changes or reccomendations?

[classicanalyzer]

Skeleton Crew - This Could Be A Real Adventure and Way, Way Past The Barrier Thoughts

"Since the fall of the EMPIRE, the NEW REPUBLIC has maintained order.

And yet, remote hyperspace routes are increasingly plagued by piracy.

These PIRATES boldly brand their armored hulls as a sign to all ships.

Surrender or die...." The opening crawl of Skeleton Crew

The first two episodes are such a fun and refreshing open to this new Star Wars adventure. The editing in this show is top notch and full of personality. The child actors did an amazing job of selling the four kids as kids in the Star Wars galaxy. The high number of aliens in this show also really refreshing.

That opening space battle goes so hard, especially the transition from the title crawl (I'm loving how the live-action shows since Ahsoka been doing this) to the action. The action sequence is shot really well and I love how the visual effects look.

Mick Giacchino did an amazing job with the score with the kid's theme and the pirates' theme. I can't wait to see what else this man cooks in the rest of the episodes, especially with the piano.

Captain Silvo is pretty much Jude Law's character, Jod Na Nawood (at least one of his many, many identities).

Brutus being a Shistavanen is such a good choice. Such great alien prosthetic work. It was also some good continuity to see Vane in the show, given the focus on pirates.

I like how Wim is a deconstruction of wanting to have a classic SW adventure and believing in the classic SW tropes. As he'll see over and over again, the galaxy is not as idealistic and happy as the stories make them out to be. But I also feel with his desire to do something more and different, especially in that scene when he looks at Neel's family and his own reflection. I hope Wendle, Wim's dad, gets further exploration in the forthcoming episodes.

Nell is the best. That boi must be protected at all costs. The prosthetics for him and his family are so amazing. He seems to have a problem with asserting and standing up for himself. It's both funny and cursed that his siblings are watching footage from the Holiday Special lmao. Fern is a bit of a brat, but she's also dealing with a mother who expects a lot from her. She tries to escape that as much as she can while trying to live up to her expectations. She also is the most level-headed of the group. KB is the most intelligent of the group but also seems to long for more in life. Her fascination in the creatures in the pirate spaceport and absent mindedness at the creatures suggest interests beyond technology. I want to know about KB about why she's given cybernetics and where her family is.

I also wonder what the mural in Fern's house means for the history of the world and the story of the show.

The production design is very impressive and I really like the electronic devices used in the show, especially how Wim uses his to look at images of the Jedi.

I always had a feeling that At Attin was pretty fishy based solely on the suburbs, lmao. They seem to have a false utopia of sorts with all the predetermined career tests (the US Department of Education would love them lol), especially toward whatever the "Great Work" is. I wonder if the Great Work mentioned by Fara is related to Soh's Great Works.

I also like the nod to how some Jedi Temples can arise from underground and arise plus the Atollon and Aldhani mentions are nice nods to the larger Canon.

I like a theory that the Barrier could be a hologram of sorts.

The Onyx Cinder is such a cool ship design. SM-33 (Nick Frost) is such a fun pirate droid with some kickass fighting choreography. His introduction in the red lighting is also really cool. I hope we get to see more of his antics and character in the show. Port Borgo looks so fire, and God, the visual effects for the pirate port and this show are so amazing. It blows Ahsoka's visual effects out of the water. A Teek being the driver is a fun nod to Ewok: The Battle for Endor. I also find it interesting that everyone thinks their world is not only considered a myth and doesn't exist but is full of treasure. I also like that the Theelin brothel worker wanted to help out the kids and get them back home, tho it's very understandable why Fern is distrustful of her, given the nature of the port.

The fact the kids literally know nothing that's commonplace and normal to the galaxy means most of At Attin (since they had droids from the galaxy, I wonder if the general public doesn't know about the galaxy but only a few in govt know) didn't hear anything of the Skywalker Saga. Oh God, that's going to be a depressing story to tell the kids (especially Wim on Order 66) and At Attin's public about how the galaxy went to hell for decades.

I love that rat (Snowball) that lives in SM-33's empty eye. I also like how Wim refer to Old Republic credits as dataries just as Qui-Gon said when referring to credits in The Phantom Menace. I wonder how insane the exchange rate between Old Republic credits and New Republic credits is.

