Hough

Niche Nona Liveblogging: Ch. 26 - End

Oh my god. Oh my god. But we did it. We’re off the ceiling. We’re climbing the roof. We’re launching ourselves into space. This also got too long so there will be some sort of immediate follow-up on some wider thematic topics/quotes I wanted to discuss properly as a set in my liveblogging tag. xoxo.

“Nona had never seen Camilla so meek and malleable. It was like all of the times she had ever seen Camilla happy, all at once.” (375) Devastating, I say for the eighteenth time in this series, and also like extra fascinating paired with the previous observations of Gideon’s lightness of body & its profound sadness. I don’t know! Extremely, extremely affecting to potentially consider that happiness for Cam would be releasing, would be letting go. More sinister implications here that it would be death.  I’m by no means saying this is the only reading, but it feels very viable to me! “Hot Sauce, forgive me—forgive me so I can know what it feels like.” (385) Chewing my arm right off at Nona (Alecto!!!) begging to learn forgiveness, one of the few thing John Gaius does not believe in. “Maybe I just like talking to other people who knew her.” Pyrrrhaaaa you big bag of grief. “’You’re the kid in the photo… [Wake] laughed in that mean-ass way she always laughed and said, ‘That’s my submachine gun she’s holding.’” Always laughed is doing a lot for me. Also this combined with Pash in the school room referring, we now know, to Wake as Aunty. Wake with Aunty energy… Mean Aunty energy… This is a revelation. “[Pash] looked as though she were having a religious experience.” (387) There are a lot of ways to read this very vague line, but I cannot help but jump, again, to grief. Grief as the religious experience, the foundation for John’s religion, the impossible act. John cannot grieve the Earth. Harrow cannot grieve Gideon. Mercy cannot grieve Cristabel. Etc. Etc. Etc. “I have crossed the face of the universe,” said the Captain. “I poison it to match my grief.” The planets cannot grieve. “You want Gideon the First and Gideon the First is dead. He’s not coming back. Oh, God, Gideon,” said Pyrrha suddenly. “Gideon,,, G--, you died for nothing.” This is the line, this is the line more than most other lines at which I, reader, completely lost my mind. We know John made everyone forget the end of the world and we also knew Augustine, for example, cannot remember “the man he was” pre-resurrection. But Pyrrha knows Gideon’s lost name?? Pyrrha’s knows??? Is this stored away in the Bureau? Where? How? Do they all know and they’ve just erased their names and erased their names, a constant practice of damnatio memoriae. I’mmm… “You said you wouldn’t do anything weird!” (391) Me @ the cosmos too, tbh. “Do you love?” said the Captain’s mouth. / Nona struggled. “Yes—no—yes,” she said, then: “I don’t know what it means. I say it, and I don’t know what it means… Did I ever know what it meant?” (392) “It was M—who came to me one night looking like she’d seen a fucking ghost. Apparently A—‘s little brother and her nun had been obsessing over bank movements and assets.” We love the unexpected nun/banker dream team. God I’m vibrating. Also obligatory “because she hated it when I tried to fix her anxiety attacks with necromancy” – Mercymorn, I love you, I love you, I love you. “C—was saying, Can’t we gin up some kind of miracle?... Stabilize the North America glacier? […] But A—said, That’s for later, first things first, bum-rush the ships, pull the bastards out, make them do the cryo plan instead.” (387) We are paying extreme attention to the divergences in Cassiopeia and Augustine’s strategies and inclinations, all the more so since they more or less share(d) a specialization. Delicious. “I’ve got plans for that arm.” John!!! “[M’s nun] thinking that if she pushed me enough we’d insatiate the Trinity and we’d all be saved.” (399) Still calibrating and re-calibrating that Cristabel may have been pushier and more inclined to brute force than Mercymorn. The Eighth is a place of horrors. “I made flowers grow for them out of the garden, but they came out…weird. Some of the roses had teeth.” WHAT IS UP! WITH! THE! TEETH! But love a gay apocalypse wedding. That was beautiful, Tamsyn. Thank you. “[The] nun and A—‘s hedge fund manager brother had teamed up to try and mediate, which as per usual made everyone pissed off at them instead. A—n and M—were on my side, kind of…” Cycles! Cycles and cycles and cycles! “C—said, John, your problem is that you care less about being a saviour than you do about meting out punishment… you can be quite the most appallingly vindicative person I have ever met.” (401) Goddd I am ready for her to show up. I am ready to love a centuries-old British woman. “People don’t forgive, not really. Once they doubt, you’ve already lost them…. Had I already lost my best friends? The only people I needed? I’d just caught the fucking tooth bouqyet at C—and N—‘s wedding. What if that didn’t matter?” God, but also God because I would say he does get married next, doesn’t he, in a sense… In a merging of two souls sense… “M-- was all, Are you kidding, at least with these guys we have a chance of getting out alive.” I love her. “M-- and her nun spent a while yelling through the door at me. Well, M—was yelling.” You simply must understand, I love her. CW // Suicide mention // This is the next point I crawled into the wall a burrowed inside like those giant hives of bees in those awful beekeeper tiktok videos. The ones where they peel open the whole wall and it’s bees now, it’s just bees: “I believe you can save everyone. So concentrate, please.” She was always like this! She was always like this! She was always the sacrifice, the martyr, the instigator! The beginning of the chain reaction! It was always Cristabel! It was always Cristabel. // End CW “A—‘s little brother was there…dead in the middle… shot from both sides. Nobody likes a peacemaker.” This does track with anything I have ever thought of Alfred Quinque. “I remember A—and M--… they were alive… we all hid behind a kitchen table… I remember A—telling me something and M—saying, We’re together. We’ll go together. / But they found us, they were already there. They shot A—right in front of us… hauled me out… M—said, Take John alive. He’s worth more to you alive. And they shot her.” You know, at which point I, a mountain of bees, keeled right over. We’ll go together. The iteration where they love him until the end and are unified until the end and the reversal of A—‘s dying before M—‘s eyes instead of Mercy before Augustine. John really killed his best friends. And they really tried to kill him to. God. AND LIKE just when you think, okay, I have screamed. I have screamed quite enough, we are stuck in one of those classic Tamsyn Muir ever escalation and John creates his Eve, creates his Eve and his Eve is Hollywood Hair Barbie. Alecto was a giant Barbie doll this whole time. The ‘freak’ Augustine and Mercymorn despised was a big Barbie doll! The corpse Harrow fell in love with was… a Barbie! It was Barbie! It was always Barbie!! John’s disavowal of Ken and allegiance with Barbie is also doing some gender work that rings a bell with other ways John has been positioned before. I’m not quite sure I’m without complaints here, but also: go off, bisexual king, I guess. A BARBIE… I will be reeling over this for years. One of the reveals of the century, frankly. Nona’s rebuke of Pyrrha is also the banger, but find more on that in a section below. In the meantime, “’Out of the frying pan… into another frying pan—falling out of that frying pan—into the underworld where there is a huge frying pan where the devils dance, and say, ‘Fuck to you.’” We Suffer better come back, I love her. “Are you a family woman yourself?—Oh and when was the divorce…” (419) Plenty of food for Juno Zeta/Pyrrha Dve but also consider some Juno Zeta/We Suffer and We Suffer AU because I’m… I’m Kevin and I’m making my old lady eraser dolls kiss, thanks. “[Kiana’s] face looked so startlingly like Cam’s that Nona wondered at it” (421) nice of Tamsyn to introduce Kiana and Pash and so on to assure us who the hottest woman in the world is going to be once Cam relinquishes her chokehold, y’know. Also, as an aside, do you think the Sixth House gets irritated over nepotism? Like nepotism by very slight degrees. I think that would be extraordinarily funny. “Warden—will she know who we are, in the River?” / “Oh she’s not stupid… In the River—beyond the River—I truly believe we will see ourselves and each other as we really are.” Are they talking about Dulcinea or what? I simply have to know. “Life is too short and love is too long.” Fueling oneself on love vs. grief vs anger. You know how it goes. “We are the Message… the message has two parts left…  The name for this part of the message was ‘Aim’… The Message is too simple for human beings like us to understand.” In some ways, this dialogue reminded me profoundly of Pokémon, and I don’t know what to do with that. More seriously, I am consumed with curiosity for something I cannot hope to understand – the reification of simplicity is doing a lot for me and this is a really interesting potential iteration of the known Blood of Eden naming conventions, which seem to be a way of passing down old knowledge, giving it life, etc. “Decent dinner and a bottle of average rose. Maybe movie. I’m not picky.” John. John!!!!! “They won’t forgive themselves… They’ll spend the rest of their lives asking what-ifs.” (433) HIGHLY interested in this move of it’s not that John believes he cannot forgive others or others cannot believe him (which he does), but he is even more preoccupied with that they cannot forgive themselves, that he, arguably, cannot forgive himself… We are taking this red string and wrapping it around already stated thoughts on grief and anger. “Something will satisfy them eventually, but nothing satisfies me.” (435) “In a way, her dead dreams of God mean more than all your dreams put together.” (436) Mmmm. Also very fascinated by the conclusion that God is a dream spoken in the literal dream. Ha-um. P448: In which I screech with delight that we WILL be getting answers on what fucking happening to Colum and whatever is up with the stoma and these TEETH-TONGUE DEVILS!!! Tell me Tamsyn, tell me. “The most asymmetrical person that Nona had ever seen in her short life.” Aiglamene h*t. “the woman was angry and blamed her” Aiglamene also h*t for being the only person present who truly cares for Gideon Nav. “I’ll keep loving you—my problem is I don’t know to stop” (cf. “We had the choice to stop”) “And you know… I liked you. He liked you—Gideon liked you. My necromancer and I always liked you… and hey what’s like except love that hasn’t been invited indoors?” (461) “Adipose fat and mucous membrane” I cannot BELIEVE Ianthe is a fat magician. I cannot believe it. This is just her think here, huh. Huh! “Friendship bracelets,” she fairly shouted. “They’re wearing friendship bracelets.” Like, as if Barbie wasn’t enough. This!!! Is THE twist of the century. This is it! This is the most delicious kicker in the world. I love this. The unholy terror of Gideon and Ianthe and their wretched sense of humour, their uninternet-internet poisoned shitposter minds united… Love this heel turn for Gideon. More on this later. “Do you know who I saw creeping out his bedroom the other day? Grand Admiral Sarpedon.” Jarpedons truly won this whole book. I cannot believeeee. Also lmao God the confirmed inflection of You Belong With Me playing behind the Mercymorn/Sarpedon initial face off… Incredible stuff. “I was saving the bullet for John… Wake made that for me… Or I stole it from her… same difference.” (470) Pyrrha Dve I am free Thursday, I am free Friday… “John loved her. She was John’s cavalier. She loved John. For she so loved the world that she had given them John. For the world so loved John that she had been given. For John had so loved her that he had made her she. For John had loved the world.” (471) Eats all of my hair, all at once. “Anastasia, tucked where nobody would find her: Anastasia, all bones” (474) / “As I swore to Anastasia I swear to you. I am in your service…” (477) Also a big win for the Alecto/Anastasiaheads. Bless us all. Look. Hello. We did it. We arrived. We arrived and I simply must say that epilogue is deeply, profoundly sexy. I’m sorry, it just is. Alecto making an awful, bloody kiss? Sexy. Alecto stabbing John? Sexy! “Annabel, goodmorning”???? It simply is. It simply is! I do not make the rules. And now like us scream some even bigger thoughts. Loosely, loosely cobbled together. But I’m, sorry, going to do that in one final post. Stay tuned. We’re going to go into themes or whatever.

