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fxckn-sxck-fr · 3 days ago

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omg hi if ur inbox is open can u give us a short blurb/your thoughts on or some kind of headcanon list for yan tim drake (romantic) bc ur interpretation of him is so yum🤤 i like how you rlly focus on more darker aspects of his character which i dont see a lot of ppl doing unfortunately bc the way he’s a complete FREAK LMFAO🫣🫣

𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐈𝐌 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒…

!!! GN reader, mentally ill Tim, psychotic Tim, just Tim, he’s a problem, manic/depressive episodes, violent tendencies, suicidal tendencies, stalking, kidnapping, obsessive behaviors, gross ways to show affection, slight insinuation of pervy Tim, blood, mutilation, harm to reader mentioned, self-harm, severed body parts, drugging, gaslighting.

YAAAAYYYYYYYYY, TIM DRAKE TIME!!!! This is so long overdue. I’ve been meaning to write for him, but… it just hasn’t happened yet. I hope the ideas will start flowing after I get some of this off my chest. I’ve been harboring so many miscellaneous Tim thoughts for a while.

(Y’all. The CW on this just kept getting longer and longer. My bad.)

First thing’s first, Tim is a fucking mess. There’s no way to know for sure which version of him you’re gonna get each day. Maybe he’s going through a manic episode, coming up with batshit crazy schemes and going on about things that don’t make sense. Maybe he’ll then swing into a depressive fit, where he can’t even bring himself to get up from the floor. Maybe he wakes up completely fine after an hour long nap, regretting whatever initial brash decisions he made. Maybe he quickly turns violent at the sound of knocking at his door. Maybe he wants to claw his own arteries out after trying to maintain a normal social interaction.

The possibilities are endless! Which makes him extremely dangerous.

If you’ve caught the eye of Tim Drake… yikes. Good luck. There’s a chance you don’t even know who he is before he inevitably kidnaps you (completely on a whim, no less). Maybe you’re a total stranger he saw on the street once, captivating him and causing him to spiral into a twisted obsession. While I’ll defend Tim against the fandom allegations until my lungs give out, I’ll admit: they’re on to something when it comes to stalker Tim. Bro definitely has pictures of you covering every square inch of his walls. And, yes, it’s to the point where they overlap each other.

Kidnapping can take anywhere between 3 days and 3 years. During that time, he may try to weasel his way into your life in an attempt to win you over... though we all know how well that would go. As I’ve mentioned before, he may be attractive, but he’s such an off-putting person. Just being around him is enough to give you the creeps. And it doesn’t help he’s completely unaware of how weird some behaviors are. Tim... honey… you can’t shamelessly stare at people with a startling grin like that. I know you’re thinking about how much you want to lick your darling-to-be’s neck, but it’s weird.

Whether he attempts to interact with you or not, one thing’s for sure: he’s stealing your shit. Clothes, toothbrushes, half-eaten food, straws, whatever he can get his hands on. Don’t ask what he does with it. You don’t wanna know. Tim is a neeeaaaasty freak, to the point where even he thinks to himself, “what the fuck is wrong with me” after he calms down from a fit.

Oh, speaking of guilt, Tim is filled with that shit. He may swing from various stages of instability, but there are moments where he’s perfectly fine. And those are the moments where he has to grapple with the consequences of his own actions. Those can range from slightly scaring someone to causing irreversible damage. There have been many times where he snapped out of some episode with blood dribbling down hands and chunks of skin under his fingernails. Who did he hurt? Could be someone else, could be himself, could be you. Who knows!!

Let’s actually get into his suicidal tendencies a bit. His arms and legs are covered in scratches and cuts. Now, this could be explained by his vigilante life, but it gets harder to justify when you get to the bite marks at angles that only make sense if they were self-inflicted. Oh, and also the carvings of your name. He does that a lot. It’s like you’re with him everywhere he goes!! And kind of on the same note, he wants you to have him with you as well!! This could come in the form of strips of skin, vials of blood, toes, an eye, an ear, a spleen… just whatever he’s willing to cut off or out of himself in the moment.

His suicidal tendencies are also connected to those moments of guilt I mentioned before. After calming down and realizing what he’s done, he may harm himself as some sort of penance; especially if he’s done something to you. Depending on how far he spirals from his guilt, he may actually enact “an eye for an eye” (perhaps in the most literal sense) to help make up for what he’s done. Who knows, maybe he’ll replace missing pieces of you with his own. Will it work? No idea. Maybe a skin graph or two, but let’s hope you don’t have to find things out in the more extreme cases.

I think it’s important to keep in mind that Tim Drake is just generally fucked-up. “Normal” Tim doesn’t mean “completely well-adjusted” Tim, it just means he’s not acting on some manic or brash decision. Normal Tim would be fine with chaining or drugging you if he’s justified it to himself. As long as he’s not causing active physical harm to you, he probably won’t see anything wrong with whatever he’s doing in the long run. It’s for your own good, okay? Don’t worry, he’s gone through the possibilities and failsafes. Nothing bad will happen to you!

Unfortunately, manic Tim does not go through the possibilities and failsafes. Well, he kind of does, but the logic is far from realistic and runs in total circles. Whereas drugging you has a rational (fucked up, but still rational) reason behind it — to keep you immobile — filling your ear canal with cement takes some mental gymnastics. Manic Tim doesn’t want you to listen to anyone else. Solution? You can’t hear through concrete, right? At that point, you’re at the mercy of his mood swing RNG. Let’s hope he calms down enough to take a step back and really think about this. Hmm… filling someone’s ears with cement… probably not healthy. Wow. Silly Tim! He let himself get carried away, didn’t he? Whoops! There are more logical ways to keep you from listening to anyone else.

That’s where manipulation comes in. I mean, come on. Y’all know who his mentor is, right? Stable Tim is wicked good at manipulation. Huh? He’s acting weird? Well, he didn’t want to say anything, but he was actually thinking the same thing about you. Yeah, you’ve been kind of off lately… is there something wrong? You sure? You know he’s there for you, right? Okay, just making sure. A gaslighting king when he’s in the right headspace for it. Too bad his psychotic aura gives him away; he’d probably be really good at keeping up appearances if he just got medicated or something.

So… yeah. Just some Tim thoughts. What a charmer, amiright? I don’t think this one’s salvageable. No amount of therapy could ever fix whatever Tim’s got going on. Just throw the whole damn guy away. Start over. Your only hope of escaping him is the chance of someone on the outside realizing what’s up. Here’s to hoping Tim gets institutionalized before he does something really bad!!

#❥ CALL INCOMING: DO YOU LIKE SCARY MOVIES?#❥ TW: YANDERE #❥ YANDERE CHARACTER #❥ ROMANTIC YANDERE #❥ YANDERE TIM DRAKE #❥ YANDERE TIM DRAKE X READER #❥ GN READER

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gardenschedule · 10 hours ago

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could you elaborate on your tags from that "writing about white walls" post?

I don't think this is a very unique take here but basically I believe that John was trying to achieve certain goals via Yoko's presence, and it was an intentional and purposeful disruption of the Lennon-Mccartney relationship. John, Yoko and Paul, as well as many fans and authors, treat this disruption as an inadvertent, inevitable side effect of the johnandyoko love story, that they were just so obsessed with each other Paul naturally got pushed to the side and it couldn't be helped, but I really think that was the whole damn point. I wouldn't go so far as to claim that was their point of J&Y's *relationship*, but I certainly think it was the reason John refused to physically separate from her while he was still active in the beatles.

