chrysoliteandlightning - Tumblr blog

[chrysoliteandlightning]

thinking about how aiglamene has a shitty bone prosthetic leg. notably, i'm thinking about the "shitty" part and what it implies. because you can't convince me that harrow wasn't capable of giving aiglamene a perfect replacement by the age of like. seven. nor can you convince me that harrow wouldn't offer, even if she disguises it as pragmatism. so that leaves the conclusion that aiglamene refused. and the best explanation for why she would do that is: that leg was made for her by a necromancer she cared about.

aiglamene is an old soldier, capable of teaching the rapier, and claims to have seen duels involving a cavalier primary in her youth. so. yeah basically what i'm saying here is that aiglamene was probably someone's cav. and there's a good chance her necro died in combat and made her that leg shortly before

[chrysoliteandlightning]

remembering this exchange and thinking about Gideon and Ortus's relationship;

Gideon is sympathetic to Ortus and Ortus smiles at her in return. thinking about how often does the "sad wet lump of Ortus" ever smile. thinking about how did Ortus treat Gideon who was under a similar debt of service to the ninth. did he see a little sister in her? they trained together under Aiglamene, did they have a friendship? a camaraderie like that of fellow soldiers?

The narration in GtN is elusive but Gideon must have mourned Ortus's death. And as we see in Harrow (not much) Ortus feels sorry for having failed Gideon.

Harrowhark and Gideon were the only children left in the Ninth house, but what of the teenager that was spared? Where did he come into the equation?

[chrysoliteandlightning]

if dulcie got to see campal having those near-telepathic silent conversations in front of her, she would bully them about it to hide that her actual reaction was a mix of hopelessly endeared and weirdly horny. pal would take this at face value but cam would call dulcie on this attempt at deflection almost immediately

[chrysoliteandlightning]

they return to Canaan house after ntn and Harrow raiding her old room for her clothes

[chrysoliteandlightning]

tlt lang analysis update: it's driving me crazy thinking about sixth house linguists. like. i havent looked for it yet but im aware on new rho House is referred to as, well, House. if it's ever referred to as english im gonna go insane because they have greek and latin in canon so they absolutely have a way to decipher that word, but do they have enough knowledge of pre-resurrection history to know WHY it's called english? also, what in terms of a lingua franca? is it only the Houses that have a lingua franca? are there other languages within the Houses? im losing my fucking mind

[chrysoliteandlightning]

“your characters need to be likeable” allow me to introduce you to the very worst guy who ever lived

[chrysoliteandlightning]

Hear me out: Lucky by Britney Spears in a HTN adaptation.

As the Divine Highness AU ends, the bridge of the song begins to play and Harrow strides along an impossibly JJ Abrams Star Trek lens flare spaceship corridor with Jean and Isaac.

They enter the cafeteria in slow motion, everything bright and sparkly and overexposed. Ortus, mopping the floor in an apron and one of those little paper restaurant hats, looks up in horror as they pass.

An invisible breeze blows Harrow's hair as she gazes, open mouthed, at the counter. There is a close up of Gideon's biceps.

Magnus, in a Cohort uniform and an improbable WWI officer's mustache, drops a tablet in shock as Harrow strides past the table, her chaplain's cape wafting behind her.

A close up of Gideon's grin, accompanied by an actual cartoon flash and ding noise. "Let me guess, you like it black?"

Abigail Pent, in full admiral's uniform, heads decisively towards the counter, reaching out her hand to stop them.

Gideon holds out the coffee, and Harrow stretches her hand out towards it. The air sparkles.

Jean and Isaac turn to stare with exaggerated 'woah' expressions. Behind them, Ortus and Magnus watch from the now otherwise completely empty cafeteria.

Harrow and Gideon's hands meet on the coffee cup and the camera pans up to Gideon's eyes, her hair also fluttering in the nonexistent breeze.

"Absolutely not."

The music abruptly cuts to that mechanical drain noise they use when Neo gets unplugged from the Matrix.

[chrysoliteandlightning]

We’re all in agreement that the message that Aim is carrying is DNA sequences of animals and plants from earth, right? That’s why it’s too simple for humans to understand - DNA is the basic building block of life, only 4 amino acids in various arrangements, but impossible for us to decipher without technology. She probably knows about elephants because they were one of the animals whose DNA is in her implant, and hence why she was shown a photo (or drawing) of it before the events of NTN, and later able to recognize it when Nona doodled it. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if the trillionaires fled with DNA on their ship to recreate, Jurassic Park-style, the animals and plants from earth. It also makes the scene where she tells Nona that she hopes she can see the message one day even more bittersweet - Nona is literally planet earth.

[chrysoliteandlightning]

it is a noted trait of palamedes sextus that he gravitates towards people who will affectionately bully him. he needs this to keep his ego in check. however, he is only rarely able to bully camilla in turn. and she truly does need it almost as much as he does. this task is instead one of many best undertaken by dulcinea septimus

[chrysoliteandlightning]

Man, Palamedes suggesting that the Sixth call in an expert from the Ninth to help overhaul their skeletal servitors really hits hard on just how much the Ninth is diminished. Harrow was maintaining the Ninth's infrastructure mostly on her own. How many Ninth experts are there left to call on? Twenty? Fifty? Twelve? One?

[chrysoliteandlightning]

Palamedes had to keep himself busy, after all...

