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cerise-on-top · 3 months

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hey AleRudy poly anon again!!

your girl is going through it :( So I was wondering if I could request Alejandro and Rudy (together) x a reader who is insecure about their baby face? It’s been hard lately and it doesn’t help with the fact I haven’t had a date before.

thank you!! Your blogs help me so much!!

I wasn't sure if you wanted your blog to be public since you forgot to go anonymous in the second ask, so I cropped your name out, I hope that's alright with you! Besides, anon, you're drop dead gorgeous! You're adorable to no end and I can assure you one day you'll find someone who will go through quicksand just to be able to go on a date with you! Just give it some more time!

AleRudy with a Babyfaced Reader

If I were you, I’d advise to not voice your discomfort with your baby face to these two men, neither of them take too kindly to you beating yourself up over something that is neither your fault, nor something that you can change just like that. However, if you want to be cheered up a bit, reassured that you’re beautiful, regardless of what may be, then go right ahead, tell them that you aren’t satisfied with the way you look. If anyone ever tells you to your face that you aren’t pretty then you have Alejandro and Rodolfo at your side, willing to defend you and your beauty. While Rodolfo may not be as confrontational normally, usually letting some things slide for the sake of being left alone, he will fight whoever dares to make a mean comment about you. You’re the most beautiful person on this planet along with Alejandro, so naturally he will settle for nothing less than the truth. Alejandro will just straight up challenge anyone who’s mean to you to a fight. He’s a heated sort of person, so it’s not too hard to rile him up. It’s usually Alejandro taking it up with whoever said you weren’t pretty while Rodolfo comforts you in the back. Sometimes the two of you watch a colonel beat up some no one, though. It’s fun, I promise, because Alejandro doesn’t hold back when it comes to you. Even if his knuckles end up bloody, he will fight for you.

If you’re just feeling down about your face in general, then the two of them will comfort you to the best of their abilities. Generally speaking, Alejandro sometimes gets cuteness aggression when you or Rodolfo are being especially adorable. This includes, but is not limited to: The both of you focusing on a video game, smiling at some cute animal videos or just existing in general. If he can, then he will squish your face. Don’t worry, he’s gentle with you, but it might hurt ever so slightly nevertheless if he gets carried away. Squeezes you, squishes you, pulls your face, pinches your cheeks. all the while cooing at you about how adorable you are and how lucky he is to have such a cool and awesome and gorgeous partner. He will pepper your face in kisses as well all the while he’s doing so because he just can’t hold back. Why would or should he? It’s you we’re talking about, and you deserve to feel loved and appreciated.

Rodolfo goes about it in a different way: He’ll have you internalize some compliments whenever you’re feeling down. Or on the daily. Doesn’t matter if you believe them just yet, you will eventually. Even if it’s just a simple “I look really cute today”, it suffices for him. Besides, if you’re ever in need of ideas as to what you could be internalizing for the day, just ask him or Alejandro, they have a lot of good things to say about you. You can also expect a sweet little kiss from him for every self compliment you’ve made. Or maybe a hug. Maybe five minutes of cuddles as well. He wants you to associate being confident and loving yourself with good things, so naturally he’s going to reward you somehow. It might be hard at first, but you’ll get there eventually, you will end up loving yourself in your entirety, that’s his and Alejandro’s mission. And throughout it all, the both of them will support you, no matter what.

#cod #cod x reader #alejandro vargas #alejandro vargas x reader #rodolfo parra #rodolfo parra x reader #alerudy #alerudy x reader #I've never been good at comforting someone but I hope these can help you at least somewhat #anon these two men would fight the entire world just to be with you trust me on that one I know them personally #don't feel too down about never having had a date before. neither have I. but someone out there will go on a date with you #besides don't ever let anyone tell you that you aren't gorgeous and don't deserve the best #those sorts of people deserve to get stung by bees and wasps and are not worth your time in the slightest #I hope I'm not overstepping any boundaries here but I do mean what I'm saying #you're beautiful. you're adorable and you deserve the absolute best in the whole entire world #and I do hope it will come to you someday!

