Something something… Harrow has held on so tight to Gideon for their entire lives …. Something something.. Gideon has been running away her whole life… Gideon is always leaving and Harrow can never quite bear to let her go… something something.. the one time Harrow decides to leave instead, and Gideon turns around and expects to see Harrow there, holding on just like always, but she’s gone and Gideon is alone. She finally ran somewhere where Harrow would not, could not catch her.
What if Orpheus looked back and Eurydice wasn’t there?
i guess we doin Ơ̴̢̧̙̗͖͍͕͈͚͓̞̣̜̗̘̥̺͔̦̠̠̻̬̼͔͈̹̏̎̈́̓̎̀̆̚ͅṘ̶̨̨̹̱͚̖͖̦̙̱͔͓̠̹̼͍͉̪͇̩̦͎͈̱̣̱̥̫̦̒͝T̴͖͙͓͈̞͖̤̹̪̲̣̭͈̯̝̼̦̬̰͔͗̐̽̓̒̂͋͒͂͛̽̂̐͗̀̎͊̒̌̓͘͜͜͜͠͠͠U̵͉͙͓̝̟̮̦͇͉̩̺̙͙̜͔̔̃͂̇̽̈̊́̈́̈́̇̓͆̂̑̓̀͆̌̑̕̚̚͠ͅS̴̢̠̥̭̤̣̏̃̄͌̏̔͒͌̑́͊̓̓̃́͂̾̿͐͑̂̚͠ now
yes abigail pent is a lovable nerdy librarian mom-adjacent figure who cared deeply for the people around her and especially the terrible teens and was obsessed with history however i think we shld not forget she was also the leader of the house most characterised as hegemonic, she was the political aristocratic leader of a house that had made the fourth its scion, that harrow was scared of being amalgamated into. and i think that makes her more hot
imagine you are palamedes sextus. you spend twelve years exchanging letters with a woman who is seven years your senior. you become the heir to your house just to meet her as an equal. you love her to the point of invention. you both know that her time spent alive has an expiration date sooner than most, and so one day you decide to propose to her - even though you know that she can spend the rest of her life with you but you can’t with her, even though there are imperial rules forbidding interhouse marriages between necromancers, even though you’re here and she’s there and you’ve never even met in person - but you want her to spend her days with someone who cares about her. but you’re so young, only nineteen, and there are still all of those reasons listed above, and so she turns you down. but it isn’t because she doesn’t want to say yes. and then over the next year the letters come fewer and farther apart. and then you’re both invited to the emperor’s house - both of you, together, physically in the same place for the first time - and you show up and she’s here. and it’s like she doesn’t know you. she doesn’t spare you a glance. and you’re still so tender with her - you can’t help it, there’s care baked into you, and you can’t resist helping her, loving her, going so far as to kiss her knuckles in front of company - but still. she doesn’t acknowledge anything that happened between you. she’s moved on. she must have, because she’s spending all this time with the cavalier from the ninth - who is, by the way, two years younger than you, and that doesn’t escape your notice because nothing does - and what can you do? what are you supposed to do?
you tell your cavalier that you’re glad she’s spending time with someone who makes her laugh.
i think sometimes about how, when he’s listing the people that cytherea has hurt, he doesn’t even mention himself.
she has hurt him. she’s put him through hell these past weeks. she killed one of the people he loved most in the world. but he’s not angry on his own behalf, oh, no.
most personally, this is for Dulcinea Septimus.
@lastflowerofyourhouse i’m peer reviewing your tags because they deserve to be included in this post too
The House of the Fifth always skinned itself over with such airs of civilization, with so many manners and niceties, but they were spirit-talkers, and speakers to the dead. And the dead were savage.
reading nona the ninth and shaking my head the whole time so the people on the train know i don’t agree with building cow walls
Confession:
I made a post on this very hell site, maybe a year ago or so, where I admitted my suspicion that the locked tomb is some kind of scifi horror goncharov given that every post about it seemed utterly buckwild but also totally disconnected from every other post about it id seen except for being the same genre of unsettling
Someone responded to that post with something along the lines of ‘sorry, it’s all real, even God’s cow wall’
This response haunts me
I don’t know what God’s cow wall is. I have no context for God’s cow wall. I’ve seen no other post about God’s cow wall until this post today
I lose sleep contemplating the implications of God’s cow wall
The only thing keeping me going is that this lack of context means I can convince myself that this is a wall *for* cows and not a wall *of* cows
I don’t dare to actually read tlt and risk having my protection of ignorance ripped away from me
People keep telling me Cow Facts now and it’s gone from interesting to alarming real fast
Why does everyone suddenly want to share that cows watch sunsets?!? What does it mean?!?
So we found out from Palamedes and the Unwanted Guest that lyctorhood is not perfect and leaves a mark on the necromancer. The necromancer devours the cavalier’s soul, and unintentionally gains something from it, mostly emotions or new urges or something like that. Like Ianthe getting Babs’ hatred/distaste of Gideon.
John devoured Alecto. For a little while, John and Alecto were one, two souls intermingling like two pieces of flesh bleeding together. Then John created her a body and poured her soul back in, unintentionally creating a perfect lyctorhood.
John didn’t really know what he was doing. He was running on guesswork and instinct. So I think he and Alecto shared and gained something from eachother.
Alecto is always described as angry. Which makes sense, considering the circumstances. But when John killed and devoured the earth, he was furious. He was raging. He hated.
What if Alecto got most of her anger and hatred and rage from John? Some of it was hers, yes. But hatred? A never ending anger? What if Alecto got what John was feeling when he ate her, made her?
And John. What did he get?
The thing is, we don’t know what Alecto’s personality was like. She was a planet, not exactly a person with feelings.
