The author once wrote an "about the author" of which she was rather fond, but it's both much too long and now lost to the midst of time. It was rather abstract, which suits me better. Most of what I think is actively detrimental to posting regularly, but there's sometimes art here.
I sure have been thinking about chapter 40 more and more with the value of hindsight. Not just how the memory wipe itself was recontextualized, but like… Qifrey's entire approach to how he handled it, and then what he took from it in the aftermath and how it changed his own behavior.
Again, on a first read and without knowing what's going on in Qifrey's head, it appears to be a jarring betrayal of someone who cares deeply for him. The reader is once against prompted to question how well we really know Qifrey and where his own moral lines are drawn, a suspicion that echoes Tartah and Coco's own fears when they see Custas don a brimmed cap and start to wonder if there's any adults in their lives who would still see him as a child to help instead of a criminal. We also see Olruggio go from being the person in the atelier most aware of what Qifrey might risk in his hunt for the Brimmed Caps to having apparently lost his suspicions along with his memories, leaving us with a sense that avoiding accountability may have been the point. Without Olly being able to serve as a voice of reason the way he did in Serpentback Cave, Qifrey should be even more unfettered than he was before.
And yet, as the events of Silver Eve play out, Qifrey proves that he has committed to prioritizing the children's feelings and safety over his own vendetta. When they're ambushed by Engendale, he makes sure Coco is protected and stays by her side instead of blindly going on the attack as he did to Sasaran. When he gets the chance to find and confront Custas on his own, he steps back instead and allows Coco to be the one to talk him down. He then gets bodied by his own Silverwood migraine, but once he recovers, he goes to his students and helps with their plan to stop the leech rather than keep searching the city for the Brimmed Caps alone. And even though he hoped to get information from Custas, when he realizes the boy is in mortal danger from the Silverwood, Qifrey prioritizes saving his life over any potentially useful memories - and then chooses honesty despite the risk to himself when Coco confronts him about it.
Having seen that play out, we can thus understand that despite wiping his relevant memories, Qifrey still took Olruggio's concerns very seriously and is doing his best to correct his own behavior. He is pointedly not using the fact that Olly can't remember his own suspicions as an way to avoid accountability and continue doing whatever he wants. Once we see that for ourselves, the conversation they have in chapter 40 feels a lot less like Qifrey deflecting or distracting Olly before removing the problem, and more like him going through a process of trying to figure out how to best abide by Olruggio's wishes this time.
After all, Qifrey could have just run the memory-wipe the minute they were alone, if all that mattered was keeping the tree back and keeping Olly compliant. Or he could have done it right after Olly made it clear that he planned to support Qifrey in whatever he was trying to accomplish, if he was just looking to soothe his own conscience with surface-level forgiveness. Instead, he looks for anger and is surprised to see its already passed, pushes back on Olly blaming himself, and tries to understand where he's coming from. He's doing his best to hear Olly out through the entire conversation.
What Olly tells him is that despite his own hurt and frustration, he still believes that Qifrey wouldn't act this way without a good reason. That he still considers him a friend and wants to be a better source of support going forward. All he asks in exchange is that Qifrey not lose sight of his duty to his apprentices or abuse their trust in the process, and to be told what's going on.
And Qifrey does his best to give Olly what he's asking for. Everything he says in response really is exactly what he's been thinking and feeling. He admits that he loves being a teacher, that he loves his life in the downs, and his motivation is to preserve that life rather than risk it. With the value of hindsight, he genuinely sounds like he's building up to the silverwood reveal with his insistence that he can't just let himself be happy. He even starts to reveal what he discovered about the experiments performed on him as a child, and what he knows about the new kind of forbidden magic the Brimmed Caps are cultivating. It's only when the relief of being honest allows the roots to start growing that he stops and pulls out the memory wipe spell.
There is a good question as to why he stops there instead of finishing his explanation and getting Olly's explicit permission to use it. It could be that Qifrey's declining condition has made him more cautious about allowing it to grow too far before forcing it back. It could be that he's gotten used to this process and is actively trying to make it more painful for himself by denying them catharsis so it remains effective. It could even be that a previous Olly told him to start cutting these confrontations shorter to make them less risky (which I would buy, but want more evidence of).
Personally, though, I think that it was a result of Qifrey trying to balance his newest promise to Olruggio against his long-standing one. Olly has been clear repeatedly over their last few talks that he thinks the students should be Qifrey's top priority, to the point of making it a condition for his continued support. All four of them are nearby, with the atelier still in clear view of where Olly and Qifrey are talking - in fact, almost immediately after the memory wipe happens they all pop up to ask when they're having dinner. If any of them witnessed the silverwood's growth, Qifrey would have to choose between wiping their memories as well, or letting himself die with the secret irreparably out to everyone he loves.
