Riding home. hurts me each time to read Camilla get hurt... and OH MY GOD it's such a well written scene, I loved it so much.

hello ladies

pyrrha, cam, and palamedes in that apartment with nona

One thing I find interesting in the Nine Houses is the weaponry. All of it real, Renaissance-era stuff. But you only see one polearm, G1deon's spear, which he uses as an offhand(at least when in the Mithraeum, he probably only uses his rapier as a sidearm when doing solo missions). Harrow knows what it is, so it isn't a foreign concept, but the weapon of a soldier in the Cohort appears to be a zweihander, a large, two-handed sword, referred to as a longsword in the Houses, which was a weapon meant for frontline soldiers to deal with enemy pikemen, not for formation fighting. Cavaliers use rapiers with an offhand of choice, yet rapiers never saw battlefield use IRL, and if defending the necro is the purpose, wouldn't you want a shield, especially with many enemies the Houses face using firearms? Also, the Houses don't have any firearms, even the ones that were used at a similar time to other weapons they used, but are fully aware of their existence. They also have small shields like bucklers and targes, so it probably isn't a case of not knowing what shields are.

final will be on crème marbled paper bound in (fake) black leather with a skeleton hand on the front cover.

i'm simp

and i'm scheme

the ninth house brothers

I hate being dumb. Messenger and Angel in the bible are the same word !

"I'm the Messenger", said the Angel simply.

Muir when I get you I gonna make you write all the canon in ketchup on your walls.

Soul permeability says that Harrow will probably be somewhat more emotionally aware in AtN and honestly??? Somebody get that girl a therapist that's gonna hurt real bad when she figures it out

reoccurring dream.

Chapter 31 of Nona the Ninth

I feel like it's kind of significant that this is the second to last chapter of this book and I'm still doing these posts one chapter at a time. At this point in the other books I think I wound up doing the last few chapters all in one post, because I didn't want to wait to find out what was going to happen in them. This book is definitely much lower energy

This has to be confirmation that Nona is telepathic, doesn't it? Palamedes said earlier that he got the layout of the Ninth from Gideon/Kiriona, but Nona never saw that, she was asleep when that happened. It doesn't matter how accurate she is at driving the truck through the River if she doesn't know the layout of the place or where they're intending to wind up. The only way she could know this is if she read Paul's and/or Gideon's mind

I know they probably mean that Noodle will be moral support, but after everything else that happened in this story so far I momentarily thought Paul was saying that the necromancers were going to kill Noodle and use the resulting thanergy to heal people

The Ninth seems much darker and more dreary in this chapter than it did back at the beginning of Gideon the Ninth, but I don't know how much of that is because it is legitimately darker and more dreary now that it's being overrun by monsters and how much if it is just that it's Nona's POV

I went back and looked, and there is in fact this description in Gideon the Ninth:

This thing possessed Colum supposedly because Mayonnaise Uncle had siphoned him and his own soul was currently absent. Teacher told them there were monsters at Canaan House that could do this, but it was never explained why they were there. I don't know how accurate we can trust Teacher to be given that he was a construct and he didn't even tell anyone who Cytherea was, but I'm going to guess that these are not naturally occurring and probably resulted from necromancy experiments that were being done at Canaan House and I guess also at Antioch, and for some reason now on the Ninth. It doesn't sound like Gideon is realizing that Colum was possessed by one for the first time, so she already knew there was at least one place other than Antioch where they were present, right? And it doesn't sound like they are restricted only to possessing people who are being siphoned, if this is happening all over the Ninth right now, unless they are just possessing already dead bodies or something. Gideon said they were waiting for Crux to die so they could possess him more easily, right?

So three or four months ago supposedly not even John had seen one of these, and yet there was at least one just chilling at Canaan House this whole 10,000 years or so. Or maybe they just didn't come out in numbers at Canaan House due to a lack of dead/vacant bodies to possess? Although there certainly weren't a lack of dead bodies by the end of the book, and it sounds like they might be possessing living people on the Ninth. It sounds like they are saying that they need to wound people to infect them, so maybe to infect living people they need to do that and only Colum was vulnerable at Canaan House because his soul was temporarily MIA and there weren't any just wandering around in bodies and capable of wounding people?

