#anyways i'm reading gideon for the third time

[callalyst]

totally normal about her btw

[luveline]

Hi idk if u have already written this if u have pls igonore but what about the first time bombshell reader calls Spencer beautiful?

fem, 1k

“Gideon has a new prodigy.�� 

Your head rises of its own accord. “Yeah?” 

“He's younger than you. Twenty three, I think Hotch said. Fresh out of college, two degrees and working on a third? Or maybe he was getting his doctorate? I couldn't keep up.” Morgan shakes his head in disapproval. “Overeducated and under-experienced. He failed his physicals. The ones he took, anyways.” 

“Ooh, ouch. A baby on the team before me,” you joke with a smile. “Genius baby, but a baby.” 

Morgan smiles when you smile, he's too nice not to, but he picks up soon enough, crossing his arms where he's stood and wrinkling what was once a finely steamed suit jacket. “I don't know what Gideon's thinking.” 

“Does anyone ever know what he's thinking? What's Hotch say about it all?” 

Morgan reads what you're typing from over your shoulder and corrects a mistake. One day you won't need his help, but for now you take as much of it as you can get. You're not too proud to acknowledge when you mess up, you're a realist. Super sensible (in mind if not action). 

“Hotch lets Gideon do what he wants, mostly. What can you do when he's one of the originals?” Morgan leans heavily onto his desk by the forearms and shrugs. You’re similar in this regard; complain, move on. You're similar in other ways, too. That's why you get along. 

“Well, I want to meet this guy,” you say. “We'll be teammates just as soon as Strauss stops hating me. I'm one strategic boxed bouquet from a full pardon.” He laughs and touches your arm like he believes you. “Is he around?” 

“Here they are now.” 

You spin in Morgan's desk chair slowly. Jason Gideon is stalking through the office with his head in the contents of a manilla envelope, while a new face follows behind him talking a mile a minute. 

“Obviously,” you hear Gideon interrupt as they get close enough. “Agent Morgan can explain that to you. Don't overthink it, Spencer, just try to get through it.” 

He doesn't acknowledge you nor Morgan as he leaves Spencer and hurries up the steps leading to his and Hotch's offices. You aren't expecting much else from him. What little Gideon knows about you he doesn't like. If you ever get over the Strauss hurdle, it's him you'd have to convince next. You don't watch him cross the landing, your gaze focused on the man making his timid way toward you. Your lips part briefly, and then quirk into an overjoyed smile. 

“Oh, you're beautiful,” you say without thinking. 

He frowns at you. 

“Reid,” Morgan interrupts, “This is Y/N L/N. She works in the sex crimes division. As you can imagine, we get a lot of crossover.” You stand, holding out your hand. “Y/N, this is Spencer Reid.” 

“I don't shake. Sorry.” 

You press your hand to your chest. “Oh, that's okay. I shouldn't assume…” Your voice melds into a silkiness that has his shapely brows furrowing further, “It's nice to meet you, Spencer Reid. You're really pretty, do you know that?” 

Spencer peeks at Morgan quickly, who laughs good-naturedly. “She's serious, Reid. She's not making fun of you.” 

“You'd know,” Spencer says. It isn't malicious, but it isn't exactly friendly, either.

You twist to frown at Morgan deeply. “Morgan, you're not being nice to him?” 

“I'm being plenty nice, sweetheart, but this is how it works. I gotta haze him a little.” 

“No, you don't.” You tip your cheek toward your shoulder to look at Spencer through your lashes. “He pretends to be worse than he is, I promise. But don't let him neg you, okay? You're smarter than he is–” 

“Hey.” 

“–and he's used to being the office pretty boy. It's jealousy, nothing else,” you finish. Spencer really is gorgeous now you're close enough to see his eyes. A brown like caramelised sugar tented by dark, dark eyelashes. When he smiles, the very slightest hint of teeth shows, and it makes him even prettier. You endeavour to make him smile again. “Sorry if I'm coming off a little strong. It's not my intention.” 

“She's just nervous. You have everything she wants,” Morgan says. 

You sigh forlornly. “Oh, doesn't he?” Spencer's confused pout is even cuter than his smile. “Getting into the BAU is about as easy as walking on water.” 

“For a human,” Spencer says. “Easier if you're smaller. Like a water strider.” 

There's a silence. Morgan is aghast, you think. You're in love. 

“Yeah?” you ask, stars in your eyes as his own spark to life. 

“Because water strider's can transfer their weight, but also due to their hydrofuge hairpiles. Their microhairs.” He catches himself, measuring your expression carefully. “Did you really wanna know?” 

“Do you wanna get a cup of coffee and tell me about it?” you ask. 

His lips part as yours had when you first saw him. 

He's prevented from answering as Hotch's office door opens and the man himself walks out near the railing. “Good, you’re here. I have something to talk to you about.” 

You grin at him. “I'd love to chat, Agent Hotchner, but I'm getting to know your new protégé.”

“I see.” He waits. 

You would ignore him —Hotch has a soft spot for you (or rather, he likes you enough to put up with you, which is more than can be said about other members of his division) and he'd shrug off your dismissal— but you're really keen to hear what he has to say. Perhaps Strauss has changed her mind about your proposed trail basis with the team. 

“I'm so sorry,” you say to Spencer, immediately re-dazzled by his pretty, lovely face. “It was really nice to meet you, Spencer Reid. Maybe next time you can tell me more about it.” 

You give Morgan a quick thank you for the help with your paperwork and trust him to log out of your emails. In your rush up the stairs, you hear a wisp of conversation. 

“Was she messing with me?” 

Morgan laughs. “No, kid. That's how she is.” 

"Oh... She's nice."

"You have no idea."

[starberry-cupcake]

I'm back!! and I have a bunch of chapters this time, so let's see how I do with this one.

previously, in nona del 9:

this happened

this is the general tag

CHAPTER 13 (third house skull for coronabeer)

the sticky notes with little giraffes my sister had gifted me to read nona ran out so I had to get a couple packets of colorful stickies to continue

I bought two packs of 200 each and was like 'this for sure is gonna be more than enough'

I'm not sure of that now, after first use

I think nona might appreciate the colors (and the previous giraffes)

even if they're not tlt aesthetic

ANYWAY, we're leaving the meting with BOE in the not-so-secret-very-obvious-actually meeting place

nona apparently all along knew that el machetes was actually la machetes and her name is our lady of the passion aka pash

coronabeer asks her how she knows that and nona says it's the way she moves her bones

camilla asks coronabeer to let her see "her"

and insists, saying she can help "her"

by this point I'm, of course, thinking about judith

turns out, it is judith

camilla asks if judith is part of the negotiation, to which coronabeer responds that she is not, she's "their ticket out of there"

judith is in an awful state, btw

she's doing really badly, hooked to stuff, fed through tubes, looking like hell

nona feels bad for her

I feel really bad for her

what are you doing to that wet mouse

with no necromancers around, she's the only one who can help herself, and she can't always do it

let's remember coronabeer was a fake necromancer

and, apparently, varun is hurting her

nona states again that she doesn't like the sunglasses and, since camolive are busy, I'm gonna take note of that myself

camolive (which I had stated before that I thought was actually palmolive right now, but here it's still undetermined) asks for some space to work and help judith in this rudimentary medical setting they have her in

coronabeer is being very tsundere about it all

she's acting like she's not worried about the love of her life

but nona is like "I see you"

coronabeer clocks palmolive being himself and not camilla

(I CALLED IT)

palmolive says he hopes she didn't mess up judith on purpose to get him to show himself

you weren't subtle, my man

wearing sunglasses inside like bono

coronabeer says she won't tell anyone about palmolive and camilla sharing the body apartment

she tells palmolive about how camilla, judith and her bonded in summer camp detention with BOE

and how she was grieving for him but, after meeting harrow, she was fine, so she assumed camilla had always been right about the bones thing

the gall of thinking camilla can be wrong

judith can do half of the job of healing herself and needs palmolive to help her with the rest, while she comes in and out of making sense

nona reminds palmolive about the timer

coronabeer reminds judith where she is, but she sometimes gets fuzzy with it

judith tells them that if they say they have been coerced, she'll tell everyone that they didn't meant it

I think we're past that point, but hope is the last thing to lose, judith

coronabeer holds her hand while judith talks about how they're using her to go against her house and when coronabeer says she isn't making sense, she responds that coronabeer hasn't made sense in months

judith says her hands are too filthy to save camilla

nona thinks it's funny to think of someone having to save camilla

same, tbh

and then, she talks to nona

"Ninth, where is the mercy of the Tomb? Where is your sword in the coffin? Who are your masters now, and who do you master? Where is my cavalier, Reverend Daughter? Where is yours? Because I saw her in the waves —she was there in the gray water— I saw them all—they hurt me—where is my hunger? I eat and eat and eat without surcease, my green thing, my green-and-breathing thing..."

SO

I think my tally of this being harrow's body might be correct

not so sure about gideon's soul now, though, if judith is out there seeing her?

in the river? maybe?

she says "in the gray water" so maybe it is the river

maybe she can access the river in her almost-dead state?

or perhaps the one she saw was martita and not gideon?

maybe she could see all of the ghosties, because she said "I saw them all"

how does she know about gideon's sword in the coffin, though?

