#this happened to my good friends gideon and harrow

[sharkneto]

1, 6 and 16?

.1. fave book? MEAN why did you ask me that when it was one of the options, hard question. My default answer is Aron Ralston's autobiography, Between a Rock and a Hard Place (what the movie 127 Hours is based on). I've read it quite a few times and Twin gave me a signed copy for Christmas one year. Idk, reading about a man's mental and physical survival journey to cutting off his own arm (and all his adventures before this moment) hits me in the right spot. Books I've read recently, as I'm getting back into the whole reading thing, I supremely enjoyed Six of Crows and The Goblin Emperor.

6. fave trope? Another hard one. For this I'll say... main character denying that they're Special as they figure out they're Special. I'm listening to The Way of Kings at work and the few chapters it took for Kal to realize something was up, making excuses for why x or y happened, was delightful.

16. fave day? Fan of Thursdays. Something about it being over the hump of the week, get to look forward to the fact that tomorrow is Friday and then the weekend. It's nice.

faves ask game

[fipindustries]

some comments on my second read of the locked tomb trilogy.

*it truly cant be said that you have actually read these books until youve read them twice. suddenly the whole experience is much more seamless, so many things make much more sense. now you can actually follow along what the hell is going on and appreciatte the characters for who they are.

*cytherea really did dulcinea dirty. i didnt notice the first time around but now on a re-read i can see how she played her as this hapless, subtly bitter, seductive nimphette. a picturesque wasting waif who all she can do is philosophise about how unfair her life is. and then you go to the second book and you see how proactive, mischevious and likeable in an honest way the real dulcinea is and you realize cythereas was being either lazy or kind of a bitch

*john comes off as so much more clearly an asshole in everything he says and does. specially in the fact that he obviously goes to great lengths not to admit to himself that he is an asshole.

*there are SO MANY fucking nods and clues and foreshadows of what is going to happen in the following books that its ridiculous, gideon talks about doing friendship bracelets in book one

*going slower through gideon's and ianthe's interaction in book two you can see much more clearly how they would end up as genuine friends by the end of book three. yeah they are squabbling but they are clearly having so much fun even though they wont admit it. gideon genuenly appreciates ianthe's jokes at least twice and they actually form a little bit of a bond shittalking other people and commiscerating over the fact that harrow is not interested in them romantically. i think guideon is impressed that ianthe is not just a snob or a prissy princess or a nerd and that she actually has a sense of humor that is actually very similar to hers and a genuine grit and willingness to get her hands dirty. but also is fucking hilarious that ianthe was actually fucking with harrow when she acted like she couldnt see the bodies harrow was seeing

*i can also see much more clearly how ianthe was kind of justified in saving john, yes a bit part of the equation was her wanting power and being in good standing with the god emperor but also i think she was genuenly concerned when mercy "killed" john and they told her that the entire dominicus system was about to die because of that. i think ianthe is not an idiot and she is capable of thinking longer term than we think.

*this time around i could actually follow the absolute batshit insane mess that was john and alecto and mercy and gideon 1 and pyrrah and guideon 2 that ends with "harrow" having guideon's eyes that were actually alecto's that were actually john. jesus.

[gideonisms]

top 20 characters in tlt who might agree to officiate my wedding ranked by how likely I am to let them:

20. Ortus. it's not a wedding it's a poetry reading now

19. Ianthe. I don't know how this wedding would go or whether it would end up with a marriage or even with all of the guests still intact. Would be interested to find out

18. Mercymorn. She hates you, the concept of marriage, the idea that someone somewhere might be in love, and ceremonies longer than 5 minutes. She Will let you know.

17. cytherea. She shows up in a gown fancier than yours and faints dramatically halfway through

16. Augustine. It could not be more apparent he doesn't give a fuck and he's judging you

15. Wake. your wedding is an excuse to get all your friends in one room so she can destroy them. That said, the speech is pretty good

14. G1deon. he has some interesting ideas about love but he doesn't mention any of them. He gives a brief clearly rehearsed speech you can tell he's put together from a google search

13. Pash. Her speech is mostly swearing and at one point she gets out her knife to gesture

12. Judith. The vows are perfectly correct. It is the stiffest wedding you have ever attended

11. John. Listen the wedding ITSELF would be fine if a bit casual. it's the reception you don't want him to attend.

10. Gideon. She cannot help putting on the gideon nav show on your big day. She puts her own distinct spin on the traditional vows but you're not repeating any of that

9. Pyrrha. she definitely will throw multiple inappropriate jokes in there and/or say something wildly bleak in a cheerful tone. But the rest is so heartfelt you can't be mad at her

8. Camilla. The speech is three sentences long but somehow we are all crying

7. Magnus. He's going to cry. It's going to be lovely but he will cry

6. Alecto. I don't think she'd do a good job but I think the ceremony would be memorable for years to come

5. Coronabeth. she'll pull out all the stops to make it a special event but she may or may not flirt with everyone involved

4. Harrow. The upside is she's so used to holding ceremonies that she can do it in her sleep. She will say the correct thing at the correct time and the wedding WILL happen, but the overtone of impending doom in her speech might kill the vibes

3. Marta, I think she'd show up looking very professional, give it her best shot, and add a bit of humor at the end

2. Palamedes. His enthusiasm is apparent and he's probably officiated a lot of things, only downside is he may or may not ramble a bit

1. Abigail Pent. Assuming she agrees with the wedding I think she'd do a lovely job but if she thinks we're not good for each other we may be back to square one

[starberry-cupcake]

Hello, I haven't had time to read as much as I would want but I'm here with an update regardless, because if I don't keep these constant, I'm gonna forget things and this, so far, seems like a book in which I don't wanna forget things.

previously, in harrowbean the ninth:

this happened

currently, after "parodos" and ch. 1:

so I'm making up a timeline in my head with the information at hand

which is never straightforward

that'd be too easy, here in tlt we like to be kept on our toes

we like to be punched in the gut when we least expect it

so get ready for bad math

this would probably make our good friend palmolive atreides weep

I'm sorry palomilve's force ghost, I'm doing my best

SO

the first entry was the night of the emperor being terminated

the "parodos" bit (we'll get to that) is 14 months before the emperor is snuffed out

ch. 1 is nine months before the emperor kicks the bucket

I believe act 1 is going to be happening around that time, since ch. 2 seems to be following without another indication

because of what happens in "parodos" aka flashback, aka prologue 2: elecric bogaloo, we can attempt to estimate when the events of gideon happened

harrowbean tells ortus in the flashback that he's gonna train with aiglamene for 12 weeks

let's assume that's kind of the amount of time gideon trained, plus the time it took harrow to plot how to girlsplain, gatekeep and gaslight gideon into it

the only one girlbossing here is camilla, I don't make the rules

so, if gideon and harrow were ready to leave the ninth somewhere around 2-3 months after the flashback, it'd be circa 11 months before the events in the prologue

and ch. 1 starts 9 months before the events in the prologue

so gideon might have happened somewhere around 11-10 months before the prologue

I can't tell how long they were in canaan house (it felt like 12 years and 5 minutes at the same time) but I think about a month is mostly right, given that once bodies start dropping, things are all happening together

all of this is relative, since time in space is ????

but I need to do this for my own peace of mind

if you give me time measurements I'm gonna measure, ok?

