Lying awake at night thinking about an Ianthe arm design that makes anatomical sense

welcome to bible study we’re all children of jesus

portrait practice feat. god’s favourite and least favourite kids

okay so silas knew that gideon was a fake cavalier from day one. he knew ortus had died and that gideon was a serf of the ninth sent in his stead. but silas chooses to hold on to that information until act four! meanwhile he openly calls palamedes an unfinished inbred and camilla a mad dog with an illegitimate claim to the title of cavalier primary. silas says nothing about gideon until hes speaking to her in private. interesting!

ok let’s recap. to turn to look at someone and know them instantly is to be orpheus, to turn to look at someone but be delayed in knowing them is to be mary magdalene, and to know someone instantly but be delayed in turning to look at them is to be camilla hect

trying to work out gideon’s motivations at the end of ntn got my brain chugging like a steam engine

obviously she can want two things at once, but I’m trying to sort out how much of her desire to get into the tomb is her stated reason—kill alecto and become god’s cavalier—and how much is directly related to harrow’s well-being/getting harrow back.

her being there because john is manipulating her into opening the tomb by using her desire to belong to someone makes sense, but did john actually “send her”? she says twice she snuck onto ianthe’s shuttle which was headed to new rho; how did she plan to get to the ninth from there? did she know ianthe was going looking for harrow?

she claims herself as john’s child and heir and states her desire to be his cavalier, but the moment harrow’s body starts falling apart she drops all (if any?) pretense. her priorities shift instantly. she tells paul to take all her blood if they have to; she tells them to kill her, if that will open the tomb and get nona’s exploding soul out of harrow’s meat. but even before nona starts bleeding, right after ianthe accuses gideon of kidding herself, she calls ianthe out for only caring about herself and, specifically, not about harrow—“don’t open the tomb, leave harrow to die, mneh mneh mneh.”

I guess my question is: does gideon even know what she wants? she’s obviously deeply, cosmically miserable about her situation, and yet she probably does believe that if she can make herself indispensable to god then she’ll finally have the security and even love she’s always wanted after losing literally everything else that’s ever mattered to her. but how much does she buy that that’s what she really wants? how much is she lying to herself and how much is she lying to everyone else?

"oh she's lovely what a great depiction of this character" code for Her Tits 😳😳😳😳😳

I have made the most 2008 goth forum-like banner I could create to put my liveblogging posts of tlt under because those are the vibes I find appropriate and it gives me nostalgia. If this was 2008 blogspot, you'd be hearing something like HIM's Wings of a Butterfly, or something like that, please picture that.

previously, in gideon the ninth:

this happened

were we are now:

I forced myself to stop reading for the day so I could update a sensible amount and not a thesis length post nobody will read

it wasn't easy to force myself to stop reading

you know how it is

so, turns out that protozoa was dead all along (ish)

people here die and live and kinda live-die and die-live, you know

dulcinea del toboso soraya montenegro septimus was hiding that fact

she has also not mentioned exactly how he died (she said an accident??? harrow said he was stabbed?? what, he fell on a sword heart first????)

I am still not done with her

I still don't trust her

she's gonna die and I'm gonna still think she's scheming

ANYWAY

gideon DID suspect harrow

she had a bit of a crisis over it in front of palmolive's salad

palmolive reacts by taking off and putting on his glasses 25 times

and harrow had my exact thought process of "she's gonna go to dulcinea instead of me if she finds out"

I am very unnerved at how much my thought process and harrow's have aligned so far

very concerned for my mental state

ANYWAY (vol. 2)

palmolive says what I said, that it's not harrowcita's style to kill so sloppily

gideon tells palmolive her past trauma and how all the kids in the ninth except her and harrowbeth died and how she blames herself because harrow kinda had the childhood of asuka langley soryuu in evangelion but worse

palmolive does this

camilla, the moon to my stars, the woman of the year, my qp wife, brings in harrow with a handcuff

so, let me set the scene

there's a guy's head in a box, gideon has told palmolive her life story, and in comes camilla with harrow on a kid harness like she's a scary parent at disneyland

this is a sitcom

anyway, they all go to dulcinea's lair and have a talk with the group

I still kinda stan yandere twin ianthe (sp??), I'm not gonna lie you folks

she's ooky kooky spooky in a fun way

like, deranged (affectionate)

so, as usual, nobody agrees on anything and everyone fights and dulcinea coughs up a hairball

now, harrow and gideon go to the pool

which is salty now, much like gideon

my first thought was "gideon can't swim, she's gonna drown like sonic!!"

but they could stand in the pool apparently so it's fine

I mean, physically it's fine, EMOTIONALLY not so much

it's time to come clean, share trauma and also maybe flirt in the pool, if that's what's going on here

I think it's what's going on

it's hard to tell with them, but there's tension, proximity and hugs and stuff

basically, if I understand correctly, the ninth put all the kids in an infomercial blender and harrowbean was powered into life

but gideon is baby hercules and survived

which explains why she was turned into a blood sprinkler and the next day she was doing push ups like a maniac

I mean, it explains why she could physically do that, not why she thought that's the safe thing to do

so the ninth was like ?????? and feared gideon

and proceded to treat her like konoha treated naruto uzumaki

no adult person in the ninth was making sound decisions, it's what I'm getting at

case in point: ortus and his mom were blown to bits

also, very important

if I understood right, there's a frozen girl in the ninth's fridge tomb

a frozen girl like dr victor fries's wife nora in batman, or hyoga's mom in saint seiya, or han solo

ice cube frozen girl with a sword and chains and the vibe of this specific barbie doll from the haunted beauty collection

it's like if snow white was the apocalypse

you're gonna hate all my references by the end of this

I'm so sorry

there's a threat in a girl, in the ice, in the tomb, in the ninth house, that's the gist of it

and harrow has existential trauma because pretty much every person below the age of 18 died for her to live, so she wants to make it count

and gideon is hercules who comes from elsewhere and has the genes of a demigod or a kryptonian

but all of that doesn't matter, what matters is that harrow says the most metal phrase ever and goes: "I am a war crime"

?????? HELLO?????

and here's the thing (I have told you this @lady-harrowhark ), this is the book @ me every time I discover some truth and I look at my ebook's progress bar

if you're not completely annoyed, I'll be back tomorrow with more reactions to reveals

Hmmm I always thought that Gideon was absolutely perfectly in sync with the beauty standards of the Houses, judging from both how people react to her (the twins and Corona) and how she perceives herself (come on, she should be gorgeous, otherwise she wouldn’t think that she is hot, with her childhood it’s impossible).

