thewhitefluffyhat

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Welp… given everything that's been going down over the past few weeks, I'm strongly reconsidering my plans to make a side tumblr in the future!

Unfortunately, there's nothing to be done about the data from this blog that's already been scraped and shoved into AIs, so I'm not currently planning to delete it. (You'd better bet I immediately flipped that setting to opt-out, though.)

But what's the point in starting a new blog when the whole site is going down the drain?

Right now, what I'm debating is if I want to go through the hundreds of links to fandom analysis, Locked Tomb art, and other stuff I never got around to reblogging, and just spend a day or two mass reblogging it all before doing one final backup. If I do end up doing that, I apologize in advance for the spam. I just don't have confidence that this site will be around that much longer.

Meanwhile, Twitter/X is being run into the ground, so there's no point moving there. Reddit is in the exact same situation as tumblr regarding AI, and like Twitter it's increasingly enshittifying beyond that too.

So… where is fandom going now? Fandom-specific Discords seem to be the only social spaces not currently facing an existential threat (yet). But those are extremely isolated (even from other Discords in the same fandom!), and they are completely opaque to the public. They also have vanishingly little ability to archive and look back at past works and conversations.

Everything just feels really hopeless…

#my ramblings #state of the blog #at least we have ao3 #and thank goodness for that #but ao3 is intentionally an archive and not built to be a social space

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Let's see, what else have I been up to? Oh, I've also gone ahead and started uploading the little FFXIV fic I wrote! Apparently I am now the first writer for the Krile & Fordola tag, given I had to make said tag myself, lol.

I should really get around to making that FFXIV side tumblr so I can talk more about it there rather than here. Unfortunately, when I actually sat down and made a To Do list for what else I'd like to do before that, well…

…I came to the conclusion it’s probably going to take a while. XD

(The "Alice" here is my main, and "Fordola" in this case is my NPC cosplay alt. "Midsummer Night’s Dream" is a friend's project to put on an in-game play. There are just so many things to do in FFXIV, and only half the stuff on here is actually the intended game!)

#my ramblings #state of the blog #ffxiv #silly

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Whew! Finally went through all my TLT fic links and updated my AO3 bookmarks! 

Usually it only takes me an evening to do this for a fandom, but here it took weeks because this ended up being 150+ fics! All pre-Nona, unfortunately, because I just haven’t had the chance to catch up with more recent works.

I was also debating adding notes to each bookmark, because I do actually keep short blurbs alongside each link in my original list document. Though… not all of those blurbs are purely complementary... they’re what I wrote to remind myself what made each fic worth recommending and re-reading. So it feels like it would be presumptuous to post that kind of thing openly, especially when I’d be commenting on writers so much more talented than me. And when I don’t have the time or energy yet to go through and properly comment on each fic. ;-;

Maybe one day…

#my ramblings #state of the blog #the locked tomb

[thewhitefluffyhat]

State of the Blog 01.01.24

Oof, so much for my New Year’s Resolution last year to write a bunch of TLT fic…! ^^;

Honestly, it feels weird to realize that’s what I was thinking about last December, when most of what I actually ended up doing this year was completely different!

For those curious as to where I’ve been - I’ve been totally fine, just hanging out on both a different platform (Discord) and in a different fandom (guess who got really into FFXIV, haha).

Thankfully, it's not like TLT disappointed me in any way like WTC or Magia Record - what happened was just that the community I found on the FFXIV server I joined was unexpectedly close-knit and friendly. Turns out it's a lot easier to keep posting and engaging with something when you have a group of people you know to talk about it with!

Still, I do suspect that I might get sucked back into TLT once Alecto comes out (and/or… maybe a little PMMM once that Rebellion sequel finally materializes?), so I’m not planning to suddenly swerve this blog into yet another new obsession. Rather, I’m finally starting to see the appeal of a side blog. More to come on that if and when I actually get around to making it…

But before that, my current priority is to catch up my AO3 account. Actually bookmark fics I’ve been meaning to, maybe upload those early TLT mini-fics I posted here. And once I get it beta read, start publishing the FFXIV fic I’ve been busy writing!

(It’s a 13k word character study on Krile and Fordola, because I might have changed fandoms but "local teenage girl actually incredibly fucked up science project (also featuring: mind screw POV)" is, apparently, still my preferred flavor of blorbo.)