I need to organize things

I know I will end up making a graphic at some point I just know it

this is what I get for calling palmolive a turbonerd

ANYWAY, MOVING ON

or, moving back, since we're in prologue 2: electric bogaloo aka flashback time

here we have ortus (the one we knew, not the one we will get to know, according to the characters list) telling harrow he doesn't wanna go to the field trip

this is ortus

if you're wondering why I don't nickname ortus, I'll repeat myself but "orto" means "ass" where I'm from, so that's enough to remember him by

harrow is like "I know you're underqualified but we're understaffed, so it is what it is"

the important part is that harrowbean says she sees the barbie in the freezer walking about

like a ghost or whatnot

she refers to her as "the body" and I assume that's barbie in the ice cube because someone reblogged my recap where I mentioned her and tagged

ever since then I've been wondering why she was referred to as The Body and now I'm gonna assume this is it

so harrow tells ortus he needs to hide the fact that she's mentally unstable

[non funny side note: masking is unbearable and it's awful we live in a social and cultural environment where we feel pressured to do it, especially when you're an adult having to fulfill expectations of supposedly "age-specific" activities and responsibilities, it's exhausting and I cried about that in therapy a mere week ago so, hitting hard, this bit

don't let people make you feel "less than" because the way in which you navigate the world and your experiences is different from what's expected in some theoretical socially constructed category

and fuck everyone who, in order to put people down in arguments online, ever make fun of those who aren't mentally, economically or socially as independent as what the category of an adult is supposed to be to them

argue with concepts, argue with opinions and facts, don't tear people down in the name of "moral upper hand" by telling people they're losers for needing help

side note done]

so, harrow entered the whole canaan thing not only carrying the weight of her house, her family and her entire people

she also came into it believing she's not mentally sound and seeing The Body walking around unnoticed by other people

whether or not her visions are mentally unsettled or something that actually happens because she opened the tomb, just the whole situation of her birth is enough to make anyone collapse, so we got you, harrowbean

we're here for you

and all that without mentioning what it'd be like seeing your girlfriend cavalier impale herself in front of you

I'm taking liberties with the 'girlfriend' bit but idk

so, next we know, 5 months have passed from that and harrowcita is struggling in her new environment of the clown emperor's ship

she is made to carry gideon's sword and she can't

she can't seem to know what to do or to communicate with said knowledge and she's throwing up a lot

WHICH IS GREAT!!!!!

I mean, it's not great that she's suffering

but it's GREAT because if she can't communicate with gideon's slurped soul, maybe it means gideon's soul has not been slurped AT ALL

more fuel for my wishful thinking of gideon's soul returning to her and getting regenerated and saved and being alive

I also like very much this situation in which harrow sees the sword as personified and they hate each other without gideon

it's like prim's cat in the hunger games with katniss

but with an inanimate object

I'm really liking that dynamic

is like they both miss her and can't relate to each other

ALSO barbie body ice cube is still there

just chillin' and being silently supportive, I think

not sure what her deal is but what if she's not the bad one here? because this emperor kind of sucks tbh

not in a 'he's evil' way but in a 'idk if he know what he's doing' way

I don't know about this guy tbh

so we're leaving off with harrow being mentally and physically struggling, ghost barbie roamin' the rooms, voices of people organizing stock and gideon in my head like this, walking in limbo to get back to us

also, another day without camilla

I thought I wasn't gonna have much to say and this is so long, I'm so sorry...

[harrowedsoup]

You know I’ll never get around to writing my own Nova Au fic for a ton of reasons but have some of my thoughts:

Gideon wears a full skull mask, I imagine it more like a helmet with just the bottom jaw missing, that’s also decorated with grease paint. She managed to also get the same sunglasses as canon which she’s popped out the lenses of to use in her mask, which before she’d had to modify to cover her eyes as much as possible.

Her need to fit in is what makes her cover her hair and eyes- neither red hair or gold eyes are exactly common and she has a really intense desire to fit in. This is also what makes her very silent. I know must people might disagree with me but I think that’s how Gideon’s shyness and awkwardness would manifest. She’s not completely silent as she’d still need to lead services but she tries to keep herself from talking if she can it. 

However, her Gideon-ness TM comes out whenever she speaks with Harrow, which tends to piss her off a little bit. She’s nowhere near as good at seeming uninterested/calm as Our Harrow and gets upset at herself when she ends up devolving into ‘your mom!’ insults.

I do think she’d keep up her silent act at Canaan. Unlike Our Gideon, Harrow Nova is so dedicated that Gideon wouldn’t be afraid of whatever she got up too so there is no reason to order her silent when Gideon can just order her to play nice (which she of course did immediately) BUT that doesn’t mean that Gideon trusts herself with strangers when she’s a awkward and shy mess. Her ‘vow of silence’ is temporary measure to make sure she doesn’t embarrass herself or the Ninth.

She’s a bit more successful at the whole ‘ Fear The Ninth, Don’t Pity Us’ thing that Our Harrow wanted to happen if only because Gideon is much taller, stronger physically and just hovers around very scary. I also imagine her necromancy is more raw power and less technical skill so she’s throwing around her weight like it’s nothing.

Harrow Nova, through, gets a bit less respect than Our Gideon because she’s like five feet tall. She also doesn’t play nice so she’s doesn’t get that part where Gideon spars with the others: if Nova pulls out her weapons against someone she’s fighting to win and she’s not backing down unless ordered or she’s physically unable too. Fighting isn’t a source of joy to her like Our Gideon, it’s the only thing that she has and it’s what kept her alive.

So while I think everyone thought Our Gideon was Harrow Boy Toy that she’d decided to take with her only to be shocked that she’s actually incredibly good, Harrow Nova is at first assumed to be a weak cavalier that the Ninth is known for (like Gideon was too) then that she’s something closer to a regular bodyguard just because of how on edge she is and how much she lacks normal cavalier etiquette.

Mostly she’s on edge because she trusts no one ever but Gideon wants to make friends but is also shy about it so she’s making Harrow be nice on her behalf.

That said if Gideon ever does make Harrow fight anyone it’s a damn blood bath. Nova doesn’t do etiquette of any kind when fighting. She’s going to use everything she has- she HAS to because she doesn’t have the build of Our Gideon. She’s going to cheat and cheat dirty. She’s going to bite off ears, head butt people and stab men in the dick.

[haphazardlyannotated]

Sometimes I think about an AU where Harrow's birth didn't require 200 child murders.

Gideon and Harrow probably wouldn't have grown up in each other's pockets the way they did in canon, with 200 other kids around. Still, having only about a hundred kids in their approximate age range (I'm assuming continued births with a similar frequency here) would mean that they'd know each other at least in passing.

Harrow without the crushing guilt of 200 lives on her shoulders would not attempt to open the Locked Tomb, and even if she wanted to, she would be much less likely to happen to have Gideon's blood conveniently on her hands in her attempt, plus Gideon would probably not be following her around to catch her in the act. Though somebody else might, to be fair.