But we do know what Resurrection Beasts are like. They are relentless. They hunt and hunt and hunt John. Angry, yes. But mostly unstoppable and stuck in a never ending cycle of hunting John no matter the cost.
John won’t forgive the Trillionaires. He doesnt even seem that angry anumore. But he won’t stop hunting them, not for anything. Augestine begged him to stop. John doesn’t let his lyctors tell him to stop. John doesn’t care how many worlds he kills, how many people he displaced. He doesn’t care about the cost to the Houses. He is relentless. He hunts and hunts and hunts.
John acts like a Resurrection Beast. And Alecto acts like John.
spent the last three days in a fugue state reading semi-charmed kinda life only to realize it’s on hiatus. having to lean on my friends during this difficult time.
griddlehark horrible ship meme but i actually suck at writing why they’re interesting and also this is my first time drawing gideon (not as a cat) and holy fucking shit dude her hair is my own personal hell genuinely. also I haven’t finished the series so if u disagree with me based on shit I have read yet then uhhhh oh well
something i love about the way Genius is handled in the locked tombs series is that no two Geniuses are quite the same.
like, take our primary trio of necromantic prodigies, each of whom, in different circumstances, is referred to as “the greatest necromancer of their generation”: harrow, palamedes, and ianthe.
palamedes became so powerful in pursuit of comprehension. he earnestly wanted to understand the material as completely as he possibly could. he was ambitious, yes, but never really for his own sake, only in the hopes of saving dulcie. when palamedes attacks a problem, a puzzle, a goal, all he really hopes to do is understand it. to gather up all the pieces of it and put them together in a way that makes sense. his genuis is founded on a relentless pursuit of the Truth.
harrow needs to be perfect. her life, her raw talent, were bought at such a steep price that she considers it a moral obligation to reach her absolute full potential beyond any reasonable limits. anything short of perfection would be wasting a gift that should never have been given to her in the first place. she is harshly self-critical, relentless, brutal. she martyrs herself on the altar of her own genius.
ianthe does not need to be perfect. she only needs to be the Best. she considers herself almost exclusively in comparison to other people. she loves nothing better than to feel superior. the brains of the operation, the puppet master, enough of a genius for two. so long as she is surpassing her nearest competitor, so long as no one is visibly out-doing her, she knows that she is succeeding.
and all of these mentalities are so beautifully informed by their upbringings. palamedes growing up in the lawyers, archeologists, and librarians house, harrow being taught from a young age that her very existence is a sin, and ianthe being raised in constant comparison to her sister. and each of these startegies produces different types of intelligence, also. different methods of problem-solving, different angles of attack. i love them all so much.
poor aroace Camilla “eating breakfast is sexy” Hect probably had to take that erotic poetry class as part of her swordsman’s spire training, right. and i feel like beyond reading and memorizing/reciting erotic poetry (which she does in the least sexy, most deadpan voice possible) there has to be some element of writing it, too, and that’s where she draws the line.
but Palamedes? MORE than willing to do that for her (maybe even a little too willing). only problem? he’s SO terrible at it. but of course he doesn’t realize that. plus Cam would NOT want to proofread it beforehand, so the first time she actually sees it is when she’s standing up in front of the entire class. and then she has to keep a straight face while reading what is quite possibly the Worst Erotic Poetry Ever Written aloud
to celebrate hitting 1k i’m making a dtiys !!! read more below vvv
u can redraw my illustration in ur style in any way u feel like! feel free to change the pose, lighting, colors, whatever! this is meant to be a fun little fandom thing :) as long as its band au or adjacent its game on!
follow me and reblog or tag me in the comments of ur post so i can see it and share it! i’ll also be running this on twitter!
When the Saint of Duty stabs Harrow with his spear, it’s in the chest and stomach, approx the same areas where we know Gideon was impaled by the fence. “The spear was removed. You still remembered acutely what that felt like”
thinking about how aiglamene has a shitty bone prosthetic leg. notably, i’m thinking about the “shitty” part and what it implies. because you can’t convince me that harrow wasn’t capable of giving aiglamene a perfect replacement by the age of like. seven. nor can you convince me that harrow wouldn’t offer, even if she disguises it as pragmatism. so that leaves the conclusion that aiglamene refused. and the best explanation for why she would do that is: that leg was made for her by a necromancer she cared about.
aiglamene is an old soldier, capable of teaching the rapier, and claims to have seen duels involving a cavalier primary in her youth. so. yeah basically what i’m saying here is that aiglamene was probably someone’s cav. and there’s a good chance her necro died in combat and made her that leg shortly before
It’s sooooo interesting how in Harrow the Ninth, Harrow is constantly noting all the ways Ianthe is failing at femininity: the awful frilly nightgown, the clothes that don’t fit (in the bust, in the hips), her hair, her attempts at flirtatious behavior, the specific way she is sucking up to Augustine etc. And like, this is a weird house for Harrow to be throwing stones from, sure, but I think it makes way more sense after The Unwanted Guest gave more context to soul permeability wrt the status of Naberius Tern, because it is now arguable that Ianthe is essencially being forcemasc’d throughout the entierty of HtN – we just dont know about it bc Harrow dgaf. And this is doubly interesting to me because when we next see her in Nona the Ninth, she is now Ianthe Naberius, a Tower Prince in masculine dress and leather trousers and boots, and she no longer has any of that sort of gender failure going on.
One night this little fantasy pops into her mind while falling asleep and she hasn’t been able to shake it off since. She’d also rather jump off a cliff before she confesses this to anyone.
every night before bed i go down on my knees and i pray i pray that Alecto the ninth will have more gross disgusting flesh magic ianthe style… like look harrow i love you and your bones i swear i just need a little bit more of meat and bubbling fat and all that good stuff… tamsyn pls for me…
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