I mean, the thing about John and Yoko is that their relationship was just kind of bizarre and confusing, right? You can, in fact, be in love and also be in separate rooms, you can have a job and a wife at the same time, you can have a creative partner and a romantic partner simultaneously. For some reason John couldn't, and the way he/Paul explain it is so weak and unsatisfactory. Like:

“. . . I mean, I think really what it was, really all that happened was that John fell in love. With Yoko. And so, with such a powerful alliance like that, it was difficult for him to still be seeing me. It was as if I was another girlfriend, almost. Our relationship was a strong relationship. And if he was to start a new relationship, he had to put this other one away. And I understood that. I mean, I couldn’t stand in the way of someone who’d fallen in love. You can’t say, “Who’s this?” You can’t really do that. If I was a girl, maybe I could go out and… But you know I mean in this case I just sort of said, right – I mean, I didn’t say anything, but I could see that was the way it was going to go, and that Yoko would be very sort of powerful for him. So um, we all had to get out the way.”

I mean, that shit is insane?? It makes no sense for a platonic partnership. For Mclennon shippers, it can be interpreted in a way that makes some sense. But the rest of the world can't make sense of it, so they latched onto blaming Yoko for decades. And while it's partially racism and misogyny, it's mostly because people intuitively know there's something really weird about the way things went down and the best explanation they can come up with is that she manipulated or bewitched John somehow. I don't think that's the case. John can be pretty gullible and he loves a guru, but he's not so delusional he wouldn't foresee the conflict and tension that being joined at the hip 24/7 and trying to bring her into the immediate beatles circle would cause. I don't believe he could be manipulated into thinking it would be tolerable or positive for the group. He would never have accepted another beatle doing the same thing, he acknowledged this himself:

JOHN: But I understand how they felt, because if it had been Paul or George and Ringo that had fallen in love with somebody and gotten totally involved, suddenly… It wasn’t like, you know, somebody – George coming in and saying, “I’m going to work with Eric Clapton in a band now, and screw you.” It wasn’t that kind of thing at all. It was just suddenly this involvement.

I think he knew perfectly well it would be received badly, but there were beneficial outcomes he hoped for. On that post I said it could be taken as both an aggressive or defensive move, I reckon it's probably a mix of both. It could be seen as a power grab. He's got himself an ally in the studio who will unconditionally support him, increased artistic credibility (notably in a type of art Paul was also into), the implicit threat that he doesn't need Paul or the group, the leverage that comes with needing the others less than they need him, and the ability to induce creative, professional and personal jealousy in Paul specifically. After all, that's exactly how Paul most effectively hurt John:

JOHN: [Paul] even recorded that all by himself in the other room, that’s how it was getting in those days. We came in and he’d – he’d made the whole record. Him drumming, him playing the piano, him singing. Just because – it was getting to be where he wanted to do it like that, but he couldn’t – couldn’t – maybe he couldn’t make the break from The Beatles, I don’t know what it was. But you know, I enjoyed the track. But we’re all, I’m sure – I can’t speak for George, but I was always hurt when he’d knock something off without… involving us, you know? But that’s just the way it was then.

On the other hand, John at the time was particularly vulnerable and sensitive. Yoko must have been a protective mechanism, a barrier between himself and the person most able to hurt his feelings and his confidence, she made him feel good about himself and his art. He may not have been able to cope with the pressure unless she was there to believe in him and create some distance between him and Paul, to give him some physical and emotional space from the intensity of their relationship and competitive rivalry. And if we put our tinfoil hats on, we can certainly speculate that showing off a shiny new partner is an effective way to deal with unreciprocated feelings or romantic/sexual rejection.

Truthfully, sometimes I feel like John wanted Paul to be badly hurt by this situation so much that he kind of convinced himself of it? I have a tonne of quotes about how Paul reacted to Yoko here, and one thing I notice is that John seems to exaggerate how much Paul hated her, and Yoko's a lot less accusing. That's not to say Paul wasn't jealous, but he clearly made efforts to hide it. We have evidence that Paul tried his best to be accepting and kind despite how negatively it affected him. He went out of his way to help and defend them on multiple occasions, and yet John still thinks that Paul was singing 'Get Back' to her directly or he can't stand them being in love or whatever. It seems almost like wishful thinking on his part, which makes perfect sense if you think his goal was to hurt Paul in the first place.

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #mclennon #ultimately i don't blame yoko #i blame john's utilization of yoko #her only real crime is not being enough of a beatles fan to prioritize lennon-mccartney over herself and fair enough tbh

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pjsk-hot-takes · 21 hours ago

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I think as an autistic person the idea of autistic Rui isn’t like. Inherently Bad or anything. I think there’s other characters that have more stuff supporting it (Kanade, Nene, Kohane) but it’s not like inherently a bad headcanon or interpretation

but the way people *handle* it is….. weird……

Like it’s used a lot as a justification for his behavior. Which like I’ve BEEN ostracized for being autistic so I know what it feels like. And I don’t think he deserves to be ostracized. But why are we acting like him literally using bombs on school campus with absolutely zero qualifications is a normal thing that needs to be defended.

Like that’s still extremely dangerous to the other students and just completely disregarding of other peoples safety. I don’t care how much Rui claims he “has it under control” he’s a teenager!!!! He doesn’t have a degree in pyrotechnics!!!!! He should not be doing that especially not at a public school where people could get hurt!!!!

And like if for whatever reason he genuinely needed to do something with explosions. Like if it’s a stim or a special interest or whatever. There’s a lot of safer alternatives you could try?

stim boards are a thing! Video games are a thing! Fanfic is a thing! If it’s the science process of it I’m sure you can simulate something similar in real life that is far safer. I’m sure if he has a psychologist they could help come up with other options. Literally if he needs to do these dangerous stunts there are safe!!! Alternatives!!!!! It doesn’t need to be the real thing!

Also, like, if it does need to be the real thing - one, keep it to shows maybe??? Where everyone is consenting??? Two, there are actual pyro technicians that you can hire for that exact purpose. Rui has no reason to mess with dangerous explosives unless it’s for budget reasons which like I THINK omitting real explosions or going for a safer alternative that mimics explosions is a better idea than messing with dangerous ones and having little to no clue what you’re doing. Sure maybe Rui has read up on it but he’s still a teenager and still isn’t a professional and shouldn’t be trusted with dangerous equipment that could hurt others in public.

Rui doing this type of stuff around Tsukasa and himself is one thing, because at least they’re consenting, but in public is a whole different story.

I feel like the fandom babies and infantilizes Rui. Like “oh noooo he’s just autistic it’s not his fault he puts people in mortal danger :((((( look at him!!! He’s so sweet!!!!!” I just. I don’t like it. I think autistic people SHOULD be allowed to point out the ableist undertones here without like, being shot down.

And yeah it’s true some autistic people might not know when they’re doing things wrong, but that’s still not a justification to defend his right to put people in mortal danger??????

Like, if Rui doesn’t understand that, he still. Shouldn’t be doing it. Like he should still be given safer alternatives that could maybe work instead and be safer for everybody involved. Not given free rein to cause as much damage as he wants that’s. Idk I don’t like that and I don’t like how much people fervently defend it.

Giving him alternatives isn’t, like, a Bad Thing. He can engage with dangerous stunts in safer ways or at least do it in a way that doesn’t endanger other non-consenting people.

And also, like, Rui and other characters doing this type of stuff for the sake of comedy isn’t actually a bad thing imo I still think it can be funny so I’m not saying it should be erased or toned down in the actual story. I just think people trying to defend it from a moral stand point is weird. Like you can acknowledge it’s not. A good thing to do in real life???? And maybe not glorify it????? And still enjoy/find it funny in the story like it’s just a comedy thing.

