#they are their own people with their own ideals and they have to suffer a bit but breaking from their Fate is what matters...
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The Concepts of Community & Family as it Relates to Thai Buddhism in Peaceful Property
I really really enjoyed watching this series. I am someone who grew disillusioned with Buddhism at a young age for very personal reasons, only to find my own version of a relationship with it as I grew older and learned to appreciate it from a different perspective. So the spiritual meaning behind this series really resonated with me.
I can only explain things to the best of my personal knowledge, so my apologies if anything is factually incorrect.
There are four basic tenets that one must cultivate in order to achieve true happiness. They are known as the brahmavihara (พรหมวิหาร). 1 - Metta (เมตตา): Literally translating to mean 'goodwill', it is a genuine concern for the well-being of others. 2 - Karuna (กรุณา): Literally translating to mean 'compassion', it is the recognition of another's suffering as one's own and a selfless desire for that suffering to end. 3 - Mutita (มุทิตา): Literally translating to mean 'kindliness', it is the feeling of experiencing sincere gratification from the happiness and success of others, regardless of self-contribution. 4 - Ubeka (อุเบกขา): Literally translating to mean 'equanimity', it is the ability to remain impartial combined with the understanding the we cannot mitigate the personal karma of others.
Essentially, the brahmavihara teaches us to always place others above ourselves... while realizing that they will be responsible for facing their own consequences if they fail to do the same.
How does this play into the "family" dynamics that exist in PP? Oddly enough there are certain facets of Buddhism that preach 'anti-family' values, as family can be one's primary source of attachment and suffering. There is a quote that states, "Family is the blood that burdens you." However, when a familial bloodline has lost its way (or in this case, has been "cursed"), Buddhism encourages surrounding yourself with a community that is organized on a familial basis... what we would call 'sangha' or 'found family'. Valuing the members of that found family above corrupt ideology would realign one's path toward enlightenment. Or in simpler terms, the people we choose to surround ourselves with can spiritually save us from ourselves.
Home's family has been "cursed" by the three poisons of Buddhism: greed, hatred, and ignorance. Phon's greed and value of worldly possessions over others has led her down of path of literal darkness, toward a belief in the occult. Somkid's hatred toward his father has fueled his deceptive behaviors... which he saw as a way to reclaim a father's love (that he believed he never received) from the people who didn't deserve it. Home's grandfather was ignorant as to how his actions, or lack thereof, affected the family that surrounded him.
Home's own version of ignorance would have led to his own karmic downfall. The series does a great job of having Home slowly discover the true meaning of home by integrating him within a 'found family' that teaches him the values of the brahmavihara... which ultimately leads to his spiritual 'awakening' (in a sense).
Metta/Karuna: Communicating with and healing the souls of the spirits the group encounter, requires compassion and understanding... a sense of community/sangha that these spirits and Chobkol (the magician) were lacking.
There were several instances of compassion born out of goodwill, the most obvious being between Home and Peach. Forgiveness is a big deal in Thai Buddhism. It is one of the cornerstones of what we refer to as "harmonious justice", as it promotes ideals of true selflessness. Peach forgiving Home because he's seen the changes in Home and how this one action does not define who Home actively wants to become was really really important. Home and Peach exist in balance of one another... keeping them on a shared karmic path where Home can no longer 'turn a blind eye' to his family's injustices (we could get into that more, but that'll make this even longer than it already is 😜😜😜). I think having Tay and New take on these roles to almost ease the minds of non-Buddhist viewers toward a more Buddhist ideology was actually quietly genius.
Sangha is also what heals the vengeance in Kan's heart, born of the teachings of Metta: "We must refrain from inflicting suffering upon one another and be free from vengeance." It could have been woven into the narrative with a bit more finesse... but I digress.
Ubeka: Home accepts the rightfully directed anger and complaints against him and his family for the harm they have caused. His partiality toward his family, simply because he is related to them, disappears. He stands against his aunt and fights against his uncle at the risk of his own life. And he does so by still allowing them to face the karmic consequences of their own terrible crimes... whether they are at peace with it or not.
Mutita: Home celebrates Peach's dreams above his own wishes... without knowing that they would eventually coincide. I could even argue that their eventual correlation could be a result of Home's 'good karma' paying forward.
Home had to reevaluate his core morals in order to be free of his family's curse (meaning within himself). All these representations of Buddhist notions, born from within his newfound family, are what define Home's idea of the true meaning of home... and happiness.
