We can't go quietly
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

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Claire Keane
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
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roma★
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Janaina Medeiros
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@rivertalesien
We can't go quietly
Tamsyn Muir's writing beyond The Locked Tomb
Y'all, turns out there's lots of imagery and themes in TLT that Muir was already playing with in her earlier fiction. A lot of it is easily available online, in which case I'll link to it. (The short stories that aren't can also be easily read if googled, to be quite honest—that's how I read The Deepwater Bride and Why the Mermaids Left Boralus). • The House That Made the Sixteen Loops of Time (2011)
5K. Short sort-of-cozy romance (?) with (you guessed it) a time travel loop. Explores a very queer potential relationship. CamPal enjoyers might find a similar sweetness.
• The Magician's Apprentice (2012, Lightspeed Magazine)
5K. This is the one that stopped me dead on my tracks. It features an older, male mentor figure called John (a “very ordinary man” with “dark eyes”) who introduces the young, female main character to magic that has a terrible cost—and to literature such as Lolita. This excellent post by @familyabolisher does an incredible job of analyzing the very deliberate intertextual links between TLT and Lolita.
• The Woman in the Hill (2015, Lightspeed Magazine, originally for Dreams From the Witch House anthology of Lovecraftian horror by women)
4K. Possibly my favorite! It's a straightforward Lovecraftian horror, centered on the image of the woman (is it human though?) trapped in an unnatural pool inside a cursed cave. Chain imagery too. It does something different from Alecto, mind, but you can see links, ways of playing with facets of a strong central image. It's fun to consider how reliable the two narrators are. Here's an analysis and afterthought from Reactor Mag.
• Chew (2013) 4K. Zombie abuse and cannibalistic revenge story ft. an uncanny woman revenant, told from the eyes of a traumatized German boy. I was strongly reminded of Harrow's conversations with the Body. Tamsyn gave an interview on the themes and her intentions. Interesting to read in light of Alecto, I think, although I don't think she's going the same route in TLT: “the idea of post-war rebuilding connecting to rebuilding the body of the zombie; a Frankenstein who once rebuilt doesn’t act as planned or desired. […] I love cannibalism […] it’s innately spiritual […] any afterlife she goes to, he’s going too.”
• Apothecia (2014, published on Tumblr and tapas.io)
Short webcomic where an alien monster tries to corrupt the ruthless human girl who holds it captive. Musings on responsibility and murder, mention of child abuse. The alien's speech patterns remind me of a Resurrection Beast. You get wonderful dialogue like “Murder is a profession. Job. Employment, you tiny leg dog. There you are, walking along. Walk walk walk. Now you are a walker. Good job. Special child. Murder is like this.” Art by Shelby Cragg.
• The Deepwater Bride (2015, Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)
The opening line is: “In the time of our crawling Night Lord's ascendancy, foretold by exodus of starlight into his sucking astral wounds, I turned sixteen and received Barbie's Dream Car.” Need I say more? Extremely fun. A novelette where a young queer girl from a clairvoyant family struggles with an apocalyptic event while being annoyed by another very plucky girl. Lots of descriptions with nerdy marine zoology terms. Close in tone to Gideon. In the background, someone dies EXACTLY like that one death at the end of Gideon, which makes me wonder what happened to make Tamsyn interested in this particular image. I also liked that Tamsyn is aware of Nightwish. No link, but you'll get a PDF immediately if you Google.
• Union (2015, Clarkesworld Magazine)
5.5K. Very weird, extremely Kiwi story about a town that gets sent lab-grown wives by the government, but they're not made the usual way so they're Weird and people have feelings about it. Fascinating and eerie description of non-human (in some people's eyes, sub-human) women (?) who cannot be observed to have recognizable feelings or thoughts, yet have some sort of inner life. Quite touching, very uncanny.
• Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (2020)
Short novel (~200 pages). Very funny. I was reminded of Coronabeth because the whole plot is “princess finds herself branching out into decidedly non-princess-like activities”, but other than that—this is a fairytale for adults about people who make eachother worse. No particular links to TLT but a very fun read with some gut punches. Extremely Tamsyn through and through, what with the dubious morality and all.