#my ramblings #state of the blog #fanfic #90% of the thought that went into this post #was diverted into realizing you can describe both harrow and fordola as 'walking war crimes' #and for pretty much the exact same crime huh #the locked tomb #ffxiv

[thewhitefluffyhat]

her serene highness 👑👑

#the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #harrowhark nonagesimus #griddlehark #fanart #smiling but also crying at the same time

[thewhitefluffyhat]

It’s fun to theorize about what Gideon may or may not have lost to Harrow in becoming Kiriona, but I’m also interested in another question. What did Harrow gain?

Because here’s an idea: what if the part of Gideon that Harrow ate was Gideon’s extreme regeneration ability rather than anything to do with Gideon’s personality?

Like, we know that this better-than-Lyctor healing isn’t from Nona’s soul hitching a ride, because Harrow didn’t have it while it was just her and the Body (and because Gideon-in-Harrow at the end of HtN did have it - those regrowing thumbs! - before Nona fully possessed Harrow). So the ability must have come from Gideon. 

It’s also implied from the Avulsion trial that Gideon was able to heal things like fatal brain injuries while alive. The fact that Gideon’s body didn’t spontaneously start regrowing its missing pieces, even when reunited with her soul, suggests to me that either John interfered or Gideon no longer has that ability and it’s incorporated into Harrow now.

(Or it could just be that Gideon’s ability can’t cause a dead body to heal, only a living one… but John can clearly do both, so...)

Another possible supporting detail: Nona left Harrow’s body in an awful state. Her limbs falling off, her major organs failing. But once Harrow wakes up in her body again, she’s exhausted but perfectly able to speak and even stand without outside healing. Alecto describes her as starving and dehydrated, but not, like, about to come apart at the seams. So Harrow may still have this extreme healing ability, despite no longer being in possession of most of Gideon’s soul and not having gone far enough in the Lyctoral process to even change her eye color at the end of NtN. Very interesting.

But even more than the plausibility angle, what really draws me to this theory is the lovely symbolism. The part that Harrow ate from Gideon - the gift that Gideon bestowed on her that can never be taken back - is the gift of healing and regrowth.

After all, in the last moments before Harrow became a Lyctor, the most important thing on her mind was whether she had truly repaired her relationship with Gideon. And Gideon reassured Harrow, a second time, that yes, she forgave her.

I’d also posit that one read of Harrow’s arc in GtN is that Harrow’s life until she reconciled with Gideon was an entirely downward spiral of pain and trauma. And Gideon’s forgiveness was the first moment where Harrow was able to let go and move past that trauma in a positive way.

So Harrow integrating Gideon’s regeneration into her soul is that character development made literal, physical, and indelible. 

Gideon’s selflessness is what gave Harrow the ability to heal.

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #kiriona gaia #ntn spoilers #tlt analysis #my tlt stuff #my ramblings #ALSO #this goes really well with the idea that AtN #will involve Harrow giving Gideon something of herself in return #what could it be? #regardless the symbolic potential is though the roof!

[thewhitefluffyhat]

spoke to her in her first language

#the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #harrowhark nonagesimus #griddlehark #fanart

[thewhitefluffyhat]

#gideon could heal as she is now apart from Harrow   #given time and getting away from her new terrible home life   #pyrrha lost a lot more of herself and will always have that hole but she's healed around it the way people do  #she's fallen in love again  #more than once and in more than one way  #Gideon doesn't need that piece of her soul back to live or to heal she just needs SOMETHING back if she's going to do it with Harrow (via mayasaura again)

The series has so far been consistent in presenting a merging of souls as something that can’t be undone. The part of Gideon that Harrow took, I don’t know if she can give it back. I don’t know if Gideon would even want her to.

Maybe I’m a romantic, but the ideal ending to me, the most satisfying conclusion, would be Harrow balancing the scale by giving a piece of her own living soul to become a part of Gideon. Not Gideon’s heart returned, but Harrow’s heart in return. We’ve seen lyctorhood as a one-sided consumption, and we’ve seen it as a mutual consummation. We’ve still never seen it tried as a reciprocal exchange.

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #ntn spoilers #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #harrowhark nonagesimus #griddlehark #tlt analysis #yes yes yes #I love this as an idea! #and I love this as a theory!

[thewhitefluffyhat]

my blorbos (from my books)

#the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #harrowhark nonagesimus #griddlehark #fanart

[thewhitefluffyhat]

first flower of the ninth house

#the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #harrowhark nonagesimus #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #griddlehark #fanart #hello yes I am here for all the lovely symbolism in this #also only just now realizing #the skull paint is way more effective when harrow has her eyes closed #+the veil further obscuring her #beautiful yet quite spooky!