I wonder what Jod's backstory is since Jude Law confirmed he is an actual Force-sensitive and not pretending to be one. Realistically, I think he's just a Force-sensitive who is posing as a Jedi to the kids. However, I feel like there could be more to his story since Law mentions we'll be learning a lot about his character in Episode 7. If he was a Jedi, I like to think he was a Jedi dropout and then using the Force subtly to rise in the pirate ranks. I hope Jod gets some character development if he is going to try to manipulate the kids at first (mainly because I like Jude Law and hope he gets to do more Star Wars.

Otherwise, these two episodes is such a great start to this show.

"The distance between us and the key...is an illusion." "Jod Na Nawood"

[clockedtomb]

GtN Allusions: Page 8

Cavalier Absolutely should have done cavalier on page 7, but just didn't think of it. Middle French for horseman or knight, from the Latin for horse. Also means not caring enough about something important, like burning alive for ten thousand years.

Centurions Ancient roman infantry commander of units consisting of 100 (duh) or 80 (times is hard) legionaries. The centurion was responsible for disciplining other soldiers and also civilians, which I think Judith and Marta were clearly All About. Centurions carried a sword at their left side and a dagger at the right side. Centurions sometimes became lictors (which we'll get back to). Roman centurions had to be at least 30, literate, and experienced, and were expected to be strong, dexterous, skilled, and lorge.

There is a biblical story in the gospels of Matthew and Luke about a centurion who asks Jesus to heal his sick boyfriend-slave. It is usually not translated as boyfriend or slave but I've heard pretty compelling tell that the original very clearly refers to a slave that is also boyfriend. Jesus heals the boyfriend, and later the centurion is present at the crucifixion and attests to Jesus's divinity and/or innocence. This is painful for Corona reasons and also Teacher reasons, imo.

There is also a centurion called Julius who helps Paul go to Rome in the book of Acts.

Judith Deuteros Judith means "praised" and/or "Jewish woman." Judith was a brave and beautiful woman who was pissed at people for not trusting G-d enough. She, trusting G-d a frankly legendary amount, prays a lot and then goes into the enemy camp with her maid and casually beheads the Assyrian leader Holofernes. She takes the head back to her people and the Assyrians are like WOW I'm gonna go, so she's saved the day.

There are many excellent paintings of Judith slaying Holofernes but I am partial to this one by Artemisia Gentileschi because these women are gonna do what needs to be done.

An English play about this by Howard Barker has a scene called "The Unforeseen Consequences of a Patriotic Act" and if that isn't putting it mildly.

Deuteros is greek for the second or the other of two. This is a really interesting name to give the heir of the second rather than the cavalier, who should be the second of two. I think this could speak to Judith's inappropriate feelings for Marta, or of her devotion to Jod.

Marta Dyas Marta is a name derived from Aramaic, meaning "lady." There was also a 547 AD Battle of Marta in Tunisia involving a guy called John but it's a stretch. I feel strongly that I'm missing something here.

Dyas has so many interesting false positives that cannot possibly be related and I'm going to share some of them for fun. Dyas is an oil and gas company. Dyas was an 11th century Indian King. Dyas is a surname used in England and Ireland (there have been a couple athletes with this name). Dyas is also just related to the Greek for two of the same, a pair.

The Procession A procession is when a bunch of people walk together in a ceremonial or formal way and what a weird nickname for your house.

Processions were part of major religious festivals in classical Greece and Rome, especially in the cult of Dionysus and in the ritual of Triumph. This got adopted into early Christian practice and processions became associated with ritual performances of the crucifixion and resurrection and with everyday mass and things like weddings and funerals. I mean frankly what doesn't have a procession these days!! Processions were part of what Luther was mad about, and Luther would probably hate the Third so that's valid.

Coronabeth Tridentarius Corona means crown or garland, from Latin. It can refer to the sun's outer atmosphere, the part that's brilliant and shiny. COVID is called a coronavirus because its spike proteins form a corona or halo around the body of the virus, resembling the sun.

Beth is a Kiss song from 1976 from the album Destroyer. Oh Beth, what can I do? It's also a common shortform of Elizabeth, famously the name of two English queens who did some pretty memorable queening. Beth El is a Hebrew phrase meaning "house of G-d" in which beth is a transformation of beit, home.

