#she doesn't even remember gideon half of the time

[saddest-girl-in-the-whole-world]

the locked tomb being presented as "enemies to lovers" is so hilarious to me because. girl wdym lovers??? so far we got "enemies" to tolerating each other to undying devotion to (radio static noise) like whatever Gideon and Harrow have going on is way too strange and unsettling to fit into fan fiction tags

#she doesn't even remember gideon half of the time #the only one having an enemy to lovers arc is Pyrrha #and she won't stop having those #Pyrrha dve you beautiful bastard never stop busting it down with evil women #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #griddlehark

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 28 of Nona the Ninth

A broken Sixth skull this time, but I'd guess probably not for any kind of deception

Honestly curious about who Gideon thinks Nona is at this point. I guess it's plausible that she does know Nona is Alecto since she did think Harrow was in love with Alecto

Are we ever going to find out what happened? Because I would like to know

Also, this kind of raises the question of why Alecto forgot she was Alecto here? Did she forget when John put her in the tomb? But even if she forgot who she was at that point, she spent all of Harrow the Ninth interacting with Harrow and even giving her advice (and her advice to lie to Mercy about her age indicates that she remembers something about who she is, at any rate) and Nona doesn't remember anything about Harrow here. So did something that happened at the end of Harrow the Ninth cause her to forget?

A ward of some sort, I guess

This reminds me of the whole "why does Ross, the largest friend, not simply eat the other friends" thing. Maybe this isn't just because Alecto has a resurrection beast perspective but also because this story is actually full of people eating each other, also, can you really blame her for making this assumption?

So the resurrection beast doesn't just drive necromancers mad, it also makes doing necromancy dangerous, at least for regular necromancers anyway, this didn't seem to be an issue for the Lyctors at the end of Harrow the Ninth

Camilla is like, half-dead in this scene, but she's still making jokes

So if I understand this correctly, they're making plans to somehow travel physically through the River in this BOE truck to Pluto, which for some reason isn't going to be dangerous the way it usually is, but no one has explained why yet

Something that's slightly confusing to me here is that they're talking about Gideon telling them things, and We Suffer is part of this conversation, and I think later GIdeon is outside the truck and sitting up and all, but at the beginning of this chapter Gideon claimed she was still pretending to be dead. So does We Suffer and the rest of BOE know that Gideon isn't really that dead right now, or what?

I think after the last John chapter, it's been sort of established for me that there isn't a right way to do Lyctorhood and there was never any kind of "perfect" Lyctorhood like whatever Mercy and Augustine though John was hiding from them. I guess Pyrrha wouldn't know, though, even if she does somehow remember the story John told, she wasn't alive at the time that John ate Alecto

I guess this is the gay sense and not the political sense?

This is mouth-to-mouth kiss #2, and so far neither of them have been between characters who actually have any kind of romantic hinting

Who is "she"?

I guess Camilla saved some of Palamedes' bones just so that she could eat it to fulfill the cannibalism part of the Lyctorhood ritual?

I don't think we've actually seen what happens during the standard Lyctorhood process looks like - we didn't see Ianthe's, we didn't get a detailed description of Harrow's, and everyone else's happened 10,000 years ago, so I have to wonder how this differs from the others, other than obviously they would usually wind up in the necromancer's body

Also, this seems like possibly a worse or at least not better version of what happened to the other Lyctors, since it seems like both Camilla and Palamedes died and they have become someone new instead

I mean, maybe for Ianthe, but I think Babs is long gone at this point, no?

I guess Ianthe noped out because she realized that there was no way she was going to be able to get back to the shuttle and therefore return with either Gideon or Pyrrha or the Sixth House, and she's obviously been aware of what's going on. But this also means she knows the approximate location of the Sixth House and what their plans are for Gideon's body, which I'm sure will be of great interest to John

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth

[eerna]

rereading tlt is so funny you can call out harrow every time she says 'i don't even remember you half the time' YOU LIAR

IT IS SO SO GOOD she knows how to hurt Gideon because she knows her SO WELL. She knows the worst thing she could say to her isn't a hateful declaration of disgust and disrespect, but claiming she doesn't think of her at all. AND HOW IT FORESHADOWS THE REASON WHY GIDEON FALLS APART IN HTN..... A A A A A A A A A A A A PERFECTION

#eernask #eernanon #eernask talk tlt

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Fuck. Yeah, let's talk about grief.

Have you ever lost someone close enough in such a way that you would, if given half the chance, lobotomise yourself to dull the pain even a little bit?

I have. And I was twenty-six, nearly a full decade older than Harrow.

Really, when you take a little step back, this book is all about grief. About how grief can drive you to do horrible, awful things.

Not just what Harrow did - erasing Gideon from her existence entirely - or at least trying to; though this is probably the most obvious example.

(I kinda can't believe that when I first realised Harrow's memories were all skewed, my literal first theory was "Harrow couldn't deal with the grief and fucked herself up so she could go on not feeling it".)

But also God - in his grief for the whole world, resurrecting it - resurrecting his love, his friends - and then having to deal with the consequences.

But also Mercymorn and Augustine - ten thousand years later still driven to murder by their grief - justifiably, to be honest.

It comes though in Gideon's narration - her grief for her mother, her grief for Jeannemary, her grief for herself! -

It's an undercurrent in the entire book, more present than the River.

If you lost someone that close to you, wouldn't you also fuck yourself up so you wouldn't have to remember?

I remember when I first learned that my best friend had died, suddenly -

Just having to sit there, as the world came crashing down around me -

And just not knowing how to deal with it. at ALL.

I still don't know, to be honest. It's been years.

There's something about the unrelenting cruelty of, of having to get up, having to go on. Having to eat dinner (or at least unenthusiastically pick at it), having to go to bed, try to sleep, having to get up, and go to work in the morning.

Maybe not right away. But whether you like it or not, the world just fucking keeps on turning. It's unrelenting, uncaring almost. How can everything just keep going when your world has just been shattered?

I don't blame Harrow. I don't blame John, or the Lyctors - I don't blame any of them.

I don't blame any of them.

What do you do??? What do you even do?????

And it makes me angry -

It makes me so, so angry, that it's so, so difficult to talk about it.

Grief is one of the most universal human experiences. It is. None of us will go through life without losing someone close to us. If we do, it's only cus we die young enough to become that someone to the people around us.