#peaceful property#peaceful property on sale#i got exactly what i thought i would get out of this series#and i'm okay with that#talk thai to me
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im going bonkers.
this scene in the beginning of episode 2 makes me AAHHGGGHA HAHAHH.
caitlyn is one of those characters many might end up misreading, someone swallowed entirely by guilt, loss and grief that it's all translated into anger. caitlyn had always wanted to help zaun and its people in season one, she was a giving and kind character. this was evident in scenes where she sold her gun and helped vi's injuries, hugged one of the characters in zaun that was affected majorly by shimmer, she was KIND and wanted CHANGE FOR THE BETTER. this in season two was flipped on its head, everything she tried to accomplish was shattered, and she lost those dear to her and suffers from intense amounts of stress and anger. her mother died at the hands of jinx, whenever she sees something go wrong; for her it always leads back to jinx. she blew her mother up, she killed enforcers and attacked piltover. all of these things lead to her being blown over that point of reason. she wanted retribution, peace, and to fight for the "good of everyone", but her ideals have been completely blinded through grief. she sees the oppressed now as the oppressors, the people who were hurt being the source of her own pain. as a woman with power, influence and privilege she turns the people of zaun into victims of her grief.
something that really hurt me throughout this episode was that Caitlyns mother, Cassandra Kiramman, was someone who also always saw for peace with zaun. she saw them as the people they are, the oppressed, and wanted genuine change. why else would she dedicate herself to ventilating their air? saving hundreds of zaunites from disease and death? this act from Cassandra did so much good for them, but Caitlyn overlooked it as she immediately saw it as a way to gain some sort of upper hand. Cassandra obviously isn't a great person, the council is full of aristocratic snobs who have no care for those "below them", but what she believed was that "The Undercity deserves to breathe." that's enough to make her different from the rest.
By poisoning the "enemy," she could find the one who devastated her. She did not see this as the horrible act it was and only saw it as "I can use this to get to Jinx." this change, from someone kindhearted and filled with starry dreams of change, desperate to make a difference to the oppressed and to take action against the chem barons; to someone weaponising her own mother's creation as a weapon of war. using her privilege to do the wrongs she was so fond of criticizing.
she is completely blinded, i will never agree with her actions as she progresses, but the caitlyn we all know and love is still there somewhere, I know it, and she will come to wraps with that as this next act unfolds. she will no doubt be manipulated by ambessa to do what she will believe is right, but soon she will be able to see through the blindfold ambessa has wrapped around her head and see the pain that is around her. how she is making the world suffer, because of her grief. The person she was is still within her. The only people she has surrounded herself with now are those who are confident that what she is being manipulated to do is the right choice. But she's thrown away her only good conscious, vi. I love her. She is so complicated and troubled, and she needs to see the light behind the clouds. I need her, too. To you, Caitlyn! and to the wreck, you'll do to my heart in this season.
#arcane#arcane season 2#caitvi#arcane season two#caitlyn kiramman#arcane s2#arcane spoilers#arcane season 2 spoilers#im not normal about her#arcane s2 spoilers#text
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Okay, I found this perspective really interesting because I've never thought of it this way before, so I pondered about it for some time and wanted to write my take on this:
I consider myself a psychological therian. I don't believe in the afterlife, so neither in past lives. Everything wolfish that happens in my life is related to the present moment.
I am a pwBPD, so aggression is a part of my wolf experience. It's not a defining part, but I also can't separate it from it.
What I found interesting was the idea that for a wolf hunting is not violence, it's an instinct. A wolf doesn't have a human perspective. I do, which makes it complicated.
I do feel the urge to hunt, I crave meat, blood, sometimes I want to tear things to shreds, to growl, bite, express dominance, protect my pack.
But these things make me ashamed, because I'm judging them from human perspective. And sure, I can't be fully myself all the time, because I live in human society, but I'm even ashamed in therian spaces, because the judge is inside.
That's the inner dichotomy: There's the human part, and from that part, I empathise with other animals and don't want them to suffer, so I try to at least compromise by buying meat as ethically as possible, because I can't give it up due to the animal part.
If I deprive myself of what 'the Wolf' craves, I suffer. And then it gets worse, much more destructive and unhealthy. So, I try to 'feed the Wolf' in a way that's not harmful (like writing about these experiences online).
When I get in the wolf mindset, tho I don't feel guilty about eating meat, or weird for tearing into it. It's just instinctual. Just like the urge to howl or whine.
And like you said, hunting isn't about violence it's about the thrill of the chase, the feeling of sharing the same goal with the pack, it's almost intimate. And it's natural. If we judge that, we judge it from the human perspective.
I was also glad you mentioned the experience of wandering, because I don't think I've seen anyone talk about it before, though it's such a huge part of my wolf identity and always has been.
That's why Wolf's rain has been such a huge point of awakening for me in the beginning, because I very much identified with the endless search for...something. As Kiba mentioned in the anime, it's not even Paradise in a biblical sense as an ideal, it's just a future.
And I've always had this drive in me. To go on. I used to be proud of my ability to never give up. Before life knocked me to the ground. But after I stood up, found my wolf-self again, I still have Hope. Even though I'm going through the darkest time of my life.
I never knew if it's just inertia, but I've always connected it to the Wolf. I just can't stay in one place too long. I get restless. I have moved flats way too many times in my life. I used to run away from relationships, because of my need for freedom (I need to make a note here that those were relationships where I was masking), changed interests, started projects and abandoned them...
I tended to try and fight against this tendency, but I'm starting to think it's a part of who I am. I'm not careless with my relationships, tho. I also have a wolf's loyalty. So, unfortunately for me, when I bond with someone, even a friend, for me, it's for life. Then it hurts when people inevitably move on.
