#John hasn't built anything to outlast himself and he doesn't think of the future at all

[mayasaura]

I just want to talk about the nursery being painted and the purpose of the Tomb to be without a door. Anastasia had a family - and putting to the side the pact with Alecto there's some implicit symbolism to John asking for the workers of the Ninth to die constructing the Tomb with that image of new life. (Still can't articulate my disbelief that he went and didn't think that asking Anastasia of all people, The one who lost her cavalier to him, would have problems)

Yeah. Especially finding this out about the Ninth, where nurseries becoming tombs is a thing we're sensitive about.

On one level we've always known Anastasia had a family. Like, we know she's Harrow's direct ancestor. You can't be heir to the line of someone who never had children. But the nursery.... Yeah. It really hammers it in. Her friends painted a nursery mint green for her children.

And now it's a tomb.

#that's what the Anastasian is now after all #you're right there's really Something there #I've noticed something in John I think ties into this thematically that I really hope Kiriona is going to help us explore #John doesn't believe in a future #I said in my last Anastasia meta that Anastasia outsmarted John by making herself immortal in a way he couldn't understand #she left behind something she created to outlast her #John hasn't built anything to outlast himself and he doesn't think of the future at all #he mourns the past and fights like hell to live in an eternal present where nothing ever ends #you know #immortality #and a part of that—maybe most of that—is about despair #even way back before the world ended even before he had magic powers he didn't think of a future #I think he couldn't imagine one #and like. I get it dude #don't imagine the future and maybe it can't hurt you #how many people have you heard saying they don't want children because it seems cruel or irresponsible #they can't imagine forcing someone to live in the world they see coming #climate anxiety is fucking everywhere and for a lot of people in our generation—John's generation—it's coalesced into despair #but Anastasia did imagine a future #she had a family #and now John has a daughter but he still can't imagine a future for her #she's just as dead and eternal as the world he loved so deeply he killed it rather than watch it die #what did Gideon say when she saw the First? it had the look of a picked-over body but hot damn what a beautiful corpse #that's gonna be you baby girl #the final expression of the art of the nine houses #John gave up on hope ages ago #so it doesn't really surprise me at all that he still asked the builders to die in the tomb #the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #nona the ninth