#to feeling a part of/a soldier for the ninth house (and harrow specifically who gideon sees as the epitome of the ninth)

[lunaicfantastic]

fav part of gideon the ninth is for the first pre-canaan house chunk of the book, she's all "ugh I'm so normal surrounded by all these weirdo goth freaks when I blow this popsicle stand everyone will see how cool and normal and charming I am" and then she gets to canaan house and realizes that while she might have been a normie jock in the ninth house she is not exempt from being a goth weirdo who hides important doors behind tapestries and sneaks around in the dark so she doesn't have to talk to people. like we talk about her being a jock forced to be goth but nature v nurture babey she's not shedding that bone freak skin anytime soon

[reconditarmonia]

Dear Fandom 5K Author

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but mods can contact me with any questions.

Dragon Age | Fullmetal Alchemist | The Locked Tomb | Motherland: Fort Salem | Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; infidelity; unrequested polyamory; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; unrequested trans versions of characters.

Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity.

—

Fandom: Dragon Age

Character(s):

Group: Cassandra Pentaghast/Female Lavellan

Female Lavellan

Group: Charter & Rector

Genre(s):

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Action/Adventure

Worldbuilding

Established Relationship

Mystery/Procedural

I'm playing this game for the first time and loving Cassandra and Lavellan together so much. (I'm playing with a mod where I can romance her with a female PC!) Lavellan starts off as this confused and small and non-Andrastian prisoner who disagrees with Cassandra on so many things, but Cassandra puts so much trust and faith in her and so much on the line for her - even with Lavellans who are adamant that they're not chosen, they're just doing their best and they happen to be the ones in the position to make this choice. Cassandra is so proud to know her, and backs her up even when she disagrees with Lavellan's choices! The romance scene is really cute between two characters who are adults and have a day-to-day working relationship that isn't going to change, but are still just having fun with how charming it is in a way that builds on their friendship. Not to mention their battling together, of course - the ways they can protect each other and fight for each other's goals (and give Cassandra all the elven swords and shields), how worried they sound if the other one gets hurt...whoops, I found myself another loyalty kink ship.

I also just like playing as Lavellan generally, with how much of an outsider she feels (the "Dawn Will Come" scene is so alienating! it really works!) and how much of the game is about visiting the sites of past elven trauma and/or glory days.

My Lavellan uses the (default lol) name of Ellana, is a rift mage, sports a lovely buzzcut and vallaslin, has a lot of feelings about elf history (and visiting the Plains/Graves especially), believes in elven gods and doesn't care to pretend she's Andrastian, and besides Cass is closest friends with Solas, but don't feel that you have to write my specific PC - I'm excited to read about yours too!

But! I also love all the little hints about the work that Leliana's agents are doing, and their friendship (walking in on their card game at Caer Bronach is kind of delightful), and the letter from Rector's mother asking why he uses a code name for work (why are you ashamed of your name, Wilbur??) is one of my favorite in-universe documents. Slice-of-life or slice-of-mission with Charter and Rector would also make me really happy. Here again, just the closeness and trust and faith that these people have in one another is my jam.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Canon-typical levels of Cassandra's association with the Chantry and belief in the Maker/Andraste/the Herald shouldn't be taken to contravene my DNW of Christian themes, but I wouldn't want Satinalia fic or something focused on the Andrastian faith. Please don't put F!Lavellan in a different romance, even if we didn't match on the Cassandra ship.

—

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist

Character(s):

Group: Olivier Mira Armstrong/Maria Ross

Genre(s):

Action/Adventure

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Getting Together

I'll admit: I am a shallow, shallow person who loves the heartwarming and id-satisfying Briggs loyalty-kink complex (The watch! Buccaneer handing Olivier a clean pair of gloves after she kills Raven! Constant and deeply sincere saluting! Olivier’s explanation of why she wants Miles around and her lack of patience for anyone’s shit) but would like an f/f manifestation of it for actual shipping. Post-canon or AU where Maria is assigned to Briggs, or works for Olivier in Central? Does Maria foil a plot against Olivier, or Olivier save Maria's life in battle? Does Olivier order Maria into a firefight? Hit me.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Olivier/men, even mentioned.

