#John stop her she’s using theorems

[goosewizard]

i think we, as a society, don’t talk bout harrow using theorems in the river enough.

pov imagine ur mercymorn, seeing this little infant of a thing, puking and stumbling around and killing anyone who touches her sword, begin doing shit that is NIGH IMPOSSIBLE for a barely coherent babbling idiot

it’s like watching a baby do advanced calculus I NEED u to know how insane she is for that

[elfieafterdark]

"She's barely awake and it's totally beyond her at this poi-JOHN, STOP HER, SHE'S USING THEOREMS!!"

[paradoxcase]

Gideon the Ninth audiobook, through to the end of Chapter 31

Cytherea is described as having "biscuit-colored curls" which I kind passed over the first time I was reading. She's described elsewhere as having light brown hair; American biscuits aren't any kind of brown, if they're made right, but Muir isn't American, either. In Britain, it's my understanding that "biscuit" refers to any hard flat cookie with a stamped design, but those come in all sorts of colors. Does "biscuit" mean a secret third thing in New Zealand?

Gideon says "it's stupid for a cavalier to watch their necromancer die" which I think sort of foreshadows Gideon rejecting Harrow's instruction to survive her

Gideon asks Cytherea why she came to Canaan House in the first place, and I feel like Cytherea's answer is about when she came the first time, nearly 10,000 years ago? She talks about how the Seventh wanted her to die beautifully and she though the Emperor had her best interests more at heart than they did

She says: "If they could figure out how to stop you when you're mostly cancer and just a little bit woman, they would" about the Seventh, but that's exactly what John did to her, isn't it?

And then: "I'll probably live forever, worse luck, whatever happened to One Flesh, One End?"

Palamedes pronounces "golem" exactly like "Gollum" and that amuses me

Harrow thought the secret to Lyctorhood was a secret power source in Canaan House they were supposed to discover - I guess to the extent that the consumed cavalier's soul is a power source, she wasn't exactly wrong

Camilla: "The last thing the Warden needs is an introduction to Lady Septimus" - pretty funny in retrospect

Palamedes after Harrow removes the plug Cytherea put on the Seventh lab's keyhole: "Did you hide the last key, too?" He was right about that

Colum is described as having a "perpetually scratchy voice" which I missed the first time, but it does match up with his voice here

Mayonnaise Uncle thinks Gideon's red hair might have come from the Third, which is I guess some extra information about the distribution of phenotypes in the Empire, but the only other redheaded House character we know of is G1deon (I almost wrote "Pyrrha") (who, ironically, is not biologically related to Gideon Nav unless he was like John's cousin or something). Mercy had "pink" hair, but I don't know if that means like, strawberry blond, or like, literally dyed pink. I guess it's been 10,000 years, so things might be a bit different now

Colum: "The next time we meet, I think it's likely one of us will die." Well, it wasn't the next time they met, since they both showed up to hear Cytherea tell a very fake story about why Protesilaus was already dead just after this, but I think it's the next time they are both in the same room together than Colum dies, so, yeah

Teacher says something about a "poor child" and Gideon doesn't know who he's referring to and I don't either even on the second readthrough. I guess it's possible that he's just talking nonsense, because he's a weird construct, but he's been saying things that consistently make sense in the current context throughout the whole book, so I don't really buy that

The scene where Corona is practicing with a sword and challenging Gideon to a duel feels kind of like she's anticipating being left behind by Ianthe and is trying to lean into the idea of becoming a cavalier after this, since she can't pretend to be a necromancer without Ianthe. We know from the Fourth teens that Ianthe has been sneaking into all the locked doors and reading the theorems at this point

When Naberius comes to collect her, he says "I won't tell her". I guess he means Ianthe?

