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frociaggine · 7 months

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has something from a tlt fic ever become headcanon to you? i ask because i find this happening to me all the damn time with this fandom but not others

OK SO, my tlt headcanons are like schrodinger's cat, they explicitly contradict each other sometimes and all of them exist at the same time in different quantum states of canon. So in that sense I've never read a fic and thought, okay, THIS is my canon from now on.

But I've read so so many fics that burst my third eye wide open and made me consider different perspectives on a character / dynamic, or helped me shape some I already had. A few favourites:

the soul that seeketh him by bittybelle — missing scene pre NtN ft. John and Kiriona. Wherein John Gaius meets his daughter, remembers the women he left behind, and deals poorly with being the male god of a universe in which the divine is essentially feminine.

AO3 user LesbianJesusLovesYou gave me Big Feelings about Gideon's childhood on the Ninth and her relationship with Harrow, Aiglamene, Ortus and Crux

believing in everything (and knowing nothing at all) — A series of childhood memories from the Ninth

when i call, will you come to me? — “My Lady,” Ortus wheezed, shifting uncomfortably. “I only thought you should know… Gideon Nav was flogged before the congregation.”

A few fics set right after NtN that really stayed with me:

never hear the sound of someone calling me home by @corpsesoldier — Kiriona Gaia returns to the House of the Ninth.

One More Son by captainpeggy — After Nona, Pyrrha Dve walks the Ninth.

two old broads split a cigarette by @forjodssake — Aiglamene/Pyrrha. “sometimes the girl you like becomes one person w her soulmate and you have to jack off about it”

Post HtN missing scenes:

Death in its season by @ancientannoyance — John holds Mercymorn's 24 minutes funeral

recognize them by their fruits by @ceruleanvulpine — John and Ianthe emerge out of the River

Other stuff that Stuck With Me

so I open the window to hear sounds of people by @sunderedstar — post NtN flashbacks. John and Alecto are the only two beings on earth, and he starts working on the Resurrection. This is harrowing and I'm absolutely obsessed with the implications in this fic of WHY John removed everyone's memory.

and they were roommates by @herenortherenearnorfar — pre Resurrection Mercy and Cristabel, from their first meeting onwards and it just really burrowed a hole in my brain and grew roots and sprouts and everything. Latin American nun Cristabel it's all I can see now, and YES they met working with climate refugees when M— was a bright eyed idealistic doctor. It also lines up great with the Asian Mercy headcanon that exist in my head (I have a whole elaborate backstory about M— aged 12 proclaiming to her Filipino Catholic family that she's an atheist now). Anyway, it's just a lovely, gorgeous fic. I think about it every day.

John 25:12 by @halfeatenmoon — pre-Resurrection, John and his friends escape the cow fortress to spend Christmas Day at the beach. With beer, salads, pavlova, and the corpses of a million fish killed by nuclear weapons testing. Ft. Southern hemisphere holidays in Mururoa Atol and 100% canon. To me.

Operation: The Most Honorable Man by @cadmean — Augustine has a proposal for the Saint of Duty (Dios Apate. That's the proposal)

lowkey cheating but I can't choose — absolutely anything AO3 user Raxheim has posted has been SOO up my alley. Every time I read one of their fics I feel like I'm enlightened by some never-before-considered detail. And mean ANYTHING, from Harrow Nova to Wake to Cytherea and the Lyctors to the Universe's #1 Sadgirl Gideon

#this accidentally turned into a rec list?? sorry #ask #anonymous #tlt fic #fic recs #tlt

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vaguely-concerned · 2 years

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-another layer of 'ow ah ouch' to everything pyrrha says about lyctorhood in nona the ninth is that she and g1deon may very well have been the first necro-cav duo to have done it fully mutually consensually, eyes open. it's heavily implied mercy and augustine had their hands forced by cristabel and alfred and wouldn't have done it otherwise ("I have built a myriad on the idea that I could have talked him out of it, given five minutes"), and they're the first and second saints... g1deon's the third. he and pyrrha presumably saw what it did to mercy and augustine, and they still decided to go through with it.

I WILL REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU KISSED ME—YOU APOLOGISED—YOU SAID, I AM SORRY, DESTROY ME AS I AM, BUT I WANT TO KISS YOU BEFORE I AM KILLED, AND I SAID TO YOU WHY, AND YOU SAID, BECAUSE I HAVE ONLY ONCE MET SOMEONE SO UTTERLY WILLING TO BURN FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVED IN, AND I LOVED HIM ON SIGHT, AND THE FIRST TIME I DIED I ASKED OF HIM WHAT I NOW ASK OF YOU

imagine the extra weight over the years in knowing you chose this. at least augustine can cling to that desperate fantasy world where he did stop alfred in time, but pyrrha and g1deon thought they knew exactly what they were doing. they thought it was love. john let them think that was love.