Maybe this doesn’t make sense I’m tired but. Idk I don’t like how people treat Rui being autistic as a justification for anything he does wrong ever. It feels infantilizing.

#pjsk #project sekai #prsk #fandom take #rui take #rui kamishiro #in case anyone was curious this does Not count as a headcanon because it discusses the fandom and the implications within the main story #just saying ��i think rui is autistic’ is a headcanon #because some people do not understand the distinction /nbr

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seewetter · 13 hours ago

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I don't know a single woman who has had difficulty at any part in her life "holding property and disposing of it without the approval of a husband or father."

I've known women with all kinds of serious problems that arise from money and gender relations:

I've known a woman who stayed in an abusive relationship out of fear of losing everything.

I've known a woman who was cheated on by her husband and as the relationship began to collapse narrowly avoided being stranded with no money and taking care of three children because her ex drained the joined bank account. Luckily a female friend warned her to put aside some money from that bank account just before that happened.

I've known a German woman who married an American man and he somehow manages to not pay her alimony and the only reason she survives is because her daughter works multiple full-time jobs and studies at the same time.

I met a woman by accident whose husband had recently passed away. Although the woman herself was wealthy, she couldn't access the wealth because the account was in her husbands name. She was selling off all their belongings while mourning her husband's loss in order to survive and I believe it took 6 months or so for her to regain her wealth.

But none of these women, not even the women whose bank accounts were controlled by their husbands, were expected to get their husbands approval to hold property or dispose of it -- except the wealthy lady by the bank. But what Elizabeth Cady Stanton seems to have been surprised by is the idea that it's considered normal for women to make financial decisions. And -- that's just been considered normal in any place I've lived. Even where clearly something was deeply wrong in the legal powers granted to men, even there, it was considered normal for the women to make financial decisions. They made them all the time. That wealthy widow simply sold off her stuff. She didn't despair that she needed a male relative to give her permission or whatever. She simply sold what she needed to sell to make ends meet.

But I also just checked out Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the web search results indicate this may be a woman who lived in the late 19th century. When I read it and reblogged your post, I interpreted it as a current account, as equivalent to the advocates of the 4B movement that describe their relationships with men in terms that stand out to me as alien. (I do read things I reblog through, but I did not click on the link).

None of this is a universal truth or human nature. Those are pretty loaded terms to begin with. But I am often taken aback when a progressive appears less settled than I thought. It's not that I have some naive belief that we live in wonderful progressive times. I know full-well that modern slavery exists, that there are organized misogynist groups and I understand that such things happen right under our noses. But I also live in an environment where the opinion that women need a husband's permission to do stuff is never expressed. When I was a university student, some of the girls in my class told me that they only went to university to find a guy that they could settle down with. When I relayed that story to some fellow hobbyists whom I know from face-to-face meetings, they (including other women) didn't believe me -- and because they didn't believe me, they also didn't think such circumstances required any closer examination or were representative of anything more than a weird statistical outlier in the grand story of "what is going on in society".

So I do have to point out that a 19th century Elizabeth Cady Stanton who reports that she was shocked at the idea women don't need approval fits way more into my universe than a 21st century Elizabeth Cady Stanton. But then again, some 21st century white Americans have weddings on plantations and seem quite happy to engage in a type of white supremacy that has often been described as "impossible" by white liberal observers. So I'm not sure there's any good consensus on what is and isn't possible in the 21st century and in the US in the 21st century. I'd like to think that much of the political success of reactionaries (in American elections and as a worldwide phenomenon) has simply been coalition building and manipulating people -- but its also possible that surveys and polling institutes and political rhetoric etc. don't help us grasp the full picture. We always need to consider worse case scenarios.

Rights of Property Donald Grinde, Jr., professor of American Indian Studies and chair of the Department of American Studies at SUNY Buffalo, recounted this story in a 2002 interview with the journal Spirit of Ma’at:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton describes how, as a young girl on an Iroquois reservation — she was twelve or thirteen — she saw a man come up, and the mother of her Indian playmate went outside and talked to this man for a half hour or more. Then he handed her some money, they went to the barn and took a horse out, and he rode off on the horse.

Stanton asked the mother what had happened, and the woman said, “Well, I sold the man one of my horses. We negotiated the price, and then he gave me the money, and then he left with the horse.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton said, “What will your husband say when he gets home?”

The woman said, “Well, it was my horse, and I can do with it as I please.”

For a young Euro-American woman, it was quite a revelation that this was possible, that a woman could behave in this way, holding property and disposing of it without the approval of a husband or father.

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sepostscreencaps · 1 year ago

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Romantic panel from Soul Eater post chapter 11

#soul eater #soul eater post #manga panel #screencap #comic panel #ragnarok #tsubaki nakatsukasa #Sometimes I wonder if others find this whole idea as funny and endearing as me #or if they interpret it as some weird thing #hopefully not the latter #but it is what it is #idk #I think it will work itself out by the end...#so in advance to those moster frickers that expect something for their tastes as they say #yeah...sorry #not really sorry lol #not everything has to be weird lol #chapter 11

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dunmeshistash · 7 months ago

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How do you feel about Milsiril? Like what do you think of her interactions between the canaries, her goals, her intentions and morality? I keep seeing people with mixed feelings about her, some saying she's just toxic or morally grey or doing bad but with good intentions or that she's just a mentally ill and literally so much more, also with the comic about Otta calling Milsiril love for her children/Kabru as just love for a pet, I always saw people take it at face value and say yes, Milsiril did love them more as pets instead of children, did she take up raising/adopting non-elf children because she felt like none of them could ridicule her like the elves did because they didn't know what an elf was supposed to be like (and also because they were children) or did she inherently view them as less? I mean the canaries and I'm pretty sure almost all of the cast in dungeon meshi have some sort perspective on different races especially because how they were taught about them, i just think it was interesting to finally see someone interpret it as Otta just misinterpreting Milsiril, I'm just really interested in her, i think shes neat, sorry for the rant!

Ooh, well to preface this, I hadn't really realized Milsiril was such a controversial character before my last post, I kinda live under a rock. She's really not a character I had given much thought besides what I wrote there before it, but I can do my best to express what I have thought since, with sources for it. I'm not sure what order to go thru so I'll just go by manga appearances and then extras, this will probably be quite a long post

This is the first time she shows up in the manga (ch55) Kabru is wondering about what future they might have if the elves take them into custody because of the ancient magic, he thinks about Milsiril as a get out of jail card, and mentions "There's a chance they would make us become permanent resident of the elven lands." with the image of Milsiril holding him. I don't think that means she would be the one to not let them leave, since this would probably be an legal issue, and the fact Milsiril lives away from other Elves. It does set up that Milsiril is quite overprotective tho, with Kabru's reaction to her teary hug. (rest is under a cut)

The next time she shows up is in ch61 right after Kabru falls down the dungeon along with Mithrun, he faints and has this flashback

She's being her overbearing self treating Kabru's small injury as if its something you need to be in bed for, hand feeding him like he's a toddler, and when he insists he wants to learn how to fight and be strong like her, she hugs him revealing to us for the first time her arm scars, she's cleary in distress too, so you wonder "what has happened to her?"

It continues in the next pages, as she tells him to stay there, where it's safe and there's cake, and describes the bad things he might encounter. Until he tells her he will go with or without her help

Honestly this is a Kabru we don't see often, this is the version of him that is usually in thought bubbles, he's blowing out in frustation over being smothered and demanding straight up what he wants, instead of trying to manipulate Milsiril, very blunt for him. Milsiril seems to flip a switch into battle mode, when she decides to train him for real.