Is that really how "beatified" is pronounced? I don't think I've ever heard it spoken before. Wiktionary seems to agree that it is

If I had listened to the audiobook first, I definitely would have misheard Gideon talking about "narking" on Harrow as "knocking" and been confused

Palamedes: "All I ask is that you put some pen and flimsy in my cell so I can start my memoirs." Yeah, that's not what you wrote when you were actually confined to the River bubble for months, haha

Narration: Suddenly [Cytherea] seemed impossibly old.

Cytherea claims that John was against soul siphoning. So, the thalergy siphoning that was a fundamental part of Mercy's challenge, and which the Second House uses regularly on enemies, is totally fine and cool, but Mayonnaise Uncle send Colum's soul away temporarily to generate power is wrong. You know, Mayonnaise Uncle is actually a lot more sympathetic on the second readthrough

Mayonnaise Uncle also really had Cytherea's number in this scene and no one listened to him, he was the only one saying that Cytherea was suspicious and everyone else was disgusted by this, including Judith. No wonder he was so sour in Harrow's River bubble

Harrow wants to use Protesilaus' head for necromancy and everyone else is unhappy about this. But this isn't strange for the Nine Houses - the Canaan House skeletons were made from the dead just like the Ninth skeletons were, and just like the Sixth skeletons were in Dr. Sex, not to mention Ianthe's use of Babs' body. Like, if we are going to start complaining about the desecration of dead bodies now, I think that starts to call into question the entire way that the Nine Houses uses necromancy and has been using it for the past 10,000 years. I'm not sure any of the other necromancers really have that high ground

Palamedes says Cytherea only has days left to live, she definitely giggles at that

In the pool scene, Harrow says that the calculations for the deaths of the 200 children were very precise, and that the babies contributed the most thanergy. Now I'm wondering if Gideon failing to die might have messed up those careful calculations in some way? Obviously Harrow was still born a powerful necromancer, and it still worked overall, but now I'm curious

Harrow about John's blood ward: "I knew it had to open for me" because she was the descendant of Anastasia. She never questioned that there might have been some other reason it opened

[gidianthe]

john stop her she's using theorems

[amemoryofwot]

John stop her she’s using theorems

👁️ 👄 👁️

[iviarellereads]

Harrow the Ninth, Chapter 25

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Ninth House icon) In which Harrow cooks soup and spawns a fandom meme.

Harrow tattles to Teacher that she saw Ortus kissing Cytherea, she swears it by the Locked Tomb. He says she shouldn't swear by that in this particular instance.(1) She wants to say that he also broke her bone wards, that she hasn't slept in forty-eight hours, but she can't. John says the Saint of Duty is "legendarily unamorous". He suggests that Harrow do something normal. Learn to make a meal, read a book, take time to rest. In this moment, Harrow knows that he doesn't understand her.

Still, she can do something. She asks Ianthe how to make soup, and she practices several times.

On the third day post-confrontation, Ianthe is given an ultimatum by Augustine: five more days, and if she hasn't started using her sword arm properly by then, he's giving up on training her, because if he wanted pity-cases, he'd teach Harrow. Harrow doesn't even react, just looks at her knife, fork, and spoon, and tries to remember which one is for which purpose.(2)

After 126 hours without sleep, Harrow prepares supper for everyone. Everyone eats the soup, though Ianthe and August have complaints about the blandness(3) but Augustine is eager to try a different cook's perspectives after ten thousand years of the same. Mercy calls the soup mediocre, and Harrow says innocently that she followed a recipe. August asks if it was one of Cassiopeia's, and remembers a time early on when she accidentally removed part of a finger while cooking, and left it in, and didn't tell anyone. He tells Harrow to confess if something like that happens, before they eat. Harrow flinches, but tries to smile and play it off. When they finish, August asks what the meat is.

It takes Harrow a moment to find the word, as she works through the theorems in her head, but finally she comes to it.

"Marrow," you said. The Saint of Duty exploded outward as your construct emerged from his abdomen. Your soup was watery and mediocre, as soup went, but as a delivery method for gelid explosives--marrow rendered through so much water as to not pass comment--it was perfect. Half a dozen arms shattered him in the soft electric light from the overhead panels. You let out your breath, and coalescing scythes destroyed intestines--lungs--heart. Then you fired upward, toward the brain. And God said, "Stop." The world slowed down.