And how do we deal with it??? In the culture that I grew up in and live in, it's just not really talked about. You talk about it maybe, when it happens, briefly, you maybe mention going to a funeral. You hear awkwardly, sorry for your loss, condolences, I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to say. No one does, ever. It's a problem. It's a problem.

You might bring it up on anniversaries or if something reminds you of them. You might swallow it because you don't wanna bring the mood down. You might not even know how to talk about it yourself.

I don't. Not really.

I really feel like grief is the big elephant in the room in western societies, largely ignored, yet always present. Aren't we all grieving in some way? It doesn't even have to be for a person - a relationship or the climate or a place you've had to move away from - a place you remember being different to how it is now - a time you can never go back to. A pet. Your health. There are so many things you can lose forever.

Aren't we all grieving in some way?

I guess finishing this book has brought a lot of mine up to the surface, quite suddenly. I didn't expect that. But like a kaleidoscope, grief reflects in many colours. I like it when books can play on my emotions like harp strings - and this book has definitely done that; it held up a mirror, and it said:

If you had the power to erase your pain, wouldn't you?

And if you're itching now, as an older, wiser version of yourself, to tell Harrow - tell her that grief isn't easily escapable like that - tell her that those memories are precious, don't you get it - tell her that it will hurt worse, in the long run -

How would you feel? How did you feel, back then, when the wound was still so fresh and raw? When you were younger, more desperate, with fewer options?

Wouldn't you also have chosen to live in a world where your pain was overwritten?

#harrow the ninth #harrow the ninth liveblog #htn liveblog #tlt liveblog #htn spoilers #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb #this got long and kind of personal - im sorry #im not really all that sorry #grief

[somesortofinsideout]

The Locked Tomb Books as Mysteries

The Locked Tomb is not a book I'd expect to be as popular as it is. I love it, read Gideon and Harrow in about a week each and am currently reading Nona (no spoilers please), but still it is undeniably gory and confusing and WEIRD. Like the plot is so convoluted, the worldbuilding so dense and specific, that the only way to describe the story is "lesbian necromancers in space" and even THAT oversimplification is something I've never ever seen before in a mainstream book.

So how is it so popular? Perhaps because of its weirdness and uniqueness. But I'd argue a different factor is more important. Each book is a mystery, taking the "Harry Potter Approach" explained in this video essay:

It's an incredible video, but if you don't have time to watch, here's the gist. Each Harry Potter book sets up a central mystery that the story is structured around. Who's trying to get the philospher's stone? Who is the heir of slytherin? Each book is loaded with red herrings to throw readers off the scent. What's more, the mystery being set in a fantastical world distracts us. We're too busying gawking over wands and dragons to fully take in some of the clues, yet we can think back on them when all is revealed later.

The Locked tomb series takes this concept and turns it up to an 11. Not only is each book a mystery, but the overarching plot and question of the world is a mystery.

Gideon's book is a proper murder mystery. Who's killing the heirs of the houses and their cavaliers and why? Harrow's book is more a psychological mystery. Why doesn't Harrow remember Gideon? Why is she half a lyctor? These questions drive us through the books, interspersed with questions about how the world works, how necromancy works, a thousand little bits of foreshadowing that only make sense on a reread. In the midst of all the confusion, we know answers are coming and we hunt for hints ourselves as we read.

But these books cheat where I'm not sure Harry Potter does. When the killer is revealed in Gideon's book, it's somebody the reader has never met, someone whose name we haven't heard, performing feats we thoughts impossible. In Harrow's book again, the reason for the mystery is something previously not thought possible.

Questions are always left open at the end of each book, even as the central plots wrap up. Perhaps because they are part of a greater mystery. What exactly is necromancy? Who is the real enemy? And I don't know about you, but it's working for me so far. I eat up those little crumbs and hints about what's going on, and when I make a correct guess I feel so damn smart. It's what keeps me going through the confusion. Like seeing the bigger picture without having all the puzzle pieces. I wonder if anybody else had this same thought.

#gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #the locked tomb #harry potter #mystery #Youtube

[inheroes--wetrust]

ok this is based on first read only so it might get crazy but there is no fucking way that kiriona is gideon. evidence below anyone please feel free to discuss i am FERAL over here

(EDIT: no fucking way that kiriona is *full gideon. i am now fully in camp "kiriona is gideon with some very very key pieces missing like oh i dont know her love and humanity")

1) during the broadcast and in the book, it's made very clear that gideon's body is dead. she's described as waxy like naberius (who we all know is dead as a doornail). if it's gideon's body and gideon's soul, they should snap back together no issues. palamedes seems to think that just bringing nona close to gideon's body would draw her soul out and gideon would be whole again, and palamedes is the smartest necromancer of his generation (love you bb). there's a soul piloting a body here. they aren't cohesive.

2) tamsyn said in a recent interview (https://books.tumblr.com/post/693388542787846144/writer-spotlight-tamsyn-muir-tamsyn-muir-probably) there is a pecking order to POV characters. paraphrasing here, but she said that if possible, gideon is first and foremost the POV character. we obviously see this in HtN - gideon is narrating the mithraeum chapters of the book, and as soon as she comes to the surface, she is the POV character. when they first came into contact with gideon's walking and talking corpse, i half expected POV to switch to gideon, but we never got that.

3) a fucking FRIENDSHIP BRACELET? with IANTHE???? hell fucking no. what in the world. why would they even put that there? it makes absolutely zero sense, there's no point to it other than for nona to point out they're working together. chekhov's friendship bracelet. maybe ianthe is controlling gideon's corpse somehow? i have no idea it's four in the morning.

4) the way she interacts with everyone but especially the sixth house. you expect me to believe that gideon nav sees a dying cam for the first time since her sacrifice and is just like oh hey cam looks like you're dying soon? absolutely not. the sex pal thing was also aggressive. very "hey palamedes remember that thing we did together who else would know i called you sex pal once". iirc, she never actually called him that - she was just pointing out a fun gideon fact.

5) she doesn't care about harrow. gideon cares EXCLUSIVELY about harrow. gideon "it was not my thumb to let them bite off" sees alecto piloting harrow's body and just says sure i'm going to let that happen? not in ten thousand years.

this obviously leaves a million questions starting with 1) who is kiriona and 2) WHERE IS GIDEON but these are 100% two different souls. tamsyn i need alecto now please and thank you.