Tridents are three-pronged fishing spears; the name comes from latin "three teeth." They are associated with Poseidon/Neptune in classical mythology. Poseidon was associated with the sea, storms, springs (water), earthquakes, and horses; Neptune was also associated with heaven.

-ari is a Latin suffix that makes nouns into names.

-ius is a Latin suffix that makes something an adjective indicating that the thing being described is "made of" or "belongs to" the noun.

Together tridentarius seems to be a construction that does The Trident People Name. Which basically does what it says on the tin.

Ianthe Tridentarius Ianthe means "purple flower" in Greek.

Once upon a time in Greek and Roman mythology there was a boy named Iphis who was secretly assigned female at birth but raised as a boy. When Iphis his dad arranges a marriage between Iphis (who he doesn't know is secretly, classically trans) and a girl named Ianthe. Iphis is SO in love with Ianthe. Iphis's mom tries to delay the wedding, but eventually the wedding was going to happen, so Iphis and the mom go to a temple to Isis to pray for help. Iphis is miraculously transformed and marries Ianthe and they live happily ever after.

Tridentarius is still The Trident People Name.

Naberius Tern Naberius is a demon. He is a Marquess of Hell, commanding many legions of demons. Naberius has the body of a three-headed dog or bird. He's a bit of a fop and is super talented at rhetoric and the arts and sciences. He speaks quietly. This is my favorite picture of him.

Stuff I found about Naberius the demon said he's the same as Cerberus the three-headed hell dog but I don't think this association goes both ways.

I was real confused at first about how tern functions as a house name for Babs. A tern is a sea bird. There's a lot of them. But the name doesn't mean three. Here's a black tern. I think it's pretty.

Etymonline says the name of a tern comes from Old Norse for "maid-servant" but etymonline also saved me, because the entry for ternary (threefold) mentions that a tern or terne is a dice throw with three dice or a prize in a lottery with three winning numbers. Why isn't this in the entry for tern!? Babs as the prize seems to be happening for a lot of GtN, and Babs as a throw of three dice works for me on a poetic level. I'm into this.

Isaac Tettares Isaac is the biblical son of Abraham and Sarah. Abraham was supposed to be the father of a great nation, but his wife Sarah was infertile for many years. When Abraham is A HUNDRED YEARS OLD, after decades of not being able to have a child together, Sarah has Isaac. He is personally promised to them by G-d. I absolutely cannot overstate how wanted and loved this child was. Then G-d instructs Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in place of a lamb, as a test of faith. Abraham takes Isaac up to the place where the sacrifice is to take place. He puts his son on the alter, trussed up like a sacrificial lamb. He raises a knife over his head. And G-d is like wow. WOW. Do not. Can you imagine. Good job, absolutely but wow do not, yikes. Thank you <3 and then they just go on with the rest of their lives as father and son?? But Sarah immediately dies. Sometimes it's said that someone told her what happened carelessly and she was scared to death. If you would like to listen to a short and heart-wrenching song about the binding of Isaac and its emotional aftermath, I recommend this one.

Tettares is an Anglicization of the Attic Greek word for four.

Jeannemary Chatur A Google search for "Jeannemary" returns exclusively TLT related results and I think TM may have made this name herself.

Jeanne is a French given name equivalent to Joan/Jane/Jean in English, and rooted in the Hebrew name Yochanan (also the source of John!) meaning "G-d is Gracious." I suspect that the reference here is to Jeanne d'Arc, who believed in G-d the absolute most.

Mary refers to roughly 1/5 of women in the bible and half of all queens.

Chatur is a name derived from Sanskrit. I wasn't able to find reliable information on its etymology.

Abigail Pent Abigail is a Hebrew name referring to a father's joy. The biblical Abigail was a prophetess and the wife of King David. She was wise and is described as one of the most beautiful women ever (Isaac's mother Sarah is one of the others).

Pent is a prefix referring to the Greek for five.

Magnus Quinn Magnus is "great" in Latin. A bunch of kings of Norway and Sweden have been called Magnus. There are also SEVEN saints called Magnus. The Magnus effect in physics describes lift that affects a spinning object moving through fluid. I don't know which if any of these is a reference.

Quinn gives me a liiiiittle trouble as a house name. Quinn is an Irish surname that's usually Catholic with two Ns and Protestant if only one N. Quint refers to a fifth, and quin refers to quintuplets. I find Quinn a stretch.