Even August and Mercy stop halfway in the process of rising from their seats, but the shrapnel of the explosion of Ortus the First's torso does not.(4) God says it's been ten thousand years since he last ate human flesh and he didn't expect an encore. He asks for an explanation. Harrow says Ortus is trying to kill her, and here's God defending Ortus and not her. He asks how long since she slept. She admits to six days.

The Emperor of the Nine Houses stood. The spell, whatever it had been, dropped like a white sun setting. Your body collapsed back into your chair. The construct [...] dwindled to a powder of pink dust. [...] The concatenation of Ortus the First's insides, laced and crocheted over the dinner table, sizzled away to a soft mist. Everyone's breath spewed from their lungs in one unholy gasp. Ortus's hands flew to his middle.

The Emperor dismisses everyone from supper except Mercy, and tells Ianthe to escort Harrow to bed. As they leave, Harrow decreasingly sure of reality, she overhears a snippet.

Behind you, the Kindly Prince was saying, in far more ominous tones than you had ever heard him use: "Six days. No sleep. She still manages a full skeleton commencement from diluted marrow. What else have you failed to see, Mercymorn-?"(5) You were already at the door when her peevish response came: "But this is insane! She's only nine years old!"

The Saints of Duty and Patience stand in the corridor. If either wants to kill Harrow, she can't stop them. But, August just lights a cigarette, looking like he's seen a ghost, and passes it to Ortus, who raises it to Harrow in an unmistakable salute.(6)

=====

(1) Why shouldn't she swear by the Locked Tomb for this, in particular? Because it involves a corpse? (2) Sleep deprivation setting in. (3) The return of Harrow's dislike of strong flavours! I love this character trait, as I believe I've said before. (4) This is a fascinating exertion and demonstration of his power as a God. We've seen necromancy do some big weird stuff, but nothing quite like this. (5) So, Mercy wasn't exactly a willing supervisor to Harrow. She was asked, perhaps commanded, to examine and report. (6) You gotta admit, you'd respect the hell out of someone who did what Harrow did. If only out of self-preservation.

[sharry-arry-odd]

"Oh–" He used a word you did not understand. "Harrowhark, no theorems!" "Don't be ridiculous. She can't be using theorems," said Mercy. "She'd be barely awake and it's totally beyond her at this poi–/John, stop her, she's using theorems!!"

Harrow the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

[vaguely-concerned]

the locked tomb is like the queer version of the ‘stop praying for grandpa’ post. stop unburying your gays!!!!! it is making them too strong. they broke out of the locked tomb and god can’t get them. john stop her she’s using theorems

[abigail-pent]

OK, as promised long ago: my Cassiopeia theory.

Essentially, I’m pretty sure she is still alive, and here’s a long-form exploration of why I think this, accompanied by a full catalogue of everything we know about her.

(1) We know that the skills you learn from the Lyctor trial in Cassiopeia’s lab is what Palamedes calls “the hideous corpse”: tethering a fully intact spirit to a body that loses its integrity (GTN p. 366).

(2) We know that Pal employs this technique, or something very closely related to this technique, to successfully tether his spirit to his body (HTN chapter 33).

(3) We know that Cassiopeia’s body is torn apart by ghosts after physically entering the River and using theorems while physically submerged (HTN p. 97). 

Proposition One: If Pal can use Cassy’s technique to successfully tether his spirit to his body, which is then torn to pieces, I see no reason why Cassy herself could not have done the same, before she is also torn to pieces. Also: it’s an interesting parallel, and I refuse to believe it isn’t on purpose.

