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kidlit-queen-competition · 11 months

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Welcome to the Science Lesbian Swag tournament!

Who out there has the most science swag, lesbian swag, and the most swag at the science/lesbian intercept? This bracket is here to find out! If you're unfamiliar with the concept, see the original post. Inspired by other polls like @topdisease @vs-coughing-baby, @sharp-teeth-swag, @autisticgirliesbracket, @sapphiccharacterstournament and @fuckablerobotbracket. This blog used to be fictional-train-fight! if you're looking for those posts, check the masterpost.

RULES:

No real people please

polls will last a week, qualifiers (if there are any) will last one day

One submission per character per person!

if lots of characters from one piece of media are submitted I'll hold qualifier polls

Canonical scientists/engineers/mad scientists only

widely-headcanoned lesbians (like Ms Frizzle), other wlw, and characters that just do absolute numbers with the girlies (like Evelyn Deavor) will still be considered!

You don't have to be a mad scientist to get into the bracket, but I'm pretty sure it helps!

I might use submissions as propaganda/post material before the bracket starts, just to keep things interesting- bear this in mind when submitting!

Terfs explode and die challenge

Everyone have fun!

Bracket:

Matchups under the cut:

Cosmia from Orphan Black vs Aura Blackquill from Ace Attorney

Honoka Yukishiro from Futari wa Pretty Cure vs vs Dr Macmillian from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Croix Meridies from Little Witch Academia vs Marina Ida from Splatoon

Silence from Arknights vs Ellie Sattler from Jurrassic park

Olivia Octavius from spiderverse vs Setsuna Meiou from Sailor Moon

Bonnibel Bubblegum from Adventure Time vs Harrowhark Nonagesimus from The Locked Tomb

Athena Cykes from Ace Attorney vs GLaDOS from Portal

Valerie Frizzle from the Magic School Bus vs Ema Skye from Ace Attorney

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sgrumby · 2 years

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“A terrible, tragic accident,” Harrowhark intoned.

“Accident?” Gideon exploded. “You broke both his ankles so bad that every fucking nun in the entire House couldn’t put them back together!”

“A tragedy most terrible and, indeed, most accidental,” Harrow repeated, her tone entirely unchanged.

Aiglamene coughed, in a manner the jaded captain probably considered subtle. “Accident or not -”

“A tragic accident,” Harrowhark corrected, at the exact same time as Gideon deadpanned “how is this even a question.”

“Accident or not,” the captain repeated, with a frankly incredible amount of restraint, “this now leaves the Ninth House down one cavalier.”

“What a shame,” Gideon said. “Ortus was a good cavalier, he’ll be missed, et cetera. Guess you’re up, Aiglamene.”

If Gideon didn’t know better, if she hadn’t known that the captain had had all her emotions surgically removed and replaced with more swords, she’d have said that the look that flashed across Aiglamene’s face was wistful. “Would that I could serve the Ninth in this undertaking,” she said, eventually. “But, Reverend Daughter, I am too old. I cannot meet the standards required of a cavalier of the Ninth House.”

Gideon thought this was bullshit. “That’s bullshit. The standards of a Ninth cav are has two hands, can hold bones,” Gideon said. “I saw it in the handbook. Anyway, there’s no alternative here! It’s not as if cavaliers are lined up around the block. Lachrimorta and Aisamorta aren’t what you might call spry - and captain, honestly, you could kick the ass of any proper cavalier anywhere. You're a damn sight better than Ortus."

Harrowhark cleared her throat.

“Look,” Gideon said, as if preventing Harrow from speaking would prevent the conclusion to this conversation that she felt rapidly approaching. “I know what you two are angling for here. And, I want to say, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll take Ortus in a wheelchair.” When this didn’t land, she continued. “I’ll take Lachrimorta. I’ll take the skeleton of my dead mother. I’ll - I’ll - I’ll take Crux.”

Harrowhark’s eyebrows rose a full one-eighth of an inch. This was, for her, the equivalent of bending double with laughter. “You are desperate.”

“Harrow,” Gideon said. “I would not take you with me if you were the last swordswoman alive. I would not take you with me if we were handcuffed together. I would not take you with me if the Ninth House was just me and you and the corpse in the Tomb. I’d break in there and take it instead of you.”

“You require a capable cavalier, loyal to the Ninth and to the Tomb,” Harrow said. “No other options are forthcoming.”

“You’re a snake, Harrow. You don’t know what loyal means,” Gideon said. “Bringing you would be like drinking a tall, frothy glass of cyanide before I hopped in the shuttle.”

Harrow smirked, just a little. “You pay me a compliment, Griddle," she said.

“Aiglamene,” Gideon tried, but the captain just shot her a look. Gideon changed tack and flexed, hard. Even she had to shield her eyes slightly. “I’ll be my own cavalier.”

“Reverend Daughter, do you want to leave the Ninth?” This was a low blow, only exacerbated in its impact by the lack of reaction to Gideon’s frankly awe-inspiring biceps, and Aiglamene let it sink in for a few moments. “Because this is your chance. Ortus was not the ideal choice for cavalier primary, but he had the manners and the training. He would have sufficed. That route is no longer available to us, for good or for ill. Harrowhark… may also not have been your first choice. But she wants this as badly as you do.” She paused again. “If the choice is Harrowhark or eternity in Drearburh…?”

Gideon scowled. On one hand, eternal torture. On the other, Drearburh. She opened her mouth to answer, winced, and closed it again. She opened it again, and closed it again. "If those were my only choices…"

"I also possess one important aspect you lack," Harrow said. "Well, one of many. Literacy. You will have to study, Griddle, and I promise to read aloud for you."