-...do you think mercymorn and augustine begged john for the same thing harrow did, after? Please, undo what I've done, Lord. I will never ask anything of you ever again. (Also one of my all time favorite Harrow moments where she gets to ask the question they aren't allowed to for ten thousand years: How dare you ask me to live with it?) did he comfort them? tell them he's so incredibly sorry, but he needs them?

at least pyrrha’s understanding of how the process works does corroborate his claim that he can’t extract a cavalier’s soul from their necromancer's after the lyctorhood is complete without destroying both souls, which I guess makes for the one thing he isn’t totally lying about lol. though while referencing their own situation paul tells ianthe there's still hope for her and naberius, a duo where the soul absorption did seem to complete, which suggests another layer here john might not know about (out of lack of interest?) or doesn't want anyone else to find out about.

actually let's reexamine some things from the Gideon the Ninth epilogue now in light of Nona I'm on a roll here:

-[God] said, "I know you became a Lyctor under duress."

"Some may call it duress," said Harrow.

"You aren't the first," said the Emperor.

screaming. howling. clawing at him like a wild animal. the two people who have loved you the most, and you stood by and watched as this happened to them, as you engineered it to happen to them, you've seen up close what it did to them, and now you're repeating the process with new children a myriad later without a blush. you suck so bad john I have no words fhksajfhsa.

-"I have three teachers for you. And a whole universe for you to hold on to, for just a little while longer."

a) oh yeah just wait for those three teachers they're a real barrel of laughs they probably won't even try to repeatedly murder you or anything lmao and b) what's that supposed to mean john. 'for just a little while longer'. why does it only have to be a little while longer. as far as I can tell you're no closer to the fullness of your revenge than ever. does it have anything to do with 'good morning, annabel' and 'it gets dirty, you clean it again'?

So, the universe was ending. Good. At least if she failed here, she would no longer have to be beholden to anybody.

could this also be some kind of foreshadowing? from the dialogue on page here harrow's conclusion that the universe is, for sure, ending is not necessarily a natural conclusion (john only speaks of the empire slowly dying) so like... does pre-lobotomy harrow know something we don't? or is it just that she's the saddest person anyone's ever seen pre-nona seeing gideon? (most heartbreaking shade of drift compatability discovered :') )

-He said presently, "Most of my Lyctors have been destroyed by a war I thought best to fight slowly, through attrition. I have lost my Hands -- not just to death. The loneliness of deep space takes its toll on anyone, and the necrosaints have all put up with it for longer than anybody should ever be asked to bear anything. That's why I wanted only those who had discovered the cost, and were willing to pay it in the full knowledge of what it would entail."

so... in the same way g1deon and pyrrha decided to pay that price willingly, then. I am 100% calling bullshit on him here, though, because if any of that had been his real intentions he would have taken at least a modicum of time and energy to write ANYTHING to that effect in the invitations haha. but I think he does recognize in some way that mercy and augustine are burning out under the ten thousand years he's asked of them, like cytherea just did, and maybe mistakenly thinks g1deon is handling it better, because his and pyrrha's decision seemed more informed/less coerced? loveday always knew it was her life or cytherea's, after all, that wasn't ever a real choice either. huh.

-god, harrow literally states all her (frankly very modest and doable) goals and needs to him -- to return to the ninth at least once, to find her cavalier's body, and to figure out what happened to the other survivors of canaan house -- and once she is incapable of remembering them........ he does fucking NOTHING to remind her or help her follow up on any of them fhsdkajfhasdkj I am losing it! at least there is the delicious irony that he could have saved himself a massive headache if he had helped her with any of these, so his own fecklessness and narcissism is its own punishment in this case I suppose lmao

-another observation: harrow is not as deferential or worshipful towards God in this epilogue as she will be in HtN or beyond. she's angry with him! she's kind of sharp and a bit rude, even! she seems more to feel begrudgingly beholden to him because fair enough he is god I guess than to emotionally buy into it as sacred service. I wonder how she'll think of him after nona the ninth, now that she knows him so much better and has more of herself too -- ironically my sense from their last scene in nona the ninth is that her worship of him seems to have all but disappeared, but she loves him more, despite uh the everything of him, in all his awfulness. not in that she doesn't recognize him for what he is or that she wants his approval anymore, she's grown so far past him already, but I do think there's still love there. 'I still love you' is the real power he has, I guess