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officialkendallroy · 8 months

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what in your life went so wrong that makes you believe taylor swift is a raging homosexual

#theres this like 27 year old woman popping up on my fyp on tiktok yelling about how taylor swift is gay #at your grown age there should be other things concerning you #this level of psychosis is crazy check your damn apartment for mold #or maybe a carbon monoxide leak #this post is me kicking a wasp nest truly but man........ this woman described joe alwyn a damp towel of a man as a magnetic force come on

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favoriteblogonthecitadel · 3 months

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I thought the best part of learning to use Blender would be making a face that looks like Xiomara, and I wasn’t wrong, but I also wasn’t expecting the sheer euphoria of remodeling outfits to give her more body fat and make her thicker like she deserves :')

#Xiomara shepard #it makes me so happy each time i make her biceps bulkier #and i’m going out of my way to add volume on her hips and belly and remove wasp waists #which for her is very meaningful actually. she regains a good amount of weight during house arrest between ME2 and 3 #because her health had been so neglected after her revival :(#also i like having some visible context for Anderson’s ‘softer around the edges’ comment #and make it meaningful in my canon because he knows she experienced food insecurity as a child. so the comment comes from a place of caring #auri rambles #adventures in modding #mass effect

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batrachised · 5 months

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Buckle up, kids, and settle in, for I'm about to share the tale of what went down in the batrachised household last night. There were battles...bonding...bloodshed (well, not really)...batrachised has been forever changed. Exaggeration? Yes, but let me have this.

My roommates and I live quite contentedly in a Patty's Place-esque arrangement: young women, striking out on their own, cozied up in a little residence we all love quite a bit. It's a darling place, full of nooks, crannies, bookshelves! (of very high importance). It has green spaces; airy rooms; bright kitchens; crocheted frogs; what more could we ask for?

Despite our idyllic situation, there has been one slight mar, only one, on our little hobbithole ideal. Wasps. During the summer, we had to battle wasp nests outside with frequency. To give you a sense of how bad it got, the brave savior deserving of a martyr's crown who normally helped us remove them (roommate's dad) took a look at one giant nest and shook his head with a whistle. We had to hire professional help to get them removed - which, not too bad, just pest control in the end. But still, the wasps were fruitful and multiplying in a biblical fashion.

Enter fall. Enter cold. Most importantly, enter death. Death for wasps, as bugs, to quote calvin and hobbes, died by the bucketful. We were free - or so we thought. Oh, how naive those who have never walked paths of treachery and pain are.

One fine fall day, we found a wasp in the living. Horrible, but manageable. It was dying. I finished the job with glasses, a mask, a jacket, shoes, a broom, and significantly, lots of poison, looking like Don Quixote of the broom closet. Finished. Done deal. I patted myself on the back for being a brave household savior. Really, this was the proof that I was a strong independent woman. Good on you, batrachised, I thought.

Then, a second wasp appeared.

Horrible, and less manageable. One wasp is an accident - a door left open too long, a window with a ripped screen. Two wasps is a pattern. Two wasps means more wasps.

However, this wasp was very dead from the get go. I pondered. What to do? Then as so many other fools have done throughout history, I chose to blind myself to the truth. Two wasps - what a freak incident! A pattern, to be sure. But how could there be more? We never saw any buzzing around. Odd. Horrible, But still manageable.

I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Another one appeared, this one alive and angry. Clifford roommate got home at 1AM and had to fend off an angry wasp with a broom and poison, until it disappeared and she decided to throw up her hands and go to bed as was necessary, right, and just. We could no longer ignore the reality in front of us. I called pest control.

The pest control man arrived. He was a cheerful, gregarious man who smelt strongly of cigarette smoke. I decided he was a man to be trusted, most especially when he chipperly let us know that no, we shouldn't pay pest control at all! What a waste of money! The wasps, you see, are in the chimneys. He could remove them for several hundred dollars and the inability to access our house for several hours, or...we could just start a fire. It would get hot in the chimney, they'd get uncomfortable, and they'd leave. Smoke theory and all that.

Great. Fantastic, even. We save several hundred dollars, and get to have a cozy fire! Win win. Maybe we could even make hot chocolate and put on Christmas music! Perfect for the Christmas season. We decided tonight was the night. A half hour of our time, then done.

We received two warnings though.

