#before nona the ninth comes out

[heartless2008]

i should reread the locked tomb series

#before nona the ninth comes out #tbh idk about that book i hope itll be like legends darkstalker from wings of fire #none of the book series i really want to be updated are updating though vicious third book and traitor baru cormorant fourth book PLEASE

[ratcaveart]

-I am undone without you-

#gideon the ninth #thelockedtomb #tlt #harrow the ninth #the locked tomb #harrowhark nonagesimus #harrow the ninth spoilers #htn spoilers #a spoonful of depression before Nona comes out

[dinolich]

The Ninth House

#the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #god I still need to finish reading Harrow #gotta make time before Nona comes out #fanart #the art times

[nepenthean-sleep]

i think there’s a comparison to be drawn between the resurrection and the colonialist violence of european christian missionaries, especially of the medieval and early modern periods. a lot of this has to do with wake’s speech in chapter 50.

"repeated mass killings, the utter disintegration of institutions political and social, languages, cultures, religions, all niceties and personal liberties of the nations..."

obviously, these things are the effects of colonialism and imperialism, specifically the effects on indigenous peoples in the case of real-world history. john has inflicted the crimes wake listed upon tons of planets outside of the nine houses in the years since the resurrection. the act of flipping planets, causing them to eventually wither and die, is a direct allusion to the act of converting people to christianity. the resettlements of planetary inhabitants discussed in the released chapters of nona are an additional example of john and his empire’s colonialist violence. 

in wake’s speech in particular, though, i think she is also referencing earth: specifically, the earth of the 21st century. hundreds of nations, thousands of languages, ten thousand different religions. all of them gone after the resurrection. john reformed the world, but he reformed it under one culture, with one language, one belief system, one religion. this was (and still is) the end goal of white christian missionaries: “every knee will bow” and “every tongue swear allegiance” to the christian god (in the case of tlt, the emperor of the nine houses.)  

#gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #the locked tomb analysis #analysis #cw imperialism #cw colonialism #cw christianity #this is barely an analysis but im gonna tag it as such anyway #this is pre-nona speculation #there's already evidence from the nona leaks that things are kinda different than i originally thought regarding the resurrection #but this was in my drafts so i decided to just go ahead and post it now before more leaks come out #neph.txt #neph analysis #neph tltposting

[noesa]

got to say, it's extremely funny that they're advertising for Nona the Ninth on tumblr, the website whose userbase already does free advertising for The Locked Tomb series

#i knew that the new book had come out before i even saw an official ad for it #the locked tomb #tamsyn muir #nona the ninth

[clipartdinosaur]

Griddlehark Fics

I have read an absolutely insane amount of Griddlehark fanfics in the past few months so I figured I could make a like...list of all of my favorites that I bookmarked. I'm not sure if anyone will use this but if anything it will be for my own self-indulgence LOL. Just a heads up, this list WILL contain spoilers up to Nona the Ninth, so proceed with your own discretion. Anyway here we go!

(♥︎ = favorite!)

Short (<15k):

"By the Sword" by JeanLuciferGohard (2.6k)

The Reverend Daughter of the Ninth, Necrosaint, Ascended, the greatest bone adept in an Age, does one push-up, and collapses. Harrow does not beg for her cavalier. Harrow rakes her hair back and snarls, “Nav, I am going to unzip your cranial sutures. One by one. And zip them up again sideways.”

"Your Necro Questions Answered" by Magichorse (8.8k)

Syndicated columnist "Nav the Cav" offers a sympathetic ear to cavaliers across the galaxy and dispenses practical, no-nonsense, real talk advice on how to properly manage and care for your necromancer.

"A Lesson in Bones" by Magichorse (3.8k)

One of the laboratory trials at Canaan House compels Harrowhark to swap bodies with her cavalier. What will Gideon do with the power of the most talented bone adept in generations at her disposal? Nothing good, probably.

"Visions of Gideon" by tothewillofthepeople (13k)

Oh my god they were roommates...

"true love's kiss, or something equally nauseating" by corpsesoldier (4.6k)

She was where she needed to be. She was going to pull her necro out of this godforsaken tomb, end the game of musical bodies they were playing, and then everything would be all right. Harrow would be alive. And Gideon was going to give her shit for approximately the next myriad for not just taking what she’d offered and saving them a whole lot of trouble.

"The Big Warm Dark" by decalexas (haelstorm) (2.7k)

Gideon Nav knows how to swing a longsword, brandish a rapier, bridge the gap between life and death, punch the dead in the face, and maybe overthrow an Empire along the way. What she doesn't know how to do is reach for the girl who made all of this possible.

"carrion comfort, despair (not feast on thee)" by NotAFicWriter (5k)

Some time after Alecto wakes, Harrow and Gideon finally have a moment to speak to one another. Hearts are bared. Teeth are bared. Intentions are bared. It all comes at great personal cost (emotional honesty).

"never exhale all the way" by pigflight (1.2k)

Harrowhark paints Gideon's face.

"such an almighty sound" by CountingNothings (10k)♥︎

“I need you to marry me,” Harrow says, a propos of absolutely nothing that Gideon can see. And, uh, okay, this is not what childhood best frenemies say to each other upon discovering that both of their graduate programs have weird residence requirements. “What,” Gideon asks, “the fuck?”

"A Handsomely Dangerous Thing" by zoicite (1.5k)

Had Harrow ever looked at Gideon and felt pride before? Surely not. It sat like a tumor in her chest, a cancerous lump that had grown where it did not belong.

"How it didn't happen" by Nary (1.5k)

"How did you lose it?" Coronabeth asked, more softly than her sister's shrill voice. The group assembled at Canaan House barely knew her, and yet here they were, asking the most irritatingly personal questions, and acting as if they were being kind and thoughtful by prying into her secrets. "I dropped my pen into a vat of acid and reached in to grab it without thinking," Harrow said dryly. Coronabeth recoiled, screwing up her pretty nose. Ianthe looked unsure whether to believe her or not. Their meatslab of cavalier just stared blankly. "The Daughter of the Ninth House was blessed in this manner from her birth, as a symbol of her strength and power over the mysteries of necromancy," Ortus interjected. Harrow glared at him. "Oh," Coronabeth said, an expression of disgusting sympathy on her flawless face. "But then you would never have known who your soulmate was!" Harrow's glare intensified. "My soulmate is bones."

"Halcyon Nights" by Morike91 (10k)

It was hard to tell what was worse: feeling the full warmth of those unguarded honey eyes fall on Harrow, or watching them narrow in recognition and contempt, their warmth now hotter with something else.  “What can I get you?” It has been at least four years since Harrow last heard the voice of Gideon Nav, but it was still as familiar as her right hand. 

"I completely fucking hate you" by ClaraZorEl (7.5k)

In the coming weeks, Harrowhark learns an unfortunate great deal about Gideon Nav. The kind of porn she likes, the number of bread rolls she can fit into her mouth at once, that she always leans too heavily on her left leg when she fights but can do fifty-seven push-ups in a row without stopping, that her biceps rates 11/10 on the scale of good biceps, that her laugh rumbles like an army of skeletons, and most importantly, that she can’t fucking stand her. Gideon Nav is so grating that Harrow has no doubt she will be her undoing. OR Harrowhark Nonagesimus has been invited to Canaan University's ball. But to successfully represent her house, she needs a cavalier, and unfortunately, her only option is her least favourite barista from her least favourite coffee shop.