Bottom line is, Harrow's parents are probably still alive. While I'm not sure about the psychological consequences of this, one change that does seem likely is that they might arrange a betrothal for Harrow. We already know from GtN that the only reason Harrow didn't end up engaged to Ortus is that they didn't want to mix up the Reverend Family's and their cavalier's bloodline. So this AU's Harrow is probably engaged to a man (or trans woman), since the Ninth doesn't seem to have the resources for whichever technological advancement on artificial insemnation gave Camilla two dads.

So considering that, in this AU Harrow might be the one with eighty-seven escape attempts.

As for Gideon, even with more potential friends around, chances are good she still wants to join the Cohort. She would probably not experience the same level of alienation and downright hatred as in canon, since Harrow's parents have no reason to freak out about her, but the general culture of the Ninth just isn't a good fit for her. Since Harrow wouldn't be as desperate to keep Gideon specifically on the Ninth, I expect she could just make her intentions to pay off her indentured servitude in the Cohort known, and that would be considered a perfectly fine choice for her career. I expect she'd still train under Aiglamene, but as part of a regular program for Ninth House children with stabby ambitions this time.

Which would be how she and Harrow end up stuck together this time.

When the summon for he house heirs arrives, everyone takes a look at Ortus and goes "...yeah, that won't do." So Aiglamene suggests replacing him with her star pupil, Gideon Nav, who was about to go join the Cohort, but could probably be persuaded to step in as Harrow's cavalier if you offered her a little improvement on the terms of her indentured servitude.

As expected, Gideon receives the offer and goes "Sure, I can swing around a toothpick while Harrow takes her employment test, sounds like a good gig to me. And besides, 'Cavalier Primary' would look good on my resumée for the Cohort."

When they reach Canaan House, Harrow still hopes to restore the Ninth House to its former glory, but more importantly, she is desperate to escape her arranged marriage, especially since her eighteenth birthday is alarmingly close and Ortus just stopped being her cavalier.

Gideon meanwhile enjoys sword fighting, actual flavour in her food, and looking at hot women.

Harrow: Are you taking this seriously?

Gideon: Of course I am! I get five years off my contract for this! I'm just saying, what's the harm in having some fun while we're here?

Harrow: If I fail to become a Lyctor, I will have to marry Ortus.

Gideon: *shudders* Fair enough.

Overall, the setting is more of a romantic comedy with the projected ending of the Reverend Daughter scandalously eloping with her cavalier- until the first murders, that is.

Due to Griddlehark not having seventeen years worth of reasons to go for the worst faith interpretation of each other's actions, and Harrow being at least a little less paranoid, they're able to work together with less conflict. However, Harrow doesn't have convenient puppet parents at home to help her realise that the Seventh cavalier is a beguiling corpse, so the net result could easily be the same. The biggest potential difference I can think of is that Harrow wouldn't try to send Gideon away with Jeannemary and Isaac. Since I like the Fourth House babies, I'm going to declare two murders less here.

Overall though, I don't see any clear options here that don't end with Gideon dead on a fence again.

The big difference would be her perception of HtN.

In this AU, Gideon's relationship with Harrow isn't tainted with obsessive hate-love masked as indifference on Harrow's side. This AU's Gideon sees her relationship with Harrow as a spicy forbidden romance, and therefore ironically interprets Harrow's lobotomy much more accurately than canon Gideon, who has been joined at the hip to her Harrow for as long as she can remember, and I'd love to see how that would change her character in HtN and NtN.

Canon Gideon gives us the beautiful, heartbreaking "I gave you my whole life and you didn't even want it" combined with "She can be in hell for all I care, I just need to know where" for the two hit kill.

This Gideon on the other hand knows that Harrow would have married her given the chance and 'only' has to think about how Harrow might have died to save her.

Which raises the question of where Harrow's soul ends up in a world where she never entered the Locked Tomb. My personal theory is that, with no link to Alecto's body, Harrow is pulled back into her own body after Gideon's soul leaves it. Then we get Harrow stuck on New Rho with Pyrrha, Camilla and Palamedes, and Gideon with Jod and Ianthe, both of them desperately trying to find each other.

When Harrow sees the broadcast, she immediately marches to the Compound, blasts open the door and demands to see her girlfriend.

A few days later, the Ninth House receives another letter from the First, informing them that their Reverend Daughter is not a Lyctor anymore, but will wed the Emperor's daughter as soon as he can stay sober through the ceremony.

The End.

[onthecrescentofthehill]

g1deon and pyrrha + gideon and harrow throughlines scattered in all of tlt continue to drive me insane.

the initial investigation scenes post the 5th deaths where the 2nd house tries to pull cohort rank control of the situation, gideon & harrow immediately sneak away to learn that the winnowing trial was developed by the second house and cohort founders, g1deon & pyrrha. winnowing as incorporating the other, refusing distractions for the sake of true control, loyalty and duty.

gideon is wearing his sunglasses, rifling through their things. she doesn’t see it as a real place someone would live in, only a stop along the way to somewhere else, more whole.

she sees a gun on the wall that her mother's ghost will use the river memory of to try and kill harrow in the dream of cannan house:

It took Gideon a long time to realise that she was looking at something goddamn ancient: it was a blowback carbine gun. She’d only ever seen pictures. ….. The hairs on the back of Gideon’s neck had risen when the lights came on, and they hadn’t gone back down, as if her intrusion might well tempt time back to claim its grave goods. GTN chapter 19

Carbine rifle, read the key. For a moment she pitied Judith Deuteros’s last seconds. To be killed with this ancient piece of grave goods! It would have been like being set upon by a ghost out of time. HTN chapter 18

gideon reads "one flesh, one end" for the first time. she tells harrow these people were living in each others pockets, the same phrase she'll later use to describe the two of them. pyrrha spent nearly 10,000 years locked in a drawer in gideon the first’s mind bc he couldn't bear to let her go. gideon tells harrow how they feel like strangers despite growing up together.

harrow cant stand the thought and in less than a month harrow will lock gideon in a drawer and gideon the first will relentlessly try to kill harrow in her waking hours to spare her the agony he'll never learn is closely parallel to his, and when she fails to hear his real name her brain starts bleeding:

And he had said: “Ortus, have pity.”

“This is my pity, Lord,” said the Saint of Duty. HTN chapter 20

g1deon was john’s oldest friend, he carried that suitcase in his loyalty to him. then he becomes an amnesiac, immortal thanergy void, absorbing and nullifying the echoes of that catastrophe. founding the cohort that flips planets in the exact mirror to the ecological tragedy they all sacrificed everything to spare earth from. over and over again.

He didn’t even ask me to explain. That was the kind of guy he was. He and I had grown up on the same street. I’d spotted him for mince pies all the time as kids, so stands to reason he let me cut off his arm and carried a nuke for me. John 1:20

in g+p’s room harrow says that theyre all the ninth house has ( = you’re all that i have). gideon firmly says shes "NO ONE'S son or daughter"

but in less than a year gideon’s mother, sitting opposite her father, will recognize pyrrha with a sense of profound relief before her revenant is unceremoniously killed. gideon will watch through harrows eyes, in hiding:

Harrow, I will never forget the look on her face as long as I live, or as long as I die. (…) It was the smile for your old cellmate who’d just landed back in prison, the one that told them at least you were in it together—or more correctly, the smile of someone stepping out of jail after serving a very long sentence, having seen someone there waiting for her. Someone whose presence meant total reprieve, someone she hadn’t expected. It was a little bit mocking. It was deeply relieved. HTN chapter 50

i don’t have a conclusion to this rn i’m just……much to think abt. the displacement of grief, the loyalty through control, how it just happens over and over and over again and they just bear witness as tools or trapped souls or revenants, clinging to anything they can even if they don’t remember it.

