genre fiction deserves critical analysis

excessive analysis that maybe like 4 other people care about, but I'm gonna scream with those 4 other people

[oldsgie-deactivated20260302]

Finally figured out how to permanently disable google assistant on phone

[astronomicpopcorn]

You can't just post this and not tell us how man

[oldsgie-deactivated20260302]

Instead of being in settings its in the google app. Also, google, not chrome. Icon is a G, not the circle thing. Click on your pfp to open a menu

From there, go Settings > Gemini > Digital Assistants > Switch to Google Assistant. This disables Gemini, google's AI assistant, and switches you back to the old one. We aren't done yet.

Go back to Settings. From there, we go Settings > Google Assistant > scroll to find General > Google Assitant on/off > turn it off

They really tried their best to make it a pain, but you can eventually disable it. Holding the power button on your phone still pulls up a menu and asks you to turn it back on, but this is the least intrusive you can make it.

Applies to all non-apple phones afaik. For sure Samsungs and Pixels but idrk about others

Edit: thank you my friend @/teeth-kid for confirming that this also works on Motorola

[parrhesiac]

I thank you, my wife thanks you, and as for the reblog chain, that goes without saying.

[cowboythethird]

harrowhark “my whole existence is the result of 200 dead children, i am the product of sacrifice and have to live with the guilt of that everyday. i am in love with a corpse and i puppet my dead parents around so i am not alone. i cannot take another loss” nonagesimus

gideon “i gave my life for you and you didnt even want it, even worse you refuse to accept it, wasting my sacrifice. you lobotomized yourself to forget everything i did for you—you refuse to embrace the life i have provided you over and over again, and now im stuck as a reanimated corpse” nav

and

coronabeth “i am sick with heartbreak and jealousy that you didnt murder and consume me, your other half, refusing to let me join you on your journey forwards, instead giving that honor to some dick they assigned us. I am dejected and maimed” tridentarius

ianthe “you are the last person i would kill—i would kill myself first without hesitation rather than lay a finger on you. i cannot live without you and i could not live myself if i was the one who removed you from this world” tridentarius

[coffincoitus]

the problem with found family as a concept is that ppl who are into it aren't open to the fact that family is built on power dynamics, weirdness and often abuse. you can't have grown ppl going like "you're like a mother to me" and say it was very normal and that we shouldn't call freud

[thanergetic-hyperlinks]

This is what the Locked Tomb series explores so well. Nona the Ninth takes the concept of a found family, gives us a beautiful but messed up example in Nona/Cam/Pal/Pyrrha, and juxtaposes it with the previous book's depiction of God Emperor's lyctoral household, which (as expected from a court of superpowered immortal rulers) is cult-like and rife with abusive dynamics.

But more than anything, I keep thinking about the scene in Nona where Pyrrha (who wants to be a parent more than anything) sees for the first time the body of her ex-lover's child, which she once thought she had fathered:

Nona felt vaguely hurt and envious. She didn’t have a mother for Pyrrha to have punched out an airlock. Nor had Pyrrha ever looked at her the way she now looked at the dead corpse with red hair—a kind of soft, guarded want; a hunger—a living desire to take the corpse in her arms like Kevin’s wanting desire with his dolls. To own, to squeeze, to cosset and destroy.

It's such a beautiful depiction of the complicated and scary emotions involved in parenthood. Tamsyn Muir depicts family both as a potentially redemptive environment (Harrowhark's body getting the loving childhood that Gideon and Harrow never got) and as a structure that facilitates violence—sometimes even in the same household, because ultimately these are all-too-human emotions. We all negotiate daily with our desires, our better natures, and the demands made by our wounds.

[chaos-has-theories]

the amount of times I have almost misspelled "the locked tomb" as "the licked tomb" is approaching truly ridiculous heights. HOWEVER. Listen.

[chaos-has-theories]

my nam is hark, of house of nine, i guard the grave of deth diviyne. but when the nuns are in their room- i creep about. i lik the tomb.