EDIT: More evidence on the second reread.

6) when cam and nona-as-harrow go to see ianthe, ianthe says, "How are you surviving, Harrowhark the First? How can you stand beneath the light of Number Seven? Unless I am addressing..." and then nona screams, there's a general panic, and ianthe is like FINE OKAY FUCKING RELAX and tells nona she's coming back to the emperor with her. lyctors can survive an RB when their cavs are at the forefront. harrow's cav is gideon. and pre-NtN, harrow had a lobotomy that caused her to have a breakdown at the sound of gideon's name. what else would she have been saying other than "Unless I am addressing Gideon Nav", which should make no sense considering ianthe knows full well that kiriona exists. unless of course kiriona is not gideon or at least not gideon all the way.

7) https://www.tor.com/2022/09/13/tamsyn-muir-on-lyctorhood-as-genderfuckery-and-greasy-bible-study-in-nona-the-ninth/ new interview by tamsyn for the nona release. the last question strongly hints that gideon's body and gideon's soul - or at least not all of it - are not in the same place, and at least some of it is still with harrow.

8) pyrrha says john shouldn't have been able to pull gideon's soul all the way back to put her back in her body. she explicitly says that harrow still has a piece of gideon and john could not have gotten it back, AND that john should have been able to do better. he resurrects. that's LITERALLY his thing. he should have been able to bring gideon back perfectly, but he didn't. why?

9) get in line, thou big slut. on first glance, this is gideon nav to a t. i love her so much. however. i find it SUPER interesting that slut, which has (to my knowledge) never been used in the previous two books, is used twice in NtN both by ianthe - once about the original lyctors, once about corona. idk what it was about it, but the use of it three times in the book, when previous insults have been along the lines of "you mutant, you mistake, you great big calf-eyed fuck-up" just struck me a little. iffy. this one is definitely more out there but the use of slut in the book just stood out to me for some reason (a sentence you can only type when talking about the locked tomb).

upon further review i have decided that kiriona and gideon are definitely not 100% the same soul, but kiriona could have a piece of gideon's soul, because a lot of the ninth house stuff is very gideon, especially with crux. i still want alecto now.

#nona the ninth spoilers #ntn spoilers #nona spoilers #the locked tomb spoilers #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #gideon nav

[jennelikejennay]

Couldn't sleep last night so I made a mental list of all the characters in The Locked Tomb to check for anybody, literally anyone at all, who abides by gender roles. Because while it's true that some people exist in the book who aren't noticeably queer, even the apparently straight people aren't doing gender according to any 1st through 21st century standard. Heck, the whole cav/necro dynamic is a gender inversion—the buff one serves the physically frail one.

There are some spoilers.

So we begin.

The Second House, Judith and Marta. Girls but military. Not gender conforming.

The Third House. We have buff lady Corona, prince Ianthe, and lip balm Babs. No gender roles here.

The Fourth House. A sword swinging girl and a frail boy with a braid and earrings. 404 gender not found.

The Fifth House is so conventional, right? Okay but remember the wife is the boss and the husband sends invitations, takes care of kids, and is a wife guy. Only moderate levels of gender here.

Sixth: again, brainy boy, sword lady. In any traditional fantasy (see: Wheel of Time) these would be gender swapped.

Seventh: I don't see Dulcie breaking any gender norms because she is too busy being mostly dead. Pro however writes lyric poems, so he's at any rate not a total meathead.

Eighth: their gender is being assholes. No obvious non conformity anyway. They are too busy sucking.

Ninth: who's the girl, the sword swinging porn viewing meathead or the filthy trash goblin? Which among them is pretty and coy and submissive? I vote Harrow as more femme by process of elimination but I can't think of a single time she performed femininity and was comfortable with it.

Jod: plays with barbies.

Mercymorn: not strongly gendered but I don't see any non conformity.

Augustine: ditto.

Gideon: very manly, which is why it's funny that half the time his body is piloted by a girl.

Wake: what says femininity like an orange haz suit and a giant gun? She actually reproduces with her own body, that's very womanly of her, but she calls it Bomb.

The Angel: we don't even know the Angel's gender, not really. I think Nona's right to use she/her and the Angel clearly likes that, but all the descriptions given suggest she may be presenting as a man and then there's all the plural stuff.

We Suffer: if I were doing stereotypes I would not have the masked terrorist cell leader be a girl

Pash: or the bodyguard

Nona: I could write a term paper on whether she in fact counts as female at all, but character wise she's another of those characters that doesn't have much gender suggested at all.

Resolved: in The Locked Tomb, gender is simply not a thing except when it is subverted. Did Jod create a utopia where nobody has gender expectations in the first place? Or do our characters just have too much on their mind to get surprised when a lady calls herself a prince? Either way, it's heckin refreshing and one of the things I love about the series.

#the locked tomb #Gideon the Ninth #locked tomb spoilers #gender

[empty-pizza]

thoughts on harrow the ninth chapter four: part two

yep, they kissed. past harrow had to have known exactly what she was asking for.

and then harrow swears the oath. by the way, i'm not actually 100% sure on the chronology here. this is probably after the chapter where god said the name Ortus three times, but i'm not totally sure. we'll have to see. i'll keep an open mind for non-linearity.

ianthe seems to remember ortus as the cavalier. she wouldn't know this if we were in the proper timeline/existence/memory state or whatever.

this whole sewn tongue thing, i really lack the context on.

ianthe gave harrow something. shit, this is interesting. this whole plan has to be way bigger than just bringing gideon back. i mean, it's supposed to resurrect the girl in the hole.

these letters are very interesting. very very interesting. too interesting for me to know what to say. interesting that harrow doesn't remember camilla at all, though. fuckery.

okay, one of the letters ianthe keeps is one that she opens if harrow dies. cool. and ianthe knows for sure that corona is not dead. man, i hope we see camilla and coronabeth this book.

ianthe is a really interesting character and i'm glad we're getting a closer view of her here. it's like she's smart enough to see through conversation, in general. she's already thought through what each person has to communicate to the other and what order it happens in. that doesn't mean she can't be surprised, but when she's not, she plays with her food. instead of being straight to the point (like some kind of second house nerd) she shows exactly what level of disdain she has for the conversation itself by sarcastically half-hearting it.

she was absolutely pissed when harrow implied corona had died, but laughed it off intentionally, knowing she'd move later to make the point that you don't say that shit to her.

ianthe is brilliant. absolutely brilliant. but she's reminding me of palamedes right now. palamedes was brilliant, but cared too much about explaining why he was right to people. ianthe doesn't want to explain herself to people, but she does want to enjoy the effect, to play with what they perceive.

she might even be smarter than harrow. but harrow will win. because harrow is the one who is completely goal-driven and does not care about the effect she gives off to others. there was only one person she cared about the thoughts of, and that person is gone now.

if every chapter is this dense and requires me to analyze this much to try and follow the mysteries, then the library is gonna be really annoyed with how long it takes me to return these.