Gideon glared. "That's it. I'm not taking you. I'll animate a skeleton cav, that'll probably seem pretty Ninth. Anything is better than you. I'd rather die. I'm not doing it, I won't, and you can't make me -"

"Harrowhark the Ninth!" Teacher called, and Harrow strode, with a smirk, up to the little priest to claim her key ring. Gideon fumed.

#writing #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #the locked tomb

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dve · 5 months

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the “is harrowhark butch” poll sitting in my drafts with my hand hovering over the post button in fear of a coughing baby vs hydrogen situation

#like to me. she is so butch

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wealmostaneckbeard · 1 year

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The Locked Tomb / Signalis Crossover

The Simple Idea:

The doomed scout-ship Penrose-512 arrives at the equally doomed Ninth House. The Penrose's power plant has just started leaking coolant and needs repairs. The summons to Canaan hasn't arrived at the Ninth House yet.

The Important Lesbians:

Harrowhark Nonagesimus: Wants access to the Penrose navigation computer and claim the worlds of the Eusan Nation as colonies of the Ninth House, doesn't want the other houses to know about the Penrose, senses there is something strange about Ariane, Curious if Elster has a soul

Elster: Knows how to decrypt the navigation computer but won't give up the information until the ship is fully repaired+resupplied, wants to protect Ariane Yeong, starting to experience persona degradation

Ariane Yeong: Glad to be off the Penrose and exploring a fascinating new world, having strange dreams about a locked tomb, coughing up blood occasionally... it's probably fine don't worry about it, intrigued by Gideon's porn magazines

Gideon Nav: thinks Ariane and Elster are cute and wants to flirt with both of them, also wants to screw over Harrow and the Ninth House

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decaflondonfog · 9 months

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10 characters, 10 fandoms, 10 people

thank you @magpiefngrl for the tag! i LOVED looking through your list. it's kind of silly to be doing this like two months after you tagged me but oh well... that's how i roll i guess i did this like a year ago maybe but i am purposefully trying not to hunt down that post to compare bc i think this is a fun exercise in reflection. favourite characters are great because sometimes they're the worst little guy on the planet, sometimes they're just a guy you relate to, sometimes they're a character you wish you could put under a microscope and analyse deeply, and sometimes they're a guy you want to [redacted redacted redacted redacted]. the human brain is a magical place, eh? let's do this! (guy is v much gender neutral here, you know what i mean)

rules: name 10 of your favourite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people to do the same

kevin day from All For The Game [laszlo cravensworth voice: 'cause he’s my best friend, he’s my pal, he’s my homeboy, my rotten soldier, he’s my sweet cheese, my good-time boy. i also would like to— *intense coughing fit*]

declan lynch from The Raven Cycle/The Dreamer Trilogy [older siblings with ibs who would burn the whole world down for their bb siblings rise the fuck UP]

princess beatrice from Red, White and Royal Blue [she falls in the middle of the venn diagram between the two above, into which i unfortunately fall as well: older sibling, addict]

kent parson from Check, Please! [the villainous half of a fucked-up unhealthy codependent homoerotic friendship rep ayyyyy]

tyrannus basilton grimm-pitch from the Simon Snow Series [wet little rat. perfect bastard. ultimate romantic simp]

harrowhark nonagesimus from The Locked Tomb Series [what i said about baz but she's also hundreds of corpses dsfkjhgfd no one is doing it like her]

merlin emrys from BBC Merlin [i mean what can i say about this guy that i haven't in the last ten years jhkjh sometimes the magic is being gay and having a massive boner for the prince you serve yknow]

shauna shipman from Yellowjackets [what i said about kent but with extra cannibalism]

simon "ghost" riley from Call of Duty MWII [idk man, you ever get dragged into a fandom you have 0 knowledge about and find that suddenly you care about these characters? i am obsessed with this dude, i want to wrap his enormous bum in bubblewrap, make him a large cup of tea and make him watch hundreds of episodes of bluey]

aiden kane from the Fence Comics [ah. aiden and the curse of loving your best friend but being unable to tell them and sleeping with half the world just to fill that hole in your heart]

i would have loooooooooved to use little pictures because if i put all these guys together you really realise how much i love a guy who looks like a sick victorian child, bloody mouth and sunken eyes and all, but we're not in the business of stealing art so we're going with the list version!!

tagging @nanatsuyu @jaywalkers @courtjestermerlin @celestialbee @mostlymaudlin @skeptiquewrites @caroll-in @thetrojeans @dogintheboiler @starwarned, feed me all your blorbos, if you please <3

#who's gonna kiss me on the mouth for the brave achievement of not including any hp characters in here then haha #i also left out tma capri and ofmd this time #i'm pretty sure gerry laurent and izzy made the cut last time!#anyway i am catching up with tag games months late sorry for existing fdjkhgfj #tag games

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zombified-queer · 1 year

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Thinking about Howner TLT AUs don't mind me

Alecto & John AU = The Hotel makes a man to keep her company. They are two pieces of the same half and can't be killed. They spend a myriad bickering and generally bringing rancid divorced energy that the other Saints (staff + new crew) Generally Do Not Like. There is no tomb.

Bodice-ripper necrocav romance novel au = The Hotel as some fleshnecro from Sixth House tending to the wounded of the Cohort and it's Very Hot that this dude is trying to do his Ninth House facepaint while she's trying to keep him alive. (Shame about your previous necromancer want a new one?)

Bodice-ripper Version 2 = Oh dear this poor necromancer from the Seventh House appears to be coughing up a lung constantly won't you please, sir, do her the favor of reciting some of that Ninth House poetry? And maybe let her get a good look at your face? (The paint is really hot. And kind of melting in the heat.)

Eat Your Cavalier = Very funny and very in character imo if the Hotel is the necromancer and she treats the Owner, her cavalier, like a Snickers. Not to be mean ofc. She can be mean in other ways.