"A Thousand Teeth, Yours Among Them" by pipistrelle (7k)

"In the end, she poisoned Ortus; so it was Harrow Nova who walked out to the shuttle a half-step behind the Daughter of the Ninth, the chain of Samael Novenary wound about her offhand wrist, the black blade of the Ninth at her side."

"The Only Prayer We Know" by pipistrelle (12k) [Part 2 of "A Thousand Teeth, Yours Among Them"]

It's like a bad joke: two cavaliers (alive) and two necromancers (one dead) walk into a rebel faction of humanity, looking for a new life -- in every sense of the phrase. What they find is each other, and (in some cases) themselves.

"The Flames of Hell Are Warm" by silverapples (7k)

In which Harrow is a repressed evangelical Christian and Gideon performs burlesque in a lesbian nightclub. Feat. nipple pasties, chewing gum, and a steaming mug of gay coffee (wake up and smell it, Harrow).

"Necro Business" by rnanqo (1.6k) ♥︎

“Gideon,” you said carefully, “I will need to examine your mouth. Various structures, primarily the jaw, but also the lingual muscles—the tongue—” You stopped there. Your cheeks were going red, probably with indignity. “Yeah,” I said, a bit too loudly, “yeah, sure. Do it.”

"Holy Cross, Alaska" by softieghost (10k) ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎

Harrow meets Gideon. They go through it together.

"my love will be your armor" by TheKnightsWhoSayBook (2.3k)

"The princess has a right to bestow her favor on whoever she wishes to win a match," Gideon tells her. "Are you going to?" "Why would I? I don't want to marry him," Harrow answers bitterly. "Do you want me to win?" Princess Harrow will be engaged to the winner of the tournament, and her only champion is her useless bodyguard Sir Gideon Nav, who isn't going to save her. Unless...?

"The Meaning Of The Word" by pipistrelle (8.4k)

Harrow, along with a good percentage of Canaan University's necromancy students, has the flu. Gideon has a lot of feelings that she is in no way equipped to handle. It's a tough week.

"(i shine only with the light you gave me)" by sashawire (1.7k) ♥︎

God prods, gently, “Even just starting with their physical description, and we can go from there.” “Imagine,” you say, from somewhere outside your body, “the worst shade of orange you’ve ever seen in your life.” * Harrowhark receives her saintly title.

"i will learn to love the shears" by corpsesoldier (4.7k)

The avulsion trial left Harrow's hair in a sorry state and Gideon offers up her expertise with a blade. Or, Gideon gives Harrow a haircut.

"The Titty Texts: A Work of a Stupendous Titty Nature" by EleniaTrexer (3k)

Gideon accidentally sends Harrow boobs. And then just keeps on sending them.

"can we start over?" by breeeliss (10k)

Gideon needs a tutor. Harrow needs someone to get her out of college gym class. All in all, a pretty straightforward arrangement to make with your ex.

"Dark Mode Enabled" by senseoftheday (12k)

Tech Company AU in which a certain Sales bro with no filter decides to ruin Harrow's life (and feature roadmap) by initiating the cross-functional project from hell. At least, Gideon has the decency to work remotely, and Harrow's new office crush makes some pretty great coffee.

"deconsecrated graves" by emotionsandphenomena (4k)

Gideon and Harrow got out of the cult they were raised in. Okay, what's next?

"settle up in heaven" by liesmyth (3k) ♥︎

“Isn’t this arrogance, Harrow?” Kiriona says. “Think you could fix what God couldn’t?”

"Quoth the Maiden" by Sarsaparilla (10.9k)

The bold outlaws Nova Hawk and Gideon meet for the first time on a narrow log-bridge. But is it really their first meeting? Or: what if Robin Hood and Little John were both lesbians?

"twice in a blue moon" by sinshine (8.7k) ♥︎

Gideon snapped out of her depressing reverie and blinked at her. "That's a really good idea." "Obviously," said Harrow, and it was only a little bit condescending. "Step one, sneak out of the party. Step two, acquire the necessary items at a store. Step three–" Harrow gestured vaguely at the deer in Gideon's hands– "And step four, profit." [G&H rush to fix a smashed snow globe that Dulcinea made so that Cam doesn't kill them before the clock strikes midnight at their NYE party. The fact that Gideon is back in her hometown after a long time away and she and Harrow have unresolved romantic tension is secondary and definitely won't be a problem.]

"It Came From Planet Slut" by LockedTombMemes (8k)

Well. Evidently going undercover to an Idan society fling in order to deliver a message to a high-profile BoE agent was a tits-out kind of look.

"Apostate's Yuletide" by sinshine (12.6k)♥︎

Gideon raised one eyebrow comically high. She smiled easily, erasing any hint of the anxiety that Harrow might have sensed. "What's with all the questions today?" Harrow huffed indignantly and fidgeted with the blanket draped across her lap, worrying the frayed hem with her fingers. "I thought your ego would appreciate the interest." "Yeah, but it's weird coming from you. I'm used to you monologuing, not playing twenty questions." "Perhaps it's a Christmas miracle," suggested Harrow, with an expression so absolutely devoid of joy that Gideon couldn't help but laugh. [Harrow and Gideon burn down a church on Xmas.]

"when it's over" by Adertily (2.5k)

Harrowhark had sworn to herself to live to see the girl in the locked tomb awaken. Alecto has risen. Now God is dead, along with everyone who had ever been dear to her - and Gideon has returned as a distorted creature. The war is over. Harrow wishes she could be too. Or: A character study based on Harrow's suicidal ideation and Gideon's determination to never run anywhere unless she absolutely has to.

"Supernova Bloom!" by sinshine (13k)

"It's just for a week, and then you never have to see me again," said Gideon. "I don't have time to find anyone else." And, "Please." Slowly, Harrow took her hand off the door and cautiously turned around. Gideon watched a dozen unspoken questions flicker across her face. She voiced none of them, but eventually settled on an expression of grim resignation. "I suppose I could suffer you for a week." [Gideon needs help getting her new flower shop ready for the grand opening. Harrow needs cash.]

"I still need your teeth around my organs" by sinshine (7.8k)

Although she was a beloved Daughter and a talented necromancer, Gideon's greatest vice was that she dearly loved to fuck around and find out. Knowing this, perhaps it shouldn't have been as shocking when she lifted one of Nova's hands, flipped it over, and kissed her palm. [4 times Gideon kisses Harrow, 1 time Harrow kisses Gideon]

"cuckoo, cuckoo" by sashawire (1.2k)

What Wake gives it is not a name. To do so would be a moronic, unnecessary cruelty. But she does deign to give it the microscopic dignity of a title, a goal, a purpose. Bomb. Eighteen years later, in the rubble of a once-sacred home, Harrowhark Nonagesimus reaches up and touches Gideon Nav’s grit-covered, blood-rimed face, splits a laugh like the world is ending, and calls her “flower.” * Six times God's unwanted daughter was nicknamed, and once she wasn't.

"my teeth will only cut your lips, my dear" by sashawire (<1k) ♥︎

Gideon chomps into her tongue as hard as she can convince herself, stifling a very dignified squawk. Her eyes water, Emperor’s left tit that fucking hurts, but—it works. Blood weeps from the bite marks, creeping down the back of her throat, up into her nasal cavity, staining her teeth. Okay. She has blood in her mouth. Blood that, somehow, needs to get into Harrow’s mouth. * Step #6: Consume the flesh.