First, the gregarious pest control man had let us know to be careful when opening the flue, as wasps can fall. "Just jerk your hand out quickly," was what he sagely said in so many words. I repeat, we decided this made sense. After all, we could close the metal curtains. That would keep those ol' darn wasps away. Still, we approached the flue carefully.

Second, my little sister. She listened to our plan skeptically. She gravely said (paraphrasing), somber as a small child, "But these are southern wasps." I laughed. Why shouldn't I? We had heard from our dear friendly expert. She finished with a (paraphased again) line of "What if the wasps go down instead of up?"

Well, there's a fire, little sister! Surely they wouldn't!

Flashforward to us in front of the fireplace. My roommate reaches and opens the flue. There's a thud. The sound of something falling. But nothing swarms out. We release a breath.

Neither of us have lit a gas fire before, so we don't know how and have to look it up--and then, in the meantime, my roommate notices:

A wasp.

In the (unlit) fireplace. Nestled in the fake logs. Looking cozy as a demon thorn with wings can.

We decide worriedly to tape the metal curtains shut. They would protect us, remember? These curtains of chain metal (you might be familiar with chain metal as the one full of holes). Tape them shut. I run to get tape. My roommate watches the wasp. The curtains are taped shut. Ah, another sigh of relief. We continue our research into gas fireplaces.

When we look back, the wasp is on the outside of the curtains.

Reader, here I will be honest: if you're expecting a giant nest to fall down, and us to have to run for our lives, this does not happen. Or at least, it has not happened yet. But in that moment, that trembling, unsteady moment, we knew that anything was possible. We didn't know that a giant nest wouldn't fall. But we did know that we had committed. We had opened the flue. We had woken the beast.

Fear strings through the air tensely, but we continue. Roommate bravely lights the fire. Half an hour. Half an hour, then we're safe.

My memory of the next few minutes is shaky, but I remember one clear, bright detail gleaming out among the rest:

We saw more wasps.

One flew through the air. Slow, lazy. Unhurried. But assuredly directly headed for us.

Both of us scurried out of the room like we'd seen the girl from the ring.

Reader, the wasps had come down instead of up.

Three wasps, to be specific. Even as I sitting here writing this, it's possible we missed more. There was a fire roaring that would hopefully prevent more. But that did little to assuage our fears. I now understand what it's like to live in a horror movie. Around every corner, danger lurks. Danger lurks behind the curtains. Danger lurks in the lights. Danger lurks in the blankets. Nowhere is safe. Anything can happen at anytime. There are creatures in your house, waiting to attack for no reason. It's not your house at all, in fact: it's theirs. The house is on their side. It hides them, cloaks them, shelters them, and in doing so, destroys you (well my mental stability anyway).

Half an hour, and then we're safe. The problem was, that whole half an hour factoid didn't seem to ring quite true anymore. What I was realizing with a cold, gripping understanding, was that there might not have just been one wasp nest in that chimney - there might have been many. If not a downright giant hive. And we had lit a fire, right under their home.

It was time to discuss backup plans. We came up with an escape route on the off chance it was a big swarm. We grimly got out the wasp spray. And most horribly of all, we waited. Waited sturdily. Waited fearfully. My roommate made soup, then froze. "Did you hear that buzzing?" No, I hadn't. Did she hear a distant buzzing in the chimney?? No, she hadn't.

We scoped out the enemy's territory. There was a scout on the ceiling, still except for the occasional shift. Another lazily flew through the room. We had been invaded.

All throughout, that waiting for the worst, something was edging through the back of my mind, snaking through

We were going to have to turn the fireplace off and close the flue. Or, in other words (1) enter the wasp territory (2) turn off the wasp deterrent, and (3) stick our hand up the wasp-infested chimney. It was very much the moment in the horror movie when they realize the only way out is through. We had our velociraptor in the kitchen, except it was a ton of wasps in the chimney. What's more, we had our chosen weapon of poison, but our chosen weapon couldn't be used because the wasps were coming from the lit fireplace, unless we wanted to start a chemical fire.

Half an hour passes. We decide to wait longer. Better to be safe than sorry.

Finally, after an hour, we glance at each other. We have a somber discussion, akin to tributes from the same district about to enter the hunger games arena. How long to run the fireplace? Would more time matter at this point? Who would close the flue?