This hunger, empty belly - it's been with me as long as I can remember. And I have my own psychological explanations for it, but it's also inseparably tied to my wolf experience. So, I was glad to realise, after reading your post, that it's just a natural thing.
(I wrote about packs in a different post, but I would like to write about the weird vivid quality of wolf experiences too, I'll get to it in another post, I hope.)
Content warning: this post contains mentions of wolves hunting other animals, and some thoughts on the subject. Nothing I'd consider graphic, but I know it can be sensitive for some folks so I thought I'd warn beforehand!
Hhh, it's a bit hard to know where to start with getting back into writing about my experiences.
It's not that I don't have anything to say - it's the opposite! There's so much I'd like to share. I've always loved talking about my experiences... maybe a bit self-indulgent, but I like to think it can help other folks too, and I've gotten many interesting conversations out of it in the past, so no regrets!
Can't imagine I'll be posting big things like this frequently, but I'll happily answer questions and chat too. ^u^
So... right now, what I've decided I'd like to write about is some of the, I guess kinda fundamental aspects of my identity as a wolf therian.
It's interesting in a way, because there are so many wolves around - there's a lot of people to compare experiences against! I guess, if you have a rare kintype, or a kintype that's varied enough that your individual variation of it is rare (like dragons) - it might be hard to imagine that a wolf would struggle to find other people they relate to. But then, well: there's me.
I don't think anyone's nonhuman experiences are wrong. I don't think anyones' are "superior" either; it's just about who you are as an individual, what feels right and comfortable to you. I just wanted to get that across! Cause what I'd like to talk about does involve some comparison between my feelings and the things I've seen expressed by other wolf therians, and I wouldn't want it to be read as me saying my way of being as any better than anyone elses' (it's not).
During my time in the kin and therian communities (which, I first encountered over ten years ago now, but my activity has been very on-and-off since I reached adulthood) I've met so, so many wolf therians. It's... hmm, complicated for me, in a way? Because I felt very isolated, especially when I was younger, and I felt like wolf therians were supposed to be "my people". But really, I could count on both hands how many wolves I've met that I really related to on any level.
And the reason for that is the same now as it's always been: for a lot of wolf therians, being a wolf seems to be a kind of violent, bloodthirsty identity. The "predator" feeling is strong; there's some affinity for the thrill of the kill, the violence of it all.
That's not a bad thing. It's not wrong! But my experience has been... very different from that.
My perception of wolfhood isn't really "red in tooth and claw" like that. It's more... simple. Not peaceful really - life as a wolf is full of trials and strife - but the violence never felt defining for me. In terms of personal importance, the feelings of wanting to hunt, to fight, to bite and maim... I'd be lying if I said they were entirely absent, but they were always tertiary to things that seemed far more present and central.
I think a big part of that is... well, for context, I believe my wolf identity is linked to a past life. Yeah, stereotypical, I know! But it's genuinely what I experience; I do remember that life, or at least aspects of it. And those memories influence a lot of my experiences in my current life as a wolf-person.
The thing that strikes me most when I compare my own perspective on wolfhood to the ideas often expressed by other wolf therians, is that to me, hunting wasn't violence. It couldn't be violence.
Why? Because I just plain didn't realise that the deer and other animals we killed were living things.
There was no... room to even consider that idea. I didn't know that the deer I drove to exhaustion felt pain and terror, same as I did. I just knew I was hungry and it was food.
It's a strange thing to consider, isn't it? People talk a lot about "what makes us human". I don't think there's any one thing that does. But if I were to point to one of the most jarring, and one of the most utterly sacred parts of being human to me, it would be the ability to connect emotionally with other species.
Humans are not unique for doing that. And maybe there's some animals a wolf could come to see as an individual, in the way I would've seen another wolf. But a deer would never be that. Which contrasts strangely with me, now, as a human: where I can love pigs, and care about their welfare and treatment, but still enjoy some bacon or a porkchop. That can conflict, sometimes, yeah - but from a wolf perspective, that would be incomprehensible. At least, from my experiences it would be.
And if you remove the idea of violence from hunting, suddenly a wolf's life doesn't seem very violent at all. The act of hunting and killing prey animals felt no more violent to me, than when I cook up a steak for myself now. To someone, that would be violent, but to me it's just a steak - y'know? I know the steak comes from a cow, but that fact brings me neither grief nor pleasure. It's just kinda how the world is and I'm mostly okay with that.
The act of hunting was, I'd say, something I enjoyed as a wolf. I loved the chase. It was fun. Taking down prey could be scary; even a deer is dangerous when cornered and desperate. But the thing with nature is that it makes what you have to do to survive feel desirable: so risking my life for a meal felt thrilling, in a way, and a full belly afterwards was satisfying, and comforting, and a relief from the usual gnaw of hunger.
Hunting's only a small part of being a wolf, though. Even setting aside all the attempted hunts that fall through before you even get into a full sprint.
A lot of wolf life focuses on territory. In some places, it's a very intense, almost war-like conflict; constant, bloody, often fatal. Not always, though. It depends a lot on the intensity of the ecosystem you live in: a place with lots of prey attracts lots of wolves, who then compete for access. If the prey's more spread out, the wolves are more spread out too... and an area of land feels less worth dying for when you've got so many others to search.