I have to note that no one did this to Colum's body at Canaan House. Ianthe "killed" it by removing his head, but no one burned anything. And Colum's body was presumably sent back to the Eighth House... and it was also alone in John's morgue with the frozen bodies of the people John sent back to repopulate the Ninth... maybe that was the infection vector? Only I think all those bodies went back to the Eighth and Ninth like a year ago, and according to Crux this has only been going on for a day

The fact that Canace and Davith are gone certainly doesn't bode well

I guess if she told Aiglamene that she killed herself to save Harrow Aiglamene wouldn't believe her and might be even more pissed at Harrow, haha. It's interesting that Aiglamene doesn't seem to question or wonder about how she is still walking around while dead

Gideon was angry at Nona for being in Harrow's body without being Harrow and telling her to shut up and calling her a baby and stuff when they first met, but now she is protecting her from Aiglamene. And it's interesting that she said "don't be mad at her because she's not Harrow" instead of "don't be mad at her because Harrow did nothing wrong". I'm sure she's still mad that Harrow didn't want to consume her soul, but she knows quite well that Harrow had nothing to do with her death and could have told Aiglamene that, which would probably be a useful thing for her to know in the probable event that Harrow regains occupancy of her body at some point in the last chapter of this book

Well, I mean, there's Paul

So I guess Pyrrha is banking on Alecto bailing them all out once she gets back into her right body (or at any rate, the body that John originally made for her). At the end of the chapter, Nona tells her that she probably won't care about them anymore once that happens. I guess we'll find out who's right pretty shortly

I don't think Harrow ever mentioned believing she was someone else? I almost wonder if Alecto actually took over her body sometimes? But I don't think Harrow ever mentioned forgetting things that happened, the way that G1deon thought he just forgot things that he did because Pyrrha was actually using his body at the time

I mean, yeah, you can't take that away, but if Alecto turns out to really not care about fixing any of their problems next chapter, there's still some practical issues they'll have

It's interesting that G1deon liked Alecto, given that Mercy and Augustine both said that they hated her and asked John to kill her, so I have to wonder what kind of interactions Pyrrha and G1deon had with her

...I've seen pictures of this T-shirt on tumblr, and was like "what does this have to do with the Locked Tomb?"

Also, how on earth did Palamedes and Camilla combine into a person who approves of this T-shirt

I'm imagining the last chapter, now: Alecto and Harrow swap souls again, Pyrrha is like, Alecto can you please get rid of all the zombies, Alecto is like, just a sec I have to go get something, ten minutes later she is back wearing the free mustache rides shirt that she went all the way back to New Rho to get from under the sink

Thinking about the wedding in Alecto the Ninth

Thinking about how Alecto is awake and the lyctors are dead

Thinking about John going to Alecto and saying, "look what I have done for you, behold I have slain my lyctors and my fingers and gestures are dead, by feeding them to your siblings and by my own hand. Good morning Annabelle Lee, everyone who has fucked with us is dead."

Thinking about John Giaus telling Alecto that now everything can be perfect, they can be his perfect family with their two children, one necro and one cav

All eternal, all immortal, everything he's ever wanted. His perfect family to play pretend with

I think John Giaus, Jod emperor of mankind, is going to try to marry Alecto

And I think Alecto is going to tell him "No, now I know what real love is"

It's here, the finale - my friends thoughts throughout Nona the Ninth (it's a long one)

Right which one of these idiots is stuck in Nona's body

Signs point to both

I think more likely Harrow and shes just removed the massive stick up her ass

Most other signs thus far do point to Gideon though- lack of aforementioned stick, finds herself attractive, loves ass jokes, wants to pet dogs (Harrow seems like a don't work with animals or children type)

Also these other kids have names like they're gonna be running in the fucking grand national

Honestly what the fuck is going on with child conception in this series???

Someone has five dads, God was asking if Harrow and Ianthe were being 'safe' sexually and I'm just confused

Okay so I've only listened to half an hour today but if Crown isn't coronabeth I will eat my own arm

My theory is that neither of them are in Harrow's body and that she's being possessed by The Body

Maybe I should follow in Harrow's footsteps and ask you to fucking lobotomize me

No beta we die like Babs

"what do you think is sexy?" "Eating breakfast" Me too, Camilla, me too

Maybe someone needs to lobotomize Judith, has anyone thought of that?

