#thewonderfulsticherofoz

[liesmyth]

What with the regency inspired cohort uniforms, the rapiers, and John's known love for classical literature it is a fully incorporated part of my belief system that he based the aesthetic of the nine houses on the 1993 Much Ado About Nothing.

ARE YOU SAYING COHORT UNIFORMS LOOK LIKE THIS

If that's the case, I. Am not immune to Cohort imperialist propaganda either. Sorry to say.

[procrastinationaccount]

Gideon responding to Aiglamene telling her to give Harrow a weapon with “I gave her my life” in CHAPTER TWO… later giving Harrow her life AS A WEAPON when Harrow is the only one who doesn’t see her as a bomb or want her as a weapon but a person…this reread is going to kill me

😞

This is a great point, and generally it's crazy how consistently Gideon phrases it as her giving herself to Harrow rather than Harrow taking her life from her. The line you pointed out in chapter fucking two, not looking frantically for her phrased as "giving up," the ease with which she falls into "I am your creature" and "battery up"...babygirl is unwell for her and she always has been and she's always kind of known it.

[theriverbeyond]

I hope Harrow pulls a Hadestown Orpheus and is in hell rn unionizing all the non resurrected necromancy fuel souls

THE HARROWING OF HELL

[lady-harrowhark]

Happy birthday :) I love your blog and hope your next decade is lovely!

Thank you so much! I hope your next decade is lovely as well 🥰

[liesmyth]

fan theory: Gideon’s narration in HtN is somehow her telling the story to Harrow as the end of Alecto as so that the story exists as some kind of eternal recurrence. This is the two drunk girls in the diner aspect she referenced

HI HELLO I LOVE THIS ACTUALLY. I WANT TO BELIEVE

[liesmyth]

random piece of gossip I work at a library and someone lit a trash can on fire and they apparently showed up again today our Slack is wild rn

lit a trash can on fire. IN A PUBLIC LIBRARY. i have so many questions

[liesmyth]

my hottest makeup tip is that if you want to learn to do dramatic eyeliner looks you should use gel eyeliner or eyeshadow and a liner brush, not a liquid pen. It’s way easier to control and a little shake of your hand won’t ruin the look like with a liquid eyeliner. If you want more tips from someone who kind of sucks at makeup but is trying not to let me know!

OK I feel very clever actually because I've been meaning to try that! I don't own gel eyeliner BUT I have a tiny jar of tinted brow gel and use that instead (it doesn't hold but getting handier at the application is the biggest hurdle for me). I'll totally get gel eyeliner when summer sales start!

[liesmyth]

I think John is going to have a Prospero arc where he gives his magical powers back to the earth and retires, giving up his goal of revenge, so his daughter can get married. And everyone is going to be so mad about it

I love everything that ends with everyone so mad about whatever happens to John, but I hope his retirement is also extremely annoying for him personally. Maybe he forgot how to work his body without his powers and he bitches and moans every time he gets a cramp or cuts a finger cooking. Maybe he's somewhere without a kettle and he has to microwave his tea water.

I want him to stay alive but in a way that's very bizarre. He should get turned into a llama

[liesmyth]

Thinking about Harrow deciding to live forever in case the body ever woke up; finding this intense religious love that stopped her committing suicide. And then thinking about her immediate willingness to die for Gideon-her conviction that she can't live in a world without her...a deep relational and interpersonal love defeating the devotional religious love she's spent the past eight years dedicated to...something something alone is alone not alive. Love bookends. Religious love and relational love set up against each other so many times within the series-I would argue that the crossover between the two is what did in all the OG lyctors. I feel like there's a point about worship and love being different things made in the text, and when the two mix that's when you become one of devotion's casualties. You can't have both and survive. Anyway it really is love all the way down, isn't it? Oooof I've got to go write a reflection due at midnight thanks for reading my procrastination thoughts.

I feel like there's a point about worship and love being different things made in the text, and when the two mix that's when you become one of devotion's casualties.

This sentence punched me in the face and I haven't recovered yet.

I'm thinking about this now. I don't know what I'm thinking but I'm having so many emotions about it

[liesmyth]

I think it was you who posted something about why Christabel was described as so dumb in HtN yet seemed very articulate and sensible pre-resurrection and I just saw that post about her namesake poem where she’s cursed to not be able to warn anyone…anyway something something Christabel figured out/remembered something she wasn’t supposed to and to protect John or herself Alecto did something so she couldn’t tell anyone and that’s why she came off so dumb…what if the OG diy lobotomy was performed on Christabel Oct

I love the implications of Cristabel's name trivia! I love Alecto, but I'm also definitely on team 'She will make things WORSE'. I believe there was a valid reason why Mercy and Augustine were so terrified of her, and John and Anastasia (who liked her!) went along with locking her up. Pyrrha and presumably G1deon liked her, but tbh I'm not sure they're necessarily good judges of characters. "You have not begun to see the horrors of love", well, I think SHE is the horror. Alecto deserves it tbh <3

Though it wasn’t me who made that original Cristabel post! I know which one you mean but can’t remember the OP so I can’t link it. I think it’s a fascinating take but I’m also not sure that there’s necessarily a discrepancy between Cristabel pre-Resurrection and after; I think it could also be a case of narrative bias.