I really thought this was funny, the visual of these cuddly toys and this Mom that was being so soft just a second ago completely flipping into something menacing is very amusing to me. She says "I'll give you an exhaustive, thorough training in how to use a sword... until you finally decide that you're ready to give up." although it sounds cruel, it seems she really trained him as best she could to make sure he would survive the dungeon. If he couldn't take the training with her there was no way he would be able to take on the dungeon, but he could, so much so that he managed to make her let him go. I can see this being seen as her trying to prevent him from going but to me it seems more like some tough love from a traumatized war veteran in this case.

The last thoughts he has is admitting his Mom was right, "Not only were there plenty of traps, monsters, and malice... but there were times when I felt so hungry and cold that I couldn't stand it."

And he concludes with "I never once thought that I wanted to go back there. That room where I could eat all the cake that I wanted..." While I can understand the interpretation that he means he would rather go thru all this than go back, perhaps cause he hated it there, I think it's rather a statement to how committed he is to defeating the dungeon, the visuals show him in rubble vs him in a soft big bed, the rough reality he fought to be able to face and the comfyness of what his life could be. Plus is mirroring exactly what Milsiril said to him. Admitting she was right about the bad things but that he won't give up for the safe easy life he had.

After that visuals of Milsiril are used while Kabru tries to sus out Mithrun but she shows up again in Mithrun's backstory.

Here she's straight up called Gloomy, which wasn't really the version of her we saw so far, gotta remember this is also how Mithrun saw her and that she was called gloomy as a way of bullying. Kabru mostly cuts off her part in the story until the end, when she's the one to find Mithrun after he was eaten by the demon

She doesn't really care much for Mithrun as we see in some extras, and she was ready to mercy kill him, but she is also the one to spare his life. This could be seen as her thinking he can still be of use, and it's how it sounds with how Kabru tells the story, but I do think this was also a merciful act, Mithrun was in rehabilitation for 20 years after being saved, by the time he was actually useful for anything Milsiril had already left the canaries and adopted Kabru.

Now for extras... About Mithrun/The Canaries, Milsiril was cleary someone that hated the people around her. This is her extra in the Adventurer's Bible

Milsiril seems to be the type that hates "popular kids" so to say, her description says she was bullied by other elves for being so introverted so I believe she holds a grudge against people like Mithrun that seem to have succeeded where she failed. But realizing he was a twisted person like her seemed to make her feel more sympathetic towards him, that's why I think she really did act with mercy when she saves Mithrun, he's now someone she sees as similar to her, she sees he also suffered like her

Her decription also mentions she left the canaries specifically because she was disgusted with how the Utaya situation was dealt with. Yet it seems like she came back to help Mithrun with his rehabilitation once she quits.

There's an interpretation to be made that she did this only to get "revenge" on the demon since she just saw the destruction of Utaya, and that she's using him. On the other hand maybe she wants to help him find a motivation to live, she's no longer a canary and she has time to actually help him now. I don't know which one is the truth but it's not obviously something self-serving if you ask me. Especially in the context that right before this scene Milsiril admits she wishes they could have talked before.

My interpretation of her relationship with the canaries and other elves is that she's someone depressed that was mistreat for her 'quirky' side, the dolls are clearly one of the ways she used to cope with anxiety/depression but it only caused her to be bullied by her own kin, she's the daughter of an important family and it's shown in other extras, including one about Mithrun, that nobles often send out the kids they don't want around to become canaries. It's an easy way to get rid of someone undesirable and I think it was the case for Milsiril. (Pattadol even assumes her parents love her less than her sisters for sending her to join the canaries).

No wonder than that now that she's finally free from the canaries she chose to seek her own happiness away from the society she felt she could never fit into, she clearly likes to take care of children too, I think it's mean to assume she only likes them because she feels superior to them when there's no indication that this is the case.

And I don't think it's a coincidence she's so overprotective of Kabru after Utaya, it's literally the tragedy that was the breaking point for her, and he's a surviving small child from that tragedy, Milsiril cares about Kabru and wanted him to have a comfortable safe life after everything he went thru...

This ended up getting way too long so I'll make second part tomorrow about the rest of the extras and Kabru, and some other things I've seen said about Milsiril, but to answer the questions...

I don't think she treats her children as pets, Otta is just salty she was called out for dating like Leo Dicaprio.

Every single dungeon meshi character can be called morally grey because they all have flaws that in our world can be considered unforgivable, but they don't live in our world. To me Milsiril is doing her best in the context she lives in.

Who even is neurotypical in dungeon meshi, Milsiril is yet another flavour of a neurodivergent traumatized character among so many.

I believe she thought of the other canaries, especially Mithrun, as the same type of people that were cruel to her, probably because some of them really were, but that she generalized it to the point she thinks of all of them as bad by default. You can only get hurt so many times before you assume everyone will hurt you.

Part 2

#dungeon meshi #adventurers bible #this is REALLY long because I dont know how to say things #and I want people to make their own interpretations of this...#Milsiril #Ask #Long post #longpost #Part 1 of 2 #Edit: I went back and rewrote some stuff I thought were written in a confusing way #I keep repeating this in tags but I really am bad at writting I say things in a weird order using strange words sometimes #If you ever dont understand something I said please ask #dunmeshi thoughts #character ask

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nightcolorz · 5 months ago

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friendly reminder that the reason rolin jones made Louis a pimp in the show is because the network told him he couldn’t write him as a slave owner like the books but rolin considered that Louis having an exploitative working position that demonstrates his lack of empathy for people he doesn’t respect and his tendency to have little qualms for using humans as property for financial gain was an important part of his character that he wanted to honor and find an equivalency for…. Friendly reminder that analyzing Louis’s negative traits is an intended reaction by the writers and Louis is and has always been deceptively good willed 🙏 friendly reminder that it is likely very intentional that in the books Louis was a past slave owner and Armand was a past slave which added dimension to their relationship, and in the show they found an equivalency by making Louis a past pimp and Armand a past (forced) prostitute. Friendly reminder!! That all of this is not fanfare made up by fans meant to unjustly demonize Louis but actually like,, fairly overt subtext, and that Louis being portrayed as capable of harm and having negative qualities actually in fact!! Makes him a better more, likable and complex character in a cast full of horrible people, and that analyzing and appreciating this doesn’t meant u r unjustly demonizing Louis 🙏 thanks

#Prompted by some weird takes I’ve seen #We don’t rlly know what’s going on with Armand and Louis rn and imo all interpretations r valid but suggesting that some interpretations r #Offensive when they r rooted in the text is um annoying #Amc iwtv #loumand #louis de pointe du lac #My fav thing about Louis is how shitty he is btw #Armand #interview with the vampire

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tsukasalover · 4 months ago

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it’s kinda stupid to call rui “sassy” or say he was acting “mean” for simply doing what any person would do realistically after tsukasa humiliated nene in the main story. i swear this fandom has gone over this a thousand times and yet for some reason it’s still so hard for people to accept that tsukasa was being a self centered asshole. that’s not even exaggerating anything that’s just the truth.

btw (if im wrong correct me) but rui has never gotten angry at someone unreasonably he’s actually quite mature and doesn’t just?? explode over things so i dont know why him refusing to work with tsukasa even after nene forgave him is seen as a “mean” thing… let’s not forget he still believed tsukasa hadnt changed at all and only wanted to be in shows for selfish purposes. it’s not bad to admit that tsukasa is egotistical and has acted much more mean in unacceptable ways than rui + has had to own up to this and work hard to grow as a person over time