Sorry I was too asleep to post this last night but I assume it was in reply to this post

Her childhood was spent on the Ninth though! Like, she WAS 100% unquestionably the hottest person around. Mostly everyone else was geriatric. I do think Gideon is hot but like, the reason SHE thinks she's hot shit is imo because of her body, which she worked hard for vs. her facial features - she has acne and wears face paint, so. We're told later on that Gideon makes a very good looking corpse, and she's a dead ringer for Wake who even Mercy calls hot, but I think the reason she feels herself is because of her ripped arms.

BTW this is why weightlifting is GREAT for your self esteem.

This sent me down A LONG thought spiral about what even are beauty standards in the Houses, anyway. I initially tag ranted but actually here it is:

#Because we truly don't know! #our POV characters are massive lesbians #and I would say Gideon is the only one who's actually in touch with what she considers attraction #AND she's spent all her life on the Ninth so she's bound to find everyone she meets hot

#I think THE idea standard is a general appreciation of symmetrical facial features and/or stunning standout features #just bc that's a constant of what humans find hot across civilisations

#but we also have the 'frail necromancer build' that's apparently hot enough that people write romance novels about it #and then there's an attraction to strong muscled bodies #(why Judith thinks Corona must be into Camilla)

#ofc we know that Coronabeth is the hottest person in every room she walks in #but we actually don't get that many close descriptions of her surprisingly! #she has hair like spun gold. is tall. has tits and amazing eyes. but there's a huge variety in how Corona's body is depicted in fanart #and a case could be made that the reason why everyone is so drawn to her is that she's so charismatic #or that Ianthe shaped her features with flesh magic etc. #so we don't actually get a good idea of what even are these beauty standards! #(and they probably change in every House) #which is pretty neat #TO ME

I Want To Actually Write Some Fics

So, I'm finally moving to a dorm away from "home" in a few months, and I want to take the opportunity to finally start writing some of the fanfics that have been calibrating in the back of my mind.

Warnings in advance:

I will only be writing fanfic, not original works.

I have never shared or published fics before (Unless you count reading the occasional snippet in Creating Writing Club).

As of right now, I have no beta(s).

Don't know my college schedule/workload yet, so no ideas about how often I could post/update at the moment.

I likely won't be able to post anything until I have access to a computer at the college (presumably in August, sorry about that), because the closest thing I have to an unmonitored/unrestricted device at "home" is my outdated Kindle Fire tablet (where the secondary browser I downloaded to hide reading fics sometimes likes to crash every few minutes).

If you've read past all of that and are still interested in my possible future writings, here are the possible options for what I could actually post:

Azure Fingerprints: Title of a possible series based off of this idea (batman and megamind crossover). > (Time travelers have realized that Bruce Wayne will always, without exception, base his crimefighting persona on the first thing... – @grandpuppyalpaca on Tumblr)

Featuring (so far): a delayed start to "Batman's" career, SuperBat friendship, Bruce's poor social skills, the not-yet-"Batcave" getting turned into a babyproofed nursery, and lots of fluff and crack and FEELINGS. Not sure if other parts of the series would be other longfics in that world, or just little snippets of stuff.

2. Anna Elizabeth Wayne (Actual Title TBD): My take on an Annabeth is Bruce Wayne's daughter fic.

Featuring (so far): Show!Annabeth (Leah Jeffries is phenomenal), Reverse Batkids AU (with a twist or so), an Athena characterization based on Circe by Madeline Miller, GoodDad!Bruce, multiverse stuff (only a little at the moment), Siblings Bonding Over Weird Childhoods, and So Much ANGST. This one is reallllly complicated, so it might be a series just so I can include one of those "explanation of the writer's AU" pages. Not as much of a plot as it is ANGST, small ideas for individual scenes, and general vibes right now.

3. The Adventures Of Lulu And Hatchling: probably the title of first fic (probably backstory stuff) in what would likely be a series. Crossover between ACOTAR universe and PJO/HOO (I am NOT ACTUALLY merging the two worlds). Basic background is that Annabeth's mortal family are the descendants of an illegitimate child from a kept mistress of Tamlin's father, and Annabeth is the first person to have powers from their bloodline. Baby Annabeth gets sent to grow up with Tamlin (Watsonian reasons would be explained in-story), but Lucien unofficially becomes her main caretaker. She spends seven years in the Spring court (pre-Amarantha even coming to Prythian), then is returned home in time for all PJO relevant events to occur. This would NOT be a Complete Re-Write Of PJO Canon.

Featuring (so far): Multiverse stuff, Annabeth w/fae powers, Book!Annabeth description so she can look like Tamlin (Leah Jeffries is still phenomenal, fight me), Lucien's gradually increasing blood pressure, Found Family Fluff, Lucien being a good father/uncle/older brother figure, Tamlin not being a complete alphahole in the beginning, Eventual Tamlin Bashing anyway, Ianthe Bashing (once she joins the story).

Definite intentions for later parts of the story: Powerful!Annabeth High Lady!Annabeth, Consort!Percy (he refuses to become High Lord, especially when he can just vibe and technically hold the official title of Least Politically Important Person At This Meeting), Tamlin's manor getting abandoned and Annabeth employing people to help build a new one that she designs, Inter-Court Meetings between all the courts becoming a Regular Thing (bc I want to put all the little dudes in a jar, shake them up, and study the results under a microscope), Inter-Court politics, gradually undermining the patriarchy, Inter-Court friendships, Beron taking psychic damage from the sheer audacity of---, Everyone Bonding Over Hating Beron, Positive Social Change, and Me Adding My Own Additional Lore To The World Of Prythian.

Optional fun fact! The base story could take multiple paths after TTC, so it would be the most likely fic to eventually make me write one or more AUs of itself, so here's later random details of the story that may or may not be added depending on which timeline I write: Tamlin dies, Tamlin gets locked up in his own house and told that Annabeth is willing to talk to him once he's "being more rational". Beron has a brain aneurysm in the middle of an Inter-Court Meeting and dies, Percy and Annabeth somehow creating a plan to get away with sending Beron off for the Hunters and Amazons to hunt him for sport, Amarantha kills Tamlin and is shortly killed by Annabeth before ACOTAR would have happened, Rhysand and Annabeth become Very Fast Friends and make fun of people together, and Doreen Green (Squirrel Girl) becomes Annabeth's spymaster bc that would just have so much comedic potential, fight me (she's honest about that being her job [if not explaining the details of how she does it] and she's just so open and friendly and polite that it has to be a hoax, right? there's no way she's actually in charge of collecting real intelligence. she has a network of squirrels who pass info to her across the entire continent? oh right, because of the tail, very funny. some of us are actually taking this seriously, Tarquin).