All we know of Cristabel in NtN comes from John, who thought very highly of her. He made his space empire Catholic-themed, he called her “sister”, and her thoughts on the soul were a massive influence on the work he was doing in the last weeks before the nukes. She also made him God with her sacrifice — she left a mark. We’re also told that Cristabel worked closely with Alfred doing some accounting detective work, so presumably, she was good at numbers. I don’t think this goes against anything we’re told in HtN.

The person who describes Cristabel as dumb in HtN is Augustine, who hates her guts. ("Did not have the intellect you’d ordinarily find in a sandwich or an orange, and was a sickening twerp into the bargain" Oh Augustine :D) He also calls her “a fanatic and an idiot” and I don’t think this necessarily means that she was as dumb as a brick. It means that she was a single-minded zealot. This lines up with pre-Resurrection Cristabel, imo. She shot herself in the head in front of a close friend who was already on the edge of a mental breakdown, in the middle of a massive emergency, with no warning and only a cryptic explanation, for no good reason.

Yes, she thought (and was right) that her death would help John find the soul. But at that point, none of them had grasped the full extent and implications of John’s powers, not even him. Yes, her death sparked John’s apotheosis, but they hadn’t known this would happen. In a moment where it was in everyone’s best interests that he’d calm down — if he had been lucid, maybe he could have prevented the shoutout in the compound! — she just went and pushed him over the edge.

TLDR: I agree that Cristabel’s name means Something and possibly Alecto did something to her because there’s no faster way to get on Mercy’s shitlist than fucking with Cristabel. But I’m also team Augustine. She was a fanatic

[theriverbeyond]

I work with toddlers and preschoolers and I can’t think about baby Gideon and Harrow for too long or I start wanting to rend my garments. I can’t handle any kind of horror or super dark stuff involving kids because I’ll inevitably start thinking about the kids I work with; like I almost didn’t finish reading The Handmaid’s Tale because every time she talked about her daughter I thought about the girl I was nannying at the time and wanted to die. It’s the only stuff I really can’t do lol

ur so fair for that actually and the horror of Gideon n Harrow's childhoods is it isn't like.... the fantasy horror of other parts of tlt, yknow? like yes Harrow basically taxidermies her own parents and there are bones walking around everywhere but the true, basic horror of their childhoods is just..... neglect and abuse.

a child who'se caretakers despise and exploit her, growing up made of knives. another child forced to bear the guilt of her parents and the expectations of a generation. adults who are cruel and cold, even to their golden child, just in a different way. it's so MUCH

[liesmyth]

I know I’m late but top 5 discworld books!

ooooh this was SO hard. I haven't actually read all the discworlds because. I don't want to run OUT of discworld books. but here are my faves out of the ones I've read

Night Watch

Going Postal

Monstrous Regiment

Guards! Guards!

Reaper Man

[liesmyth]

You just know that Ianthe is furious that Gideon manages to be pathetic in a dramatic waifish martyr way that everyone finds fascinating while she is pathetic in a slimy wet rat way that everyone finds repulsive. She's piloting Babs's corpse while absolutely fuming that death just gave Gideon intriguing gothic wounds that Harrow will probably find riveting and sexy and heal in a way more intense erotic way than her bone arm, the one thing she currently has going for her. RIP Ianthe you never stood a chance

Gideon, dead, makes a "yummy corpse". Ianthe, alive, looks like she's been buried for fifty years.

Although you bring up a very important point: WOULD Harrow, known necrophiliac, be more into Gideon and her speed holes, even though they are icky exposed flesh. Or would she be more into Ianthe, who could fingerbang her with a BONE HAND, which Harrow herself made (so it'd be like getting fingered by her own genius, let's face it) but is also disappointingly alive?

[liesmyth]

we also have someone who called so many times to complain about the bathrooms that the executive director had to give him her direct line so he would stop bothering the people who work the phones. And our bathrooms are pretty nice as far as public restrooms go! And we had to ban reserving meeting rooms more that a few days in advance because people would reserve them for months and use them as like businesses meeting spaces and some other lady got so mad about that that she wouldn’t stop calling to try and reserve the rooms into DECEMBER. She also was given the director’s direct line so she’d stop bothering people. The public is insane.

MORE LIBRARY INSANITY........ you deserve a medal

[liesmyth]

Ianthe is not a villain. She wants to be a villain really badly and is failing :) which is the best thing about her. She has the same energy as Spike in the first half of Buffy

I just think she would be WAY too flattered by the fandom's portrayal of her. Same for EJG frankly

[liesmyth]

I’ve been wanting to read wolf hall for forever and you inspired me to finally get started! Fingers crossed that my adhd lets me finish it

WOLF HALL IS SO GOOD. THOMAS CROMWELL SAD EVIL LITTLE MEOW MEOW OF ALL TIME