#rant #??#idk some sort of complaint #pjsktwt is weird.#like very weird.#being on there feels like looking at a hive mind #if you say one thing about a character people will either take all of it as the truth and bash everyone else with a different (and sometime #quite clever and actually interesting) interpretation of the story without even caring to?? Discuss it??#oh or they’ll just bash you instead.#people disagree all the time but on pjsktwt it feels like dealing with a mob #i swear not even that long ago everybody on there collectively agreed that tsukasa WAS in the wrong and we #all understood why rui was mad. hello??#sorry for extra rant.#“why is he being so mean to tsukasa even after tsukasa apologized to nene WAAHH!!!!!1!1!” No.#“get his ass rui!!” Yeah thats better #people need to criticize their favs objectively every once in a while so that this stuff happens less.#anyways it’s not that serious #it is at the same time though.#tenma tsukasa #rui kamishiro #nene kusanagi #wonderlands x showtime #wxs #pjsk #yapping

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nandorsrelentless · 8 months ago

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there seems to be far too many fans who can't seem to wrap their head around the fact that no relationship in the Vampire Chronicles is healthy. every relationship includes an element of abuse/power imbalance by normal standards. literally every single one.

they are all monsters who are no longer constrained by societal rules. so I don't think it's too crazy to expect them to do mosntorus things. the genre is Gothic HORROR. the show really prioritizes the HORROR element more so than other adaptaions, which i love.

i don't need louis to be a liar to enjoy lestat. if louis lied or misremebered things about the fight in episode 5, i literally do not care because it's never gonna make me hate louis. the baseline of what constitutes "evil" or "bad" is so different in iwtv because of the fact that they are NOT HUMAN. Claudia is literally a serial killer and she's still mother to me. ykwim?

the nature of vampirism is they have to kill to survive. so it would be really cool if people could accept louis, armand, and claudia as complex characters who are fundamentally not good people (because they aren't people!) without being racist about it. THEY ARE ALL KILLERS

im more interested in this exploration of the complexities of memory and seeing how the show integrates the other books into this story in a way that hasn't been done before than I am in discoursing about whether louis is a liar or not. who gives a shit???? grow up and realize that there are no good guys here and that's OKAY

#iwtv #tvc #lestat de lioncourt #louis de pointe du lac #interview with the vampire #amc iwtv #I pretty much cleansed all my feeds so i dont actually see much racism more so than i see people talking about it #just some random thoughts i guess in the wake of the new trailer just because i know things are gonna get weird #it would be nice if audiences could be trusted with complex and morally grey characters of color but idk #but i also think the fact that there are racists is not a reason to NOT make poc characters who are complex #same goes for the people who will interpret the portrayal of a morally grey poc character AS racist #there are certain tropes i think that are always going to have racist implications ofc and im not trying to discount that #but lets all be real here and realize that revisiting ep 5 to add more layers to it is NOT going to exonerate lestat by any means #add more complexity and layers and possibly show that louis was not AS helpless as he showed himself to be? maybe #but they are not going to exonerate the white character to make the black character look evil #idk if any of this made sense im just stream of consciousness rambling

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quinn-pop · 26 days ago

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woah semi future au magolor and sailor designs???

(slightly more in the future but still the same timeline???)

uh yeah. Magolor finally forms a bond with the lor and becomes its captain for realsies this time

he spends his time exploring and studying magic/dark matter/gem apples and if their power can be safely harnessed

he also just goes on side quests a lot. he may be reformed but he will still do a lot for a quick buck lol

he’s mastered his dimensional magic as well, which is why his cape looks like that :>

on the other hand, sailor is the new captain of the halberd and leader of the meta-knights. most of their job is taking down monsters but there is the occasional rogue wizard to stop from destroying the world or unleashing dark matter (huh, sounds familiar…)

they are usually very busy with work but make an effort to visit dreamland frequently in order to stay close to everyone. she’s always been a little distant from the rest of her family but i think she opens up a bit more after she, Bandee, and Kirby all start taking leadership positions. gives them something to bond over

by this point meta has retired from fighting completely but he’ll still give sailor advice when they need it. she appreciates having someone around who knows just how tiring a job it can be, and he’s very proud of her

oh, and one more thing

yea i let them get married. what are you gonna do about it? /silly

they don’t get to see each other much because of their jobs but they’re a thing

#what happened to magoland? uhhhh #idk Marx can run it or something #mags doesn’t seem like the type to be content sitting around doing executive work forever #he just likes making games and using magic in weird ways #i can’t imagine he’d stay focused on it 24/7 #sailor wears red in homage to vul but also because bright red is the color of dreamland #(blue and gold are also traditional but between dedede and then Kirby red is most prominent)#since waddle dees can’t really wear clothes she simply has this weird cape thing #the buttons are kind of there for decoration but they’re still functional if she wants to close it. for some reason #but that would look very silly #kirbyposting #my art or something #meta knight #sailor Dee #magolor #metadad #magosailor #<- moonmacabre if you see this i saw your reblog and it confirmed the name for me lol thank you #semi future au #Mira makes a cameo in this wow #i still think the nature of their relationship isn’t quite romantic but you can interpret it however you want idrc

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dammit-tazmuir · 2 days ago

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A summary for you! (Will definitely cover a lot you know, of course, but reminders better than assuming and missing things, right?)

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In the epilogue of Harrow the Ninth, we follow a girl living in a city very different than any we've seen in the series. It talks about "the person who went to work for her, the person who taught her, and the person who cared for her." At the end, she asks the person who cares for her, "Do you know who I am?" And Camilla Hect answers, "Not yet."

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So going into NtN:

Characters and Setup

The setting is a city called New Rho, on a planet outside the Houses, though still under the emperor's command. The people here have already been relocated, some of them multiple times, due to resurrection beast threats. Blood of Eden has a lot of activity here, but even the normal citizens abhor necromancers / "zombies."

The person who goes to work for her is Pyrrha. The person who cares for her is Camilla. And the person who teaches her is Palamades, now sharing Camilla's body. It's a tenuous and dangerous arrangement. Being there at all is killing her slowly, and fronting too long or using necromancy takes a much bigger toll as his soul starts trying to consume hers. If he doesn't front at all, her body will also try to expel his soul. They're determined to make it work and communicate via recordings, written notes, and relaying messages through Pyrrha and Nona.

Nona and Pyrrha were both pulled out of the River by Blood of Eden at the end of HtN (Harrow's Bullshit Dead Girlfriend talking in "the wrong voice twice removed" about chest compressions and such). Camilla had already been picked up by Blood of Eden. (No one except Pyrrha, Cam, and Nona know Palamades is also among them for a long time.)

No one knows who Nona is, least of all Nona herself, but she's in Harrowhark's body and woke up with no memory of anything, even speech or motor skills. Every night, Nona dreams about a scene of Harrow and Gideon in salt water, and every morning Camilla makes her recite as much as she can remember looking for new clues. Everyone wonders if she could be Harrow OR Gideon with memory loss, or Harrow AND Gideon as a full gestalt fusion (a new person, like Paul later is), or if it's someone else in Harrow's body and if so who and how.

There's a lot weird about Nona. Her healing factor is overwhelmingly beyond even lyctor capabilities, closer to John's. She can understand and speak any language when she's present for it, "by making her mouth move like theirs", but has trouble interpreting if she can't see the person. She can't read or write and her brain is madly resistant to learning. She can identify people and intentions by how people move. She's barely capable of lying. She hates the sword and the bones that Cam and Pal try to get her to practice with. (They won't tell her why, as they don't want to lead her.)