[shpjarkley]

The Best Prose Writer of the 21st Century Is Writing About Space Lesbians

I don't think I have ever read an author as fearless as Tamsyn Muir. If I have, they have never had the talent to pull off what she does. Her imagery is synesthetic, her syntax is Arachnean, her sentences are dissonant like a maestro's symphony. She's Michael Chabon in one line and Douglas Adams in the next. She's Poe and she's Pukicho. She's the new Shakespeare, complete with sex jokes and pop culture references. The absurdity that her byzantine grammar and archaic language are as parsable as they are visceral is only matched by the absurdity of successfully landing emotional beats that are punctuated by memes (my Alecto prediction is that I will be left sobbing by a sentence that contains "ligma balls").

Muir uses the English language for everything it's worth, reinvents it as a self-aware mosaic of literary history that stretches from antiquity to twenty-first century slang. She has to. The enormity of human love and grief is too vast to be contained within all the languages of the world, let alone one. The praxis of The Locked Tomb mirrors that of Catch-22, for they are united in their foundational tenet: Every atom in the universe put together cannot hold the pain that a single human soul can. Thus time, reality, language - those inadequate vessels of our sorrows - are bent and warped by the gravitational pull of a broken heart. To say it in Muir's own words: "Of such banality was grief made."

[bloedgetuige]

love in nona the ninth

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

no but that scene where kid Tris bluntly but PRIVATELY reveals to Briar that she KNOWS he can't read- she's known all along-

how he waits for everyone else to start doing their chores for the day before starting on whatever's left, instead of just checking the board where it all gets written up-

she never poked at that

never used it against him. even back when they didn't LIKE each other- him a kid from the streets and her from a merchant family, social oil and water, all their scuffs and tiffs. her temper is hot and her words are sharp

Tris never. not once. mocked him for not being able to read. didn't even mention it

and she noticed. this before the four of them all really grow into being foster siblings, back when they're just four traumatized and thrown away kids plopped down into a cottage with two women who weirdly enough won't stop caring about them-

even back then, prickly Tris paid attention

the offer to teach him comes later- in private- she is NOT embarrassing him in front of anyone else when she talks about it. it's after the four survived almost dying together, a quiet moment alone, when she finally mentions she could help if he wanted

he does. instantly- and it's not hard to see why he's so comfortable with saying yes, now. he wouldn't let on to anyone else, their teachers and guardians, but Tris saw and kept quiet and is asking him

her urge is to share this thing that'd given her so much comfort and strength with someone else who doesn't have that yet. and to do it just for him, no one else to see, just his thing to study with her, something she's happy to make time for

then years later, they are the family bookworms together. sister and brother with more academic interests than their other two siblings. they reconnect so quietly and easily even though they both are maybe the hardest to get along with in general, the sharpest and most likely to snap and lash out. but Tris taught Briar to read without making him feel stupid about it. he grew up and taught HIS student to read, using a lot of the same tricks Tris had used on him

i dunno. it gets to me, is all

[thelockedtome]

Naberious goes from being a jerkwad who makes it everyone else's problem to having his voice silenced by Ianthe in the lyctoral process.

In this essay I will explore how the lyctoral process is an allegory for abusive relationships and how one partner consumed the other...

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

I FEEL SO STRONGLY ABOUT THE CHAMBER'S REACTION TO KEL OK

kel is the lump, a stone, the calm surface of a lake- but ONLY on the outside- ONLY to make dealing with people work better

the chamber hammers your weak spots trying to make you BREAK, but KEL, WENT TO THE CHAMBER, AGAIN AND AGAIN, she GREW AROUND it like a TREE

the day came when the chamber had it's chance- to strike her as HARD AS IT COULD

and

there was almost nothing left for it to even aim at

because kel had stuck HERSELF already, had BEEN hammering herself this whole time- had been TESTING herself every step of the way QUESTIONING HERSELF AND asking herself how she could be and do better next time

for the sake of those who need someone when no one sees them as people. for the sake of unwanted animals and overlooked humans- kel became her own ordeal

the chamber couldn't break Kel. SHE broke IT

so it had nothing to do, except make her an ordeal in the real world-

the nothing man, child killer, the promise she will stare evil in the face somewhere somehow, that tantalizing and USELESS knowledge burning her as she is given charge of convicts and refugees and not enough soldiers to defend them and her old desire to be like the Lioness, her inspiration, to go out there and STOP THIS SUFFERING FROM HAPPENNG HERSELF

the chamber jammed this thorn into her heart and THEN it chose to Watch Her out there

as she.... chose people. Again. chose care over glory. everyday duty over heroics. obscurity to wider world- but a friend to a small corner of the world that desperately needed someone to see them, fight for them, and not ever look away... or abandon them

the chamber saw that. it NAMED HER- didn't chose her- didn't make her- gave no gift other than pain to her

but it was glad, to have seen her

Protector. of the Small

gently burying dead sparrows and scoffing at such a silly name

[longearedhare]