—

Fandom: The Locked Tomb

Character(s):

Matthias Nonius

Genre(s):

Action/Adventure

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Fantasy

Nonius was one of my favorite new characters in Harrow the Ninth. His whole impossible arrival via evocation-by-poetry, battle with the Sleeper, and epic departure to fight the Beast made me very, very happy on levels I have trouble explaining. It was so heartwarming?! Because it was impossible, and because poetry won, and because they went off to do the best they could...I don't know, exactly. (Iiiii also just love that he's named for the Redwall mouse.) I'd love to read more about his life - being unprepossessing and very human but also paladin-like and really fucking good at being a swordsman, representing the Ninth House in slightly less decrepit times, his mysterious past with Gideon the First (and Pyrrha, sort of), however it happened that he died far from home in an unknown place and couldn't be recovered for burial, "chickenshits don't get beer"? Or, er, his afterlife - going to fight with Marta, Ortus, and Pro, re-encountering G1deon as allies...

—

Fandom: Motherland: Fort Salem

Character(s):

Group: Abigail Bellweather/Raelle Collar

Original Historical Witch Character(s)

Group: Sarah Alder & First Bellweather Ancestor

Genre(s):

Action/Adventure

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Mystery/Procedural

Worldbuilding

I fell hard for this show and Abigail/Raelle is the ship I’m most excited about - they get off to a bad start for all kinds of personal history reasons and have problems with each other, but when it gets down to the wire Abigail would do anything for Raelle and is very gung-ho about having Raelle’s unconventional but extremely powerful magic under her leadership, regardless of Raelle being a loose cannon. She told her she loved her!! <3 And by the end, Raelle also clearly knows what Abigail's going through (like when she talks her down in "Citydrop"), respects her leadership, and cares deeply about her and wants to protect her in return. I love that loyalty dynamic, and their competence as fighters/witches.

Physical combat, strength in general, magical strength, ability to work magic together, knowledge of the magical canon vs. out-of-the-box techniques...what parts of their skills and their bond could be challenged in the weird dimension that the end of season 1 leaves them in? Or when they get back home and new challenges await? (In my head, the decision not to send them to War College is not revoked; the unit becomes some kind of special-forces secret strike team rather than cannon fodder.) Maybe something where Raelle goes/has gone into a fight as a berserker-type for Abigail and then comes back to her, or where Abigail protects/has protected her soldier (her girl!! I love her protectiveness of Raelle towards the other cadets, imagine it in a battle!)? Or an arranged marriage AU where it's usual for witch soldiers to marry to combine their magic power or something...If including smut in the story, I'd especially be up for something d/s-y where the loyalty-kinky dynamic of Raelle being Abigail's weapon, at her command, is echoed in sex!

OR. The alternate history that the show has created is so interesting and I'm craving expansion of that through fic! Tell me about the Bellweather ancestor who was a slave and ended up powerful and influential enough to begin a dynasty, and how she met and was recruited by Alder. Or other enslaved witches, witches in the American Revolution or the Civil War, or the founding of Fort Salem and standardization of American military magic with its various influences, or Chinese or Jewish or Mexican immigrant witches who maybe came from different magic traditions and might have had to make the choice of whether or not to reveal that they had magic (if the system knows you because of your descent in the country?), serving their country but also binding their daughters and granddaughters forever.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Abigail/Adil (at all; if he's mentioned, please make them just friends), focus on Raelle/Scylla (dwelling on Raelle still having feelings for Scylla or on her getting over Scylla for Abigail; you don't need to retcon their having been together), Scylla bashing.

—

Fandom: Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass

Character(s):

Chaye Roznatovsky

Demon

Genre(s):

Fantasy

Canon-Style Plot - Freeform

Worldbuilding

Anything expanding on this story would make me really happy. Chaye’s years with the partisans, the comrades-in-arms she had and loved then and who else’s memory she holds or makes into a weapon, her journey to America, going by the surname of “no one.” The demon’s mirror world, its loss of that world (what exactly happened on the other side?) and its need to be where Jews are, demon Judaism? Or the future of both of them now that they’ve found each other!

Fandom-Specific DNW/Opt-In: DNW Chaye/demon. The premise of the story being what it is, I'm explicitly okay with antisemitism being a prominent feature of the story if you write something that covers either or both characters' backstory, but would prefer post-war antisemitism not to be a focus.

