#gideon tells harrow to eat her

[harrowedsoup]

I love the Chef Gideon AU though.

Like…Love is stored in the basic bread and simple meals that Gideon carefully makes Harrow everyday. It’s the fact that Gideon spends just as long getting unseasoned foods just right as she does complex recipes, despite Harrow not truly enjoying food either way.

[katakaluptastrophy]

I think what's so interesting about Gideon as a narrator at the anniversary dinner is the fact that there's clearly tensions that she's just not picking up on because she's only there to eat a dessert.

But these people are all the immensely powerful leaders of the Houses and consider themselves to be in competition for literal godlike powers and the favour of the emperor.

There's so many little snippets that are potentially intriguing: why is Teacher trying to prime the Ninth to consider the Fifth a threat? Why are the Third and the Sixth "sizing each other up like prizefighters"? The Fifth absolutely knew what they were doing when they sat the teen heads of the opposing cults near each other.

Through Gideon's lens, Magnus' speech is a little awkward jokey thing. But...the seneschal of the House that is known to be actively trying to absorb another House is saying it's such a shame they're all so remote from each other and what do they all have in common (and it's so quiet you "could have heard a hair flutter to the floor") - that had to feel a bit different to people who aren't Gideon.

Palamedes' is dissecting the meaning of "Master Warden" and at one point compares it to a prison warden. 'Dulcinea' asking about whether Magnus and Abigail have children is perhaps less small talk and rather more pointedly political. Harrow's apparently stilted conversation with Protesilaus is clearly her actually probing his limitations like he's a bad Chat GPT-run chatbot.

And then 'Dulcinea' tells Gideon she liked the dinner because it was "useful". In her typical "I never lied to you" way, Cyth wasn't lying when she said Abigail had to die because of her hobby - Abigail Pent let loose on the Facility would have risked blowing Cyth's cover sky high. But what does a Canaan House look like where after the dinner party, the Fifth go down to the facility, get a key, and survive to continue their 'the Houses are going to get along or else' agenda? We've seen Fifth House soft power on a smaller scale in HTN: and it looks like inviting a teenager round for coffee, lulling her into a false sense of security with small talk, and then physically preventing her from leaving the room until she does what you want, while smiling the entire time. A series of little coffee chats could probably have led to a lot of cooperation in Canaan House, one way or another.

Gideon jokes about Silas marrying Ianthe because of their similar colour pallete, but it does raise the fact that there seems to be some tension around the Third, its succession, and the *point* of Ianthe. Why is Silas openly saying Ianthe should have died at birth? Combined with Judith's comments in the Cohort Intelligence Files about succession on the Third, it feels like there's something else being said here that Gideon isn't picking up on.

And of course, Harrow wasn't the only one desperate to become a Lyctor because her con was unsustainable. Presumably at some point Corona and Ianthe would be expected to marry, or at least take on more separate roles as Corona prepared to take over the throne and Ianthe was funneled off elsewhere. At some point, their package deal would have become unsustainable and Corona's cover would have been blown. But much as Harrow wants to become a Lyctor so she can reveal the state of the Ninth without repercussions, Ianthe is probably in part motivated to become a Lyctor for the same reason. Because otherwise, what would Ianthe's expected role have been? Amidst the suggestion of anxiety about the Idan succession, the dinner party also presents the fact that the reason Abigail and Magnus' infertility isn't a succession crisis for the ruling family of the Fifth is that Abigail's younger brother dutifully married in his early 20s and had kids. We know there are branch families in Ida - Babs is from one. He may be a prince, but he's not treated well, and you do get the sense that the stakes to stay in power in Ida are high.

We don't learn anything about the political situation in the Houses themselves during HTN or NTN, but in the wake of Canaan House, you have to suspect there are a number of tensions and concerns.

[theriverbeyond]

"I ate you alive, and you have the temerity to tell me that you’re sorry?" is an underrated line from the pool scene IMO because it connects so tragically with the Great Griddlehark Mismatch, which is that all Gideon wants is to be eaten and all Harrow wants is to never eat Gideon again.

In her most pivotal moment, Harrow confesses her two greatest sins. The second, of course, was that she rolled the rock and walked onto that icy shore, but the first was how she used Gideon. How she isolated her, abused her, relagated her to a life of abject misery, made her both a whipping girl and a meat pumpkin. Harrow ate Gideon's childhood and she ate Gideon's future and she only truly came to regret this after it was too late.