I decide if I go down, I'm not going down without a fight. Much like a few weeks earlier, I grab a jacket. I make sure I have my glasses on. I grab a mask to cover my face. I have shoes on my feet. I get an extra shoe to put on my hand. I have a potholder on the other hand to close the flue. Don Quixote (Don Avispa?) has returned.

We march into the enemy territory. The enemy watches from above. Bravely, we steadfastly ignore it. I ask my roommate to watch my back and cover me as I turn towards the side of the room. First step: close the windows. Visions of thousands of wasps hiding behind the curtains dance through my head (at this point you should have realized i have no common sense about wasps and would die immediately in a zombie apocalypse). I ripple the curtain gently. Nothing. One window down. Next window: again, nothing. Another window down.

Now, time for the fireplace.

Wizard Hat roommate insists on sacrificing herself to the flue. She's done before; she has the muscle memory. Both of us are concerned that closing the flue will jostle the wasps and cause more to fall down - wasps that if still living, have to be very angry. I hand her the potholder.

The flue closes without incident.

We wait, holding our breath.

No more wasps.

With not a little relief, although still edgy, we make our way to the other room. We still have wasps in the house, but for now, the risk of having a torrent of wasps come down the chimney seems to have abated. I will never forget, though, that time period of waiting.

We decide to stay up a little longer. Just in case. The fireplace is cooling down now, so in a way there's more risk of wasps.

We go to the other room and sit, making conversation quietly. It's not unlike the ending scene in Jurassic park where they're in the helicopter, bruised, worn, but still alive.

It's then I look up. And heading straight for me, straight and low, is a wasp.

We leap up. I hear its buzzing in the room, and I grab the poison. Enough is enough. This wasp is dying tonight.

It feebly lands on the fireplace, and we see that it seems to already be dying. The Lord is merciful when he wants to be. Unfortunately, its proximity to the fireplace means that I can't spray it safely. We talk, waiting for it to move, but then we lose sight of it. My roommate briskly goes to cover her chicken soup. "I don't want a wasp to fall in it." Wise words, and wiser priorities.

It's when she finishes that she notices it on the floor, still somewhat feebly dying.

I have to admit, I'm not the coolest head under pressure. We could have just waited it out. But I had had enough. Wasps? Wasps in my house?? Wasps that had tried to divebomb me??

I went a little berserk, even trigger happy, and sprayed the ever living bejeesus out of that wasp. The spray said it killed on contact, which did not turn out to be true because that wasp was KICKIN'. On the floor, but still kickin'. I sprayed it again. And again. And again.

Finally, it stilled. RIP, wasp. (Rest in Poison).

However, we then faced the fact that I had created a giant puddle of poison smack in the middle of the floor that we now had to clean up. We got out rubber gloves (I noted them for future use of fighting wasps, more armor), and paper toweled away. Once done, we had to face the issue of where to soak the poison-coated gloves, and decided in a plastic tub on the counter.

And so this tale comes to end (for now). We decided wearily to go to bed. We were done with the day. More wasps may come, but we'd shut the door.

The final cherry on top of the sundae though, was the fact that Clifford Roommate was not home during all of this. This means that she got a series of increasingly frantic texts that looked something like this (I invite you to consider the fact that these wouldn't be out of place in a doctor who episode):

We lit the fire and wasps came out be careful!!

keep the doors shut! we have to keep the wasps out!!

don't turn off the light in the living room...the light distracts them

we've closed the flues. the fire is off.

there's one in the room with us now

we're trying to kill it!!

DO NOT touch the gloves in the kitchen, they're covered in poison

Drums, drums in the deep.

All this to say, if ever you decide to light a fire to chase away wasps, be prepared. They might just come down instead of up.

#i now know what it is to live in jurassic park and i now know i would die immediately #poor wizard roommate had to be the lead #long post #anyway here's hoping more wasps don't come out :)

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tardis-technician · 4 months

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I love how we had Silence in the Library, Forest of the Dead, and Midnight all in a row. The doctor and Donna get to have their little Agatha Christie murder mystery adventure, and then to compensate the show was immediately like "we need to put the doctor through The Horrors."