"fifteen percent concentrated power of will" by surreptitiously (9k)

Teaching someone to do a push-up is a love language, when that person is very annoying.

"GHAZAL WHERE I'M BEGGING YOU TO TOUCH ME" by igneousbitch (12k)

You had your body and I had mine, and it was a miracle. Your hands against my face were a miracle. The rest of your meat attached to your hands was a prayer answered and a promise broken, but we were flush and gasping and alive, and Harrow—I really thought you might’ve kissed me then. But I felt it happen. The way your breath suddenly stilled, and your body locked up beneath mine, remembering. How with splintering gentleness, you pushed me away. “I’m so sorry,” was the second thing you said upon waking. The first thing had been my name. Stranded in a safehouse on an Edenite moon, Gideon and Harrow try to put themselves back together.

"catch you on the flip side, sugar lips" by corpsesoldier (4.9k)

Maybe if Harrow's brain runs enough scenarios, she'll find a way to keep what she's lost.

"hand to heart, I swear" by corpsesoldier (5k)

Gideon has a broken heart, and there's only one necromancer who can fix it.

Medium (15-30k)

"If you're doing it right you'll break their ribs" by almostnectarine (22.4k)

"How do you know Nonagesimus has gone somewhere dangerous?" asked Isaac. "Have you wired some kind of alert system?" "It's, uh. It's on the schedule," said Gideon. "I just... forgot. Because of the bread." Nobody was convinced by this, least of all Gideon. "It's a Ninth House thing," Gideon went on, backing away with increasing desperation. This was a slightly more plausible explanation, if only because nobody wanted to look too closely at what fell under the awful skeletal-ribbed and rotting umbrella of Ninth House things. "Gotta go—!" And she was out the door, gone. But it wasn't a Ninth House thing, except inasmuch as it was happening to the only two representatives of the noble and decrepit Ninth House on this quite literally godforsaken rock. Gideon knew Harrow had gone somewhere dangerous—knew that Harrow was back in the lab where they had only just completed a horrible trial—because she could see it, clear as day: an awful overlay on her vision of that terrible dangerous room and a pair of terrible dangerous hands drawing some kind of ward next to the plinth. The hands were definitely Harrow's. This was definitely a problem.

"If Home Is Where the Heart Is (Then We're All Just Fucked)" by JeanLuciferGohard (17k) ♥︎

When Gideon Nav gets a call that her ex-girlfriend, who never bothered to change her designated emergency contact, is in the hospital, she goes against her better judgement and responds. Everything after that just gets more complicated.

"blue gray green lavender" by smolranger (29k) ♥︎

Laser Radial sailor Gideon Nav just wants pass her classes, win a few regattas, and keep her head down. FJ sailor Harrowhark Nonagesimus has grand plans to qualify for the Olympics, preserve her parent's legacy, and save her home town. Despite the ties binding them together, the two have kept their college lives carefully separate for two years. But when Harrow's helm, Ortus, suffers a concussion mid-way through the fall season, their carefully separated lives collide. Harrow needs someone capable of taking Ortus' place for the remainder of the season or her Olympic dreams — and Canaan College's entire sail team — are in peril. And Gideon is her only option.

"Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" by zoicite (24k)

Harrow and Gideon and times they have (and also have not) shared a bed over the years.

"Disney World, Florida" by softieghost (24.6k) [Part 2 of "Holy Cross, Alaska"]

After the events of Alaska, Harrow thanks Gideon the only way she knows how: devotion. -- Chapter 3: The journey concludes. More confessions.

"we've got a good thing goin' " by sinshine (14.6k) ♥︎

“Not to sound ungrateful, but being here makes me wish that you had left me for dead,” said Harrow. Gideon had been staring hard at the face of the fountain’s statue. She was pretty sure that it was carved in the likeness of Naberius himself, but she didn’t want to say it out loud and make it true. She shook her head and turned to Harrow. “Leaving me to live out eternity in your bony sock puppet of a body? Hard pass.” Palamedes and Camilla shared a look. It was the mutual understanding of two people who had been trapped in close quarters with the bickering of Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus for far too long. [Team 69 hide out in Babs's vacation home. Because it's not like he's using it anyway.]

"Cake by the Ocean" by zoicite (15k)♥︎

Okay, so the thing was, Gideon had always been shit at plans. She knew that. Everyone knew that, but this--she really didn’t think it would be this hard! Gideon’s voice was like the least memorable thing about her. Bargaining her voice for a well-shaped set of human legs--that really should have worked in her favor.

"careful fear and (un)dead devotion" by sinshine (23k)

[Gideon and Harrow wake up back in their own bodies but both of them are missing large parts of their memory. Camilla tries not to kill everyone.]

"who ya gonna call?" by igneousbitch (24k)

“Fret not, honeybun.” Gideon shook her red hair out of her eyes, belligerent. “I’m not totally sold on your whole skepticism thing.” “Well,” Harrow said, ignoring the nickname. She turned to the rest of the room, clearing her throat politely before addressing the empty air. “Ghosts, if you’re real, give us a sign. Make a noise. Move something. Send a shiver down our backs. Whisper softly into Nav’s left ear—” “I seriously fucking hate you.” - (Casual sex and paranormal investigation. Not necessarily in that order.) (or: the Buzzfeed Unsolved AU in which Gideon is ready to fight a ghost, and Harrow just wants to be haunted.)

Long(>30k):

"Beneath a Blue and Foreign Sky" by zoicite (35k)

Harrow has a decision to make.

"A Heart Full Of Sutures" by Rohad (40k)

All Gideon wanted was to get outside and ride her motorcycle. No part of that plan had included eight weeks in Canaan Medical Center with a broken Pelvis and the meanest little doctor this side of the eastern seabord.

"Midnight at the Mithraeum" by zoicite (66k) ♥︎

It'd been two years since Gideon Nav gathered her wine key and her gaming license and escaped The Locked Tomb, a speakeasy-style cocktail bar managed by the hateful Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Now, dealing tables at The Mithraeum Hotel & Casino, things were really looking up. So when Gideon scored a date with the most beautiful showgirl in the Gilded Halls of Ida, the last thing she expected was to wake up married to her old nemesis and former coworker. The story starts the night of Gideon's date and alternates between the events leading up to the wedding and the weeks that follow as Gideon tries to navigate life married to someone who claims to want nothing more than to forget she exists.

"Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" by pipistrelle (90k)

Being the journal of Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus, chronicling the journey of the Emperor's warship Cenotaph on its hunt to slay an immortal Resurrection Beast. Or: the Moby Dick crossover AU that nobody asked for.

"The Darkest Night, The Brightest Light" by eternaleponine (50k)

Harrowhark has known for a long time that her home's financial situation is dire, and not getting better. She has plans to fix it all, but can't implement them until she turns eighteen in a few months. When her parents announce that the best (perhaps only) way to save Drearburh is to marry off its heir, Harrow realizes the timeline has changed and she needs to take action now to save her home... and herself. Desperate times call for desperate measures, after all. Enter Gideon Nav. Detested foe, and Harrow's only hope.

"putting your fist through a thick sheet of glass (i know you don't want to)" by oretsev (46k)

Harrowhark Nonagesimus and Gideon Nav have always been at each other’s throats, and the animosity has only intensified since the death of Harrow’s parents. But when a car accident leaves Gideon without any memories of her past, Harrow sees a chance at the clean slate she’s wanted for years. Becoming involved in Gideon’s recovery assuages some of the guilt, but as she and Gideon become closer and increasingly involved in each other's lives, Harrow worries that some of her secrets may be more than she can atone for.

