nonalovesu

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reached the dios apate minor scene on my htn reread.... always got me giggling and kicking my feet icl

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this bit of waco, texas always reminds me of cam and pal :(

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Camilla and Palamades are living in an entirely different genre and as a fated, fantasy romance, walk-through-fire-to-be-together fan, I am obsessed with the glimpses into their relationship.

“I died and you carried me. I gambled and you covered my bet. You kept the faith and were the instrument of both my vengeance and my grace. And now I have fought through time and the river and Ianthe the first … will you not look at me now Cam and know me?”

“Yes Warden. I will always know you”

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if anything i think people should go OUT OF THEIR WAY to write about things that they don't actually experience. broaden your horizons!! think outside the box!!! it's good for us!!

Do you think people who are virgin should write smut? I feel like most of them don’t even know what they’re writing and just write what they think sex is

the implication this ask suggests that people who write about murders, cannibalism, politics, magic, royalty au, sci-fi, wars, supernatural, time travel, medieval era, werewolves, vampires, mermaids or goblins must be murderers, cannibals, presidents, wizards, royalties, astronauts, ghost hunters, soldiers, time travelers, knights, werewolves, vampires, mermaids or goblins in real life is so funny to me

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[...] the Tomb I will serve till the end of my days 

and then see me buried

in two hundred graves.

ig: d.ill.usion

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Idk if I’ll go farther with this sketch but damn if Ianthe isn’t fun to draw :3

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Harrow the Ninth, Aus, and power imbalances

I have this whole week been thinking about the AUs Harrow imagines as she's spinning out during HtN. What I've found so fascinating, and something that has clanged through my head again and again, is the power dynamics Harrow puts herself in during her imaginings.

Obviously, all of these AUs are pretty firmly in romance territory. Even Harrow Nova has pretty clear elements of Gideon, even just indirectly referenced, caring about Harrow more then Harrow wants to admit. The party has Harrow getting hot under her dress and being convinced she's terrified, the Coffee AU has so many tropes piled on top of each other its like a lacquering paint but its also incredibly romantic.

and yet, all of them also put Gideon in a position where she has power over Harrow. It's in fact the primary element of all of them. AND all of them play on necromantic power for Gideon as well.

Harrow is powerless before Gideon in Nova. Gideon is a prodigy, a star, someone who took Harrow's place because Gideon is so good and Harrow is so powerless. In the Royal Princess AU Gideon is the first child and the chooser, but we can probably also presume Gideon would have necromantic powers (or is at least faking them ala Corona) since she's so central to the first house in it. Even in the Coffee AU she is a coffee 'adept', the terms for necromancy being co-opted to assign power to Gideon.

Of course, Harrow is all about power dynamics. No one in the story (except maybe Pal and Harrow, but even then) has a relationship where they are an equal with another person. Everyone has something over someone else, clear hierarchy valuing one over the other, clear power over others. Harrow as well has had her dynamics flipped. She was pretty clearly one of the strongest necromancers of Gideon, and always had the ability to stay above it all until near the very end. Now she is the lowest of the Mithraeum. (Does this power dynamic switch make her wish she had Gideon to fall back on, unconsciously? Or does she wish Gideon could decide for her again? Just before the AUs we have Ianthe observing that someone like Harrow either has to be holding the reins or have them taken from them, and doesn't want them back if they're taken. hrmm.)

It's so fascinating that Harrow applies her own societal expectations about who has power in a dynamic, then consciously puts herself *below* Gideon in all of her imagined worlds. She must be below Gideon, she must serve Gideon, Gideon must be more experienced and above Harrow even in the smallest of ways. Gideon is established in the cohort, gideon is the prince who controls the flow of the betrothal ceremony, gideon is the heir of the ninth house.

It's all so goddamn sad, is what it is. At no point do I think Gideon wants to be above Harrow from what *we've* seen of her. Gideon wants to be a servant. Gideon would be content (or at least she claims later) to be the cavalier to Harrow's necromancer, with all that entails. And Harrow's idea of a happy relationship is just flipping that, not upending it. She cannot help but think that they have to still have an imbalanced power between them, but if she can't hurt Gideon maybe it would all go differently.

Poor little snot rags, the both of em. Cannot wait to see how this gets handled in Alecto. I don't think anything long term healthy can be in this dynamic, but I also think if you're looking for long term, healthy relationships in TLT you're barking up the wrong tree.

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I think I do like pencil actually

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Request/gift for @pizzaisgo - for helping me out a while ago with finding a specific reference site! It’s Gideon vs. Camilla! I love to think that Gideon is overconfident in her abilities and vastly underestimates the importance of technique. Also I love Harrow and Gideon’s bickering in the first book. Which explains Harrow cheering for Gideon’s loss because that damn cavalier needs a lesson in not randomly challenging people and shutting the fuck up lmao -> Patreon if you’d love to give a tip & support or just wanna see some NSFW ♥

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nona the ninth

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day 2: drawing the locked tomb fanart to manifest the fourth book

save me... frankenstein coded barbie girl save me...

