#nona is a cow fact book actually

[roseshell]

Fun Cow Facts

Cows watch sunsets

Cows have best friends and complex social relationships

Cows recognize one another

Cows exhibit mourning behavior for other cows

[yellowraincoat]

Which Locked Tomb book you like best actually says a lot about you. (you can trust me, I’m an expert in pseudoscience)

If you like Gideon the Ninth most:

You read to have a good time/for humor

You like to watch the gay men women fight

You’re a sucker for a tragedy

One of your favorite character archetypes is the humble hero

You either correctly understand that Gideon Nav is the best character or relate too much to her to believe that

You came for the gothic vibes or necromancy vibes and stayed for the gays

If you like Harrow the Ninth most:

You read to feel a little clever

There’s a 90% chance your IQ is higher than mine

You’re known to like characters who could be considered frustrating, or even unbearable (@ mercymorn and ianthe)

You like puzzles and you will stick out large periods of confusion for the joy of solving.

You probably annotate your books (if you don’t it’s because you believe writing in books is sacrilegious)

You’re a sucker for a dramatic reveal

If you like Nona the Ninth most:

You read to feel loved

You’re a slut for the found family trope

You don’t necessarily like to solve puzzles, but you love the feeling of it all coming together

Thank God someone [God] is finally talking about Earth and this society’s relationship to it because you like ur fantasy a tiny bit grounded in reality

You believe in the power of radical kindness

You enjoy an element of whimsy to your grim imperialist capitalist dystopia (you would also prefer if it was interspersed with cow facts)

Edits (that no one asked for)

You don’t like Harrow because you’re autistic, we’re all autistic (well, actually, I’m adhd but that’s beside the point). TLT is strictly for the neurodivergents and gays

The harrow fans have asserted that many of them are dumb and proud. I’m sorry for assuming otherwise. Love that for you guys

Other valid reasons for liking Harrow best include: an enjoyment of body horror, a love of overly convoluted plots made with your frienemy to save the dead girl and the entombed girl you love

[ilovedthestars]

for the dashboard osmosis ask game: Gideon the Ninth / The Locked Tomb

Oh Boy. You picked the best one 😂 I know way too much about TLT for someone who has never read it and probably never will. (It sounds like it's great but very not my thing so I have been enjoying it via osmosis but have no desire to actually read it)

the thing about the locked tomb books from an outside perspective is that it seems like one of those "impossible to tell if the funny Tumblr posts are shitposts or canon" fandoms, except that it turns out literally all of the posts that sound like shitposts are actual canon events. Every time I ask someone "so is that a joke or what" they're like "no that happened" and I have accepted that no one could possibly make a shitpost that is weirder than the actual books

Things I Know About The Locked Tomb (if anyone reading this has not read the books and wants to, maybe skip this, because some of it is definitely spoilers but I don't have enough context to label it as such):

the main characters are Gideon (funny redhead with sunglasses) and Harrow (sad goth girl) (I know they're both from the Goth Planet or whatever but she seems extra goth)

also there's someone named Nona who's....really friendly maybe? I have no idea but she got a book

other characters: Sex Pal, lady with gold arm, Actual God, a bunch of other people with names that all sound the same to me

the setting is far future space catholicism but if catholicism had way more cannibalism and skeletons

there are houses, with numbers, I think they're associated with the planets, counting Pluto

there's a bunch of stuff with like, people's souls merging, and turning into saints, and plot stuff that people don't make fanart or shitposts about so I don't know how it works

oh also God is just some guy and he was?? a twitch streamer?? thought that was a joke but APPARENTLY NOT

he eats peanuts in meetings and this one character is very mad about that

Gideon breaks a vow of silence to tell a guy his name spells Sex Pal

she also wants to fight some skeletons because they look like swords

there's a scene where Gideon and harrow are sad and gay in a lake together or something like that which I know about because everyone makes fanart of it

apparently there is an actual canon None Pizza With Left Beef joke which really sets the tone for all of this

also something about cows???

genuinely I have no idea what the plot is all I know is the 4 scenes people make fanart of and a bunch of out of context quotes

if you have wild facts about The Locked Tomb to leave me in the replies/reblogs, by all means please do. I do not care about spoilers. I have no intention to read them but I am so entertained by hearing about them secondhand

[thewonderfulsticherofoz]

I made a joke ask about Harrow being restored like St Peter through feeding cows instead of sheep and now that I’m thinking about it I feel there is some merit in my demented joke. Listen. Nona starts with Pyrrha wanting to take her family and go to a farming planet away from the violence. The notion that this is something Pyrha really wants- that she could ever truly stomach a life of peace, a life without conflict or violence, without anything to fight- is something that is questioned multiple times throughout the book. This leads me to believe that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we’re going to swing back around to the farming planet topic. Now, obviously Harrow is a character who has been nothing but death and destruction her whole life. Her necromancy and her very existence are only possible because of the murder of 200 innocent children and she hates herself for it. The fact that her hatred of the sacrifice that lead to her power, and by extension herself, is so central to her character has led many (including myself) to believe that for Harrow’s arc to be complete she will have to in some way give up her necromantic powers. So how does this relate to Pyrrha and her farming planet? Harrow is also a character who cannot conceive of herself outside a world of death. And not only that, she feels that she is obligated to pay for the sacrifice necessary for her existence. She orginally tries to do this by becoming a lyctor and having Jod repopulate her house, but she’s still miserable and all the new people became zombies so obviously that didn’t work. The series presents us with the idea of life and death energy, thalergy and thanergy, as two opposite forces. But in reality, one cannot exist without the other. And if you look at it through the lens of nature, they are not even separate forces, but one continuous cycle. New life can’t exist without death and decomposition. (I think this idea of thalergy and thanergy actually being one force has something to do with perfect lyctorhood but that’s a different post.) If you want to cultivate plants and living things, you have to sustain them with products of decomposition. Seriously, you can go to any hardware store right now and buy a 3 pound bag of powdered blood or bone to give your plant. Plants LOVE decomposing organic matter. They need it to exist. Which brings me to my main point: you know what’s a really good way to reclaim your origins of death and destruction and transform them into growth and life in a very symbolic, narrative way? FARMING. And we’re going back to Canaan House which is ostensibly on Earth!! Taking our necromancy and using it to introduce new life to the planet whose death and rebirth started this whole thing would be, IMO, a gorgeous way and thematically consistent way to end this story. Also, as an ending it has very strong medieval religious allegory vibes. How do you live the perfect spiritual life? You have love and family and a farm. Very Voltaire. (I know Candide’s not medieval but as a philisophical text it has very strong roots in medieval moral philosophy don’t come for me!) Anyway all this to say that I now want nothing more than for Pyrrha and Gideon and Harrow to end the story with John and Alecto in the tomb, zero necromancy, and a farm where Harrow literally feeds Gideons cows (that she raises in order to reclaim the legacy of violence she’s inherited). I choose to believe this until I am directly contradicted in October.