Ongoing:

"semi-charmed kinda life" by strangedelight (182k+) ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎

Gideon asked questions. Harrow surprised her with answers. They reached an agreement; they decided to be smart, to be patient. Gideon made a promise, Harrow gave her one in return. Wait and see. OR the year is 1994, and Gideon and Harrow leave their small town for life in the city. OR team 69 roommates au only this time it's the 90s

"Intern the Sixth" by apocalypticTaco (33k+)

ADDRESSING THE HEIR TO THE NINTH HOUSE, OR PRESUMED EQUIVALENT: PALAMEDES SEXTUS, HEIR TO THE SIXTH HOUSE, PRESENTS HIS COMPLIMENTS TO THE NINTH AND REQUESTS A FORMAL ARRANGEMENT WHEREIN HIS MASTER WARDEN AND CAVALIER APPRENTICESHIP UNDER THE NINTH FOR FOUR YEARS IN EXCHANGE FOR THE SIXTH’S SERVICES. *Details to be discussed. Please turn to back page. Timeframe variable. Services and agreements variable upon the Ninth's request. An internship of this caliber is highly unprecedented and likely unheard of, but any information valuable to the Ninth and into the Tomb will remain undisclosed upon request; Primary experience and study is required as the Master Warden has already decided upon such being his final thesis prior to his end studies. No takebacks, no denials. Pleased to meet you. Palamedes Sextus, Heir to the Sixth and Master Warden and Camilla the Sixth, Cavalier Primary and Warden's Hand of the Library

TO THE MASTER WARDEN: FORMALLY REJECTED.

"What's Eating Gideon Nav?" by labyrinthineRetribution (40k+)

After a miserable fifteen years at Blessed Saint Anastasia's School for Girls, Gideon's luck finally changes.

"We Have Always Lived in the Apartment" by labyrinthineRetribution (171k+)

John looks up from his Jack and Coke in drunken curiosity. "What's with the face, Harrowhark?" he asks, genuinely concerned. "Contrary to popular belief," Gideon butts in, "her face just fuckin' looks like that, bitch." She tends to use "bitch" as liberally as commas when off her ass. "You're piss drunk," you shoot back. "And you, my good bitch, are just as contemptible as the day you clawed your way up from Hell." - It is Harrowhark Nonagesimus' birthday, and it only gets worse from there.

PWP (basically):

"I'll hold in these hands all that remains" by corvidlesbian (6.5k) ♥︎

“Do you want me to try?” Gideon said. “What?” “You got all hot and bothered without me trying. Do you want me to try?” Their newfound habit of cuddling gets interesting.

"sting of a wasp" by brightbolt, imperfectlyctor (42k) ♥︎

"You’re a virgin,” Gideon said, testing it out. "Huh." Harrow didn’t like the sound of that huh. She knew Gideon’s noises, and that was a thoughtful, sinister huh. That was the same huh she’d made before putting canned tuna in Crux’s work boots. Her eyes narrowed. “What.” Gideon cocked her head to the side. “Is there a reason you’re waiting?” There was no judgement in the question— only genuine curiosity. Perhaps it was this that made Harrow more inclined to answer. “I don’t have the time to look for someone new,” She shrugged. “And my available pool is… somewhat limited.” “Well,” Gideon said, with just a hint of conspiracy in those glittering golden eyes. “If you ever want to change that, you have my number.” What? What? Harrow blinked. “What?” Or: the five times Gideon and Harrow successfully bone, and the one time they don't.

"Suckle, Honey" by zoicite (7.9k)

“You crave my juice,” Gideon accused. “I do not crave your juice.” “Fuck, you do though. You went off to explore that study alone, without your cavalier, using a key that I nearly gave my life for, and then you snorted some powder that made you crave my juice! Harrow. I never would have let you sniff powder from a ten thousand year old jar.” This was untrue--Gideon probably wouldn’t have noticed Harrow breathing in a puff of jar powder until it was too late--but it sounded like something Camilla Hect might say, so Gideon went with it anyway. Camilla definitely would have stopped Palamedes from accidentally sniffing old as fuck Eighth House jarred juice addiction powder.

"Five Times We Hatefucked and One Time We Didn't" by rnanqo (8k)

“Fuck you,” you said. “Fuck me yourself, you coward.” You ran a hand through my hair, fisted it, and pulled my head up. From here I had a spectacular view of your weird blown-out seething expression, like I was the worst thing you’d ever seen. Also a view up your blood-crusted nostrils. Choice. “Maybe I will, Griddle,” you said. “Maybe I will stop fucking you over and start fucking you." Gideon and Harrow realize, abruptly, that their hatefucking is no longer hatefucking.

"a call to motion" by groundedsaucer (coasterchild) (10k) ♥︎

Harrow and Gideon watch a porno.

"put her canine teeth in the side of my neck" by stranded_star (8.8k)

Harrowhark Nonagesimus is getting a PhD and a divorce. Against her better judgment, she goes out to the bar to celebrate and meets an incorrigible, absolutely ripped salt-and-paprika butch who takes her home and gives it to her good. To her horror, it's the best night of her life, and she sneaks home with her tail between her legs. Harrow has more important things to worry about - like raising her daughter and building the next stages of her career. But when her daughter's favorite teacher, someone named Griddle, turns about to be the Gideon she met at the bar, she's forced to contend with allowing herself (and her daughter) to find the happy ending she never thought they'd have. Featuring MILF!Harrow, Teacher!Gideon, and a very amused Camilla Hect.

"The Wound That Swallows" by seelieunseelie (7.8k)

Harrow can make out an uncomfortable amount of detail about Gideon’s body beneath. Powerful, strong as ever, yet somehow vulnerable for its supplication below Harrow’s. “Are we gonna get this over with?” Gideon says in a voice softly scratchy. She blushes then when Harrow sits on the edge of the bed. “It will hurt,” Harrow says. “Yeah,” Gideon says. “I think I can handle it.”

#holy shit this is way longer than i thought it would be #uhm i literally gave myself a headache i sat here for like 3 hours doing this #that being said if you have any fic recs lmk LOL #griddlehark #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #tlt #tlt fic #tlt fanfiction #griddlehark fanfic #rec #long post

[theriverbeyond]

Nona the Ninth is such an experience to (re)read because you spend just over 200 pages -- a full 40% of the book!! -- being deeply confused, thrust headfirst into a brand new world. there are familiar people, but none of them are people we've spent much time with Before, so even that familiarity is limited. and then not only is everything around you SO different, the narrator just doesn't care about anything that happened Before. Nona zones out during important conversations or is physically pushed away from having the type of information that could orient the reader, so for like 200 pages you have been aclimated to this very slow, drip-feed of information.

and then you get The Broadcast, which feels like a cold bucket of clarity, or like if you were inside a bucket (perhaps initially resistant but now growing quite comfortable with your predicament) and then suddenly dumped out of that bucket into a freezing lake. in 5 pages we get more direct information than we've been given thus far but it's so fast and so much and for half of it Nona's comprehension is hampered because it's just audio, no faces, that the reader goes from being parched to drowning. the slow drip turns into a fire hose.