AGAIN, PLEASE DON'T ANSWER ANY OF MY QUESTIONS

LET ME FAIL

after that, she screams, palmolive puts her to sleep and then he switches with camilla

he puts her/his hand on her shoulder, which is cute

coronabeer then understands that camolive switch places and doesn't like it much

she swears by yandere twin that she won't tell about this and reminds camilla that she has kept her secrets before

wonder what yandere twin is doing rn

swimming in the river maybe idk

kissing dr john's ass and all that

or maybe not, if dr reverend emperor john is out there taking his monologue show on the road with alleged harrow-not-harrow

camilla offers coronabeer an out from BOE but coronabeer is too deep into judith to leave her

she frames it in a tsundere way, like "if something happens to judith, how am I getting out of here?"

I see you coronabeer, you're doomed

you love that wet mouse

coronabeer tells camilla "you and I don't own our own souls"

to which camilla replies "My soul's mine. You give yourself away to anyone who doesn't want you."

coronabeer says she always had a soft spot for palmolive

to which camilla says "you were part of the lie"

I think this has to do with the sixth house situation

nona, trying to make things less tense, makes things even more tense, as a treat

she asks about the water and the green thing that judith mentioned

both camilla and coronabeer look at her as if she was a ghost

coronabeer says "The Captain didn't say anything when you came into the room. She only screamed."

??????????????????????????????????

I had to go back, because judith responded to things palmolive and coronabeer said

after nona touches palmolive's arm and reminds him of the timer, judith asks where she is and coronabeer answers

they have a back and forth there

coronabeer even says she must have some eight in her blood because of the melodrama

she talks about the green thing and the water right after her and coronabeer where having a back and forth on whether they had or hadn't lived

and after she talks to nona/harrow, is when palmolive makes her sleep

so, at which point was this?????

if this is some sixth sense situation, coronabeer and palmolive shouldn't have been able to answer things judith said

and coronabeer very much did

I'm gonna trust they're not gaslighting nona and that something went on here

maybe they meant the screaming was only in the part where judith talks to nona specifically

we'll see

DON'T TELL ME

CHAPTER 14 (we've got the tomb back!)

coronabeer offers to drop nona at school and nona is so excited about it that she doesn't even consider the dangers of jumping out of the van and leaving camilla and pyrrha there

she thinks it's a selfish thing that won't have dangerous consequences because they have a code for when dangerous consequences are imminent

still, gotta put a child barrier on this one

they get spare masks and coronabeer offers nona her hood

coronabeer says that she has as much right to nona as camilla does and that nona isn't that much younger than camilla is, anyway

when nona says that she loves camilla, coronabeer asks if she loves her romantically

not in those adult words I just used, mind you, she says "Do you love love Camilla? In-love-with Camilla?"

use your grown up words, coronabeer

nona, on the other hand, feels out of her depth when spoken to like an adult

so she changes subject, telling coronabeer that camilla isn't coronabeer's type

coronabeer wants to talk about herself, which is a subject she's very passionate about

but it backfires like crazy when nona calls her out on acting flirty without meaning towards we suffer, wanting camilla to hug her but not in a sexy way and being in love with "th—"

this is judith, we're talking about judith

coronabeer is upset at being dissected emotionally and nona says "You shouldn't ask me things if you don't want me to tell you the truth about them"

girllllllllllllllllllllllll

I want this as a welcome mat in my house

coronabeer getting owned like chad over here

third house annihilation, one by one

coronabeer thinks she should ask nona about whether she's pretty and ask yandere twin about emotional things, because that way she'd hear what she wants

this girl would have been a menace with social media

anyway, coronabeer and nona get to school and angel teacher is just coming in

angel teacher is looking worse every time the camera comes back to her

angel teacher is taken aback by coronabeer but doesn't let her meet nona's gang because she's carrying a gun

nona is very disappointed at this turn of events

coronabeer says she's camilla's partner and angel teacher is again surprised at this

nona thinks coronabeer is nearly pretty enough for camilla

nobody is perfect enough for camilla, though

also, over my dead body, coronabeer

go chase your wet mouse, thank you very much

could I beat her in a fight? no, but could make a very compelling power point presentation? absolutely

boobs, hair and a sword vs boobs, hair and a solid dissertation

nona thinks coronabeer should have said nona was dating her instead, because camilla doesn't need the street cred as much as she does

coronabeer says she knows what nona is, even if they refuse to see it, and that she envies nona more than anyone in the universe

I mean, yeah, childish wonder and relentless will to believe in the best of people sounds great right about now

nona is steven universe

CHAPTER 15 (seventh house skull again!!!!! very sus!!!!)

everyone's kind of fighting about having seen coronabeer and sriracha girlie was worried for nona's safety

nona asks her not to be sad if something happens to her

sriracha girle also has the angel teacher update, says she was dropped off by a car this time

sriracha girlie considers this an additional protection towards her, to which nona asks why is angel teacher so special

great question, imo

apparently, everyone but nona, sriracha girlie and kevin are leaving for lunch

main teacher is very confused about this until sriracha girlie informs her that there's gonna be a broadcast

main teacher asks angel teacher about it

(angel teacher's name is apparently aim)

(as in aim for the door if they come for you, angel teacher)

main teacher asks if they're gonna start arrests and they decide to move the conversation to another location, away from the kids

sriracha girlie knows more than they do, though, but ok

we need to protect kevin from this

we love kevin

nona is weird with food again, this time eats only ice cubes and a pencil

at this point, I'm realizing it isn't just me thinking she's particular with food, she indeed is particular with food and also very weird about it

she behaves exactly like our puppy who eats what she shouldn't and we have to be looking at her with 26 eyes because she hunts for snails and pieces of wood

nona asks sriracha girlie what the broadcast is about

as you might have guessed, it's about necromancers

nona tells sriracha girlie that she knows she's been at the park at night and sriracha girlie tells her not to go there, ever

she confirms that the "you-know-what" were killed

says that someone high up took them before they burned, with a shot to the head

sriracha girlie says she goes with two others, nona guesses it's honesty and born in the morning

nona says "Born in the Morning" and sriracha girlie corrects her and says "You mean Born in the Morning"

I don't see how that's different? neither does nona?

???????????

hope this is just a nona pronunciation thing I can't get in written form and not yet another ortus vs gideon thing, I can't take another one of those

it's written exactly the same, once without and once with emphasis

nona asks sriracha girlie if she's with BOE but sriracha girlie also hates them

she calls them traitors but also says they sell them guns

which...idk what to think of that

I mean, I understand the traitors bit, since they're currently in dialogue with necromancers

but selling guns to civilians is definitely A Move from BOE

sriracha girlie talks about how her family was killed and how she trains with a sword because she doesn't want to be caught off guard ever again like her brother was

while also saying that she wishes nona was her sister

god, this is gonna end terribly

sriracha girlie, I don't know about your future

this looks bad

so, nona tells sriracha girlie "her Secret"

????????????????????

sriracha girlie recommends her a clinic where angel teacher works

nona asks her not to tell anyone about it because she's the only one who knows

I assume this Secret isn't that she's potentially one of two people connected with the Ninth because sriracha girlie hasn't stabbed her yet

right in front of kevin's salad

we love kevin

I also don't think it's about her having memory loss, because pyrrha, camilla and the entire BOE know that, and nona says sriracha girlie is the only one who knows

unless she meant only one except for her people

but it wouldn't make sense for her to just say "Secret" and not elaborate, if that was the case??? in her recount of events????

also, why does she need a clinic for it????

nona can heal herself, she can't have a Secret related to anything physically damaging that she'd need a clinic for

the only thing she's got going on is memory loss and being potentially one of two people

neither of which are things nobody else knows about but sriracha girlie and nona

she's not having a baby or having a surprise degenerative disease

am I making too much of a mess out of something obvious?

DON'T TELL ME

I feel like this book is a lot more difficult to grasp than the other two, tbh, when it should be the opposite, because now I know things

it's the first time in which I know supposedly more than the protagonist, but it's the hardest one

it feels so much more complicated to me and makes me feel so stupid so often

in any case, nona falls asleep

none of this sounds like it's gonna be a great time for either of these two

and I don't think trusting someone who has a vendetta against your people is a good idea, nona

if push comes to shove, you're gonna go against each other, and what are we gonna do then???

JOHN 8:1

"but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives."

this is the part in which jesus does the famous "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her"

alleged harrow says her body is a mystery to her and that she'd collapse and fall asleep where she fell and wake wherever dr reverend emperor john put her

alleged!harrow which could be ice cube barbie, for all I know

WAIT

should I put ice cube barbie as another potential occupant of harrow's body as nona?

was there a third option nobody thought of because nobody knew about ice cube barbie but harrow and gideon?

could nona be ice cube barbie without memory?

could they have switched when book 2 ended inside harrow in the vacant tomb?

dr reverend emperor john god-forbid is, like I said, taking his monologue on the road

last time we met up with the monologue, lyctor team had decided to stream the necromancy stuff to put it out in the open

like anyone who has ever depended on social media to do a job knows, when you're trying to make something take off, it doesn't happen

it doesn't matter how good the content is, the algorithm is awful everywhere

so they got like 5 viewers

until one of the people the invited live turned out to be a flat earther and THEN it picked up

after that, people came in for him to heal them and he says he enjoyed playing jesus

he said the government said "this is a cult"

WHICH, YOU KNOW

SOUNDS VERY CORRECT

he says M brought in a nun, gonna assume M is mercygirl and the nun might be anastasia?? anastasia sounds like she was a nun, I mean, look at the ninth

"You've got two scientists and an engineer and a nun and a lawyer and a banker and a cop and an artist. That's not a defence force, that's a cop and six different kinds of nerd."

new meme format just dropped

sorry but I need to try it out

(should I post that separately, I wonder)

it really is a great meme format, dr john, I'll give you that

thank you for your minuscule service

"A and M were making black jokes about taking volunteers from the crowd for the skeleton army. One day we ran out of time before those jokes could become suggestions."

not to bring in star trek again but

so, dr reverend emperor john kills every animal in a big ass radius to build a bone wall around them

he, of course, has a lot of excuses for it, as he usually does

I have another data meme for that, but I'll save it for another time

"They treated us like we'd done some kind of huge crime."