4. Lightning Rod, Grounding Wire: Approximate title for a crossover AU where Agatha Heterodyne (Girl Genius) and Hunter (The Owl House) end up swapping places right before Barry would have gotten Agatha (exact explanations undecided, maybe Belos let the Collector get too bored?) and about the same time Hunter was created (with Hunter being a couple years older than her biologically). Longfic? Series? Who knows, not me(yet).

In the Boiling Isles: Agatha is initially raised by Belos in something a bit similar to the get in loser we're assassinating the emperor - elliptical - The Owl House (Cartoon) [Archive of Our Own] AU, but it's Agatha (Spark, Heterodyne, etc.) so she gets on the wrong side of the empire way quicker. I'm thinking that she wouldn't make it more than a couple years after her breakthrough (w/o Uncle Barry to build her locket) before she starts spouting Extremely Logical Treason in meetings. Mostly, Canon occurs but minus Hunter (I'm going off the theory that Belos had to reuse the same galderstone for each grimwalker, so in this he's permanently down one(1) clone child soldier) and with way more explosions.

Meanwhile, over in Europa: Barry quickly deduces that this Very Small Child isn't Bill and Lucrezia's, is definitely some kind of construct, and is likely part of some kind of plot by Lucrezia (the man's stressed, and 2ish out of 3 ain't bad). Barry's not the kind of spark who'll try to vivisect or euthanize the kid just to stop Lucrezia, so his best bet is hiding him away from the world. Hunter grows up considering himself a construct, in time gets left with the "Clays", and lives a somewhat less stressful life than Agatha would have pre-canon. Everything goes passably well for him until the first events of "The Beetleburg Clank".

Featuring (so far): The rapidly increasing blood pressure of Every Adult in this situation, young Agatha being a feral gremlin, Hunter actually having a childhood, if Eda had a a nickel for every time a semi-feral teenage girl built an interdimensional portal in her back yard she'd have two nickels, SO MANY mistaken identity shenanigans after Agatha and Hunter actually meet, eventual Huntlow and Agatha/Gil/Tarvek OT3, and Eda menacing All The Sparks.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the only one of these that wouldn't need an explanation page is number one.

I do have more ideas on all four of these (as well as other vague ideas still calibrating), but this post is pretty long so I'd need a request from someone before I give more info.

Please comment/reblog/@ me with your thoughts!

For future reference, my Ao3 account is:

Niche Nona Liveblogging: Day Five - Ch. 26

All right, baby. It’s time. It’s time to unhinge the whole mind. Rip those hinges right off. Let the brain flap in the wind. Et ceterea. Spoilers until the very end of Nona the Ninth. Previous and future liveblogs are here. Apologies for unedited typos and mis-transcriptions are right here, at your feet, take them. Some comments will be in vaguely chronological liveblogged spurts, but I think I’ll group certain other observations together under their coalescencing themes and my baby thoughts about them. Just kidding, this felt too long already, so we’ll put thematic observations in the next and final post?? This liveblog now goes until Chapter 26 or page 375 in the hardcover. Also. I’ve stopped climbing the walls. I’m on the ceiling now. I’m never coming down. 

“as though others were more deserving than Nona, the most deserving person on the planet” and she’s right! “But I don’t want to be redheaded. I do not think of myself as redheaded.” “She was probably quite a bit older than Pyrrha, with strongly marked features and an aristocratic, slightly hooked nose, and her face was marked with lines that showed even beneath a light layer of powder and make-up” + “She was starting to perk up, by We Suffer standards, which meant her eyes had narrowed a bit.” Sorry to be me, but We Suffer confirmed h*t. I knew it. I knew it. Hooked nose! I knew it. “meeting up with the Messenger, whom you call the Angel… we may actually survive it” fascinated by this but also as the Angel becomes a confirmed Blood of Eden / Merv wing agent, I am once again tapping the NGE mech asking if it’s ready to go… “The Angel is Blood of Eden.” (294) “Corona can’t lie to her.” (296) cf. Crown/Corona’s belief, as disclosed to Nona anyway, that she can. It is very clear which Tridentarii Camilla, anyway, thinks is ascendant. We’re also noting that “Violabeth” is such a name. (Also matriarchal lineage on the Third or…?) You know, I twigged, of course I twigged at the “very obviously dead person with fashion hair” – but I really did not piece together, until the reveal, that Ianthe was puppeting Babs’ dead body and self-styling him as a vessel for princedom. In-cred-i-ble. Everything happening here is off the charts and I would expect nothing less from the Tridentarii, evil kings and princes and girls that I love. Also unhinged and again I am obsessed that Nona mistakes Ianthe-in-Babs for Crown/Corona’s boyfriend and Palamedes is like “yeah, well. Honest mistake.” “You think we’re fighting you on Antioch.” Not our first mention of Antioch, but the first that there’s a different threat. I’m putting my chin in my hands, I’m twirling my hair, I’m asking Ianthe to tell me pretty please. “Get the fishhook out of the fish.” At which point I went, ah yes, code word, and immediately had to flip back.