Their group works with BoE's "Ctesiphon Wing", under Commander We Suffer, as "Troia Cell". Some other cells in the same wing and "Merv Wing" are more antagonistic to them. Another notable BoE member is Our Lady of the Passion / Pash / "two thigh machetes" sometimes by Nona. (She's later revealed to be Commander Wake's niece, which makes her Gideon's cousin.)

Regardless of who's in the body, BoE sees a potential weapon in Nona and wants Camilla and Pyrrha to try to unlock Nona's necromancy beyond just the healing to give them their own lyctor power to use against John. Most ideally they want to open the Locked Tomb but they'll take what they can get. She's "The Lyctor Project".

Judith and Coronabeth had been traveling with Camilla in HtN too, the survivors of Canaan House. Corona has become a full member of Blood of Eden and changed her name to Crown Him With Many Crowns Thy Full Gallant Legions He Found It In Him To Forgive, aka Crown. She likes Nona and fully believes the gestalt theory, envying the idea (wishing she and Ianthe could have achieved that). Judith is doing much worse, because-

Number Seven, aka Varun the Eater, the resurrection beast they fought at the end of HtN that killed G1deon, is approaching. It's not to the planet yet, but "parascoping", projecting ahead of its path and watching from the sky as the rest of it catches up. It's a matter of time until it arrives and devours the planet. Its blue light infects necromancers with "blue madness", driving them mad. (Nona, mysteriously, is not only immune, but finds Varun soothing.) Most necromancers have evacuated the area. Judith is being held underground at a BoE facility, strapped to a bed, in and out of coherence.

Also, the Sixth House seceded from the Empire. Like it was built in a facility that could be mobile and just straight up moved. This was done after word from Cam and Pal (they do also know Pal's there) and orders a while before her death from Sixth House lyctor Cassiopeia. 16 members of the leadership/nobility/whatever were captured by BoE and are being held somewhere in New Rho as extra leverage against Camilla (and Pal).

(Almost done with characters and setup I swear.)

Nona works at a school during the day as a teacher's aide. The Nice Lady Teacher, Jolie, is just a very normal woman in over her head and doing her best. The main kids at the school are a "gang" led by 14-year-old Hot Sauce, and extremely traumatized and serious girl with burn scars. Her "right hand man" Honesty is 12 and a mini criminal. Born in the Morning and Beautiful Ruby are probably 12-ish give or take. And their youngest member is 7-year-old Kevin. (Hot Sauce is just a nickname because she likes it. Kevin is probably a House name, as that's Nona's first language. At minimum Born in the Morning and plausibly the other two are implied to be Nona's auto-translation thing messing with how she hears it.)

The kids know what a resurrection beast is btw. Kevin knows Varun the Eater by name. The Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus with all her resources and studies did not know what an RB was until becoming a lyctor. This immediately says so much about the state of life outside the Emperor's super special Houses.

The other teacher, called "The Angel" by the kids, is named Aim and is also called "The Messenger" by Blood of Eden, who they're later revealed to be part of. Aim has she/they pronouns and not (just?) in a gender way. Upon hearing Hot Sauce say "we love her", Aim's driver (who doesn't like Aim taking risks by working somewhere) scoffs, "Oh, I get it. A chance to be 'her', huh?" To which Aim replies, "It is my enormous privilege to be 'they.'" Later, Aim talks about themselves using "we", "we are the message." It is not yet revealed what the message is, but a few factors imply it may have something to do with genetic coding they're carrying. (It was also passed down from their predecessor MSN and I'm.... Tamsyn plz...) Also Aim has a six-legged dog named Noodle who is a certified good boy.

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Plot - Present Day

Beginning to Broadcast

The book starts pretty slow. Nona is going about her life and we see through daily activities and flashbacks to earlier in the past six months what life has been like her in New Rho. Everything sucks, but Nona is happy. She's only had two tantrums in her whole life, and she's very proud of that, even if that whole life is only about six months. Nona loves swimming in the ocean, and even going to the beach after she stops being allowed to swim helps keep her calm.

One notable early event is Honesty getting a job, and coming to school the next day with a black eye. For a moment it sounds embarrassing and silly when he admits he walked into something, but when he explains, we learn his group had been trying to rob "the convoy"-- a bunch of BoE mega-trucks that drive around underground tunnels-- and saw into a truck filled with people with glowing white eyes who all turned to look at the same time. He was running like hell.

The first time we see Nona's household called in to talk to We Suffer, they head down to visit Judith in the basement. When they walk in, she thrashes and shouts cryptically, stuff about "Green Thing" and "what have they done to you?!" When she calms down a little more, she's still frantic and struggling, but more herself. Toward the end, she once again shouts and thrashes and calls out to the Green Thing.

When the group leaves, Nona asks what the captain was talking about at the beginning and end, and Crown and Camilla stare, deeply unsettled. "Nona...? The captain didn't say anything when we entered. She only screamed." Those moments were Varun speaking through her, and on several other occasions throughout the book, it possesses Judith again to talk to Nona.

Later, there's a Broadcast in the city, projected in a public square. Hot Sauce takes Nona with her as they sneak away from school to watch it. A person whose description matches a very dead Naberius Tern delivers a message from the emperor. It is in fact Ianthe-- now going by Tower Prince Ianthe Naberius, the Saint of Awe-- piloting Naberius's preserved corpse remotely to avoid the effects of Blue Madness. The empire wants the Sixth House and any surviving members of the Cohort returned, and all BoE agents to cease activity and disperse. It's framed like "because God is so merciful, this is all you have to do" when in practice it's more "if one person fails to comply with these demands we'll use violent force."

Ianthe introduces on camera the other Tower Prince, Kiriona Gaia, the Emperor's only heir, and Nona recognizes her as the girl from her dream, aka Gideon. She looks super mega dead.

That night, Aim's driver gives Nona a ride home, because neither Cam nor Pyrrha came to get her. Cam is waiting at home and incredibly relieved to see her, only to realize Pyrrha isn't with her. As far as Cam knew, Pyrrha was going to pick Nona up at the usual time. The next day is somber and rough as they worry about where she could be.

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Day After Broadcast

Cam takes Nona to school, but as a final day to say goodbye, with as tense as things have gotten. A lot of other kids have been pulled out already, and others are having their own last day. Hot Sauce has all the gang swear an oath that even if they're torn apart, they'll always be a gang and always have each others' backs. Eventually, everyone except Aim, Camilla, Nona, and Hot Sauce go home.

While looking through drawings the kids had done the day before, Aim had stopped cold at one. After sending Hot Sauce to shut down the generator to get her out of the room, Aim asks Nona about her drawing. The way Nona describes it matches an elephant, but it's not named and Aim says this is a long, long extinct animal they only know about because of their very specialized studies on their old planet.

At some point while talking to Aim, they figure out "Camilla" is a necromancer, and because "she" has been functioning in spite of Varun's light, they assume she's a lyctor. They subtly sent out a call to BoE. As Pal tries to talk Aim down, a bullet comes through the window, right through Nona's head. She heals from it. Cam/Pal were also shot at but Pal was able to stop the bullet.

Pash is there now, revealed to be a personal bodyguard to Aim. She's freaking out about the shit show, because as much as Pash hates it, that's the fucking Lyctor Project they just called a hit on. Aim's been kept so out of the loop they didn't know. But now Merv Wing is outside and they don't want to back down; they're the wing that burns anyone who might be a zombie in public executions. Aim feels very bad about all this, especially since Nona is just indignant in her usual way after being shot, still very much herself.