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Harrowhark Nonagesimus Unholy Trinity of Suffering [aka Harrows Hat Trick]

She's Schizophrenic. Real. Grounded. A condition many people the world over struggle with and can relate to.

She's Haunted. Supernatural. Spooky. Adds ambiance and flavor.

God wants her dead. Personally. I mean who among us hasnt felt that

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POV: you just pissed off the girls real bad

I could've put more time into this but honestly? I'm done lol

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I will simply never understand people who say they don't like Nona or call the plot of Nona the Ninth uninteresting. I saw someone describe the book as "cold" and I've been turning that over in my head because?? did we read the same book?? Nona is about love and warmth and about finding those things in the coldest of places and knowing that when things are bleak and dark you will always have love to fall back on. Nona is the soul of a misused, abused and ancient planet who was never treated right, even by the people who claimed to love her, but she doesn't know that! she has endless, unlimited capacity for love!

she is perhaps the only character in the entire series who will never experience the horrors of love because her love is pure and uncomplicated and limitless.

Nona is the soul of a planet, and yet she is so human. She is so desperately human, she wants to live and love, and she is terrified of the idea that both could be taken from her. Alecto loves John but Nona loves everyone.

She is the soul of a planet who wanted nothing more than to love and be loved, and now for the first time in her vast and ancient life, she is a six-month-old who loves and is loved by people who didn't even know who she was! they took her in because she was in the body of their friend, and then when she was nona, they loved her for her, without forcing any of their demands or expectations onto her!

And she contrasts so beautifully with Harrow. Nona, who never knew who she was until right at the end, who didn't have access to her memories of those who used and abused and emptied her, is the opposite of Harrow, who is 200 dead children, who has always known she is 200 dead children.

Harrow and Alecto are chained in so many ways -- Harrow metaphorically, and Alecto physically. Harrow's body is the memory of 200 souls, and Alecto's body is a prison for the soul of the entire earth. Neither lives for themselves and neither is free. And yet Nona, who is both of them, is free. She is the love that couldn't be taken away.

And I could talk forever about the importance of the world that Nona exists in, and how crucial it is for the story that we see her friends and what their lives are like, and how important it is that the reader is confronted with the reality and the cost of John's empire. The book places so much emphasis on the value of these regular human lives, directly contrasting the first two books, in which impossibly ancient beings simply do not care about average humans.

Nona is six months old and she cares about everyone, and for the first time in the earth's ancient life, everyone cares about her, and doesn't expect anything in return for it.

God I love Nona so much.

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something very important to understand about coronabeth tridentarius is that she's not Cool. she's hot, she's audacious, she's intoxicating, but she isn't Cool.

she likes the worst fucking puns in the entire world so much. she isn't good at comebacks. she's obsessively codependent with her creepy and wet twin sister. she has the fucking audacity to call someone else a nepo baby and think she made a point. she wants anyone who doesn't want her. she wants camilla to hug her and hold her the way camilla hugs and holds nona. she asks people's opinions about her and then gets upset if they say anything too honest. she wears such gaudy jewelry with everyday outfits that she bypasses "fancy" and wraps straight back around into "playing dress-up." she cried when her sister didn't kill and eat her. she's not good at pretending to be a necromancer, but her true love is the sword, but she's not particularly good at that either. she's down bad for judith fucking deuteros.

if everyone wasn't so distracted by how hot she is then the truth would be more obvious, and the truth is that coronabeth tridentarius is deeply lame (affectionate).

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Pyrrha Dve Appreciation <3

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- you are mercymorn the first and you are attending the funeral of one of the only people in the entire wretched universe who will ever understand you

- And what’s the fucking point. What are a few stuttering hours when the last 10,000 years have been one long funerary march, one long drawn out scream stretched across time and space forever and forever

- Haven’t you, haven’t all of you (all but one) spent the last myriad making yourself a monument to the worst thing that you have ever done (the worst thing that was ever done to you)?

- What point is a rose blown bower when the four three of you are already walking tombs

- You are mercymorn the first and you are the second saint to serve the king undying and you have committed atrocities for his command and you love him because what else is left

- You are the second saint to serve the king undying and you have watched the rest slowly dwindle away to the first of you and there are two children clinging to your robes as if they belong and you hate them for making themselves what you were made to be and not even understanding (later you will hate one of them for doing what you could not and making a prison of herself instead of a mausoleum)

- You are Mercymorn Crystabel and you are staring into the eyes that you didn’t know were your best friend’s and everything changes

- You are the Saint of Joy and for ten thousand years you have lived in grief and in anger and you have come to the end and if you can just finish it maybe you can rest. Maybe it will have been worth it and your bones can rest easy at last

- You are Mercy and you have loved him for ten thousand years. You were made in his image to love him and he is your god and your best friend and he lied to you (there were other lies once that you can almost remember, but that was before you were)

- You were M— and