Ianthe is here and, inexplicably (though of course later explained), a brunette. Gideon's body is here, and extremely dead. the girl Nona has been dreaming about is Gideon. Ianthe's biting commentary is both comfortingly familar as well as deeply disquieting; the enemies of the Empire's forever war no longer being mysterious, unnamed forces but Nona's friends and the city she loves so much.

and then the book just. does not let up from there. the firehose continues for 300 more pages. you've been lulled into complacancy by 200 pages of Nona's School Days Adventure, but Situations have come to call. this is still the Locked Tomb Series, and your respite is over.

#guess which part im at in my reread #tlt meta #nona the ninth #trb.txt #tlt thoughts #like the field trip to see we suffer kicks it up a little but the broadcast is still SUCH an intensifier #i remember when i was reading it the first time #at 12am when it dropped #i was like ill start it and finish it over a few days #and then i got to the broadcast and was like oh. i cant stop now #and then i couldnt stop for the rest of the book #stranglehold

[katakaluptastrophy]

"I’ve already pretty much revealed that Alecto begins with the descent of Christ into Hades." - Tamsyn Muir

That's right...it's time for more Bible study for fans of weird queer necromancers!

It's currently Holy Week, the week where Western liturgical Christians reenact the events of Jesus' death and resurrection in real time. And today, it's Holy Saturday. So Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday. He rises from the dead on Easter Sunday. But what happened in between? His body lay in the tomb...but his spirit was otherwise preoccupied. Because on Holy Saturday, Jesus went to Hell.

But why would Jesus go to Hell? Because the resurrection was not just about saving the people who came after it - it was a bit more...wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.

To be a bit more specific, he didn't visit Hell Hell. The place Jesus visited isn't Hell in the sense of eternal punishment of the damned, but Hades or Sheol or the Underworld or Limbo - a place for those who were mostly good but lived before Jesus' resurrection had made salvation possible. So before his resurrection, Jesus went to make that salvation retroactive. Particularly, according to tradition, to major figures from the Old Testament, including Adam and Eve.

So Nona the Ninth ended with Harrow walking off into the River in search of theological truth. And Alecto the Ninth apparently begins with Harrow in Hell:

Alecto the Ninth, ACT ONE HARROW IN HELL CHAPTER 1 At a point in the slit she was carving through life, Harrowhark Nonagesimus woke to find herself lost in a dark wound. She had been walking when it had all gone black– any path ahead or behind was blotted out; now she was here.  - Tamsyn Muir reading at TorCon

This is riffing heavily on the beginning of Dante's Inferno:

"In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost." - Dante Alighieri, Inferno

But lots of people go to Hell. What's so special about Harrow going there? Because the traditional name in English for Jesus' chthonic salvation adventures on Holy Saturday is "the Harrowing of Hell." "Harrow" comes from an Old English word meaning to attack or despoil - a very martial way of expressing the idea of Jesus as the victor over sin and death.

Harrow ended NTN realising that she cannot trust John's account of metaphysics. That she needs to discover the reality for herself. The faith of the Nine Houses and John's own styling as god rests on the foundation of the Resurrection - John is the "ransomer of death, scourge of death, vindicator of death", his power is understood to be absolute: "Let the whole of everywhere entrust themselves to him. Let those across the river pledge beyond the tomb to the adept divine."

And yet even that prayer - "let those across the river..." - introduces doubt. Magnus jumps in to silence Abigail when she expresses her heretical belief in the River beyond, and Harrow herself scoffs that "it has been thousands of years since anybody bothered to believe in the River beyond." Abigail believes that John knows nothing about what exists beyond the River. And what about Hell? In HTN, Ulysses the First is described as "languishing in Hell" after his run-in with a Resurrection Beast. John himself describes the stoma as "the mouth to Hell", "a portal to a place I cannot touch - somewhere I don't fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless."

In the Book of Revelation - the Bible's account of the end of the world - Jesus holds "the keys of death and Hell". John may have resurrected the dead, but he does not comprehend what is beyond it. Both the destination of the good, the River beyond to which the souls of little Isaac and Jean should have traveled lightly after their short and brutal lives, and the Hell that lies beneath the stoma are outside of his power. He is a few keys short of the full divine bunch. He can manipulate death, but he is not really its master.

And so Harrow walks off into the River to look for something or someone she can call god. Harrow, who shares a name with the defeat of death across time and space. Harrow, who is of the unbroken line of Anastasia. Anastasia was kind to Alecto, who like Eve is the mother of all and like Adam walked on the empty earth with god.

In Orthodox icons, the Harrowing of Hell is depicted with Jesus triumphant, leading Adam and Eve by the hand from their tombs. The traditional term for this image is an anastasis, the Greek term for resurrection. Adam and Eve, whose sin broke the intended shape of reality, are restored to wholeness with god.

How will Harrow answer her questions about god? What really is beyond the stoma and what would it mean to conquer it? What does it look like, metaphysically, to restore the world of The Locked Tomb to wholeness, and what will it cost?

#the locked tomb #tlt meta #harrowhark nonagesimus #john gaius #alecto the first #anastasia the first

[sainamoonshine]

So the more I think about Palamedes during Gideon the Ninth, the more I realize how confused the poor dude must have felt. The first time we meet him, he’s telling Camilla about how all the energy signatures in Canaan house are wrong, and how he’s pretty sure he’s being deceived. He is talking about the house, yes, but probably the poor dude has been feeling like this about a fair few of the other characters, too!

We know he can’t feel Cytherea, who is a lyctor. He probably can vaguely feel that Pro is a corpse (I’m basing this off his abilities in Nona here btw, when Pyrrha asks him to find Gideon’s body in the cohort barracks.) or maybe he can’t, since this is necromancy done by a lyctor; in this case he might not be able to feel Pro either. Which, if this had been the only ‘problem’ with his fellow necromancers, he probably would have figured out faster than something was up.

BUT! Let’s examine the other people also present at Canaan House:

Teacher and the priests, whose energy signature must be WACK;

Harrow, whose energy feels like 200 people;

Whatever Gideon feels like with psychometry;

Known necromancer Coronabeth Tridentarius which doesn’t actually feel like a necromancer;

Etc etc.

My point is: homeboy seems to have come to the conclusion that his psychometry is lying to him all across the board, which slowed him down figuring Cytherea…

(Paired with his heartbreak of course, making him dumb and unwilling to examine her whole deal in more details.)

But I think that he WAS testing her when he offered her the cup of tea (according to the doctor sex short story, he knows she’s not big on tea). And he deffo knew something was up when she asked him to do that syphoning trial. Then Gideon brings him Pro’s head, and I firmly believe that is when he started to figure Cyth out. Because when they were all in her room and she had that coughing fit, he examined her. With his hands.

Right then he would have known that this is not Dulcinea. Because he touched Dulcie’s letters for years, he knows what SHE feels like. And here’s a second thing we know from the doctor sex short story: Dulcie has been living in the countryside on planet for years. When Teacher asks Palamedes about « dulcinea’s » condition, Pal’s analysis includes how breathing recycled air on Rho took ten years off her life. NOT a diagnosis that fits with the real Dulcie!

So I think at this point Pal definitely suspects that the other body along with Pro in the ashes they found might be her, but he doesn’t know for sure and desperately doesn’t want to jump to conclusions yet.

But when they find Ianthe in the lab, and he accidentally brushes up against the paint letters on the wall, well. They feel like Cytherea. So now he has all the pieces of the puzzle to realize who she is, and he just needs her final confirmation that Dulcie is truly dead before he goes apeshit.