"I wanted to talk about you"

again here with the "you" which clearly cannot be harrow

at least not how we know her

alleged!harrow not!harrow says "I still love you" and he says "that's a good one" and cries

I don't feel bad about him crying one little bit

AND THAT'S ALL!!! sorry that this one is so long, I wanted to make up for lost time T_T

[liesmyth]

favourite parts of GtN act 3 I had forgotten about

Cytherea giving Dulcie a health crisis the moment Silas might get in contact with Abigail's ghost

There was something pale blue sparking within the corpse of Abigail Pent, and suddenly and horribly the body shuddered [...] Someone screamed, and she recognised the voice as Dulcinea’s. Gideon moved thickly through the grey-lipped crowd, watching Dulcinea collapse in what felt like slow motion, reaching out to the rumpled figure in the big dressing gown. [...] Protesilaus stalked forward, and he did not even bother to draw his sword: he simply punched Silas in the face.

The fainting spell so that she'd have an excuse to make "Pro" punch Silas... I love her. She really committed to everything <3

Wild speculation time: as a Lyctor, Cytherea has an unprecedented level of control over every cell of her body, including the cancer cells. Her body's "default state" is the terminal cancer she died with, but she's clearly able to tune it up and down. My pet theory is that the Eight House cancer is inherently necromantic in nature, so it becomes more costly to her to fine-tune it when she's actively doing necromancy, such as puppeteering Pro <- she's not faking the bout of pain, she is in pain, and still going for an Oscar. Who else is doing it like her

Magical restorative herbs Teacher had lying around

When Colum gets syphoned too hard, Teacher makes him sniff something. WHAT IS IT I desperately need to know what Teacher's herb garden looks like.

Have they been eating the Canaan House fish?

Speaking of Teacher's herb garden, the cold storage room at Canaan House includes meat and fish as well as vegetables.

Strings of startle-eyed, frozen fish with their scales and tails intact hung like laundry on lines above steel countertops, bewildering Gideon with the reality of what she had been eating.

This is interesting to me because it could say something about the status of the ocean near Canaan House regarding pollution / the state of Earth's fauna in general. I tend to take Taz literally when she said Nona took place over "a hundred thousand years and five days" and believe tens of thousands of years passed between the flashbacks and the Resurrection. The fauna being healthy enough to be eaten would match with that — not that the half life of nuclear waste means anything when you're God, but a hundred thousand years is definitely "safer" than ten thousand.

Babsʼs boyfriend

“I should’ve stayed home and gotten married,” he said resentfully. “As though anyone was even offering,” snapped Ianthe.

He had a lover boy back on Ida... I know this to be true

Third House power struggle

“How many people had these hatch keys other than the Ninth?” said Corona. “We had no idea the basement was even there.” (ten minutes later) “I am also in possession of one,” Ianthe said, unruffled. “What?”

I would read the whole book from Babs' POV. I think whatever was going on between the Tridentarii must have been incredibly fraught. Away from Ida, Corona's lie must be weighing on them like never before. Away from their court and family, I think Ianthe is going on the biggest power trip of their life. And Babs is there also.

Then later this happens

“At arms, Babs.” Her twin sister’s voice was thin and soft as silk: “Don’t unsheathe that sword, Naberius.” “Ianthe, what—are—you—doing.” “Well, Babs, thank God, has much better sense than to listen to you—Babs?”

The moment when Babs officially won't do what Corona says if Ianthe disagrees... Corona's shocked and saddened reaction... this is new for them. to me. and she doesn't like it. Ianthe meanwhile is letting out twenty-one years of quiet resentment

****

Anyway. TLDR! I'm enjoying this reread very much :3

[tomomiisasleep]

notes on Ianthe

just casually re-reading GtN Ianthe moments

here she kinda bested Palamedes and Harrow in picking out information out of bone fragments, which is very impressive considering the specialities of the 69 necros.

it seems that when it comes to necromantic "theory", she really is the best of the generation, this deduced from her grand feat of figuring out the Eightfold all on her own.

here Babs kinda jabs at her for being jealous of Corona's ability to gain attention. hmm. I have mixed feelings about this. I mean Babs knows her pretty well and I would believe that she actually does care about whether or not she could show off, which is ugggghhhhhh PAIN I don't wanna think about the fact that it may have hurt her entire life to co-exist with Corona and let her draw in all the attention but she does it anyway because Corona is the only person that really loves her and knows her, aaaaaaa and she started at six. SIX. WHAT does that mean. Did she even give it much thought at first? or were they still in the same twin us vs. world mindset at the time?

anyways I always thought that their layered relationship is delicious(in a bad way but in a good bad way)

1. Ianthe seems to be only good at theorems while Corona is the perfect heir, thus Corona holds power over Ianthe.

2. Corona is not actually a necro and depends entirely on Ianthe to put on the act, thus Ianthe holds power over Corona.

3. Corona is the main and often sole source of recognition Ianthe receives, likely causing her to value Corona more and others less over time, thus Corona holds power over Ianthe. (This may be the reason Tamsyn deems Corona the "worse" because she is skilled in manipulation, not necessary with malign intent)

4.(Not entirely sure about this but probably) Giving Corona power is Ianthe's "goal" in life(I've seen this in other posts) which she deems highest priority and worth any cost(as expressed in The Unwanted Guest). She may measure her self-worth by Corona's success, which like, means that their relationship is not "one controls the other" but "-I need you. -I need you."

BUT! That last one depends on which of them decides on what "Corona's success" entails. The one who has the final say in what their goal is, is the twin who controls the other. And. There are a few pieces of evidence I've gathered that Corona is in charge. HOWEVER there is the evidence that Corona wants Ianthe to eat her. and she refused. ugh maybe they'd be better off becoming a merged soul. Maybe that's the real reason Pal bested her in The Unwanted Guest. She is overtaken by regret that they missed the chance to become one. Now they'd never be truly the two of them together, because even if they merge there'd always be Babs in there third-wheeling

but I understand that despite all that, Ianthe does want to be recognized outside of being "one of the twins". It's natural. and she does have a very hard to ignore crush on Harrow.

And maybe I'll scratch all the stuff above later when I read their interactions(plus the Corona side-story! I've been saving that for when I get mental from alectopause) because I'm just speaking from memory and memory deceives.

ok I'll shut up about Tridentarii stuff now, what I actually wanted to say that Ianthe gives off different vibes in GtN and HtN. In GtN she's just this huge evil nerd, and in HtN she's gross-hot sexy-bitch. And it's funny how different she is from Gideon's and Harrow's pov, like all the fanfic I read in which she parties a lot and plays with girls a lot are all mostly drawing from Harrow's pov, and Harrow is a repressed nun who has only ever met 1 girl her age in her life and has a bone fetish(especially for Ianthe) and is obsessed with her scent. Though I enjoy reading all fan-interpretations of her, I think her canon lifestyle might actually be closer to how Gideon sees her(in GtN. in NtN they become bros which I love btw tower princes 4ever), which is wall-flowering in the corners and reading trashy romance novels while Corona deals with the socializing.(I kinda believe that people can be categoriesed into "reads about dating" and "dates" and Ianthe belongs to the first because she gets excited over a sexy makeover

she also spends a horrifying amount of time studying (because she's as good with theory as Pal who "made his life into a war" for Dulcie, and Harrow who studies with the weight of 200 dead kids on her consciousness.

ok Ianthe's such a hot nerd I'm gonna faint I have become obsessed with her aaaaaaaaa she's like everything that drives me crazy in a hot tall glass of skank(a skank for knowledge

[happe-snail]

I need to know if I'm going crazy or if I'm on to something

Long ass post but please read and please respond if you're in the Lock Tomb fandom.

So I just finished my third reread of Nona the Ninth and a quote at the end has bugged me all three times. The group is in the Locked Tomb and is trying the open the door. They need someone to die for the thanergy reaction, everyone (besides Paul) is offering themselves up and Crux and Gideon/Kiriona are getting into it. Crux says: "I am the only one who knows how to die for the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus."

"Good," said someone, so savagely that it sounded like a new voice altogether. "Good. Die. Die for her . . . it's the only goddamn good you'll ever do her. It's all any of you ever knew how to give her. You could have lived for her . . . but you didn't know how."

"You never knew wot of what you talked of, but ran your tongue anyway," said Crux.

Who is this savage voice that Nona doesn't recognize?

Now I've seen that some people think that it G/K responding but that doesn't sound like her to me. Especially since G/K did die for Harrow in GtN. So how would G/K know anything about living for Harrow? And Nona was able to identify G/K speaking before and after. So I was thinking that it was Alecto coming through Nona, but I would always question why Crux would respond to Harrow's body like that.

So here's where I might be crazy, what if it's John through G/K?? Here me out: in NtN, John tells the story of controlling the corpse of a nation leader and even speaking through them. He also tells how he controlled 'G' at the end via his arm (John cut off G's arm and then regrew it for him and then used him to set off the nuke). This also might explain the extra wound G/K has. Chest wound from falling on the fence, the 'wound lower down' I assume was her dislocated knee from the fight, but nothing explains her neck wound. What if John gave her that neck wound to control her? This could tie in with G/K saying that John sent her to follow Ianthe. John might not be able to cover it up by regrowing since it was on G/K's corpse (admitting the weakest part of the argument). While John is a Total Ass, I do think he cares about Harrowhark, not in any wholesome paternal way or a creepy perverted way, but in his own way. John also knows how Harrow was conceived and how G/K died, "It's all any of you knew how to give her." If John was speaking through G/K then that would explain Crux's response. Crux thinks he's still talking to G/K but since Nona is able to identify and differentiate voices, she was able to pick up that it was someone different.

