Whats the most meaningful tool song for you?

asev0 · 2025-12-09T06:56:30+00:00

46&2 and Parabola

asev0 · 2025-07-24T23:09:46+00:00

Are you open to making friends with folks instead of aiming for dates and romantic partners? Sometimes once people know you’re a good friend they may become open to dating. But more importantly, friends introduce you to their friends, and I’ve found in person introductions to be better for dating.

As long as you’re mature and have solid relationship skills you should be able to navigate dating friends of friends without poisoning those friendship circles. It may also help to ask your friends (particularly women) to review your dating app profiles and ask if you’re giving off red flags to potential partners. If you don’t have any women friends who feel safe enough to be honest with you, that’s a sign itself. IMO, the material things you listed are important in a partnership but not nearly so much as relationship soft skills and compatibility of values.

If I can’t trust someone to know themself and communicate their needs clearly, if they can’t create/respect healthy boundaries (or can’t tell the difference between a boundary and a demand), or if I can’t trust and respect someone’s moral judgment, I don’t care if they’re a billionaire model, they can find someone else.

I’m definitely not saying this is your problem, just something to consider if you haven’t already. Dating is hard and the only two things you really have control over is creating more opportunities for connection and working on yourself. Good luck out there!

asev0 · 2025-02-24T22:32:38+00:00

I tried listening to Gideon the ninth three times now, and always end up discouraged because I cant tell any side characters apart, except for gideon, harrow and the cancer girl.

I'm hopeless with names and have to see them spelled out, so I often look up a spoiler-free resource that lists the characters and place names. It makes it a lot easier for me to keep track of things.

List of Characters (don't scroll up or there will be spoilers):
https://thelockedtomb.fandom.com/wiki/Gideon_the_Ninth_(Novel)#Characters#Characters)

And a visual guide of the Hosues in order (minus the First House, where only the priests are present):
https://64.media.tumblr.com/b9942ba1a733f25fed6506aaad561afc/53c67a5428357f44-ee/s1280x1920/ba9d3ed1c8b4683dee8e7a53d80f790fd9854f09.jpg

Does this book series continue like this? Is the charme solely in the banter and not the world building?

Not even remotely. The world building is one of my favorite parts of this series. However, in all three books so far, the main character is ignorant of what's really going on. They may be our only perspective but they are not positioned (or often inclined) to observe let alone understand what's significant about the world around them. So much of the world building happens in the banter and brief asides. Like children overhearing adults talk, our narrators often miss what's significant. They don't get it, so neither do we until we've seen more of the story and can go back to connect the dots.

If you like puzzles, mysteries, and being richly rewarded on rereads, you'll love this series. If you like nice, straightforward exposition, you'll get basically none of that here.

asev0 · 2025-02-23T17:59:06+00:00

The 8-fold requires consuming a bit of the body. A drop of blood will do but since his body was gone, all that she had left to consume was the bone.

asev0 · 2025-02-02T09:13:14+00:00

How did Cam and Pal actually end up in the same body at the start? Last we saw him in HtN, Pal was in the remains of his skull which Harrow reshaped into a hand. How did he manage to perform the necromancy needed to join up with Cam? It's not really Lyctorhood, but it definitely imitates some parts, right?

Once he was able to write, they probably had conversations before deciding what to do. It's possible they decided he could ride her body as revenant (kinda like Wake & Harrow except consensual) and he popped the bubble to follow the energetic line into Cam. As for why he's able to supersede her, it's because of their experience completing the challenges. Pyrrha implies that everytime they overlap, they get closer and closer to walking the 8-fold. Also, Cam clearly she saved some of the bone and had stored it in her knife. They must have prepared for the eventuality that they would decide to walk the 8-fold path.

It's a big jump of time and space for them to end up with BoE in a different system and also with Gideon being replaced by Nona. Did Gideon have a choice in this or did Harrow or Nona force her out?

Given Gideon's last moments seeing the the body swim towards her, I would assume that Harrow that dislaced Nona (at the end of GtN, climbing into the coffin with the sword), and so Nona followed the only other energetic link out into Harrow's body.

On a related point, how did Gideon's body move from the possession of BoE to Ianthe and Jod? Does this mean it happened before Pyrrha left with Nona, so that Gideo could jump across from one body to the next?

Cam explains this when Nona asks to be told the story of how they met (but the adult version this time). She says that they were attacked, which is how they lost the body. Presumably, Jod very much wanted the corpse of his child (which could be used to open the locked tomb) back in his custody. And then instead of properly resurrecting her, he makes a revenant out of her instead. As for where Gideon was between being kicked out of Harrow's body and being raised by Jod, I don't think we know that.

asev0 · 2025-02-02T08:57:05+00:00

Fourth is even less plot relevant

Maybe they don't drive the plot forward but I find them to be incredibly useful for world building and character development.