#LockedTombtober Day 3: Parry

a/n: or, nona made me sad so now i fantasize about perfect fluffy lyctorhood AUs while i cry myself to sleep

// 

day 3: parry 

griddlehark

//

gideon’s dark eyes, familiar and foreign, gleam with excitement despite her visible confusion when harrow finally musters up the courage to ask the favor. the exuberant double fist pump in the air seems as good an acceptance as any. “as long as it’s not because you’re trying to kill me in my sleep. then, maybe we give you a wooden stick to practice with instead.”

“i’d recite advanced endochondral ossification theory to you if i wanted to do that.” they both laugh because harrow, indeed, has recited advanced endochondral ossification theory to gideon over meals because who else did she love enough to share niche necromantic scholarship with simply because it gladdened her to do so? gideon knew to nod along, and bless her heart would occasionally parrot back a small fact she’d heard before just to keep harrow’s tirades going. 

learning how to handle a sword seems fair turnabout at the end of the day. after all, it’s more interesting than doing fifty star jumps every day and gideon seems desperate to ensure that harrow doesn’t remain a “withered corn husk doll with literally no muscle mass to speak of.” her words. 

“you can’t blame genetics now,” gideon teases, tightening the leather rapier sheath around harrow’s waist. “sexy lyctor perks and all that junk. you might actually be able to pull off a two pack.” 

“ha ha ha,” harrow drones back. she holds up the rapier, so thoroughly and lovingly polished by gideon that she can see the gold in her eyes glimmering back. it still takes a couple of seconds to recognize that this is her--holding precious pieces of gideon’s soul that she’ll never be able to give back. it often pulls her back into those darker moments of self hatred that harrow had been working for years on reversing, despite the fact that gideon is alive and beautiful in front of her. 

gideon is a treasure and senses it immediately. she bumps the hilts of their matching rapiers together and flashes a crooked smile. “hey, come on, there’s at least a ten percent chance that my soul gunk is gonna make you look extra cute handling a sword.” 

harrow can’t help a smirk. “by that logic, you should be able to move bones around by now.” 

“hey, you never know! i was squinting at your bone knuckles yesterday and i think one of them shook.” 

“you banged the table with your knee.”

“nah, babe. this was spooky shit.” 

the smirk stretches into a grin. “we’re not debating this again. square up, you idiot, since i'm apparently so cute whilst fumbling with swords.”

“please, you’re gonna look downright sexy once i whip you into shape.”

their first lesson ends up not being a sweaty, grunting, painful affair luckily. it’s mostly gideon teaching harrow how to hold her sword, basic footwork, proper posture, and slowly working through simple exchanges that gideon patiently corrects her through. harrow’s arms burn after only half an hour of this, but the competitive nature of her soul starts to kick in once she’s determined to deal a basic attack with perfect precision. 

“keep your shoulders down, babe. and use your arms, don’t just throw the thing over your head and hope it hits mine.” 

“fuck off,” harrow huffed as her sword point clattered to the floor, and it pulls a bonafide cackle out of gideon. “this is me using my arms.” 

“god, your little noodle arms are so adorable but so useless. are you doing push ups in the mornings like i told you to?” 

“since when have you relegated yourself as my personal trainer?” 