I need someone to tell me if I'm missing the mark or if I'm late to the party and someone else has already figured this out. Or if I'm thinking too much about nothing.

[jackalopetrope]

I'm experiencing The Locked Tomb again, and the Second Reading (or listening in my case, I'm doing audio books this time), is absolutely DELICIOUS. It's like, a whole different book. Littered with details that couldn't possibly be enjoyed without having read the subsequent story beforehand!!

I've had to pause and jot some things down just because they make me feel ways (this is obviously full of spoilers):

In Chapter 6:

1) Aiglamene is teaching Gideon how to wield a rapier and tells her, her hands "Shouldn't be twins, but sisters", that they have different roles, but should be aware and support each other or something. And I was, Tamsyn are you sending me secret messages about the Third?

2) Harrow is speaking to the congregation and Gideon is thinking about how full of shit she is, but then Harrow says something like how no one will ever love the Ninth like she does, that "her heart is interred here", and Gideon is like well actually that bit sounded sincere. Oh boy. It sure is Harrow. Sounds like Ninth Poetic Gothic Nonsense, but in Hindsight, really quite literal. Well done Muir.

3) This one is a little less direct but when Gideon realizes she may never return to the Ninth and thinking that that somehow makes it seem fragile, that by turning her back on it, not looking at it, it might fall apart. Likes she's destroying it... Omg 😰 Just sort of rang like a precursor to how she felt about Harrow "turning her back on her" with the lobotomy y'know?

4) So Harrow and Gideon are getting on to the shuttle to Canaan and tension is high, they are not happy with each other and Harrow says "I want to watch you die", and Gideon, just super hyped to finally be escaping, smugly saying "Well you won't do it here." (Here being the ninth) 😭 Tamsynnn

Chapter 9:

When Ianthe catches Gideon hiding in dark, listening in on the third, she refers to "the necromancer of the third house", necromancer SINGULAR. Nice little drop there.

Chapter 14:

Harrow says "I'm not equipped to deal with a spirit attached to a live nervous system, you're so noisy!", implying Harrow is equipped to deal with spirits NOT attached to live nervous systems, like say, a bunch of dead kids haunting you???

Chapter 15:

Harrow says "She never liked that cursed thing anyway" in regards to Gideons longsword, said she always felt it was "judging her". Which is a weird thing to say about a sword Harrow

Also my current crazy theories that may debunked during this book or the next two because I don't remember all the lore:

1) Teacher is John? The colorful belts and the bracelets mentioned on Ianthe and Kiriona are like... Control belts or something. John needed a way to "be" on that planet without going to the system. John got hyper paranoid after all his Lyctors betrayed him, and wanted security measures on his Princes?? Like clearly he isn't aware of what they doing all the time, but maybe he can, remote in? Idk. Crazy theory.

2) Cytherea is the only reason Gideon made it through the aversion trial. Or Harrow rather, because I'm not convinced Gideons body didn't die. (Or do her escape death trick). During that sequence Gideon starts throwing up blood and seems like it's going to end very quickly then Dulcinea is like No! And the blood dries up, and the soul sucking pain is described as moving around Gideons body... I don't think Harrow would be experienced enough to adjust her siphoning like that. Also Dulcinea was clearly very intent on that key. At first I thought in half memory of the scene that maybe she was just interested in seeing if Gideon COULD survive the trial. But I don't think she cared who got her that key really.

Idk! I'm only on Chapter 20 of Gideon. I've gone completely nuts about these books.

[paradoxcase]

Gideon the Ninth audiobook, rest of Part 1

One thing you can say for audiobooks, they go faster, especially since I'm not essentially reading everything twice now. But I don't feel like I would retain it in the same way I do when I read visually, if this were the first time through

I am getting used to the pronunciation of "Nonagesimus", as expected

More voices:

Teacher is not at all what I expected, I expected more disconcerting jollity and less creaky old person voice. The nonbinary priest I expected to be more creaky, but their voice is not creaky at all

Cytherea's voice is basically exactly what I imagined, though

Also, Teacher's pronunciation of "Naberius" doesn't match the pronunciation guide here, or the pronunciation in the Dramatis Personae, which is odd

More stuff I noticed:

Aiglamene said, when looking for a sword: "I'm looking for a blade in the style of [Ortus's] great-grandmother's." Is this the great-grandmother who owned Nonius's sword that Ortus was talking about with Abigail in Harrow the Ninth?

Gideon asks "How are you going to get Ortus back, anyway?" and Harrow has a moment where she reacts to that - originally I though this was just reluctance to break it to Gideon that she was replacing him, but I now I think it's that they have gotten the news that the shuttle exploded

Gideon makes a joke that by being Harrow's cavalier she would be responsible for aiding "Harrowhark Nonagesimus's fascist rise to power." But what historical reference does she actually have for fascist rises to power? Nobody remembers WWII anymore. Arguably the only fascist rise to power they have a reference for is John's if you want to label him that way, and certainly none of them objected to that (or, I think, even have much information about it). I don't think this universe has the historical and political depth for a character to be making a joke like this

Aiglamene tells Harrow that if she doesn't free Gideon after attaining Lyctorhood, she would consider it a betrayal, because she's trying to secure freedom for Gideon in order to get her to go along with the plan to go to Canaan House with Harrow. I think this goes a long way to explain why Aiglamene is very angry at Harrow at the end of Nona when she finds out that Gideon died

Harrow says "we're not becoming an appendix of the Third or Fifth House" when talking about why it's important to not reveal the state of the Ninth to anyone. I missed this the first time through, but it's making more sense to me now why Harrow didn't want outside help

Harrow says "I'll mix bonemeal in with your breakfast and punch my way through your gut" which I have seen other people comment on, although I can't remember if I ever said anything about it myself. But my thought is that the reason Harrow was able to conceive of and execute the soup assassination while incredibly sleep deprived was that she had already worked out and finalized the whole plan back on the Ninth when she was coming up with ways to torment Gideon. It was probably just lucky that that plan also turned out to be effective against a Lyctor

I know the sunglasses are mostly a meme, but I'm wondering now why there were sunglasses on Pluto for Gideon to find. That seems like the last place in the universe for there to be sunglasses

The description of Teacher's belt doesn't really resemble the friendship bracelets, I don't think, although it is described as being rainbow colored

The narration says "her legs ran as swiftly as her awful judgement" when Gideon is running to rescue Cytherea, which seems a bit like foreshadowing, since I think on the first readthrough the reader doesn't have a reason to find fault with her judgement here

[obsidiancreates]

Taishen's Guide On Being The Best Uncle You Can Be

(Somehow I hit exactly 1,400 words for this. I just wanted to say that because that is a damn satisfying wordcount.)

It takes just about a year after traveling with Gricko and Frost for Gideon to start being called "Uncle Gideon" whenever Gricko mentions him to Hootsie.

"He sure warmed up to us quick," Kremy had said one night, sitting by the campfire and keeping an eye on his roux. "Callin' us family already seems a little much, don't it, Gid?"

"Yeah, but he's a fuckin' weird little guy. Not really surprisin'."

"True."

Truth be told, Gideon doesn't mind it. He thinks Kremy doesn't mind the "Uncle Kremy" title either, because there's always just enough room in the budget to buy Hootsie a trinket, or snack, or new little hat. And sometimes Gideon decides not to go back for thirds of whatever Kremy cooks so Hootsie can have seconds, and sometimes Gideon doesn't even need to hold back because Kremy sets aside extra just for her.

The first time Gideon accepts it aloud, though, is when they're staying in a little inn, and Hootsie is dancing just for fun in the tavern area, and someone throws a tankard at her and calls for the "wild beast" to be thrown out.

The man finds himself thrown out, his throwing arm broken, and the shout of "That's my fuckin' niece, asshole!" haunting his drunken dreams.

"That was very violent, Gideon," Gricko says later as they're all prepping the single room they could get. Hootsie is curled up in the corner, a little rattled still, but Gricko already has his pack set out and is making up a little bed for both of them where she lays. Gricko's tone is scolding, but he mouths "Good job," when he knows Hootsie can't see it.

"People shouldn't be throwin' things at her," Gideon says with a shrug, fluffing up his thin-as-paper pillow as much as he can. "She's just a baby."

"Your little baby niece," Gricko says with a wide grin. "Isn't that right, Hootsie? You've got big strong Uncle Gideon to protect you!"

Hootsie looks up at Gideon with those giant round eyes and hoots. Maybe Gideon's starting to catch some of Gricko's strange brand of cookoo-bananas, but Gideon could swear she looks and sounds grateful.

"Yeah yeah, I'm Uncle Gideon, we all heard me say it." Gideon gets into the bigger bed in the room as Kremy and Frost play a game of cards to determine who gets the other one (card counting versus slight-of-hand cheating, mind-reading versus shadow magic, it's tough to know who'll win) and shuts his eyes. The sounds of shuffling cards, Gricko telling Hootsie a bedtime story, and the bed likely splintering beneath Gideon's own weight lull him to sleep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gideon walks into a tea shop. He doesn't really drink tea, that's more Frost's thing, but he's here anyway.

He doesn't question it, as is the nature of dreams.

