#onwards!!!

[sugar-peanut-cat]

WAIT. FUCK. OK

I think I'm figuring out what happened??? Spoilers for tlt because holy shitttttt. This is me rambling out my theory before I continue reading

I'm trying to structure this. Enrichment for me... but I also want to get my thoughts in order and appreciate just HOW fucking cool these books are so far. Holy shit...

Ok please don't confirm or deny my theories just yet bc I still need to finish this book and I haven't even started on the third one, but as soon as that's done i am READY for memes and discussions on all of this. Oouuuggghhhh...

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My general theory:

Matthias Nonius just killed the Sleeper and now they've pulled the mask off of her and I think my theory has just been confirmed bc her hair is red

I think?? That Gideon the First, saint of duty, had a child with the commander of Blood of Eden? (or maybe the kid is a clone, like Aloy to Elisabeth Sobeck)

And then the commander took the child (with some sinister purpose?) and crash landed on the planet of the Ninth House and promptly died

And that kid was Gideon Nav, Griddle (I will call her Griddle onwards for clarity), love of my life and the coolest badass who ever lived. And maybe Griddle didn't die from the gas as a toddler because she has some Lyctor heritage courtesy of Gideon in there?? Or maybe there's some other reason, I don't know yet.

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Griddle's dad:

I'm not really sure if Gideon is Griddle's father at all. But after Harrow saves Gideon from the incinerator, he says something about 'the baby' that must have been intended for Griddle's mother, or at the very least for the person who took her and crash-landed on the Ninth planet with her (I still don't know if those people are one and the same).

Does this all explain on some level why Gideon, saint of duty, kept trying to kill Harrow? Like, he saw some of Griddle/her mother in Harrow? Maybe he and the commander had like, a forbidden love affair between lyctor and BOE leader. I just don't knowwww

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Griddle's mom:

So I AM pretty sure that Griddle's mother is the commander? When Harrow meets Camilla and Corona and Judith on the 14th planet she had to kill, there was that portrait there in the camp, of a woman in all black (Ninth House??) with red hair (shoulder-length, which is longer than Griddle had it I think?).

The girlies were rescued by Blood of Eden, and why would they have a portrait of Griddle? A portrait of her clone/mother would make more sense, if she was indeed their well-respected commander. And it must've looked like Griddle enough for Harrow to experience some of that bleeding that occurred every time she almost thought about what had ACTUALLY happened.

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BOE/Mercy:

Also, how did the lyctors/the Emperor/the First House get Ianthe and Harrow off Canaan after they killed Cytherea, but they couldn't find the other bodies/survivors? Who was there first, they or BOE? It seems strange that BOE would ignore two unconscious lyctors, and it seems strange that the Emperor would deliberately not bring the others. Weird

So BOE has the girlies, and then I assume they also had Griddle's corpse? And Mercy said she saw it, so then she must be in league with BOE, which makes her the traitor.

And Mercy also said that she did not check Griddle's eyes. So I guess she already KNEW someone with those eyes. The commander? Clearly, Mercy thinks that Griddle being the soul that Harrow absorbed is a PROBLEM, so then what is it about Griddle/her heritage that is dangerous to Mercy's/maybe BOE's plans?

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The Body/Anastasia:

OUGH okay. How does The Body play into this? The Emperor at least claimed not to know of its existence. Is The Body truly all a product of Harrow's imagination, or did someone build an extra tomb within the tomb for some reason or other? Who, then? It must've been quite a powerful necromancer to get through all of those wards...

And who IS The Body. Why is she chained up there. She seems to be generally helping Harrow, but I'm not sure why...

And how is Anastasia Lee connected here? I don't know enough to put those puzzle pieces in the right place yet. She's so mysterious... Is she The Body? Did one of the Lyctors put here to rest in that fake, second tomb? If so, why did they put all those chains on her.... did she do something really awful, and so they locked her away? But the Emperor doesn't seem to know about The Body, so then it was kept a secret. Why?

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Cytherea:

And Cytherea... It doesn't seem like dying to Harrow and Griddle's combined efforts actually killed her. Did she resurrect herself, or did someone else do it? What's her goal? She wanted to lure the Emperor back into the solar system, right, with the goal to destroy him and the Nine Houses? But why?

And how does trying to burn Gideon in the incinerator help her, there (revenge for the kissing? Or to protect Harrow/Griddle?)... and why did she blast Mercy with a shotgun... did she recognize Griddle's eyes right then, and just wanted to help her out? What's she up to, now?