"i gave you my whole life and you didn't even want it" like, yeah. Harrow didn't want it. Harrow wanted to give it back.

[meltedmercury]

DID AGLAIMENE GIVE HARROW AND GIDEON THE PUBERTY TALK??

[abigail-pent]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

idk probably more later

[fleshadept]

part of the reason the locked tomb characters are so memorable and complex is because they are very, very weird in the way only writers who understand that every human being is a little freak in their own way. harrow is the standout example of this—she is unnerringly pious to the rites of her religion in a way that to others comes across as zealotry but once we get into her point of view is revealed to be both, yes, because she is a zealot and also because the rituals and safety of painting her face, praying, etc calm her down. she eats penitently because she actually hates strong tastes. she is both schizophrenic and quite literally haunted, facts that recontextualize her behavior in gtn in an important way.

gideon is a butch and this universe’s version of a jock, and the first thing we see her do is try to escape harrow and the ninth and join the army (something that’s forgotten a little too often when people talk about her being “out of character” in ntn) because she wants to have a purpose, but we also come to learn that despite being raised in the literal dreariest place in the solar system she’s funny, sometimes even on purpose. she doesn’t know what a salad is. she reads sleazy porn magazines. she’s a talented swordswoman but is head over heels for every pretty woman she meets, to her own detriment at times.

every character is like this! they feel so real and complex because they have contradictions and weaknesses and opinions and incorrect beliefs and correct ones that are hard to tell the difference between.

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

hey can we acknowledge that of all the plans in tlt to spectacularly backfire, possibly none of them backfired so throughly as silas octikiseron's plan to divide harrow and gideon in gtn? like, fundamentally, his idea was pretty sound. "the cavalier of the ninth was an indentured servant who hated her adept, the cavalier was the only survivor of a genocide that she doesn't know about, and the adept may or may not have attempted to murder her. they seem to be building trust and respect for each other, but surely if i told the cavalier about this i could get her on side. even if she won't turn over her keys willingly afterwards, she will never trust her adept again."

very logical, right?

except. that conversation. leads directly into. the pool scene.

can you imagine. can you imagine telling someone all that shit trying to sow mistrust and discord between your enemies. and the next time you see them they're practically joined at the hip and they keep smiling at each other?? the one you talked to comes up and smacks you an the back like "thanks buddy you know we were really struggling to trust each other before but we had a great talk about that stuff you told me and it really cleared the air. we're best friends now and i'm totally gonna make her a lyctor btw."

i would eat glass.

[harrowsphiltrum]

i’m sorry but the visual of harrow actually eating pieces of gideon to complete the eightfold word is actually really fucking funny. like bitch is chewing and swallowing while cytherea stands there like 😐. cam is in the corner 1) bleeding out 2) grieving 3) watching the reverend daughter chow down on the still-warm body of her cavalier while shaking and sobbing incoherently. exactly how much of gideon did harrow ingest? was it like a tasteful mouthful, or did she just sort of… go to town? did she tear chunks out with her teeth or her hands or a mysterious third method? what exactly happened there. tamsyn. hey tamsyn. tell us about the cannibalism tamsyn.

[lady-harrowhark]

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Gideon’s blood and the Tomb. I’ve got two points here that dovetail somewhat…

Let’s review some key events. I realize these probably seem a bit all over the place, but I do believe they come together. I’ve tried to put these in roughly chronological order.

John attempts to consume the soul of the Earth, and then creates a physical body for Alecto: “I ripped half my ribs from my body and made you from the dirt, my blood, my vomit, my bone.”

Ten thousand years later, Gideon and Harrow duke it out. The initial recollection of the fight says that “Harrow had scratched until she’d had half of Gideon’s face beneath her fingernails.” The more candid HtN version has Gideon telling us, “You clawed my face so bad that my blood ran down your hands; my face was under your fucking fingernails.”

Harrow opens the Tomb with Gideon’s (read: John’s) blood on her hands.

Harrow sees Alecto, falls in love with her, and decides to live. 

At some point while in the Tomb, Harrow apparently kisses Alecto: “She hadn’t come on purpose; the scrap of black-eyed meat had asked for it—the chain of a kiss: the ice that burnt the flesh of the mouth that had stuck to the mouth that was frozen.”

At Canaan House, Ianthe ascends and tells the others that step six of the process is to “consume the flesh. Not the whole thing, a drop of blood will do to ground you.”