"Finally!" an excited voice rings out in the empty shop as Gideon finds himself sat down at a counter. The golden dragonborn on the other side grins brightly at him as he pushes a cup of fresh tea forward. "I've been waiting so long for you to finally realize you're an uncle!"

"Uh... what?" Gideon takes a sip of the tea. It's actually not bad. He didn't know tea could be spicy.

"That little owlbear has a lot of support, but that doesn't mean you can take being her uncle any less seriously." The dragonborn gestures at an ink painting hanging on the wall, of himself and a younger dragonborn girl. "Mei Li taught me just how important this role truly is, and I'm going to help you be the best possible uncle you can be."

"Hey man, listen. I appreciate the fuckin' thought and all, but, I don't know who the hell you are!"

"You won't remember once you wake up anyway," the dragonborn says, pouring himself a cup of tea and pulling a stool over to his side of the counter. "We've talked a few times, actually. But those were usually extremely upsetting times, and now we finally have something to celebrate!"

"Celebrate with tea?"

"I know you prefer alcohol, but if I can get Skrimm to enjoy tea I can get you to enjoy it as well."

"Well, I dunno why I'd need any advice on bein' an uncle, 'cause it seems pretty fuckin' easy t'me." Gideon knocks the rest of his tea back. The cup is full when he sets it down. "Give her treats, buy her stuff when she wants it, and punch guys who're fuckin' dicks to her."

"Those are all part of it," the dragonborn agrees, "But there's more to it than just spoiling her and protecting her. You have to nurture her as well!"

"I mean, Gricko's her dad, he's the one who's doin' all the raisin' and stuff."

"If you all lived in a town, that might work out just fine. But you're always on the move! You're the only four constants in this young girl's life, so you're all very influential on her as she grows!"

"Aw, man. I gotta be a good fuckin' influence now? I just got outta havin' to watch my every fuckin' move all the time, man."

The dragonborn seems to deflate, suddenly growing weary and ancient. "I'm... very aware. But I promise it's nothing like that. I just mean that Hootsie is an impressionable little girl right now, and it's a good idea to teach her important, valuable lessons."

"... Like... if somebody's bein' a fuckin' dick, she can bite their fingers off?"

"Well, I don't know if I'd encourage it to be that extreme, but self-defense is a good lesson, yes! And self-respect, it's much easier to defend yourself when you respect yourself and your value."

"Okay... I think I get it. And uh... knowin' when somebody's talkin' a load of bullshit."

"Exactly! Not to insult anyone but, you and I both know that Gricko can be... quite gullible. I mean, I understand him, I was very much the same way for most of my life, and can still be now. Oh, I remember Skrimm told me that a certain gesture was a universal greeting-"

"Which one? This one?" Gideon flips him off.

"That's the one! He always managed to find me when no-one else was around and pull pranks on me like that." The dragonborn laughs a little, fond. "Oh-ho, when it was a matter of life or death I was truly distressed, but now it's easy to look back and laugh."

"Alright, so, make sure she knows she can bite people, make sure she knows when she's bein' tricked, and I guess... make sure she knows how to get outta tough situations!"

"That's another great idea!"

"Man, I knew this whole uncle thing'd be easy." Gideon knocks the tea back again and looks around the shop. There's lots of ink paintings like the one he saw before, with these two dragonborn enjoying life. One catches his eye, of the man who sits across from him letting the young girl ride around on his shoulders.

"That'll be easy too," Gideon says, gesturing at the painting with cup in hand and sloshing spicy tea all over the floor- or would, if it ever hit the floor, but the tea just ceases to exist before it makes an impact. "Fuckin' piggyback rides and life lessons, easy as hell."

"And best of all, rewarding. It's an incredible joy to care for a child, as much as it is a serious responsibility." The dragonborn looks around. "And if you see Yorgrim when you leave here, let him know about the piggyback rides you plan to give. I think he'll appreciate a little warning."

"Who?"

"You're right, I'll tell him. I think you're waking up now anyway."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gideon picks Hootsie up and plops her onto his shoulders as the group exits the inn and gets going. Hootsie gives a startled hoot at first, and then looks down. Her face lights up, eyes ghetting as big as possible, and she gives another, more excited hoot as he leans over to watch everything from her new height!

Taishen sighs happily as he watches, and looks up at Yorgrim. "Does that help soothe some of your old wounds?"

Yorgrim huffs a little. "It's... bittersweet."

Taishen reaches up and pats Yorgrim's arm. "I understand. ... Tea?"

Yorgrim is quiet for a moment before sighing and holding his hand out. "Thank you."

"Of course, my friend."

[iasmelaion]

what happens when you listen to three audiobooks in like a week and a half

We've been at trial for like the past two weeks at work, which means I have been alone in the office, with approximately 2 hours worth of work to do every day max, mostly just there to answer frantic emails and texts about "what exhibit number is [vague and potentially inaccurate description of email or other document]?" and occasionally file supplemental trial briefs. Anyway, it's all up to the jury now! Only not now now because it is a court holiday and because this case lives to torment me and never ever ever finish ahahaha it's fine i'm fine, we better win.

Anyway, all of that is to say I was bored as hell so I decided to finally finish listening to the audiobook of Gideon the Ninth, which I had started listening to LAST FEBRUARY. You can perhaps guess that, as good as the audiobook narration was, I was not entirely feeling the book. Ahaha. Ha. I was already mentally writing my Goodreads review, complaining about how yes, the narrative voice is great, and yeah, the set up and genre mashup are fun (lesbian necromancers in space! country manor mystery! slasher horror!), but there's just not enough context and the worldbuilding is so vague and what are the overarching stakes even. And then the last 1/3 of the book happened, and I listened to all three current books in the series in like a week and a half and I have spent the last two days rotating these characters in my head and reading meta and such. Sorry in advance about how in approximately two weeks time, my queue will be full of TLT shit.

Spoilers and assorted jumbled reactions below, because I'm not about to ramble like this on goodreads. But real talk, I have skimmed so much spoilery talk/fan art/etc about these books and absolutely none of it made any sense at the time so tbh I don't think it matters all that much if you're spoiled. The spoilers won't even make any damn sense most of the time.

I wish I could give this series some kind of pitch that would, idk, explain it or make it seem enticing, but lol I have no idea where I'd even start. I'll just say that if you are in need of Enrichment in your Enclosure, these books are like being tossed a very meaty bone full of delicious marrow which you can gnaw upon for a good long while.

Gideon's narrative voice is a lot of fun, and I do quite enjoy how she's basically a big lesbian jock, even if that did make a lot of the first book rough going for me because alas, Gideon, bless her, is not interested in much beyond hot ladies, swords, staying alive, and getting off her home planet. And Harrow, of course.

HARROW. For 2/3 of the first book, Gideon hates her passionately, they've been enemies their entire lives, they are vicious and awful to each other. Now, I knew Gideon/Harrow was like THE ship for these books, and I was like "...hm. Listen, I simply do not vibe with this kind of enemyship." But then that last third happened, and auuughhhhh. They're enemies, they were all the other had, they were two rats trapped in a barrel, desperate to get out, clawing and biting and snarling and hurting each other, they were each other's only solace, they were doomed from the start. They've been trapped in a cycle of terrible violence, and I have no idea if they can ever get out. And the love Gideon wants from Harrow is to be used and consumed and destroyed by love, and the love Harrow wants to give is to save her and keep her even if it means forgetting her. Like, y'all, I ship it, but I have no idea how there's any kind of future in it.

And then Harrow the Ninth happened, and goddamn, poor fucking Harrow. I felt for her already after the revelation in Gideon the Ninth, but Harrow the Ninth made me so desperately sad for her.

Good job on the soup though, Harrow!

Also the low key comedy of all of them stuck with each other on the Mithraeum was *chef's kiss*. Just like THE most demented and toxic workplace sitcom while poor Harrow is descending into a total mental breakdown.

The worldbuilding is so fascinatingly, complicatedly BONKERS. Also it's so SPACE CATHOLICISM that I don't even know what to say about it. I'm not qualified. But like. It is. It's so Space Catholicism, but also make it More Goth. And it's clearly concerned with religion and faith and all that, but not in a Narnia kind of way, and I am FASCINATED about where it's all leading to.

What a fucking villain this series has in John Gaius aka God aka Necrolord Prime aka the Prince Undying aka the Emperor of the Nine Houses aka Jod. Just absolutely skin-crawlingly horrible, the literal Worst Person Who Ever Lived, even as he's affable and funny and occasionally endearing and pathetic. And like I'm not even sure all of that stuff is a mask or a cover for his monstrousness! Like I think he genuinely is affable and funny and endearing and pathetic! He is just also quite literally History's Greatest Monster. I'm not sure if he was always like this, though I'm leaning towards him having been an awful man before he became god, in all those quiet, too-easily unnoticed ways men are awful, the moment they have any power over someone. And then Jod gets all the power so of course his awfulness becomes correspondingly greater.

I will say though that Jod's origin story is an actual horror movie, the stuff of nightmares. It's the end of the world because climate change and he and his team are frantically working on some way to save everybody but it doesn't quite work, not well enough, and no one is listening to him, and the clock is ticking down and of course the billionaires have a way out, of course they're gonna get on some space ships and bounce, but what about everyone else? Jod is sure he can save everyone else, if only he had the resources, if only they'd listen to him. And someone was listening, it turns out. Someone--something gives him power. Terrible, terrible power over life and death. And he becomes something else and makes choice after terrible choice, enabled by his friends, and then whoops not whoops! He's killed everybody on the fucking planet and ate the sun and the whole solar system too!! Absolutely terrifying reveal, and it's built up to so well. We spend so much time listening to Jod and so much of what he says is reasonable or understandable, but every so often there's a hint that under his commendable politics and goals and general hapless nerd vibes, there's something else, something much, much worse.