#palamedes sextus #the locked tomb #the locked tomb meta #cytherea the first

[liesmyth]

locked tomb characters ranked by how cringe they are

because this post by @wifegideonnav reminded me that they’re all losers, but some are even more losers than the others

Hot Sauce: 1/10. This girl is cool in all possible ways and definitely future lead researcher material. No cringe, zero notes.

Pyrrha: 2/10. By far the least cringe of The Olds. Yes her nicknames for Nona have dad joke energy but she’s very earnest about it and it’s cute.

Juno Zeta: 2/10. Total MILF. Very smart and should know better than to get flirty with We Suffer, but I get it.

Marta Dyas: 3/10. A complete badass with a very sensible outlook on avoiding unnecessary forms. Call me Judith because I would also make a pass at her at the first possible chance.

Commander Wake: 3/10. She made Pyrrha fall in love with her, seduced ever-loyal G1deon into hatefucking and galvanized a dying resistance movement. She was genuinely nice to Gideon those 3 seconds they interacted in passing! Then she had to go and hide under the bed of a mentally ill teenager.

Dulcinea: 4/10. Her horniness for revenge is epic. Let down Pal as nicely as she could and managed to outwit Cytherea when it mattered. Not cringe at all.

Camilla: 4/10. Yes, she could kill you in seconds but she did once sell cigarettes, her most liquid asset, for about a third of their market value.

Alecto: 4/10. Scary eldritch woman-shaped creature with a sword, comes highly recommended by Pyrrha Dve. Loses points for confusing Middle English and thinking John was the best possible Sailor Earth when he was clearly the worst.

G1deon: 5/10. Utterly willing to burn for what he believes in. Yes, he probably needs some perspective but he made sure the baby had enough air before kicking Wake out of the airlock and Matthias Nonius thinks he’s an okay dude.

Pash: 5/10. She has that freedom fighter swag and the cool hair but she is a terrible bodyguard coasting on nepotism, sorry to say.

Palamedes: 6/10. He didn’t clock the serial killer pretending to be his ex because he was too busy going to painfully extreme lengths to avoid interacting with her.

Naberius: 6/10. My controversial opinion is that Babs is the least cringe of the Third House throuple. Yes he looks and acts like a peacock but he puts up with Corona snacking on him for no reason and is still nice to her, and gives Ianthe solid romantic advice.  

Nona: 6/10. Cringe in the unselfconscious way of a young teenager, and put this ability to use making Pal fess up to his nurse kink. She will never be cool but it’s part of her appeal.

Mercymorn: 7/10. Speaks in onomatopoeias. She knows she is insufferable so she’s gonna do her best to make sure to be the most insufferable person in every room. Once called John Gaius “the best man I who ever lived” to his smug face and not even blowing him up later makes up for that.

Ianthe: 7/10. Looks like a wet rat. Hopelessly dramatic but she pulls it off. Declares her love for Harrow at every turn in the most transparent possible way then pretends she’s just being snarky. Some cool points for actually getting shit done

Coronabeth: 7/10. Terrible taste in love interests. Her freedom fighter era was hot but she thinks pompadour hair is a good look? Also, the way she spent her whole life lying about necromancy speaks of extreme conflict avoidance. Cringe move.

Judith: 7/10. She deserved to suffer and has suffered more than she deserves. It’s cringe how she clings to her imperialist brainwashing but she gets a point for rightfully understanding she should be wary of Corona, something Ianthe still can’t even grasp.

Ortus: 7/10. Yes he quotes his own epic poetry WIP at people but he also had to grow up on the Ninth with nothing better to do. Genuinely a very nice guy.

Cytherea: 8/10. Her unhinged vibes are very hot but she killed a couple of nerds and two teenagers instead of anyone who was actually dangerous. Cringe of her!

Silas: 8/10. Smarmy cloud-looking motherfucker. He is a child Pope and I guess he can’t help the inherent cringe of the Eight. But that’s still no excuse for bringing a portrait of John all the way to Canaan House just to hang it in your bedroom, dude.

Gideon: 8/10. Babygirl is a horny virgin with the vocabulary of a nerd. Harrow is bones over tit in love with her and she fails to notice after living in Harrow’s brain for eight months. Gets points for managing to maintain impressive biceps on a diet with no protein.

Augustine: 9/10. Extremely cringe because of how hard he tries to pretend he’s not cringe. Cigarettes on a space station and effectively performing swag don’t make up for how much he clearly wants to suck John’s dick. Which he did at least twice.

Harrow: 10/10. Spent most of her life being mean to Gideon because she was too hot to deal with and lobotomized a coffee shop AU into existence. Thinks Ianthe Tridentarius is beautiful. Once built a bone cocoon to sleep in after not drinking water for two days. Should’ve told God months ago that she just didn’t want to eat his fucking biscuits and stop offering.

John: 10/10. Unfortunately, this scale only goes up to 10 but we all know it’s not enough. Deeply cringe in a myriad of ways, chiefly among them the way he inflicts his barely veiled incest kink on all his friends. That one dad joke was gold, though.

This was getting too long but for the record: Aiglamene is cool and so is Abigail Pent. Magnus is not cool but he’s a fun time. The Terrible Teens are exempt from judgement on account of being 14.

#i wrote this on my phone on the metro spelling what's spelling #will this finally be the post I send to L. to convince her to read the books? #tlt memes #the locked tomb #tlt

[racefortheironthrone]

The Unwanted Guest and Grand Lysis

As part of my ongoing obsession with a certain transcendental plural entity, I re-read "The Unwanted Guest" with an eye towards what was Palamedes thinking about Grand Lysis and the nature of spirit magic shortly before the transmutation.

While a lot of the discourse on TUG has focused on the permeability of the soul (for good reason), I found myself on this re-read focusing on a different bit of Sextus' Poirot reveal:

PALAMEDES It’s all so messy … so much messier than we ever imagined. I’ve been in Camilla’s body for months now, and I’ve started remembering things I never saw. This is the real truth of Lyctorhood, Ianthe—it’s not some bloodless swapping-out of batteries. It’s grafting; transplantation. When you absorbed Naberius Tern’s soul, you didn’t swallow a diamond. (emphasis mine)

When I initially wrote my essay about Grand Lysis and Paul, I had thought of the Sixth's version of the Eightfold Word as a megatheorem that was enacted in the very moment as we saw it in Nona. That's certainly how it appeared at the time, but this paragraph above strongly suggests that the process we see later with Paul on the Ninth was in a certain sense already underway throughout their time on New Rho.

This certainly explains why Palamedes was so confident in his psychic duel that he had out-thought Ianthe about something so core to her core area of expertise: the nature of the soul. Because contrary to Ianthe's arrogant presumption that only she had "eaten ice cream," Palamedes and Camilla had been experiencing transplantation-leading-to-lysis for months and had been thinking really hard about what it all meant about the soul and the nature of Lyctorhood.