#pizza reads locked tomb #the locked tomb #tlt #harrow the ninth

[altschmerzes]

and what is this "still upcoming favorite stuff in my dead are mine" that you speak of? not to sound like a broken record but i have been waiting for chapter 6 since july and it is killing me! please drop some clues or teasers or anything!!

ahhhhhh yeah i know it's been a long time!!! it's getting edited, and it'll be up soon, i'm sure!! if it's any consolation chapter 6 is i think about 30k so there's that. below the cut is gonna be some bullet pointed varyingly-detailed references to scenes coming up that i really love, and also a somewhat extended preview clip from the opening of chapter six!

every character in this fic gets at least one hug - and yes i do mean every single one - and i'm looking forward to THAT very very much

there's a scene late in chapter 6 which can best be summarized as 'judith earns her girl scout first aid badge and harrow, who comes from a planet without medical care, sees someone perform cpr in front of her and is like What The Fuck-'

harrow learns she likes having her hair played with and she WON'T actually die on the spot if she lets someone do that

harrow has a bit of a strong reaction to the way someone refers to gideon and gideon is like ???? ? ???? ?? ????? ? ??? about it

harrow has a dream about the third

cam holds it together Until She Doesn't

the teens act like teens and harrow would like to know Is This Allowed

"And there they sit in silence with their hands haphazardly, unfamiliarly linked between them: Harrowhark Nonagesimus and Silas Octakiseron, alone together in their damnation."

and the clip from six (cw for described like.... harrow is building a new body for palamedes so. there's that.)-

It feels like an eternity passes before Harrow has regained enough strength to be sure that she is up to the task of recreating Palamedes Sextus’s body from nearly nothing. She knows it’s no longer than half an hour. The short distance that the brightest spot of light visible through the half-destroyed ceiling moves before she lifts herself from her slump against the vacated cot says as much. It feels like a lot longer.

During that half hour, Camilla makes Harrow drink an unholy amount of water, and the quiet sound of Magnus speaking to Jeannemary and Isaac floats over to her for so long that she wonders how he hasn’t run out of things to say. They don’t seem to reply much, and the longer he talks the less they do, until Harrow would guess it has just been Magnus’s voice for maybe ten minutes. Sometimes she hears Marta and Judith, though their exchanges are brief and purposeful.

Neither of the Eighth move or speak at all. Colum lays in a deep and impermeable unconsciousness, barely breathing while his heart labours through beat after sluggish, exhausted beat. Silas is awake, but he may as well not be. He stays exactly where he’d ended up, slim hand pressed to the thready carotid pulse in his cavalier’s neck, face buried against the couch cushion and his own crumpled arm. The only way Harrow can even tell he’s not sleeping is the lines of his body. He’s just too tense to be asleep.

The tangle of dirty, bloodied hair that hangs loose down Silas’s back bothers Harrow. She doesn’t like to look at it; it makes her anxious in a way she can’t quite explain.

Harrow doesn’t bother telling anyone what she’s doing when she determines she’s ready to set upon the next task. She simply hauls herself up off the cot, coughs the lingering trickle of blood from her throat, and starts for her goal without a word.

Lifting the sheet and pulling it away, Harrow gets down onto the ground and studies the remnants that she and Camilla had managed to collect in the blown-out crater where Palamedes had died. There’s more than she feels like she remembers there being, but less than she’d hoped. Harrow squints hard at the chips. She chews the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, and begins rearranging the fragments. It may not help much, but she at least wants all of the pieces they do have in the right places before she really gets down to trying to make anything out of them.

One by one, Harrow cracks the knuckles on each of her hands. There really isn’t a point to doing it except that the repetitive movement and the pops that send a slight ache through her hands are soothing. The voices in the room, as well as the faint shuffling fabric noise that means someone is moving, die out and fall quiet as the others notice what she’s doing. Harrow ignores them. Footsteps approach and someone crouches behind her shoulder, and she ignores them too. She knows what Camilla sounds like by now, the rhythm of her steps and the pattern of her slightly-quickened pulse, and besides, Harrow has a job to do.

Unfurling a fully-formed skeleton out of the fragments that they had so painstakingly collected should be child’s play, but Harrow finds herself oddly anxious, concentrating hard on details she could do in her sleep. She needs every piece and particle of bone to come out perfect. The skeleton is the scaffolding on which all else is built, and if she makes a mistake at this stage, there will be no point in the rest of it. Harrow spends a particular stretch of time meticulously shaping Palamedes’s skull from the soft clay of osteocytes that respond to her whims as if they are part of her and not of him. She redoes the curve of his left eye socket four times. There’s a faint, persistent imperfection in its shape, a flaw in the degree of the slope where the zygomatic bone meets the frontal bone of the face.

They’re his most striking feature, Palamedes’s eyes. Harrow would never forgive herself if she were to take that away from him, change it irrevocably through shoddy craftsmanship. She would never forgive herself if she were to take that away from Camilla. She cannot be the reason that Camilla Hect looks at her necromancer’s face and doesn’t see the boy she’s always known, just as she has always known him.

Camilla shouldn’t be watching this. Harrow can’t see her, bent as she is over the newly built skeleton at her knees, but she doesn’t need to see to know that the Sixth cavalier has barely so much as blinked since this work began. Even knowing both of these things — that Camilla is watching and that she shouldn’t be — Harrow also knows that it would be futile to attempt to get her to look away. There isn’t enough energy to waste any on a fight like that, not when it would be lost before it truly began. Instead, Harrow relegates the thought to the far recesses of her overtaxed brain and shackles it there, ordering it to sit down and be quiet. Camilla’s presence, her attention, lays over Harrow’s back like a heavy cloak.