Either option would mean breaking a promise to Olruggio. And, of course, we've seen from his interactions with Tartah that Qifrey is willing to do plenty of other morally dubious things if it means not having to take memories from children. So from his vantage point of fully knowing what's at stake, he makes the choice that seems to best fit both his and Olly's sense of priorities and morals - use the memory wipe without permission, before anyone else can be put at risk.
I'm not really trying to litigate whether that was 'the right' choice. I think it's an understandable choice, one Olruggio would agree with if he had the full picture, given his own preference for eliding laws and morals if it means protecting Qifrey and the kids. But there's also a real chance it could blow up in his face big time if Olly only gets a fragment of his memories back, or if it turns into a pattern (with only one example to go off of so far, we have no way of knowing if it already is). All I'm really interested in is how hard Qifrey tries to hold himself to these promises Olly is doomed to forget. How seriously he takes Olly's feelings and wishes, how he refuses to let them 'not matter', even though he's the one who has to erase them. Hurting Olly may be a foregone conclusion, the thread holding his existence together, but he'll at least do everything he can to not betray him in the process.
I have also been thinking about how much Chapter 40 reads differently after 93 and such; I love everything you've observed about how Qifrey conducts himself after being scolded, how he tries and makes that conversation "count." So what I will contribute is less character analysis and more agony. Because there is a panel that reads so differently; so much worse.
This is initially kind of, well, scary. The intense look, the unsteadily circled balloon. "I cannot have that" reads as a sort of... Like, "Oh, we can't have that," in the sense of "I can't allow that."
Now? Now, it's a raw, miserable pit of self-denial. No, he cannot have forgiveness. He cannot have help. He cannot have warmth. Sure, yeah, he can't allow that - but not because he doesn't want it, or thinks there's something wrong in that plan. It's because he wants it so bad that he has to dredge out from the depths of his desire to live, his promise, his love, and his despair: he can't.
Just when you thought Chapter 40 was done hurting.
“What kind of person was Lancelot? I know about half the kind of person he was, because Malory contented himself with sharing the obvious half. He was more interested in the plot than the characters, and, as soon as he had laid down the broad lines of the latter, he left it at that. Malory’s Lancelot is: 1. Intensely sensitive to moral issues. 2. Ambitious of true - not current - distinction. 3. Probably sadistic or he would not have taken such frightful care to be gentle. 4. Superstitious or totemistic or whatever the word is. He connects his martial luck with virginity, like the schoolboy who thinks he will only bowl well in the march tomorrow if he does not abuse himself today. 5. Fastidious, monogamous, serious. 6. Ferociously punitive to his own body. He denies it and slave-drives it. 7. Devoted to ‘honour,’ which he regards as keeping promises and ‘having a Word.’ He tries to be consistent. 8. Curiously tolerant of other people who do not follow his own standards. He was not shocked by the lady who was naked as a needle. 9. Not without a sense of humour. It was a good joke dressing up as Kay. And he often says amusing things. 10. Fond of being alone. 11. Humble about his athleticism: not false modesty. 12. Self-critical. Aware of some big lack in himself. What was it? 13. Subject to pity, cf. no. 3. 14. Emotional. He is the only person Mallory mentions as crying from relief. 15. Highly strung: subject to nervous breakdowns. 16. Yet practical. He ends by dealing with the Guenever situation pretty well. He is a good man to have with you in a tight corner. 17. Homosexual? Can a person be ambi-sexual - bisexual or whatever? His treatment of young boys like Gareth and Cote Male Tale is very tender and his feeling for Arthur profound. Yet I do so want not to have to write a ‘modern’ novel about him. I could only bring myself to mention this trait, if it is a trait, in the most oblique way. 18. Human. He firmly believes that for him it is a choice between God and Guenever, and he takes Guenever. He says: This is wrong and against my will, but I can’t help it. It seems to me that no 12 is the operative number in this list. What was the lack? On first inspection one would be inclined to link it up with no 17, but I don’t understand about bisexuality, so can’t write about it. There was definitely something ‘wrong’ with Lancelot, in the common sense, and this was what turned him into a genius. It is very troublesome. People he was like: 1. Lawrence of Arabia, 2. A nice captain of the cricket, 3. Parnell, 4. Sir W. Raleigh, 5. Hamlet, 6. me, 7. Prince Rufant, 8. Montros, 9. Tony Ireland or Von Simm […] or whatever, 10. Any mad man, 11. Adam.”
— T.H. White’s notes on the character of Lancelot. (via the-library-and-step-on-it)
No no, that's a vicar. A viscount is what they do when the results of an election are too close to call and they have to check all the votes a second time.
Do ya'll seriously think lesbian stories don't say basic ass things like 'i can't stop thinking about you, i want you." Are you that up your own ass.
Do you think there are not pick up lines in yuri.???do you think they don't have ~poetic lines~ in wlw media???~ that are way better than this shit?