• Why the Mermaids Left Boralus (2021, in Folk & Fairy Tales of Azeroth by Blizzard Entertainment)
Set in the World of Warcraft universe. Haven't read this one yet, will report back lmao. As with The Deepwater Bride, no link but I easily found a PDF of the entire compilation. It's illustrated!
• Undercover (2022, from Into Shadow, Amazon Original Collection)
Haven't read it either. Will edit once I do.
The more I think about it, no, I don't think John or Harrow took Gideon's heart.
I think it was Ianthe.
And I'd really love a scene in Alecto the Ninth where everyone is trying to steal it back and there's lots of tossing and kicking and dropping the slippery thing and almost losing it, like a bank heist by the most inept thieves ever, only the team is Pyrrha, Paul, Pash, Aiglamene, and Noodle (who almost eats it).
Okay, so I have had to work out something that flew over my head during the first reading of the TLT series and maybe flew over it again. Putting under the cut so I'm not spoiling for anybody. Don't look if you haven't read:
So, John killed everyone in the nuclear blasts but there were like three (?) FTL ships escaping. He got at least one (?) but the others got away?
I'm assuming that is where BoE came from? These folks took off to another part of the solar system and slept for 10,000 years (?) and when they came back and saw how John remade everything, were like Oh FUCK NO and have been at war ever since?
Is that...close?
And:
Since we didn't see the moment when Harrow "ate" Gideon's soul to become a Lyctor, do we assume the part she ate was Gideon's heart (she was vomming a lot in HtN)? Or did John take that? I'm assuming as in NtN, she may only be cynically joking that her heart is missing.
John, we're told, took G1deon's arm before he was sent off with the nuke and kept it for reasons I do not remember (if we were even told). Perhaps John kept Gideon's heart for a similar reason (like making a clone/copy, which is also suggested in NtN).
In fact, my first thought was that Kiriona was being puppetted by Ianthe, but seems she spent enough months around her and "dad" to have become just as hateful toward them as she was toward the Ninth, only she was more obliged to keep it hidden under an Ianthe-inspired cynicism toward everything else (while she waited for the chance she took in NtN?). Gideon appears to have lost her soul in more ways than one and only cares about Harrow (as she reminded her in GtN).
Wonder what Pyrrha would say/do if she knew how the Ninth treated Gideon?
But wait, there's more.
Little Harrow didn't need to kill anyone to enter the Locked Tomb. She had Gideon's blood under her nails and that seems like it was the main thing.
In Nona the Ninth, when they are trying to break in again (how did little Harrow and/or her family lock it up again, if it needed John's blood wards?), suddenly Gideon's blood is not sufficient, they need a dead body (bye by Crux). Still checking to see if I missed something, but not finding it.
ETA: if Gideon/Kiriona's body has been tampered with so much they can't even draw blood, how did they use her blood to open the door? I have to assume Gideon can just rend her own flesh somehow or something. Would have looked pretty silly if they got to the tomb w/Gideon/Kiriona and she couldn't produce any blood to open the thing.
Gideon, when she realizes her new super powers have fucked things:
Also: I don't think I saw anything in GtN about what happened to the families of the 200 children that were killed on the Ninth House. Assuming they were all of childbearing age even after that horror, did no one try to have another kid? I might check again, but don't recall this being brought up again. Everyone is simply described as painfully old, but what's the context? What's their idea of "old?"
It's still wild to me that Muir went with this idea in the first place: why would a religious cult that is quickly drying up and dying out kill off an entire generation, just for one necromancer? Did they absolutely positively need to kill all 200 of them? Could they have got the same result if they had killed say, ten? None of it acceptable, of course, but what an EXTREME. Harrow was right to be horrified by it.
I get the parallel with John killing off everything to start over, but did Harrow's parents (Muir?) even consider there would be no way to do that unless kids were born? The deal with Harrow becoming a Lyctor and John supplying her house with new blood feels a little tacked on: Gideon wasn't accepted and always considered an "outsider," so how would the faithful on the Ninth House feel about being repopulated with strangers from who-knows-where? An issue that could still come up.