“since i love you and want you to be healthy and thriving, harrowhark. now do that same attack again, you actually almost have it.”

there are no wars to fight or gods to pray to any longer, so perhaps it’s a bit silly to bother with learning something like how to work a sword with at least a base level of dignity. but gideon glows when she starts to show harrow how to parry and passionately tells her how ridiculous dueling theatrics are, and it’s rather lovely to see her passion for fighting be something that can thankfully be relegated to just a joyful hobby. 

it’s uncomfortable at first thought -- scholarship simply for its own sake and not to revive a planet or declare fealty to god. fighting just because it gets your blood pumping and keeps you in shape. but somehow also makes harrow feel something so simple that had been inconceivably elusive until now: happiness. 

when harrow ends their two hour lesson successfully blocking gideon’s basic attack for the first time, a girlish joy takes over her and she double fist pumps in the air with a shout of victory. gideon pretends to wipe away a proud tear, and all is right in their universe. 

raii!! hi hello i have finished ntn. (finally. after being distracted by c.sm and m.p100 like 5 times) and. oh man.

i think i've noticed a pattern in these books actually! the pattern being the endings making me go WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT JUST HAPPENED. i mean! i suspected nona was alecto but oughhghg :(((((( her saying she won't be able to love pyrrha and paul anymore.... fucking christ ouch :(((((( fictional families make me so so unwell..

other than that i like how this book basically solidified that harrow's autistic! (i mean. if u still had doubts after htn) i was very happy to see palamedes and gideon again also!! even if not for long. ianthe and gideon being friends/acquaintances was probably the single biggest plot twist of the book. huge fan of their ugly ass friendship bracelets tho HGSKGSKG love how it HAD to be accentuated repeatedly just how badly the colours matched. two loser lesbians with the most cringefail friendship who have the ugliest friendship bracelets in the galaxy and they are so! important to me. they even have a stupid handshake.. do u think they bonded over their senses of humour and mutual love/hate/obsession with harrow? (honestly i might be beginning to see the appeal of gidianthe. just a bit) anyway NEED to see harrow's reaction to whatever they have got going on in atn. bonding while i was soul exchanged with the fucking Earth incarnated? in my horrible girlrfiends?? more likely than she thinks probably

oh oh another scene that is very important to me is when pyrrha kissed camilla and palamedes. collecting polycules (not really. more like. yk that bisexual photo with anne hathaway. yk the one. like that! i just don't have a word that's short enough to make the joke work) like they're pokemon

gideon and palamedes are still my faves but i also really like nona/alecto! ianthe is def growing on me too. (have to say she'd be a fav already if the book had any art of her tho bc. i may or may not be able to forgive a few atrocities if she looked hot while committing them.. i am not immune to women)

anyway! so sorry this got long and i'd love to hear your thoughts <3

hihhuhhuiiiiiii HI

omggg you finished???? WILD, WAH…. ALSO YEAH….. WHAT *IS* HAPPENING EVER??? unhinged. fun. i don’t know. restarted harrow today.

!!! their awful friendship bracelets are SO funny to me….. and then there’s a big Double Crossing Event like five minutes after that reveal, really is nothing like it…. at all…..

nona is SO beloved to me……. she’s just out here……. with a funny dog…… big heart…… barbie doll…… WAGHEH.

also very happy you got your augustine crumbs. granted, crumbs, but sometimes. that’s more than enough <33

The Timeline on the Locked Tomb Heist is Weird

The descriptions in GtN and HtN of how exactly Harrow got into the Locked Tomb are driving me insane. They don’t seem to match up. 

In GtN, it makes it seem... KINDA.... as though Harrow had been toiling with the Door for a long time, until she clawed Gideon’s face off, and that unwittingly helped her break the last seal. Then she gets to see the Body. But Gideon catches her at it and tells on her. This all happened in the same day.

But in HtN, it sounds like opening the door with Gideon’s blood was the first thing Harrow did, and she had to toil with the rest of the seals for long after that, and only then she was caught.

The Locked Tomb Heist, according to GnN:

It was the brief delight of Gideon’s life that the unnecessarily beatified Harrowhark Nonagesimus chose to ditch her sainthood and unlock it, and that Gideon had been witness to that fact. (…) Just hours before, she’d wrestled Harrow down in the dirt, and Harrow had scratched until she’d had half of Gideon’s face beneath her fingernails.

(…) “Beyond the doors there’s just the rock,” she said. “The rock and the tomb surrounded by water. I won’t bore you with the magic or the locks, or the wards or the barriers: just know that it took me a year to walk six steps inside and that it nearly killed me then. There’s a blood ward bypass on the doors which will only respond to the Necromancer Divine, but I knew there had to be an exploit, a way through for the true and devout tomb-keeper. I knew in the end it had to open for me.”

The Locked Tomb Heist, according to HnN:

One very bad day—when it seemed as though everyone hated her, and as though this were a completely correct way to feel—with bloodied fists and a bruised heart, she wrote a note explaining her suicide then went and unlocked the door. Unexpectedly, this did not kill her; and what did not kill her made her curious.

She was much older before she could cross the threshold. It was trapped like all hell. But the traps were Ninth traps, made of bone and grinning skeleton, and she’d been using them herself since she was toddling. (…) She crossed the cave, which was trapped, and passed the central moat of black water—which as deep and trapped— and then climbed the island (trapped) to the frozen mausoleum (ridiculously trapped), and when she got there—alive—she could look into the open-faced coffin where lay the reason for her existence. 

(…) So the death of God had been Harrow’s death too. She had been careless with her visits. Her parents had… found out… about what she had done.”

So like. What is the order of events here?? Did Harrow fight Gideon, open the Door, then had to spend a year toiling to get from the Door to the actual Body? Or did she toil for a year, then fought Gideon and unlocked the final lock?

And for that matter, what is the fucking geography here? “Know that it took me a year to walk six steps inside” implies she did toil for a year after opening the Doors. As in, she unlocked the Doors with Gideon’s blood, then she had to toil for a year shutting down all the goddamn traps to get to the Rock beyond the doors, then to Tomb.

But we know Gideon tells on Harrow the same day they fight over mothers. So is it possible that, the day he told on her, Harrow hadn’t seen the body yet? She had just broken the seal on the Doors and still had a long way to go with all the traps beyond it?

But again!! In HtN, Harrow says the Body hasn’t spoken to her since the night of her parent’s death. So she had to have known the body the day Gideon told on her.

And of course, nothing we read in HtN is fully trustworthy cause Harrow is hella lobotomised, but fudging the timeline of when she found the Body seems like a weird thing for the lobotomy to affect.

WHAT IS THE ORDER OF EVENTS HERE, GODDAMNIT?!

what they don't know won't hurt them; a list of things that harrow and gideon do not know about the world and each other at the end of harrow the ninth.

written from memory, additions and edits welcome. major spoilers for harrow the ninth under the cut.

a list of things that harrowhark does not know, probably:

perfect lyctorhood exists, and thus gideon's sacrifice was unnecessary (i have a theory that her and pal were working on cracking something similar at canaan house but it is just a theory)

gideon's father is jod, and gideon's mother is wake

the reason why she was able to enter the locked tomb was because gideon is a direct descendant of the being who made the blood ward (jod), and harrow had gideon's blood on her hands when she attempted to open it

both mercy and augustine were a) working with BOE; b) the cause of gideon's birth; and c) actively trying to kill jod

gideon was meant to be a necromantic bomb that was to be planted by wake, but wake died before she could press the big red button

g1deon's stories never matched up because half of the time he was actually pyrrha, his cavalier. this includes the time when 'he' (actually she) spoke to harrow after almost dying in the incinerator.

both g1deon and pyrrha were in a relationship with wake, gideon's mother. they thought that gideon was theirs.

the body is apparently up and walking (or at the very least has returned in some way)

ianthe chose jod over augustine

both mercy and augustine are dead

mercy actually exploded jod. it was pretty dope! but it was only a temporary explosion before jod resurrected himself. still pretty badass, tho

mercy was the one who stabbed harrow during number seven's attack. she admitted to it willingly, without hesitation.

the mithraeum is no more. it sank in the river.