Me and my pack were one of the latter varieties. Territorial conflicts were rare, for us; I don't recall any specifically. We patrolled, we marked our space. Territorial disputes were something I was aware of, I think - if I saw a trespasser I certainly would've acted with aggression - but it just wasn't a common occurrence.
So my experience of being a wolf didn't feel like it was defined by violence much. It didn't feel bloody and raw. I could see myself in the image of a wolf that snarls, maybe, but moreso I see myself in the image of the wolf that sleeps, or - perhaps most of all - the wolf that wanders.
And that's what existence as a wolf was, and is for me! It's wandering. It is the neverending search. Even when you find what you need, the relief can't last long - you need to move on soon, you need to seek again soon, because it won't be long before your empty belly's gnawing at your insides again. It wasn't ever a life of violence, it was a life of travel, for the good and the bad of it: for the new sights and new smells and new opportunities; for the exhaustion, the uncertainty, the sore paws and aching muscles.
And the restlessness. The need to keep moving. Keep going. Keep searching, always searching.
But, of course, that's still not the centre piece of the puzzle. Because that could only ever, of course, be the pack.
This is something I'll probably dedicate time to writing about all on its own, because I have such deep feelings about "the pack" as a concept, and also about my pack, who I lived for in my last life.
But I will say that all of my deepest, most vivid, and most impactful memories... they're not of the hunt, they're not about territory or conflict or hunger. What I remember most richly is the love I felt for my pack. It's a feeling I can't quite find it in me to explain; sometimes I wonder if the reason I identify as loveless in this life, is simply because no love I've ever felt as a human could compare to what I felt as a wolf.
I think there's a kind of synergy between the simple mind of a wolf, and the feelings a wolf experiences: in the quiet of an animal's mind, emotions seem so much stronger, so much more vivid somehow. I feel that even now, when I have a mental shift, and the logic and reason falls away - all that's left is emotion and physical senses, and they paint a picture so, so bright.
And those past life memories that I hold dearest, they have a similar quality to them... to curl up with my family after a long day of travel. Or listen to their happy snores as we all sleep off a full belly. And playing with the pups... I was a very fun wolf-uncle. And those pups were my joy, light of my whole life! <3
So... yeah. That's what being a wolf is to me.
It's not the only way to be a wolf. It's not the "right" was vs anyone else's "wrong". This is just what wolfhood is to me personally. Maybe other wolves will see something of themselves in this, maybe not! Either way, I appreciate the time you took to read my rambling. It feels nice to carve out a place in my life again where I can really talk about this stuff. c:
#my take#wolf therian#psychological therian#prey drive#werewolfkin#canine therian#therian things#adult therian#actually borderline#therian shift#cw blood mention#hunger#cw hunting#cw meat#therian vocals#long post#white wolf's tracks
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Sorry for entering your ask but can I rant how much I hate the disrespect Izuku got by the author himself. I know the shonen mangas where the main character get preferred by a much more interesting character (take gojo, or Mikey from tokrev) heck take bsd from dazai or chuuya. These characters are much more popular than main characters but you know what the author respect and care about main character. They have people who outside of these popular characters actually give two shit about the main character or worry about mc.
My favourite example is of Tokyo Revengers, a shonen jump manga. The main character Takemichi family never get revealed. Instead we got more focused on Manjiro Sano, Mikey. The author put more focus on this character and Mikey is the central focus of the story throughout but you know what Wakui still respect Takemichi. He give him character development, people who care about Takemichi as person. When he got down due to plot, people support him. Sure the goal of the main character was saving Mikey till the end to the point he run away from a day before his wedding. Mikey is doomed narration wise and Takemichi want to save Mikey. Takemichi admire and respect Mikey but it is same with Mikey. He admire and respect Takemichi very much. Wakui (author) make sure put these two characters in equal place narration wise. Mikey respect for Takemichi is very strong too. He see him as 'his hero'. Mikey nickname the main character 'Takemitchy' as a nickname. Mikey respect the main character so much it is insane.
There was several plot holes and the way story got rushed in Tokyo Revengers make you desire more but Wakui did give a happy ending for Takemichi. He marry the girl and the reason why the story started, he achieved a goal he wants and is in much better place since the story started.
I don't care about rushed endings or even bad endings. I just want endings at least make sure for main character where they at least respected or in peaceful and happy after achieving their goal after suffering throughout the story. But instead we got this with Izuku canonically and it make my heart ache. Izuku don't deserve this treatment. I don't know what is hori hating his own character so much he give the entire story to bakugou. If he love bakugou that much why not make bakugou main character. Izuku doesn't deserve all this bullshit.
My point is Horikoshi could have easily make a story if he wants to put his shining favourite characters in the centre but make sure to give the respect and care to Izuku like Wakui did with Mikey and Takemichi. But we got this with MHA!!! What the hell?
hi @circles19
First off, I didn't watch the animes you mentioned- yes, I heard about it but never saw it- have heard about their endings here and there and while animes Shonen do have a reputation of bad endings but...let's take a look into Naruto, yes, I promise this will make sense.