As Merv Wing storms in, Nona runs to find Hot Sauce, who Pash locked in the generator room now. Aim tried to warn her but didn't really get it through clear, Hot Sauce saw Nona get shot. She's extremely distressed and confused. How could she make that up?? When the coast is clear and they get out, Hot Sauce sees the blood on the floor along with brain matter and the blood in Nona's hair and realizes she didn't make it up. "You're out of the gang," and she shoots Nona in the head again.

This time, when Nona wakes up, she's zip tied down to a chair. Reaching a breaking point, she throws her third ever "tantrum," aka goes absolutely fucking batshit feral with necromantic power. She rips her body apart and just regrows whatever she needs to discard to escape and goes on a rampage. Finally, enough people get close enough to get her restrained and subdued, as she's still physically frail. She hears her own voice yell, "You're killing her, fool!" Some part of her knows she's talking to herself.

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Infiltration to Finding Gideon

The next morning, Nona wakes again in BoE headquarters, with Pal there. There's a lot of talking and Pal reveals himself to several more people. We Suffer lets them listen to a radio signal as Crown, wearing a bug, goes to the docked ship where Ianthe (still in Naberius) is stationed, begging for sanctuary and to see Ianthe. She's also brought Judith, which BoE did not authorize, begging for help to save her. Ianthe is repulsed by the Judith part, but begrudgingly lets her bring her aboard. With enough pushing, practically anything for Corona, after all.

Also "the Saint of Duty" is there. Ianthe thinks "he's" been weird but hasn't clocked that it's a whole other person. While Ianthe easily catches the bug Corona's wearing and mocks Blood of Eden before destroying it, Pyrrha uses the code words she's trained with Camilla and Nona to let them know there's another hidden bug they can tap into, and they're able to do so.

Ultimately, they're able to use Ianthe's demand to "surrender Camilla Hect and Harrowhark Nonagesimus" to their advantage. With a haircut and some coaching, Nona pretends to be Harrow and Cam pretends to be only herself. Some temporary dye/film is applied to Nona's eyes to make her look blind, and she's instructed to only answer minimal questions and fake fits of Blue Madness like the captain if asked tough questions. The one time she does this, she can't think of what to scream to 'act like the captain' and in her mind just yelps, "Help! Help! Help!" To everyone else, she actually goes trance-like for a moment and has unleashed another horror scream like her tantrums that genuinely fucked shit up.

While talking to Ianthe, Camilla brings up that the Third House once challenged the Sixth to a duel back at Canaan House. Sixth had right of reply but it never happened, so she accepts now. If she wins, she gets to go free, and if not, she dies. Ianthe rightfully points out that's really really really stupid, but Corona threatens to kill herself if Ianthe has become too much of a monster to grant someone even this little bit of dignity. Ianthe is exasperated, but after enough pushing isn't willing to take chances, and even offers Camilla a slightly achievable win condition with just managing to snatch a handkerchief.

Eventually, Ianthe stabs Camilla, seeming to have one, but Cam's voice says satisfied, "Match to the Sixth." It was always a farce to help Palamades invade Naberius's body. A few seconds to everyone else was much longer for him and Ianthe doing battle in a mental space, but he wins, not only taking control of the body but keeping Ianthe's soul trapped and suppressed for a little while, unable to just return to normal.

Nona, Pyrrha, Camilla, Palamades-in-Naberius, and Crown all search for Gideon. They're hoping if Nona IS Gideon, or part-Gideon, her soul will magnetize to the body, but nothing happens on that front.

Nona finds her first and feels an inexplicable urge to kiss her, and does so. She sees Gideon's eyes open, but when the others catch up, Gideon still looks super dead, eyes closed. They drag her body, debating if it's real or some kind of clone. John's effect on it make it impossible for Palamades to read with psychometry. Whatever the case, they agree they should take the body to the Tomb. Pal still wants to take a blood sample; it probably won't be viable outside the body, but the preservation on her is wild, and however the blood reacts will tell them something interesting.

But as he goes to draw a sample from her thigh, she snatches his hand. "Sexpal! If that's how you get a woman's pants off, it's no wonder I stole your girl!" She's back and worse than ever (I love her). She reveals she was awake the whole time (Nona is indignant, she told everyone!!) and just playing possum letting them drag her around. Not playing dead though, she is super mega dead. John's made a self-piloting revenant out of her. Also the wounds from her death in the first book are still very present, preserved open, which characters question but don't get a real answer about. (Also, she reveals John made her invulnerable. The needle never could have pierced her she just didn't like the idea of it and broke character lmao.)

Despite a wild new level of no fucks to give and questionable motives, Gideon goes with them.

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Loose Ends & Reconciliation to Reaching Drearburh

As payment for all this, We Suffer tries to track down the Sixth House, and upon the reveal they're being moved around constantly in a truck, Nona realizes that's what Honesty saw during his job. They're in the Convoy, and she can ask him where the truck was the other day to figure out where it'd be in its path now.

When taken to talk to him, he barely cracks the door. She realizes he's talked to Hot Sauce and knows she's a Zombie, and she's very upset and apologetic, but is glad he's taking that seriously. She'd think less of him if he stopped listening to Hot Sauce. She's still so Nona, so pure and full of love and fury and running on a single brain cell. She says she's gotta go away and tells him where some of her things she wants to leave him are, including the rag she uses at school, because it might have enough chemicals left on it he could sell it to get someone high. And he slams the door, and Hot Sauce opens it, and Honesty is raving that he can't stay mad at a girl like that, who would think of his business! Hot Sauce can't either, though. Nona and Hot Sauce have a sweet moment, the love between all these kids ultimately pure and unconditional and more powerful than their feelings about any factions.

Nona gets the information and delivers it, and the Sixth House leadership are recovered and helped. But also, Varun has gotten close enough that heralds are descending. Everyone has to fight through some, and Nona ends up talking to Varun (through Judith) atop one of the megatrucks. "You said you wouldn't do anything weird!" She begs and begs Varun to withdraw, and ultimately, though it doesn't get rid of what heralds already came down, Varun agrees and does so. When Judith comes back to her senses, she asks in confusion, "Harrowhark...?" And for the first time, Nona, who's on some level known but not wanted to, admits, "No, and I never was."

So now it's a matter of getting to the Ninth House. Preferably fast.

Palamades is confident they can pilot a megatruck through the River. Pyrrha tells him he's not a bloody lyctor and that would be difficult if he was. He's not worried. He and Camilla gather some of their closest friends and family, and have a very deep and heartfelt last talk as themselves. He performs a ritual, and Camilla catches on fire, and when the fire dies down, their eyes are originally-Pal's clear gray irises, with inhuman pupils of originally-Cam's slate gray-brown. They are an advanced form of lyctor, a form where nothing is taken and everything is given, becoming a new person. They name themself Paul.

Nona has begun having "top and bottom" thoughts, her memories trying to surface as she desperately clings to the "middle" thoughts, like someone who can't remember what a thing they hated hearing said, but can hear it approaching and is plugging their ears going LA LA LA LA to block out the details. She'd rather die as herself, this her, and she's afraid to remember, certain she'll forget her life now. She doesn't want to forget loving Palamades or Camilla or Pyrrha or Hot Sauce. Paul tells her they loved her, and she loved them. "It's done. You can't take loved away."

A bunch of people board the megatruck, including Aim, who explains a little of their importance, and Pash, who regrettably goes where Aim goes. Paul is able to take them into the river, and they drive along its surface....

...but it's Wrong. It's not ghostly in the way it should be, and in the distance, an immense distinctly-stone tower juts out and runs seemingly all the way down. Gideon is just "yup" about it. This tower scares those top and bottom thoughts, and we don't get an explanation about it.