Ladies WHERE is the Juno Zeta/We Suffer fanfic?? WHERE?? Y’all yap about the milves (I love Mercymorn too, don’t come for me when I say she’s definitionally not a milf) but ignore the fact that Zeta was WAYYY too interested in We Suffer’s divorce…and We Suffer calls Zeta an “extraordinary lady.”

all I’m saying is I think they would have explored each other’s bodies if given the chance! let the postmenopausal women get it on together!

[thelockedtome]

The locked tomb is truly my favorite anime

[thelockedtome]

Prince Ianthe Naberious experiences gender and body dismorphia

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

something i've been thinking about is pyrrha's herald bullet.

pyrrha has one herald bullet, stolen from wake. and there is a moment where she points it at ianthe and tells her that it isn't meant for her. a real jack sparrow moment. move aside, neither of us wants this particular bullet to end up in you.

and then she uses it anyway. she uses it on ianthe to get past her into the tomb. and i can't stop thinking about that.

it was for john, right? pyrrha had one bullet and she can only have been saving it to, at a crucial moment, incapacitate john.

and pyrrha picked nona. like, yeah, you could argue that opening the tomb is more useful to killing john in the long run, but is it really? that "death of the emperor" stuff is mostly a lie. pyrrha knows that. pyrrha of all people knows it's not as simple as "open the tomb, the emperor dies."

and yet she wastes the bullet on ianthe, with no fanfare. fuck it, fuck john, fuck revenge, fuck any plans she might've had. she's gotta save nona. and if that pasty bitch is gonna stand between her and her nono's best shot at survival, then there's no question about it. no hesitation.

and isn't that what all this is about, in the end? pyrrha - jaded, angry, cynical pyrrha - forfeits personal revenge because nona needs help, and she can't waste time.

i'm having feelings about it.

[abhorsenkatiel]

My opinion on the 'would modern au Harrow be goth or Catholic' debate is that she would be both and it would throw everyone off. She goes equally hard on both of those things and no one knows what to do about it.

[abhorsenkatiel]

@cat-lady-in-space Omg these tags 😂

Harrow has no friends so she treats confessional like she's venting with her besties.

The priest secretly hates her because she comes up to him after every mass with intense questions about the philosophical implications of the most obscure bits of scripture that he can't even fully remember. She tries to not be insubordinate but can't quite keep the condescension out of her tone.

When Gideon's been hanging around for long enough she starts venting to her about what an idiot the priest is that he can't even answer these simple questions.

Gideon suggests that she should just lead her own services if she knows so much more and Harrow, completely horrified, hisses at her "Don't you know that would get me excommunicated??" and storms off to her room for the rest of the day to perform some sort of weird penance ritual she made up for herself.

After 20 minutes Gideon realizes she's not coming back out and leaves.

[racefortheironthrone]

So this gets at something that doesn’t often get discussed in the Locked Tomb fandom: imo, the Ninth House is very much inspired by/a statement about Marianism in the Catholic tradition. See, officially the Catholic Church generally accepts and encourages the veneration of Mary, above and beyond that of other saints. However, it’s always been quite leery about this veneration shading over into the territory of “Mariolatry” (worship of Mary as a goddess), especially in the historical heresies of Collyridianism, and in general giving women too many ideas. (Notably, a lot of Protestant theologians were not happy with Catholic Marianism, seeing it as idolatry.)

This brings us to Harrow and the Ninth. The Ninth in general is highly Marian-coded; they’re not considered heretical by anyone but the Eighth, they don’t think of themselves as heretical, as far as they’re concerned, they are a devout monastic society living in obedient service to a divine commandment. But Harrow is a heretic: she did the forbidden thing her family was charged to make sure was never done, and she has already transferred not just her veneration but her adoration to the Body by the time the series begins. She is, in this analogy, a Collyridianist.