[thewhitefluffyhat]

@mayasaura​‘s tags:

and she was most definitely on the ground fighting   she knows at a glance whether the devil are possessing a living body or a corpse   their treck through the Ninth she's on edge and hypervigilant   she's seen some shit  possibly even worse shit than she saw in Canaan House

So... about Kiriona and why she's Like That, and what's been happening these past six months.

She hasn't just been living her worst monkey's paw life as Ianthe's chew toy and bored prince, acting as emotional support for her new dad in his dismyriad crisis. Which would all be bad enough on its own. At least half that time she's also been actively deployed. Like, in the military, in a combat zone. Probably in a command position with very little experience and exactly zero training.

From the scattered mentions we've seen of Antioch, Kiriona was most likely deployed there to quell a rebellion. No doubt a terrible experience that would have expected her to do horrible things. Then these things—the devils—turned up.

Anyone who was infected by the devils, she had to dismember them and burn the corpses. Edenites, House, and civilians. That means regular old people who had nothing to do with the fighting, and people under her command. Either they became shambling zombies with mouths for eyes, or they were mercy-killed and burned before they could be taken.

How many people did she see die? How many people did she kill, and how many of them did she consider herself responsible for?

So if we're counting the reasons Gideon might seem a little off, we might want to take into account how she took a detour though a fucking zombie apocalypse while we weren't looking. Shit.

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #ntn spoilers #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #tlt analysis #mmhm yep #in gtn just hearing about the teens going to war #is enough to give her pause #now she's actually been on the frontlines of that war #seen her childhood dream thoroughly shattered #and it's also interesting to contrast harrow here #like in htn I was struck by how #despite theoretically being trained for war #and even personally killing planets #all the planets are very monstruous #incomprehensible horrors she can't reason or communicate with #despite her claims about herself #harrow's never had to face killing another human outside of self defense #but kiriona has had to face all that and far more #...it's kind of a parallel to cam and pal #isn't it? #both went through traumatic things when separated #but very different kinds of things

[thewhitefluffyhat]

A fast, sketchy, angsty Kiriona for your needs and mine. SHE IS ALL THE THINGS ! SADDEST GIRL IN THE WORLD ! 

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #ntn spoilers #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #solo #fanart #the wounds look like they're smiling at me #i am Unnerved #good job op

[thewhitefluffyhat]

i WILL defend Kiriona being a total ass to everyone in NtN because Gideon spent her entire life just watching those damned skeletons and wishing that the bones would show her any kind of acknowledgement. and then Gideon went to Canaan House and she made her first friends ever, the first people ever to show her the kind of love and tenderness that she had needed her whole miserable life, and then she died.

and when Gideon came back, practically the first thing she learned is that her mother, who she had spent her whole life dreaming about, hated her. like, suprise!!! you weren’t just despised & hated after birth, but also before and during!! her mother thought of her as a parasite and a bomb. just a key to a lock that Gideon had never given a shit about.

and THEN!!! Gideon gets swept off in the River and she comes back as a corpse and the first time she sees her friends again, the first friends she ever had, all they can talk about is using her body – not even her as a person, just her meat and blood – for the same end as her mother wanted. just a key for the lock on that same damn door. like, yeah, Cam & Pal & crew thought she was gone and they wouldnt have any way to know that her soul was there. but also, their first words in her earshot were about using her and the first thing they did to her was try and violate her corpse. so basically. Kiriona deserves to have her villian era.

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #ntn spoilers #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #tlt analysis #absolutely this! #I mean I love characters having a villain era in general #but also like #gideon has been through a Lot #and it all just gets worse the more you think about it! #she can have a villain era #also hopefully hugs and as many desserts as she can eat

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Babygirl your evil identify crisis and rockin dead bod have bewitched me body and soul. Now let me please know what the Fuck went wrong w u off screen

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #ntn spoilers #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #solo #fanart #mega dead #but still got mega swag

[thewhitefluffyhat]

You know, it was a very interesting perspective change to see Gideon from the outside. This was literally the first time we’ve ever had scenes with Gideon where we’re not hearing her internal thoughts, and it really changes her character.

Like, I know Muir consistently described Gideon as a “dirt bag” in tumblr posts and interviews when the first book came out.