Now that the skeleton — the scaffolding — is complete, deciding where to move next is tricky. It makes the most sense to progress methodically system by system, perfecting one before taking up the next. A few issues quickly arise with that plan, however. For one, Harrow can’t build the organs until she has something to hold them in, but she also doesn’t want to wait until the chest and abdominal cavity are sealed over to construct them. The nerves and vasculature present a similar problem. She stares at the bones for a while, turning the issue over and over in her head.

When Harrow progresses from the skeleton and into the meat, it reminds her of stitching lace. She weaves the body together in a complex series of stops-and-starts, periodically diverting from one area to finish another, then returning to the first. She slicks ribbons of cartilage and tendon along the lines of the bone to thread the joints together, puts down layers of muscle tissue, building out a home for the organs. Those are harder — the structure of each is so complex, so different from the one beside it, and Harrow has never spent much time with flesh magic. She almost wishes the Third necromancer was here, just so she could consult with someone who truly understands what lies around and between the bones she is so familiar with.

It helps that the bits Harrow had to begin with — the bits from which all the rest have been grown — were formed from cells that carried Palamedes’s DNA signature. Those cells, the strands of microscopic code inside of them, remember the person they used to be — the shape of him, the way he was built, the way he existed and functioned — it’s all in the memory of those cells. All Harrow has to do is coax her magic into listening to them, following his lead. It’s like a river that’s run dry, swelling again with new water after a long rain and racing down the same path that it has run for centuries.

When she’s finally finished, has put the finishing touches on the monument that she built to house the only person who has ever been truly able to challenge her skill as a necromancer, Harrow regards the body with a critical eye. No matter how she studies him, she cannot find a flaw, and she studies him for quite some time. She isn’t forgiving about it, either. Harrow goes so far as to lay a palm across the cold, dead forehead and peel back the lids to study the empty, clouded-over grey eyes.

The body that Harrow has raised for Palamedes Sextus out of dust and blood and little confettied bits of bone is perfect. There’s even a chip in his front left incisor that Harrow remembers in a faint, shadow of an impression, though she’s not entirely sure when she would have seen it, and a tiny scar almost hidden in his hairline above his right ear. She hopes that Palamedes feels the same when he wakes inside of it. Hopes it feels as perfect to him as it looks to her.

After she has determined this, Harrow waits there, bracing herself on the bruisingly hard floor for a few moments longer, just looking at him. She’s no longer looking for anything in particular. She’s just looking at him, at the still face and the closed eyes, the short hair that lays neater than she’d ever seen it in life. It’s a sharp contrast to the other bodies she has fixed. Palamedes’s hair is clean and orderly, like he’s just freshly washed and dried it.

Palamedes looks strange to Harrow like this. It unsettles her. He looks young and human, laying there still and quiet on the ground, more like a boy and less like a sentient sheaf of grey papers wearing glasses. The lack of his glasses probably contributes to the impression, and Harrow concludes that the effect of seeing him without them is profoundly eerie. It makes her want to hunt down a pair to place over his eyes, though he could make no use of them in this state.

There’s only one thing left to do now, before she goes back in for him.

#gav gab #gav answers #fic: my dead are mine (and yours as well as mine)

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2022-09-26

Putting the Reading section at the end because it's Nona the Ninth discussion hour if you want to skip that.

Listening: I've had Friends At The Table in my podcast rotation these past few weeks. I asked noted blogger and Tuesdaypost Originator girlfriendsofthegalaxy for a good start point so I've been in the Partizan arc, which is a Beamsaber game.

I like stylistically constrained game systems, I think they help keep everyone on the same page for how the game is meant to go and what the stakes are. Forged in the Dark provides the tools to do this well, so do Powered by the Apocalypse games.

At some point I'll go back and listen to their session Zero to learn more setting stuff but I love factions in TTRPG design. They're a great way to establish tensions and conflicts without having to deal with personal grudges too much, which are good but can sometimes be too easy to solve in the realm of stabbing someone with a sword. Guilds and polities function well as hard-to-kill machines made up of many individuals.

I've just got to the part where the Rapid Evening extract the Prophet and Clementine gets her Obsessed scar, which is a turning point for her character. I am having a hard time keeping characters straight in my head all the time but they're distinctive enough that I'm usually fine. The other half of the story has more distinctive characters I think? I like the separate halves for different reasons.

Watching: Death on the Nile, the second of the new Poirot movies. The mystery in Death on the Nile is kind of just annoying but if you ignore that the actual movie is gorgeously done, lots of big moving scenes with lots happening.

Playing: Hades! I bounced off Hades after I got my first full clear, I succeeded and then remembered oh wait it's a roguelight, I gotta do that dozens of times to build up the necessary resource to finish the story and romance the NPC's and whatever.

This time I'm approaching combat more as an engine building exercise and it's more enjoyable, I was treating it too much like other Supergiant games which are a) very narrative-forward and b) usually based on figuring out the quirks of a predictable mechanistic weapon and ability selection. Still haven't made a full clear but I only did like four runs, I'm still getting back into the controls and patterns. Got all the way to the final boss twice though.

Making: More quilting, ever onward. Cut a ton more fabric so we can keep going without stopping for a while.

Reading: Finished Nona the Ninth.

A lot of the sci-fi I've been reading does the thing where it takes literally half or more of the book to get to the first major inciting incident. The Left Hand of Darkness did this. The Diamond Age kind of does this although that's just Stephenson. Every single locked tomb book does this. You're like halfway through Gideon when the Fourths get got by Cytherea. You spend most of Harrow fucking around in Jod's magic space house. You are fully halfway through Nona before her secret slips. You meet Kiriona like 65% of the way through the book.

Every character here has intense motivations. Everyone has some existential threat bearing down on them and yet none of them are in an active war zone. Everyone is hanging out under the intense gaze of a resurrection beast and trying to decide which groceries to buy. There's a war going on but because we're with Nona, we never see it up close. I don't know if we're going to see the Cohort at work in Alecto, but maybe you don't really need to see them in the first place, you know what smiling imperialism looks like.

Kiriona and Ianthe work well together. They're damaged products of the empire that still feel like they need to be loyal to it. Gideon is way less friendly when you aren't inside her head, she's mean and she's content to align herself with power. The perspective change to Nona gives you new eyes on everyone.