Harrow’s letter tells her she owes Ianthe “the favour of the chain”, which extends “into the House, but NOT into the Tomb.” The agreement takes precedence over any oaths sworn to others, including John, except for the Holy Corpse.

Harrow kisses Ianthe to inspect her jaw and re-swears the oath.

Harrow’s Nova AU has her retrieving the chain of Samael from the Anastasian. This is considered a sin severe enough that the Reverend Father whips her, but she is allowed to keep the chain. Denied the role of Reverend Daughter, Harrow tells Ortus that she is “the unfulfilled vow and the bloody teeth of the unkissed skull.”

Alecto kisses Harrow, bites her, and recognizes her by her blood - the blood of Anastasia’s line. Alecto tells Harrow that she is very sorry about Samael, and she vows the favour she had promised to Anastasia to Harrow.

We see over and over this theme of consuming another life, whether body or soul: we get two sides of this coin when we compare Gideon’s “All I ever wanted you to do was eat me” to John’s statement that “it’s the human instinct, to take.” Consuming the flesh is, per Ianthe, one of the steps to taking in a cavalier’s soul and becoming a Lyctor, directly paralleling John consuming the Earth, both physically when he eats dirt and spiritually when he takes in her soul. Thus far, though, we don’t know how or if Harrow consumed Gideon’s flesh in the interim between chapters 36 and 37 of GtN. 

But here’s what I’ve been wondering: assuming Ianthe is correct (and telling the truth) about the steps to becoming a Lyctor, to what extent does the order and timing actually matter? I think there’s a distinct possibility that Harrow had consumed Gideon’s flesh years before they even came to Canaan House.

Because Harrow had Gideon’s face under her fingernails. And Harrow bites her nails.

HtN, chapter four:

You held your left hand up before your face, before the light, the even white light with its hot tungsten filaments. The thumbnail was whole and even. Too even? Were you wont to chew your fingernails still, that unattractive tic of your girlhood?

And again in chapter twenty-one:

She took off her gloves, and with the edges of her fingernails - bitten to the quick, and never much help - she started to prise open one wrinkled corner.

If the steps do not have to be completed strictly in order, Harrow may very well have already checked off step six if she were biting her nails with Gideon’s flesh and blood still clinging to them.

The other thing going on here is that we get these repeated connections between chains and favours and kisses. I don’t feel like we have quite all the pieces yet to draw any definitive conclusions, but it seems that the favour of the chain may have something to do with the Reverend Family’s vow to protect the Tomb. Particularly, Harrow describing herself, sans Reverend Daughter title, as “the unfulfilled vow” as she wields the chain of Samael lends itself to this interpretation. I also find it very interesting that this unfulfilled vow is paired with “the bloody teeth of the unkissed skull” given that upon waking, Alecto kisses Harrow, bites her, and draws blood which then allows her to recognize Harrow as one of Anastasia’s descendants.

Before that kiss, though, there was another. Alecto describes being called back by Harrow’s kiss, presumably when she broke into the Tomb as a child. I have to wonder if blood was playing a role here too. Alecto says that Harrow’s flesh stuck on her frozen lips, that the ice burned her. If this kiss also drew blood, it could be that the blood of Anastasia’s line was the key to calling her back. However, there may have been someone else’s blood on Alecto’s lips that day. If Harrow had been biting her nails, which she’d earlier used to claw Gideon’s face, she very well may have had Gideon’s blood in her mouth as well. As John’s daughter, her blood was able to open the Tomb. Was it able to call Alecto as well? Could “the chain of a kiss” be referring to Harrow transferring John’s blood between Gideon and Alecto?

Overall, it seems like we’re circling something akin to a blood oath or living blood ward. The thalergetic nature of blood certainly aligns with the symbolism of life and light that we see connected to the Earth and Alecto, in contrast to the thanergy that John cultivates. Alecto’s physical form is derived from John’s blood, and his power is derived from her soul. If indeed a kiss and a few drops of John’s blood, shepherded into the Tomb by Gideon and Harrow, are enough to call Alecto, I cannot even imagine the pyrotechnics show that we’re in for now that he’s had a run-in with the business end of her sword.

[nottobehornyonthemain]

Thinking about Them (the threefold Cavalier-Necromancer-Saint of the Third).

Thinking about how little effort Coronabeth put in at any point to try and pass as a necromancer at Cannan House. Going so far as to risk blowing their cover by trying to duel Gideon only to be stopped by Naberius, who promised not to tell Ianthe.