“[Blood of Eden owns] things in common, we share responsibilities and resources in common. [Wake] could’ve moved those resources at will.” Good tie-in to As Yet Unsent and Judith being mystified over their slightly more lateral chain of command. “It even scared A--. He was all, Matter doesn’t play by these rules! You’re doing bone parthenogenesis! I told him his mum did bone parthenogenesis. A—told me he’d kill me one day.”  No commentary. “M—‘s nun of all people was convinced that [the soul] was the element I was missing, and that finding it… would bring us closer to God.” Sweeps Cristabel Oct crumbs into my hand and kisses them all goodnight. I cannot believe I was hoodwinked into being obsessed with a nun. “He never knew how to pick between me and P—” G1deooooon. Gideon, Gideon, Gideon. I’m gratified for each any every bit of characterization, which I think goes a long way in giving G1deon a slight degree more of agency post-HTN. “Absorption through the eyes is worse than the brain.” Cf. Augustine’s something to the effect of “That dolt. [Mercymorn] knows not to look at [RB7] directly.” Neither of which confirms whether Mercymorn actually looked at it or just knew to fake she looked at it. I’m sure she did just look at it. Even HTN is not that complex, but I remain stuck on that scene, huh? “Do you know, I miss Harrow terribly.” Nerds (bullying emoji). Nerds who are friends (teary emoji). “I have very often not had to shoot myself.” Once again, We Suffer is hot. ALSO, for that matter, so is Pash and her blue hair. Icon. Angry legend. We love them all. “Crack the sky, Troia cell.” Back in the days of 8tracks, I had a mildly successful Lin Beifong themed fanmix called break the sky, which was named after the Hush Sound song of the same name. These are just some of the fun, personal facts about me you get from sticking around. (All cops? Terrible. But I’m making allowances both Nepotism Chief Beifong and Necrotism Chief Pyrrha Dve. Unfortunately.) “[Crown] had her big beautiful hair down around her shoulders in a profusion of smoothed, rippling curls, and she was wearing a lovely pale yellow slip that left her golden shoulders and throat bare. The dress was slit all the up to the thigh and she wore soft black leather trousers beneath it…” Slit-skirt over trousers, Coronabeth is single-handedly bring back to 00’s. But also we can note the gender and Corona skewing more traditionally feminine again, now in the presence of Ianthe. Throughout, Ianthe makes several comments about Coronabeth’s hair, a fixation that seems in-line with Ianthe’s force-growing of Harrow’s hair / attempts to cast Harrow as more traditionally feminine than Harrow seems personally inclined. Now is, maybe, a good moment to also reflect on Harrow’s gender presentation versus Nona’s. Again, the hair. The hair. And Nona’s attachment to her long hair. (Which… given what John tells us later… but we’ll get to that!!!) “Teacher assumes [the Sixth] melted as result of a little domestic drama, which sets him off wallowing again.” Getting over a polycule murder-break-up is hard. “This is the last thing he needs. If he hears that yet another of his duplicitous sluts betrayed him.” I am kissing each of the duplicitous sluts on the head. I love them. I love them all. I love the broken polycule. “Cassiopeia the First left us instructions years ago… We left for a Lyctor.” At which point we were, as they say, hooting and hollering. I think it was a well-documented theory that Mercymorn’s account of Cassiopeia’s death did not feel complete and left room for doubt but yes, give me another hyper-competent mean lady. Give me the lawyer-librarian. I am rubbing my little hands together. I am desperate to learn her Homestuck typing quirk. What will be her punctuation of choice, I beg of you. Also Tamsyn, you cannot tell me the guy named Ulysses (WHERE did his soul come from?? Who IS he???) is not also returning. So like. Yum. Delicious. I want to collect two new duplicitous sluts in Alecto, pretty please. “But we’re closer to the goal than ever before.” When Ianthe DOES reveal her endgame, I am going to be absolutely wild. “Every single dead soldier’s fingers twitched.” Someone call Santa Claus from Chainsaw Man bc Ianthe’s about to crush them to the ground in a PVP puppeteering fight. “Oh, darling, you’re always everyone else’s girl.” !!!!! “It was like the scream was made of her insides” Again, filing the scream away for future purposes (338). I would very much like Nona to get into heavy metal. I think that would be nice. “and maybe [Judith’s father will] stop moaning about supply lines” again, simply attentive to who is doing what portions of the day to day management of the war efforts and general empire-running. “You challenged the Sixth for its keys” – At which point I screamed for the callback. Also, God. It was only “over a year ago”? Death comes at you fast. “… between Naberius and me, there are no more weaknesses. I took those away… and now he is perfect.” (342) Frankly, did not expect this book to be a big win for the Babsheads, but I’m really happy for them. Ianthe’s ideas of perfection and perfect lyctorhood are emergent here and relevant in contrast to Palamedes’, but we’ll touch on that later. “As poor old Augustine used to say, It’s impossible, and what’s more, it’s improbable.” (342) At which point my mind began to gurgle, but God we note the poor old Augustine mirrors Augustine’s own constant refrain of poor little Cyth. There’s an intriguing way in which Ianthe is mimicking Augustine here and through actually taking up smoking later (I wonder if we can do a certain gender thing here). But I admit my first thought was really wow, Saint of Patience completely bodied. She truly felt nothing for him, she thought he was small and old, and I cannot believe Augustine thought Ianthe would side with him over God. I know I tweet this like five times a year but truly every time I remember Augustine is canonically blonde, it really does feel like an injustice to me personally. ALSO that he’s like, what, canonically 40ish and not played by Jeremy Irons?? Ridiculous. CW // Suicide mention in the next section // “’I wouldn’t get hurt. I’d just die,’ said Crown, her bronzed throat working against the barrel. ‘You’re not all-powerful here. All you have are wards and puppets. I shoot, the bullet goes through my palate and into the brain, and then you’re the Crown Princess of Ida… like you never wanted.” (343) A fascinating threat of sovereignty and !!! “’I’m going to shoot myself and you’re going to watch,’ said Crown, with deep satisfaction. ‘Like when we were teens, but this time I’m really going to tie the rope… really going to drink the poison…’” Corona’s history of suicidal thoughts adds a riveting new dimension to her expectation/desire that Ianthe would eat her (“My heart’s own… my necromancer” !!). Mmmm Tridentarii and their psychodramas. I’m leaning forward in my side. // End CW “You’ve been training with someone who knew what they were doing.” Augustine or Gideon? Both? I cannot believe Palamedes had to pilot Naberius’ body and I would pay money for that Freaky Friday AU. “Personally? She’s the last thing I have left of a woman I tried to trick into loving me, and got played myself.” I cannot believe this is the off-screen romance. God. God! I am eating the ceiling tiles. Pyrrha/Wake Spy Vs Spy asshole edition. Pyrrha/Wake idk Mr. and Mrs. Smith only I think maybe in reverse? I haven’t seen that movie since I was a child. (ft. “Let’s not get too cute about it, though. My best friend and I punched her out an airlock. Apart from that, I was ready to commit.”)   Also the incredibly me note that “Well, you’ll probably start visiting clubs and trying to hit on the dancers, and going from relationship to relationship not really being able to commit” (357) that this in did make my soul long for a single, single Augustine/Pyrrha interaction. God. What that must have been. “Talk about being the mother’s daughter… She’s him in the eyes and brows… amazed Mercymorn didn’t see it. But she wasn’t looking for it, I guess.” (361) Mercy, you beautiful fool. Also very crucial Gideon food, truly.