There's so many gender and identity games being played and because Nona doesn't know who anyone is she passed that on to you. It's infuriating because you're meeting familiar characters and you can't quite figure out who they are because we keep talking about Crown.

Nona is good because she's not an asshole. She's a child, she's a little impulsive, but she likes and trusts Cam and Pal and Pyrrha which is even funnier when you know what she looks like.

It's impressive how easily it managed to make Jod a hugely sympathetic character. Yes he's still an asshole but you'd also be an asshole if you were just some guy who got the key to unlimited power only to use it too late to actually achieve the one thing you cared about but just in time to destroy the thing you wanted to protect.

Cam and Pal's arc is brutal. They've always been tightly linked but it's clear that they go far beyond the other Necromancer and Cav pairs. It looks like they flipped the script but in the end Cam is still sacrificing herself even if what comes out of it looks like her.

#last monday of the week #nona the ninth spoilers

[iviarellereads]

Full TLT series to date thoughts on rereading Harrow the Ninth, chapters 50-Epilogue

A probably semi-regular weekly bonus to my reread blog, since sometimes you realize things on reread that just make you need to yell in a full spoiler space.

The whole unraveling of Dios Apate, Major in 50 is beautifully played out.

Frustrating that I have to label that chapter as "Gideon the First" in my character tags, though, because the Pyrrha reveal doesn't come til a bit later.

But, grabbing the sunglasses. She has to hide her eyes, G1deon's long-thought-lost eyes. I think she knows, at this point, that Gideon is in Harrow's body. Especially at the sight of the gold eyes when she takes the sunglasses. I wonder if she felt a moment of surprise before she played her part in the unwinding of the story. I wonder if she wanted to get to know Gideon, her best friend's namesake, the daughter she could never have of her own, the child who could have been from her other-half's seed. I just love her so much even though she started out as a cop (if John's pieces are to be believed) and I love her making this little moment of connection with Gideon. ;~;

All my questions in the footnotes of my chapter 51 post about how can the Lyctors know about John's power draw go double in this full-spoiler space. I'd love to get my hands on whatever notes may exist on this subject… or about the whole series honestly, but let's not get too ambitious all at once.

Seeing John talk about the Resurrection era with the chaos crew gives me big feelings like… I don't think I believe that John's dream-version in Nona is 100% truth, but I feel like Alecto's book is going to contextualize that versus all of this, everything all together. There's too much about John's existence and relationships with his empire for this not to be an important part of the unraveling process. And I can't wait to reread chapter 51 in particular after reading Alecto.

But Mercy suggesting that John erase her memory with brain surgery… oh honey, he's got better tricks than all that. I'm still convinced he's done it so many times. Something about the interaction with August, just before this, maybe it's just me projecting my expectations and theories but it really reads to me like John knows August doesn't remember, can't remember what he would have said or done before the Resurrection. If John's accounting in Nona is true, then why wouldn't he want his friends to remember? He can tamper with their memories, why couldn't he leave them all intact?

(I still think this supports my multiple resurrections until he got the result (closest to what) he wanted.)

So, John tells us in 52 when he reforms himself from the dust that Dominicus stabilizes with him and there's a chance Sixth got hit badly by a solar flare. I'm still curious how his connection with Dominicus works if Alecto is "only" Earth.

Pyrrha swore loyalty to John as if she were G1deon… Will this come back on her in Alecto? I feel like John's exactly the sort to remember every detail when it comes to betrayal.

This feels like a good place to put my theory on what happened after Harrow 52 with regard to bodies. See, Gideon's body was with the BOE, we know this from As Yet Unsent. Nona, in Harrow's body, is with the BOE, but as we learn later in her book, Gideon's body was sent back to John somehow, or at least into the River where he could collect it again.

My theory is that Gideon's soul, in Harrow's body, was drawn to her own body. The River is everywhere and nowhere, travel through it is an accepted part of the universe of the story. So she dragged Pyrrha and Harrow's body up there, and then… something.

See, Cam/Pal and Pyrrha get real concerned about what's going to happen if Nona makes contact with Gideon's body when they find it again. What I think happened is that Gideon-in-Harrow touched Gideon's flesh-body, something happened (maybe an explosion, maybe a light, maybe just a small pop) and Gideon's body disappeared, along with (obviously) Gideon's soul, leaving behind Harrow's body, with the nascent Nona personality fragment of Alecto, and Pyrrha in G1deon's body, on BOE territory.

Gideon's body is harder to trace after this point, but I assume the pressure of contact with her body made her soul, still partially submerged in the River, drag her body in and merge with it again, leaving Harrow's body, already on the way out of the River, to pop out whole, with Pyrrha as well. I think Alecto's appearance might be Nona-Alecto asserting as Gideon's soul transfers back into her own body, and the resuscitation might be John, or Ianthe. I'm not 100% on what "the wrong voice twice over" could mean in this context unless it's John, as he's linked to Alecto.

Without being able to form mental images it's really hard for me to understand what the scene transition is in Harrow 53, if it's staying in a new, consciously constructed River bubble like Pal's or an actual movement from one place to another. I assume the coffin she ends up in here is the same one that the sneaky preview reading from Alecto featured her waking up in. I'm still curious how she was there and in dreams in Nona. Unless this was more "you're already in the River and nobody has established physics in the River therefore you can do whatever is narratively convenient" which I would honestly respect more than a half-assed explanation in the end.

Unless, this really is a big game of swap-the-bodies. If Gideon swaps back into her own body, and Harrow and Alecto end up swapped for the duration of Nona, since Harrow was present and conscious (somehow??) at the end of Nona. Hmm. This bears thinking about as I continue rereading.

#tlt #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #nona spoilers #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb spoilers

[paradoxcase]

Parodos and Chapter 1 of Harrow the Ninth

Interestingly, the parodos is the first song that is sung by the chorus at the beginning of a Greek tragedy

We are back in the third person, but only for the Parodos, then it goes back to second. Not sure what this means

So the Parodos is some kind of altered memory, and it has a broken Nine skull at the start. I think this is where it goes off the rails:

I'm guessing at this point in the original memory/what actually happened, Ortus probably said "have you never considered Gideon Nav". I went back to the third chapter of Gideon and note that Ortus doesn't really react to Harrow's announcement, other than saying that he fears death, so it makes sense that he was already briefed on this and knew he was going to be replaced by Gideon. So, I guess this is some sort of Dalinar-esque thing, where Gideon's name has been replaced with Ortus's name in Harrow's memory, so that she would remember Ortus doing the Lyctor trial with her instead? And I note that "Ortus" here is allcapsed - I guess the Lyctor whose name was given in the Dramatis Personae as "ORTUS" is maybe in fact named Gideon, then?