#unicorn and the wasp my beloved #and midnight my beloved in an equal and opposite direction #the hits just kept coming huh #let's not forget midnight to tun left #the doctor gets to have a terrible terrible time while donna goes to the spa #then donna gets to have a terrible terrible time while the doctor goes shopping #tenth doctor #donna noble #doctor and donna #silence in the library #forest of the dead #midnight doctor who #unicorn and the wasp #paradox posts

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kidcooperart · 1 year

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CW: bugs

Are the things Chloe has done fucked up? Yes

Is the way her life has turned since Zoe appeared and slowly gained everything Chloe has been striving for also fucked? Yes

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous leaks #mlb #chloe bourgeois #zoe lee #i guess anti zoe but moreso in how the writers have positioned her in the story #cw bugs #tw bugs #mild horror #i think this idea of zoe coming in and slowly replacing chloe is so horrific #and the contrast of their bee n wasp inspired costumes add to this idea of invasion #its pretty neat horror content

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vaguely-concerned · 2 years

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I have always been fascinated by the scene in Harrow the Ninth where all of God’s lies are finally revealed, so here is a post of appreciation for the last part of the book and also trying to pick apart some of what Muir is doing on a writing level, because I want to steal all of it for my own to gain even a tenth of her power lol

- “What? No tongue in your head, you—you mutant, you mistake, you great big calf-eyed fuck-up?!”

mercymorn is the funniest person to ever live probably dfhasjkfas (moira quirk’s delivery of this in the audiobook is out of this world, please experience it for yourself one day.) the metatextual layer that she’s essentially saying this to locked tomb jesus, and that she would 100% still be saying it if she knew just how much she’s talking to locked tomb jesus, because that is the very essence of who mercy is as a person... fucking immaculate

- God said, “Summarize, please. You both do tend to go overboard on the foreplay.”

no actually John Gaius is the funniest person who’s ever lived (and died and lived again etc.). in the middle of his ancient lies finally being exposed and all his death empire and personal life about to come crashing down around him as he gets exploded, he still takes a moment to be completely, comprehensively, needlessly, astoundingly and utterly petty. inspirational, in a way. if you commit the profane act of resurrection you, too, could spend ten thousand years working on becoming your very worst self

(also a definite indication that God is terrible in the sack, what the fuck)

also, Mercy throws John’s own ‘You’re trying to start a fight with me to get out of the fight I’m trying to have with you, which is a painfully domestic tactic’ from the beginning of the book back in his face here at the end, which shows that even so, John is merely a novitiate in pettiness, she will brook no comparison <3 I love her so much

- Upon seeing God getting exploded, Pyrrha straight up stands there with her cigarette until it burns down to ashes in her hand fhsdkjfhas. god this poor woman she’s been dying for a cigarette all that time and she’s too shocked by everything going on to even get to smoke it!!!

can you imagine what a mindfuck all of this is for her, though. she’s been doing the same thing as Gideon has this whole book from the back of her necromancer’s head for ten thousand years, she lost her necromancer like half an hour ago, max, and is figuring out being in the driver’s seat of his body (his corpse??? technically???) alone for the first time, she just mercy killed her ex, she found out that at least she and her necromancer didn’t kill both their lover and their child twenty years ago (and also it wasn’t their baby, it was baby jesus in a space pod, phew, that makes it... better? no, no not really huh), she finally got a cigarette... and then her siblings in death empire seemingly upend the entire natural order she’s known as long as she’s had consciousness.

“It was complicated.” she’s saying what we’re all thinking. if she simply wants to settle down on a farm somewhere and live a quiet life, no fucking wonder!

A lot more thoughts behind the cut Because Of Who I Am As A Person

- There was silence in that room. The air had cooled somewhat, but it was still hot and sticky, and it smelled like everyone’s sweat. It smelled like hot perfume and cigarettes and fear.

ever since the first time I read that part I’ve been astounded by how perfectly this captures the feeling of being young and ignored and witnessing adults Feeling deep, tangled things at each other that you don’t understand yet but can sense the outlines of as it settles over you too. ‘hot perfume and cigarettes and fear’. that feeling of peering at adulthood through the keyhole and only half-understanding what you see and that you’re terrified. between that and the way John can literally freeze people in place with a glance until he decides to let them go... it’s the weather front of emotional violence settling in a room, atmospheric and suffocating, as much in the pressure while nothing’s really happening as when the lightning strikes finally hit. hell, Gideon has been through all kinds of abuse in the Ninth House, emotional as well as physical, but this particular form of tension seems to be new to her and to (rightfully) freak her the fuck out. fuckkkkk Tamsyn Muir is just SO GOOD at this -- it’s the perfect set of sensory details to pull forward to get that effect.