Actually, this whole part would make a truly great horror movie, especially if it starts off as an almost dark comedy that shifts genres as it goes: from dark comedy to suspenseful thriller to eldritch horror.

Also he gets, like, super weird about the cadavers he's been experimenting on. Like, deeply, horrifying creepy and weird about them.

Lotta people get weird about corpses in this series, if I'm being honest.

CAMILLA AND PALAMEDES. I am UNWELL about these two. I am UNHINGED. I am still rotating them in my mind, unable to do much but WEEP. "So...do you ship them??" you might ask. To which I say idk and idc, what does to ship these two even MEAN at this point, they are platonic, they are romantic, they are eros, philia, AND agape, and they're the Love that Is Perfected in Death. The absolute fucking pinnacle of insane codependence. Childhood BFFs who crawled into each other's skins and hearts and souls and never crawled back out. How much more codependent is it possible to get? NONE. NONE MORE CODEPENDENT. They have MERGED THEIR SOULS AND BODIES TOGETHER INTO ONE BEING. [actually, real talk, i am uncertain of the Soul Situation, I am pretty sure they've merged their souls together, but like. idk. they do also say they will be known as themselves "beyond the River" after death] I am WEEPING just THINKING ABOUT IT. That is not fucking hyperbole btw, the mere thought of them basically makes me cry, it's fine, i'm fine. They love each other SO MUCH. I CANNOT HANDLE IT.

Anyway, rather difficult to "ship" a pairing that has become...one person. Like, still willing to make a game go of it even during the period where they're sharing a body, but like. Now they are one person??? Because this is not a Steven Universe-style fusion where Ruby and Sapphire can unfuse from Garnet, Camilla and Palamedes are now one person, no takebacks while they live. I do love Paul though! Fucking adore that some of Paul's first acts as a new person were acts of kindness and mercy. Jod's lyctors are called saints, but I think Paul is the only one who is a saint in truth.

So, a triumph or a tragedy or both that Camilla and Palamedes died to become Paul? Idk! I adored Camilla and Palamedes as individual characters, I adored how in many ways they're the certain, just moral center of this entire series, I love their intelligence and ferocity, and oh, after Nona the Ninth, I loved so much how they loved. Each other, and other people. I loved Camilla using truths like her swords, her dry humor, how she was still so kind even while being an absolute stone cold fucking badass. I loved Palamedes, his brilliance and how he bent basically all that brilliance into helping people. I loved so fucking much that he was the one who figured out that there was a better way to achieve lyctorhood than the way Jod and his lyctors set out for them. I loved that stuck in a bubble in the underworld, with nothing but a terrible erotic novel, he started having serious opinions about said erotic novel and undoubtedly wrote terrible fanfiction in his head about it.

Ahem. Anyway. Abigail Pent and Magnus Quinn were also delightful, and I was especially charmed by the lovely Welsh accents Moira Quirk gives them in the audiobook. Love that Abigail has immensely powerful, friendly mom friend energy while simultaneously being an immensely powerful Eldritch Speaker for the Dead. Gideon observing her all like "ah, her eye contact is...extremely very unsettlingly intense! but also she is wearing an apron and is cheerful so that's alright then."

God, this is really long, sorry to anyone who actually read it, possibly i will reblog with more disjointed thoughts.

[auriidae]

saw ur tags, please share your list of desert duo coded saint motel songs (if youre willing, if not ignore me lol) 👀

anon i am ALWAYS willing to share my ideas abt desertduo thank u for asking!! i have many thoughts so this is going to be v disjointed but here u go

(i actually made up a whole desertduo-centric au based entirely on the vibes of the songs in the original motion picture soundtrack a whiile ago o_o so almost all the songs from that album are linked with them in my mind,,,, but i won't go into that now haha. here's the list !)

first of all. old soul is the original desertduo song to me. "cause the more i get to know you / well the more i feel i knew you / in a lifetime a long time ago" but it's a post-3l au where everyone forgets except as the winners grian and scar start to remember.... (also i'm a mild watcher grian enjoyer so "i've seen heaven in the moonlight / blow it out / yeah, turn around" has a very clear mental image of, yknow, eyes in the moon and stuff. yeag)

also, make me feel like. there was a whole thing about scar and milkshakes and french fries in earlier hermitcraft that became like cemented in my mind as integral to his character for some reason so the first time i heard the "dipping your shake with the french fries" line the whole song became about him. "it started out like it always ends" oughhh that's such a line. 'there is no other end to this story' and all that. also "there's only so much that my heart can take / i get so close and then i hesitate / i don't want to die alone" and "don't let me down / give the run around / yeah you'll be my ticket to heaven" this is such a soulmate-coded song DO I NEED TO SAY ANYTHING MORE

SLOW DANCE AS WELL. i was listening to it the first time like "hey this is kind of them based just off the vibes" and then it went "i could be your best friend, i could be your centerpiece, i could be your soulmate, i could be your everything" and i lost my mind entirely. i'm not a purely romantic desertduo enjoyer so take that lyrical aspect of the song with a grain of salt but dude ough

a good song never dies is like very scar-coded in my mind it just has his vibes. i've never read the lyrics through but it puts me in mind of some charismatic charlatan and yeah that's him

bullet's "you don't stop a bullet that you set into motion / you don't stop a fire when you light an explosion / so then why are we fighting, already ignited / counting down, down, down, down" they are sooo self-destructive and this song's got that going for it so

and last but not least la2ny!!!!! "trying to get back / back to the place that we were / pure and dangerous / always just us versus the world" <that is literally. that is So double-life-desertduo-remembering-and-regretting-after-third-life core. "i had the damnedest day / you don't hear what i say / your head's up in the clouds" (soulbound to the man in the clouds by gideon anyone?). also "feel the distance, miles apart / in our beds" <me when i'm soulbound to this guy who i used to be closest to more than anyone else in the world but cannot understand why he's emotionally closed off for the life of me. this might be the most them-coded song here actually,, the rest are fun for vibes but this one's got the lyrics on point.

anyways saint motel's songs are the MOST FUN TO MAKE UP STORIES TO EVER and i love their stuff a lot. thank you very much for giving me an excuse to ramble about this ^-^//

[starberry-cupcake]

if my silly recaps and my reactions bring a small smile to your face or remind you of a book you love in these trying times, it's all worth it ♥ I'm hugging you softly and telling you I'm here for you ♥

previously, in harrowcita del 9:

this happened

EPIPARODOS

9 months and 29 days before the emperor's murder

I need you all to know I'm reading all of these announcements of time stamps for the emperor's murder like this

I spent these past 2 days marinating on this time stamp and making math in my head with the fact that harrow told palmolive that he's been in his river loft for 8 months

and being like "is this gonna be the Explanation????"

sort of

remember when I said harrow was probably the one who did the mind tampering or, at least, it was done with her consent?

I WAS CORRECT

I also said maybe it had to do with the emperor and his murder but that's not yet been clarified

harrow is asking yandere twin to help her do a brain procedure to forget stuff

for reasons that will be partially disclosed later

basically, it's like if she was asking her to cut her hair for her, but more metal

yandere twin also sort of dunks on palmolive and harrow goes like "you wash your third house filthy mouth before talking about my bestie palmolive sextus like that"

she didn't say that word by word, she said "I may have been Sextus's necromantic superior; but he was the better man. You are not even so worthy of that brain as to wipe its bloodied remnants from the wall."

which is kinda similar in concept

camilla would have high-fived her for that one

yandere twin is trying to convince harrow not to do the brain hair cut because it's dangerous and potentially useless

as if that has ever stopped someone from the ninth from doing crazy shit

harrow tells yandere twin that if she thinks becoming a lyctor doesn't mean they're more trapped than ever, she's delulu

harrow also exhibits one golden eye

and I'm like WAS GIDEON SLURPED IN THE END???? I WAS HOLDING OUT FOR HOPE!!!!

yandere twin says "time to absolutely fuck you up"

cue brain makeover montage with this song

please imagine it with that song, I need you to see my vision

I swear it's very important

I didn't mention it before but this chapter was narrated by yandere twin

sponsored by chad aka babs aka nebarius...was it nebarius or naberius? anyway

she says that harrow's brain makeover is a "destructive, romantic, ridiculous act"

I sure hope so

she also says she's gonna marry harrow, but probably not

I sure hope not, because it's not my ship, yandere twin, I'm sorry

I like you, but not for harrow

ACT FIVE

CHAPTER 40, 41, 42

I'm grouping these all together because they're a ~theme~

the fact that the titles of them are like ?????????? is very much the spirit of these recaps

thank you, author, I see your vision

these are other aus, much like the canaan house gideon-less au, but with different scenarios

first au has a broken IX skull, it takes place in the ninth and harrow is called "nova" instead of "nonagesimus"

in it, she's fighting ortus, or attempting to

because harrow wants ortus to give her the spot of cavalier primary

which is very regina george twin and chad behavior, they had a similar situation going on, but they resolved it with biting

as you do in the third house

(I just wached a yt video in which a person was called 'babs' and they said the name so many times it's starting to make me want to name chad correctly)

(it's fixing my brain)

she also mentions a Reverend Daughter who isn't her

she doesn't seem to like the other reverend daughter, even if she stepped in to intercede for her at one time, and ortus and her argue about it until crux comes in

it's giving gideon and harrow switching spots, in a way, although gideon never wanted to be cavalier primary

neither did ortus

regina george twin is the only one fighting for that spot

she is made to go and apologize to two pilgrims standing there and, when she does, it's abby and magnus from the fifth

and abby says "this isn't how it happens"

our favorite phrase

next au has a V broken skull and takes place in a ball

there is a Divine Highness who is looking for a bride and this is a dance to present suitors to her

the sixth house isn't dancing or joining in on the party, wich is another tick on my personal checklist of my favorite house

idk if there's a quiz of which house you're in but I hope I'm that one

*me getting the second and having to erase my memory like harrow*

abby and magnus show up once again and magnus is eating the food and complimenting harrow on how accurate it is

ortus is with them too, because polycule

they all wanted to see where this au led (actually, me too) but, you know what they say

say it with me:

"this isn't how it happens"

42 is a broken IV skull

this one is, at the start, a sort of military au

the kiddies from the fourth show up, remember them?

they're still talking in whispers among themselves

so cute ♥ I'd say protect them at all costs, but we already failed at that

the important part of this one is that it turns from a military au into a coffee shop au

and there's a BARI star (puns!)

