we are all from earth

I’ve been thinking about it all morning. What would the plot points be for that? What makes a 30 year old coming of age story?

Burying a parent that never encouraged independence

Acknowledging a trauma you've spent your life ignoring

Finally opening yourself up to a truly mutual, non-transactional relationship (platonic or romantic)

Student loan forgiveness kicking in, suddenly you can afford to live. That one small change snowballs into something big.

Starting over after the end of The Big Relationship you thought would define your life. Engaging in a new hobby/social group that adds context to how small life felt in that relationship.

You find yourself with a pet you have to care for, which teaches you to care for yourself.

GENDER TRANSITION.

Coming out as any stripe of queer.

An idea I had for Blood of Eden propaganda/recruitment posters featuring some of our favorite guys - combo of digital-print cyberpunk graphic design style with oldschool Saturday Morning Post covers like you'd see Leyendecker paintings on

I was gonna post these ahead of tabling at a small con and selling prints of them but ended up not tabling because turns out grad school is hard

Names, renaming and choosing your own name in tlt as a sign of power

It first hit me when in htn har and ianthe were calling eachother by house's names as a treat

Houses are close to nations in culture sense, and stripping them out of it and forcing into the white and shiny First House is something of colonization

(Yes, native Australian kids forced to change their names to European and socialized without their culture or language, yes, thousand times yes it is)

But this is baby steps

John done this with all his resurrection

He wiped memory of everyone, and change their names to fit into his greek-roman fantasy, even his "friends".

I don't think you actually love people if you destroy their entire personality so they wouldn't be angry at you

(Sorry, I have a memory problem, sometimes I forget years of my life. This hits very close to home)

Renaming is the sign of how he destroyed culture of all earth to make his new colonial utopia

Kiriona Gaia. Name that Gideon doesn't like and don't even react to it.

Stripping her of her ninth past (nav) and all that complicated story of her birth (Gideon), making and ideal (and dead) emperor's daughter

But there is even more

After jod ate solar system, he renamed every part of it including the sun.

You know, how colonizers rename stolen land, rename rivers

Earth was the planet of humankind

First house is the planet of Jod, and only him

This is exclusive ownership

But we have different way

Boe

Self-naming with the cultural context is (self)liberating way

And here we come to Paul

Self-naming as a statement that you are more then sum of your parts, not combination of pal and cam, but someone new

There is of course trans analogy, like choosing your own name is a liberating act that bigots hate

2023 alectopause: you know it's ok we can wait. i got some fics to write

2024 alectopause: here is 30,000 words on how john's characterization as emperor and lyctorhood interplays with colonialism, imperialism, sexual assault, and misogyny, featuring a full bibliography, a reading list, and peer reviewed by three mutuals

2025 alectopause: gideon would not fucking say that