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So what now:

Okay so. They just killed the Sleeper in Harrow's River-bubble, but Abigail said she's also anchored to some physical object. The longsword? I just don't knowwwww. I assume there's gonna be some epic fight to destroy that object/the sleeper IRL, too.

And will Griddle and Harrow be able to actually interact now that the temporal-lobe-meddling is over? Can they take turns in the driver's seat so to speak, and write letters to each other? Can Harrow somehow coax Griddle's soul back into her corpse, if it still exists/if BOE still has it? Can they meld into one being?

Oooouuuugggghhhhh I'm LOVING these books. And now I'm gonna eat lunch and continue reading...

[risto-licious]

and some more art of today! featuring digimon's beelzemon and teen titans starfire!

[mentallygill]

I’m gonna draw some bo and gater content but this is what first came to my brain and I thought everyone should know before I delete it

[floral-necromaniac]

“ONWARDS!”

Commission of nebnii’s adorable asura riding on a white duck!

[kaiko127]

Watch this video on Twitch Live

Going live now!!!!! If it hasn't worked you can find me here! 

[maggamaggamagga]

i banned myself from twitter bc I was just scrolling and not doing anything. so now you have to suffer me thinking out loud here whoops 

I don’t know, I’m thinking a lot about my place in things, especially because I can’t protest without exposing very high-risk ppl to COVID and like, how worried I am about kids I’ve worked with-- did I do enough? Have I couched my teaching ethos enough in abolition, revolution, self-empowerment, empathy for others enough while not making kiddos have to suffer stuff they’re not ready to? (retraumatize them?) I think a lot about “____ joy;” I’ve started to recently understand how nourishing ‘queer joy’ and ‘asian joy’ and ‘mixed-race joy’ are with the changes to my life, the stronger identity i’ve forged, and the people I connect with now, but I’m still not sure how to make it so that I can enable that for people whose marginalizations don’t intersect with mine. 

I like, know in my gut that my place in all this is as an artist and teacher that makes sure this all sticks, especially with privileged people, and that I share my privileges & accessibility to those who didn’t have the same. But I’m questioning myself especially because like.......impostor syndrome, I guess. Feeling like I steal more space that should go to others, like it takes me some time to remember ‘wait, all these shitty people I don’t like who are in comics and illustration...........are THEY a better person than me to own space?’ 

Idk, it’s tough, especially when I see how the dynamic at home, both in how the white sides of my family have silenced & demanded subservience from the Thai ones (and unintentionally -- they do this only by existing in the privilege and unconscientious way of life they know). And how that plus generational trauma and abuse and How Shit Works have convinced me I’m less worthy than others for the career I want, that I shoot for less, that I spend so much time working on “proving” I’m enough before I go out there and seize the space I KNOW I want to leverage for good, that I demonstrably CAN over some of the absolute shitheels in the industry. 

 I think some of me teaches from having somewhat healed from that already, though. I’m proud of how hard I worked to become someone who teaches with the style I do, where I wholeheartedly believe every kid is brilliant and just needs the right techniques, care, subjects, and support to excel. But I don’t know, you know, there’s all those fears of ‘did I fuck this up for someone? did I fail this kid bc of this one time I did ____ ?’ What more can I do to empower my black students specifically, celebrate the diversity in the african and carribean diaspora as much as I’ve been able to with the asian diaspora? (and I still think of my approach to asian diaspora as very flawed....at least that’s kind of comforting, that even in my “home” subject/experience I cut my teeth on teaching and storytelling with, I still feel like I have a ton to learn and improve? Like, inherently, that desire means I’m on the right path, that I won’t settle for a mediocre job for any of my students or my artwork or my place in all this....) 

I’m all over the place. It’s tough pulling my focus together right now, as I’m sure it is for most folks, and I thought hammering something out here might help (esp while I make space from Twitter until I beat some deadlines and catch up on work). 

I probably should go back to the comic I was in the middle of inking -- even if it’s just a granblue fancomic and doesn’t directly comment on stuff right now, it’s still the first comic I’ve made in...god, two fucking years, and the first one I’ve written in three? (ugh...) But it DOES speak to ideas and sentiments I think are important that are still relevant. And if churning out another charity shirt design isn’t working, why force it? This is a better plan.......especially since it’s easier to leap in and out of when I need to work on curriculum prep for the class at the end of the month. 

but first i should probably install the air conditioner hose so I don’t melt like an ice cube. 

[pie-rxmancer]

Day 2: much nicer weather today! We just got back from swimming & now we're heading out to a "dinosaur adventure park". I've seen Jurassic Park at least 6 times so if I stop blogging at all just assume I've been eaten or attacked by a very angry dinosaur.