We’re filing away all comments on Gideon, and Gideon’s body, and where we find her for the end but god “a big purple bloodless puncture wound, with white teeth peeking out coyly from within” (366). Explain the teeth! Please explain the teeth! Why does necromancy lead to teeth!!!! What is up with the stoma!!! “I’ve never much seen the allure of an evil cougar.” (368) Your loss, Sextus. Cytherea ): Gone but never forgotten ): ): ):

“Judith Deuteros for some reason” is a great laugh line. “Those are my speed holes. They help me go fast,” is an abomination.

Gideon. Last stretch will be here soon. I am still on the ceiling.

Hiya! A while back you expounded upon the ideal size of Ianthe's cock, and it inspired fic: I've got a rough draft written now for an Ianthe/Palamedes (and Naberius/Palamedes, Ianthe/Coronabeth/Naberius, and Coronabeth/Camilla) fic. When I go to post it (which I expect to be some time in July) would you like me to gift it to you, given that your post inspired it? No worries if the answer is no, of course, but I wanted to offer.

(By the way, the Pyrrha/Ianthe fic "Brat Taming" that I will be gifting you is written and will begin posting once I finish up posting my fic "The Love of Flesh".)

omg im sorry for the late answer but for some reason this just barely showed up in my ask box it wasn't here before 😭

anyways YES PLEASE OMG!!! wow thank u im so excited to read them!!!

(replies are off so I have to send another ask 😵)I am for serious sorry if that wasn't clear & thanks for being understanding

You know what, it makes total sense that you are 21 and your info post looks like that and you are asking me to remove an otherwise funny tag just because it is about Ianthe Tridentarius, a completely fictional made up character

Out of respect I’ve just deleted the whole reblog lmfao

Anyway - problem resolved.

Nona the Ninth, Chapter 24

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one!)

(Gideon Nav icon) In which a considerable debate is begun in the fandom.

All the zombie solders crumple where they stood, leaving Nona buried under two. Everyone runs to Cam, who rises to her knees, holding Ianthe's rapier steady to avoid further damage. Crown begs Cam to stay with her, and Cam says she's not going anywhere.

“I’m holding you to that,” said the body of Ianthe Naberius.(1)

Pyrrha grabs the gun and rushes to point it at Ianthe Naberius's body… but lowers it and calls whoever's in there a "fucking legend". Cam tells Pyrrha to remove the rapier, since it missed the pelvis. Ianthe's body says she'll be out of commission with a gut wound like that, and Cam doesn't care, so Ianthe's body does it themself. Crown leaves to find bandages.

Cam asks for some space, as Pyrrha and Ianthe's body are still crowding her. Palamedes asks if she won't look at him, after carrying the remains of his body, his soul, his life. Cam looks him right in the eye and says she would always know him, calling him "Warden". Cam, Pal, and Pyrrha banter a bit, and Pal admits he's expending almost all he has to keep control of the body.

Pyrrha suggests he read it with his psychometry, since this body would have been the conduit for stashing the other corpse. He can't get fine details, but can tell Pyrrha vaguely where to look. Pyrrha says that's practically an intelligence briefing. Pal tells her to take Nona. Pyrrha objects, but he says there's no time, Ianthe is still trying to take control back. It felt to them like much longer than the four seconds it was to everyone else, and his respect for Ianthe has grown, but he'd be lucky to have an hour in control.

Crown has returned, so he tells her to get Judith, and meet them back here. Crown calls him a good man, for not hurting Ianthe. He says it was just safer to trap her than to let her escape back to her own body, it wasn't mercy. She thanks him anyway, and offers to help bandage Cam, but Pyrrha says the guards are knocked out or otherwise busy, there's a clear path to and from Judith.

Crown hesitates, and Nona compares her current state to Noodle, wanting to go out and run but also wanting to stay comfy where he is.(2) Shortly, Crown loses some internal battle, and flees.

Pyrrha rescues Nona from the corpse pile, and they leave as well. Pyrrha asks if Nona's alright, and Nona says she feels strange. Pyrrha offers to pinch her, which Nona bristles at but also breaks out of some of her strange feeling. Pyrrha offers her sleeve for Nona to clean the gunk and plastic bits out of her eyes, and they go on through the barracks to where Pal described.

Nona admits on the way that she's dying. Pyrrha suspected for a while: the soul longs for the body, and she'd know how much it takes to acclimate a soul to a body it wasn't born to.

“But you’re not sad,” said Nona. “Of course I’m not sad. You’re not dying on my watch. Kiddie, when you were yelling…” Nona was still a little embarrassed about that. “I took Cam a bit too literally.”(3) Pyrrha opened her mouth to say something, but then they rounded the second left and she shut her mouth.

There's an obvious ward on the corridor, and Pyrrha reads messages scrawled nearby, warnings that anyone who enters will disintegrate. Nona asks what the trap is, and Pyrrha throws a piece of pipe at the door, where it crumbles to dust that lands on the other side.

“It’s a shit version of Mercymorn’s old entropy trap,”(4) said Pyrrha. “Not half as good. Done entirely through wards—brilliant—but entirely reliant on wards—fucking ridiculous. Good at keeping people out though … and almost impossible for anyone but another Lyctor to break. See what it’s made out of? That’s blood. Blood wards age, and they burn out if you make them work too hard … And I’m sorry, No-No, but that’s where you come in.”

Pyrrha points out that Nona's regeneration is much stronger than even a normal Lyctor's. They couldn't recover from some of the things Nona can. And Pyrrha hates to ask Nona to hurt herself for this, but it's the most important thing in the whole world. Nona asks what's so special about the body they're after. Pyrrha says she's the key to a very important door, and the last thing Pyrrha has left of the woman she loved.(5) And, she might be Nona's body.

Nona found herself sighing again, like her body wanted to let out all its sound at once. One of her ears felt slightly blocked, and when she tilted her head and blew her nose and pulled at her earlobe a little trickle of water came out.(6) “What if I don’t like me?” she said. “Well, you’ll probably start visiting clubs and trying to hit on the dancers, and going from relationship to relationship not really being able to commit.”(7) Nona was severe. “You talk too much, Pyrrha.”