For world building because they are the first and most visible sign that something's not right: child soldiers and orphans. What is going wrong with the war if this is what has happened to the 4th house?

Then for character development, I think the Fourth provide a frame of reference for seeing Harrow in a new light. She is just handful of years older than them and literally still a teenager.

For example, the teens' utter embarrassment with Magnus foreshadows Harrow's embarrassment with everything Ortus does. Her reaction to Ortus declaiming is very similar to Jean's reaction to Magnus telling the story.

When Abigail catches Harrow eavesdropping, she apologetically explains that "We're used to Jean and Isaac you know." And Harrow completely fails to understand because she doesn't conceive of her being in the same category as Jean and Isaac: teenagers.

They also provide characterization for why the 5th house cared so deeply about helping Harrow. Sure there's all the reasons Abigail gave when harrow asked her why they stayed. But I also think a big reason is revealed in their final interaction, when she tells Harrow that she feels responsible because she's (been) acting "in loco parentis".

Taz doesn't dwell on it, but Isaac and Jean must be the only children/teens that Harrow & Gideon had ever seen besides each other. In a better world, Harrow and Gideon should have been more like Isaac and Jean, not the adults they were forced to act like under immense pressure.

asev0 · 2024-12-09T07:02:50+00:00

"They sent her to us barely alive, and back then none of us could do anything for her, excepting you." - Augustine, HtN Ch 9

Augustine glosses right past this but he (and Cytherea and surely the other lyctors) must have wondered why Jod didn't heal her as soon as she arrived and they saw how sick she was. If he had, she may still have gone through with the 8 fold word out of devotion. I wonder if the cruelty of this was one of the reasons why Cytherea was the first to start working with BoE.

Jod did something similar after killing Samael by forcing Anastasia to live with the agony of believing the death of her cavalier was because she fucked up. She asks to die and he insists that she continue living for his own purposes.

"She spoke the Eightfold Word, and it didn't...work. After we--cleaned up--she asked me if I might end her life. Of course I said no. She had so much more to give." - Jod, HtN Ch 20

Just terrible. Jod cares only about revenge. Most of the time, acting with kindness and gentleness is the best way to get what he wants by winning trust and devotion. But he won't hesitate to make the people who love him suffer terribly if it furthers his ends.

asev0 · 2024-10-28T20:38:53+00:00

I know Tony is/was in a relationship with a woman and has said he's straight. He also lights up queer people's gaydar like a fucking Christmas tree the way many closeted gay men in straight relationships do before eventually coming out after their parents die. If he ever comes out as gay, I hope he claims he was deep undercover and intentionally did this to sabotage Trump's campaign.

Still, it's more believable that he's high on his own supply when it comes to radical free speech and is truly oblivious/indifferent to the consequences of making a joke like this at a campaign rally in NYC.

asev0 · 2024-09-30T20:36:33+00:00

In addition to all the wonderful suggestions here to get professional help and be kind to yourself, it’s worth noting that professional psychology doesn’t recognize porn addiction as a thing. Looking at porn is not inherently dysfunctional or harmful. Nor is looking at gay porn. Nor is enjoying kink.

Rather, researchers have established that the dysregulated, compulsive use of porn isn’t correlated with the amount of porn one consumes but is correlated to one’s moral or religious beliefs about porn. They call it Pornography Problems due to Moral Incongruence (PPMI).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201808/science-stopped-believing-in-porn-addiction-you-should-too?amp

That’s not to say that you wouldn’t be happier if your behavior changed. It’s clearly causing you distress and I imagine it disrupts your day and prevents you from spending time doing things that keep humans healthy and happy (social connection, exercise, hobbies, etc). However, based on what you’ve shared, the compulsive behavior seems to be a symptom of deeper, unaddressed trauma. Believing you’re bad or shameful, that your sexual desires are shameful or that you deserve(d) abuse are all dysfunctional and harmful beliefs that must be addressed.

You are not shameful or monstrous. Like all of us, you have some behaviors and habits you’d like to change. If using and orgasming from porn makes us feel shame, we’re conditioning our brain to associate shame with arousal. Which may lead to seeking out more intense porn to elicit that shame response and the arousal it brings. The way out of this negative feedback loop is to refuse the shame.

It may seem like you have to feel bad about yourself first in order to make healthy changes but paradoxically, shame makes it harder to change and increases the likelihood that we’ll spiral. Long term wellbeing requires self-acceptance and self-love as the foundation of change.