At several points since getting shot, Nona has run more on instinct or had her old self seep through. Once she went off on Pyrrha, asking if she had fun playing pretend like this. Pyrrha has also figured out who she is, but Nona made her stop when she started to say it. Harrow's body is incredibly dying at this point, but in the truck, Nona again drags it based on something she just feels drawn to do, taking the wheel from Paul. As she pushes on and on, she starts to wonder if maybe everyone dying together would be nicer; she's known she's dying for ages and has been relieved about it, so why would it be so bad for everyone? Paul reminds her Noodle is in the truck and letting a dog get hurt is too far for Nona. (She's so real.) She books it and makes it to the Ninth House.

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The Ninth House & The Locked Tomb

It's bad here. A bunch of folks stay back but those who press forward encounter??? What the fuck ARE those? "Devils" apparently, or corpses who have been possessed by Devils. Gideon says they've been fighting a lot of them on another planet, Antioch, for months, but John said they couldn't travel elsewhere so what the fuck. They also realize this is what possessed Colum back at Canaan House.

True to at least this word, John did send newly awakened folks to help replenish the Ninth House numbers, but a lot of them have been killed. They encounter Crux, who mistakes Nona for Harrow and her admittance she's not for just having one of her episodes. He goes along with the group and they find Aiglamene with a bunch of the survivors barricaded up. It's explained they need to get Harrow's body into the tomb, and everyone helps.

Ianthe shows up, and after a bit of weirdly casual banter with Gideon that does not at all sound like they're enemies, Nona is appalled to realize they're wearing friendship bracelets. Anyway, Gideon still wants the Tomb open, and Ianthe is very confused. Ianthe insists that'd be really bad for John, daddy has been a useless wreck lately and Ianthe's got to do everything around here. Gideon insists John sent her and she's supposed to kill whatever's inside?? And then she'll become his new cavalier?? Ianthe tells Gideon she's delusional. "He loves her, you idiot! John. loves. Alecto! He needs ALECTO."

And upon hearing her real name, Nona's delusion shatters. She starts to unravel, literally, physically, Harrow's body no longer able to contain her. They need a thanergy burst to help unlock the tomb, and Crux snaps that he's the obvious choice. His other choices are waiting to die of basically-poison and being possessed or being healed and killed by devils anyway. Aiglamene berates that all anyone in this house ever knew how to do was die for Harrow. They could have lived for her, but they didn't know how.

Gideon volunteers, having fantasized about his death for years. She makes sure to rub it in his face that she's God's kid first, and he basically tells her 'fuck you and fuck God' because his loyalty is to Harrow and his opinion of Gideon isn't remotely changed by this??? Like. Okay dude, horrible but weird respect I guess. Nona/Alecto isn't seeing shit at this point, just overhearing as Paul and Pyrrha try keeping the body remotely together and dragging it toward the door. She hears Gideon after killing Crux, "Fuck... Why didn't that feel good?!" (In sharp contrast to John finding death intoxicating...)

The door is opened, and eventually magnetism takes hold, and Alecto drags the crumbling body to her own, where Harrow's soul has been since the end of HtN, when she found herself inside the tomb and crawled into the coffin to sleep.

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Alecto's POV

Alecto wakes up as herself, breaking her body as she rips herself from her chains, just as Nona did with her third tantrum.

She's almost entirely disconnected. The humans are all children, even the oldest among them, and she can barely tell their voices apart. (The audiobook does a few wrong in the second to last scene, and I'm not sure it that's intentionally reflecting this or was just a mistake because it's definitely hard to follow.)

"The black-eyed infant" (Harrow) is still weak as hell but in her own body and holding in one piece again. She throws herself at Alecto's feet, but Alecto recognizes her, from her dreams and from the 9 years her soul has been haunting Harrow, ever since Harrow opened the tomb when she was 10. She "kisses" her, aka bites her mouth, because "this is how meat loves meat", but upon tasting her blood, she realizes she's Anastasia's descendant. Thus, as she once swore to Anastasia, she swears herself now to Harrow, until such time as the bargain has been paid. (This is the first the audience is hearing of this and we don't get explanation.) To which Gideon iconically replies, "Get in line, thou big slut!"

In the final scene, Alecto enters a room where John is sleeping, unconscious Harrow flung over her shoulder, and drives her sword through his heart. But he just wakes up and greets her. "Annabel, good morning."

=========

Plot - In The Dream

John's and Earth's History, Harrow's Connection

In the dreams, a woman and John walk around as John rambles about his backstory. He addresses her as Harrow, but keeps saying "you" in context to the past.

Long story short because the rest is so long, the "you" is planet earth. She was dying, and she saw a man leading a project desperately trying to save her, and she chose him, and she gave him power over life and death. He learned to use it, but more and more budget cuts and bureaucracy and idiots drinking up propaganda led to trillionaires buying their way off-planet and leaving everyone else to rot and earth to die. John was so pissed off by the end he personally triggered nuclear war, but the souls he ate from that weren't enough.

He tried to eat earth's soul too, even physically shoveling dirt in his mouth, but she was simply too big to contain, so he made a new body from dirt and vomit and blood and bone and shaped her into a lifesize Barbie. Whatever he couldn't contain, he stuffed into this form, and their souls were intertwined, becoming one. But it still wasn't enough. He reached and reached and reached and devoured the souls of all the solar system, creating the RBs. With all that power, he was able to remotely grab one of the trillionaire escape ships, could feel them inside and knew they felt him, but then it slipped from his grasp and escaped. (It's possible this led to the creation of BoE? Or was one part of its founding.) He decided punishing those assholes was worth killing everyone including the planet himself, and he didn't even succeed. His takeaway is "That'll teach me to hesitate."

Alecto was horrified by her new form. ("A monster from the moment you resurrected her, and you went and made her worse.") What had he done to her? Where did he put all those souls? But also, "I still love you."

But now, in this dream, Harrow has been experiencing all of this via walking through Alecto's memories the day after everything was killed, before anything but her had been resurrected. (Notably, when he does resurrect them, he fucking changes his friends' names, implied by how Ulysses and Titania were U— and T— on their death certificates but he changed those. Side note, Pyrrha says "Gideon... G—..." at one point, with the dash like that, so it's??? possible she remembers??? But yeah.)

Whatever is happening seems to have some outside connection and awareness of the present, too, perhaps via the part of John that's part of Alecto and vice versa. The conflation of Alecto and Harrow is made more unsettling with John writing in the sand, "J + E", replacing the E with A, then the A with H, before drawing an uneven heart around it...

Like Alecto, Harrow still loves him, loves her God and Teacher. But she tells him, as Reverend Daughter, it is her duty to understand what it truly means to love God for herself. She will find divinity, whether she lies in the Locked Tomb or her search leads her back to him. He asks where she'll look, and she looks off to a tower in the distance in the water, one that shouldn't have been in the memory (likely the tower in the River). She'll start there, and she walks off into the sea.

And that bit was shortly before Alecto and thus Harrow woke up.

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I hope this wasn't too long. I know the book is confusing as hell, and frankly I agree it's the weakest of the three despite being really good, but also feel like a lot of that is from how hard it is to follow and that the actual content is really fun. So yeah, genuinely hope this helps!

Nona the Ninth is really good, even if I found it the weakest of the Locked Tomb books, I enjoyed it a lot. Nona is absolutely adorable, I love her so much.

That being said, what in the ever loving fuck happened in that book?

#ntn spoilers #nona summary #guide post

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