(and of course the station is cooling, come to think of it, the Resurrection Beast and the Heralds have begun to flee! Didn’t catch that the first few times around lol)

- Augustine said blankly, “Mercy. Don’t do this.”

“You never loved him as much as I did,” she said, without taking her eyes from John*. “This is the moment. This is the chance for unlovable Mercymorn -- critical Mercymorn -- to show she is the most capable of her name. Every time you have said I did not understand the human heart, that I was unfeeling, that I only knew worship without adoration... Watch me, Augustine: I am the second saint to serve the King Undying. I will teach you a lesson in forgiveness.”

“You don’t even know the meaning of the word,” said Augustine.

John later says he ‘adored them all’, mirroring Mercymorn’s use of ‘adoration’ here. Also I think that she is showing her love, in a very Mercymorn sort of way... just not for John. It’s love for Cristabel, even after all this time, that means she can’t actually forgive John for making her die needlessly. John always assumes people's love for him trumps all other loves in the end, and it just came back to bite him big time. Plus, another case of Augustine knowing Mercymorn much better than John does; he is completely right, she does not intend to forgive anyone for anything lol (and honestly fair enough at that point).

(God asks Mercymorn what he has to do to earn her forgiveness, in his usual uselessly self-flagellating way)

Thick tears pooled in those bloody, stormy eyes. Augustine looked at her, and then he quite abruptly pressed his back to the wall and slid down until he was sitting, a posture of absolute defeat.

as I talked about in another post, the precise way Augustine catches on to what’s about to happen is actually foreshadowed in his and Mercy’s very first fight!

*interesting that this is one of the very rare times the actual narrative voice -- so Gideon’s POV in this case -- actually calls him ‘John’. It may be the only time? I haven’t been paying attention specifically to this, but it stood out to me really clearly this go around. it emphasises brilliantly the sense that John before Mercymorn in that moment is very much a person. the narrative does a great job at subtly shifting those around, how much he's a real human vs. concept to the people around him at any given point

John also says he will love ‘you three’ forever, which I’m presuming is the three original saints? well, I think that may be a record speedrun from him lying to it being revealed he was lying; instead of a myriad it took like five minutes this time

-Mercy turned around to Augustine. She was not weeping now.

“It is finished,” she said.

(Insert Gideon having an oh-so-valid little breakdown about her own speedrun back into orphanhood :’) I’m so sorry Griddle, if it helps it won’t last...?)

- The saint of Patience stood up and crossed to her. She reached forward and took big clawed fistfuls of his shirt.

“I wanted it to be me,” she said, in this weird, unearthly calm. “I didn’t want it to be you. I didn’t want it to be you, Augustine, after all. The sin needed to be mine.”

“It’s ours,” he said unsteadily.

(They take in the probable devastation that’s happening to the Houses right now; Mercy consistently calls them ‘our people’, which I find strangely moving despite everything)

“We don’t know how long it takes to undo the Resurrection. Millions of people. All those millions of our people. No. I had to do it. I’m not very nice, Augustine, and I was never very good.”

(Later he says: “As you chose to stain your hands so mine could be clean, you’re going to have to put up with the fact that you picked the wrong man to enter a suicide pact with. I hate ‘em.”) honestly I am still incoherent over WHATEVER THE FUCK their relationship is. they do hate each other, but she didn’t want it to be him. she did it, so it wouldn’t have to be him, and to him that is ‘absolute defeat’. like there are so many sibling feelings in my heart over that, when you want so desperately and futilely to shield someone even though it has by all accounts already stained you both indelibly and equally. Mercy has been the scapegoat child among the lyctor 'siblings' for so long so y'know, 'I was never very good anyway, I can take this for you', and Augustine is The Eldest Brother who they seemed to agree on beforehand would be the one to do it... but she did it, for both of them, and he couldn't stop her. the mirror of that in the way Gideon and Harrow wants the other to live, to be whole, even at their own expense, even though they 'hate each other' I have. space shrimp emotions.