harrow actually probably has no idea if gideon survived number seven's attack. she probably doesn't even know for sure if gideon has taken over--that was just an educated guess based on dulcie's information. (it's possible that harrow has some sort of connection to her body and can tell if it's still functioning or not, but i don't know for sure)

going way back a bit, gideon was always the one at canaan house that knew about the people. i'm thinking specifically about coronabeth; harrow probably has very little (if any) knowledge about corona's swordfighting skills and history.

in a similar vein to above, harrow also probably has no idea that members of the eighth house know about the ninth's 200 children fiasco. i don't remember gideon ever mentioning it to her. it's possible that the secret died with silas and colum, but we don't know for sure.

a list of things that gideon probably does not know (or has only vague, fuzzy memories of)

the true reasoning behind harrow's lobotomy (it was to protect and preserve gideon's spirit, and not just a way to escape lyctorhood)

harrow is, like, 100% in love with her. lol.

whether or not harrow is 'alive'; basically, whether or not her spirit still exists on their plane or if she has moved on through the river

whether or not harrow will be returning to her body, or if she even can

follow up to the above: gideon saw wake's spirit 'die' after her flesh vessel was fatally injured. gideon also knows that pyrrha permanently took over g1deon's body after he died in the battle against number seven. using these two facts, it is pretty safe for gideon and co to assume that harrow died after mercy's stabbing and was forcibly removed from her body into the river, leaving room for gideon to take over permanently. (we as readers know that this isn't entirely true, but gideon doesn't)

harrow created an entire series of alternate universes to hide gideon from herself, featuring: Everything Is The Same But Reverse Character Deaths, And Also Ortus Is There :) with special appearances from hits like: "what if you were the reverend daughter and i was your cavalier", also known as the Harrow Nova; the infamous royal marriage ball; and the jeanmarie and issac special: coffee shop meet-cute!

harrow was possessed by gideon's mother, wake, and they had a battle to the death that was only completed when the spirit of famous ninth cavalier mattias nonius was summoned by the spirit of abigail pent to protect the reverend daughter. yes, gideon, this really happened. stop looking at me like that.

harrow was able to subconsciously summon the spirits of abigail, magnus, jeanmarie, isaac, marta, ortus, and the real dulcie and protesilaus to her own river bubble, which she created without realizing it after going through with the lobotomy

it's unclear how much of gideon's narration throughout the book is actually memories she retained. she explains things in detail as they happen, but when we switch from second to first person she mentions that being 'pushed under' made everything blurry. she only vaguely recognizes harrow's bedroom, and she is barely able to remember mercy and augustine. interestingly, she doesn't seem to remember jod (or at least his appearance and voice) at all, although she does feel something when she notices the spot where harrow and jod had their tea parties. based on this, it's difficult to tell what she does know. it's possible that gideon has retained only vague, fuzzy memories of the events of htn before her resurfacing.

there's probably more i'm forgetting but i don't actually own a copy of htn so this is all from my own memory. additions are welcome!

i'm so interested to see how all of this comes into play in atn, especially harrow's realization about perfect lyctorhood and gideon not knowing if harrow is alive/around or not. good shit.

https://goths-eat-electricity.tumblr.com/post/644468623985016832/a-harrow-the-ninth-epilogue-theory

This thing for the ask I just sent

original ask here

for ease of anyone wanting to view the post attached im linking it here. so op thinks the epilogue is narrated by someone in gideon’s body, different soul.

now i made a post back in january about the epilogue here talking about how i thought it was gideon narrating, but in a body other than her own. now i kinda didn’t explain a lot and ive done some revisions and rethought some stuff since then so *claps hands* new meta time

so i actually agree that it’s very likely gideons body is being actively inhabited by someone other than gideon. i don’t think that’s necessarily who is narrating the epilogue. i mean, it very well could be! and it very well could not. here's how i ~personally~ am interpreting the epilogue. it's very likely i will be wrong but i'll walk you through my thought process.

now the epilogue is intentionally vague and leaves a lot unexplained, so we really have quite a few blanks to fill in.

first, here’s an important question: why does camilla not know the identity of the narrator?

when the narrator asks “have you figured out who i am yet” and camilla answers “not yet” we must assume one of two things:

the narrator doesn’t know who they are either

or

the narrator does know who they are and is keeping it a secret from camilla

based on nothing but gut instinct, i am going with 1.

now why would camilla not know who the narrator is? there is always the possibility the narrator is just someone camilla has never met, but where's the fun in speculating on that? here's my theory:

i think that the narrator could be gideon-in-harrow's-body. in the end of htn, we see gideon-in-harrow's-body being rescued by at least two people, one probably being The Body (side note: i have a drafted post about that) and that leaves us with a big question mark. why is TB there? who is she working for? who is she talking to? what happens afterwards? since these are loose ends, theoretically gideon-in-harrow’s body could end up with camilla. theoretically. it might be a long shot but who knows with these books.

but anywho, so if we assume gideon-in-harrow’s-body (GIHB) is taken in by BoE and camilla, here’s my next point. for background, here is my chart i used to keep track of eye color changes. based on the information we have, harrowhark’s body with gideon’s eyes can indicate one of three things circumstances:

perfect lyctorhood was achieved (as seen with john and alecto)

harrow’s plan failed and she inadvertently absorbs gideon’s soul (we know harrow planned for this because she had a letter for herself in the circumstance that her eye color changes from black)

harrow’s plan worked and gideon’s soul came back in harrow’s body

now we know that in this case the latter is true, but how would camilla know? the last time cam saw harrow, she had black eyes. if you see harrowhark's body with yellow eyes, by sight, how would you know if harrow's plan succeeded or failed? you wouldn't! camilla could be looking at this yellow-eyed harrow and be unsure of who is piloting. now giving both bones and a rapier to harrow’s body makes sense! because she could be trying to distinguish if it's harrow-as-a-full-lyctor or GIHB by determining a pull toward necromancy or swordsmanship.

and based on how apeshit the lyctors make alecto sound it just doesn’t feel like the narrator is feral enough to be her imho but that could just be my personal interpretation. to me the narration just matches so closely with the narration in gtn as i pointed out in my post. but gosh i want it to be gideon so bad okay even if it's not her body. which i don't think it is. gideon’s body possesses a resistance to death, but not necessarily a healing factor. as i pointed out in my post back in january, the narrator in the epilogue DID NOT burn their tongue, while in gtn gideon displayed similar behavior with hot food consumption and DID burn her tongue. i think this could be an important point. GIHB would be able to be resistant to the burns, gideon's body alone would not.

UNLESS a side effect of perfect lyctorhood would allow gideon’s body to achieve the same abilities?

because what if perfect lyctorhood was kinda achieved? i don’t think it’s a coincidence that the name of the book is Harrow THE NINTH. the ninth. why did muir give harrow the title of a CAVALIER? and when harrow dies, she’s speared through the back with a rapier: exactly how naberius tern died, and similar to gideon's death via spike. coincidence? poetic parallel? does this MEAN something? idk lol. but that ending few lines of htn when gideon describes her and harrow blurring together certainly carries very interesting implications if we choose to interpret it that way. and like pyrrha has g1deon’s eye color in g1deon’s body, what if gideon has harrow’s eye color in harrow’s body now? so it’s still the original black? there’s so many what-ifs that i need to narrow down it’s insane. im due for a reread soon so ill be keeping this in mind.

to conclude: i just have a lot of imaginary dots im connecting. but fingers crossed for a gideon return.

Harrow the Ninth Live Read: Chapter 3-5

Been absolutely lost in the sauce playing Bloodborne lmao.