I notice also that the first part of the first sentence of both the Parodos and Chapter 1 matches the first part of the first sentence of Gideon the Ninth, more or less

I was hoping that reading Chapter 1 would help clarify some things, but it did the opposite. I spent so much time during the last book complaining that Gideon wasn't telling me what was going on or information about the world and how it worked and so forth, and was kind of hoping that when we got Harrow POV Harrow would fill me in on stuff, and maybe tell me some cool things about necromancy, but it actually got worse, now I'm not just unsure about the general premise of the universe or what is going on politically in the Empire, but also about what is even happening to Harrow in the real world, and what is a hallucination. Does the unreliable POV just continue to get even more unreliable as the series goes on? I've seen posts saying that the next narrator is a literal baby, but that can't possibly be true, can it?

The Parodos is "fourteen months before the Emperor's murder" and Chapter 1 is "nine months before the Emperor's murder". The difference is five months. The Parodos must have happened just before the beginning of Gideon the Ninth and I don't think Gideon the Ninth lasted for five months. There's a period at the beginning of the book where Gideon trains for three months, and then they go off to Canaan House, and they definitely weren't at Canaan House for two whole months. There's some timeskip in the Chapter 11-12 range, but I don't think it was close to two months of time. So this can't be right after the end of Gideon, but maybe like a month, or a month an half after? There's also definitely a lot of timeskip within this chapter as well, so I'm not sure if "nine months before the Emperor's murder" refers to the beginning of the chapter, or the end of the chapter. Is this before or after whatever happened to Harrow to make her "half a Lyctor"? I would guess probably before, but who knows. The Nine skull at the beginning of this chapter isn't broken, so maybe that means its meant to be before that

Harrow has so far established that things that she physically feels are definitely real and not hallucinations (like feeling Ianthe touching her, and here she says that usually when she hallucinates about the Body she can't feel its touch) so we have to assume that when she is getting burned/etc. by the sword, that was a real thing that happened. Was there something special about Gideon's sword? Harrow didn't have trouble wielding it at the end of the last book. I can't find in Gideon any information about where the sword came from, but maybe I've just forgotten. Honestly I don't have any other explanation for this than Harrow's best guess:

Harrow also had Gideon's knowledge of how to use the sword at the end of the last book, but doesn't seem to anymore, which makes me wonder again if this is actually post-becoming-half-a-Lyctor, but I really don't know

There's also something else that's kind of making me feel a bit crazy, which is that the Nook app is definitely slightly resizing the text, or the spacing, or something, at random times, so that the same text will sometimes appear in slightly different places when I look back at it later, and I don't know why this is happening. It would be cool if it were programmed to do that specifically with this book, but I suspect it's just a happy accident

Speaking of Nook-related typographical weirdness, is this style for the title page of the first Act an intentional choice that also appears in the dead tree book, or is this just the result of an image being the wrong size?

Harrow can sense living beings now, which is cool, but maybe not super useful for her at the moment. I guess when she said that "five pairs of eyes closed" in the prologue that was from direct experience and not just something she knew would be happening. There also seem to be a large number of people on the ship/space station/whatever who are not Lyctors

Since Harrow is saying that she does feel the Body touching her in these scenes, I wonder if the Body is actually a real person here, and she is just hallucinating their appearance

I don't think I have anything else for these chapters. Just a big I Don't Know at this point

#the locked tomb #harrow the ninth

[fearxtoxfreedom]

@damagecompilation | SOFT.

Of all the people to find standing on the opposite end of that door, with blankets draped over one arm, Chinese takeout boxes teetering on top of them, & a movie trapped between fingers, she'd have NEVER in her wildest dreams expected it to be SPENCER REID — Since her resignation from the BAU, none of her team had contacted her. She'd even gone out of her way to keep the same phone number when she bought her new phone. (just in case) & For HIM of all people to show up at her house like this? Morgan she could see. Jareau or Garcia, maybe. Hell, she'd even believe that Gideon might feel guilty enough about what happened to show up & check on her. BUT, REID? He wasn't what ANYONE would call a "people person." Reaching up, the former agent combed fingers through her hair. Half-assed attempt at straightening up for her uninvited guest. (uninvited, but not unwanted. she'd been so lonely...this meant everything to her)

"You seriously remember my favorite movie?" Had she ever even told him? She could briefly recall a conversation her & Morgan had about their favorite movies on the federal bureau private jet. Reid had been sitting in the back. He wasn't even PART of the conversation. "Right. CREEPY eidetic memory thing." She's only teasing. It's actually really sweet & heartwarming that he'd paid attention to her interests. It's only now that she realizes, she doesn't have a clue what kind of movies Reid likes. Did he even watch movies? She'd always assumed he was the type to read books & partake in...Weird hobbies. Like collecting action figures. LARPING. (& counting kernels of corn on a cob — which he'd admitted to doing) "That one's kind of SCARY. You gonna be able to handle it?" He'd be fine. Things they'd seen in their line of work far outweighed the scariness of "The Silence of the Lambs." Dimpled smirk, she opens the door & lets him into her home, before locking it behind him. Compulsively checking to make sure it's locked. FIVE TIMES. & THREE MORE, FOR GOOD MEASURE.

#damagecompilation #𝔼𝕃𝕃𝔼 𝕩 ℝ𝔼𝕀𝔻. #𝕍. ℙ𝕆𝕊𝕋 𝕊𝔼𝔸𝕊𝕆ℕ 𝟚. #thank you mak for giving me reid now go watch criminal minds you loser.

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

15

Ninth skull, still.

opposite your cot would be the Body, her hands neatly folded on the ancient shawl that your mother had always laid on the bed—the electric light in the sconce shining down on the firm musculature of her forearms, the calluses upon those dead palms.

Hey, I don't remember the Body from the tomb being particularly ripped or calloused.

You know who is though???????

(I could be wrong of course)

the woman of the cold rock, the being behind the stone that could never be rolled away—said, in half-confused tones she had never taken with you: “I don’t know. I died, once … no, twice,” but then she had said no more.

ohhhh...... and:

Beloved, what were my eyes like?” [...] “She asked me not to tell you.”