Also:
In GtN, after the murder of Magnus and Abigail, everyone and their sister is trying to call them back, with no success. In HtN, after her "failed" Lyctorhood, Harrow is able to summon pretty much everyone from Canaan House, unconsciously. John does mention Harrow being powerful (thanks to the baby genocide), but that powerful? A measure of things to come?
Which brings up another thing: are those spirits still attached to Harrow or, now that she had "died," no longer around?
Is there also a possibility that the River is used to create alternate realities? While there, Harrow "hallucinates" where she is at a ball, some Cinderella-like tale where she is one of many vying for the hand of "Her Divine Highness," a title she would *never* have heard of at that point (as it didn't exist until John captured Gideon and re-fashioned her as Kiriona). That title existing in NtN gives some leeway that there are some dreamlike shenanigans going on, but the text doesn't really suggest it? So...a stretch.
(Aside: The Noniad is another example of a story-within-a-story and while Mattias being summoned is hilarious, his presentation is right out of Ortus' book: how did that happen?).
The text also doesn't suggest that Nona's kiss to Gideon transferred anything, either, so...? Would love some clarification on how souls exist in and around different bodies.
Moving on.
Are the "friendship" bracelets something Ianthe uses to control Gideon/Kiriona? Maybe Gideon isn't completely in charge of herself. Gideon would absolutely not have come up with that, but it definitely feels like an Ianthe touch with a hidden weapon.
Also? Why did John enhance her physically without repairing her body? He doesn't want a real kid of his own, just a tool that can go places his Lyctors can't (?) and do jobs for him (like Antioch) that he isn't about to go do himself? If Gideon were completely restored (with John's DNA), does that make her more of a threat to him somehow? There's no question that love is not a factor, something I would hope Gideon understands and is just going on with shit (after telling John to "Go to hell" in HtN) so she can find Harrow. Gideon has made very clear how she feels about Ianthe and John and isn't warm and fuzzy.
Or is it all like Magnus said: she can never come back and her revenant-self can only be sustained for a limited amount of time?
For Alecto the Ninth some stuff I'd love to see:
Gideon getting a shot at defeating Naberius (and kicking Ianthe's ass
Circling the parallels between Harrow puppeting her parents to John possibly puppeting Gideon/Kiriona: both Gideon and Harrow have experienced reversals that give them a better perspective of what life for the other must have been like, and Harrow freeing her parents and dropping the Ninth House charade should be part of that.
Harrow working with Paul and Pyrrha against John/Ianthe/Kiriona with Alecto an unpredictable factor with a not-so-obvious agenda of her own
Front Line Titties of the Fifth - for real
"Die in a fire" better not be foreshadowing of ANYTHING
Harrow *remembering* Nona
Pyrrha being the parent to Gideon that she deserved
Palamedes and Camilla reunion (in the River?)
A Great Expectations-style ending (maturity and mutual understanding and possibility of a future together for G and H).
Finding out what is beyond the River?
A first (and last) dance.
KILL IT ALL WITH FIRE.
My office computer has automatically updated and the damn company sent out an e-mail telling us about *wonderful new* copilot now installed and UNREMOVABLE. STUPID USELESS PIECE OF SHIT TECH POPPING UP ON EVERY PROGRAM. CAN'T GET RID OF IT.
PISSING ME OFF.
But yeah, at least I could access and disable this feature.
Marjane Satrapi, cartoonist and film director, best known for Persepolis
22 November 1969 - 4 June 2026
They wouldn't let me bring filthy magazines to the con so....
LOOK!
[Photo above is a Gideon Nav cosplayer who has managed to look exactly like the cover image from Gideon the Ninth. Spiky red hair, mirrored sun glasses YELLOW EYES, white skull facepaint and Gideon's dark Ninth garments, including a LONG SWORD. /end description]
Okay, so I have had to work out something that flew over my head during the first reading of the TLT series and maybe flew over it again. Putting under the cut so I'm not spoiling for anybody. Don't look if you haven't read:
So, John killed everyone in the nuclear blasts but there were like three (?) FTL ships escaping. He got at least one (?) but the others got away?