Chapter 3

Starting off with some cool lore about the Ninth House, and more on Harrow’s backstory. (I am wondering, though. What exactly precipitated the Resurrection? It sounds like a whole solar system worth of people suddenly died; why? How? Something’s fishy...)

And some cool lore about the Body... and her parent’s suicide... Mmm... (two nooses for their cavalier? How tf does that work??)

Oh. Poor Harrow. 

Okay, this kind of confirms what I was thinking last time. Harrow has redacted Gideon from her memory, and partially undone the Lyctor ritual. I’m... pretty sure this isn’t supernatural though. Maybe.

Chapter 4

Okay Harrow’s being murdered. Okay, no she’s not! That’s good.

Did Ianthe do something to her, to make her think she was being murdered? Or is this letter she’s pulling out a suicide note written by Harrow to herself...

Oh nope okay it’s... instructions Lyctor!Harrow wrote? Letter 2 of 24? Where’s the first letter??

“Her resurrection constitutes a fail state and must be avoided at all costs” Beg pardon? Lyctor!Harrow knew she was going to suppress her Lyctorhood, and wanted that? 

“This letter cannot answer questions.” Ah. Thank you, Lyctor!Harrow (As an aside, what’s the deal with Adjective!Name? I’ve seen it a bunch, and it’s usually in reference to AU’s or other states a character can be in, but I picked that up through osmosis, rather than seeing it actually defined anywhere...)

Guideline 1: Stay alive. Ok, with this so far.

Guideline 2: Don’t Go Back to the Ninth House. Ok, matches what the Emperor said. Either the Emperor repeated himself on why and was cool with it, or he’s in on the work, OR Lyctor!Harrow figured it out herself. Interesting.

Guideline 3: Keep the Sword. Huh. It seemed like Harrow was following this during her power-vomit/murder days, as Ianthe put it. The blood and ash treatment is interesting, and not the way you normally take care of a sword? I think?

Guideline 4: You’re Compromised. It occurs to me, I don’t think we’ve seen Harrow do any real necromancy yet. It sounds like she has the souped up power of being a Lyctor... but is she unable to do bone necromancy now? That would be a problem...

Guideline 5: You Owe Ianthe. The fuck is “Favor of the Chain”? The first google result is from a reddit thread about this book that i dare not look at, so. Probably not a common phrase I haven’t heard before. Still, very spooky. 

Guideline 6: Don’t Read the Other Letters. OOOOHHHH this explains the “so you’ve about to die” letter from the prologue!

Guideline 7: Check Out Ianthe’s Jaw. hwat. Just. There’s so many questions. What circumstances would lead to her jaw being replaced? Why would that be disastrous? How is she going to kill Ianthe if it has? OH she’s going to have to smooch her to make sure isnt she.

LMAO I knew it. Okay so the Favor of the Chain is probably just a fancy word for this fealty oath she made. Also, fuck! That’s quite the fealty oath! Okay never mind Harrow just said it’s not that big of a deal. My mistake.

Okay these letters are scary. Eyes changing color seems to be related to being a Lyctor; that’s basically explicitly stated with Ianthe’s deal. Why would Harrow’s eyes changing be such a big deal that it requires a letter to Camilla? Also, Camilla’s still AWOL, right? Also also, I just figured it out. Harrow’s eyes would be yellow, like Gideon’s, and even with her false memories she may know Ortus’s eyes weren’t yellow. 

There’s a joke to be made here somewhere about Master-Stranger Protocols...

So Ianthe seems to think Coronabeth is still alive. Is it just denial or is there something more here? It would tie into the letter to Camilla. 

Okay so she remembers Naberius. 

HEY WHAT THE FUCK. There’s... Mmm... There’s a lot to unpack with the end of this chapter. Ianthe stabbed her hand, then stabbed Harrow’s, and... there’s some questions I have about some of the adjectives used here. Anyway, the real take away here is that Harrow did cast Pin Missile, and the nails stuck in the wall were covered with boxes. By whom? and when? What?

Chapter 5

Another flashback, it looks like. That’s what the sheared Ninth House skull seems to indicate.

Okay, this is the scene of them arriving to Canaan House, from Harrow’s perspective, and with Ortus shoved in. Ortus wondering about the tragedy of living forever is interesting; is this something Harrow wonders about, deep down? 

I can think of one confident and wild fuck you the Ninth House possessed, Harrow.

“The eggs you gave me all died and you lied to me”

…Huh. Does this mean anything? Like, is this going to be relevant later on? 

Also, I just went back and read this scene in Gideon the Ninth. This doesn’t happen at all. It’s not just the scene from Harrow’s perspective, with Ortus shoved in. It’s all something Harrow made up. In fact, here Harrow said she sat on some Ninth House dirt, but in Gideon the Ninth, Gideon specifically says that she read about necromancers doing that in comics, but Harrow just read her prayer beads. 

This is weirder than I thought.

Driftrod Day! Gideon the Ninth AU

This is a snippet of an AU in the world of the Locked Tomb books. There are major spoilers for Gideon the Ninth and minor spoilers for Harrow the Ninth in this; feel free to revisit this ficlet after you’ve read the books which are super good. 

I’ve taken some heavy liberties with the setting for cavalier/necromancer driftrod reasons. 

“We’ve found you a partner,” Springer says as Hot Rod walks into his office. 

Hot Rod isn’t surprised. No one’s supposed to know that a Second House cav, a Sixth House cav, and a Third House dignitary with no battle skills to speak of were, more or less willingly, recovered from Canaan House and supposedly recruited, but everyone knows anyway. Most of the base doesn’t like this plan - of course survivors of whatever Lyctor-murderfest was going on there would join up when they don’t have anywhere else to go, and of course they’re going to ditch BoE the second they see a way home. 

BoE needs them, though. Or at least, Hot Rod does. Everyone knows that he wouldn’t last ten minutes on a battlefield without someone watching his back, and no one trains for that job in BoE. House necromancers, the only necromancers out here, have to be paired with House cavaliers. 

He’d assumed that Arcee would be his cavalier forever when they’d first been matched after Hot Rod arrived, but she and her wife have a baby now and Hot Rod’s been all but grounded ever since she quit going out in the field. They would send him out alone if there was an emergency, of course. Hot Rod suspects he’s only alive because there hasn’t been an emergency. 

Arcee had been hoping he’d quit too, he thinks. She’d understood his drive to fight, but she’d also seen the way they look at him - like he’s a weapon, like he’s a thing. She’d probably thought that if he walked away, he could find family again like she had.

But he’s still alive for one reason only, and that’s to fight back. His only skill to speak of is destruction, and even though it makes him monstrous in BoE’s eyes, they’re willing to send him on missions because no one else here can do what he does. He could do without them being just as willing to laugh at him for the way he passes out if he doesn’t have dirt to siphon thanergy from as they leave a planet and the disciplinary marks he gets for having to sleep through most of his first forty-eight hours on any space station, but none of that is enough to make him give up. 

“Which one is it?” Hot Rod asks. Surely Springer knows that he knows about the recruits - he’s at least as tapped into the gossip as Hot Rod. 

“His name is Deadlock,” says Springer. 

That’s quite possibly the least Sixth House name Hot Rod has ever heard, so Second House it is. Dread curdles in his gut. He’d heard that the Second House cav had only stopped fighting back when he’d been stabbed and nearly killed. He’s probably a soldier, and more likely than the rest to still be loyal to the Houses. How is he going to react to Hot Rod, who betrayed them so explosively?

But he can’t say any of that to Springer. Whatever goes wrong is certainly no more than he deserves. “Understood.” 