Thinking about that bit in the Harrow Nova scene where Harrow tries to challenge Ortus to a duel so she can take the role of cavalier primary.

Thinking about how Ianthe, according to Judith’s records, never preformed necromancy without her sister in the room prior to Cannan House.

Thinking about how Ianthe, evil, lying, cannibalistic, soul-eating weirdo that she is, denied killing Naberius even as she was happy to brag about her years of pretending to be two necromancers and how she surpassed all of them to become a Lyctor.

Thinking about the man who said he should have stayed home and gotten married instead of dealing with this nonsense. Thinking about the woman who said she was going to marry Harrowhark one day.

Thinking about the permeability of the soul.

Thinking about how Naberius was killed with a sword through the back. Thinking about the Crown Princess of the third. The non-necromantic heir. Thinking about how if she was unable to fulfill her duties then Ianthe would become the scion of the Third.

Thinking about how Harrow didn’t remember how well the title “saint of awe” would have fit Naberius Tern. Thinking about how John said he picked the titles for the cavalier and not the necromancer.

Thinking about the deal with the devil made with a soul that was never her’s. Thinking about how the Third plots and plans and then acts.

Thinking about the Butterfly and the Moth and the Tern. About Cainabeth and Abella and the one named after a demon prince of hell. Thinking about the twin necromancers of the Third. About the two cavaliers.

I’m thinking about a murder, and an ascension, and a girl left crying on the floor because her sister, didn’t take her, and a girl who would stab someone over the implication that her sister was dead to her.

[liesmyth]

“what the fuck did Anastasia do?” some wild speculations for funsies

What we know: Anastasia was trying to achieve Lyctorhood, and believed there was “another way” other than the standard ‘kill your cav, eat their soul’ way. Anastasia’s process still included the Eightfold Word, was performed in “laboratory conditions” and Samael, her cavalier, died. She later went on to fund the Ninth House. Everything else is speculation, or comes from biased accounts.

What we don’t know: A bunch of things!

One is when it happened: We don’t know when Anastasia attempted to ascend, compared to the other Lyctors; we only know that she did it in relatively safe conditions. We DO know that she worked “closely with Cassiopeia” (HtN, 51) and researched it “too much”, trying to do the process a different way “slower and more methodically”. Cassiopeia was the fourth Lyctor to ascend - my guess is that Anastasia made her attempt at any time between shortly before Cassiopeia’s and shortly after Cytherea.

The other is what exactly happened: all we know for sure is that John claims Anastasia failed, and he killed Samael to stop the botched process. Of course John’s account is wildly unreliable but IMO, he’s not the kind of person to say a straightforward lie when a half-truth will do — not because of moral qualms against lying (LOL), but because he likes to have plausible deniability with himself that he did a hard thing for the right reasons. I’m assuming John’s account is like, 60% true here. And it’s very juicy

Wild guess time!

Wild ass guess but my idea is that Anastasia tapped into Alecto’s enormous well of power, but dragged Samael into it via the Eightfold word. Then either the feeling of Alecto’s soul was too much for them and it made Anastasia panic, screwing the process. John killed Samael to stop it.

Why would you even think that? Good question!

I think John claiming that killing Samael was to Anastasia’s benefit is partly the truth; again John’s very good at twisting facts so that he comes out squeaky clean, but he’s less likely to lie outright. We also know that Anastasia remained on decent enough terms with John & Lyctors afterwards — I bet their relationship was very fraught, but doesn’t seem to have been on the level of “I never want to see you again.”

Alecto feels guilt over Samael’s death. The first thing she tells Harrow, Anastasia’s however-many-times-removed grandchild, is “I’m sorry about Samael” (NtN, epilogue). Alecto had the chance to apologise in person to Anastasia for Samael’s death, but she still feels the urge to apologise again to a direct descendant, immediately. This, plus the fact that she swore herself to Anastasia’s line (a big fucking deal!) makes me think that SHE was personally involved in Samael’s death, not just a witness, and she feels the urge to make up for it.

