#alfred quinque

[fawntastic]

Hey who are these old freaks

[a-drifting-boat]

Thinking about memory as a form of control in HtN. Because obviously Cristabel and Alfred and Loveday don't appear in the story, they survive only in the memories of the people who ate them. And remembering a dead person is an act of control, because memories are not objective. Someone's perception or memory of another person will never be entirely accurate, it will instead be their own version of the person. Even if someone loves you - perhaps especially if they love you - their idea of you will be influenced by how they want you to be, and there will be things about you that they have never seen or noticed.

If you are dead you no longer exist as an individual person with agency and an internal world; so the image that living people have of you will be superimposed over the person you actually were. You are no longer yourself, you have been made into what other people think you were or want you to have been.

And of course this is particularly relevant when it comes to the cavs. Someone consumes and destroys you, and then they commit a final act of violence and control by replacing you with the idealised or demonised picture that they have of you in their head. The narrative itself participates in this violence by erasing you and prioritising your consumer - they appear in the story as a character, whereas the readers know you only through their descriptions and memories.

We also see the memory-as-control thing pretty explicitly with Nonius. He shows up speaking differently than he did in life because that fits with Ortus's image of him as an idealised epic hero. It's not clear how much of his ghost is actually him as he was, versus the version of him created by Ortus and the Ninth after his death.

I think it's significant that in order to preserve Gideon's actual existence, Harrow has to remove her own ability to remember or perceive Gideon. Harrow stopping herself from being able to create her own image of Gideon also stops her from consuming Gideon and entirely destroying the person Gideon was. The lobotomy protects Gideon from the violence of being made into a memory, and so it protects Gideon from the violence of Lyctorhood.

[billiamdoor]

Tlt doodles, mostly of the og lyctors cavs :33

[beguilingcorpse]

blah blah we’ve all heard the discourse about whether or not mercymorn dyes her hair and what shade of pink/red/orange it is etc etc etc. yawn. we’ve been there and done that. instead i would like to humbly propose that mercy’s hair is in fact natural and it is augustine who dyes his hair. i think he bleaches his hair an UNGODLY amount per millennia and then magicks it back to looking healthy. i think that in alecto the ninth we’re going to see a picture of alfred quinque with beautifully luscious jet black locks, and all of a sudden harrow and gideon will remember that as a matter of fact augustine DID get dark roots once a month, which they never paid attention to at the time on account of The Horrors. i think augustine the first is kind of like if homelander was the I’m Just Ken flavor of bottle blond

[hellostuffedtiger]

Augustine regrets Alfred’s death the way it happened because he’s convinced that if he’d had more time, he could’ve saved him from radicalization.

Mercy never says anything bad about Cristabel and Jod’s worst crime in Mercymorn’s eyes seems to be his lack of regard for Cristabel despite her intense devotion, but I wonder if there’s a part of her that longs for a universe where she could’ve saved Cristabel from her all-consuming worship, if she could’ve moderated her passions and shown her the folly of the path they’d launched upon instead of Cristabel radicalizing her. The current state of affairs—the wrongheaded zealotry of the Eighth House and John’s failings—is all salt in the wound. I wonder if Mercy regrets never having a chance to reconcile her disaffection with the woman whose opinion about it mattered the most to her.

[oh-jod-dammit]

Lyctor Eyes Part 1 - Alpha, Beta, Gamma

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Thought it'd be fun to do some eye close-ups! Evidence for Lyctors having weird/colored pupils and higher quality still versions of this image under the cut.

Some headcanon thoughts:

Wanted to make Augustine and Alfred really similar but not quite the same, thus pale grayish-blue compared to the pure gray.

I headcanon Alfred looking to Augustine basically like Corona does to Ianthe; a bulkier cav build is almost a given, but also a more golden blond.

I hc Mercy as originally normal strawberry blonde (and then using flesh magic to make it pinker and occasionally change between other peachy tones on a whim), so blue or green eyes would be likely, and why not both? Radial heterochromia rather than each eye different so that she and Cris had that in common.

I also love the idea of Cris and Mercy basically covering all of the eye colors between them, just as a silly thing. Not quite yellow but between Mercy's greenish bits and the sandier parts of Cris's greys they bordered on it.

I headcanon/theorize Cris was Latina (theorize bc it includes the Ninth skull paint having some Dia de los Muertos inspiration too, if probably indirectly).

The above thoughts would also give the bonus of G— and M— and A—'s eyes being land sea and sky, which is just fun and suits each of their personalities really well, too.

I wanted to make modern Pyrrha's pupils almost black but just a little bit off if you look closely.

I've debated different ideas for P— so much but I think I've now settled on believing she was probably blonde. The pale green eyes alone don't have to mean she was white but they don't hurt. The way she talks about redheads, I doubt she was one herself. And sure she could have dark hair but consider... Alecto is very blonde. Augustine is platinum blond. Mercy is strawberry blonde. And John seems to agree Pyrrha was the hottest cav ajwioeaweawe I'm so sorry.

Neither of her eyes were their original colour. Both the pupil and the iris were intermingled shades of brown, purple, and blue.

-- GtN Ch34

Paul looked up into her face with a grave play of understanding flashing across Camilla’s once-familiar features, the unfamiliar eyes with their deep slate dot in the centre. Nona took a long time to examine those new eyes and decide what she thought of them: whether she liked the pupil that was that cool grey-brown, the iris of clear and limitless grey.

-- NtN Ch30

[beadsbrocadeandblood]

somehow all of the tragedy of the locked tomb comes back to Cristabel's seemingly overwhelming desire to kill herself for a great cause, whether as the nun C- who commits suicide to show John the soul, or the cavalier commits suicide to force Mercy into lyctorhood.

Do you think john say the dead bodies of cristabel and alfred, and the newly born lyctors wracked by grief, and understood that history had repeated itself, and it was his fault for stripping them of their memories.

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it' but its the lyctors and their lost memories. and cristabel's seeming inherent passive suicidal instinct that persisted through resurrection

[featherbreak]

Dragoncon TLT meetup continues to deliver hard. I love that 3 years and zero news of a fourth book in, we continue to fuel ourselves with tasty tasty Alectopause-unthwarted brainrot.

To wit, some of my 2025 meetup shots:

Third, Seventh, and Eighth serving so much as usual (and Seventh having an extra-bloody year!)

Lesbian Flag Gideon gives me life, but a stray Gideon getting in frame for the Harrowlecto shot gives me even more life somehow

Nona (& Alecto)'s birthday party!!!

...featuring the many faces of Camilla Hect (courtesy of @archety-pal having my camera while I went up & thus getting me mid-eyeroll)

AND OF COURSE ALFRED AND CRISTABEL YEEEEEEEE LET'S GOOOOOO

this is just live-action The Unwanted Guest, change my mind

full album here! huge kudos to everyone who was there for making it a riproaring good time. the ribbon game was outrageous this year.

known credits include @thewormwithproblems & @devotedlyhardmilkshake as the world's best Cristabel & Alfred, @neo-wolfe as one of the Gideon Squad, @aduck8myshoes as Harrow-wood Hair Barbie/Alecto (genius), best beloveds @eldritchw1tch & @archety-pal as the best Unwanted Guests, @featherbreak as Heart Crimes Cam as ever - please comment or message if you'd like in on this list; always loving the communal ingenuity!