**

“I’m Rodimus. It looks like we’re going to be working together,” Rodimus says, forcing a smile. He’d been considering the switch for years, with the way his old name sometimes feels like a secure thread connecting him to his past but more and more often like the weight of it yoked over his shoulders. He’d submitted the official name change request as soon as he’d left Springer’s office and sent a memo to his closest associates, of which there aren’t many. The name change isn’t guaranteed to keep Deadlock from figuring out who he is, but it’s certainly worth trying. 

Deadlock looks like he’s around Rodimus’s age, wary and obviously still injured as he looks at him from across the table. There’s a stretch of silence before he speaks, and Rodimus braces himself for Deadlock to have figured out his secret already. 

“I’m Drift,” he says, finally. Rodimus takes note of the change, hopes it was the reason for the pause instead of anything to do with Rodimus. 

It feels like it means something, that he’s chosen to change his name now. It feels like it means he won’t kill Rodimus in his sleep, at least.

**

Rodimus and Drift are largely left alone to train together; no one in BoE wants to supervise a partnership that goes against everything they stand for, even though they’re willing to keep whatever necros and cavs they get their hands on for their undeniable effectiveness. Springer is the closest thing to a real supporter, but even he insists on just letting them train how they like, with the polite excuse that he has nothing to contribute. Rodimus tries to keep himself from feeling slighted or abandoned and it never really works. 

It slips his mind easily enough when his and Drift’s shuttle lands on a quiet corner of one of BoE’s sanctuary planets, and he has thanergy at his fingertips for the first time in months. 

There are no humans buried nearby, so Rodimus is limited to the corpses of small animals. It’s plenty of thanergy to channel into a region far from the shuttle and free of live animals and tweak it into a massive fireball that sends flames and smoke high into the air. 

Drift steps up beside him, one hand on his sheathed rapier. “Wow. That was just...wow.”

Rodimus glances at him, looking for irony or a flat-out lie, but he’s still staring at the blacked dirt where the fireball was, eyes wide in seemingly genuine awe. “You were Cohort, right? Haven’t you seen a Fourth House necro work before?”

Drift looks at Rodimus, in that intense way he has that makes Rodimus want to take a step back. “I only joined a few years ago,” he says. What he doesn’t say, after all the Fourth House necromancers died, sits thick in the air between them. 

“Right.” It makes sense, now that Rodimus thinks about it. Most houses don’t start shipping adepts into the field until they’ve turned 18. And after...well, after Rodimus, technically, the Fourth House hadn't had anyone left to spare. 

He wonders who Fourth House sent to the First at the Emperor’s call. He hopes it wasn’t Flamewar, but he doesn’t bother to hope very hard. 

Drift is still looking at him, and when he notices again he does take a step away, shaking his head and clapping his hands. “Okay. Training. I have complete control over the blast radius, but that only helps me avoid hitting you if I know where you are,” he says. “My last cav and I worked a lot on positioning for different types of fights. I can walk you through what we did, and we’ll adapt what we need to.” 

“Your last cav...” Drift trails off instead of finishing his question, but it’s obvious what he wants to ask. 

“She’s alive! She’s fine, she just has a family now and wanted to retire from active duty.” 

“Oh.” Drift tries to smile, but it’s thin and troubled. 

“You were paired with a necro before you were picked up, right?” 

Drift’s smile disappears. He nods. 

Rodimus waits. They’re going to have to talk about it if they’re going to work together at all, so it might as well be now, when the loss isn’t a schism between them yet. 

“His name was Wing,” Drift says, sounding...unlike himself. Angry, bitter. More like Rodimus had expected Deadlock to sound, before they’d actually been introduced. “He died at Canaan House.” 

“I’m sorry,” Rodimus said. 

Drift smiles at him, softer and more real this time, then looks off into the distance. “I know who you are, you know,” he says. “There’s only been one Fourth House defector in decades.”

Rodimus’s whole body tenses. “Who am I, then?” he asks. 

Drift smiles again. “You’re Rodimus. My necromancer.”

Gideon the Ninth

the thing i like about this book is that it starts at breakneck speeds and continues at only slightly lower velocity

which is good because once they’ve arrived things could have got real boring because Gideon is no analytical genius and Harrow does not trust her one bit with an inch of plot

(I like that Gideon’s ‘dumb’ - with which i mean, ‘not curious’ - though she’s of course extremely alert, incredibly emotionally resilient and of course - an incredible fighter - and quite sneaky)

it’s a puzzle and you get tossed the bits. the fact that it’s an empire and then Gideon talks about invasion armies four chapters on and it becomes clear that a-ha you mean the Real Deal - a Real Empire huh?

the fact that Gideon knows nothing - is told nothing - is kept from all possibilities of gaining information on other places or politics or how things are going is a handy little choice

the other thing i like about this book is that (apparently) this is enemies to lovers but i don’t actually hate Harrow

she’s horrible to Gideon in a way but there’s such an expectedness about it and appropriate emotional response from Gideon that i copy Gideon’s emotions on her - the contempt and wariness and pure desire to simply fucking win. they’re ‘clean’ and merciless.

another thing i like about the book is that it is very good at introducing a lot of characters in a way that you can recognise them later

another thing that i like is that it has a ‘plot’ which on the face of it seems very hmmm basic or ordinary but it’s not what it’s about - it’s about Gideon - and that’s why the story doesn’t devolve into an uninteresting concept. also, every time it seems to - we get a little look at the complexity that implies a genuine mystery. the sci-fi nature to it all makes this so sparking and interesting

doors locks keys key rings yeah

the fascinating thing is that Gideon COULD be in two completely different minds about Harrow. she has an animal response to her being in danger and to helping her - that is to say she has an animal response TO help her. she fantasises about killing her or hurting her but what really keeps her going 100 reps in is winning/getting Harrow’s regard for something she’s done completely independently.

Palamedes and Camilla seem nice. Like Harrow’s and Gideon’s functional counterparts.

I absolutely love how Harrow takes everything supremely seriously - she is a True Necromancer - inherently CREEPY and FORBIDDING and POWERFUL.   and Gideon does Not take in seriously at all and the clash is so wonderful - it’s such a tongue in cheek meta way to do this ....necromancy genre stuff

it SEEMS like humanity was dying and they found a way to re-animate the dead and gain immortality in the lab and that’s what they built their theocratic information-poor ‘resurrection’ space-faring imperial nation on. and they got there doing truly ABOMINABLE things to people

how big ARE your biceps. jpfjfkldsfk Jeannemary......

Gideon misinterprets palamedes’ interest in Dulcinea for attraction but really he knows she’s his main competition and she’s a mastermind. calling it now.

they work together and learn to appreciate each other. But i can’t remember if i’ve been told what Harrow had done to Gideon....

Abigail and Magnus did not ask for permission did they....

Harrow had walked in on Gideon at exactly the wrong moment when they were nine (hah). Hmmm. And her parents were dead from that moment on if I understand correctly? And it broke their relationship. Gideon saw her do something that convinced her that Harrow was a monster. right? I have suspicions.

It’s so CLEVER how Gideon and thus we the audience, do not know SHIT about the magic system - because it makes it so deliciously interesting. Fortunately it’s not frustrating yet to have all that information withheld.

I think Harrow underestimates Dulcinea - and Gideon learns not to. But Harrow knows she is being manipulated.

I just laughed out loud LOUDLY. Gideon is such a snarky jock chad and Harrow is a deeply sour nerd. juice

‘nice to know the other houses are also creeps’ lol

‘probably because you asked’ - ‘that’s all it takes’  - and it’s all she ever demanded! oh GOD. fuckin hell. Harrow did not get that? did not understand that to be friends all they needed was to be free of coercion?? lolololol

‘What are these theorems for?’ Harrow explodes. For this very outrage Harrow! the shock! the realisation that you care - really care about this other person who would have given her life for your ambition! you’re not learning about necromancy - you’re learning to truly trust to each other to the depths of your souls and cells. (edit: i was partly wrong)

the eighth breed batteries - genetic match - yikes that’s so creepily put.

i love how the characters are finding out constantly at exactly the same time as the audience is - but the audience - if they WERE quite quick on the uptake would have had cause to know already - just like the characters.