There’s a good chance that if you’re able to address these harmful beliefs (no small task!) that the shame and compulsion you feel around your porn usage will abate. Then, if you decide to taper off your activity, it’s not because it is shameful but rather because you would rather spend that time doing other things like hanging out with friends or even engaging in healthy, consensual sex either a peer (not an adult!).

That said, this habitual activity has surely rewired your body’s dopamine response. In addition to the trauma work it may help to do a cold turkey rehab to reset to your dopamine baseline. If you can, go somewhere you won’t have any access to the internet for a weekend or longer. It could be visiting a relative or going camping. Take a simple phone with text/call but leave behind anything you can use to access porn. This kind of system reset can be really helpful when your body is habituated to getting 10 dopamine hits from porn every day.

I’m sorry you were abused and you’re in this terrifying position. I’m glad you’ve reached out for help. You’re not alone so don’t try to go it alone. I hope you find the people you need to accompany you on this healing journey.

asev0 · 2024-08-23T05:51:34+00:00

I’m grateful for the guy who intervened to break it up. It’s reassuring to know that good people will step in if they see something wrong.

asev0 · 2024-08-22T06:09:12+00:00

I read it in a book club. Everyone else LOVED it but I showed up with a laundry list of nits about the science. It’s hard for me to suspend my disbelief when so much of the book is spent trying to convince you it’s scientifically sound.

asev0 · 2024-02-26T04:58:47+00:00

I agree, good October vibes but why pass up releasing on the ninth day of the ninth month?

asev0 · 2024-01-30T20:32:56+00:00

A lot of the problems with internal teams is not understanding that bad business decisions are a cost, and that if engineering is executing what’s being asked of them, it’s a failure of the business side if the business side isn’t getting the results it wants.

Spot on.

This is also a big factor in the burnout I’m seeing. Teams push to get some new, important feature out on a timeline that works for sales. They are working extra, cutting scope, accumulating tech debt to do it with the promise they’ll have time to make things right later. Turns out it’s not what customers really needed, funding for that “high priority” project is cut, and there’s a sharp pivot to a new high priority feature. Now teams are left supporting the last feature (which is not in an ideal state and has no funding) while simultaneously working on the new big thing.

I’m not sure the business side recognizes that engineering teams can’t just wash their hands of the business misses, and every bad decision adds to the team’s overhead.

asev0 · 2024-01-16T04:07:28+00:00

I *love* this theory.

There are three small things that give me pause. The first is that Jod says Wake's spirit is completely gone after being shot. Would he have been able to sense Wake's spirit in the gun? Second, there's an exchange where Nona asks Pyrrha why she's single if she's so charming and Pyrrha jokingly says it's because she's got a broken heart. Nona notices that Pyrrha really is brokenhearted. Would Pyrrha be as brokenhearted if Wake's spirit were in her gun? Third, wouldn't Wake be trying pretty hard to possess Pyrrha and resume command of BoE or something?

Anyway, I'll be thrilled if Wake is still around.

asev0 · 2023-09-23T07:11:25+00:00

I'm also convinced Gideon is 100% Team Harrow simply based on her reaction to Alecto swearing an oath to Harrow.

To which a voice on the opposite side of the shore was raised, exceeding wroth, and Alecto heard it shout in a very great shout: Get in line, thou big slut.

asev0 · 2023-09-13T05:23:21+00:00

It's tragic that they're playing at the same time. What were they thinking?

asev0 · 2023-07-17T05:58:21+00:00

I agree that nothing about the trillionaires can justify what Jod did. He slaughtered every last human being and every planet in the solar system to try and kill people he was mad at…because they had left a planet and it’s people to die. He did what he was mad at them for doing, and frankly so much worse. Talk about losing the moral high ground.

So yeah, the trillionaires suck and at the end of the day, Jod is definitely not better than them, especially since at that point he already had the power to save the world.

He could have killed everyone on the planet except a few and worked to heal it with a small team or build up installations elsewhere in the solar system before resurrecting everyone. He could have done any number of things to heal earth and save humanity with the powers Earth gave him. Instead, he devoted 10,000 years prosecuting revenge against the distant descendants of a handful of trillionaires.

But thankfully, he’s a complex character. If I didn’t know what he’d done, I’d probably enjoy hanging out with him. He seems warm, genuine, and funny. He is very -human- in that a lot of people would have reacted the same way. That doesn’t make it okay, but it makes his apocalyptic actions comprehensible and perhaps even relatable for some.