Moreover, one of the things I absolutely love about TUG is the way it completely recontextualizes and makes us rethink one of my favorite passages from Nona:

They dashed toward the abandoned body of Ianthe Naberius—an abandoned body that was now propped up on its elbows, staring out with pale, distrustful eyes, an expression on its face of commingled hate and despair. “So there was another way, Sextus, after all,” the body murmured. The figure crouched down and extended their arm. “I know how hard it is for you to kick against the goad,” said the new person. “But there are more worlds than this. Come with us. We are the love that is perfected by death—but even death will be no more; death can also die. There’s still time, Ianthe. Time for you, and for Naberius Tern.” The abandoned body stared at what had once been Camilla’s hand, at what once had been Camilla’s face, then at the hand again. After which it said brightly— “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

As I said in my original essay, one of the things I originally thought was so funny about this sequence is the idea that Ianthe would ever have contemplated the idea of Grand Lysis with Babs. But now that we know what passed between Ianthe and Palamedes during their psychic duel, it explains exactly why Ianthe is consumed by "commingled hate and despair," because she's just had a core element of her worldview, her ambitions, and her sense of herself comprehensively debunked and sees the proof of it standing before her.

And it also throws in a different light Paul's offer to Ianthe, which is rendered far more sympathetic and compassionate than before. They’re not just trying to convert Ianthe to their way of thinking, they’re recognizing that lysis is actively happening to Ianthe regardless of her will. Unwantedly, the inviolability of Ianthe's personhood has been compromised because she never stopped to count the cost of ascension, and thus Ianthe Tridentarius no longer exists - she is Ianthe Naberius (not Tern) now. Better to fully embrace the comingling of "proteins and lipids and molecules" and become something new and whole, rather than poison yourself with resentment and denial for a myriad.

And thus the tragedy that Ianthe refuses Paul's good news.

#the locked tomb #tlt #palamedes sextus #ianthe naberius #camilla hect #the unwanted guest #nona the ninth #tug spoilers #ntn spoilers #world building #necromancy #lyctorhood #the eightfold word

[yuck-pfaugh]

Note: I'm writing this only because I haven't seen anyone else touch on these specific points. I'm not Māori, so my understanding may be mistaken; if so I would be very grateful for correction and elaboration from tangata whenua. (And I've only read Nona once so far, and we all know that's a scratch upon the surface of it.)

Tazmuir has received fandom flack for saying in interviews that Gideon and Harrow are both Māori without mentioning it in the text — which understandably reminds sf/f readers of a certain other author's tendency to dispose of the difficult bits outside the actual work. I think it is clear by now that the reason it wasn't dealt with explicitly earlier on is that Tazmuir sticks religiously (ahem) to the flawed and limited knowledge of her point-of-view characters, and in the Nine Houses they have no concept of pre-Resurrection races and ethnicities, because Jod has not allowed them knowledge of any world but his. (Besides, explaining Gideon's lineage in a Doylist aside would have been rather tricky without revealing, before their proper time in the narrative, juicy details about Jod himself.)

My prediction is that we will find out Anastasia was also Māori. Maybe, probably, from the same iwi as Jod and/or G1deon.

Which makes Harrow, her last descendent, Māori as well.

No matter how many generations separate them. No matter how much other blood.

"Mixed Māori" or "[percentage] Māori" is kind of a pākehā concept. The more important question is, do you whakapapa? Do you know who you are? Do you know where you come from? All it takes is one verified ancestor and you're in the club, no matter how long it's been or what brand of egg carton your skin looks like on the book cover. I think Harrow is descended not just from a line of Tomb-keepers but a line of kaitiaki, guardians of the land, who through Anastasia's private pact with Alecto are sworn to protect her — Papatūānuku, the earth mother born from salt water — and who have been holding on for ten thousand years to right Jod's wrongs. We know salt water is sacred to the line of the Ninth House; we know that Alecto was called "the saltwater creature"; we know that it's Nona's natural element, which calms and renews her; all this links Alecto/Earth specifically with Māori creation myths, more than any others. And we know that preserving the ancient bloodline of the Ninth, Anastasia's bloodline, in Harrow's own improbable and desperately yearned-for person (that Alecto can recognise at a taste), was the goal Pelleamena and Priamhark pursued at the cost of the Ninth House's entire future.

Yes, this series is portraying an indigenous man as the destroyer of Earth. We know that Earth chose him as her saviour and he betrayed her, imprisoned her, set himself up as master of an empire that was her antithesis, then imprisoned her again — arguably worse sins for someone who was born into that special relationship with the land, whom the Earth loved and trusted so much and still loves even now because love past understanding is her gift.

But here's the answer to that. Here's his opposite number. Harrow, who fell in love at first sight with the Earth, who found in that love her reason and her drive to continue living and to hold to her goals through intolerable trauma, who has a unique combination of bloodline and genius and Jod-and-Alecto-derived power (through her Lyctorhood with Kiriona Gaia, wherever that ends up going) with which to fulfill this sacred pact entered into by her tipuna Anastasia.

Harrow being Māori is not a trendy convenient afterthought. It's an integral point.

Harrow knows who she is. She knows where she comes from. She knows where she's going: Hell itself, to get to the bottom of all this shit. So I think we will be hearing more along these lines.

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #anastasia the first #anastasia the ninth #harrow too #ntn spoilers #nona spoilers #nona the ninth spoilers #acid jail for john #because that is my tag for john

[xenart]

No because I can’t stop thinking about the themes of childhood in the locked tomb, I’m not sure if its like, a byproduct of other themes, or if it’s all building to something- the mere existence of Nona seems to imply the latter- but it cant escape notice that a huge portion of the characters in the Locked Tomb universe seem to have been denied childhood.

The Lyctors quite literally never were children, they were reborn with no memory of their prior lives. Their sociopath behavior is not just a byproduct of their age but the fact that they literally do not remember ever being  nurtured or cared for. I don’t think its a coincidence that the Cythera and Loveday were the last to ascend, and Anastasia and Samael *didn’t* ascend, and they were 4 of the 6 saints to remember their childhoods (no clue on what Cyrus and Valency thought of it afaik)

 The Nine Houses in of themselves do not seem designed to provide a nurturing childhood. Children start preparing for their life of war early, doubly so if they are born with necromantic ability. We do see some examples of nurturing, but we see even more of children thrown into war before puberty, and children being born to become batteries. The one house we know for a fact was dedicated to protecting children till they turned 18 is the ninth house, and the plot of the series arguably begins with the decision to betray that dedication.

Harrow is described as being insanely unchildlike from birth, being able to sit silently in pews for hours.

I feel like if there is a thesis statement on the series relationship to childhood in the books so far, it comes from the scene where Ortus apologies for not looking out for Harrow:

“She was the Reverend Daughter. She was beyond pity, beyond the tenderness of a member of her congregation rendering her down into a neglected child. The problem was that she had never been a child; she and Gideon had become women before their time, and watched each other’s childhood crumble away like so much dust.”

It’s been said before that a large part of the series seems to reflect love as pity, caring for someone when they’re in a wretched shameful state, when help is truly needed and people answer the call and do it with kindness. Childhood is when this type of love is most given, when we are our most vulnerable and our care is given most unconditionally.

And the fact that Nona’s story is so important to the series that it was worth expanding the trilogy to a quartet for her- it speaks to me that it was very important for her to experience that kind of nurturing love on a personal level, as a human. A lot has changed since John locked Alecto away, but the biggest difference- the one John doesn’t even know about -is that his Revenant Beast now has an inner child.

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #harrow the ninth #tlt analysis

[with-my-murder-flute]

TLT theory: Aim, Jod, and the second part of the message

My brain is fevered. I feel like I've constructed an elaborate Pepe Silvia corkboard in my mind, and it feels like it makes sense of everything, but I honestly have no clue if that certainty will last very long.