Apparently if some basic ass shonen said stuff like this you'd be acting like it's the height of poetry. Too bad it's actual wlw stories that aren't queerbaiting you. so it will get ignored.
My piece for a spanish When They Cry fanzine we're gifting to Ryukishi. This tiny mansion is inspired by a famous spanish comic, 13 Rue del Percebe (look it up!!). I had a blast!
Ryukishi's stories are so complex, so full of soul and ideas that it makes me want to scream while I take notes (this is real, a have a little notebook for that). Anyway, I love Umineko like I love telling stories and I hope you enjoy the silly details in this piece.
paetorian guard perfec t size for put emperor on t\hrone! inside very Safe and Comfort emperor rule soundly put emperor in care of Praetorian Guard. Put Emperor In Care of Praetorian Guard. no problems ever with praettorian guard because good Size of cohorts and Support for emperor neck weak of big crown of laurels. Apraetorian Guard yes a place for an emperor put emperor in care of praetorian guard can trust praetorian guard for giveing good love to emperor. friend praetorians
If you are unable to afford donating, this link allows you to click a button every 24 hours in order help donate to Palestine.
American mutuals, I seriously urge you to tell Congress and Biden to stand with Palestine, and do not stop sending this message. You can also donate here.
This is not a war; what Israel is doing to Palestine is genocide. Do not sit idly by and do not stay quiet. Now more than ever is the most important time to not look away.
For everyone here on my Tumblr I need y’all to stop what you’re doing and really lock in to the genocide happening in Gaza right now. I will post as many links as I can but the best you can do right now is be loud as fuck! About this.
TLDR Isreal has cut off all water, electricity and telecommunications within Gaza in a complete blackout and Gaza has lost their voice. Israel has already threatened to bomb Al Shifa hospital, which is currently a shelter for around 50k-60k Palestinians. These are images of Gaza Strip from an HOUR AGO. They are literally slaughtering and wiping out generations of Palestinians as we speak.
Please I need to see y’all talking about this and being loud for Palestine. Your anime yaoi twink hyperfixation will still be here tomorrow but literally thousands of innocent people may not.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Palamedes Sextus & Juno Zeta, Paul (Locked Tomb Series) & Juno Zeta, Camilla Hect & Juno Zeta, Palamedes Sextus & Camilla Hect - Relationship
Characters: Juno Zeta, Palamedes Sextus, Camilla Hect, Paul (Locked Tomb Series), Kiana (Locked Tomb Series), Assorted Sixth House OCs, Palamedes Sextus' Father
Additional Tags: Alternative Perspective, Canon-Compliant, Pre-Canon, Post-Canon, Missing Scene, Character Study, Canonical Character Death, Canon-Typical descriptions of corpses, Parenthood, Questionable But Well-Intentioned Parenting Decisions, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Harm to Children, They're Fine They're Just a Little Bloodstained, Hallucinations, ADHD Palamedes Sextus, Autistic Camilla Hect, Neurodivergent Juno Zeta, Really No One on the Sixth is Neurotypical, Implied Camilla Hect/Palamedes Sextus, Background One-Sided Palamedes Sextus/Dulcinea Septimus, TLT BRE 2023
Summary:
In the fractious and academic Sixth, parenting is often a question of definitions – and Archivist Juno Zeta doesn’t know how to be a parent without being first a teacher and archivist: observing and guiding young Palamedes Sextus as a baby and toddler, discovering power; as a child making his first friend; as a boy falling in love; as a young man seizing the House. She stores it all away in the archive of her soul, as each fades from view.
Palamedes changes everything he touches – the House, the Universe, and perhaps most of all, himself. Juno Zeta was never the type to wander blind – not metaphorically, at least, but in the wake of voting for her home to change forever, and suffering the consequences, she’s in the dark about their new future - and about that new person, to whom she does not know if she’s parent, or teacher, or archivist. Paul hopes to shed a little light for them both.
Written for The Locked Tomb Big Resurrection Event 2023.
Seriously, though. We know soul siphoning works by sending the soul somewhere else, then drawing on the power that rushes in to fill the space. Since Colum never came back, he’s probably still where Silas put his soul... And, aside from the very Stoma-like eye-mouth thing going on, we also hear Augustine say that Mercymorn’s house draws on the Stoma “like an enormous teat.” So, the place that power is coming from is through the Stoma -- and therefore, from hell as they define it. So, yeah. Colum Asht got sent straight to hell on the regular and is presumably still there.
This does mean that “the fate of Colum’s soul” is a subject that’s extremely likely to come up in Alecto in some fashion, given the whole “Harrowing of Hell” thing, and I am excited for it!
The TLT pony spree continues with my Tridentarii (Tridenfilly? I don’t really know what to do here) ponies! I like to think that Coronabeth’s very decorated horn is fake, and the band hides stitches or a seam or something.