Nona decides to reach out a hand, but at the last moment, can't do it from her fear. Pyrrha grabs Nona by the elbow and pushes her hand forward into the ward. After several long, gory paragraphs of gore about how the ward affects Nona's hand, the ward breaks like a car backfiring. Nona cries into Pyrrha, and it takes a good half minute to get her to look at her hand, which is thankfully fine except for her nails being long and clawed. Pyrrha trims them for her, roughly, and tells her to start opening doors while Pyrrha cleans up the ward in case it's still partially intact and can reform.

Nona opens a door, but it only holds brooms. Next, there's a door with a key still in the lock outside, so she opens it to find the girl from her dream. She tiptoes in, and a couple of paragraphs are spent describing her in quite a bit of detail.

Nona touches the corpse's hand tentatively, expecting her to be revealed as an illusion or a soap bubble.

What happened made her think much better of the corpse. It opened its eyes—and its eyes were yellow, the gold of the old sky, like hers only much foggier.(8) Those were beautiful: Nona had always adored her eyes, and here they were again, on the corpse, only partially spoiled for being dead. They looked like treasure at night. The corpse looked at her in such mute, helpless appeal—spoke to her in her first language(9)—that Nona did not have to think about what she did next. She leant down and laid a kiss right on that cool, dead, crooked mouth. She kissed her just the once. The corpse’s mouth was soft and rough and cold, and did not respond to Nona’s mouth, but a tremble went through the upper body. Nona was surprised and relieved to find that the corpse girl tasted like toothpaste. At the tremble, Nona pulled back, self-conscious. The expression on the corpse’s face could not have been more rigid with shock and disbelief. She found herself saying, a little defensively— “You looked like you wanted to be kissed, that’s all.”

Pyrrha enters and Nona says she's sorry, but Pyrrha looks at Gideon like she's seeing at least one ghost. Nona turns back to Gideon and finds her eyes closed again, her body still. Pyrrha gathers herself and says she'd know Gideon Nav anywhere, she's the picture of her mother except for her eyes and brows. Nona observes that Gideon's mother was the woman who broke Pyrrha's heart, and Pyrrha says she was ready to commit except for the whole punching Wake out an airlock thing.

For some reason, Nona felt vaguely hurt and envious. She didn’t have a mother for Pyrrha to have punched out an airlock. Nor had Pyrrha ever looked at her the way she now looked at the dead corpse with red hair—a kind of soft, guarded want; a hunger—a living desire to take the corpse in her arms like Kevin’s wanting desire with his dolls. To own, to squeeze, to cosset and destroy.

Nona remembers and tells Pyrrha that she thinks Gideon's awake, and can hear them. Nona admits she kissed Gideon and woke her up. Pyrrha looks at Nona, sad and amused and more understanding than Nona wants. She asks Nona why, and Nona says, no reason. Pyrrha asks what it felt like, and Nona says that's private. Pyrrha observes that she's not a heap on the floor, so there wasn't a soul exchange.(10)

Nona says Gideon looked at her, and Pyrrha asks her eye colour. Gold, like Nona's, but cloudier. Pyrrha is relieved Ianthe didn't transfer into her, and remarks how it would've taken half the Lyctors of old to keep her in hand. Pyrrha wonders why John let her bring Gideon's corpse along, knowing the BOE would lose their minds when they saw her resemblance to Wake.

At any rate, time to get back to the gang, so Pyrrha heaves Gideon over her shoulder. Nona notices that Gideon is wearing a jewelled scabbard on her hip, and a sword hilt above it, all pearly white, and something attached to the other hip with "clear white blades and plate rivets."(11) Pyrrha tells Nona to eat the protein bar in Pyrrha's pocket on the way back up, and Nona grumbles, but she does feel weak.

When they return to the crew, Crown's hand reflexively touches her(12) sword as she declares it was Gideon after all. Pyrrha says it could be a doll copy, as she can't see why John would allow her corpse into the world, ever. Crown rushes to cradle Gideon's head in her hands, playing with the wreath.(13)

Pyrrha asks about the shuttle, and Crown says Pal's language got shockingly filthy when he looked at it. The fuel's warded against use. Cam suggested they secure the Sixth for now, and come back for the shuttle later. Judith's also in bad shape, her sedatives aren't working like they should.

Pyrrha asks Crown to help Nona, who worked too hard to get their prize. Crown offers Nona a piggyback ride, which Nona accepts eagerly.

Back in the main room, Cam is standing, though she looks grey beneath her olive skin. Pal and Cam both look at Pyrrha and Nona eagerly, but Pal's face creases as he realizes there wasn't a reaction. Pal wonders if that means it's a copy, and has Pyrrha put her down. Pyrrha does so, gently, and Nona thinks the corpse prince really does look dead, she's flopping very convincingly. Crown says Ianthe certainly acted as though the corpse was real. Pal kneels and gets to work.

He undid her scarf, and Nona looked away. Beneath the scarf a huge wound in the throat made the neck yawn wide open.(14) When she peeked back, wishing she had her braids to screen everything, she saw that Palamedes had unbuttoned the shirt partway and there was another big wound in the chest—a big purple bloodless puncture wound, with white teeth peeking out coyly from within.(15)

Pal says the damage is consistent with reported injuries, with a second wound lower down. Pyrrha says it would be an exact copy with John's work regardless. Pal says he has an advantage, in that he touched the original. Using his psychometry, he tries, but ends up sneezing and pulling his hand away.

Pyrrha says he just met God, and Pal says he doesn't like him. Pyrrha says God is preserving Gideon, if she's not his own creation, or both. Once he's had his hand on something, necromantically speaking, he obliterates anyone else's fingerprints with his power. Crown says Gideon's body didn't decompose, either, before she was lost.

Pal says that protection may be keeping Nona out, as well, if this is where she belongs.(16) Still, they'll have to operate as if she's really Gideon. He makes a ghost ward, so Ianthe can't come and take over her. As he's fanning it dry, Cam asks about the order of operations, and Pal says they'll secure the Sixth Oversight Body first, as Juno Zeta is good with wards, and might be able to break the ones on the shuttle's fuel. Then they return to the Sixth installation, and get all the necromancers out of Varun's influence. They fix Nona, stop the war, go to the Ninth, and "begin the real fight."(17)

Everyone looks at Nona, who doesn't know what the Ninth House is, but her teeth chatter as if to say something, which she has to clench to keep in.