#the locked tomb #the locked tomb spoilers #nona the ninth spoilers #nona spoilers #nona the ninth #ntn spoilers #pyrrha dve #gideon the first #john gaius #harrowhark nonagesimus #mercymorn the first #augustine the first #this is just how my life works right now I'll sit around innocently and then just BAM locked tomb thoughts sparking in my brain

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paradoxcase · 2 months

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@eye-lantern:

For the white eyes, the coloring doesn't only affect the iris, the entire eye goes white and cloudy, like an eye that was burnt of with advanced cataract. I don't think anyone manufactures cosmetic contacts in BoE, especially not contacts that obscures the vision with a white film. The dye here must have been used for camouflage against the Houses, maybe by disguising as corpses, and would needs to be removable by forceful blinking to avoid handicaping them

Ahh, I see. But I mean, Ianthe didn't seem to think that blinding yourself would work to protect you from Number Seven, so I wouldn't think the Houses were doing this regularly. It does seem like someone is doing it, because there were the white-eyed guys on the Convoy from earlier, so maybe it's related to that?

For the seeing the heralds stuff, Mercymorn looked at them using a telescope and dreamed for hours when the others were not affected. Jod says she should not have looked. They may have a fear aura that permeates but perceiving this "radiation" through the eyes is worse.

That's true, and I think I mentioned earlier that none of the Lyctors running around on the Mithraeum during the fight with Number Seven in Harrow the Ninth were as out of it as Judith is now

@wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess:

There may be other more personal reasons that Pash does not want to see or have anything to do with Gideon or Gideon's body, but I don't recall if that is clear yet or not.

I don't think anything like that's been mentioned yet

Palamades seems to me to be the type of person who will start from a positive place of friendship with you unless you give him a reason otherwise. Even in GTN, he showed a great deal of friendliness and respect to Harrow even as she at times tried to give him the cold shoulder, and of course the big hug in HTN.

Well, there were other people in that book he wasn't as friendly with, like Judith (when she proposed teaming up with him, not when she was challenging him for his keys). I'm trying to remember if he interacted with the Eighth House at all, since they seemed utterly impossible to be friendly with, but I don't remember him having any scenes with them, except for maybe objecting when Mayonnaise Uncle took the white key from Cytherea. I wonder if he for some reason felt some kind of kinship with the Ninth House specifically, similarly to how Cytherea told Gideon she'd liked to imagine herself dying romantically as Ninth House nun, except obviously not like that. It seems like Sixth and Ninth have some things in common like having small populations and being generally unassuming and politically insignificant

The fractured ninth house skull at the start of the chapter is I think because of Nona impersonating Harrow. And the previous chapter's fractured third house skull is because of Crown and Ianthe's reunion.

Well, Corona and Ianthe's reunion actually happened in Chapter 20, which has a non-broken First skull, presumably for Ianthe. The broken third skull chapter is where Corona and Pyrrha talk in range of Judith's hidden microphone

Looking back I see that Chapter 19 was the Tomb with the door open and the chain broken. There was a very different Tomb picture on the other chapters where it appears, where it has a stone over the entrance and the chain is unbroken. It looks like the only other broken skull is the broken Second skull on the chapter where Pyrrha makes Palamedes promise not to go rescue the people in the cages (after which she goes out herself to kill them), so yeah, I guess the broken skulls are for people being deceptive in this book? The other odd things that stands out to me are that there are Seventh skulls on two chapters that are primarily about the school, and an Eighth skull on the chapter where the Angel has Nona shot, which is odd, because as far as I'm aware right now there are no Seventh or Eighth House characters in this book at all. I wonder if the Angel or their implant is somehow associated with one or both of those Houses? There's also an image of a tower on the chapter where Nona and Hot Sauce watch the broadcast

#the locked tomb #eye-lantern #wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess

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dabblingreturns · 2 years

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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

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griseldagimpel · 6 months

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The Ending of Nona the Ninth: Character Motives

I wanted to dive in a bit to the ending of Nona the Ninth and lay out the different character motives.

Alright, so Paul and Pyrrha are trying to get Nona to her Alecto body in the Tomb because they want to save Nona. (Also, this will save Harrow, but they don't know that.) This involves opening the Tomb.

Kiriona wants to open the Tomb, but she wants to do it because she wants to kill Alecto. And the reason she wants to kill Alecto is because John, her father, sent her to do so, on the grounds that it would render him mortal, which would mean that he'd need Kiriona to protect him.