Eat Your Cavalier Version 2 = The Owner as the necromancer in this sitch and he is NOT enjoying this in any capacity. Her, however...

Lyctorhood AU = You know damn well The Owner would pull a Harrowhark and for my evidence I am citing the Private Eye episode.

Divine Highness AU = Literally we all deserve it. Also the Hotel is wearing the facepaint in this AU because I think it's funny.

Cohort Coffeeshop = You know we deserve this as well. The inherent romanticism of seeing someone's sleeves rolled up? The eye contact? Being able to ask "so you come here often?" while one of them is absolutely exhausted and maybe a little scabby with bloodsweat? Perfect AU 0 notes needed.

#reference for later #at some point i'll make all these and then we're in Fucking Trouble lol

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altschmerzes · 1 year

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and what is this "still upcoming favorite stuff in my dead are mine" that you speak of? not to sound like a broken record but i have been waiting for chapter 6 since july and it is killing me! please drop some clues or teasers or anything!!

ahhhhhh yeah i know it's been a long time!!! it's getting edited, and it'll be up soon, i'm sure!! if it's any consolation chapter 6 is i think about 30k so there's that. below the cut is gonna be some bullet pointed varyingly-detailed references to scenes coming up that i really love, and also a somewhat extended preview clip from the opening of chapter six!

every character in this fic gets at least one hug - and yes i do mean every single one - and i'm looking forward to THAT very very much

there's a scene late in chapter 6 which can best be summarized as 'judith earns her girl scout first aid badge and harrow, who comes from a planet without medical care, sees someone perform cpr in front of her and is like What The Fuck-'

harrow learns she likes having her hair played with and she WON'T actually die on the spot if she lets someone do that

harrow has a bit of a strong reaction to the way someone refers to gideon and gideon is like ???? ? ???? ?? ????? ? ??? about it

harrow has a dream about the third

cam holds it together Until She Doesn't

the teens act like teens and harrow would like to know Is This Allowed

"And there they sit in silence with their hands haphazardly, unfamiliarly linked between them: Harrowhark Nonagesimus and Silas Octakiseron, alone together in their damnation."

and the clip from six (cw for described like.... harrow is building a new body for palamedes so. there's that.)-

It feels like an eternity passes before Harrow has regained enough strength to be sure that she is up to the task of recreating Palamedes Sextus’s body from nearly nothing. She knows it’s no longer than half an hour. The short distance that the brightest spot of light visible through the half-destroyed ceiling moves before she lifts herself from her slump against the vacated cot says as much. It feels like a lot longer.

During that half hour, Camilla makes Harrow drink an unholy amount of water, and the quiet sound of Magnus speaking to Jeannemary and Isaac floats over to her for so long that she wonders how he hasn’t run out of things to say. They don’t seem to reply much, and the longer he talks the less they do, until Harrow would guess it has just been Magnus’s voice for maybe ten minutes. Sometimes she hears Marta and Judith, though their exchanges are brief and purposeful.

Neither of the Eighth move or speak at all. Colum lays in a deep and impermeable unconsciousness, barely breathing while his heart labours through beat after sluggish, exhausted beat. Silas is awake, but he may as well not be. He stays exactly where he’d ended up, slim hand pressed to the thready carotid pulse in his cavalier’s neck, face buried against the couch cushion and his own crumpled arm. The only way Harrow can even tell he’s not sleeping is the lines of his body. He’s just too tense to be asleep.

The tangle of dirty, bloodied hair that hangs loose down Silas’s back bothers Harrow. She doesn’t like to look at it; it makes her anxious in a way she can’t quite explain.

Harrow doesn’t bother telling anyone what she’s doing when she determines she’s ready to set upon the next task. She simply hauls herself up off the cot, coughs the lingering trickle of blood from her throat, and starts for her goal without a word.

Lifting the sheet and pulling it away, Harrow gets down onto the ground and studies the remnants that she and Camilla had managed to collect in the blown-out crater where Palamedes had died. There’s more than she feels like she remembers there being, but less than she’d hoped. Harrow squints hard at the chips. She chews the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, and begins rearranging the fragments. It may not help much, but she at least wants all of the pieces they do have in the right places before she really gets down to trying to make anything out of them.

One by one, Harrow cracks the knuckles on each of her hands. There really isn’t a point to doing it except that the repetitive movement and the pops that send a slight ache through her hands are soothing. The voices in the room, as well as the faint shuffling fabric noise that means someone is moving, die out and fall quiet as the others notice what she’s doing. Harrow ignores them. Footsteps approach and someone crouches behind her shoulder, and she ignores them too. She knows what Camilla sounds like by now, the rhythm of her steps and the pattern of her slightly-quickened pulse, and besides, Harrow has a job to do.

Unfurling a fully-formed skeleton out of the fragments that they had so painstakingly collected should be child’s play, but Harrow finds herself oddly anxious, concentrating hard on details she could do in her sleep. She needs every piece and particle of bone to come out perfect. The skeleton is the scaffolding on which all else is built, and if she makes a mistake at this stage, there will be no point in the rest of it. Harrow spends a particular stretch of time meticulously shaping Palamedes’s skull from the soft clay of osteocytes that respond to her whims as if they are part of her and not of him. She redoes the curve of his left eye socket four times. There’s a faint, persistent imperfection in its shape, a flaw in the degree of the slope where the zygomatic bone meets the frontal bone of the face.

They’re his most striking feature, Palamedes’s eyes. Harrow would never forgive herself if she were to take that away from him, change it irrevocably through shoddy craftsmanship. She would never forgive herself if she were to take that away from Camilla. She cannot be the reason that Camilla Hect looks at her necromancer’s face and doesn’t see the boy she’s always known, just as she has always known him.