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just finished harrow the ninth and i feel sick but i fucking love ianthe

[chrysoliteandlightning]

reading nona the ninth and shaking my head the whole time so the people on the train know i don't agree with building cow walls

[chrysoliteandlightning]

Something something… Harrow has held on so tight to Gideon for their entire lives …. Something something.. Gideon has been running away her whole life… Gideon is always leaving and Harrow can never quite bear to let her go… something something.. the one time Harrow decides to leave instead, and Gideon turns around and expects to see Harrow there, holding on just like always, but she’s gone and Gideon is alone. She finally ran somewhere where Harrow would not, could not catch her.

What if Orpheus looked back and Eurydice wasn’t there?

[chrysoliteandlightning]

I always got the feeling that the color draining from the room was a sign of Silas' siphoning extending beyond Colum and into the surrounding environment. I think the genetic compatibility aspect functions more as a focus. Because Colum's thalergy and thanergy is so much like Silas' it concentrates the effects of his siphoning.

Regarding Aiglemene's high standards, I see several possibilities. One is that she's two generations back, and it feels quite likely that each generation is less healthy than the previous, so what Aiglemene saw in her prime was a standard that no one in Harrow & Gideon's generation can match. Another possibility is that Gideon is still too obviously an infantry swordswoman and a brawler. She blocks too much, doesn't know how to utilise her offhand, etc. Another is simply that Aiglemene is rude and couldn't offer proper praise or a straightforward compliment to save her own life.

some things I'm noticing (again) in my ??th gtn reread:

- Cytherea has a whole little monologue about how if you're going to create or pull thanergy it has to be by taking thalergy and vice versa. You can only join death to life or life to death, kind of like batteries

- Basically I'm more convinced than ever that the entrance to the Tower is under the Canaan House facility -- Teacher says it's the most dangerous place in the whole Nine Houses, and we know by now that Alecto was not there, so I am pretty sure it's the Tower

- ten billion unfed ghosts in the Tower, under Canaan House, which were there since the Resurrection; sounds like the tongue guys tbh.

- there's a whole bit about how Silas sends Colum's soul *away* and exploits the space it leaves behind, which is meant to be the opposite of what the Second House does. the Second House takes enemy thanergy to create more thalergy for the cavalier. so I think that means the Eighth takes in thalergy - like from the whole room, I think this is why the color starts draining from everyone whenever Silas does it to Colum - to create more thanergy for ... maybe both the necromancer and the cavalier?

- Anyway I just kind of think John's bomb + eating Earth basically ripped open a wormhole to tongue guy space (the stoma) and he pushed the ten billion through. giving up a shit ton of thalergy to create the first source of thanergy. like Silas does to Colum but bigger. and this created the tongue guys and the tower was built to contain them.

- this is maybe also why John has said siphoning is the most dangerous thing any House had ever thought up - he does like to say this kind of thing from personal experience

- there are sure a lot of towers referenced in Canaan House and then we don't really get towers again until Nona, with the Tower Princes and, obvi, the Tower.

- I am very fine and normal about Silas and Colum and have never cried about them, what are you even talking about

- the Tower is a tarot card that "is associated with sudden, disruptive revelation, and potentially destructive change." Sounds like John's flashbacks in Nona to me tbh

- the Eighth breeding program is still interesting and a mystery to me, mainly because I'm not very clear on what blood type matches have to do with necromancy. But it does feel like the most medical aspect of the modern Eighth and therefore probably the part that Mercy had the most influence over.

- but actually I think "the Eighth breeds batteries" makes more sense to me than ever if the point of sending Colum's soul away is to take his thalergy to bring Silas more thanergy. Which is siphoning, exactly - it's the avulsion trial. And I suppose that would be easier to do if the necromancer and cavalier were a closer genetic match. But then I guess I don't understand why everyone else in the room loses color when that happens. Is that because of where Silas is sending Colum in those moments?

- also then it makes me wonder if Cam and Pal really could have done the avulsion trial without giving Cam brain damage. They are a super close genetic match. Harrow and Gideon are *not*, of course, but I think they pulled through because Gideon has extra thalergy from her dad's side.

- you know who would be a PERFECT genetic match? the Tridentarii! really wondering if this will come up in Alecto... Corona actually would be perfect for Ianthe to siphon because there is no genetic difference between them.

- is it going to be important at some point that the Chaturs have been cavaliers since the time of the Resurrection? is Jeannemary a descendant of Titania?

- when Teacher laments the "poor child" he could be talking about... almost anyone. Dulcinea, Cytherea, Isaac, Jeannemary. Anastasia. Like really anyone

- in retrospect it's extremely weird that Aiglamene tells Gideon she's up to the standards of "a bad cavalier, one who's terrible" and then when Gideon gets to Canaan House and starts dueling people, she's like one of the best? Crazy fast, hero-worshipped by Jeannemary, and even Babs said it was "incredible" to fight her. Like that's strange that Aiglamene's expectations were apparently much higher than any House cavalier primary.

- there's something so fascinating about the scene where Babs stops Corona from fighting Gideon. like it becomes really clear to me that he is in on Ianthe's ruse, and that Corona has been fighting to get out of it for a long time - maybe her whole life - and can't. They're both terrified of Ianthe and Babs is constantly trying to protect Corona *from Ianthe*. But Corona is so tied up in the toxicity of the relationship, and the love of it, that she can't accept Babs' help even when consists only of taking her side in an argument between the twins, as in the first scene when they're overheard on the stairs. She can't even accept Babs' help when it consists of dying instead of her. Ugh the whole thing is so domestic-abuse coded...

- "she had bitten him, apparently to soothe her own obscure feelings" I say this to/about my cats often

idk probably more later

[chrysoliteandlightning]

Love your nova gideon so so so much

Thank you!

[chrysoliteandlightning]

do you think Palamedes was nervously excited when packing for Canaan house cause he's finally gonna meet Dulcinea