Ianthe is opposed to opening the Tomb. She believes that John has lied to Kiriona and doesn't want Alecto dead/doesn't believe Kiriona can actually kill her, and that instead he wants Alecto freed. Ianthe is both afraid of what John could do when freeing Alecto brings him up to full power and also wants John to remain in a manipulativeable state. (Side note: We don't actually know if Ianthe is factually correct or not in her belief about John misleading Kiriona. She sincerely believes it, but she could be wrong.)

Pyrrha and Paul are motivated by their love of Nona and aren't concerned (at least in the moment) with any broader consequences. Kiriona is motivated by a desire for parental approval and to create a situation where her dad needs her -- where she is needed. And Ianthe is motivated both by a desire to prevent an apocalypse situation and by her desire for power and control.

So, quick question: is opening the Tomb a good thing? Or a bad thing?

It kinda depends on who's point of view you look at it from, isn't it?

And the whole Locked Tomb series is like that. The focus is on the conflict that comes from the characters wanting different things, rather than a clear cut Good versus Evil story. Coronabeth joins the Blood of Eden and becomes Crown largely because she's desperate to have her own identity. Harrow lesions her brain to save Gideon, even though that makes her less capable of fighting Resurrection Beasts. Augustine and Mercymorn turn against John out of grief and anger at the suspicion that their Cavaliers died needlessly.

Anyway, this is why I don't think Alecto the Ninth is going to be the book where the series suddenly turns into a clear-cut Good versus Evil narrative where everyone teams up to Defeat John Gaius. Or any other character, for that matter. The Locked Tomb just isn't that sort of series.

#the locked tomb #meta #nona the ninth #alecto the ninth #john gaius

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trickstercheshi · 1 year

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I posted 11,785 times in 2022

That's 5,536 more posts than 2021!

36 posts created (0%)

11,749 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@alinnsurana

@theygender

@m-eowdy

@datfearlessfangirl

@my-barbershop-quartet-is-dead

I tagged 3,666 of my posts in 2022

#gideon the ninth - 364 posts

#nona the ninth spoilers - 202 posts

#harrow - 197 posts

#griddlehark - 177 posts

#nona the ninth - 111 posts

#gideon - 81 posts

#jod - 78 posts

#ianthe - 77 posts

#my aesthetic - 69 posts

#home inspo - 65 posts

Longest Tag: 105 characters

#the only reason i have one at all is bc it makes it easier to search through fashion content i wanna save

My Top Posts in 2022:

Apparently tumblr didn't actually post this post I wrote right when I finished nona so time to go back and add some quotes.

-----

Ok I just finished nona and I'm going insane but, I wonder if mercymorn and Augustine and Gideon aren't the lyctors original names? Bc we know that's who Jod is talking about, but why censor them? Unless they were different and he changed them when the woke up.

My key piece of evidence for this is the bit where he talks about Ulysses and Titania and how he changed their names from the original. ALSO WILD THAT THEY WERE DEAD BEFORE HE MET THEM AND REVIVED WAY LATER

-----

My evidence:

So, my two kids, the guinea pigs, they were U— and T— on their certificates, you know, their old names. I thought about using those but it didn’t seem appropriate.

And then a bit later:

Let me introduce you to … Ulysses. Let me introduce you to … Titania.

Following these naming conventions that means all the lyctors had other names originally. I'm dying to know what they are.

And also trying to figure out who all the ppl he's referencing are:

He said, It was me and A— and M— at the start.

This one's pretty obviously Augustine and Mercymorn.

C— was brought on by the oversight execs for contracts, you know, checks and balances, but look where that ended up, she was on our side before the first year was over

This could be Cristabel, Cassiopeia, Cyrus, or Cytherea. (God why r there so many C names). Leaning towards Cristabel at this point just bc she goes with Mercymorn.

We even lent them G— at the time because they wanted to talk about coating.

This one's G1deon obviously.

C— was panicking because with the project over she was getting recalled to England and didn’t want to go, she’d got N— and didn’t want to leave her, refused to admit they were dating even though we all knew.

Ok so C is pretty obviously Cassiopeia at this point, and N is Nigella.

Interesting side note here, everyone mentioned so far is a necromancer, not cavelier (with the exception of N whose only referenced in relation to C.

we had a pet cop, P—. She’d made detective by that point; was going on to big things in the MoD. Knew G— from way back,

PYRRHA yasss baby

god her being a cop makes so much sense lmao.

C— was still pretending they weren’t dating—she was an artist, so that was cool. If you have two scientists and an engineer and a detective and a lawyer and an artist you’re pretty much sweet as.