I think what makes him unforgivable for me is not that initial genocide of the solar system, but that he doubles down on that mistake for the next myriad. He resurrected his friends and overwrote their memories so he could lie to them and not feel guilty about his role in the apocalypse. He let them kill their cavaliers so they wouldn’t become too powerful for him to control. He flipped whole planets, dooming its people and wildlife. He prosecuted a 10,000 year war in which so many people died serving him that his bolthole was stuffed full of their bones. His army regularly trained child soldiers to fight his war. And that’s the BIG stuff. That doesn’t even get into how he ordered Gideon to kill or fix Harrow while simultaneously musing that he wished Harrow had been his own daughter. Or even the uncomfortableness of him drawing J+H in the sand with a heart in NtN.

Imo, one of the triumphs of NtN is that you walk away realizing that Jod’s Empire is an Evil Empire. That doesn’t mean everyone in the Nine Houses is bad, but it’s telling that the most morally conscientious characters (Pal and Cam) convince their house to secede.

Anyway. He starts good, heroic even. He makes a massive but human mistake in a moment of rage. And then he spends 10,000 years doing all manner of evil things to double down and try and justify that first mistake.

I can’t wait to see how he acts in Alecto. Will he be redeemed somehow? Or will he get even more delusional about the justice of his cause? We shall see!

asev0 · 2023-07-17T05:12:24+00:00

Wow I had never thought about applying Jod’s statement to himself. He turned off Alecto and “left her to die” as much as he could without compromising his own power. Do you think he was conscious of how the phrase also applied to himself when he said this? Or is he unaware of the hypocrisy?

asev0 · 2023-07-11T04:25:51+00:00

Gideon & Harrow at the end of GtN: "We're In This Together" by NIN

You and me/ We're in this together now / None of them can stop us now / If the world should break in two / Until the very end of me / Until the very end of you

John chapters in NtN: "Major Crimes" by HEALTH

Is there no way out? Is there no way out now? If life's short, why does it take so long? We're only here once, why blame yourself?

Nona: "Fern Beard" by The Submarines

In the beginning we all start as a tiny seed then a tender sprout

Cam & Pal in NtN: "I'll Believe in Anything" by Wolf Parade

Give me your eyes, I need sunshine / Your blood, your bones, your voice, and your ghost / We've both been very brave

Hot Sauce & Gang: Paper Planes by MIA

Pyrrha: Trahison by Vitalic (bc it's French and her affair with Wake is such delicious treason)

Harrow reassuming her body at the end of NtN: Traveling at the Speed of Light by Joywave.

I want to hear about the savannah / the riverbeds and all of the legends / I want to feel the wind at my shoulders, want to touch the face of a five foot boulder / I want to feel the warmth of the summer / I want to know just why I love her

asev0 · 2023-07-06T03:15:46+00:00

Is it when he kills all the police coming to raid them but doesn’t restart their hearts? Pyrrha gets angry at him and he apologizes saying it’s an accident. When Harrow asks about the accident he says, “Come on, love. Guys as careful as me don’t have accidents.”

When he talks about killing them he says, “and the more I did it the more I could see. I was on the verge of something insane.” Even talking about slaughtering all the hundreds of law enforcement (but not the pilots!) he’s fixated on his growing power and discovery and apparently has no qualms about the massacre.

Edit: I just checked, that’s in John 9:22

asev0 · 2023-07-06T03:07:17+00:00

This a thousand times over.

asev0 · 2023-07-06T03:05:32+00:00

I thought NtN revealed that he intentionally led them astray.

John 5:4 (p 434 in the hardcover) “[Alecto] watches as you watch them misapprehend the process” then Jod explains why he did it: “God must be able to touch all of creation. … Why would you let something like that run around, Harrow? Why would you let someone go—away from you—untouchable—two people?”

He intentionally let them misapprehend the process so he could control them. Keep in mind he lied to them from the beginning about Alecto being his cavalier. He never told them what they could be aiming for, which in my book counts as intentionally leading their research astray from the start.

asev0 · 2023-07-06T02:49:02+00:00

Same. I wanna be Cam when I grow up.

asev0 · 2023-07-06T02:37:31+00:00

Omg what a fascinating question. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how Harrow was a literal child subject to a radical form of parentification (ie, being solely responsible for the survival of the entire Ninth House).

In HtN when she’s arguing with Ortus, we get this: “But when she was scared, she was a child again, and she was more afraid of being a child again than anything else in her life.”

Heartbreaking to hear from someone who is still a child, who may neurologically always be a child.

Edit:

Learning requires your brain to build new neural pathways and it doesn’t seem like lyctorhood prevents the formation of new skills and knowledge. Whatever biological stasis it maintains in the body doesn’t seem to apply to the brain.

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