Thing is I feel like I'm supposed to think John is really bad and is the villain here but I just don't

The worst thing he's done is lie to his friends for a few thousand years

Finally, the baddest bitch in all the nine houses (it's Ianthe)

What a power move honestly first she steals Babs' soul now she steals his body, absolutely inspired

She could literally kill another 200 babies to resurrect Harrow and I'd be like what a babe 😍 at this point

I'm bored of shooting can we go back to swords and doing weird things with your body please

I just think it would be great if Harrow could hop back into her body and have a full meltdown about how to function in this world

Erm Corona darling can you please try to stop them bombing your sister in the body of one of your lifelong pals pls and thanks

Y'all better sTOp

Fucking marry, kill, reanimate I can't hahahaha

"that's not actually crown's boyfriend Nona, it's her sister but I don't think anyone could blame you for getting confused" Fair hahahahah so very true

Don't know how they think this is gonna work seeing as though Harrow and Ianthe literally lived together for like over a year and had an interpersonal relationship but ok

Maybe it's because pash has the accent of a rudeboy from Oldham and suffer is weirdly French (on disliking We Suffer and Pash)

Palamades in Ianthe in Babs is sending me west

Abigail died too soon and really she did all the legwork in Harrow

Can't help but feel all of this drama could have been avoided if Harry had just done the job properly in the first place and just let Gideon die properly

All of this just because an 18 year old gave herself the brain scramblies

Cam has just burst into fire wtf

Can't believe Crux hasn't dropped dead tbh

I've got less than an hour left I feel like we're cutting it fine to get Harry back in her body here

Big flex to be waiting for everyone to arrive smoking a ciggie with your golden skeleton arm

Fucking friendship bracelets and a secret handshake hahahahah

Gideon needs to stop being such a bloody himbo

Who has shouted "get in line thou big slut!" Hahahahah

There we have it, the full series. Hope y'all have enjoyed this.

Idk why but I imagine Nona and Harrow with a gap teeth

GtN and HtN spoilers!! CW: talk of not having control over your body

just randomly thought of this now so excuse my incoherentness or possible ignorance or if anyone has said this before (this is also my first ever tumblr post so sorry for formatting errors), but i was looking at fanart of cytherea the first and just loving it. i realized there’s just something so baroque about her, and i think that’s on purpose. because she’s of the 7th house yes, the emperor’s joy and all that, but also because she’s a woman, and also because she’s dying. she’s expected to be beautiful because of her affiliation and her gender, all while she’s decaying from a disease that she was doomed to be born with and could never escape until it ultimately killed her. wilting away infront of everyone. and the ENTIRE time, she was given roses. roses, the pinnacle of beauty. every single rose she was given had a meaning, a life. and every single rose died. inevitably, wilting away infront of her. reminding her of her own fragile, ‘beautiful’ self. and even after she was dead, she was laid to rest drowned in roses that were modified to stay perpetually fresh, along with her body (i think) ((which of course john would do, after reading nona i’m not surprised)). not even eternally asleep could she catch a break. i think tamsyn muir was saying something here about how the ‘ideal woman is a dead one’. she is silent, still, and malleable. that’s what she pretended to be in canaan house. but i don’t think she ever could truly be. she was too angry. too enraged. also the fact that she became a lyctor in hopes she could be cured but just ended up suffering in a stagnant state of sickness for thousands of years, the fact that she was purposely given this disease. the fact that john LIED. lied to everyone. lied to HER. before her life, during her life, and after her life, things were done to her body without her informed consent. her cancer being almost prophetic, her unknowing improper lyctoral ascension, and the possesion of her empty shell of a body. (also it being used as a medium for pyrrha and wake is a whole other thing) she IS the rage of not having control over your own body. i think, ultimatley, that’s what her character is about. i mean, i’m pretty sure harrow stabbing The Sword™️ INSIDE her unwilling corpse was probably a metaphor or something…

“we take so much. i’m so sorry.”

(again i just thought of this thirty minutes ago so feel free to add anything 🙏) ((i also wonder how this parallels dulcinea and her life but it’s 1 am and i don’t feel like thinking anymore. but i think we’ll learn more about her in alecto.))

the art that inspired this was a beautiful cytherea and harrow drawing by pygmypouter on tumblr!