Cassiopeia is the lawyer if we're going off of the earlier quote, so Nigella is the artist, Mercymorn and Augustine are both scientists, I'm p sure G1deon is the engineer, and Pyrrha is the detective obviously.

M— had brought in her best friend, the nun,

interestingly this person is always described as "M—'s nun, and never given a letter. It could definitely be Cristabel, especially given that we can't use C— twice without it being hella confusing, but I'm wondering if John chose not to revive her afterwards for some reason so she's not actually anyone. There's this weird distance to how he describes her vs the other ppl: "the nun", "our nun", "M—'s nun" vs everyone's name. (He would be that petty).

My other theory is that M—'s nun is ANASTASIA. Again, can't use A a second time, she's obviously smart as hell and gets him to figure out the soul, which hello our Anastasia almost perfected the actual lyctoral process, and obviously the ninth house is full of nuns. Plus, he trusted her to watch over Alecto and seal the tomb, who better then the person that showed you she existed in the first place?

And then A— brought in his little brother who was a hedge fund manager. A— Junior was useless but he was a darling,

We know from HTN that this is Alfred.

See the full post

86 notes - Posted September 14, 2022

"I did end up writing a total divergence when I was writing Nona, back in 2020, because I wanted to make sure my clockwork made sense — I wanted to make sure that if you wound up Gideon and Harrow and put them on a slightly different route the laws of the universe would still flow accordingly. (I stopped writing because when your editor asks how you’re doing and you’re like “I stopped to write 30k to prove a timeline” he’s legally allowed to shoot you with a crossbow.)"

Tamsyn release this as bonus content challenge

190 notes - Posted January 27, 2022

Ok I know everyone and their mother thinks Nona is in gideon's body, but what if... It's actually Harrow's body instead???

I have very little scant evidence for this but I will present it anyways.

At the end of Harrow the Ninth, Pyrrha, in G1deon's body, is with Gideon, in Harrow's body, onboard the Mithraeum at the bottom of the river.

Gideon breaks a window and swims out into the river, sees god and Ianthe, and then drowns. Then she sees

"a great sunshiny light: a blurred figure [...] your bullshit dead girlfriend had come to claim you.

And she said in the wrong voice twice removed: "Chest compressions. I know her sternums shattered; ignore it. We need that heart pumping. On my mark."

Hands pressed. We died." (500)

Then, in the Epilogue, the mystery girl lives with "the person who went to work for her, the person who taught her, and the person who looked after her" (505) we get confirmation at the end that "the person who looks after her" is Camilla.

Then, in the Nona the Ninth summary it says "Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes"

So somehow, Pyrrha gets from in the river with Gideon in Harrow's body, to Camilla and Pal. What if she took Harrow's body with her? Knowing her character, and especially knowing that she just found out that Wake's daughter is in Harrow's body, it doesn't rly make sense for her to just abandon them.

I know this doesn't rly track with the fact that we know Cam was with Gideon's body at one point, but she's definitely not with Gideon's body in the shuttle when she meets Harrow, and given that that body was achieving cult worship status by BOE it's unlikely that they would let it go.

My other evidence, which is more circumstantial than anything, is that mystery girl is given "bones to arrange ("just whatever feels normal")" and "the sword would be put in her hand again by the person who looked after her" (505-506)

This would make sense for cam and pal to do if they knew it was someone in Harrow's body, bc they knew that both harrow (a necromancer) and Gideon (a cavalier) had been in that body previously.

Side note, "the sword" could be referring to gideon's two-hander, more evidence for it being Harrow's body, bc otherwise how would they have gotten the sword?

240 notes - Posted January 22, 2022

A chronological reading of Harrow the Ninth

Note: this guide assumes htn has already been read and is not spoiler free.

This is my best guess as to the order of the events of the book chronologically. Since some things very clearly happen simultaneously (harrow in the river bubble and Gideon in her body for example) I have chosen an order to read those events in. This is fairly arbitrary and I will note that where possible.

The general timeline will be:

River bubble events at Canaan house up to and including the AUs

Present day events (Erebos and Mithraeum) up to Harrow getting stabbed

River bubble after Harrow becomes conscious

Gideon in Harrow's body

6 months after the emperors murder

All page numbers are for the paperback edition.

