i love the tower princes. i love that there’s absolutely no way in hell that this friendship is even remotely good for either of them. love that they assuredly are making each other SO much worse with every second they spend together.
other lyctors: i will dedicate my immortal life to mourning my cav. i will agonize and scheme for 10,000 years to avenge their death. i will face god and walk backwards into hell ianthe, spraying crumbs of babs’s soul everywhere: what
i need to talk abt how nona/alecto is horrified at being placed in a body that represents white eurocentric beauty and capitalism but adores being placed in the body of a maori girl, an indigenous girl. i need to talk abt it right now.
i genuinely do love everyone’s commitment to ianthe’s high-waisted leather pants but i feel like the batshit outfits she was assembling out of valancy’s wardrobe in htn also deserve acknowledgement
Why Nona is an unreliable narrator: She’s the soul of the Earth squashed into a human Barbie doll now living in a different body and also she has no memory of any of this happening
Why Harrow is an unreliable narrator: She lobotomized herself so she wouldn’t remember the most significant person in her life and gets brain hemorrhages any time she remembers. She’s also schizophrenic and haunted.
Why Gideon is an unreliable narrator: She mostly pays attention to swordfighting, hot women, and Harrow and ignores the rest.
a child crash lands in town. mystery where she came from. the mother is dead. this tiny redheaded thing has no one in the world. the town takes her in because what else are you supposed to do with a orphan dropped on your doorstep, but they don’t love her. the reverend family needs an heir, so they kill every single child on the planet- wait, scratch that, all but one. this one kid is alive, she’s alive, against all odds. so naturally, everyone’s scared of her. everyone hates her. out of all the children to survive why was it the one no one cared about. but they move on, everyone does, and the kid grows. and she starts asking questions. you start answering them. you start telling her stories, and it’s nice to be listened to, even if the kid is just a twerp. you start teaching her, she’s a natural with a sword, but you don’t tell her because it’ll go to her head. you’ve never had a maternal bone in your body, you aren’t mothering her… but she’s got nobody. and neither do you. you train her, you teach her, you tell her she can get out, get free from this place, if she works hard enough, fights good enough. she works hard. she fights well, better than you ever did at her age. she tries to get out. she gets caught. she tries again. and again. and again. and eventually, there’s a chance, a real chance. you’re the only person in the world who could get through this kid’s thick skull, and you tell her: this is your chance, this is it, you’re getting out, you’re leaving me, you’re never coming back, you’ve going to live, you have to get out now. and she goes. she goes, and she doesn’t come back. she doesn’t come back, and then she does… and she’s dead. she’s dead, and she’s back, the two things you prayed wouldn’t happen. she’s back and she’s dead and this is your child, you raised her, and you sent her off, promising a bright future, and it killed her.
tlt but JUST from ianthe’s perspective would be hilarious. you (necromancer) go to canaan house with your sister (who you trick people into thinking is a necromancer) and babs (your walking jerky stick). there’s a bunch of weird people and a hot nun but whatever. you sneak around and are Smart and u put things together. some people die, whatever, u get on with ur Sneaking and Smartness. you figure out how to become a lyctor (you have to kill babs). you kill babs, eat him (his soul), that’s all par for the course for you. and congrats, youre the first new lyctor in a myriad!!!!!! and then the rest of the weird people who are still alive decide to go and attack you about it. oh turns out ur predecessor has been hanging around, you get in a tussle and she slices off ur arm. ouchie. and she goes down at the hands of the hot nun so at least there’s something good going on. later you and the hot nun get picked up by god, u don’t know where ur sister is but hey! the hot nun is now ur built in bestie for the rest of ur eternal lives. but nooooo she’s depressed because her other nun friend went and died on a fence and boohoo she got ate just like babs. blegh. she asks you to crack her skull open which seems like a good time so you do, and now she owes you a favor and can’t remember the nun friend so things seem kinda dandy. and you get a sloppy lil makeout sesh later too. on ur all expenses paid vacay to god’s house his old friend/fuckbuddy takes you under his wing. swords suck because of ur arm but you get a front row seat to the most interesting and fucked up sitcom in history. the hot nun is There and yeah she might be having some brain issues but u get to play dress up with her and she also makes u a shiny new bone arm. u ALMOST get another kiss after god starts getting fucked in the dining room by two of his besties but the hot nun has it out for the other bestie that’s been trying to kill her for months so u don’t get to have that fun. eventually ur fight with a cosmic horror gets interrupted and the dead nun takes over the hot nun’s body and u witness the death of god. but he comes back and in quick succession he is out of besties and u saved his ass from mega hell. in the next few months you watch god fall into his newest depressed slut era but at least he makes u a new bestie out of the dead nun (who’s his kid?????) and her corpse, u guys even make friendship bracelets and have a handshake. u get to pilot babs’ corpse around on another planet and finally see ur sister again and kiss her on the lips through the jerky body. and the hot nun is back too!!!!! but some of those people from wayyyy back are still there and they take over the jerky body and u have to race them to god’s ex’s unbreakable tomb. and then god’s ex wakes up and beats ur ass and then gives the hot nun a sloppy kiss. what is a girl to do.
in addition to all the other reasons the soup scene is so funny, there’s also the element of like… pulling the reverse eucharist card on god in the game of catholic uno. make god eat YOUR body and blood for once, actually, see how he likes it. the heresy of it all
Discussion: Does anyone in the TLT have a period? Why the omission of menstruation in a series that otherwise doesn’t shy away from these kinds of topics?
Some options:
A) Due to the complex side effects of resurrection, no one has a period per-se.
B) Tamsyn is not a perfect person and fell into the common trope of forgetting people menstruate
C) Tamsyn purposely omitted periods because they fucking suck
D) A disturbing side effect of a society run my sweaty necromancers is that bleeding out a random hole is no more worthy of comment than sneezing. This implies they also free bleed.
E) Necromancers figured out how to not menstruate like day 2 of having necromancy
F) John forgot people menstruate and just. Didn’t include it. Misogyny won today.
tamsyn really did something with the dynamic of jod and the lyctors she was like i’m gonna take just some guy and his friends and make him god and them immortal but ten thousand years later they still kinda treat him like hes god but also like a guy they’ve been stuck being friends with for Ten Thousand Years but you can never tell which one it is because they’re all ten thousand years old and have moved far past normal human expression and communication structures and they’re all also kinda psychosexually obsessed with each other and have and Do fuck .. mercy alters her own dna at will to turn her hair pink for funsies . god makes a none pizza with left beef joke . g1deon is actively attempting murder for most of the book . god has a threesome on the dinner table
the notes on my last post made this inevitable. side note there are not a lot of places where christmas tree fairies and renaissance angels and barbie meet up and joining the edges was so fun