Anastasia “panicking” is a very likely reaction when confronted with Alecto’s sheer power — John completely lost it when he ascended, and while Anastasia made her attempt in less fraught circumstances it was probably still A Lot to handle. My guess that she “dragged Samael into it” is based on the speculation that the Eightfold word is what ties the cavalier to the necromancer and includes the cavalier’s name (because Harrow removed all memories of Gideon’s name, not just her existence, to stop herself from consuming Gideon’s soul) and when her panic caused her to lose control over the process to some extent (probably painful and/or gruesome) John’s resort was to kill Samael and stop the process that way.

Another (IMO less likely) possibility is that Alecto threw a Nona-style tantrum that Samael couldn’t withstand, or even killed Samael herself. These would both work with her guilt + the fact that whatever happened needed a pretty thorough “cleanup” after, but I don’t think Alecto was physically present. (However, I do think that Alecto’s involvement would be pretty much the only thing to get John to admit to something he didn’t do, and would explain why he agreed to lock up Alecto after + why Anastasia would agree to assist with it)

Ok but why would Anastasia even be able to tap into Alecto’s power?

I just think Anastasia is extremely scary. She was the one to work on Teacher (cramming 500 souls into 50) and she later went on to fund the Ninth, the House that supposedly does strictly bone necromancy, wouldn’t even touch flesh magic, but also, somehow, managed Harrow’s conception — something John, God himself, calls “a walking miracle”. 

Yes, Harrow’s parents were skilled, but not that skilled. My guess is that they based their work on Anastasia’s research — a “work” that John compares to a smaller-scale Resurrection.

If that’s the level Anastasia was working with... I just think she was very good at soul fuckery. I also think that the fact that planets have souls in TLT (even planets that don’t contain any life forms... except potentially they all do) points to the existence of an “oversoul” — universal life existence within all beings; sort of the greater matter of which human souls are the molecules. I think Anastasia was sufficiently skilledto have reached to whatever spillover of Alecto’s soul was left, maybe through John’s presence, or maybe because she was still partly tied to the planet that became the First House, and Anastasia pulled on that string not knowing what it was.

This last section is 90% a wild guess, but I THINK it fits with Harrow telling John in NtN (John 5:4) that he “watched them misunderstand the process” so here’s my shred of canon evidence.

Anyway, here’s my current Anastasia Theory — to be debunked in 2023

[have-a-tlt-thought]

Thoughts on griddlehark possessive sex 🙏

thank you for your patience beautiful anon! some of these i have to let simmer

!! tw choking scene between dashes

When Gideon sees Harrow's self-satisfied smile looking at Ianthe's arm, it rolls off her back. Mostly.

When Harrow sees Gideon's face upon seeing Cytherea's corpse, it bothers her bit but she represses it. She's good at that.

When John tries to sit close to Harrow at the dinner table though, Gideon inserts herself between them.

And when Gideon starts telling the BoE soldiers about her guide to working up to pull-ups, Harrow only comes up and laces their fingers together subtly.

But when Ianthe slides her arm around Harrow at the dinner table, Gideon grabs Harrow by the arm and bodily guides her to their room.

--------

Gideon wraps her large hand around Harrow's throat and fucks into her, coming in her until Harrow feels like a used doll instead of heir to an entire planet.

Ianthe's jealousy about Harry's neck bruises and raspy voice afterwards is only slightly noticeable.

--------

And when Coronabeth has Gideon evaluate which bra looks best under her white top, Harrow sequesters Gideon for the day.

And if Harrow ties Gideon to the bedframe and eats her to overstimulation then rides Gideon dry, well, then the BoE officers and Corona pretend not to notice her exhaustion the next day.

[cyborg-squid]

god the thing that's fucking me up the most about Nona the Ninth is. class traitor Griddle Kiriona. like i guess it makes sense, from the beginning, while she was never into the Ninth House, she was very into the Cohort and the Empire, the idea of military service being her only distraction from the living hell that was Drearburh. and then her sacrifice at the end of GtN, she's been fed military propaganda all her life, of course she figures the only thing to do at the end of the line is a heroic self-sacrifice. Not what John planned all along for Lyctorhood but it certainly helps to, he'd wanted the Canaan House trials to have a bit more in the way of 'informed consent' (he did used to be a scientist, after all) but imagine if you've got a half dozen cavaliers, having been fed a steady diet of military propaganda, saying "Anything for you, my midnight hagette!" and feeding themselves to their necros, and boom you've got 8 or so new Lyctors!

jumping back to Gideon, she's hurt when Harrow refuses to fully eat her, that Harrow lobotomizes herself to avoid doing so, not understanding that Harrow is refusing to buy into that idea of sacrifice and consumption as love, that (as illustrated by Pal and Cam) devotion alone is enough. it can't just be one, it can't just be the other, it has to be synthesis, something that nary a necromancer before had attained (with John intervening when they were about to).

and then God tells Gideon that, yeah she was right all along, she was someone special even back on Drearburh, she's the most special anyone could ever be, she's God's favorite princess. his literal child. and then she's thrown into an endless frontline battle, whatever's going on Antioch.

i forget where i was going with this but. ouuugh. Gideon why. okay i do get why. but please don't.