You're getting so close, Harrow. So close to figuring out something.

Hm, it's interesting really, because at the start of the book, Harrow reminisced about the Body a bit - how she appeared after Harrow had seen what was inside the locked tomb; how she sort of faded away for a bunch of time and didn't reappear, then, until after Harrow became Lyctor.

Almost as if she's trying to remind Harrow of something.

You tried to imagine Ortus’s sad, heavy weariness staring at you from your own mirror. It did not work. You were both terribly relieved and terribly frightened.

Oh Harrow.

Another really short chapter, this one, and to me, it begs the question:

If Harrow's memory alterations were by her own choice - whether she did it herself, or asked Ianthe - then well, she's only delaying the grief, really. Wouldn't it be almost more painful to have to wade through false memories, having to figure out that they were implanted, having to figure out what actually happened? Having to deal with emotions disconnected from episodic memories - having to find out later that you loved someone, and that she is dead?

It would, in many ways, be easier to face the grief head-on.

But then again, this is exactly the kind of choice I could see a seventeen year old making, tbh.

Oh - one thing I hadn't really considered. What if the memory alterations are somehow coming from Gideon's soul - writing herself out of Harrow's memories and then going dormant? Maybe to even protect Harrow from grief?

That doesn't seem like a very Gideon thing to do. It's not fully impossible, though.

#harrow the ninth #harrow the ninth liveblog #htn liveblog #tlt liveblog #htn spoilers #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb

[not---meat]

McKenzie Alexandria Martel

fc: @tripydraws

ABOUT

Age: 27 - 35 Paradise age: 32 Pronouns: she/her Sexuality: bisexual Height: 5'3 Occupation: Artist Nicknames: Kenz, Kenzi Personality: Kenz has a very laid back vibe to her. She doesn't let much go to her head or bother her. She is pretty mellow more often than not and can seem pretty apathetic. Despite this, Kenzi is definitely a grudge holder. If someone had managed to hurt her she will remember it forever and often let it change the trajectory of their relationship for the rest of time. She forgives... but she definitely doesn't forget. History: McKenzie was born the youngest of two siblings. Her older brother, Gideon, is technically only her half brother however his father disappeared when he was quite young. McKenzie's father took over that role as his father figure before Kenzi was even born. When Kenzi was six, her mother passed away due to a fatal accident, leaving Kenzi alone with her father and her older brother. Her father never remarried, leaving her without a mother figure in her life. Because of this, Kenzi grew to be more on the tomboy side.

Fun Facts: - Kenzie is a vegetarian - She is a huge stoner - An artist, Kenzie makes the most of her money off of commissions and custom skateboards - Her entire house is painted. Top to bottom. Any surface that could be painted it painted. - Her style is kind of "hippie" - She has an old Volkswagon van that she uses not only as a daily driver but as her road trip vehicle.

Extras: McKenzie's Playlist - Spotify

Paradise: McKenzie's Playlist - Spotify

Kenzi's Van

[firesoulstuff]

Okay this is adorable: Mick and Amaya with "Just because they aren't biologically related to you, doesn't mean your [parent] loved you any less"

Sometimes the whole hero schtick sucks.

Sometimes, having a five-year-old is the thing to remind you of that.

Esi, honestly, as far as five-year-olds are generally concerned, is pretty damn tolerant in Amaya's opinion.

She moved Esi onto the Waverider at age two, after Zambesi was invaded and... well... destroyed. At first they were trying to fix that but, honestly? They kept running themselves in circles, most of the population survived to resettle in other villages, and according to Gideon a new settlement would take root on the land after a civil war in 2030. Amaya gave her blessing to give it up. Maybe sometimes, time does want to happen.

Anyway, at two Esi moved onto the Waverider, at four she moved to Central City when she and Mick decided it was time to put down root. Throughout the two massive uproots her Esi has also dealt with her entering into a relationship with Mick, the addition of Lita to their inner-circle, being trapped in a television show (though that one Amaya thinks her daughter never saw downside, or she thinks it was a dream.), aliens, and then what came after the move to Central: Kindergarten.

Esi has faced all of this with a smile and little resistance, even when it leaves her with nightmares. But this? This is rough.

She's sitting on the bottom stair in their hallway, her sparkling purple dress all rumpled and matching shoes kicked off. She's currently pulling her hair from the first of the two buns Amaya had worked so hard on. Amaya sighs. Mick called, his tone that special kind of pissed that lets her know he's more angry at the situation at hand than any person in particular. There's nothing he can do. Iris is in the hospital, there's a meta on a murder spree, half the S.T.A.R. Labs crew is still recovering from the attack last week, the Waverider isn't answering... He tried everything. He just isn't going to make it to the daddy-daughter dance.

Amaya sighs and squats down in front of Esi. She's tried a lot so far. She told Esi there will be another dance next year, that Mick will take her somewhere extra special this weekend. She tried offering to take her, Lita tried offering to take her. Hell, even Nico tried offering to take her. But she just sat her, quiet, and shook her head "no" through it all.

"How are you doing?" She asks, and Esi shrugs. "Esi..."

"It doesn't matter." Esi finally mumbles, giving up on her rubber band and leaving her hair a wreck for now. "He's not even my real dad."

Amaya sets her mouth in a firm line and does her best to tap down the anger bubbling in her chest.

That isn't how Esi means it. She forgets, sometimes, because Esi adores Mick so much, that she does remember her biological father.

Not much, at least she doesn't think, but there are moments when Esi will say something about him.

"Hey." She says, her voice firm, the anger not quite under control. "Just because he isn't biologically related to you, doesn't mean your dad loves you any less."

Esi looks up at her, still pouting, but Amaya isn't going to be budging.

"We are both sorry that work got in the way tonight, and we know you're upset. But I love you and your dad loves you very much. And you don't get to call that into question over a dance, you got that?"

Esi nods, fresh tears starting to pool in her eyes, so Amaya finally lets herself soften her voice.

"Ok. Now come on, let's go take your hair out, put on some jammies, and we can watch a movie until dad gets home. Sound good?"

Esi nods, sniffling and getting to her feet. Amaya does the same, and leads the way upstairs.

#mixen #fic prompt #fic writing #amaya jiwe #esi jiwe #mick rory