Camilla shouldn’t be watching this. Harrow can’t see her, bent as she is over the newly built skeleton at her knees, but she doesn’t need to see to know that the Sixth cavalier has barely so much as blinked since this work began. Even knowing both of these things — that Camilla is watching and that she shouldn’t be — Harrow also knows that it would be futile to attempt to get her to look away. There isn’t enough energy to waste any on a fight like that, not when it would be lost before it truly began. Instead, Harrow relegates the thought to the far recesses of her overtaxed brain and shackles it there, ordering it to sit down and be quiet. Camilla’s presence, her attention, lays over Harrow’s back like a heavy cloak.

Now that the skeleton — the scaffolding — is complete, deciding where to move next is tricky. It makes the most sense to progress methodically system by system, perfecting one before taking up the next. A few issues quickly arise with that plan, however. For one, Harrow can’t build the organs until she has something to hold them in, but she also doesn’t want to wait until the chest and abdominal cavity are sealed over to construct them. The nerves and vasculature present a similar problem. She stares at the bones for a while, turning the issue over and over in her head.

When Harrow progresses from the skeleton and into the meat, it reminds her of stitching lace. She weaves the body together in a complex series of stops-and-starts, periodically diverting from one area to finish another, then returning to the first. She slicks ribbons of cartilage and tendon along the lines of the bone to thread the joints together, puts down layers of muscle tissue, building out a home for the organs. Those are harder — the structure of each is so complex, so different from the one beside it, and Harrow has never spent much time with flesh magic. She almost wishes the Third necromancer was here, just so she could consult with someone who truly understands what lies around and between the bones she is so familiar with.

It helps that the bits Harrow had to begin with — the bits from which all the rest have been grown — were formed from cells that carried Palamedes’s DNA signature. Those cells, the strands of microscopic code inside of them, remember the person they used to be — the shape of him, the way he was built, the way he existed and functioned — it’s all in the memory of those cells. All Harrow has to do is coax her magic into listening to them, following his lead. It’s like a river that’s run dry, swelling again with new water after a long rain and racing down the same path that it has run for centuries.

When she’s finally finished, has put the finishing touches on the monument that she built to house the only person who has ever been truly able to challenge her skill as a necromancer, Harrow regards the body with a critical eye. No matter how she studies him, she cannot find a flaw, and she studies him for quite some time. She isn’t forgiving about it, either. Harrow goes so far as to lay a palm across the cold, dead forehead and peel back the lids to study the empty, clouded-over grey eyes.

The body that Harrow has raised for Palamedes Sextus out of dust and blood and little confettied bits of bone is perfect. There’s even a chip in his front left incisor that Harrow remembers in a faint, shadow of an impression, though she’s not entirely sure when she would have seen it, and a tiny scar almost hidden in his hairline above his right ear. She hopes that Palamedes feels the same when he wakes inside of it. Hopes it feels as perfect to him as it looks to her.

After she has determined this, Harrow waits there, bracing herself on the bruisingly hard floor for a few moments longer, just looking at him. She’s no longer looking for anything in particular. She’s just looking at him, at the still face and the closed eyes, the short hair that lays neater than she’d ever seen it in life. It’s a sharp contrast to the other bodies she has fixed. Palamedes’s hair is clean and orderly, like he’s just freshly washed and dried it.

Palamedes looks strange to Harrow like this. It unsettles her. He looks young and human, laying there still and quiet on the ground, more like a boy and less like a sentient sheaf of grey papers wearing glasses. The lack of his glasses probably contributes to the impression, and Harrow concludes that the effect of seeing him without them is profoundly eerie. It makes her want to hunt down a pair to place over his eyes, though he could make no use of them in this state.

There’s only one thing left to do now, before she goes back in for him.

#gav gab #gav answers #fic: my dead are mine (and yours as well as mine)

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kbirbpods · 2 years

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Original Fic: thicker than water by @terezis on ao3!

Characters: Gideon Nav, Cytherea the First, Harrowhark Nonagesimus

Rating: Teen & Up Audiences

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, gideon escapes from the ninth au, listen u gotta trust me ok

Audio Length: 26 minutes, 34 seconds

Summary:

It was a fantasy Gideon often thought about.

A ship would come—not one of the dinky dropships that visited fortnightly to deliver rations, but something big and nasty, a proper Cohort vessel like in her comics. It would rattle the rocks thirty stories down and blot out the sky. The Reverend Mother and Father would come out to greet it, and when it docked it'd kick up so much dust that their eyes would stream with tears. Their paint would smear, and they'd look really stupid. Then, while they were busy coughing up a lung, a ramp would descend, and from the belly of the ship would come—someone. Someone important.

Who they were and what they looked like changed whenever Gideon thought about it, but that part didn't matter so much. They could have been anyone. Gideon wouldn’t have cared. What mattered was that they were here for her, and because of that Gideon would never be sad or lonely again.

Podficcer Note: This is a work in progress! I podded the first chapter and will post updates as terezis does! I can't wait to see where this work goes because it is INCREDIBLE.

#terezis #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #cytherea the first #tlt fic #tlt fan fic #tlt podfic #kaje pods

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rabbitindisguise · 2 years

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I pulled all the quotes I could find on heroism from the locked tomb books (including NTN) so let me know what you all think ^^

"Duck," called Camilla.

Camilla had somehow propped herself on the arm with the mangled shoulder wound, which was in no condition for propping. Her good arm was up behind her head, holding the blade of her knife. Gideon ducked. The knife whistled over the top of Gideon's head in a flashing blur and buried itself in Cytherea's upper back.

This time Cytherea screamed. She went stumbling away from Ianthe's prone form, [cut for length].

The Lyctor turned her head and coughed miserably into the crook of her elbow. Then she looked at the knife, wondering at it. She turned her head to look at Camilla and Harrow and Gideon. She sighed pensively and ran one hand through her curls again.