Another thing i really like about this book is that the building has enormous character - and the character has grown on me enormously as well despite my inability to visualise descriptions very well.

Another thing i really like is that Gideon crushes on all the hot or kind girls.

I just laughed most heartily. That fuckin line from Gideon to Palamenes with the Fourth as witness was so got.damn. well-timed writing ahahahahaa

all the nicknames for Harrow are so good ‘my midnight hagette’ pffjfkjf

The Fourth’s terrified anxiety at the facility suddenly transforms it into a horror story. exceptional

WHAT THE FUCK

so what the fuck sets a cavalier/necromancer pair up for death by bone abomination??? and if Harrow had not suggested they switch - would this have happened???

WHAT ! THE! FUCK!

so i was completely wrong. it’s not about permission (the fifth had it), it’s not about being ahead in keys (the seventh were), it’s not about cavalier and necromancer trusting each other (the fourth did) - i don’t believe its about weakness because the fifth weren’t weak

this just went in a horror direction i cannot understand and it really fuckin sucks that the fourth were RIGHT to be so scared. and also i really liked them - esp jeannemary

and also i there really seems no rhyme nor reason to any of it

that little bit of flimsy from the Second House with ‘Gideon’ on it implies some sort of loop to this where the roles shuffle - since the experiment lines up exactly with Harrow’s expertise as well - and so does the incinerator in a completely different way

Gideon thinks she’s failed because she ‘let’ jeannemary die - she thinks Harrow thinks this too - but that’s not true at all - Harrow is much more practical than that. But Gideon is traumatised.

i so badly want to know what the FUCK happened when they were nine.

There is miscommunication between Gideon and Harrow but it’s so - it’s so obscure in a sense - so much from a Gideon point of view that there’s only glimpses of Harrow’s multi-faceted elements. ‘don’t make fun of my-’  WHAT? her social awkwardness? her inability to be the tiniest bit vulnerable - or social - or in any way anything but her own most sharpened tool?  - and relate to others in the same way - them being tools as well? She was trying to explain herself but Gideon REFERENCED that she can never forget that she hates Harrow - what  does that mean??? is it the incident? is it the fact that Harrow has always had the power to hurt her? and used it?

the whole CONCEPT of a cavalier and necromancer is so delicious but so foreign to Gideon and thus us as a romantic concept that it’s only hitting me now - it’s everything you’d want from an institution set up for devotion. if this was made into a film or a series the very concept would draw thousands and it would become a fanfic AU genre.

things really are happening a LOT. i feel Gideon’s exhaustion acutely

GIDEON DID IT??? I THOUGHT HARROW DID!! BUT THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE. it’s EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE - I thought Harrow’s parents would have done something horrid to Gideon and Harrow had killed and reanimated them out of an animal sense of protection for her enemy/playmate. BUT OF COURSE - it is Gideon who always acts with an animal tendency towards protection of Harrow - even at nine years old?

goddamn the Ninth House was a fucked up place for a child though. why would they treat the only other child like that what the fuck.

......I’m starting suspect that Gideon’s origins may also have been....related to some kind of greater nonsense...

WRONG AGAIN. Harrow just killed them. LOL. WRONG AGAIN. The whole family tried to kill itself but Harrow refused to. WOW. (wait i remember that they told us before that it was suicide? right?)

because she opened the door.

and she has to become a lyctor BEFORE - something. i do believe that something’s coming out of the no-longer-locked-tomb. unless Harrow really is just trying to prevent the infertility problem of her house

ok so Harrow was nine and Gideon was eleven. so Harrow is two years younger. Gideon is 18. Harrow must be 16. wow so fuckin young. did Harrow really blame Gideon for the deaths of her parents - or did Gideon THINK that - just like she thought the same about Jeannemary?

yeah yeah Dulcinea is a dangerous hawk who’s killed her own cavalier or something. but palamenes is a BITCH for not filling Gideon in

oh im so glad that Dulcinea isn’t. but that does explain why ‘Pro’ knocked the Eighth out - that was Dulcinea wasn’t it? herself? or was he ‘alive’ - his spirit somehow fused to his corpse?

THE TIME HAS COME TO TELL YOU EVERYTHING

HMMMMMMMM - WAIT IS GIDEON THE THING FROM THE LOCKED TOMB THOUGH. ALL THE STUFF ABOUT HER GOLD EYES AND RED HAIR AND WEIRD PHENOTYPE. DO THEY ALL HAVE FALSE MEMORIES

naw that’s nonsense.

I knew it. I KNEW IT. Harrow is an extremely vulnerable over-thinking mastermind stupid idiot who doesn’t understand Gideon AT ALL and who is super easily hurt.

jezus fucking christ what a fucking burden to bear for Harrow - to know that she was born at the cost of the lives of TWO HUNDRED CHILDREN. jezus fucking christ. ‘i was tired of being two hundred corpses’ MY!!! GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

she was suicidal at 10 YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!!!! is it any wonder that she was always fighting literally FIGHTING Gideon and being so horrible. AND THEN SHE WATCHED HER PARENTS KILL THEMSELVES RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BOOK

they sure made her sympathetic - and so much of that was obvious from the start that she also seemed secretly sympathetic from the start

well at least Harrow knows that she treated Gideon completely unfairly and horribly all because she hates herself

i cannot tell whether Harrow is in love with the girl who is the Emperor’s end or she’s scared shitless. whether she wants to live forever to see her wake up because she wants to see the glory or because she wants to stop her

GIDEON HAS THE EXACT SAME QUESTION AS ME AAAAHAHAHAHAHA

that dynamic of Harrow playing everything straight and Gideon going - hold up this is funny.

ok so why didn’t Harrow tell her this before i wonder. because she couldn’t bring herself to unless she was forced to - to keep Gideon? hm

i was wrong again. i mean - it was clear from the very start and from Harrow’s crush on the Emperor’s greatest enemy that the Empire is a sickening construction leeching off the deaths of millions but! i guess i though there was going to be a horrid sacrifice at the END - but instead there is yknow - it’s horrid all the way through. it’s just that nobody seems aware of how horrid it is except Gideon who makes jokes about it - so you  just accept it.

the blood and bone and fat and corpses and death are all actually indications of profoundly fucked up things! who knew!!

it seems that dulcinea is not actually dulcinea and still the hawk that killed everybody - because that still wasn’t explained was it - nor the ability to animate pro

so much is happening and it is very good. i think the lyctor liked Gideon because she reminded her of her own. but shes a ruthless immortal who’s been in pain for ten thousand years. and she hates her maker

‘the vengeance of ten billion’? sounds like they sacrificed a lotta people for these powers

so but why did she kill the fourth? and why can she control bones when she’s from the first house?

making the so-likeable sympathetic weirdly compassionate but ruthless dulcinea the villain - it’s brilliant. all the kind things she’s said and done for Gideon. that psychopathic compartmentalisation

Ianthe - the lyctor fighting another lyctor. Had they ever fought?? and the Emperor had Hands. but there are only a couple remaining. and she was hiding in the Seventh House... what did the Hands die of. god do i want to know those histories. Cytherea is ...mad about having been lied to....