(4) Cassiopeia loved to cook (HTN p. 231), leading me to believe that the scrap of recipe that Abigail finds on HTN p. 130, which references Nigella in a defensive sort of manner, was probably written by Cassiopeia. Immediately after finding this, Abigail says she “may be able to call the writer’s ghost” and also says: 

(4a) “I mean, there’s the issue of whether the Lyctor in question is even dead.”

(4b) “I am not even certain where [Lyctors] go. Do Lyctors enter the River? Do Lyctors pass as we pass? I don’t know where they wait.”

Proposition Two: this is tazmuir directly suggesting that Cassiopeia is not dead, and that other Lyctors can be called back from wherever they have been waiting -- which, in Augustine’s and Ulysses’ cases, are on the other side of the stoma --  by a sufficiently talented speaker to the dead. 

(5) Cassiopeia was awake and performing necromancy in the River the first time she was physically submerged in it (HTN p. 156). And yet she didn’t get torn apart by ghosts until later. This may be why HTN Chapter 7 has a 6th House skull on it -- this is the chapter where Harrow, Ianthe, Mercy, and John physically travel in the River -- and I feel strongly that the chapter would have had a different House’s skull attached to it if we weren’t supposed to be thinking specifically about Cassiopeia at this time. Certainly if the bits we learn about Cassy in this chapter are just red herrings or colorful backstory, it wouldn’t necessarily warrant a 6th house skull for the chapter. It feels like a strong hint.

(6) Augustine considers Cassiopeia to be his superior re: spirit expertise. He says he’s a generalist, implying she was the specialist. So she can out-spirit the Fifth House. He says she was “unravelled” and that she “disappeared” but not that she has died (HTN p. 171). In fact, nobody ever directly says she died, only that she was physically torn apart. Mercy says she saw the spirits “[seize] her legs and arms” (HTN p. 105) but not actually that she died.

(7) Cassiopeia had a large ceramics collection (HTN p. 105).

(8) Cassy is a super lightweight (HTN p. 268).

(9) Anastasia was working closely with Cassiopeia as she studied to try and achieve Lyctorhood (HTN p. 482). If she nearly got it right after studying with/under Cassy, then it’s possible that Cassy came to understand perfect Lyctorhood, but only after having killed Nigella. This, in my opinion, is the sort of thing that might make a person fake their own death to remove themselves from service, especially as Cassy has been described as extremely protective of Nigella (HTN p. 279).

(10) Cassiopeia and Anastasia together created Teacher to be a soul melange (GTN p. 368). Is this the same thing as the “Sixth installation” referenced at Cytherea’s funeral (HTN p. 122)? The existence of this “installation” implies the presence of both Valancy and Anastasia. So it’s possible that Valancy was working on the soul melange too. The other possibility is that they had some other project going, that we don’t know anything else about yet.

(11) Cassiopeia was “brilliant and sensible and careful” and figured out that blood wards are actually cell wards and appears to have been the most scientifically minded of all of the original Lyctors, and arguably the most powerful of them.

So what does this all add up to? I just don’t believe that brilliant, sensible, careful Cassy, the spirit specialist, would have failed to use her own techniques to keep her soul tethered to her body. And yes, her body was torn to pieces, but there’s precedent for the recovery of the soul after this, and in fact the narrative sort of begs us to look at the parallel between her and Pal and to conclude that she isn’t actually dead. I think she had plenty of motive to do everything she could to stop working for John, who she almost certainly knew had betrayed her and Nigella, even if she wasn’t sure exactly how. I don’t know what all she was working on, besides the soul melange -- though undoubtedly she worked on many things -- but at the end of the day, there are too many extant question marks surrounding her work for me to believe we’ve closed the book on her and everything we can learn from her. 

[cakesandfail]

"John, stop her, she's using theorems" aka my family freaking out over my arcane and mysterious knowledge of *checks notes* A-level physics

[tanoraqui]

Harrow the Ninth spoilers with no context:

how many aneurysms can a person survive?! 1 lesbian tests it out!

“John, stop her, she’s using theorems!”