"Oh no," she said, "heroics."

[Cut for length].

"An inadequate Lyctor," said Cytherea, as thought giving Gideon and Camilla a hot tip on stain removal, "still makes a perfect power source . . . an everlasting battery."

She stood back up and wiped her mouth with the lack of her hand. Then she began walking toward Gideon: calm, almost insolent in her lack of aggression. This was somehow much scarier than if she'd talked forward with a hateful glare and rill of mad laughter.

Gideon planted herself before Camilla and the unconscious body of her adept and held her sword aloft. They were alone in the back area of the courtyard: a little area not yet buried in rubble or tilled up by the titanic light between two immortal sorcerers. Dead trees bowed overhead. Gideon stood behind the iron fence that had once protected some herbaceous border, as though its bent, bowed spikes would be good for anything other than throwing herself down on as one last fuck-you salute.

Camilla was huddled in a corner, now standing upright—that was probably her own last fuck-you salute—but her wounded arm hung uselessly. She had lost a lot of blood. Her face was now pallid olive.

"Ninth," said the Sixth impatiently. "Get out of here. Take your necromancer. Go."

- Gideon the Ninth, 422-423

"Lady," said Ortus, and, sorrowfully: "Forgive me. Nonius has heroic standing among the priests and anchorites of our House," he added to the others. "Perhaps I do him wrong by making a poesy of the sacred mysteries."

"I never realized that Nonius had passed into cult worship," Said Pent.

"He has not," said Harrowhark shortly, and then was forced to admit: "Or, at least, the idea is passé."

"Heroes are passé, you see," explained Ortus with heavy sadness.

She did not murder him. It was a very near thing.

- Harrow the Ninth

From the end of the table, his white-ringed eyes still bent down upon his papers, the Emperor said quietly: "His was the action of a hero."

"Oh, but the problem is heroes always die," said Augustine, who was worrying an edge of tablecloth between long and elegant fingers. "You can't even really pronounce one a hero until they die heroically. I thought the downward assault was a good wheeze when you two first came up with it, [Gideon], but we know now that the last push against a Beast has to be sudden and conclusive. I'd rather have fought nine more hours and have Ulysses sitting here right now, inciting a sexy party, than have watched him wrestle that thing out of sight."

- Harrow the Ninth, page 336

[Gideon] pierced her heart on a railing because she thought I would use her to become a Lyctor. I will spit in the face of the first person who tells me she committed suicide; she was in an impossible situation, and she died trying to escape it. She was murdered, but she maneuvered her murder to let me live."

His face was very sad: a wistful, light sadness, not the ponderous sadness that he wore like his sacramental paint.

"What is better?" he asked. "An ignoble death by someone else's hands, or a heroic death by one's own? How should it be written? If the firstâ€”that she was cut down by an enemyâ€”I would feel such hate for the enemy . . . If the secondâ€”an ugly death at her own devisingâ€”who, then, would be left for me to hate? Who does the poet judge? The eternal problem."

"Ortus, this is not a poem," she said.

"I think you must hate her," he said, and she thought she knew what he meant, until he said: "Don't. If there is anything I know about young Gideon . . . if there was anything in her that I too understood . . . it is that she did everything deliberately."

Very little in Harrowhark's life had embarrassed her up until that moment. She had been caught naked in front of a stranger. She had been kissed by a half-drunk Ianthe the First. She had admitted to God her apocalyptic transgressions, and been gently told that she did not know herself. She had been outplayed by Palamedes Sextus, outgunned by Cytherea the First, undone by Gideon Nav.

None of that humiliated her so viscerally as her strangled, bellowing, unchecked shriek now, a child's cry that whipped every head in that busied room round in her direction: "She died because I let her! You don't understand!"

Ortus dropped his book. He rose from the chair. He put his arms around her. The dead cavalier held her with a quiet, unassuming firmness; he petting her hair like a brother, and he said, "I am so sorry, Harrowhark. I am so sorry for everything . . . I am sorry for what they did . . . I am sorry that I was no kind of cavalier to you."

- Harrow the Ninth, page 400

The page fell over her thumb. On the second pageâ€”much fresherâ€”Harrow read:

THE ONLY THING OUT CIVILIZATION CAN EVER LEARN FROM YOURS IS THAT WHEN OUR BACKS ARE TO THE WALL AND OUR TOWERS ARE FALLING ALL AROUND US AND WE ARE WATCHING OURSELVES BURN WE WE RARELY BECOME HEROS.

She opened her mouth to ask her dead second cavalier a question about her dead first cavalierâ€”a pattern that was starting to look less like tragedy and more like carelessnessâ€”but downstairs, Abigail was saying:

"Harrowhark? Ortus? If you are reading, we might want to move."

- Harrow the Ninth, page 403

Pyrrha said, "Keep Camilla home tonight. I'll call it quits for the cigs."

Palamedes said, "Do you know she has a half sister? Did she tell you? It's not my secret to tell. They're quite fond of each other. Camilla's ten years younger. Kiki's a member of the Oversight Body, junior fellow. She was one of the group that came to negotiate with Ctesiphon Wing."

"I didn't know that, no," said Pyrrha.

"Alongside fifteen other of the finest minds of my House," said Palamedes. "Led here by conviction and Camilla's hand. My colleagues, my friends. My family . . . The people they put in cages will be someone's family, someone's friends."

"Keepâ€”Camillaâ€”homeâ€”tonight," said Pyrrha. "That is all I am saying. Keep her home. No heroics. I'm not moved by sentiment. Whatever it takes. Don't feel. Just do."

"Tonight I hate almost all of the human race," said Palamedes wearily.

"That's a feeling," said Pyrrha brutally. "Kill it."