Naruto had a really bad ending as the fans label but if we ignore Boruto as any sane fan does and the movie Naruto the last movie...the ending of the manga does make sense. The mc does fullfil his purpose, save Sasuke. Its not ideal, I give that. But as many Naruto meta blogs forget...Naruto is also a victim in the konoha system...him being quiet about the secret of the massacre is not doing him any favours, if anything it does disfavors.
But I always wonder how it would be if Naruto told the secret about the Uchiha massacre. Would people believe? Would they care? If I have made this question a few years ago, many would say how no one would turn a blind eye to such thing....but now I think Naruto may be trying to protect the uchihas in his own way bc imagine if he had revealed everything only for ...no one give a fuck.
The ending of Naruto is not ideal. I would prefer one where Sasuke and Naruto get justice or just leave konoha. But it works for what it is.
Mha is a mean spirit story and lazy. Let me preface saying how ...many mangas in Japan does tackle bullying, and get a hold on this, THEY SHOW AS A BAD THING! So the excuse many hori fans say "Japan sees bullying different" is false. MANY MANY MANGAS SHOW HOW BULLYING IS BAD, HOW YOU SHOULD PITY THIS CHARACTER WHO IS BEING BULLIED, HOW THE BULLY IS NOT A GOOD PERSON.
Izu's origin story doesn't make sense! I'm sure you must have seen some of my posts how I do always say QUIRKLESS discrimination is not a real thing and it's really not. Izu is abused bc...yes, why not? But don't take the abuse too serious. Its just deku.
Izu being QUIRKLESS also adds nothing to the story. What's the matter if he is quirkless? He is abused even when he get a quirk.
He has no friends. No family. No mentor. Nothing.
We don't get Izuku. His abuser? We get why he wants to be a hero. Izu? Shrugs.
Its SMTH I always harpy here. Izu IS the perpetual odd duck. He is not allowed to shine, not allowed to outshine BK. His quirk hurts him (I hate when people call Izu a Gary stu bc "he can use 45% of ofa? Booo" I hate when people say "don't want to make Izu op" like you can't write good stories with a kid who was abused and now has a strong quirk?) and no one in UA cares. No one does anything.
Aizawa is a shitty and malicious teacher.
Am is a shitty and incompetent teacher.
Its like so tiring...Izu is mistreated left and right in the narrative. (I hate ochako. You have no idea she and the rest of A1) and the fandom follow along:
Cucko jokes
Macdonald jokes (he is a teacher in a country where being a teacher is a honour. Leave to hori to do that!)
Im tired. In my fics, I go against fanon and make my own thing. Izu is a woman(bc holy shit izu and women are mistreated fr plus the plotlines I can come up with Izumi is wow) who is allowed to be angry at what she endured.
Fuck ua
Fuck A1.
#hori is a bad writer#a really bad one#izuku deserves better#mha critical#bnha critical#anti bakugou#horiko suck as a writer#i didnt see any of those animes but god mha is such waste#its was never about Izu. it was about bk and abusers#endy's storyline has some merits as but it was abysmal how the domestic abuse was handled
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never change, man !
#phantom of the paradise#potp#swan potp#nightmaretheater#65 layers and about 24 hours . Eeeyyuppp#Look into my beautiful mind boy#Its a bit unusual to what i usually draw#but i had to push a specific look for this piece#hopefully you all are picking up on the corperate look . the advertisment look#Sneeze. Anyways my point is industry destroys creative people. This includes swan#I feel like phrases like these ; how he was put on a pedistal…. it lead him to be Like That#as awful as he is he desperately needed help#it might seem like vanity on the surface#but i think its… more than that#long story short: we need to destroy the beauty industry. the skincare industry. the anti-aging industry#It ruined his psyche forever and he cant let go of the ideal version of himself he will never truly be again#i dont think he can at this point. hes in too deep and hes suffering for it no matter how much he feels hes fixed his problems#he cant accept a version of himself that isnt that perfect young man. because he never confronted his problems. he just ran away#anyways . Hi swath *punches him**kicks him*#i dont care if nobody gets me lalalalla my truths and headcanons are awesome forever and i live in my own reality lallaallal#sorry i think im gonna be posting about swan alot for a few months hes making me sick#i wass gonna post this earlier but my internet was real bad#*lays down in my pile of pillows* eat up boys. haha#sidenote: drawing white blond people is horrifiying. Boy your skin and hair are the same color. Introduce some contrast to yourself. Please#adding on: its inportant to note this focuses on him looking st himself in the mirror alot on purpouse#to remind himself what he ‘’’’really’’’’ looks like#the 4 middle pannels all represent that too . u have to be in my brain ri get this#sorry for unleashijg another swan essay in my tags. will happen again lol
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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."
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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?