[nocerealmilk]

Harrow the Ninth Timeline + Synopsis + AtN Predictions

Ok So I know I wasn’t the only one really confused after reading HtN, so when I reread it I made a bunch of notes so I could try to piece together the timeline! Here’s what I got, it’s as accurate as I could make it.

The universe is dominated by the force that is called the Cohort at the behest of the Necrolord prime AKA John AKA God AKA the Emperor, a man who resurrected all of our solar system to use “thanergy” (dead stuff energy) instead of “thalergy” (alive stuff energy). For unknown reasons, instead of just living in the galaxy, the Cohort overtakes planets by “flipping” them from thalergetic into thanergetic, allowing the arrival of necromancy. This is achieved by front line Cohort non-necromantic soldiers indiscriminately killing enough of the creatures on said planets that the Cohort necromancers can then use that energy to perform necromancy which causes the planet to die, releasing thanergetic material that can then be used for necromancy. It should also be mentioned interstellar travel is apparently only easily achievable for regular people by obelisk, which is a structure that must be bathed in fresh blood daily. They are, basically, super evil. 

They are at war with Blood of Eden, a rebellion insurgency of people who want to cleanse the universe of necromancy, which was (ambiguously?) created at some point by God and then betrayed him.

 Wake, the previous leader of Blood of Eden, was sent by Mercymorn and Augustine, who had betrayed God to work with BoE, to the Ninth House to take samples and look for signs of life within the locked tomb, which contains The Body (AKA A.L., Annabel Lee, or Alecto), God’s cavalier. Because the locked tomb is only accessible by God’s genetic material, Mercy gains God’s genetic material via menage e trois, and uses it to make foetal dummies, which all die, leading to Wake carrying God’s genetic child to term. 

Gideon the First, Lyctor, is sent to intercept her - he does not and betrays god, Because both him (Gideon) and his lyctor (Pyrrha), who both share Gideon’s body, were both separately having an affair with Wake, and believed the child to be theirs. Wake crashed to the Ninth and died, but the baby lived; as Wake died she said “Gideon”, so the child was named Gideon, although she was referring to Gideon the Firsts name when she said it. (Note: I don’t believe it is ever mentioned what happened before Wake came crashing to the Ninth, only that she was intercepted by Gideon1, who failed to kill her.) 

Wake’s hatred of necromancy is so strong that her ghost remains a revenant, haunting first her old bones, then haunting a two-handed blade, which the child of hers and God’s, Gideon9, the Ninth raises wields and loves. 

When Gideon9 and Harrow are 10 years old, they get into a fight - it’s important to note that Harrow says specifically that Gideon9’s skin was under her fingernails, because she is able to bypass the wards that only God (or a genetically similar being) can access. Harrow looks inside of The Locked Tomb and sees Alecto’s body, who she both falls in love with, and is haunted by her via auditory and visual hallucination.

8 years later, Gideon9 and Harrow go to Canaan house, all of the events of GtN happen. Gideon9 dies and something (which I will speculate on later) happens in the time between. 

Harrow the Ninth starts with Harrow not remembering Gideon’s existence, having made a debt to Ianthe to compartmentalize her memories of Gideon so as to avoid truly absorbing her soul. (Harrow does not remember this either). It is important to note that Harrow feels none of the rapid healing benefits of lyctorship, although her soul/body is a void like other lyctors. 

The body of Gideon was not recovered, neither were the living Coronabeth, Camilla, or Judith, who ended up with Blood of Eden (It is easy to extrapolate that Gideon’s body is probably also currently in possession of BoE).

 In the meantime, Wake’s soul haunts the two handed sword Harrow possesses, which her past, cognizant self has told her to never let leave her side, and not allow it to come in contact with flesh. (Harrow’s past self is evidently aware of the sword’s haunting; she also is aware the revenant wishes to leave the sword, and apparently that was not intended) During a moment of sleepwalking or possession, Harrow stabs the sword into the body of the dead lyctor Cytherea, whom the ghost of Wake leaves the sword and possesses the body of. 