- it seems like the population of all the Houses doesn’t reach the billions! interesting factoid, I guess it makes sense the Death Planets aren’t that hospitable to human life or expansion long term lol

- Gideon likens the look on Augustine’s face to that she found on Jeannemary after Cytherea murdered her. There’s some very deliberate language and framing going on in this part of the scene to compare Mercy and Augustine -- The original immortal evil space vamipires slash war criminals lmao -- as two scared children clinging to each other. Ianthe too, actually:

Ianthe was staring into space, looking like a child, for all her height. Little. Bemused.

Tamsyn Muir is such a good fucking writer. The expert subtextuality in this scene of God as the Father (and the dad joke amen), bitches!!!! Lord and Emperor and God and Dad (and sort of Spouse, for Mercy and Augustine), all in one. And when (it looks like) he dies, despite all his unforgivable crimes both personal and y’know against humanity, they are all still reduced to frightened orphans.

- “You have a job, Joy. If you kill yourself now, you’ll leave everything remarkably untidy. And that’s not like you, is it.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGH remember “Cristabel always said I was tidy”?????? he wasn’t even there for that, so he just knows! he knows that is the exact button to press to make her stay alive!!!!! I am going to throw myself off a cliff!

- “We’re going to go round up the ships, everyone who’s left. Sue for peace, as best we can, get the Edenites on side. And then we’ll find a place to fulfill the old promise. Somewhere out there exists a home not paid for with blood. It won’t be for us, but it will be for those who have been spared. Babies always get born, houses always get built. And flowers will die on necromancy’s grave.”

Her throat was working. “Augustine...”

The lyctor took her silently in his arms. They held each other like children who’d had a nightmare, and had woken in a fright. Just as silently, they detached.

She said in a low voice: “He was right. There can be no forgiveness.“

“Then let us not seek out forgiveness, but forgetfulness,” he said. “Bury me next to you in that unmarked grave, Joy. We knew that was the only hope we ever had, that we would live to see it through, and pray for our own cessation. Oh, we’ll still hate each other, my dear; we’ve hated each other too long and too passionately to stop. But my bones will rest easy next to your bones.”

kill me. strike me down. this whole part has haunted me from the very first moment I read it and it won’t let me go, I think it did something irreversible to my brain. who let augustine say the most beautiful things while being one of the worst people. it’s so unfair.

And if you think about it… there’s probably no way he could have stopped her, if she really wanted to kill herself right then and there. She could have just triumphantly dropped dead and left him to deal with everything in the aftermath alone, with a message telling him where to find the instructions for her hilarious 24 minute funeral. But she doesn’t. She wants to go out with him, because they have a deal. *sobbing hysterically* all they wanted was two unmarked graves side by side and they couldn’t even get that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- God taking Mercy’s robes immediately upon killing her and ‘coyly pulling it closed’ as he puts it on is such.......... Peak John-ness. objectively hilarious, objectively horrific.

also he says he ‘never likes cleaning house all at once’, which makes for some...... deeply troubling implications around the gradual dying off of the other lyctors, doesn’t it???? um what the fuck, actually?????????

- the scariest thing about John to me is that I think he really means it, when he says he wishes Harrow was his daughter. I think he genuinely feels that, and does not see all the nightmarish shit he does to her as antithetical to it in any real meaningful way. literally having her attempted murder staged over and over and over again, ‘for her own good’, and I believe his affection is still as real as anything he can feel anymore. he is so terrifyingly, insidiously good at reframing the world around parts of himself in such a way that he’s always ultimately justified. he could have sat down with harrow and helped her figure out what was going on with her, even as one scientist to another, never mind everything he should be doing if he intends to be her teacher or her father figure! he’s GOD! even apart from being god, he’s the ur-necromancer! if he took her and her condition seriously for five fucking minutes and actually sat down with her, he probably could have helped her figure it out and relieve at least part of her suffering!! (and thank god he didn’t, I guess, but in principle at the very least)

and like... why on earth doesn’t he? is he just that emotionally lazy and feckless? if he thought getting G1deon to kill her over and over would be more ‘expedient’, then surely that is belied pretty quickly when it doesn’t fucking work. it’s an evil way to go about it in the first place, but even aside from that it’s uh... scientifically indefensible to repeat an experiment that’s clearly not giving results? is he afraid that if he digs too much in Harrow’s Situation (being a 200 soul Frankenstein’s monster and all, I’m so sorry Harrow), people will be able to follow the threads of that back to what he did and how his powers work?