The ward is dried, so Pal asks for the syringe. Pyrrha says she thought of that, but a blood sample might not be enough. With John's power, even Harrow couldn't have broken in unless the blood was fresh. Pal says Gideon's colour is good, no dehydration or gravity pooling fluids. If her blood survives outside her body, or not, it will all tell them something.

Camilla passed him a little pair of scissors, and he cut a short slit in the thigh of the corpse’s soft leather trousers. Then Palamedes prodded around with his fingers—he placed the needle to the dead skin—and the corpse’s hand shot out and ringed around his wrist before anyone could stop it.(18) Nona noticed that one of the corpse prince’s sleeves had worked up, and that on her wrist was a funny fat bracelet: a braided cord of many colours, none of which matched. “One, that’s not going to work. Two, I fucking hate needles,” said the corpse. “Three—Sex Pal, if that’s how you get a lady’s pants off, holy shit, no wonder I stole your girl.”(19) Palamedes rocked back on his heels. “Not my girl. Unlike some of us, I’ve never much seen the allure of an evil cougar,” he said crisply. “Good morning, Gideon.”

=====

(1) The cheering is surely audible! Unless you didn't realize immediately that this was a classic Pal line. (2) I think I understand Corona here. These are her friends, these are the people she's come to trust and love now that she's been given a chance at a life outside her sister's control. Recall Nona saying Crown wants Cam to love her the way Cam loves Nona. She wants Cam to be her sister, in a way, and not necessarily separate from the codependency her parents forced upon her and Ianthe. It's so sad and so sweet, I think. But, at the same time, Cam and Pal haven't had a chance to talk, face to face, alone, in over a year and a half. Give them a minute, Corona, for pity's sake. (3) It took me a good few rereads of this and surrounding lines to realize that it was Nona saying it. So, just in case the lack of identity marker confused anyone else, here you go. (4) The Eighth lab in Canaan House. The one that requires soul siphoning to survive. (5) Pyrrha's mom energy is just BURSTING AT THE SEAMS for Gideon, seriously. (6) The water again, in weird orifices. What was in that scream? (7) It's okay, Pyrrha, I thought your joke here was very funny if not in the best of timing or taste. ;) (8) Why might Gideon's eyes look diluted compared to Nona's? Well, the corpse thing is, I think, a red herring, because everyone else's eyes are exactly the same in death as in life in this setting. We know Wake doesn't have John's gold eyes, so the breeding out could affect them. If Nona were Gideon and Harrow's souls merged, then her eyes should be somewhere between Gideon's gold and Harrow's black, but not brighter gold. Who would have the brighter gold, comparison to whom made Mercy realize Gideon's true identity? Who would be able to take a Resurrection Beast's cry and give it at full power, enough to disable even held corpses who once had necromantic ability? Who is, as Varun put it, this green thing forced into a body too small, so small Nona thinks there's barely room for just her, let alone anyone else? (9) The language of the body, which Nona has demonstrated so casually throughout. This, more than anything, is why I know that no matter what the fandom debates, this is truly Gideon Nav. She would want nothing more, on seeing someone she thought was Harrowhark Nonagesimus, than to embrace her. Nona can tell, though she doesn't have the context to know that her kiss may have been misinterpreted and inappropriate.

(10) So, here's where my theory comes in as to what happened between the end of Harrow and the beginning of Nona. Gideon (in Harrow's body) guided Pyrrha through the River, somehow, back to her own body. There, something happened, I can't guess what exactly, but it transferred Gideon's soul back to her own body by the same gravity Pal thought would happen to Nona (see: chapter 20) and that Pyrrha makes reference to here. Then somehow Gideon's body slipped back into the River, maybe something instinctual with Harrow's abilities as a Lyctor, maybe something to do with her genetic heritage despite not being an adept. She was drawn back to her father, by his intention or otherwise, which is how she ended up back in House control. This left Harrow's body just up from the shore of the River, in BOE territory, with Pyrrha and Cam/Pal and crew. I wonder if Pal and/or Cam witnessed whatever happened at the "landing", if this informed Pal's guess that Gideon's body would cure Nona. I wonder how he feels when it doesn't work. The described crease in his face later this chapter tells me he hates being wrong but not much else. (11) First House accoutrements for her offhand knuckle knife. (12) Not her sword, exactly, if we recall. (13) Nona never elaborated on whether it was infant finger bones, like John's, or some other sort of bones in Gideon's laurel. (14) I don't recall Gideon taking a wound to the throat. Pal seems to indicate this was the original wound, though I'd have thought Gideon would aim for the heart with that fence post spear, to be absolutely sure. (15) I don't recall the fencepost wound being described as so large as this, though. Also, this is the massive fandom debate: are the teeth literal, like vagina dentata but on the chest, or are they metaphorical, signifying ribs? (16) So reluctant to admit he could be wrong about this one, our Pal scented an option that admittedly would seem to make sense… but nobody knew about Harrow's secret shame. (17) The battle against the God Emperor. (18) See, Nona wasn't imagining it or lying! (19) Two references, back to back, to book 1. That's gotta be our girl.

I saw your post about why people are so crazy about shipping campal and I just wanted to say thank you so much for saying that I’ve seen so many aggressively pro-shipping it posts I’m going to lose it

as someone who has grown up alongside her own second cousins (big Filipino families tend to be close, especially since some of us are in the US and not back home) the idea of shipping cam and pal is just so not right to me, and it annoys me so much when people say stuff like “it’s biphobic not to ship them” when I am literally bi?? I have no problems whatsoever with m/f ships in tlt just please choose ones that aren’t cousins and, more importantly, were not raised as cousins. You want to talk about dulcinea and palamedes? Incredible. Mercy and Augustine? Unrealistic in canon but I respect your clearly exquisite taste. Abigail and Magnus? I will be your best friend forever. But cam and pal??? What???

like I read shadowhunters even when the whole weird clary/jace siblings thing was happening and while it was weird it was also kinda tragic because they hadn’t known (and they weren’t actually siblings so all good) but to take characters who have been raised as family for their entire lives and say they are romantically, or (maybe even worse) sexually attracted to each other? Not for me thank you very much

Sorry for the little rant lol thanks for reading :) Hope you’re having a good day!