[chilly-weirdo-in-a-tomb]

*Vibrating with excitement* would you like to share opinions on tlt characters zodiac signs. Because I have so many

(Naberius is a Virgo sun Taurus rising imo)

I have a lot of opinions. Bear in mind that I am not an astrology expert and I personally consider zodiac signs simply a fun, sometimes humorous thing and not an end-all, be-all thing. I don’t know a thing about rising signs or moon signs or all that. I don’t even know my own full chart! I’m friends with a very big astrology buff and they—in all seriousness—told me I was born the wrong sign 😂. According to them, I act like a Sagittarius.

But as for my TLT zodiac opinions, I’ve included my thoughts in the tags of each poll I’ve posted. So far, my prediction have been 50/50. I’ll go into more detail about my thoughts in this post, though.

Past polls:

Gideon is an Aries. Two of my best friends are Arieses and they give off the same energy as Gideon. It’s a kind of ‘fuck you if you’re rude, fuck me if you’re hot’ energy. They don’t give a flying fuck what society thinks of them. They’re also incredibly gay. Do I also happen to fall for Aries a lot? Yeah. Am I in love with Gideon Nav? Also yes.

Harrow is a Scorpio. I’m a Scorpio and so is one of my other best friends. I identify a lot with Harrow (we have the same genre of religious trauma/Catholic guilt, as well as a shit ton of grief and loss in our lives), but honestly, I just go with vibes. Incidentally, I’m related to one of people who helped discover Pluto (the planet that rules Scorpio) which is also the Ninth house. Like, legit these bone lesbians are from Pluto. I’ve seen several posts joking about that why Harrow’s so short. Because she’s from a dwarf planet.

Palamedes is a Virgo. This is based solely on one guy I knew in high school. Dude was a walking encyclopedia and had a pair of Pikachu sunglasses. I feel like Pal would wear Pikachu sunglasses.

Camilla my love. I thought Leo. Again based on one person I knew in high school. But Tumblr at large thinks she’s a Virgo and after some thought, I agree.

The Tridentarii are either Leos or Geminis. I said this in the tags, but Leos for personality, Gemini for the meme. My friend from high school is a Leo and she is one of the most driven and determined people I have ever met (so Ianthe it hurts). But she’s also one of the biggest romantics I’ve ever met. Like romantic as in the art/literature movement. She wrote me a fucking poem hyping me up because she saw that I was going through a tough time (self image issues). She compared me to the goddess Athena and I have never been more honored. Ray of fucking sunshine is the most wonderful sense (CORONA AF).

Babs. He was a fucking asshole, but he deserved better than what he got. Taurus. Yet again, based solely on a dude I knew in high school. Voice of an angel that boy. Bust out into a rendition of “A Whole New World” on an escalator one time and no one complained because it sounded so good. But a low key asshole. Not entirely unexpected as he was a tenor. Yes I am throwing shade at tenors. Most tenors (and many sopranos) in my experience are bitchy as fuck. Naberius Tern has tenor energy. Polls ended with Leo taking the win, with Aquarius a close second.

Other:

Dulcinea. The real Dulcinea. My other love. She’s horny for revenge and I love it. Chronic illness Queen. Like, can we please talk about the representation in this series? We have all manner of queer representation, mental illness rep, and chronic illness/disability rep! I know that *spoilers* it’s actually Cytherea in GtN, but then the real Dulcie shows up to be a bad bitch in HtN and I am in love with yet another TLT character. She’s a Libra and I love her.

OUR LADY OF FUCKING PASSION. Pash. TLT’s John the Baptist (take a look at Alecto Theory 11 for more on that). Capricorn. I don’t think I know any Capricorns irl, but from what I know of them, she’s a classic Capricorn.

So yeah, those are my thoughts.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

3

We have a different picture: A tree, with an apple hanging off it.

This is the first time we've had one like this that wasn't a skull, or the tomb, I'm pretty sure. For the first time, it's something living.

(I think we've had heralds as well, but are those alive? Animated by the RB yes, but alive?)

Anyway, this is exciting. Let's read.

Nona didn’t want to be just good-looking and dumb; she wanted to be useful. She was dimly aware that she was not what anyone had wanted. This was why she had gone out and got herself a job, even though it wasn’t a paying one.

I love her so much. Did I say that already? I love her.

Cam had to tell the nice lady that Nona was nearly nineteen. The nice lady was totally foxed. “But she’s such a dot.”

Tiny Harrow's body. Mercymorn believed without a shred of doubt when Harrow told her she was fifteen. She's just little for her age. And this is adorable, except for giving random people our exact address. Don't do that, Nona.

They told her Nona couldn’t read or write and the nice lady said, Oh.

Did they teach her to write her address and flat number only, then? Nona wrote that much down for the teacher.

Then Pyrrha, much to Camilla’s disgust, flirted outrageously with the nice lady teacher until the nice lady teacher left.

Damn, Pyrrha.

(Extremely happy we're getting to know Pyrrha a bit better now!!)

Instead of getting to know what pimp was, she got in trouble for giving anyone their door number and house number. Nona cried, lavishly and immediately, but Camilla and Pyrrha wouldn’t budge.

I love her being so in touch with her emotions. So far we've seen Harrow and Gideon, both very detached from their bodies and feelings. Maybe Nona is who is left behind when neither Harrow nor Gideon are around to "drive". Plural vibes. I like it.

When she emerged, spluttering, she had presence of mind to ask: “Why did you flirt with the teacher, even though you didn’t like her?” Pyrrha’s hands stilled from folding laundry, sitting next to the tub. “How’d you know I didn’t like her?” she asked. Nona still didn’t have the words to explain. “Just where you put your body —you only looked at her sometimes, that’s all.” “Wish I’d had you in the Bureau,” said Pyrrha, but she didn’t answer the question.

So she can't just speak and understand all languages, she just intuitively reads people. That's so cool. And also not exactly one of Harrow or Gideon's powers, at least they're not aware of it quite to this extent. It's great.

In fact, she only loved the Hour of Science because that was when she was allowed to look after Noodle, the science teacher’s dog, who was a dirty white creature with six legs and a gentle disposition.

We meet the six-legged dog! I want to know more about why he's got six legs.

It was just as hard to make Nona learn any facts as it was to make her learn the sword or the bones—harder, probably; as she explained all the time, as sweetly as she could, her brain simply wasn’t interested in them. It was as though someone had probably told her everything before and she had already forgotten it.

And knowing how these books tend to go, that might be exactly what happened here.

At school, after the first week, Nona was cornered by five children who informed her that she was now their friend. “Okay,” said Nona. “Hot Sauce wants you,” she got told.

Oh cool some kids! These are the people mentioned on the birthday guest list, then - a bunch of children from the school. Nice.