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OC thoughts once more but it's so fucked up that Ry and Tempest's thoughts on Storm (their predecessor, the one they took the place of) were decided for them. Like!!! Ry was never given the chance to see Storm as a person because they were programmed to see Storm as a monster!!! Tempest was never able to see Storm as a person because they put them on a pedestal, too strong in their hero worship of what they THINK Storm is!!! And this is designed to tear the twins apart, to force them to go their separate ways because Ry is destined to follow his Fate away from Storm, while Tempest suffers because Ry left them. And they never had a chance to make their own choices. Never ever ever. And Mother Nature did this on purpose because she needs them to never put together the pieces of how she lied to them.
#AND THINKING ABOUT HOW RY ONLY FULLY BREAKS OUT OF IT WHEN#THE HUMANS (WHO FATE CAN'T CONTROL) FREE HIM!!!#AND TEMPEST ONLY BREAKS OUT ONCE THEY LET GO OF THE PEDESTAL! AND IT'S PAINFUL BUT WORTH IT!!!#and ONLY THEN can the twins become close again. they were told they were two halves of one whole but that was a lie#they aren't inherently tied together just because they're twins. they have to work to understand each other#they are their own people with their own ideals and they have to suffer a bit but breaking from their Fate is what matters...#oc tag#tempest#ry#i love you gods of thunder and lightning i love youuuu
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Obsessed with the dynamic (not romantic, not platonic, but a secret third thing--both and yet neither) between two characters who knew and cared about each deeply years ago when they were both younger and life was much less complicated.
But then, tragic, transformative circumstances separated them. Assuming that this separation was certainly permanent, because how could it not be?
And yet, somehow finding each other again years later, and sometimes they aren't sure whether the reunion that they once longed for with every fiber of their beings is a blessing, a curse, a joke, or a punishment.
Because they've both changed in the intervening years--largely because of the hellish circumstances that caused their separation. They've both changed completely and irrevocably, even if one of them has changed much more noticeably and dramatically than the other to the point of seeming a complete stranger. It is about leaning to see and appreciate all the things that have changed about the other and all the things that have not changed. It's about learning to reconcile beloved, often rose-tinted memories with the complex, yet-equally-compelling reality of the person those memories are about.
#it's the very particular sensation of loving someone who is both recognizably your beloved childhood partner-in-mischief#while also being someone so different (physically; mentally; and/or emotionally) that you can scarcely see their past self in them#and knowing the feeling is mutual#and also knowing that the only person who can truly understand the full extent of the change in you is each other#because their transformation is linked to your own#forged in and through the unique experiences that you shared and the way you were separated#it's the idealized adoration of youthful playmates/pseudo-siblings#transforming into a very different but no less powerful connection in adulthood#that's what really gets me#it's just#*chefs kiss*#estabalena#nahyupollo#jaydick#anyway this post is specifically about estabalena and jaydick#and to a lesser extent apollo/nahyuta#but it doesn't really matter if people tag and respond with other ships#even the narumitsus provided they recognize that not every post was made for them#it goes double for jaydick and estabalena tho since they each have two (2) shared formative and transformative experiences#that few (if any) others can possibly understand#for estabalena; it's the 41 years of suffering in the dark times and the crystal well magic flowing through ones veins#for jaydick; it's the experience of being "Robin' and feeling that the role and all it means was ripped from you too soon#and then it's the experience of dying and your family failing to welcome you back with open arms#because you didn't come back 'right' or quick enough#and that you 'chose' to stay away rather than circumstances forcing the issue#apollo/nahyuta also has the jaydick parallels in terms of bruce and dhurke#it's recognizing that your very human shared father figure failed you in many ways#even as he simultaneously saved you in others#he made you both the best version of yourself while also creating or enabling all of your worst tendencies#just
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A rock was thrown through the window of our local trans resources office.
My trans and Disability Group was attacked by a dozen troll accounts last week talking about how trans people are into beastiality and child porn.
Troubleshooting, a coworker told me "if these are the worst things that happen this year we'll be getting off lucky"
I know he's right. And the fact that that's true terrifies me.
#disability#cripplepunk#trans#i saw a post recently talking about how you cant get real liberals to care about voting talking about trans issues bc theres too many#rich white trans people and essentially they dont give af#i dont know who youre spending time with but most of the people in my group are homeless or on the verge of it or in abusive households to#survive. we've been abandoned by the government weve been denied aid or told that bc we have some we cant also have food stamps#most of my friends are queer and disabled and people of color#suffering directly and deeply right now in our current politics w every change#one just got cut from health insurance and wiped out her small savings buying medicine she still had to be off of a whole week#there are rich white trans and queers and they dont deserve to die in a genocide either#but also the fact that youre erasing the rest of us the fucking majority of us bc they exist and using it to quantify your betrayal of#yourself and your community to vote ~third party~ up your own ass is fucking disgusting#its stuck in my head like a piece of jagged metal#im so sick of liberals saying my life my friend's lives are worthless for the sake of their idealism and strawmen in other countries
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Play for Today: The Cry (BBC, 1984)
"It's best forgotten about."
"You're not gonna be making a complaint?"
"Complaints? We're not making any complaints! We don't want to know about any complaints."
"Complaints against who?"
"Well, the police."
"Who should I complain to about the police?"
"Well, the police, I suppose."