Gideon - always wanting to save others. even Ianthe - a deeply horrible person by all accounts

YOU DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TO ME - YOU WILL NOT DIE HERE - GIDEON WHAT AND WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU.

so the whole reason Ducilea knocked off everybody in the building one by one is because she needed the emperor not to be suspicious. isn’t he gonna be just that now??? but it doesn’t matter because these fight scenes are surprisingly epic

the sheer fucking POETRY of Gideon being the last dead daughter of the Ninth House to become one with Harrow’s fate - GOD

wow im sad

what a way to end her pov

The Emperor seems crazily benevolent for a guy who apparently tricked his first lyctors into undeath and sacrificed (implied) 10 billion people and allowed horrible necromantic sins and experiments. who runs an empire on death and has children conquer planets

Gideon’s yet unexplained origins, phenotype, disappearing body AND the fact that she survived tear gas at age one + a whole crazy siphoning with only mild negative effects, and Cytherea kept being cryptic about her origins/death/etc., and that Gideon from the past, gives me a semblance of hope. but im just not sure how book two from Harrow’s pov is gonna hold up without Gideon’s sense of humour

I really loved this book for how all the personal dramas of the characters were perfectly spooled out until everything became clear

anyway this book was - very good

i just wish UHHHHHH that if you absorbed somebody’s soul they actually fuckin stayed with you and didn’t just fucking actually DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but what a worldbuilding MASTERPIECE - and how MASTERFULLY ABSOLUTELY MASTERFULLY UNWRAPPED - in bites and pieces and flecks and tosses - and FAST - it explains why the start is so fast because it NEEDS TO BE - and by the end they go in for longer explanations - i think there’s ONE explanation for something that could plainly be inferred - ONE in the whole book.

this magic system is so fucking DOPE!!!!!!!!!!!

Two-Toned, Bittersweet - Chapter 2/?

Why yes, I’m back again, BABEY. Enjoy another installation of Hot Mess Gays feat. a crushing Corona and background relational drama because college is just a disaster and everything kind of sucks when you’re trying to survive preparing for finals.

Read the whole thing on Ao3

Coronabeth Tridentarius can handle awkward. She’s really quite good at it. You don’t grow up with Ianthe and not learn how to handle awkward and petty moments like a champ.

She tells herself that as she lets herself into Gideon and Dulcinea’s apartment, unceremoniously dropping her purse on the floor near the door and kicking off her shoes. “You’ll never guess who I ran into,” she calls in the vague direction of the kitchen, where Dulcinea is leaning against the counter.

“We know. She was here first.” Dulcinea sounds as peeved as Dulcinea can get, which isn’t saying much. “She wanted to talk to Gideon.”

“What about?”

“I matched with her on Tinder and gave her shit." From down the nearly non-existent hallway, Gideon closes her bedroom door. "She came by to yell at me.” Gideon runs and slides into the kitchen in her sock feet. “Hi, Corona.”

“Hi, Gideon.” Corona opens the fridge and grabs a bottle of beer.

“Can we not talk about Harrow anymore?” Dulcinea rubs her temples. “Her attitude gives me a headache.”

“She gives me a headache,” Gideon grumbles, opening the oven and pulling out an only-slightly-singed pan of garlic bread. Corona grabs a slice before they’ve even cooled, toasting her fingers and tongue as her teeth sink in. "Is Cam coming?"

"You saw her this morning," Dulcinea points out. "I haven't seen her since class yesterday."

Corona likes the feeling of butterflies in her stomach a little more than she should at the mention of what Ianthe would have called her 'insipid little crush.' Camilla was everything Corona longed to be - smart, good at giving advice, unflinchingly loyal and really hot - and Corona was having an increasingly difficult time keeping her respectful distance. She doesn't even know if Camilla remembers their one-night stand last semester; it had been, in two words, ridiculously good, and Corona still can't decide if she wants to ask for a date or a repeat performance.

Or both. Both is good.

"She's been acting weird," Gideon muses, swiping a piece of bread and sitting back up on the counter despite Dulcinea's repeated shoves at her thighs and pleas to get down, I want my coffee mug and your head is in the way. When that doesn't work, Corona reaches around and pinches Gideon's ear. "Ow!"

"Are you causing someone bodily harm, Corona?" Cam's dry voice sounds from the doorway. She kicks the door closed and tosses her keys halfway across the room, lifting a fist in triumph when they skid and come to a halt atop the dining room table. "Oh, never mind, it's just Gideon."

Gideon raises a middle finger to Camilla, then runs her hand through her overgrown red hair. Corona watches the movement, captivated by the shifting color of the strands. There's no way you could ever get that hue from a bottle.

Gideon hops down to grab the pizza Cam brought and Dulcinea retrieves her mug from the cabinet with a look of supreme satisfaction on her face. Corona perches on the stool off to the side of the kitchen and watches the three of them move around each other, a perfect three-part harmony.

"How many pieces do you want?" Camilla asks her, ripping open the bag of salad Corona knows Cam is prepared to eat all by herself.

Gideon doesn't even wait for an answer, placing two slices of pepperoni-laden pizza on a plate and sliding it toward Corona. Corona gleefully bites into the greasy slice, fully aware that her sister would be judging her so hard right now.

"So what are you guys doing this weekend?" Corona asks around her bite.

Gideon thumps her forehead against the counter. Camilla pushes out a dining room chair with her foot, a hint that Dulcinea takes and Gideon does not.

"We have an invitational tomorrow," Camilla answers for Gideon, "and Nav doesn't want to go."

"It's not that I don't want to go," she says, voice muffled. "It's that Judith Deuteros drives me nuts and I'll probably end up going against her again."

"You'll win. You always do." Corona pats Gideon's arm reassuringly. The muscles flex under Corona’s hand as Gideon lifts her head. "It'll be fine."

“I can count on one hand the times you’ve lost,” Dulcinea says from over by the sink, swallowing a handful of pills with an impressive amount of nonchalance. Corona can feel her gag reflex kicking in out of sympathy, but it doesn’t seem like Dulcinea is even a little bit fazed. “You’re good, Gideon. Deuteros has no idea what’s coming for her.”

Gideon preens a little under the praise. Corona shoves at Gideon’s head until the younger girl stands up and goes to get food.

“I suppose you’ll be in team captain mode all weekend?” Corona asks Cam, who nods, mouth full of salad. “Dulcinea, want to sit together?”

Dulcinea nods. “I heard there’s going to be a house party after.”

Gideon’s eyes light up. “Really? Where?”

“One of your teammates' houses, I think.”

Cam says, “How did I not hear about this? I’m captain!”

“Right, that’s why.” Gideon sits at the table, slouching despite Dulcinea’s scolding. “You’re in a position of authority - that makes you a buzzkill.”

Dulcinea starts laughing and Camilla swats at Gideon’s shoulder. From her perch at the kitchen counter, Corona watches the tableau, feeling a little jealous even though she’s the fourth piece of this strange puzzle. The three of them had already known each other by the time Corona inserted herself into the mix, partially due to Dulcinea’s influence and partially because she was tired of being sad and alone every Friday night.

These nights were good for her, she supposes. It's nice to be part of a chosen family, and equally nice to spend time with Camilla, even though her heart insists on doing jumping jacks every time the other girl speaks to her, or even looks at her.

Therein lies her current conflict, she muses, watching Dulcinea and Gideon tell Camilla a story that seems to be aging Cam by at least three years. She doesn’t want to bring up the one-night stand in case that’s all it was to Camilla; she’s unwilling to break her own heart over something that may have meant nothing. But she finds herself pining for the woman, and knows that if she doesn’t act on it, she’ll spend a long time hung up on the mystery of what could have happened.

Camilla rolls her eyes at the story’s end, shifting her gaze from Gideon and catching Corona’s eye. Her gaze holds on, narrow and dark, as unreadable as ever.

As Corona watches, she smiles.

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