“What’s special about the Building?” she asked. “It’s banned,” said Honesty. One of the other children, Beautiful Ruby, said: “My mother says that if you get caught downtown or you shoot at the wrong window you get taken to your building.”

The building Nona lives in almost evokes prison. Maybe it is, or at least a place to dump undesirables.

Hot Sauce simply said: “She talks to the Angel. She gets to look after Noodle.” The Angel was what they called the nondescript, washed-out, dusty-haired personage who came to teach the Hour of Science. Why they called her the Angel was unclear,

Another person from the guest list, the Angel, the science teacher. Cool stuff.

“I don’t,” explained Nona. “Honesty found someone else to buy him drugs, so I don’t have to.” “Is his name really and truly Honesty?” Palamedes wanted to know. Nona struggled. “That’s how I hear it. Anyway, he shouldn’t be called Honesty at all, he tells huge lies and he’s trying to teach me too.” Nona longed to lie, but didn’t know how to stop her body from showing the truth;

Aha - one of the things we know about Alecto is that she "never managed to lie", according to Augustine. The same thing could be stopping Nona from lying. Or maybe she just knows her body will betray her lie, and decides being honest is easier.

Honesty, the kid, reminds me a bit of serial liars like Trump, who called his platform "TruthSocial" and uses it to lie egregiously 24/7. Perhaps a bit unfair to this kid, but I do find it funny he's called Honesty while being a huge liar.

Every so often an absolutely enormous earthquake rumbled beneath them, and when Nona first asked what it was, Hot Sauce said, “The Convoy”; and because it was Hot Sauce and not Honesty, she knew it had to be true. How wonderful it sounded—The Convoy—so big and mysterious and subterranean.

I'm not sure we've heard about this before! Some underground mode of transport like a train? Like Nona, I wanna know more.

Pyrrha explained that it was a bunch of vehicles driving in a line, probably very big ones. But she never quite got over that little shake, that tight vibration of the stomach when the Convoy was near, how it excited her somehow. It was like she could feel something wonderful in it.

I really hope Nona gets to see the Convoy.

“You’ll join, Hot Sauce, won’t you? Hot Sauce will join.” “Join what?” said Nona, the ignorant one. Which made the others do their usual chorus of— “Nona doesn’t know.” “Nona doesn’t know anything.” “Tell Nona.” And Honesty, who had been very nice since the cigarette arrangement, said: “When we leave school, we’re going to kill zombies, we’re gonna kill necromancers.”

Join Blood of Eden? It makes sense that kids don't join from birth, but it seems like BoE are pretty popular round these parts.

Honesty said, “Some of the zombies go spying outside the barracks, they ain’t all mad. That’s why you got to make sure you see all your friends eating and bleeding, or, you know—bam, you’re dead, or bones, or worse.” “I eat,” protested Nona.

Shh, don't tell them you're a necromancer! (Not that Nona is, really. She's not got any necromantic ability.)

“The necromancers will come back. They may already be here.” [...] Eventually Beautiful Ruby broke the silence and said, “What about Varun, Hot Sauce? What about Varun the Eater?” “It’s here for them,” said Hot Sauce. They looked up through the big crack at the blued sky respectfully.

Varun the Eater? Is that one of the resurrection beasts? It would make sense, if "it's here for them".

The Resurrection Beasts don't like any necromancers, but particularly don't like Lyctors, and especially don't like God. It's a shame none of them are anywhere near here. No necromancers to be seen. No Lyctors. Hush.

Nona whispered, “Join what, Hot Sauce?” Hot Sauce didn’t answer her. When she did say anything, she asked a question instead, which was irritatingly like Pyrrha. “You like it here?” “I love it here,” said Nona sincerely. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” “You’re sweet,” said Hot Sauce.

I love this interaction, even though we don't know anything more about BoE from it.

What a great chapter. I love Nona, I love these kids, I can't wait what sort of adventures they're gonna get into.

[elfieafterdark]

GtN Chapter 3 Review!

Sorry it's been awhile friends! Things have been absolutely wild in my personal life, and the stress has prevented me from doing much of anything.

But, we back bitches! Let's get to the review!

Random Observations:

The line "eight new Lyctors joined with their cavaliers;" from the Emperor's summons gives me fucking chills 😬

I've always loved the description of the luminescent powder that the Reverend family paints on their face for service.

Sister Glaurica KNEW "what fate awaits cavaliers"... So uhhh, did she know about the eight-fold way??

"I pray the tomb is shut forever," recited Harrowhark, with the curious fervidity she always showed in prayer. Nah Gideon, she's just a simp and a hopeless romantic.

Part 1: Oof.mp3

What a spectacularly devastating chapter. The first two work really hard to endear us to Gideon, and to make us really really really hate Harrow. We want Gideon to escape at this point, we want her to have a grand adventure with the space military or something.

We want her to succeed, and Muir pulls the wool over our eyes effectively with her evocative descriptions of the chapel and prayer, then she lays it on extra thick with the mystery of the Emperor's summons.

We don't notice that Crux is escorting Glaurica and Ortus TO the shuttle, we don't notice that Harrow intentionally blocks Gideon from leaving the sanctuary with her skeletons to delay. And that she indulges Gideon's taunting, all to buy enough time for Ortus and Glaurica to take Gideon's shuttle.

We are just as devastated as Gideon when Harrow reveals the game. Reveals that through dumb luck, Gideon's plot was revealed. Without the summons Gideon would have gotten off free and clear. But she doesn't, and that realization hits those of us who know what happens at the end of this book even harder.

A brief word on the Reverend Daughter:

Like everyone else who reads this chapter, the first time I read it I instantly doubted what Harrow said at the end of the book. I instantly went online and talked to my friends who were also reading it and said, "People who hate each other don't put this much effort into it." And they all agreed.

Poor little lady Harrowhark, she can't let go of her griddle can she? All her life she's had to give, all her life she's been neglected and put on a pedestal that alienates her from most people.

Except Griddle. Who doesn't give a shit about any of that. Griddle, the thing she possesses that she doesn't want to give up. She jealously covets Gideon with a fervor beyond any other faith she demonstrates in the series. We also know that this is true given the pool scene later and the REST OF THE FUCKING SERIES.

I imagine a lot of the detail around Harrow's feelings towards Gideon were added in the polishing step of Muir's writing because this is so good. Despite our limited viewpoint in this book, in retrospect Harrow's actions are consistent and clearly motivated.

She feels a very special way about griddle, and she drops the act the instant she realizes Gideon is in real danger at Canaan house. It's beautiful. It's peak fiction. It's so well thought out and well done.

Verdict

God, it's such a spectacularly constructed scene. It's exceedingly clever, and it pulls off what it needs to do perfectly. Muir's writing isn't always perfect in my opinion, but this chapter is an example of her at her very best.

A great chapter, my depression got slightly worse after reading the end of this chapter and that's a great thing.

So naturally, I had to keep reading. And so shall we next time!