"What good would that do me?"
#play for today#the cry#1984#christopher menaul#derek mahon#adrian dunbar#michael duffy#doreen keogh#breffni mckenna#carol moore#rio fanning#john keegan#michael gormley#peter quigley#oliver maguire#derek lord#birdy sweeney#stella mccusker#denys hawthorne#one of the very final Plays for Today before the series was formally shelved in mid 1984; adapted from a short story by celebrated Irish#writer John Montague‚ this is a short‚ tightly wound entry among those final plays. it concerns a Northern Irish journalist returning home#and witnessing first hand the casual brutality of the Ulster Special Constabulary (commonly called the B Specials) in the late 1950s#the focus however is not on the act of violence which opens the play‚ but on the reactions of the local populace: Dunbar's journo decides#to write about the event (pushed by his father‚ a revolutionary who'd rather his son used a gun than a typewriter; the scenes of them#debating political activism could very easily have been laid on too thick but actually they're pitched just right). he's met with fearful#silence at every turn‚ with nobody willing to speak up and face inevitable reprisals. it's a horribly tense piece; through modern eyes i#kept waiting for some terrible fate to befall Dunbar (ie. his being killed) but actually‚ as the play makes clear‚ his terrible fate is the#disillusionment he suffers: in the people he once respected who he now views as cowards‚ in the system he once felt neutral about but now#detests‚ and in his own ideals about using a free press to bring about substantial social change peacefully‚ which now appears impossible#Menaul ends the play with news coverage of the violent suppression of protestors a decade later; it's a powerful end to a powerful piece
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Your impulse to believe every last bad thing people say about a guy and then if that guy is victimized by those people or the people who spread the rumors you dont even try to look into if thats even the case, you just assume hes bad by default-- yeah thats incredibly unfair to guys who are victims of abuse.
#so here i am having to heal my trauma on my own bc people think im a bad person. cool.#and then people would use me as an argument point 'this is why men who use guys who are victims of abuse as an argument need#to actually do something to show they care' she said so smugly. knowing those guys wont give that guy any care no matter how#correct she is about sussing them out on their bullshit.#so instead im being given 0 options at all bc both men and women want to use me as an argument jumping off point rather than see#me as a real human right here right now whos suffering and in need of aid.#you're arguing about giving me a place to stay right in front of me. and at the end of the day neither of you actually want to help#create a space for me to heal anyways. im just another talking point to you. left in the dust. left to try to figure out how to heal#myself alone all over again. something I never expected to have to do in feminist spaces- spaces I intentionally entered to get healing#about ANOTHER abuse that happened to be as a kid- though if im honest I never really found healing in such spaces its all kinda just#hating on men for the most part- so truly like the rest of my entire shit life i've had to learn how to heal my trauma all alone. which isn#great nor ideal since on my own im bound to pick up worse coping mechanisms than if I actually got help from others. and lord knows#I have *motions to the scars on my arms* but yknow you'd rather use me as a talking point rather than be what I thought you were-#the last resort I had to maybe actually finally get some actual fucking help with my trauma.#vent#to say im disappointed is an understatement. i'm more just sad at this point. i'm tired of being promised better and then its shit.
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starting to have a way of processing my reaction for when i see what i call 'shallow hearts for shallow minds' takes on here like. do you not know how when you don't feel something at the time it catches up with you later? do we not understand the cumulative nature of nervous system stress and how. sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. sometimes getting better isn't about being happy, it's about feeling things as they come rather than trying to force yourself to be happy. making choices that will lead to the most happiness, even if they're painful at the time. i won't know exactly where an artist is at, neither do you, but I can trust that they're making the kind of decisions that are a step forward in self care in times where I see something that looks familiar and i'm like. i think i've been there. i know it doesn't make so much sense to everyone, but, that's what the fandom's for right?
#this could be about any band member idk#but with both luke and ashton's release cycles meaning there's a time where they're kinda. bleeding everywhere while singing#and i know some people are concerned and being like 'they looked happier when ...' please consider. maybe this is healthy#like ideally they don't have to suffer! but sometimes it takes feeling safe to actually get it out and we gotta let them have that now#trust the process. trust them to make their own choices! trust that it gets a little better each time and don't cause any more harm#if your understanding of mental health is just. happy vs sad. please take some time to learn more it'll help you too#5 seconds of summer#luke hemmings#ashton irwin#5sos#anyway. i don't blame anyone for not getting that. you'll figure out what you need to; so will i; maybe i'm wrong but? there's still so muc#to learn. so much learning to do. so much to discover! there is no need to be cynical but if you are. tidbits of hope sent your way
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1/2 Would you change your appearance if you could?