River bubble Canaan House

chapter 3 pg. 47-54 Harrow's childhood

chapter Parodos pg. 19-23 (14 months before) the summons

chapter 5 pg. 68-72 shuttle to Canaan

chapter 8 pg. 108-115 Canaan intro

chapter 10 pg. 127-135 Ortus reading Noniad

chapter 18 pg. 180-185 Deuteros' body

chapter 21 pg. 197-206 Pal and Cams bodies

chapter 26 pg. 236-238 Silas kills Corona

chapter 28 pg. 248-354 Harrow admits her madness

chapter 35 pg. 323-330 teacher leaves

the AUs

Given that we have no info on the timing of these I am placing them in the order they are presented in the book. At the very least they should be read before harrow awakens in the river bubble due to this line: "we have no idea of the limitations in those other scenarios" (379)

chapter 40 pg. 367-371 Harrow Nova (reverse roles)

chapter 41 pg. 372-374 Divine Highness arranged marriage

chapter 42 pg. 375-378 cohort coffee shop

Erebos

I'm not actually totally sure if the lobotomy happens on the Erebos or at Canaan house but it's the earliest thing in the book so it goes first.

chapter Epiparodos pg. 360-364 (9 months and 29 days before) the lobotomy

chapter 1 pg. 27-31 (9 months before) Jod gives her the sword

See the full post

330 notes - Posted January 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Every time the body speaks in HTN

(In chronological order)

"the Body of the Locked Tomb had not spoken to you since the night you massaged the purple, swollen clots of blood out of the necks of your dead parents" (44)

This directly contradicts the next quote, from before Harrow goes to Canaan house.

"This isn't how it happens, said the Body. (23)

This is 14 months before the emperors murder, when Harrow is asking Ortus to be her cavalier. Side note: this is the only time the Body is present or speaks in the dream bubble/altered past.

"What he is saying," said the Body distinctly, "is that you have to learn that sword." (44)

Harrow talking to God about revenant beasts. She describes the the Body's voice as

"its dry uncanny echo of other voices you had known: your mother's, Crux's." (44)

She then replies to the body with:

"I can't," you said as carefully as possible. "I can't, beloved. It's gone." [...]

"You are walking down a long passage," said the Body. "You need to turn around."

"I am standing in the dark," you told her. [...] "I lost it. It's gone. There's nothing there. I must have misapprehended the process. I am half a Lyctor. I am nothing, I am pointless, I am unmanned." (45)

This is (presumably) before Ianthe gives her the letters and tells her of the work.

"How old are you?" she [Mercymorn] asked abruptly. "How old are you in years?" [...]

It was then that the Body emerged from behind the Lyctor's shoulder [...] and she said, quite clearly, with the voice of Aiglamene and your mother commingled:

"Lie, Harrow. Now." (77)

This is when Mercy first captures Harrow.

a dream wherein you sat down to dinner opposite the Body. [...] you talked comfortably of very little—yet it felt as thought it meant very much. [...]

Then the Body looked at you with those direct, incalculable eyes, and she said: "Harrowhark. Wake up."

"Pardon?"

"Wake up. Now." (207)

She is warning Harrow to get up to see Wake in Cytheria's corpse.

Aloud, you said through swollen lips: "The Saint of Duty must die."

And on the bed, the Body said, "Yes." (226)

Right after G1deon breaks through her wards in her room.

Next to you, the Body said quietly, "The water is risen. So is the sun. We will endure." (294)

After Harrow chooses not to kill G1deon and Wake in Cytheria's corpse escapes.

You said, "Beloved?"

She said, "It's coming," with the most anticipatory astonishment you had ever heard from her in her low, many-personed voice—right then she used the voice of your father's cavalier. And: "It's near!" [...]

See the full post

602 notes - Posted January 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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muninnhuginn · 3 months

Note

Ask game: The Locked Tomb

thanks for asking and sorry in advance. this is so 'it depends' >_<

my favorite female character

Gonna be pretty boring with this one but Harrow. She's got some many layers of denial going on there (okay tbf so do a lot of the characters but shh) but she knows what she's good at and her particular mix of pride and bluffing is so fun. and it's neat how her psychosis interacts with those traits (thinking specifically of her interactions with Ortus in htn in terms of using him as a measure of what's real whilst not letting on to anyone else her 'weakness')

my favorite male character

Palamedes. I will admit there are probably more layers to John Gaius than Pal overall in terms of the whole... dubious ethics in STEM deal, but personality-wise I definitely prefer Pal to John

my favorite book/season/etc

Harrow the Ninth. I like the unreality vibes and non-linear timeline. It reminds me of fic in a good way. The sense of humour in htn also leans the closest to my own sense of humour (aka, whenever it highlights the absurdity of situations) though I will admit the memes take a knock to my personal rating. Harrow narration and humour also focuses a lot more on what interests me personally than Gideon or Nona. (Also, nothing else has been able to replicate the rush I got in htn when we got [redacted] POV. And that could only be pulled off by holding off for so long)