Later, Harrow is on a faraway planet, murdering it, when Camilla Hect and the other two who survived Canaan show up in a spaceship. Harrow’s letter to herself tells her to seal Judith Deuteros’ mouth shut, which she does just as Judith attempts to tell her someone has betrayed God and that she is a “prisoner of war”. She also successfully restores part of Palamedes Sextus’s body, creating an articulated hand for his soul to possess. Important to note, Gideon9 is not there, alive or dead. 

In the meantime, in the River, which is basically a limbo-type place souls go after they die, and also where alive people can go if they know how, Harrow has been reliving an incorrect version of the events of GtN within her mind, using the trapped ghosts of those who died to re-enact the story. The story, however, goes haywire when The Sleeper, AKA the ghost of Wake, attempts to kill Harrow (and the others) in this dream-bubble esque world. Wake’s ghost changes the parameters of the story, causing Canaan to fall apart, be plunged into freezing cold, blood raining from the sky etc. Abigail Pent, a spirit caller who is also a ghost now, helps Harrow’s memories return and then awakens the Sleeper/Wake.

 In the real world, Harrow has been fatally stabbed by Mercymorn, who attempted to kill her because she didn’t want Harrow to go insane and suffer as a resurrection beast, the soul of one of the nine originally resurrected planets, approaches them. Instead, Harrow’s memories are restored and she is trapped within the simulation she created, fighting Wake’s ghost, while Gideon’s soul is able to overtake her body.

 Shortly before this, Harrow’s visual hallucination of The Body AKA Alecto vanished.

 Gideon9, in Harrow’s body, is able to fight off the heralds of the resurrection beast easily, and has wicked regeneration powers - her thumb grows back entirely within seconds, something that was directly stated to not be possible for normal lyctors. Mercymorn and Augustine have a big reaction to seeing Gideon9’s eye color inside of Harrow’s body. 

Gideon9 and Ianthe find God, Mercymorn, Augustine, Gideon1, and a tied up Wake-possessed Cytherea having a discussion. Mercymorn and Augustine confront God about Gideon’s yellow eyes, which God does not have but Alecto has. The only possible way Gideon9 could have yellow eyes like Alecto is not because she is the child of Alecto, but because she is the child of God, and Alecto is God’s cavalier, whose eyes were perfectly swapped with God’s, and Gideon9 is God’s daughter. Previously God told the Lyctors that to become immortal they had to kill and absorb the soul of their cavaliers, but since Alecto/The Body was still alive after the eye swap that took place before they all met, it was apparently a lie and perfect Lyctorship was possible the entire time (in which both parties absorb and share the combined power of their souls, resulting in a reversal of their eyes, and remain living). 

Wake tells God that Mercymorn, Gideon1 and Augustine betrayed him and had had prior contact with her. Mercymorn also, importantly, notes that when she checked Gideon’s body at Canaan house she neglected to open her eyes, implying that Mercymorn was at Canaan house and worked with BoE to ferry Corona, Camilla, Judith, and Gideon9 out of Canaan.

 Mercymorn explodes God. Augustine and Mercymorn express a hope for the death of necromancy in the future. 

God somehow rematerializes (will get into my theory on that later), and explodes Mercymorn back, who does not rematerialize, because she is dead. God admits the resurrection beasts cannot kill him, and he lied to their faces for 10,000 years.

 God offers to spare Gideon9, Gideon1, Ianthe, and Augustine. Augustine instead plunges the entirety of the space station into the bottom of the River, attempting to throw God and the rest of them into the stoma, which is basically just Hell or Nothingness. Augustine and God fight; Gideon1 tells Gideon9 (still in Harrow’s body) that Gideon1 actually died, and who is taking through Gideon1’s body is his necromancer Pyrrha, whose soul was compartmentalized similar to how Gideon9’s was. Ianthe chooses to push Augustine into Hell and save God, which is very evil of her.

 Gideon9 decides she would rather try to save Harrow’s body and brave the river, a futile act. In her last moments, Gideon9 sees light, and then sees the face of Alecto leaning over her saying to perform chest compressions despite her shattered chest (Which, I believe, is Gideon’s soul returning to her own body)

 At the same time, Harrow has defeated the sleeper and everyone has left the dream bubble except her and Dulcinea. The bubble is falling apart. Dulcinea tells her something left intentionally ambiguous to the reader, which leads to Harrow popping the bubble. In Harrow’s last moments she walks into a coffin that has Gideon’s sword and spicy magazines inside of it, and falls asleep with a smile on her face. Important to note it specifically says this happened in a “faraway place”. This is happening, I believe, in tandem with Gideon seeing that final vision. 