- Nona the Ninth

Some thoughts:

there are so many em dashes omg

the most of the content on heroics is in Harrow the Ninth, and relates to Nonius and Gideon's sacrifice

Camilla's second heroic sacrifice was intercepted by Gideon and ultimately fulfilled by Gideon- and according to Augustine, heroes can only be pronounced heroes on their death (which echoes the homestuck principal of godtier deaths to be "just or heroic" and might foreshadow John's "just" death)

After defeating Wake, Nonius went to fight the resurrection beast and was (on the account of third parties) successful and it's unclear if he died (again) or if he's still a ghost

Augustine says that he would have preferred "a sexy party" and fighting a resurrection beast for nine more hours over watching him "wrestle that thing out of sight" even though it gave them more information- which implies heroics is fundamentally self sacrificing and not worth the death of the person in question

Harrow deems Gideon's death a murder, possibly even at her own hand, and Ortus is undecided if a death at someone else's hands or a heroic one is better (especially in a storytelling sense)

#personal #gtn #htn #ntn #tlt #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth

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iviarellereads · 1 year

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Gideon the Ninth, Act Four, Chapter 26

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

(Seventh House icon) In which life struggles to go on.

The Fourth teens are laid to rest next to the adults who had failed them.(1)

Somebody, Gideon's not sure who or how, had retrieved Jeannemary's body from her arms, and a lot of people had said words at her that she couldn't remember. She remembers Harrow insulting her, and Palamedes looking at the bodies. The only thing that makes sense is that she's in the same room as Dulcinea Septimus, weeping slowly.

Eventually, Dulcinea says there's nothing she could have done. Gideon says that's bullshit, she's thought of at least fifty things she could have done and didn't. Dulcinea says you can could have and should have all day long, but it doesn't change what happened. Gideon says she just can't bear it, though.

"Life is a tragedy," said Dulcinea. "Left behind by those who pass away, not able to change anything at all. It's the total lack of control ... Once somebody dies, their spirit's free forever, even with we snatch at it or try to stopper it or use the energy it creates. Oh, I know sometimes they come back ... or we can call them, in the manner of the Fifth ... but even that exception to the rule shows their mastery of us. They only come when we beg. Once someone dies, we can't grasp at them anymore, thank God!--except for one person, and he's very far from here, I think. Gideon, don't be sorry for the dead. I think death must be an absolute triumph."

Gideon kinda thinks this is bullshit, too, there's no meaning or triumph in how the teens died, but before she can say so, Dulcinea coughs up "two and a half handkerchiefs" worth of something.(2) Instead, Gideon offers that they'll find Protesilaus. Dulcinea says she just wants to know what happened. Gideon can't quite agree with this either, as she'd be grateful to live not knowing how the teens looked in death. She wonders if Magnus had to watch Abigail die first, like Jeannemary had to watch Isaac.

Gideon's primary coping mechanism being her muscles, she offers to punch Silas Octakiseron to get Dulcinea's keys back, if she wants them. Dulcinea says she gave them up of her own free will, she has no use for them now.

Gideon asks plainly why Dulcinea is here. Dulcinea says the Seventh House thinks her condition is an asset, they even wanted her to get married and keep her genes in production "in case they produced poetry down the line." Gideon doesn't understand, so Dulcinea continues that when you're dying from the inside out, it's producing its own thanergy, its own necromancy fuel. Her House values beauty, and there's beauty in dying beautifully, wasting away, "within the very queenhood of your power."

After a moment's silence, Dulcinea asks Gideon if she looks like she's in the queenhood of her power, and not to lie. Gideon hesitates for a moment but admits Dulcinea looks "like a bucket of ass." Dulcinea giggles and says she told Harrowhark she didn't want to die, and it's true, but she's "been dying for what feels like ten thousand years". She just doesn't want to die alone, out of sight.

Gideon says she doesn't want Dulcinea to die at all, without intending to say it aloud. Dulcinea touches her hand, and Gideon presses Dulcinea's hand gently between both of hers. Dulcinea says she'll probably live forever, with her bad luck. She adds, "Whatever happened to one flesh, one end?" and Gideon says she's seen those words before, but what do they mean? Dulcinea asks if they aren't familiar, and Gideon asks if they should be.(3)

"Well," said Dulcinea calmly, "you would have said them to your Reverend Daughter the day you pledged yourself in the service of her cavalier, and she would have said them to you--but you never did that, did you? You weren't trained in the traditions of the House of the Locked Tomb, and you're nothing like a Ninth House nun. And you fight like--I don't know. I'm not even certain you were raised in the Ninth House."

Gideon, tired of pretending, admits it: she's been faking her way through the Ninth's cav duties for less than two months, and she's terrible at it. Dulcinea disagrees: Gideon is a cavalier worthy of a Lyctor, and she's curious what Gideon would become in the process.

Gideon and Dulcinea look at each other long enough to make things awkward and make Gideon panic about the admission, but conveniently, Palamedes walks in and stares for too long at their joined hands. He doesn't sound quite like himself as he says he came to check on them, and is it a bad time? Gideon says that it is, only in that she's ready to leave. Palamedes protests that there are still bone splinters in some of her wounds that ought to be removed. Gideon says why bother until she's done getting people killed, and storms out past him.

As she's going down the hall, she bumps into the Eighth pair. Silas says "They are dead, then," and Gideon says they had names, and she's in a mood to fight. Silas says he'd heard she'd given up her oath of silence, but she can save her "gaucherie" as he has no interest in "a Ninth House thrall", and calls her Gideon Nav. Gideon asks what he called her, and when he starts listing synonyms for thrall, she points out that he called her Gideon Nav. Silas says he's not insulting her, he's calling her what she is, a poor replacement for an already poor cav in Ortus Nigenad.