[carica-ficus]

"Gideon the Ninth"

07/12/2023

Reading progress: 443/443 (100%)

Read through since last update: 167

So... It seems I'm at the last reading update... I actually didn't plan to cram so much into one post, but I got really into reading for a day or two, and then managed to get to the last 50ish pages and said fuck it. I'm not gonna say much except that I didn't expect for it to be that bloody, then at the end got so used to it that I had no other choice to just close the book and think to myself "Well. This happened." I will be writing a concise review as I do with each book I read, but I'm just gonna say I loved it very much. (This is, of course, a big understatement, but yeah... I'll gush about it in my review.) SPOILER WARNING! (Like always.)

Without further ado, my thoughts:

I might have been unbothered by the first two deaths, but I sure as hell am not ok after the end of Act 3. Was all that really necessary?? 😭😭

Yooo that scene when Gideon forces Harrow to siphon from her again is??? Hhhhhh... Made me feel a few things. Here's a graphic rendition:

I'm glad Harrow is banning Gideon from seeing Dulcinea. And the thing she mentions about the keys - she's right, it really doesn't make sense. It stuck out to me before, but I just forgot to comment on it. In any case, it's extremely suspicious. Protesilaus is also probably missing because of a distinct reason, related to his adept. Wouldn't be surprised if the Seventh is the one going around killing people.

Of course Silas turned out to be a little weasel. But at least Colum has some dignity.

Oh yeah, Corona is definitely not a necromancer.

Ok, but why am I not surprised that Harrow is the one who had her fingers in Protesilaus's disappearance? Honestly, she's the second most suspicious person in the mansion, but I love her, so I don't care.

HELLOOOOOOOO???? HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO????

First plot twist I have not expected. At all. I'm shooketh, as one might say.

Aww man. False alarm. >:( (This was about Gideon't claim that she murdered Harrow's parents.)

Oooh, but the big revelation was good! It was just a matter of time, so my reaction was more like "Ah! Finally!", than :O (Future me talking here: I'm not entirely sure what this is referring to? I'd guess it was about the Locked Tomb.)

Not Dulcinea doing the King Harold from Shrek dying scene 💀

"I had reason to believe," said Harrow, "that you would trust her more than you trusted me."

"You are my only friend. I am undone without you "

Stuff just kept happening and people just kept dying. Didn't even get the chance to write it all out, and another one was on the floor. Anyway... WHAT THE FUCK.

Honestly, I thought stuff would get all tangled up and I would lose my footing, as I heard most people do. (Or will, in the next book.) So I'm just glad I could follow along quite nicely. It all made sense in the end, even the stuff about Dulcinea. I wasn't too surprised she's the culprit, I'm just surprised how she's the culprit.

PALAMEDES!!!! NOOOOOO!!!!!!

"I can't conceive of a universe without you in it." Again, Muir going straight for the jugular. I know she likes to kill off her characters, but she doesn't need to kill of her readers as well.

Ok, you know what. I knew there would be no happy ending. We all knew Harrow couldn't become Lyctor without Gideon dying. So, I am not surprised it happened. But I am also NOT OKAY.

Man, I love Harrow. I love her in the epilogue. I love her in the last chapter. I love how much she cares, how much she always cared. And I love how her relationship with Gideon evolved over time. Ugh. Uuughhh!

Ok, yeah... This was an experience. I'll be ordering Harrow soon and.... Yeah. I'm (not) prepared for more heartbreak.

[tomomiisasleep]

ok. I am now reading the locked tomb for the first time and it's sooooooo frickin good and I need to scream to someone about it.

but I'm Chinese and have no friends that would give a shit about this. and I have an empty tumblr account. so I've decided to turn this into a real-time reaction blog, so I could look back on my thoughts during my first read and maybe someone would be interested to read through the progress of a lesbian screaming about lesbians

future posts would not have the main tag.

anyways, currently at ch14 in the first book, not too late to start.

Best part IMHO(in my humble opinion)so far was how the paragraph describing Harrow's parents ended with "oh that's because they're dead"

I was on the bus when that happened and tears of excitement filled my eyes as I read that SHE WAS TEN when it happened

after that I've been wrecking my mind about how the Ninth just went into absolute shit sometime after Gideon landed. why did all the babies die? why no reproduction afterwards? why do they need so many skeletons sitting with them during prayer? are they sentient? I doubt that. should they be there cuz they're made with the bones of people who were in the religion and it's part of it?

also how the f does Harrow create mass out of a crrumble of mass? she probably transformed thanergy into mass. E=mc^2 and all that. that's necromancy for you. man, I already love her, with all her devotion and iron will.

[thatneoncrisis]

20 questions for 20 writers!

tagged by @waitineedaname thxx

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

21 works, i feel like thats a healthy number

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

i have 439,385 words, a very large chunk of that is from We Have Always Lived in the Apartment

3. What fandoms do you write for?

right now its the locked tomb, used to be homestuck, i have some crossovers with the magnus archives and one with john dies at the end

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

We Have Always Lived in the Apartment -- TLT horror mystery modern au

Insert Jesus Allegory Here -- solkat focused continuation of karkats pesterquest route, i NEED my new fics to get more popular than this oh my god

Gehenna the First -- TLT houseswap au with harrow as god

the gap between a tragedy and comedy (in this life its just you and me) -- TLT coffee shop au.

What's Eating Gideon Nav?  -- TLT catholic boarding school horror au

5. Do you respond to comments?

not typically, theres some weird thing with my head where i kind of hate that it counts my comments in the total comment amount. i cant explain it i just dont like how it looks, plus just repeating variations of "thank you!!" feels hollow after a while. im more likely to answer direct questions about the story rather than general commentary i do love talking about my thought process and intentions

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

ok so i cant actually tell you this because none of those fics are Done yet but all you need to know is that i consider all of my TLT fics tragedies to some extent. take that as you will. i dont even Like the word angst really it portends a level of melodrama id like to avoid

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'd say its a dead tie between A Brief Lesson In The Occult and Shit. Let’s Build A Fort. i can barely look at these anymore and if you read them and feel compelled to tell me you like them: dont. i can do better now

8. Do you get hate on fics?

never to my knowledge has anyone ever publicly disliked one of my fics. in fact sometimes i dream about someone posting it in their discord group chat and making fun of it because im so curious about what theyd say

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yes i have. i do it almost exclusively as satire or character analysis as i find like, the physicality of sex to be inherently kind of goofy. liek the second you have to describe a dick or boobs with words the magic is gone it just becomes weird silly looking flesh. so i like focusing on weird and bad sex, unsatisfying or clumsy sex. sex that changes you in no significant way

10. Do you write crossovers?

yes i have. A Brief Disappearance and Statement of David Wong are both TMA/JDATE crossovers and i DID write a homestuck/TMA crossover but its not on my ao3 i guess? odd

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

no? does that happen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i think once someone asked but i have no clue if it happened

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

@notedchampagne is my co producer in all things forever but ive basically written everything myself and they help polish it up

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

shiiiiiiite uh. jade/davepeta still means a lot to me. i think there are a lot of really engaging ships in TLT but i always kind of default to griddlehark i just kind of understand them the best

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

eventually SAM and i would like to circle back to our fanventure Therapystuck but we both got really busy with school, work and a general lull in the HS fandom. also maybe someday ill go back to Insert Jesus Allegory Here i liked the direction of the story i just have to get myself back in that headspace. being into homestuck Does something to you, like psychologically