I think I know what the Messenger is carrying. I think I know why John has waited ten thousand years.

Spooky preview quote from HtN chapter 2:

I mastered Death, Harrowhark; I wish I’d done the smarter thing and mastered Time.

Spoilers for Gideon, Harrow, and Nona the Ninth.

BoE's chronology has always been kind of weird to me: Five thousand years after the Resurrection happens, they pop up with intense and detailed knowledge of the 21st century! Jod destroys languages and cultures and societies, but BoE keeps popping up! How.

Originally I thought the continuous thread over the years was a Lyctor who helped them (and the necromantic implant does seem to point that way) but I also think part of it is that the ships that escaped just before Earth's devastation have been showing up one by one, over a huge span of time. That's why Wake says "My long-dead natal sun" and can quote Eminem at length; she spent ten thousand years suspended in time, before re-entering it.

NtN, John 19:18:

They said they’d managed to find some poor dipshit geek who’d fixed the FTL problem of getting locked in the chrono well, you know, moving so fast you were stuck doing quantum wheelies. They’d come up with something where you could oscillate out so long as the ship was attuned to a prearranged spectrum outside. I still don’t understand the maths. It’s going to take me ten thousand years to understand it. I couldn’t follow, but A— could. He said immediately, What is the point if you still have no fucking clue where your ship is going to end up when you shake out of FTL. They said, Aha, but we can track it once it’s out. A— said, It could be halfway across the universe or phasing through a planet. They kept arguing that probably wouldn’t happen [...] They said it was expensive, so twelve ships would go first, with one guiding them out with the beacon frequencies like a tugboat leading a cruise liner, triangulate for Tau Ceti, dump the population, and come back.

I think that AIM's message is the beacon that will call the last of the FTL fleet out of the chrono well. They are "we", they are the first of two parts, because their identity is the person they were before coming the Messenger, and the ships that still haven't oscillated back into three-dimensional space yet, because they are under AIM's personal guardianship/intimately tied to possession of her body.

NtN, John 5:4

I think the only reason I haven’t done it already is that I can’t bear the idea that I wouldn’t be able to touch them—that they’d still be out there …

I think Jod has been at this for so long because he is waiting for an event that could literally take an infinite amount of time to occur. He hasn't killed the entire colonized population yet because he wants something out of them, and it doesn't seem to be labour or devotion or even thanergy.

I think he's looking for the fleet's beacon, in a way that's like lighting a grassfire to flush animals out of hiding and deprive them of shelter. I think he's constantly killing planets and relocating and resettling populations before funnelling them together again, like a distillery trying to heat and separate different liquids as they move from flask to flask, because he wants to finally decant the key to the last ships that escaped him.

#lis's tlt theories #the locked tomb spoilers #the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #gtn spoilers #htn spoilers

[greatandquestionablecontent]

I love the Gender of Palamedes and Pyrrha in Nona the Ninth.

(I’m only 20% into the book so some of these may later be addressed, disproven, etc)

Assuming that Palamades was originally assigned male at birth and Pyrrha was assigned female at birth, and that they were both previously cisgender…

Are they trans in the traditional sense? Well, not exactly. Are they cis in the traditional sense? Well, not exactly.

Is Palamades genderfluid? Not really, presumably. He’s always a guy he just sometimes occupies the body of a woman, in the most literal sense.

Pyrrha has a lot of experiences of a trans woman (as our modern western Earthly understanding goes), like being assumed to be Nona’s father, having frustrating stubble (that Palamades says isn’t worth the risk of necromancing away). Nona absolutely never questions that Pyrrha’s a she, only that Pyrrha used to be like Palamades and Cam but lost her equivalent of Palamades (lots to unpack there too).

Also, ponder what if one of them was already trans? Like, imagine if Pyrrha, 10,000 years ago, was AMAB, transitioned socially and possibly physically, and then after that is now is in a new male* body. But it’s been 10,000 years so she’s used to it, she just wishes the stubble didn’t grow so fast. Her body is strong and useful and she cooks topless in the kitchen. She’s used to being referred to as male, but obviously is she/her at home. Are there ever times she tries to get the public to read her as female or is she content with “boymoding” when out of the house?

They all have so much else going on I don’t imagine they bother with things like binding and tucking and there’s so far no indication Palamedes is concerned with physical dysphoria. Fair enough! He’s just happy to not be a handful of bones! Well, I dunno if “happy” is the primary emotion I’d ascribe to him. That’s Nona’s.

(Tfw ur gender is happy, but in a girl way).

What if Palamades had originally been AFAB and medically and socially transitioned? Coulda done his top “surgery” himself probably lmao.

Camilla binding before her turn is up, out of consideration, is also an interesting vibe to ponder. I kinda like the headcanon that he doesn’t really give a shit but that she would offer it anyway if he wanted. That said, I think binding would be inconvenient and bad for emergency running.

My primary headcanon is that Camilla is a sturdy sports bra kind of gal anyway and that works best for both of them 😎

That’s not even touching on the potentials of trans fem Camilla.

Side note, I’m obsessed with the fact that they leave each other pages and pages of letters. WHAT IS IN THE LETTERS. I don’t even want to know all of it, outside of what’s plot important. I want the fandom to have freedom to go nuts.

These have been your early morning NtN gender thoughts. Thanks for coming to my dead talk.

#i have not finished yet so im avoiding spoilers #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #palamades sextus #pyrrha dve #camilla hect #meta and rambles

[fkapommel]

Alecto the Ninth theories round up

Here's some of mine:

I look pretty good for a dead bitch (she's alive!) moment Octakiseron slay

Relatedly, we get answers on what the fuck ate Colum

Alecto revealed to have power over life and is the key to properly harvesting and manipulating thalergy, which is the key to "perfect lyctohood." This is what Jod kept secret from his lyctors

Harrow and Gideon are able to become perfect lyctors, but don't, or somehow reverse the process so that they become mortal again

The blockage of the stoma in the River is what is fueling Jod's powers. Uncork the toilet bowl, and he goes back to fail Twitch Streamer, but this time with no magic powers to boost his numbers

Vacay back to the Nine Houses! Def visiting First House (gotta return Alecto to her ACTUAL body) but maybe visiting another place we haven't been to before, like Ida

Jod doesn't die. He either becomes mortal again and lives out his wet rat days on a planet he ordered to be murdered or retains immortality but is functionally useless

Flesh Magician!Harrow makes her first heart for a special Valentine ❤️ (there's no atomical heart emoji?? That's so fucked)

Pyrrha and Kiriona bonding bc my soul needs it

Continuing in a similar vein with Nona, ATN's going to be FLASHBACK CENTRAL. Based on her using antiquated language and mistaking Harrow for Anastasia, Alecto may have an inability to differentiate past/present, or better yet, since she's a PLANET, she may perceive time differently with the past and present co-existing. I've seen theories about Jod's (and possibly Gideon's) manipulation/perception of time distortion, and that may stem from Alecto. Regardless, we're going to learn more about the lyctors and the building of Canaan House.

>>>> I know my baby girl Mercymorn is coming back I feel it in my bones.

ALECTO X ANASTASIA SMOOCHING

Reblog with ur own theories! No bad ideas ☠️☠️

#tlt #the locked tomb #kiriona gaia #harrowhark nonagesimus #alecto the first #atn #gideon nav #mine