Gideon's brain needs a minute to puzzle through what's going on, until she remembers that Ortus and his mother stole her getaway shuttle on the Ninth, and that his mother had family on the Eighth still. Gideon says Silas has been listening to Sister Glaurica, and Silas admits he spoke to her, and now he'd like to talk to Gideon. Gideon is confused as heck, but Silas says Gideon is "a victim of the Ninth House."

Gideon stops dead, considers that she hasn't been attacked by Colum the Eighth yet, and takes one step forward. She tells Silas not to pretend he knows anything about her or the House of the Ninth. Silas says she's wrong, and invites her to tea. Gideon says that's "the dumbest thing to say, ever", but Silas repeats himself and says not to bring Harrowhark, but he has no hidden motives, he simply wants to talk and free Gideon from her "oppressors".

Gideon, having been through far too much in the last few days, turns and walks away. Silas asks if she'll come, and Gideon tells him to "Eat me, milk man," which she barely hears Colum confirm as probably a yes.

Gideon starts having nightmares every time she closes her eyes. Imagined deaths for Magnus, Abigail, Isaac, Jeannemary, even Gideon's own mother. She even thinks she dreamed Harrow bidding her to wake up. She's not totally sure it was a dream because neither she nor Harrow died in it, but Harrow looked at her with "an expression of absolute pity", which feels more like a dream than reality from her. Gideon goes on sleeping, "wearing her rapier, her gauntlet on her chest like a heavy obsidian heart."

=====

(1) Harsh. (2) Horrifying in an entirely different way than the imagery of Isaac being turned into a human colander invoked in the same paragraph. (3) Uh-oh.

#the locked tomb #tlt #gideon the ninth #gtn #gideon the ninth spoilers #gtn spoilers #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #dulcinea septimus #palamedes sextus #silas octakiseron #colum asht

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beyondthetemples-ooc · 2 years

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I just remembered part of my dream last night involved Halloween and being sad that I didn’t go to any haunted houses this year, or doing any celebrating. So I planned on dressing up in costume, but the only costumes I had on hand were my IRL Raven cosplays, and perhaps the “bones” /cough of a shitty Harrowhark cosplay because I already wear draping black outfits.

I thought I had the COOLEST idea when I decided I would “try something new”, and my big idea for this “new” outfit was the blue 80′s Raven dress with my animated White Raven cloak. I was Distressed because I couldn’t find the gloves to go with it. (Too real, dream. I don’t have any idea where they are. ;;; )

I don’t know why I thought it was so big-brained but I expected people to be like “That’s so cool!”

Then the dream completely derailed when it turned to being about the next-door neighbors outside my room, which was my childhood room (from when I was like 5-7 years old-- this is a recurring theme in my dreams to be living in Really Old Childhood Homes, but as an adult???).

The children were playing outside and saying things like “Did you know there can be two gods?” and “our dad is one of them!” “Will you come worship him with us?”

And I was like “I’m not even Christian and tonight’s the most important night in my Neo-Pagan calendar!”

But they kept saying “That’s okay, you should come anyways!” So I didn’t go because I was getting Creepy Vibes, and it turns out they were in a really cult-y cult? And the dad got rich off it?? Because for some reason the next-door house was suddenly a business building advertising the guy????

I don’t even think the people living next to us in that house HAD kids, but... dream weirdness, man.

And then I went to meet my mother at this community gathering thing and she was disappointed in the Chinese food she bought, which I thought at first was in-shell mussels with a sweet-and-sour sauce (sounds heavenly, tbh), but turned out to be hot dog pieces, which was unfortunate because that meant I couldn’t eat them for her, and I woke up MADLY craving those strawberry-goo-covered bananas? That was unfortunate because I have bananas but I already ate all my strawberries. Dang.

#cult mention tw #rhs dream log #rhs personal posts #??? These dreams were weirdly vivid

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emetophobiahelp · 2 years

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I've noticed The Locked Tomb books are gaining attention lately, so I wanted to throw some warnings out there:

The second book, Harrow the Ninth, opens with repeated painfully frequent and descriptive triggers. I've never in my life seen it described in so many ways in such a short time. It was incredibly rough trying to get through it, even trying to skim it. (The sword causes it and I'm saying that because it's right on the book jacket, but it's described as "makes her n*" so I wasn't prepared for that level of Triggering Content. It does a lot more than make her n*.)

I couldn't even list them all, the first (I think three?) chapters are just. Absolutely loaded with it. Unfortunately you can't really skip it, because you'd miss some important information (or at least Clues about what kind of information to pay attention to), as well as some character introductions and things that are called back to later. The sword is, unfortunately, plot relevant, but the rest of the book isn't nearly as bad as the opening.

After the opening scenes, n* sensations are noted a couple of times, and there's an allusion to someone holding someone's hair the next morning, but nothing comes of that. (That's related to a scene where people get very drunk, but nothing happens there!)

Gideon the Ninth (the first book) has some triggers as well, but it's written very briefly and not at all descriptive. There's no way to really describe the scenes without mild spoilers, but here are the ones I remember: - After Gideon finds something in Harrowhark's closet and goes to the Sixth, it says she "t* u* lavishly in their toilet" and then it's done. - After Gideon and Jeannemary escape the creature, it says something like "Jeannemary crawled away and t* u*." - During the fight with Cytheria, it says she coughs and "r* what looked like part of a lung", and near the end of the fight she v*. - I think during the trial where Harrowhark has to siphon energy from Gideon, it mentions n*, but it doesn't go further than that!

There are also points where a character is described as "looking like hot p*". There's a really sickly character present through the whole book, but nothing emet-related from s* folks until the fight. (Coughing might be described a lot, though.)