my favorite ship

Locked Tomb has a specific blend of the platonic and romantic which makes it kinda hard to choose any one as a ship more than a dynamic to study? Like, Griddlehark I probably like more as a concept than what's on paper. Ianthe/Harrow is intriguing but ultimately not endgame for either party and both of them are well aware of that. G1deon/Wake/Pyrrha is almost entirely told in implications, same with Mercymorn/John/Augustus (we do get to see more of them in action but we're missing so much about their past it's like looking at an incomplete jigsaw puzzle). Then there's whatever's going on with devotion and miscommunication with both campal and the tridentarii where they're so codependent but have such wildly different approaches (and in the case of the tridentarii, they're working at complete cross purposes with each other without even seeming to realise it)

uhhh tldr; I'm not sure I can decide on a favourite dynamic never mind a favourite ship. I'm partial to the 'playing house' 'family' in nona though because it never could have lasted. it may not have been 'real', but they scraped out some brief happiness for themselves in the time they had

a character I’d die defending

uh, none of them. I can like them all plenty, but their flaws are generally what make them interesting and I'm not connected enough to the fandom to have been subject to all the worst takes yet

a character I just can’t sympathize with

John Gaius. I can understand theoretically how he was essentially radicalised and has had millennia to convince himself his self-justification and recollection of events places him "in the right". And it's clear that the amount of effort he puts into convincing himself and everyone else that he was right means that he recognises on some level just how much he chose to destroy in the pursuit of what he'd call "saving people". But at the same time, I don't ever see him showing any form of repentance. And, like, I know characters don't *need* redemption arcs etc etc, but like. He's had his descent arc now. It's done. I'm about as sympathetic to him as Yagami Light.

a character I grew to love

I can't choose here. The thing with this series is in the first book I didn't truly feel like I "knew" the characters beyond Gideon and somewhat Harrow. But then htn and ntn both returned to characters and provided so much more context to them that I know that whenever I get around to my reread gtn alone is going to kill me with its implications. Will give shout-outs to both Ianthe and Camilla though

my anti otp

More trainwreck fascination here, but John/Alecto is very... in a series of incredibly unhealthy relationships these two give the impression they're heads and shoulders above the rest in toxicity (which is saying something considering the dios apates). I want to know more.

#the locked tomb spoilers #<- to be safe #asks #ask meme

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catharsis-in-a-bottle · 2 years

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locked tomb characters rated by their likelihood of being the body on the cover of nona the ninth

aka me Scheming for an entire post

[i am taking tor's "you have seen this body before" comment at face value, and am thus omitting characters that have been mentioned / talked about but not seen.]

[also 90% of these characters are a joke because. well.]

[also i am speculating as to whose physical body it is, not whose soul is in the body]

✨the list ✨

gideon nav: 1/10 likelihood. different skin tone, different face shape as far as i can tell, long dark hair. however, we know that gideon's body is still intact, so i'm leaving this one with an incremental chance. [on a side note, could be gideon's soul in the body, as the eyes are golden. could technically also be john, but he is probably still in his own body.] ANYWAY:

harrow: 3/10. giving this one slightly higher odds because the face shape is similar; however, again the skin tone is different, the hair doesn't seem to be black (though it's hard to tell with the dramatic lighting), and also nona has a widow's peak, while harrow does not appear to have one on her cover. (though that is also hard to tell because harrow's hair is partially obscuring her forehead... let's move on shall we)

she's pretty much definitely not any of the other ninth house characters, so i'll skip those.

judith deuteros: .002/10. she's pretty definitely still in her own body. also she better not be that pale.

marta dyas: 0/10, her body is very mutilated and again she better not be that pale.

coronabeth: 0/10 That Does Not Look Like Her, and also she's still in her own body.

ianthe: 0.1/10 That Also Does Not Look Like Her, but who knows where her body actually is? also there's no way ianthe could smile that nicely

naberius: 0/10 he's a whole ass man and he's not that nice either

isaac tettares: 0/10 he's a whole ass man and also his body is horribly mutilated and probably in canaan house still??

jeannemary: 0.2/10 she is less mutilated but still mutilated, and her body is probably at canaan house still (unless i am misremembering).

abigail pent: .4/10 i mean?? if her glasses were off?? what would she look like?? where is her body now?? how mutilated is it?? most likely not her though

magnus quinn: 0/10 he's a whole ass man that's all i can say

palamedes sextus: 0/10 he is exploded and also a whole ass man

camilla hect: 0/10 she's still in her own body what a girlboss. also she Does Not Look Like That

cytherea: 0.5/10 we know where her body is lol. except we don't?? where is the mithraeum now that it's been dropped into the river???? but yeah it's probably not her but i won't completely and utterly rule that out

protesilaus: 0/10. again, a whole ass man. also decomposed.

