#neph tltposting

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john gaius is an interesting character because he is a charismatic and nice and funny guy AND he is an indigenous man living in his homeland that has been colonized by a brutal imperial force for centuries AND he's an anticapitalist working hard to prevent climate change AND he's a biologist trying to save all of humanity and get everyone out alive, not just the elite with the means to pay for it AND he is an indigenous healer being targeted and hunted down by multiple colonial governments AND he is entrusted with the powers to save people by the spirit of the earth itself AND he kills everyone on the face of the planet to try and stop the trillionaires from leaving but fails AND he resurrects his colleagues and friends but wipes their memories AND he cannot forgive himself but also cannot let go of the very feeling that made him guilty to begin with AND he puts the soul of a planet and 10 billion people into a flesh-and-bone doll AND when she is furious at him (what they did to you and what they wrung from you and what shape they made you fill) and scaring the others he locks her away AND he's a masterful manipulator AND his actions towards the earth are a metaphor for sexual assault AND he based an entire society around violating other people's bodily autonomy AND he's committing genocide by killing all the other habitable planets AND he kills his closest friends a second time when they learn the truth about him AND he half-resurrects his own daughter to use as a weapon AND he's a neoliberal fascist and serial liar and in all his time searching for revenge, he still hasn't noticed that revenge is out for him instead

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me and my cavalier saw you from across the ancient decaying palace atrium and we completely fucking hate your vibe

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palamedes: so i take it you have a fraught relationship with your necromancer

gideon: yeah. i hate harrow so much. i hate her so fucking much. i hate her so bad. i hate her masterful use of inch-wide costal cartilage chips to create three fully-formed eight-foot skeletons in under five seconds to pound me bodily into the ground before i slice them up into shreds with my longsword and we both end up standing there breathing heavy and covered in blood, staring at each other. i hate her more than anything. i especially hate the cupid’s bow of her lips and how the divot of her philtrum looks like a sculptor’s thumbprint lovingly pressed into clay. god i hate harrow

palamedes:

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by far the most hilarious parallel between ianthe and gideon throughout this book series is them both being like

externally: sex with harrow? ew, gross lmao

internally: (vibrating with insatiable lust) i need to know this tiny fucked up evil nun CARNALLY and i needed it yesterday

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if i have to see gideon nav mischaracterized by the fandom as a Daddy Dom Top Himbo Golden Retriever Sex God any longer i’m going to go postal. please stop and think for three seconds about why you are portraying a character who is a butch woman of color in this way.

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this whole time i thought cytherea's "nice hair" line was just her being a creep but uh

cytherea going to canaan house and figuring out the weird ninth cav's parentage in 0.005 seconds:

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the thing about gideon the ninth is that it should not work. the whole thing sounds like a fucking disaster. you look at it on paper and it seems like a word salad made into a novel. there's bible shit. there's space shit. there's whodunnit shit. there's Human Anatomy and Physiology BIO 2102 and Lab shit. the characters have names like Williambert Decaheptagoneronagus. there's internet memes for some goddamn reason. none of this should work. and yet somehow it all ends up not only working as a coherent novel and series of books, but being an incredibly profound piece of art on themes of grief, love, and human nature itself. it doesn't pull any punches, even if sometimes the punches are protonjon quips from 2007. thank you tamsyn.

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just for clarification: saw a more meta post about the whole "alectopause" thing the other day so i wanted to say, this is not the fandom being angry at tor or tazmuir or carl or whatever over alecto's release date, at least not within my tlt following/mutual circle. alectopause is about being funny and absurd and coming up with our own content while we wait (however long, because it will be worth it) for atn news/for atn to release. i will say as a general word of advice to the fandom: don't harass tor or carl or tommy arnold or anybody else working on the books. it might have been funny to @/ the tor books account once but let's not make it a habit, okay? art takes time and these people probably have enough stress and pressure as it is.

okay back to your regularly scheduled palamedes lactose intolerance posting

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in the hellish alternate universe where tlt is a shitty cishet ya series, the first book is called “a house of bones and blood”. gideon is a cis man and harrow is marketed as a “feminist prince zuko redemption arc”. griddlehark make out during the pool scene but harrow still can’t get over her feelings for palamedes, who explodes later on in the book to save harrow from cytherea. camilla, the Strong Woman Character, breaks down and cries and loses her sense of purpose. in book 2, “a house of spirits and secrets”, cis man ianthe manages to capture harrow’s heart, to the ire of palamedes and gideon’s ghosts, until the end of the book when jod breaks ianthe’s evil spell on harrow. camilla returns to bring harrow to blood of eden, the evil terrorist rebel group that all of jod's lyctors joined. jodybeth is the only canon queer pairing but it’s not confirmed until after they both die in the final book, "a house of love and loyalty". harrow escapes blood of eden and fights off the villainous camilla (who hates harrow out of jealousy for palamedes being in love with harrow and not her), who then tries to kill gideon, who has come back to life completely intact for no reason. jod fights off camilla and then dies to save his son gideon, who then becomes emperor and seamlessly unites the nine houses and blood of eden. the series ends with gideon and harrow's marriage and the birth of their infant son who is set to inherit the entire universe and can already form a perfect kidney. imperialism is never discussed or even recognized by the author. all of the characters are white except judith and camilla. the series is a number one new york times bestseller for three years in a row. it immediately gets greenlit for a netflix series.

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💀 reverend-daughter Follow day one of not thinking about gideon nav

💀 reverend-daughter Follow relapsed

💀 reverend-daughter Follow relapsed

💀 reverend-daughter Follow fuck it where's tridentarius i'm lobotomizing myself

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see what tamsyn muir taught me is that 9 times out of 10 if you're struggling with a plot that's almost like too introspective on the characters and their arcs, you just need to add a giant fucking monster. oh no the main character is sitting around thinking about her feelings? bone construct. oh no the main character is confused about a corpse following her around or some guy trying to kill her? vengeful soul of a dead planet. oh no the main character just wants to go to school and pet dogs? vengeful soul of a dead planet again. raise the stakes with a horrifying creature: it's the all-in-one plot quick fix

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bumper sticker that says “i love watching my friends deal with psychological torment in real time as they read the 2020 sci-fi fantasy book ‘harrow the ninth’ by tamsyn muir”

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the hottest tlt topic of december 6, 2023 goes to the polls!

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me in anatomy and physiology class when my professor talks about osteocytes or whatever

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it’s amazing how quickly the narrative in gtn establishes that harrow and gideon are each other’s emotional support chewtoys. “you don’t get to turn and leave quite so easily nav” in chapter 2. who in the HELL ever thought anything between these two was heterosexual