All of these caught me off-guard, but I was really excited to read them. So if you're like me and can't help reading them, don't go in unprepared! I believe the related short stories are safe, definitely The Mysterious Case of Doctor Sex is safe, but for As Yet Unsent, if anything they're very brief mentions. (Nona and Alecto the Ninth aren't out yet, but I'll send more once I've read them!)

#submission #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #the mysterious case of doctor sex #as yet unsent

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necromycologist · 3 months

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rating 'fantasies' songs by their tlt vibes

recently i got really into this album and ive been listening to it nonstop and i got the urge to make this post so behold.

Help I'm Alive

we open with a BANGER. the whole heart motif beauty of existence thing is very tlt in general but "if we're still alive my regrets are few/if my life is mine what shouldnt i do" feels like it could be ntn cam+pal perhaps. 6/10 for general vibes not really going anywhere specific tho.

Sick Muse

i could see this as a convo between gideon and harrow. "pull your little arrows out an let me live my life" she WOULD say that about love... ily harrowhark necro'mancer nonagesimus lyctorway keep sticking your middle finger up at preps. but the main event is "all the blondes are fantasies/we looked at them eleven ways/you said look at me then looked away" like i dont even need to explain this one. YOU SAID LOOK AT ME THEN LOOKED AWAY the orpheus and eurydice the betrayal the hurt why wont you eat me please please consume me why are you saving me sorry one sec. ill shut up about greek myths now. 7.5/10 that one lyric saved it for me

Satellite Mind

this song is so strange and offputting it has to be about our favourite little bone nun <3 its givin htn harrow "i can feel you most when im alone" um the body the body the body "flashback of a feeling/sixth sense of a calling" its the love! that they couldnt take away!! 6/10 because i think that the dreamy freaky what the fuck is happening are suuuuper htn however the actual lyrics arent super close

Gold Guns Girls

i want this song to be about ianthe tridentarius soooooo bad... i want it to be about our favourite perpetually thirdweeling failgirl so much... like ive never wanted anything else ever oh my GOD... "i remember when you were gambling to win/everybody else said better luck next time" underestimated at canaan house anyone? anyone at all? no takers?? no??? 3/10 because despite my deepest wishes this is just a good song thats not about gay catholic homestuck 😔

Gimme Sympathy

slightly ironic gtn griddlehawk at its finest. "get hot/get too close to the flames" oops! now ur her cavalier "wild open space" gideon-gettin-shocked-by-days-on-earth-emotional.png "talk like an open book" not with that vow of silence. idiot. "sign me up!" shes not signed up haha "ill remember someday all the chances we took" not after the lobotomy u wont lol "we're so close to something better left unknown" cough cough LYCTORHOOD. 9/10 manifesting kiriona giving harrow sympathy after all of this is gone in alecto

Collect Call

hiii ntn fans i prommy i didn’t forget abt u! this one goes out to the psychosexual mess of role playing and bad meals enjoyers <3 "i know it's a lie i want it to be true/the rest of the rot is riding on you" oh boy like i said psychosexual mess... pyrra dve my beloved "wishing you could KEEP! ME! CLOSER! IM A LAZY! DANCER! WHEN YOU MOVE! I! MOVE WITH YOUOOOOOOOOO" oh lord nona placing her hand on cam's shoulder like palamedes would. oh lord being so close in one body and yet a second apart. 8/10 should be higher but i started Having Feelings about nona's death again and couldnt finish listening to the song

Front Row

this is a john song if I’ve ever heard one. “burnt out stars they shine so bright… all of us” is def. giving lyctor vibes. (just children playing with reflections thinking they were stars grauauauagh etc etc) plus plus “he’s not perfect/he’s a victim/of his occupation/social insulation/secret intervention” like fuck dude he really is!!! pilot that president around ordinary dude fuck the world up with your good intentions!!! 10/10 this song is the brainrot undying the kindly prince of my lyctor brainrot

Blindness

besties ngl i am INCREDIBLY torn on this one,,, on one hand “what it is and where it stops nobody knows/you gave me a life i never chose/i wanna leave but the world wont let me go” goes crazy hard. like harrowhark ‘cursed to keep living’ nonagesimus? hello is that u? on the other hand the whole opening sequence of this is very blood of eden coded… 5/10 this song has a very Character Energy about it but i think i must accept that that character is probably not a tlt one

Stadium Love

ohohohoo! here she comes!! this song IS about canaan house like the whole thing n nothing will convince me otherwise. "wanna make a deal/angel versus eel" hm im getting gideighth betrayal vibes from this "rabbit versus dove" WHAT DID I SAY colum get back here your government assigned fursona is in the song "owl versus dove" uuuuuh this can be about the sixth being cool basically whenever because sixth -> wisdom -> athena -> owl. idc that they live on mercury fuck off. the blorbos may be smart but i dont have to be. btw camilla hect if you read this im free on thursday night and would like to hang out plz respond and then hang out with me on thursday night when im free. u can bring your necromancer too if yw. "every living thing pushed into the ring" duel time every (necro)man(cer) for himself "guess you thought you could just watch" go on enforce that cohort order judith! it wont backfire at all haha! "NO. ONES. GETTING. OUT" well. uh. none of them are. plus cant you just see the Character Portrait Flashes AMV Moments to the wooowooos?? cant you??? "without STADIUM LOVE" the last time they say this w the beat drop it should be gidedeath cytherea duel epic timez and then the echoing "love love" at the end is harrow waking up and mouthing The Three Syllables TM. 11/10 somebody lend me their animation skills please i would be sooo epic and responsible with them i have a Vison...

in conclusion thx for listening to my deranged ramblings (if anyone actually does.) please go listen to fantasies its so so good... message me and we can brainrot thru it together xoxo

#tlt #home cooked hijinks #fantasies by metric

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