yeah, honestly, i just think i really need to look like this in life
#wow uh i'll take $500 for loaded questions then#i guess being a shapeshifter would be the ultimate ideal but that's mainly just our circumstance and less specific on how *i* wanna look#i dunno i've always felt pretty disconnected from our physical appearance so while i don't like? mind it?#(and it is hot let's be real)#i don't especially identify with it or think about it often so it's weird for me when people perceive me as it directly#like girl what is a selfie. what's the mirror. oh that's some guy#it feels like a vrchat avatar to me like yeah i'm in that pic i GUESS and it looks cool but it's not anything i feel like i am very much#if i were to have my own looks with no irl consequence it'd be mooore or less how i depict myself in picrews#i.e slightly taller long hair a bimbo but like in a goth way#and if the question applies to Trans Stuff at all then gimme the whole nine yards. thank god for boy sauce existing irl#i don't normally care but whenever i notice it i have deep distaste for existing in a body with an anime schoolgirl build#the suffering from success meme but it's to do with not having a flat ass
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me being largely nonhuman/antihuman and a lesbian, therefore being forced by my brain to be attracted to humans has actually allowed me to fully understand how men attracted women who say they wish they were lesbians are real and based and do not deserve the hate they get. like girl i get it thats literally how i feel about you.
no offense to the good humans out there #notallhumans <3
#i dont actually like or trust women either. bc theyre humans. im just kind of forced into this i think...?#theres only one race: the human race#and im lowkey really really REALLY racist#/hj#the only people who dont annoy me in That One Way eventually are nonhuman or at the very least humans who believe they arent human#or are super autistic and love beasts and creatures#pretty much everyone who recognizes themselves as human unquestioningly and takes a complete all encompassing pride in it#or spews like. ''power of humanity <3'' & sucks off the human spirit casually or loves human centered themes at all is inevitably annoying#like no actually humans arent special in the slightest and if any other animal species had hands theyd probably do a lot better#AND theyd be less entitled about it. humans should stop killing everyone and maybe then ill listen to them about how cool they are.#every problem humans have ever solved was caused by humans in the first place how do you expect me to bow down and praise them#just on the basis that they were born human & therefore everything they do for anything else is heartwarming & merciful & divine in some wa#when theyre just cleaning up their species' own mess#humans are a lot like men in that they want to cry and whine about the problems theyre facing when their own people did that#and then expect a pat on the back for doing the bare minimum to pick up the mess they were complicit in making for centuries.#which is why i completely understand those man attracted women. the problem is basically the same one but its all inclusive this time#youre allowed to feel attacked for any of this but literally nobody can convince me it isnt the exact same thing bc it is.#and if you want to ''not all humans'' me. then tell me exactly what that sounds like and try to draw parallels as to why thats stupid. ty#humans that struggle still deserve sympathy just like men who struggle under patriarchy#but i dont have to take shit from them when theyre being weird or think theyre better or more deserving of life either.#no one ''deserves'' anything idiot thats just some bs your psyche is telling you to make you feel better#we're all just here to survive. play and have fun. and ideally. minimize suffering when we can. then die. thats like. all of it. thats life#nonhuman#op#my human mutuals are ''some of the good ones'' as they say lmao#sorry about my quirky ramble i just hope some more nonhuman people find this posts tags and Get It
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if you think for yourself, you will make enemies, even of your own side, because no side has a monopoly on truth, no side is infallible.
people don't want to change course or believe that they're wrong, but it's essential to speak the truth, even if it means being attacked for it-- even ostracized by your own group.
that's scary, but it's better than going against what you believe. better than staying silent and letting things keep going on in a bad direction.
#yes people have their own opinion of what the truth is#but the truth exists#we have to stay close to the definition of truth#truth is supported by/supports moral ideals which are always true#life should be inviolable#suffering should be reduced#among every human#freedom is essential#but cannot encroach on another's#critical thinking#moral center#empathy#kindness#-- essential.#need more of it#courage compassion character civility#responsibility#accountability#ability to course correct and admit mistakes
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Introducing my Former Student in Gaza: Sarah Abu Hweidy
I am making this post to introduce my former student in Gaza: Sarah Abu Hweidy. After I was evacuated to Ireland with the help of my Irish college, I pledged to do everything in my power to help my people back home, especially my students. After one of my guest lectures, I was asked by a professor: "Is there any way we can help your students?" With much hope and trust in my heart, I said: "Yes, bring as many of my bright students as possible to study at MIC; all universities in Gaza have been leveled; give them hope to be able to survive."
Believing that Sarah's amazing skills and diligence will make her an ideal ambassador of Palestine in Ireland, I nominated her for the College of Sanctuary Award at Mary Immaculate College (MIC) where I myself do my PhD.
Check the offer letter that Sarah received from MIC here.
Please listen to what she has to say:
She lives with her family in a tent in Gaza now and is suffering the unimaginably insufferable like all the rest of the people of Gaza including my own family.
Please check out her first Tumblr post here.
Link to her campaign here.
Tagging for reach <3 Please consider boosting Sarah's campaign and share her Tumblr post
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#vetted#verified#mahmoud khalaf#free gaza#free palestine#gaza#gaza genocide#gaza strip#signal boost#mutual aid#palestine aid#palestine#save palestine#palestinian genocide#i stand with palestine#all eyes on palestine#pray for palestine#palestine news#viva palestina#help gaza#the gaza strip#gazaunderattack#palestine genocide#rafah under attack#all eyes on rafah#rafah#rafah crossing#free rafah#signal b00st#!!!
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