silas octakiseron: 0/10 lmao

colum asht: 0/10 lol

teacher: 0/10 don't laugh at me. don't. i am going through EVERY character. it's not any of the priests either.

john gaius: that would be hilarious but absolutely not. who knows where he is nowadays. probably still in his own body, fucking around in the river

the body: 4/10 now THIS is just a gut feeling. like. i don't think the tomb on the ninth has been opened??? and we don't even really for sure know who the body is??? but camilla hect is with nona, and camilla is with BOE, who are both capable of getting to the ninth house AND have access to gideon's body and thus her blood. not that they would know to use her blood to open the tomb, though, nor that they would have motive to open it without knowing about wake's mission (which they might know about??? idk). but anyway. seems marginally more likely than the others, to me.

augustine: 0/10 LOL he's in the stoma and who knows what's going on in there

mercymorn: 0.000001/10 she got her heart Exploded and she doesn't look like that (i think) but i never know. i never know.

g1deon: 0/10 he is a whole ass man in all appearance. pyrrha's in there though. but we haven't seen her actual body so i'm not putting her on this list

oh and one last thing. i'm partially convinced that the "you've seen this body before" thing could also apply to bodies we've barely glimpsed or haven't seen in physicality, like the paintings in ianthe's rooms on the mithraeum.... or like. a skeleton in canaan house. or wake, because we saw a poster of her face... but her bones are on the ninth so... no.

so anyway, there's the list - with, of course, no obvious conclusions, no personal preferences, etc. i still Do Not Know Who This Is, even if we've apparently seen the body?? somebody please help, curiosity is killing the locked tomb tumblr user

#tlt #harrow the ninth spoilers #locked tomb spoilers #htn #gtn #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #nona the ninth cover reveal #ntn #harrowhark nonagesimus #gideon nav #ianthe tridentarius #coronabeth tridentarius #judith deuteros #okay actually i'm not tagging every character that's ridiculous.

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paradoxcase · 6 months

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@eye-lantern:

Mercymorn's (or Jod's not sure) they say that the soul of a planet is composed of the life on and in it. Their soul is an amalgam of all those tiny lives.

Sure, but like I said before, the Earth has had mass extinctions before but hasn't died, and it's doubtful that this one will kill absolutely everything on Earth, either, and planets that never had any life on them were also alive before whatever happened

@wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess:

So we do find out that Dulcie was very much into that relationship. It was just Pal. Keep reading :-)

You mean wasn't, right? I'm glad Dulcinea is still going to be around, maybe? I wasn't sure if her ghost made it at the end of the last book

Your last comment is really spot on. This is what Muir has said about the series, in press about Nona the Ninth: "...what love, in its purest and most messed-up forms, looks like between these people. In a way Camilla, Palamedes, Pyrrha and Nona are love’s dress rehearsal for the last book. You have not begun to see the horrors of love." That last line is fascinating and horrifying.

Well, that's ominous. You know "horrors of love" wasn't exactly what i was expecting from a series that seemed to be tumblr's favorite story about lesbians, but maybe I should have expected it, haha. It's definitely more interesting than love is usually portrayed, and I like how it's not just about romantic relationships and this explicitly platonic one is portrayed the same way

What I DO appreciate about Pal is that, at least as I read it, he IS all about consent. He desperately does not want to harm Cam, who is his cousin after all, and they are both focused on consent, though what they each think is better for the other and not themself.

Yeah, it seems like consent is not really the operative concept, here? Gideon wanted Harrow to eat her, Corona wanted Ianthe to eat her, Camilla wants to merge with Palamedes and possibly destroy her soul in the process, and I think if I understand the last book correctly Cristabel and Alfred had some kind of suicide pact to get Mercy and Augustine to Lyctorhood, everyone is very consenting (except Babs I guess, but who even cares about Babs)

@racefortheironthrone:

Water cure is also an 18th century term for going to the seashore or a spa for your health.

Well, huh:

That's an unfortunate synonym

"It doesn't seem like they're interested in Nona, since they shot her." It's a bit more than that; Merv Wing is quite hostile to Nona, both for ideological reasons and because she's important to Ctesiphon Wing, who are their rivals within BOE.

Ahh, so they are sticking to their ideals about never tolerating necromancers at all, even if they are defecting from John like Mercy or easily contained prisoners like Judith?

#the locked tomb #eye-lantern #wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess #racefortheironthrone

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