Abigail Pent says no coffee shop aus

Harrow gets a 3rd act romcom makeover

and God spake, and the words he spake were, “your mom”

the Second cavalier was objectively the hottest of the original cavaliers

and then Tasmyn Muir says to me, "Hey, hey, hey wait... Before we drop in another bildingsroman-esque realization of self and one’s capacity for love/being loved, let’s put in ONE theme of the power of passionate storytelling”

after 6 days without sleep, the solution is obvious: soup

[cookedcloud]

My favorite quotes from each book

Spoiler alert. These quotes might give away part of the books.

"Death first to vultures and scavengers" -Gideon the Ninth

"One flesh one end bitch"

-Gideon the Ninth

"She'd be barely awake and it's totally beyond her at this poi- john, stop her, she's using theorems!!"

-Harrow the Ninth

"This is the Resurrection beast." "That's a muffin." "I see cloud, but with a face." "I thought it was a flower." "Thought it was a snake in a bush."

-Harrow the Ninth

"When three people start kissing and undressing each other it's always a cue. A cue to leave." (If you know you know lol)

-Harrow the Ninth

The pictures aren't mine they're just really cool so I thought I'd share them.

[catharsis-in-a-bottle]

✨John, stop her, she's using theorems✨

[boneempress]

really want to yell out "John, stop her, she's using theorems!!" in my math class but at the professor

[daisylincs]

Soulmates aren't found, they're made - and when you succeed in making yourself a soulmate, romantic or platonic, you know it by a gift (a power, really) that you will both receive.

Soulmate powers are unique in that they will always have some special significance to the bond forged - a reflection of the soulmates' relationship, people say.

Jemma has three soulmates by the time she's twenty-eight years old - Fitz, of course, her first soulmate and the only one who might be a romantic. Sort of. Possibly. But that's a whole other can of worms - to cut a long story short, she shares a (real) psychic link with him.

The next soulmate she finds is Daisy - well, Skye still, then - and they can both fly when they’re within five-odd kilometres of each other. Her third soulmate is Bobbi, and what they share is enhanced senses whenever they’re close to each other. 

Lincoln is a year older than her, and he only has two - one is (was) from his best friend from Afterlife; and the power they used to share was invisibility. His second soulmate is Daisy, and to both of their surprise and delight, they share teleportation. 

(Yes, they used it to meet up several times while he was on the run. Yes, one or two of those times might have been while he was “accidentally” shirtless. No, he wouldn’t be answering any more questions.) 

Case in point, neither Jemma nor Lincoln expected to find another soulmate anytime soon - most people only ever get two or three, after all. It’s a more than decent number. 

But the universe, the way it so often does with things like this, surprises them. 

Lincoln fully settles at SHIELD for the first time only after the castle - it’s the first time he actually ventures into the lab, encouraged by some heavy prompting from Daisy. 

Jemma, as she is wont to do these days after Will’s death, is working in a corner by herself, running some Inhuman DNA samples and muttering to herself about the impossibility of what she’s seeing. 

Lincoln overhears part of this as he is making his way to the medical wing, and he stops for a moment to explain how Jemma is simply looking at the problem from the wrong angle. 

He doesn’t think he’s done anything particularly life-changing, but he hears the scrape of a chair behind him as soon as he turns away. Jemma catches his arm and asks him to expand further, and before he’s quite realised what’s happening, he’s in the chair next to hers, talking her through all the intricacies of Inhuman biology.

Jemma, for her part, is stunned, and absolutely fascinated - Lincoln’s just managed to show her a whole new angle of looking at things that makes this impossible sequence of genomic problems make sense. And since she’s always adored figuring out exactly how things work, she needs to know more, immediately.

Naturally, being Jemma Simmons, she is a wickedly quick study, picking things up lightning-fast and then asking the most intelligent follow-up questions imaginable. Soon, they are in new territory even for Lincoln. 