"the arms beneath the rolled-up sleeves betrayed lean, taut muscle, a little dewy with sweat and steam from the mess. But it was the face that sent her neurons in a thalergetic spin. When Harrowhark looked at that face, she found a curious heat travelling all the way up from the pit of her pylorus to the high collar of her Cohort shirt. It then traversed her cheeks, her nose, her brow, her temples. The other officer smiled a firm-jawed, long, crooked smile at her; Harrow was electrified by the fact that beneath the hastily brushed crop of red hair those eyes were—"

(the fact that my playlist started 2 become 1 from the spice girls right now is actually incredibly funny)

AND ABBY GOES "Absolutely not"

ABBY NOOOOOOOOOO

ABBY LET ME HAVE THISSSSSSSS

LET ME HAVE A COFFEE SHOP AU INTERLUDE AS A TREAT

I DESERVE IT

WE ALL DESERVE IT

CHAPTER 43

GIDEON FRACTURED SKULL PEOPLE

AVIATOR GLASSES, CROSSED OUT IX, CRACKED SKULL

one night before the emperor's murder

we're connecting the timelines

ortus's polycule is arguing about the previous scenarios and whether or not "that was..." while harrow wakes up

abby promptly shoos everyone out of the room

FOLKS LISTEN TO THIS NOW

LISTEN TO THISSSSSSS

"If I forget you, let my right hand be forgotten. Add more also, if aught but death part me and thee. Griddle."

I'M IN P A I N

I'M IN S H A M B L E S

(my playlist decided on hoobastank's the reason now lmao what is happening with the 90s/early2000s playlist tonight)

OK OK EXPOSITION TIME

sort of, you know how it is

harrow remembers gideon and cries for her as we all do

abby is asking her questions and gives her one minute to mourn

so, harrowcita decided to do the hair cut brain procedure to separate the part of her brain that remembered and understood gideon's soul

accoding to her, it was "a brute-force solution but it worked"

very gideon behavior, we love that

abby points out that harrow is also very much haunted by an invasive soul

harrow's like ?????????????????????????? on top of everything else?????????

I'm wondering if this is ice cube barbie????? not sure

abby explains that harrow is possessed by an angry spirit and that she's losing against it

ice cube barbie sure has reason to be angry if she wants to, she had to put up with doctor reverend emperor john's bs

also, the canaan au is harrow's form of palmolive's bachelor loft, the bubble in the river thing

she made an au in the river and brought on all her ghostie ghoulie friends to populate it

abby tells her that she didn't remove her memories of gideon, she re-wrote and re-touched them with ortus, which is why he was invited, and she also filled in spaces of some people (people who weren't dead) with constructs

harrow says "what a waste of a woman, to have ended her life at the bottom of a ladder"

RIGHT???? she was killed so book 1 could be longer, otherwise it would have been solved in 2 minutes, no wonder she's the top in the polycule

apparently also a lot of what's happening at this canaan au has been modified by this invasive spirit that's haunting harrow

harrowcita tells abby who's alive, abby says regina george twin should have been the lyctor

NOW WAIT A MINUTE THERE

yandere twin and I don't see eye to eye on everything but I get defensive if someone's trashing her abilities in comparison to her sister

also "The Master Warden found the idea of dying inconvenient"

I love that chad catches a lot of strays when he isn't there but palmolive gets a lot of compliments when he isn't there

did they ever interact one on one btw? I don't remember, it feels like a jock vs nerd situation

wait, are they a ship???

why am I asking this now IT'S NOT THE TIME

harrow starts quoting gideon ♥ "as her—cavalier—might have put it, absolutely butt-fuck nothing happened"

we love that, so poetic

harrowcita basically can't leave her canaan bubble now because she's in the river due to the fight that was going on with the beast and whatnot

abby says that the canaan au happens when harrow is asleep, unconscious or just disconnected from outside stimuli

harrow tells her about the beast and how she was brochetted out there

abby says that she's not dead yet because, if she was, her soul would be gone forever and they need to ensure her body survives

harrow asks herself "what is happening out there?"

WOULDN'T WE LIKE TO KNOW

BUT WE WON'T KNOW YET

because I have immense willpower and knew this was the right time to stop reading, otherwise this recap would be awfully long

gonna put "strong willpower" in my cv to see if the sixth house accepts me

see you in the next one very soon!!! be safe and take care of yourselves ♥

[liesmyth]

has something from a tlt fic ever become headcanon to you? i ask because i find this happening to me all the damn time with this fandom but not others

OK SO, my tlt headcanons are like schrodinger's cat, they explicitly contradict each other sometimes and all of them exist at the same time in different quantum states of canon. So in that sense I've never read a fic and thought, okay, THIS is my canon from now on.

But I've read so so many fics that burst my third eye wide open and made me consider different perspectives on a character / dynamic, or helped me shape some I already had. A few favourites:

the soul that seeketh him by bittybelle — missing scene pre NtN ft. John and Kiriona. Wherein John Gaius meets his daughter, remembers the women he left behind, and deals poorly with being the male god of a universe in which the divine is essentially feminine.

AO3 user LesbianJesusLovesYou gave me Big Feelings about Gideon's childhood on the Ninth and her relationship with Harrow, Aiglamene, Ortus and Crux

believing in everything (and knowing nothing at all) — A series of childhood memories from the Ninth

when i call, will you come to me? — “My Lady,” Ortus wheezed, shifting uncomfortably. “I only thought you should know… Gideon Nav was flogged before the congregation.”

A few fics set right after NtN that really stayed with me:

never hear the sound of someone calling me home by @corpsesoldier — Kiriona Gaia returns to the House of the Ninth.

One More Son by captainpeggy — After Nona, Pyrrha Dve walks the Ninth.

two old broads split a cigarette by @forjodssake — Aiglamene/Pyrrha. “sometimes the girl you like becomes one person w her soulmate and you have to jack off about it”

Post HtN missing scenes:

Death in its season by @ancientannoyance — John holds Mercymorn's 24 minutes funeral

recognize them by their fruits by @ceruleanvulpine — John and Ianthe emerge out of the River

Other stuff that Stuck With Me

so I open the window to hear sounds of people by @sunderedstar — post NtN flashbacks. John and Alecto are the only two beings on earth, and he starts working on the Resurrection. This is harrowing and I'm absolutely obsessed with the implications in this fic of WHY John removed everyone's memory.

and they were roommates by @herenortherenearnorfar — pre Resurrection Mercy and Cristabel, from their first meeting onwards and it just really burrowed a hole in my brain and grew roots and sprouts and everything. Latin American nun Cristabel it's all I can see now, and YES they met working with climate refugees when M— was a bright eyed idealistic doctor. It also lines up great with the Asian Mercy headcanon that exist in my head (I have a whole elaborate backstory about M— aged 12 proclaiming to her Filipino Catholic family that she's an atheist now). Anyway, it's just a lovely, gorgeous fic. I think about it every day.

John 25:12 by @halfeatenmoon — pre-Resurrection, John and his friends escape the cow fortress to spend Christmas Day at the beach. With beer, salads, pavlova, and the corpses of a million fish killed by nuclear weapons testing. Ft. Southern hemisphere holidays in Mururoa Atol and 100% canon. To me.

Operation: The Most Honorable Man by @cadmean — Augustine has a proposal for the Saint of Duty (Dios Apate. That's the proposal)

lowkey cheating but I can't choose — absolutely anything AO3 user Raxheim has posted has been SOO up my alley. Every time I read one of their fics I feel like I'm enlightened by some never-before-considered detail. And mean ANYTHING, from Harrow Nova to Wake to Cytherea and the Lyctors to the Universe's #1 Sadgirl Gideon