16. What are your writing strengths?

after asking some friends theyve told me im good at tone, prose, funny metaphors, and dialogue but a caveat for the last thing as "I have yet to see how your Own guys talk and how you'd handle distinct voices from scratch so I'm only giving you about 80%"

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i hate like. writing Around the important bits of a scene. i love the physicality of characters and what it reveals about them, along with pieces of the scene the narration deems important or interesting enough to mention to the audience. but im always worried im jsut fucking yapping. also i hate like, political scenes theres a rhythm to them that i dont quite understand. people sitting around using specific language that Feels important in a way that doesnt make it clear im bullshitting like 99% of what theyre talking about

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

AHAH. GOD. i actually looked this up the other day because theres an original story i want to write where i want to make it clear theyre basically speaking french the whole time, even though its written in english. i only speak english (i took some french in hs, its left me though i want to pick it up again) so i wouldnt know anything about how it reads to polyglots but i guess theres really only so much you can do outside of literally learning a new language just to write a story for free. ive seen a whole host of tips so i gues sit just matters how you employ them

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Homestuck. my only regret is that i wasnt a better writer

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

FUCK christ uuuuh. favorite right Now would be The Apartment but EVENTUALLY id like it to be Gehenna the First because its the hardest to write and i need it to pay off. if you havent read it uhhh. hi. hello. you should do that. i think its really cool and fun and junk

CHRIST who to tag i dont follow big writers uuuh @tranquilitybasehotelcasino and @accidentallyadorable sure have fun

[7sage9]

the unwanted guest thoughts

OBSESSED with the format as a stage play... makes so so much sense for ianthe and the third house

funeral part is so cool and sexy and i wonder if thats insight into how funerals actually are on the third

palamedes' mask being shattered and glued together like his skull....

ianthe slaying in all her fits... wait this reminds me of a dream i had a while ago in which ianthe duelled someone and did a ton of costume changes... i literally predicted it

ianthe being the lady and the master of the house... unprecedented levels of gender

significance of 7 coffins?? bc of 7 original lyctors??

the VOICE!!! my first instinct was dulcie but how?? so i thought maybe babs or someone else?? but i was right!!

still unsure of significance of "did your tingue ever toungle" maybe shows ianthe not being in complete control??

not the playing strip poker with harrow...

fascinated by ianthe and pal's differing views of the job of the cavalier... to die for vs protect the necromancer

"because you never stop to check the price tag" FUCK

is palamedes actually shocked by the third house assigning cavaliers as babies or is he pretending to get ianthe to share more?

oh ortus... blown up for being sad

would love to read about one of ianthe and corona's insane birthday parties

should have seen earlier how much the gideon nav description was shaped by babs, it makes so much sense

something about ianthe disqualifying her opponents as a form of winning... she never plays fair

the more we get of her the more i LOVE DULCIE!!!

DYING to know what happened to dulcinea after harrow's river bubble collapsed

"I loved you. I love you still. I would have worked out how to love you better over time." "It would have been very beautiful. Camilla would have had to cook. But I didn't just want beautiful..." "This again? From you and her both? That merely by loving you, I added to your torments?" FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK IT REALLY ALL COMES BACK TO LOVE ALWAYS...... DYING

cant stop thinking about how ntn must have been such a cruel mirror to the domestic life they dreamed of with dulcie

"You two were my best friends, and that was real. I loved real, ugly, unfinished things. Gracelessly uncompleted things. There's freedom, too, in not ever being completed." FUCK DULCIE I LOVE YOU

its a river... there are two shores... still so curious about the river

"Was I cute?" "You're perfect." AAAAAAAAAAAAA <3 <3 <3

"would you have used your sister instead?" YES!!! THAT IS THE QUESTION!!!

"Or... Coronabeth herself is part of your goal. You can't spend her, because you'd invalidate the very thing you were trying to buy." WOAGHHH i am so so curious about ianthe's plan

THE FINAL QUESTION... THE FINAL REVEAL...

the implications of souls bleeding and mingling... first of all for the OG lyctors... how much of what we were seeing was alfred and cristabel and pyrrha (though its probably slightly different for them)?? how much of pyrrha is g1deon??

and this has SO MANY implications for the gideon harrow alecto nona situation... simultaneously makes things clearer and a lot more complicated, if there doesn't have to be an actual transfer of soul bits, but they just do it naturally when together

overall SO GOOD!!! so much analysis potential of course and also just gutwrenchingly, horribly beautiful, like everything she writes

[dabblingreturns]

When I started Harrow the Ninth I hated Mercymorn. I hated Augustine, I scorned both men called Ortus, for their weakness, though this rant only deals with G1deon. I hated those adults with all the fury of two infinitely and continuously wronged teenage girls. But then I read Harrow again and again and Gideon and Harrow....and finally Nona and Nona and Harrow again.

And my understanding of them had changed.

I see adults trapped in webs of thier own unreversable consent.

I see adults, who at one timed agreed, and participated...maybe they didn't have all the information...maybe they suspected, maybe they knew almost everything, or maybe their hands was forced, but they agreed.

But it doesn't matter who knew what, or who didn't think things through.... because now they are trapped. They don't know how to get off this ride. Things have changed. They have changed. They have sat too long with their own pain, hatred, and grief, a loneliness, or regret.

They have spent this time frozen, but not unaffected.

The events of Harrow the Ninth give them a chance to break free of their own prison.

Because now they have Harrow to worry for and to think about. And Ianthe to think because of and worry about.

Just like Anne of Green gables, or Spy x Family, or Interview with a Vampire, nothing changes the dynamic of your life like a kid.

And Harrow is a kid to them. They know intellectually, that she is at least 15. But she is so small, and frail, which no figure, which makes her look even more childlike. I don't think any other necromancer, except possible Isaac, could have created the the feeling in the adults brain that "this is a child!" Quite as violently as Harrow did.

And Augustine was an older brother....he was a protector....and now he is living with a child who looks like the sad little sister of his dead friend, Anastasia, and at the back of his mind is a voice saying....don't let bad things happen to this one....not like the others. And he doesn't always listen to it....but it's there.

And Mercymorn looks at this child, and once before she was Mercymorn, she was trained as a doctor, and she probably had patient, and some of them were probably children or teens. And the woman who wasn't called Mercy yet, saw what the world could do to them at least physically speaking, and she tried to fix it. Was M so devoutly pro-choice because her had to do those procedures?....and did she see the aftermath of stolen choices? Did she see those who's choices were taken away from? Maybe M didn't work with those patients, maybe she just heard stories....but she cared, and now she's been given another child and this one probably reminds her of her self. With her brains, and religious furver, her love of the human body, her inability to read the room, and her dead best friend. Mercy may not be able to remember her won childhood, or her own time as a doctor.....but Harrow the ninth makes it clear that just because you don't remember someone, doesn't mean they cant haunt you.

And G1deon, called "ORTUS", I don't know what he sees, I don't know what memories do and don't exist in his brain for 10000 years of being the emperor's dog. I don't know if G1deon was haunted by the child he lost the same way Pyrrha was. But I think G!deon sees a broken child, or at least the top of her head, and Pyrrha said, that he did like an underdog. And in Nona the ninth, Pyrrha said that G!deon liked Harrow.