I'm assuming that is where BoE came from? These folks took off to another part of the solar system and slept for 10,000 years (?) and when they came back and saw how John remade everything, were like Oh FUCK NO and have been at war ever since?
Is that...close?
And: since we didn't see the moment when Harrow "ate" Gideon's soul to become a Lyctor, do we assume the part she ate was Gideon's heart? Or did John take that? I'm assuming as in NtN, she may only be cynically joking that her heart is missing. John, we're told, took G1deon's arm before he was sent off with the nuke and kept it for reasons I do not remember (if we were even told). Perhaps John kept Gideon's heart for a similar reason?
In fact, my first thought was that Kiriona was being puppeted by Ianthe, but seems she spent enough months around her and "dad" to have become just as hateful toward them as she was toward the Ninth, only she was more obliged to keep it hidden under an Ianthe-inspired cynicism toward everything else (while she waited for the chance she took in NtN?). Gideon appears to have lost her soul in more ways than one and only cares about Harrow (as she reminded her in GtN).
Wonder what Pyrrha would say/do if she knew how the Ninth treated Gideon?
my knight you have to live you have to get up you have to put your hand over your wound and hold it there. you have to keep walking and walking and walking because you cannot lay down yet, it’s not time. wipe the blood off your breastplate and look up into the sun. lean on your sword if you need to. lift one foot after another. get up. get up. this would be a pitiful grave.
“This would be a pitiful grave” is now my new go-to when I’m sad or upset. God that’s fire
I want my gay rights now! - Marsha P. Johnson (NYC Pride Parade, 1973)
[Gifs above: Black and white footage of Marsha P. Johnson, holding an umbrella, surrounded by others, talking into a mic saying "Darling, I want my gay rights now. I think it's about time the gay brothers and sisters got their rights. And especially the women." /end description]
This is Doris Pollas, the cofounder of the organisation now known as lgbt+ Denmark which by being founded in 1948 is one of the oldest ongoing queer organisation in the world.
Doris lived in a farm in Jutland as a child. She was always butch and figured out she was a lesbian in her teens. When she heard about a club in copenhagen where boys kissed boys and girls kissed girls she went just some months after and it was through that club she started a paper connecting queer people all up to seventies and co founded lgbt+ Denmark.
She is now 97 years old and wishes for every queer person to have an as loving and accepting family as she did.
I don’t see a lot of older gays from my country, so learning about Doris, a masc lesbian, was really nice.
Doris passed ways last summer, aged 101. Here’s the obituary LGBT+ Danmark wrote for her - in English
Doris Pollas 1924-2025: The Last Pioneer Has Passed Away - LGBT+ Danmark
All the Locked Tomb books are so different in style and tone, with expansive details, and focus on so many "side" characters and backgrounds, yet carry the same underlying story: there's these two lovesick teenagers who have no idea about the other's feelings, and who may or may not be dead, and maybe one day they'll get to hang out or something.
like, the most compelling ships for me always stem out of one thing: the characters have a profound, ongoing effect on each other’s senses of selves. when they are apart, the characters’ actions are still affected by each other. the way they approach the world changes because of the other.
which is this deeply Austenian view of ideal romantic relationships as mechanisms by which we come to know ourselves better and become better versions of ourselves. good romance, for me, is always tied in with a sense of self-actualization, and the way in which a beloved partner allows a person to know themselves better.
this pride month we’re all going to be radically pro transgender. or else.
people using “oh but they were only canon for a season” like that changes clexa being the most goated ship oat
Just outside of the fandom, folks who think this was a one-season deal?
Ask J. Rothenberg why he continued to drag out their relationship for the remaining four seasons, name-dropping Lexa wherever he could, using Clarke's adopted daughter as her mouthpiece, introducing tech that would put her back in a body (taking queerbait to a whole other level) and while he managed to kill Lexa a SECOND time before she could be revived in the finale (the way so many others were), still tacked on how Lexa was the love of Clarke's life at the end.
Canon for one season?
Please.