[misdre]

third day of my gideon the ninth re-read! do i just keep coming back to talk about the sixth all the time. maybe so

the enormoustest tsundere of our myriad, harrowhark nonagesimus. pretending not to give an ass about gideon but going to very silly and masochistic lengths to avoid a situation of gideon getting hurt (…by anything that's not her). i have a very deep love for harrow, she's like a really sad, really angry black cat with extra skeletons

the part i remembered the best of the whole book are the chapters of gideon and harrow doing the first trial and i don't know if i was just that impressed by it (i do really like it, don't get me wrong. it's very anime. and i love bone magic) ooooorr if it's just because this is the part immediately after the sixth had been introduced and i was fatally struck by the knowledge that my life had just been irrevocably altered and i suddenly started focusing a whole lot more on what i was reading hehm. don't mind me i have a clinical case of brainworms

gideon intends this as snark but is it not kind of exactly how john became a necromancer. just saying. by thinking really hard about corpses

i LOVE LOVE the wedding anniversary dinner of the fifth!! SO MUCH!! the whole scene, GOLDEN!!!! the way gideon can not take part in any conversation because of the fake vow of silence so she just listens in to literally everyone, it's so good. such a good way to sprinkle in little details about different characters. thank you for this snack (and an ENTIRE dinner WITH dessert for GIDEON THE GOOD GIRL)

in this next passage, first of all, obsessed with the moth&butterfly comparison of palamedes and coronabeth. in her freeform descriptions of the characters muir went out of her way to mention that corona is Very Tall, Even Taller Than Palamedes which i take as them both being absolute beanstalks. this mental image promptly punched me in the face

secondly, i live for the implication dropped in in the seating arrangement, because in the unwanted guest palamedes says he started thinking gideon was alright after he got over being jealous, IS THIS NOT ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS (i kinda want to draw a comic about it. just need to learn to draw the TLT characters first. i'm gonna be so fucking unhinged once i do)

i truthfully didn't have much of an impression at all about the fourth before i started this re-read -- and i mean literally that i dipped into a TLT subreddit to read threads on the four because i kind of didn't remember nor understand what their deal was -- but wow jeannemary is not only an absolute darling but also a legend. she's such a great baby cavalier (maybe baby gay also). i feel a bit sad that she would probably have gotten along great with camilla. in fact camilla is totally absent in this party scene so i imagine she's just quiet the entire time because she got separated from her warden and is pouting

this is also one of the scenes that highlight the genius of gideon as an unreliable narrator (and i'm loveth my unreliable narrators!!!!!). i mean the previous chapter already made it horribly clear, at the latest, when we realise there's been SO much going on without her having any idea nor her understanding any of it, but here in this chapter is the moment of palamedes bringing "dulcinea" tea and staring her down hard -- and gideon just mistakes it as him having a medical fetish, fair tbh -- but is this not him realising there's something deeply fucked about the duchess here. i don't remember the details well enough (that's the beauty of a re-read. soon i will have the details) so idk if there's some implication afterwards that he thinks it's not her but. anyway my point being there is this whole enormous story of its own playing here in the background and gideon is just so blissfully unaware of any it, as is the first-time reader. so delicious to come back to afterwards when you are no longer in gideon's robes but more like looking over her shoulder. i sure hope someone has written into fic how drastically the tone of how palamedes and camilla talk about dulcie changes after this RIGHT? SOMEONE HAS FIC OF IT RIGHT???? PLEASE TELL ME THERE IS FIC (i am slowly raking through the cam/pal tag but i kinda want to get through this book now first and foremost. but speaking of fic, i continue being incredibly incredibly awestruck by the way writers have managed to turn all the canon sixth nonsense into their fully mastered home turf. i would not fucking understand even half of what palamedes says if i hadn't become so familiar with the lingo through fanfiction and that's so... i don't even know what that is. thanks???? glfgmdgjndf)

wow i'm rambling! i'm coming apart at my seams again! AHHHHHHHH I LOVE THIS SERIES

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 2 of Harrow the Ninth

I think I was too quick to complain about Harrow's POV, I learned a lot of interesting things in this chapter about the world and its history, and have strong suspicions of some additional things

This is a great question, which I notice was not answered

I gather this must be Mercymorn? Anyway, it looks like the steles are also used for radio communication in addition to FTL travel

I guess she got this idea from seeing the Body with a sword strapped to her back?

I've been noticing this throughout the last book but kept forgetting to comment on it, but people mostly seem to measure largish things in terms of "bodies", it's been happening since like the very first chapter of Gideon the Ninth. But I notice earlier in this book that Harrow described the sword as being "six feet" rather than something like "one body"

So, he does go on to explain why he can't return to the Nine Houses, but he never explains why he can't resurrect more people. This makes me wonder if it wasn't actually the deaths of the planets that spawned the revenants, but the resurrection itself? They are called Resurrection Beasts after all

Osmosis is when the concentration of something on two sides of permeable membrane is unequal, so some stuff moves from one side to the other to equalize it. If souls are thalergy, and living humans are probably sources of high thalergy concentration and the River has low thalergy concentration, why do souls only osmos into the River at death? Shouldn't they be osmosing all the time? Or is this going in the direction of "living is just dying, actually"?

Even after reading this whole chapter, I'm not sure what this means. Especially since after reading this whole chapter, I'm fairly certain that the Emperor used to be a regular human at one point

Do all planets have microbial life? I don't think that's necessarily true

It's weird that Harrow thinks this way about her own thought. This makes me wonder if the second person thing actually means that there's some hidden third-party narrator here who has this opinion, the way that the Homestuck Meat Epilogue devolved into unbearable Dirk narration in which Dirk describes his own mouth as "kissable" through Jake's POV

If the Resurrection Beasts hunt people who have consumed other people's souls to gain power, and they are hunting the Emperor most of all, that must mean that he has also consumed a soul to gain power, presumably to become God. Consuming one soul makes you a Lyctor, but at least if we believe the exposition so far Lyctors are less powerful and less immortal than the Emperor (we haven't actually seen him do anything that requires God-like power onscreen). How many souls do you have to consume to become a god? Or maybe it's not a matter of consuming a lot of souls, but consuming a bigger soul, like say... a planet's soul? The Emperor said their were nine planet souls originally, and five have been killed and three still exist. So there is one planet soul that was not killed but also doesn't exist anymore, and I bet, I bet you that he consumed that planet soul the way the Lyctors consumed their cavaliers and that's how he became God. When the Lyctors consume their cavaliers their eye color changes, and the Emperor has those freaky completely black eyes, so I bet it was the same process, just with something that wasn't human. And if I had to guess, I would guess that the consumed planet soul was Earth's, it wouldn't really make sense for it to be a different planet. So then I guess the remaining question is: did all the planets die of some natural disaster and the Emperor just happened to be in the right place at the right time to consume Earth's soul when that happened? Or did he kill Earth intentionally in order to become a God and accidentally fucked up and killed all of the other planets too, creating these eight Resurrection Beasts that are now eternally pursuing him, so he resurrected everyone and created this death religion and some Lyctors who would also be pursued by the Resurrection Beasts so that they were forced to help him defeat them? I mean, he did tell Harrow that she might want to hit him after she found out the truth

So, here we definitely have Gideon's name being replaced in her experience with Ortus's, so this must be after whatever she did to remove Gideon. And obviously his mouth looks strange when he says it because he's actually saying something completely different and the mouth movements don't match up to what she's hearing. And I guess the last two times, he really is saying "Ortus" because Harrow said "Ortus" and now he's confused?

Harrow's hallucination of the Body in this chapter feels like it probably is actually something real. She felt her hand on her back this chapter, she spoke to her, etc. The Body appeared with a sword strapped to her back, she said "you have to learn that sword" and she has Gideon's eye color, which Harrow doesn't seem to recognize anymore. If this is after Harrow did something to remove Gideon and become "half a Lyctor", I bet this Body hallucination is actually Gideon's ghost. I don't know what this is a metaphor for:

but if this is Gideon speaking, and Harrow has removed Gideon at this point, I can guess what Gideon would be telling her to do at this point: to accept her sacrifice and consume Gideon's soul again to return to being a full Lyctor. Gideon repeatedly asked Harrow to siphon her soul and sacrificed herself to save Harrow, so she wouldn't appreciate Harrow trying to save her by hurting herself. And if that's what that means, then Ianthe's dialog in the prologue now makes perfect sense:

She's even telling Harrow that Gideon and Naberius don't matter, so it doesn't matter if their souls get consumed, here.

[chrliebot]

also maeve fly was kinda trash. like there was a lot of stuff that was fun but it was a total pulp novel. the entire time you're hyper aware of just how hard the author is trying to seem cool and edgy despite being like, a uquiz maker at heart. like she definitely uses the tiktok ai voice in her 'did I just write the book of the summer' videos.

spoilers but also I hated the ending. I liked the last third of the book being somewhat of a descent in a state of frenzy, but I think finding out that Gideon had so much power over her - specifically in the dolls and then in Maeve killing him while possessed - took away a lot of who she was supposed to be. maybe she could be going crazy on her own maybe she was the one making the dolls. if the timeline were different I would understand him being the one making the dolls, but as is I don't think it's particularly compelling to know that Gideon was targeting her and the dolls were part of that. the psychosis of seeing herself place the dolls and realizing that it's her that doesn't fit in LA among people would have been so much more interesting than 'oh the love interest did that part' because him being a killer on its own was enough.

and with her being possessed while killing Gideon, her psychosis taking over and her not making that decision, I felt like it took away her agency within the story which had been so important to her character so far. if she mourns the loss of a like individual while recognizing that it's too dangerous to have him around and kills him with purpose instead of in the flighty unsure way she did, it might have meant something more or been satisfying. instead it reads like the author just wanted something to happen there so she killed off gideon rather than Maeve taking control of the story and killing Gideon.

leedes wishes she wrote american psycho so bad. the end where she spoons out dereks eye, where she goes on her spree, it's all actions without consequences. the scenes are somewhat fanfictiony with how disconnected they are. anyway we never see that phone call where patrick is told that paul has been in paris, we just end in the middle of a rising plot. I think leedes have maeve choose to kill gideon would have solved this problem, because then maeve would have made a decision where the acts she takes at the end all seem compulsory. she is kind of wandering around LA just watching as gideon dies, kate cuts her off, the band dies. it's totally incongruent with the character leedes is trying to present with maeve(which isn't always successful, sometimes she comes across as a voyeur rather than a character.

in a word, I would describe the book as try-hard. still glad I read it but not glad I bought it, I think I'm gonna return it.