[lemon-natalia]

Harrow the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 25

hah, she’s telling the Emperor Ortus the First kissed Cytherea as part of a gossip tea sesh, this is hilarious. also what with this and the Silas & Gideon meeting last book, dramatic tea parties are becoming a staple

‘Harrow do something normal’ omfg, GOD thinks Harrow is being too weird. he really just told her to get a life

and Harrow does what many a person does in an existential crisis - learn how to cook!

girl hasn’t slept for six days? idc if she’s a Lyctor, she’s gonna pass out soon

the whole the Emperor serving the food at the table - what with this and calling his Lyctors his children, there’s a weird emphasis on almost forcing domesticity

Harrow added all the veggies Ortus the First doesn’t like, she’s so petty lol

WHAT THE FUCK. she put HER OWN bone marrow in the soup to murder him from the inside out???? ok i absolutely double down on never wanting to eat anything any of these people make. i see this is the book to traumatise me with cannibalism, i’m not eating soup ever again

‘his eyes were the eyes of death’ also holy shit this guy in general is very powerful, and it think this is the first chapter to really get it across. also wdym its been a thousand years since you ate human being, dude - again suggests that he did also take part in a similar process as the Lyctors to become what he is now?

also, you’re not okay with them trying to kill each other in front of you, but anywhere else is fine? what kind of a rule is that?

Harrow when this sleep deprived is, uh, unhinged to say the least.

also Mercy gradually decreasing the ages that she’s calling Harrow is hilarious, at a certain point she’s just going to be calling her a toddler

fuck me this chapter was something else to read, i think its probably the first chapter to properly shock me like Gideon the Ninth did

[paradoxcase]

Harrow the Ninth audiobook, Act 3

Harrow's memory of Crux giving her advice about her hallucinations just does not hit the same with the Moira Quirk Crux voice. When I was reading, at this point I was like, hmm, maybe I should reevaluate Crux slightly, but with the audiobook, the voice just sounds very incongruous

When Harrow talks to Ianthe about seeing G1deon with Cytherea's corpse, no precise description is in the text of the book, but it sounds like Ianthe expected something a lot worse than Harrow described, and then later Harrow tells John that she saw him "kissing" the corpse. Did Harrow actually just get all morally outraged about just a kiss?

I can't remember if I commented on it before, but Harrow says about G1deon that it was "as if he'd carried the name of a dead family pet" and I can't tell if this is some reaction that has something to do with Gideon or if she actually just thinks of Ortus as a "dead family pet"

John talks about G1deon killing Wake as if he were actually there when it happened, but he can't possibly have been, could he? If he wasn't there when Wake died, and had no idea that G1deon was having an affair with her, what does he actually know about how G1deon felt about killing her? He's not exactly a talkative guy. Mercy and Augustine knew that talking about Wake would get him to leave later on, too, but I don't think they were sharing a lot of info on her - he didn't know why Wake had a baby with her, for example

At some point a biscuit that was given to Harrow is described as a "repeatedly uneaten biscuit" which is definitely something

I can't remember if I noticed this the first time, but Harrow intentionally put all of G1deon's least favorite vegetables in the Trojan Soup so that he would eat more of the broth, haha

"The First Reborn" is used as an epithet for John at one point. Is John meant to have resurrected himself in the mythology?