The epilogue describes an unknown character with unusual healing powers (most likely in the body of Gideon), living in a faraway land (Harrow is also there, possibly?), who is given bones and a sword but does not understand what to do with either of them, and Camilla Hect is there, but her eyes are gray, the color Palamedes’ eyes are described to be. The narrator notes their specific love for those eyes.

Ok now ~predictions~ which I mostly wanted to put here to look at later when the new book comes out.

Dulcinea is the character that we see in the epilogue. Honestly, I’m not completely sure; I think Harrow or Gideon both could love Pal’s eyes, they did care about him, but it feels kind of like a weird thing to point out unless it was relevant. If it was Alecto, like i’ve seen some speculation on, why would she comment about the eyes of someone she doesn’t know? Dulcinea also alludes to an understanding of perfect lyctorship in HtN: “Goodbye, Palamedes my first strand, Goodbye Camila, my second...One cord was overpowered, two cords could defend themselves, but three were not broken by the living or the dead”...One by itself was very strong, two could defend (as a cavalier defends their necro in the river), and three were not broken by the living or the dead (essentially, true immortality with invulnerability). This, and the board in the Lyctor room at Canaan in GtN also describes the pinboard as having numerous clusters of three pins. (Granted it is not stated completely what perfect lyctorship between three people would entail, or if the pinboard in GtN was alluding specifically to lyctorship.)

I don’t think Harrow is in Harrow’s body right now, if she is, I don’t think she is lucid. Harrow also states “There’s a difference between saving a shred of dance card, and saving the last dance” Dulcinea gave Harrow the information that crawling into that coffin, whatever it means, would allow Gideon to survive. That is what she wants above everything else, I think knowing that is the only way Harrow would be content at the last and go without fighting.

Harrow planned the entire thing. I actually do think this is possible. I don’t think Harrow does anything irrationally. I think she erased her memories knowing that it would cause her to forget a plan she made at Canaan with the others, agreeing to go with Ianthe to the First. She did specifically give instructions to her future self to seal Judith Deuteros’ mouth shut, to stop Deuteros from giving her the information required to stop the attempt on God’s life. My personal prediction here is that Harrow always meant to reconvene with BoE at the end, and Wake’s revenant leaving the sword and Mercymorn’s failure to kill god compromised all of that.

Harrow and Gideon are currently occupying Gideon’s body together, but neither of them are at the wheel.

Alecto is not dead, and maybe never was dead. I know she is literally called The Body and is described as being dead. However, I don’t think she’s in a state of death she can’t come back from. I believe that “perfect” lyctorship involves one body being able to remotely protect the other, hence why God reformed from complete paste and Alecto is who Gideon sees. I think God being dead would involve somehow killing the both of them, or killing one and then stopping the other from reforming while you kill the other.

Alecto is not human, she’s a robot or alien? She is referred to as a monster most of the time, and originally had the black and white eyes of God.

God’s three person Lyctorship is him, Samael and/or Anastasia and Alecto. Still not totally sold on 3 person lyctorship being the goal, but I think if it is the case that’s it. I know Gideon says Alecto’s voice is “wrong twiceover”, which is what made me think it was two people, and neither were Alecto.

I don’t think Alecto is the main character of the third book. I think Gideon will still be the speaking character, but I think Alecto will be the pivotal character.

The Cohort is bad actually. I think it’s one of those things where it seems glamorous because the main characters are brainwashed a bit. I mean as far as I can tell, it’s outrightly stated in the text that the Cohort murders innocents and overtakes planets. Real Empire vibes!!

BoE is also bad actually. I think we’ll learn Cohort bad, then BoE good, then BoE bad as a twist at the end, that they have some kind of hidden agenda or something like that.

Corona kills Ianthe. Most people just suspect this because of the whole Cainabeth and Abelle placeholder names and I’m also in this camp. I think Ianthe is pretty morally gray so I don’t necessarily think she will end up being killed because she’s straight up a villain, but I think she will be killed.

Harrow comes face to face with Alecto

Necromancy goes byebye, God is Kill