And that's only Harrows physical effect. Then there is Harrow's actions...the adults are forced to sit there for months and watch "the work" and compare Harrowhark and her work to Ianthe.

And its a stark comparison.

On one arm, they have Ianthe, who did not love her caviler, who is not effected by his loss, who's only issues mastering lyctorhood seams to be in her need to be fully herself. She doesn't grieve, she is not broken, she is smart and clever, good at conversations and an flattery, she is tall and full grown.

And I bet Ianthe is abhorrent to the other lyctors.....she is a threat. A possible new favorite for John. She is competent, charmingish, and shows absolutely no moral compuntions about anything.

She is a monster shaped like pretty young woman to them because she went through the same sacrifice and immersed without guilt.

Mercymorn hated her, G1deon avoided her, and Augustine, Ianthe's teacher, looked for any excuse to put her down. After all, Naberius could have still fought with the other hand. Cavs need to be at least a bit ambidextrous to use two weapons at once. putting her down for having an technical fighting issue in one arm seams a bit of an over reaction. After all, all the lyctors knew that lost limbs don't grown back, so Ianthe can't have been the first lyctor with a few bits missing. I think the problem was never really about the arm.

Then while spending time with Ianthe, the three older lyctors get to see Harrowhark. Harrow who broke herself in her own grief, who had the same choice thrust upon her that Augustine and Mercymorn had. Harrow did ultimately make the same choice to become a lyctor, only to immediately reject it.

Harrow chose to to brake her own mind rather than deal....Harrow is walking around that space station, very clearly not dealing with the consequences of her own actions. Harrow has said, "fuck you" to "action and consequences" Harrow is rejecting reality instead of living with her own guilt. Harrow is not playing by the rules of their polite little society. She's fainting, and bleeding, and stroking out all over the place. She is making a massive fuss. And in her own completely batshit way Harrowhark is fighting back

And the adult lyctors have flirted with fighting back in the past but without much urgency. They played ball with BoE...but the ninth house operation and the wake affair both required no immediate confrontation. John never had to know.

But John sees Harrows rebellion and John let's her rebel...John let's Harrow be crazy, and bleed, and make an ass of herself all over the Mithreaum, and embarrassment is the only consequence.

He doesn't stop The Work....he let's her continue. Harrow is rebelling against her own lyctorhood and the order god made....and he appears to be mildly disappointed....but that's all.

I dont think any lyctor has done this before, regretting it enough that they changed thier own mind.....and Augustine and Mercymorn and the man Harrow keeps calling ORTUS, just have to watch...and sit with there own memories.

And the worst part is that broken little baby harrow is still more powerfull then they are....

They get to watch her heal herself over and over again. They can see the speed. They see how long she can stay in the river. And they see the theorems she uses. They know that she is a bone adept who has ignored flesh and spirit for bone....but her own flesh and spirit are unwavering.

The consequences of Harrows rejection of her own lyctorhood are so much less then any of them ever conceived. They are trapped with a girl who is in a constant state of rebellion against herself and the universe.

And Mercy and Augustine and even G1deon can't ignore this situation.

On one hand they have Ianthe and all the danger she posses to their rank in the status quo, and on the other hand they have Harrow, who constantly reminds them that they don't have to accept the status quo at all. And they like Harrow. She's the feral kitten wondering around their home and occasionally giving them the worst possible food to eat. But she is cute and charismatic and unpredictable and entertaining, in a wet kitten sort of way. And she has so much potential!

And so they have to ask themselves, "is it my job to put this girl down, to releave her suffering, for her own good, because shes not a threat but she's also not right. or do I just let her be...."

And Augustine says, "yeah, I'll go out of my way to protect her from my brother. Because I like her better"

And Mercymorn says "I am the only one here capable of putting her down without suffering, so I will do it at the last moment possible and take the guilt on myself, because I alone deserve to suffer the most!"

And then G1deon says, "I will try to put her out of her misery in the most distressing and half assed way imaginable until everyone complains to much and everyone realizes that this should stop." Or at least G1deon might if he was ever forced to explain his thoughts....ever!

And then Gideon Nav shows up and blows the whole thing wide open. But harrow lit the long fuse. And now Augustine and Mercymorn have to deal, because G1deon said "fuck it, I'm done with this bullshit. I'm going to go die in battle!"

Here is a wet kitten as a reward for reaching the end

[maxalotlxl]

My Top 5 Favourite Reads In 2023

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir This seems like my obvious winner, The Locked Tomb is easily my favourite series at the moment and I want to eat up everything Tamsyn Muir releases from now on. I did actually finish Harrow this year too, and I did really enjoy it but I have an easier time reading characters like Gideon and Nona. The characters in Nona was more my speed than Harrow.

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner Nona was only the obvious winner because it's part of The Locked Tomb Series as individual books Godkiller and Nona is so hard to pick a preferred favourite. I really only picked this book up first because the cover is stunning and you can't blame me, but these characters had me in a chokehold. This is what I want from a reluctant allies to found family story, they were all so wary of each other at the start but found themselves doing the absolute most to protect each other at the end. I am screaming for Sunbringers release early.

Harley Quinn: Reckoning by Rachael Allen Harley my beloved, I can't even remember when my love for this character started I know it started from a purely aesthetic point, I loved her design. I moved into reading the Suicide Squad comics, because I really dislike Joker and wanted a Harley story without him. Then this book happened, Harley back in college (kind of) and still being the chaotic character while actually showcasing this brilliantly smart person. I loved this! The second wasn't a favourite but was still amazing and I can't wait for the thirds release.

The Faithless by C.L. Clark Yes I picked up The Unbroken because Touraine is hot, and yes Touraine and Luca are infuriating characters that make you question why you have such a loyal need to support them. Didn't stop Magic of the Lost become a favourite pretty much immediately, this sequel tops the first for mainly one singular reason, Sabine. Sabine was my self insert, shamelessly thirsting after both of the main characters while playing the dutiful match maker for them both too.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree L&L is the only 4 star read on this list, and this does make me reconsider my rating for that. Originally my 4 star was because despite knowing this was just a cozy read, I do feel the need for some action/drama happening. But this was exactly what I wanted this to be so it really does deserve the 5 stars. I read this with a friend who I play D&D with and we both do like to imagine the future of our characters after adventuring, and this is what that was. Retirement after a long DnD campaign. I do have Bookshops & Bonedust, and while I have started it this time of year is so busy I haven't had the chance to have the cozy atmosphere necessary for this book.

Honourable Mentions

If You'll Have Me by Eunnie Such a cute, fluffy romance between too very different people that are both wanting a romantic relationship but having a hard time to figure out what that actually means for both them. This was exactly what I needed when I was reading it, just unfortunately doesn't quite make the list.

Kill for Me Kill for You by Steve Cavanagh I read this alongside my mother and older sister (eventually the books getting passed onto so many people at work, I have no idea where my copy is anymore), the three of us love a good mystery. We were raised on murder mystery detective shows. I really enjoyed this book and the twists just kept coming. The only reason this isn't in my top 5 was because the others have been in my head a lot more than this one.