After the Soup Incident, Augustine is looking "as if he had seen the ghost of someone he did not particularly like" which make me wonder what kind of stuff Anastasia got up to at Canaan House

Mayonnaise Uncle is in Harrow's River bubble, and he's acting just like himself, which I realize now must mean that his soul did not actually get consumed or corrupted by a devil thing after Colum's death. If they can really just infect anyone they injure, as is implied at the end of Nona, I wonder how he avoided that, since devil!Colum very much did fatally injure him

I pointed out before that later on in the River bubble they wind up congregating in the Second Lyctor lab, which seems to be relatively safe from Wake possibly because it belonged to G1deon and Pyrrha, but in this earlier part of the book they are also taking refuge in the quarters given to Judith and Marta as being the least leaky, and now I sort of wonder if they were given those rooms because they also had something to do with G1deon and Pyrrha and that's also why they're the least leaky in Harrow's bubble

Magnus, on the bad weather in the bubble: "It'll be a damned sight worse in the River." You know he's just extremely disappointed that Harrow is not able to see the joke, since I'm pretty sure both he and Abigail know what's up by this point

On Corona's "death" Abigail says "If she's gone, then perhaps that means--" and never finishes. I wonder if this is Abigail figuring out that Corona may still be alive

Ianthe says, "I wish killing [Naberius] had given me his needlepoint, too." I am actually kind of curious why it didn't, unless she means like, the actual physical pieces of clothing he embroidered or whatever and not the skill?

Harrow thinks she looks like her mother in the dress Ianthe makes for her, and then immediately says "I look like am imbecile." I know most people don't usually have positive thoughts about their mothers' senses of fashion, but even so this seems a little harsh

Augustine claims to be helping Harrow kill G1deon "for reasons of my own" and says that "he has caused me more pain over this past scant 40 years than I care to admit." When I read this originally, I just figured, of course Augustine dislikes G1deon, all my homies hate G1deon, because he'd said like three total words of dialog the whole book and done nothing but try to kill Harrow, but now I'm actually curious about this. Since they've known each other for 10,000 years and it's only the past 40 that have been a problem, this can't just be Augustine and G1deon not getting along for personality reasons the way that Augustine and Mercy don't get along (and also, Augustine never actually conspires to kill Mercy) so now I'm curious about what sort of falling-out happened between Augustine and G1deon in the last 40 years. I don't think it's just that Augustine was plotting with Mercy to kill John and G1deon was loyal to John, because I think Augustine and Mercy have been plotting to kill John for a lot more than 40 years. Was 40 years ago maybe when Wake first started to become relevant? Maybe Augustine and Mercy secretly conspiring with Wake to kill John at the same time that G1deon and Pyrrha were secretly fucking Wake caused some encounters between them that Augustine misinterpreted, honestly there could probably have been some hilarious Shakespeare-level dramatic irony here

Augustine says that Cristabel was a fanatic, which seems accurate to the account in Nona, but what was the object of her fanaticism after John resurrected everyone with no memory of Christianity? Although... Cristabel did help found the Eighth House, which honestly might sort of explain some things

John thinks BOE finding out about resurrection beasts must have been "an intelligence effort" since the resurrection beasts are classified information within the Nine Houses, which is hilarious as a concept after reading Nona, and G1deon does in fact correct him here that the only piece of actual intelligence they would have had to learn was where the fuck they came from

Ianthe goes on while drunk about being Harrow's sister, and it seems clear that she really wants Harrow to be like a replacement Corona

Harrow is mystified about why there is an incinerator on the Mithraeum and this question is ultimately never answered, although I guess it's possible that there will be an answer in the fourth book

When Pyrrha says "ba--" when talking to Harrow, it is not pronounced like the first syllable of "baby", which is kind of odd, since that's definitely what she was going to say. And she does definitely say she can feel Wake near or in Harrow, even though Wake is clearly in Cytherea's body at this point, furthering my suspicions that part of Wake's soul may still be in Gideon's sword even after Cytherea's body was shot at the end of the book. The voice also isn't different yet, but she is pretending to be G1deon here

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

I am going to write a scene between two characters that is so improbably emotionally honest.

(or: another exerpt from a fic i'll never finish, entitiled "griddlehark finally talk about stuff" in my drafts.)

-

Gideon wasn't sleeping. Harrow knew this because she also wasn't sleeping. But her own sleeplessness was born of long habit. It was an easy, comfortable insomnia. The dark and quiet were all she had left of home.

Gideon, though, had never been prone to insomnia before. She had always been easily exhausted and prone to oversleeping, rocklike and deaf. And yet, there she was, for the third night in a row, up at odd hours in the safehouse’s kitchen. Harrow could hear her softly shuffling around. She hesitated, considered leaving her to her own devices—what claim, after all, did Harrow have on her anymore? What right had she to butt into any of Gideon's affairs?

But she knew, in the way that she knew almost everything about Gideon, that she was at her worst when feeling abandoned. Harrow would go if she was told to go, but she had to try, at least. She would not abandon Gideon again.