No, thank YOU for responding because I was starting to feel alone in this regard. I have very few direct cousins, but a whole host of second and third cousins and all the removed and whatever bits, and the idea of people looking at cousins and going, 'oh cool, they should have sex' is revolting. Clearly none of these people have close family, or if they do.....yikes.

Literally people were like "but the idea of unhealthy romantic relationships is the foundation of tlt!" and I think that maybe we read a different series than them because that is not at ALL what its about. But. Even if that's what you're looking for, Mercy and Augustine (and Jod) are RIGHT THERE! So are Wake, Pyrrha, and Gideon! Don't get me started on the people who literally said "well I don't see you condemming Ianthe and Coronabeth" as if that was some kinda of gatcha instead of derailing the argument to suit their purposes.

To your point about shadowhunters, I never read it, but I do know someone irl who was put up for closed adoption as a child and ended up dating a cousin unknowingly and it was incredibly traumatic when they found out. I literally can imagine how that must feel.

In any event, these people need to get out and interact with the world more, meet new people, or get a hobby, since they are on the internet in almost 2023 ardently defending incest. Again, lile they can ship whatever, but dont come at me saying "oh second cousins are legal anyway sweatie:)" or "well muir once defended incest so its ok ☺️" as if either of those statements are anywhere in the realm of logical or reasonable.

TW: mentions of Homophobia

I love how there is so much queerness in Mythology proving people in the past where very accepting of the LGBTQIA+ community, It is found in Norse and Greek Mythology but yet there are Homophobes .

I know the Ancient Greeks didn’t have the same concepts of gender and sexuality we do today.

Take the tale of Iphis, A man tells his wife they can’t afford to have a daughter, but then she has a daughter anyway, and raises the child as a boy. Iphis was a unisex name, so both the mother and father were happy with the choice.

At 13, Iphis is betrothed to her childhood friend Ianthe, and they both fall in love. Secretly, Iphis is afraid of what will happen once they are married and the truth is revealed, and with her mother’s help they delay the wedding as long as possible. When it can’t be put off any longer, they pray to the goddess Isis for help. Isis transforms Iphis’ sex to male, and as a man he marries Ianthe, and they live happily ever after.

or the fact Loki literally transformed into a Female Horse.

And where exactly in the bible does it say being gay or being trans is a sin, besides hate to break it to you that thing is outdated and has be translated so many times it's probably not accurate.

In the male-dominated world of piracy, homosexuality was common. A union such as matelotage may have acted as a manner of validating relationships that would otherwise have been considered against contemporary societal norms.

History shows people accepted homosexuality.

It's just sad their are homophobes now, like they have nothing better to do than judge a person on who they love or what gender they feel, homophobes.

Sorry for this pissy rant, actually no NO i'm fucking not, I don't have to say sorry to anyone about this.

People are complete and utter assholes sometimes, if you want to insult me or for me to value your opinion first I must care and if you are anyway against the LGBTQIA+ community in anyway, shape or form, I do not care, so don't come to me because you have had a bad day just so you can vent by trying to insult a stranger you don't even know, It is childish and pathetic.

Also don't Invade my Ask box with your childish and pathetic slurs, I don't give a fuck about you so you shouldn't even give a fuck about me or my sexuality or my gender, beside to the anon who did do that, I will never be a Girl or a Woman, I may of been born in the body of one but I will never be one and I never have been one.

I am actually disgusted by this behaviour.

I didn't include the ask because it had quite triggering things in it.

Besides did you really think I would go fucking kill myself because some stranger on the internet told me to.

What if I was suicidal, what if it actually made me snap and actually try it, WHAT THEN HUH, you disgust me.

To anyone of my followers or people who are reading this and is not a homophobe or against the community I am sorry, and I am really sad that I actually have to make a post about this, I'm also disappointed that I actually had to address this.

Again I’m here with my vaguely anti griddlehark agenda (I’m so so sorry). Just wanted to vent that even though I really really enjoy Harrows aus and Harrow herself I feel like there is no point in all of that unless it is addressed that Harrow actually treated Gideon horribly?.. because I remember Harrow from the beginning and I knew that there is going to be romance but it FEELS to me that Gideon herself while being very much into acts of servitude and into Harrow it might also be the only way she knows to show love. And like them being together and speaking that horrible language of love that is half abuse half (indentured) servitude… I really don’t want that ending…. Sorry sorry it’s just that I’ve read too much posts praising Harrow as this incredibly romantic person and too much posts saying that everyone else is evil (namely Ianthe) in one week and I’m having my “have we read the same books? Per chance I am actually an alien? Where am I should I go?” moments

I think both these things are true! Harrow IS extremely romantic, imo AND she also canonically treated Gideon horribly. These are both fundamental parts of the Gideon/Harrow dynamic.

I'm not sure if canon will address their past explicitly beyond what already happened in GtN; I think it's pretty obvious from everything in Harrow's characterisation that she is very aware of how much she wronged Gideon, and it weights on her — I think that Harrow’s lobotomy was less about her being in love with Gideon and more about feeling keenly that Gideon didn’t deserve to die for Harrow after everything Harrow / the Ninth had already taken from her. In the same vein, I think that Gideon's anger at Harrow's "rejection" is less about her feelings for Harrow and more about eighteen years of anger and mounting resentment culminating into "AND, on top of everything ELSE, you even spat on my sacrifice."

I think their reunion will be very emotional and there will be Feelings but also I think they're going to end up fighting. I'm not sure if the reasons behind their fraught dynamic are ever going to be aired out but they are very much There and obviously inform how TM writes the characters and their dynamic.

I'm a lot less sure about "Gideon's love language being acts of service is BAD" for a variety of reasons - I don't think we have seen enough of Gideon/Harrow in a romantic context to even safely say that, anyway, and Harrow also has a bit of a ~religious penitent streak that may come to the surface, just saying :) also I don't think their horrible beginnings necessarily mean that they're scarred for life and need to avoid any power unbalances forever and ever.

Also. I think Tazmuir's kinks are all over TLT and she's writing loyalty kink and acts of devotion because she finds it hot, so I doubt the series is going to end on a treatise about how it's actually only about trauma. These characters aren't ever ever going to get therapy! (which personally is why I'm a bigger fan of canon griddlehark over most AUs; I like the bit of fucked up)

Anyway they WILL have a big melodramatic fight in AtN. I'm manifesting it :)