And they are both absolutely fascinated by what they’re learning, and managing to theorise - so much so that the entire day slips by without either of them even really noticing. It’s only when Daisy comes in search of Lincoln that they realise, oops, it’s past dinnertime. 

Agreeing to meet again at the same time, same place the next day, Jemma and Lincoln go their separate ways; he to his bunk opposite Daisy’s, and she to hers adjoining Fitz’s.

And as she gets there, she can’t help but marvel: this is the first time since Fitz and Coulson walked out of that pod without Will that she hasn’t thought about... him, or Maveth, or any of it. It all just melted away, somehow, as she chased the thrill of discovery. 

She hesitates outside her bunk door, thinking that maybe - impossible as it sounds to say - this is exactly what she needed after all. Something to focus her energy and significant brainpower on that isn’t a Monolith or a lost love, and someone intelligent to talk to through the process. 

It’s a very nice feeling, she thinks, smiling to herself as she closes her bunk door. 

Lincoln, for his part, is also silently amazed as he heads to bed - this is the first time ever he hasn’t doubted every step he makes in the SHIELD base. He just... well, to be completely honest, he forgot he was even with SHIELD. He just focused on the biology, and the thrill of their shared fascination. 

He didn’t think about John, or past mistakes, or futures of leaving so much as once - it was just the two of them, relative strangers, bonded by their shared curiosity and interest. 

Talking and theorising with her had felt a lot like something he wanted to do again, as often as possible, and a little bit like belonging. 

So the next day, they’re both in the lab early, and smile at the sight of each other - then they jump right in where they left off the previous day. 

And it is just as good - if not, in fact, better. They are starting to get to know each other’s thought patterns now, and play off each other’s ideas and points, and it brings them both tremendous satisfaction as they unravel more and more of the mysteries of Inhuman biology. 

They meet every day except for weekends (and... even some weekends, much to Daisy’s horror and Fitz’s amusement.) In fact, the answers to the questions “where’s Jemma?” or “where’s Lincoln?” become common knowledge throughout the base as “geeking out in the lab.” 

It is just so amazing for them both, and so... freeing, really. It’s a distraction from other things, yes, but it’s a distraction they both find hugely interesting, and one that lets them both breathe and find their feet a little after everything they’ve gone through.

So when it happens one rainy Saturday morning, it really shouldn’t have surprised either of them as much as it did. 

It happens in the middle of one of their now-classic debates, pacing up and down the lab and gesticulating their way through their newest theorem - Lincoln accidentally knocks over a precariously balanced stack of tools. The whole thing comes crashing down around his head, and he collapses to the floor, momentarily buried in everything from soldering wire to DWARF-calibration tongs.

Jemma rushes over at once, of course, and quickly establishes that he’s completely fine, except for a rather nasty cut above his eyebrow.

However, as she leans over to touch it, the cut fades away completely. 

Jemma blinks, not believing her eyes for a moment, and then she carefully touches his skin again, hovering over the last tiny corner of unhealed scratch.

And sure enough, it disappears beneath her fingers.

“Lincoln,” she breathes, forgetting for a moment that he’s still buried in a pile of engineering junk and beaming down at him. 

He grins back, looking equally floored - but definitely pleased, she thinks. Definitely. 

To doubly confirm their brand-new theory, he leans forward to touch an old bruise on her ankle. And, yes, it disappears instantly.

So it’s true, then - they’re soulmates. 

And the power they share is healing. 

Jemma looks at him, really looks at him - notices how comfortable he is in SHIELD nowadays, notices how he seems more comfortable in his own body, too, and notices how much more he’s smiling.

For her own part, she notices how she finally feels like herself again, waking up each morning with her joy for life and science restored. 

Healing, she thinks, and she can tell by the small, sincere smile playing on Lincoln’s lips that he’s thinking something along the same lines.

She smiles, too, warm and fond. How fitting. 

(Platonic Bioshock Soulmate AU headcanons for the @agentsofchallenges​​​ AoS March Madness challenge! <3)