So she went out to the kitchen and found Gideon hunched over the counter, wolfing down plain crackers. This, at least, was somewhat relatable to her.

“Can't sleep?” she asked, as it seemed as good an opener as any.

“Nope.” Gideon did not stop eating as she spoke. “Guess my body's still not in the habit. Being dead and all. Do you know how weird it is to be dead? Your organs just kind of…sit there. But they don't actually do anything. Puts a real damper on all your vital impulses. Like, all of them.”

This was more words than Gideon had said to her in weeks, which was good, even if they were the last words in the world Harrow wanted to hear. She floundered for something to say. Her face must've been doing something, because Gideon looked at it and said, “Oh, right, sorry. Wouldn't want to upset you with the details. Paul told me not to talk about it to you. Be a real shame to show you the consequences of your actions.”

Harrow tried not to react to that, but it hit her like a slap all the same. “I only wanted to save you.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might not want to be saved? Did you ever stop to think, hey, maybe Gideon threw herself on a fencepost because she cared about me and did not want an eternal front-row seat to my continued suffering? No. You didn't. You never thought about what I wanted, you only thought about how you'd lost your favorite chew toy. At least have the decency not to revive the little innocent martyr act from when we were eight. It never fooled me then and it doesn't fool me now. Don't look at me like that.”

“I’m—sorry.”

“You're sorry.”

“I never deserved you. I know that. Not once in my whole miserable life did I deserve to breathe the same air as you. I should've signed your release the day you asked. I should've let you go without conditions and with half our coffers in your pockets. I should’ve begged your forgiveness the first time I said an unkind word to you.”

“You can say that all you like, Harrow, but you never would've.”

“I would now. In a heartbeat. Fat lot of good it does us.”

Gideon shrugged. “I'm not sure I would've left anyway, back then.”

Harrow was startled by that. She could remember Gideon speaking of nothing else, as children. “No?”

“I mean, what would I have even done? Joined the cohort? Been there, done that, and I was bored in a month. I don't know—I don't know. Seems like everything I used to believe in was a sham. My parents. The cohort. You.”

“I don't know how you want me to respond to that.”

“Try telling me the truth.”

Harrow was quiet for a long moment. She had been telling the truth. She needed to find a truth Gideon could believe. Start from there. “You're right. I wouldn't have let you go, when we were children. I could never stand to have you out of arm’s reach, for the same reason you would never have left. I would be at a loss. The fabric of the universe would come unraveled without you. I believed that then, and I've seen evidence of it now.”

“Bullshit, Harrow. You liked having something to play with.”

“You know better than anyone that both can be true, you insufferable, pedantic meathead. You know better than anyone how I felt then, what I feel now. Do you think I was ever stupid enough to believe myself your superior? Do you think I never understood what I was doing? You were the single point around which my entire world revolved. Everything made so much sense, when it was all about you. I have seen my life without you, Griddle, and it was colder and emptier than I had thought possible. In retrospect, the idea that I had endured such a childhood at all should have alerted me to the fact that something was wrong.

“I have never flinched away from my own faults. My inadequacies, perhaps, but not my faults. And I have always known that you were better than I am. I was once in denial, but never truly in ignorance, of the horror of our treatment of you. And yet the only sin you hold against me is that I tried to release you. That I removed you from my reach, relieved you of my beck and call. That is the only thing you have ever refused to forgive me for. Why?”

“You know why.”

“I want you to tell me. For once in your life, just tell me how you feel.”

“I feel stupid. I feel betrayed. I feel like I have not slept properly in a month, because I haven't. I feel like I was a corpse recently, because I was. Is this what you want to hear?”

“I want you to answer the question.”

Gideon stopped, took a deep breath. “We both already know, Harrow. Why do you need me to tell you?”

“Plausible deniability.”

She hesitated for a very long time. “I never wanted to be separated from you, either. I kidded myself about being your rightful equal when we were kids, but I don't think I even believe that now. My life was always going to be—you. I knew that. I just. Became alright with it. At some point. It was like—like, imagine if someone took your bones away, or something. The ones you carry around in your pockets, I mean, not the ones in your body. But kinda those too? Like, if everything that made you you was suddenly stripped away and you were useless. And I had to watch, Harrow, all of it, knowing I could help you. Knowing I could save you, if only you'd let me fulfill my only purpose that ever really mattered.”