(I will say that this is one of the best portrayals I’ve ever seen of an ineffectual and covertly harmful adult in relation to a mentally ill teenager. It’s almost scary how true to life it feels at times. If you don’t catch yourself you could find yourself defending him like ‘well, what was he supposed to do, how was he supposed to know, how could he have done anything differently, it’s not his fault’, like he isn’t, again, GOD, and also a grown fucking man positioning himself in the role of her father)

- I have said it so many times before, but Augustine asking John to ask him if he forgives him just so he gets to finally tell him ‘no’... fucking amazing.

Augustine murmured: “You said there was no forgiveness.”

“I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.” so smug in his lonely references no one else can get! I hate him! I love him. I wonder if John was religious before the Resurrection or just like... chronically went to Catholic school, if you see what I mean fhaskfa. Now there’s a fascinating mindfuck that’s relevant only to him, he has a conception of ‘God’ no one else in the Houses could have, because they only know what he set up for them. (which I think is also the narrative point being made with the memes in this series, btw, maybe I'll write out my thoughts on it properly at some point)

this I have also observed before, but the last thing Augustine does before turning down John’s ‘forgiveness’ is looking around a room of dead siblings, with the eyes of a dead sibling, and with Mercy’s heart still splattered all over him. Alfred was the first person to die for John’s lie about lyctorhood (narrowly, since it’s implied Augustine and Mercymorn became lyctors pretty close together. well this is true mostly symbolically, I think all the fucked up shit they did to Teacher & co had already happened by that point lol), and Mercy is the last, and Augustine stands there marked by them both and doesn’t forgive it.

- I wonder if Pyrrha actually has any kind of loyalty left for John or if this is just Strategy and playing out the role of Saint of Duty. (Ianthe is 100% only self-serving strategy, which, you know, at least she’s honest about it haha) I’m assuming it’s mostly Strategy. Also interesting that she seems to be trying to avoid him finding out it’s her and not G1deon, while she might be about to tell Augustine before God poofs back onto the stage?

- It feels so good to have Gideon looking with clear eyes at how everyone’s been treating Harrow and affirm that ‘that is fucked up, go to hell’. Like it’s so good just to have Gideon back in general that it gets lost a bit in the cloud of euphoria for me, but having her validation and care in relation to all Harrow’s been struggling with and that it wasn’t all in her mind? She’s had like fifteen life changing revelations the last twenty minutes and her sense of justice and compassion still breaks through it all. I know we all love Gideon very much but I truly love Gideon so very much help

- But it was the girl’s face that sent Harrow’s neurons in a thalergetic spin

+ bonus ‘I don’t know what the people who think Harrow and Gideon’s vibe is primarily sisterly are on, and whatever it is I don’t want it’ lmao, the entire description of Gideon in the coffee shop AU is so deeply unmistakably sweetly horny. Romantic and sexual attraction is only one set of brushstrokes making up the beautiful yet inconceivably fucked up painting that is their relationship, but I think it’s kind of willfully obtuse to say it isn’t there at all or isn’t also important. Harrow didn’t make TWO dream bubble AUs with explicitly romantic elements for you to overlook her bone gremlin horniness like this

There may be a lot of punctuation and orthography weirdness in this post; this is all transcribed from the audiobook version as best I could figure, I don’t have the books in text format! Only a few days left to go before Nona the Ninth, you guys, I don't know about you but I'm about ready to vibrate right out of my skin

#the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #the locked tomb meta #mercymorn the first #augustine the first #john gaius #pyrrha dve #gideon nav #griddlehark #I've been wanting to write down some of this for ages and finally The Time Has Come #my brain is currently a wasp net on fire being run over by a truck but I hope some of this is readable anyway lol

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