And then Nona the Ninth comes around, and she goes a step further:

“I want to understand why she was angry—I want to understand the mathematics, now that I have seen them for myself. I want to know how many of the Resurrection are left, and how many you began with, and what the discrepancies are. I want to know where you put them. They didn’t go into the River. I want to know why she was angry … and why you were terrified.”

She looked away from him, and she said: “I want to journey to find God. Maybe, at the end of that road, I will find God in you, Teacher … the God who became man and the man who became God. Or, perhaps, the child of the Nine Houses will recognise a different divine. But I am the Reverend Daughter—I am the Reverend Mother, the Reverend Father—I must find God, or some aspect of God, and understand it for myself … even if she lies, right now, within the Tomb.”

Harrow’s conclusion is that John is probably not God, but that Alecto probably is, which is just the kind of thing that the early Church was worried about when they said Collyridianism was a form of Ishtar-worship.

[racefortheironthrone]

#I LOVE THIS#harrowhark nonagesimus#the locked tomb#catholicism#i had never heard of collyridianism before#so that's interesting#the confession thing is so real

It's a very obscure heresy from the 4th century, which I know about only because I took a course on the Late Roman Empire where the professor insisted we learn every single heresy in the Late Roman Empire and how they related to surviving syncretic traditions (for example, there's a reason why Marianism was very popular in Egypt, and why the Virgin Mary's iconography is very similar to that of the goddess Isis) and their impact on the politics of the Late Roman Empire.

So I know my homoiousios vs. homoousios, and my monophysite vs. dyophysite, and my monothelite vs. dyothelite, and how it all led to the Arab caliphates getting a decent navy and winning the Battle of the Masts.

[valiantponds]

[ID: Image 1: tags that say: “#modern au where harrow goes to confessional and unloads all of her frustration about the idiot dyke's latest antics #priest panics having never heard such gay shit in their entire life #but is legitimately confused because harrow has yet to say a single thing she needs forgiveness for #figures the best way to go is to prescribe several hail marys #but becomes increasingly concerned harrow is actually in love with the virgin mary as well”

Image 2: tags that say: “#the locked tomb #harrowhark nonagesimus #tlt modern au #sorry your tags activated the headcanon factory #love the idea of harrow being the most devout but also the most problematic member of the congregation #this girl is high-key neurodivergent and catholicism is her special interest as well as her religion #and she has negative social skills #shes trying so so hard not to be a heretic but unfortunately it just comes naturally to her”. End ID]

[saintofblah]

"ianthe ate naberius instead of corona because he's the better swordsman"

that's what she wants you think. that's what she wants corona to think. that's what she wants everyone to think. whether it's true or not isn't even relevant to her. she just won't live in a world where corona isn't by her side. but she probably thinks that level of emotional attachment would be perceived as weak. by others. hell, she probably thinks it is weak herself. so she rather just lie to everyone and herself and make up a logical explanation as to why she would sooner backstab naberius than take the willing cavalier.

people who say she's a maniacal control freak who cares only about herself and how to seize power? almost correct. mostly correct. but not quite.

i just don't understand why someone who cares only about themselves would willingly live under a lie that is barely beneficial to them. and would have committed to it for the rest of their lives if the lyctor trials were never introduced, which was definitely a surprise to everyone, as there weren't new lyctors for thousands of years. UNLESS. she just cared for corona that much.

[inkdragon1900]

Based on what Tamsyn Muir said about Alecto “hopefully” being the last book. I wish I could tell her directly “Do it. If the story needs to be longer do it. Hell make an entire book about the Harrow Nova au cause it ties into some later arc. Take up space. Dominate the genre.So many male writers make 5-8 books about some fantasy/Sci-fi world cause they feel like they have the audience’s attention to do so. And to be completely honest Tamsyn Muir has my attention like no other. Like yes girl make me read 3 more books consisting of 500-600 pages. I am sat.

[wifegideonnav]

god i wish there was a way for the fandom to collectively let tamsyn know that it’s okay if alecto is 800 pages, really,