And this is someone who kicked Harrow when she fainted rather than catching her; this is someone who, when carrying an unconscious Harrow intentionally bumped her into walls and doorways in the hopes that she’d wake up with mysterious bruises on her head or maybe even a concussion. But, you know, we heard her internal narrative at that time, we heard about how she was holding back from doing worse, but also about how she’d been so consistently abused that maybe this was all justice anyway.

But we saw her grow and change, we saw her be kind to Harrow at the end (…and then not), we saw her stop hating on the teens and actually care when they died. Corona liked her (Corona pretty much never heard her speak), Magnus liked her (Magnus literally never heard her speak), Jeannemary liked her (Jeannemary was a teen looking for a role model and would have latched on to her no matter what her personality). So when she came back and never had a good thing to say to anyone at the end of the second book, we were all rooting for her anyway–she was awesome and they all deserved her wrath and her snark, because we’d been in her head for two books.

And now we have… she’s rude to Nona, because Nona is possessing Harrow’s body, and because Nona kissed her based on her body-language reaction to thinking she was seeing Harrow. If it were Gideon’s narrative still, we’d be told how well and truly justified she is, how sketchy and even villainous Nona is; but it’s Nona’s narrative so instead we hear about how rude Gideon is in her body language, not even her conscious choice of words.

We have, she’s about to give Paul her jacket but gets awkward and doesn’t. Nona sees her fail to help; in Gideon’s narrative her instinct was to help but she just felt too awkward.

We have, she says the same rude jokes to everyone that she did in the first two books, but even though Pal and Cam are still putting up with that, even though Ianthe still thinks she’s funny, we’re getting it from Nona’s perspective and Nona doesn’t like her and so doesn’t like her rude jokes.

Ianthe actually does like her, and it’s not clear whether that’s a point in her favor or not.

It’s the same Gideon through and through, she even gets mad at Alecto usurping her place in service to Harrow. But what a difference an uncharitable reading makes.

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #ntn spoilers #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #tlt analysis #fave #this this THIS #the way this series uses POV is really interesting #every one of the narrators is biased and has a very distinct voice #and this is another perfect example of it #like comparing kiriona and gideon's actions #there's very little about kiriona that seems like something gideon wouldn't do #and conversely #if you go back and look at gtn from outside gideon's POV #she can come off pretty differently! #her inner monologue in gtn #is such a huge part of what endears her to the reader! #to the point that I personally think #even trying to adapt just gtn to a fully visual medium #would be a very very difficult task #like a movie!gideon #would probably provoke similar reactions to kiriona in ntn!

[thewhitefluffyhat]

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #ntn spoilers #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #solo #fanart #really love this pose of her #fancy uniform yet gideon's casual body language

[thewhitefluffyhat]

now that i've finished nona the ninth and had a sleep, i think i realized it may actually be the saddest book in the locked tomb so far. because up until this point there's been one constant holding everything together and keeping us going when it got rough -

gideon's point of view. because the last two books were told from her perspective, she's been able to control the narrative. and when we lose that we are exposed to the hard truth of what's going on with gideon, and that truth is that she is fundamentally not doing well.

in her pov she cracks jokes through the hard times, holds it in and holds it together because she has to keep pushing on, not only for harrow's sake but her own. and we see gideon as the crown prince doing that too - if we got kiriona's pov i imagine we'd be getting the same amount of snarky internal dialogue to cover up what she was really feeling. but because nona can see right through her, we get to the truth, which is that gideon is truly, deeply sad, the saddest person in the whole universe.

and i think this is where some of the debate about kiriona (which i haven't really found tbh but i've been seeing stuff here and there) comes in, because yes - kiriona is gideon. she is what happens when, as i saw someone say, gideon gets everything she ever wanted and loses the one thing she always had, giving her nothing to live for anymore. but people seeing kiriona and going "who is that, that can't be gideon, what did they do to gideon" isn't a bad or problematic response, it's the entire point. we are supposed to be completely thrown by kiriona, she's supposed to be completely unrecognizable as our gideon because that is the writing mechanism that is supposed to shock us into understanding what gideon's been going through.

kiriona is what happens when an orphan from the ninth who always pushed forward to survive finds herself in a twisted but secure environment with a parental figure for the first time and doesn't know how to keep going. kiriona is who gideon thought she always wanted to be and she's the unhappiest she's ever been. harrow said she'd be undone without gideon but kiriona is the undoing of gideon nav.

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #ntn spoilers #gideon nav #kiriona gaia #tlt analysis #oh this is a really good reading! #very agree!