June 2024

ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her:

Your name is Ianthe.

You have a sister. “I love you,” she says.

“I love you,” you say, and you are happy.

You have parents. “Love me,” you say.

“Your sister is so beautiful,” they say.

You are a necromancer. You have a talent, a real talent. Your sister does not.

“They won’t love me now,” she cries.

“I love you,” you say. You can be enough necromancer for both of you. You have a talent. Your parents are pleased.

“Love me?” you ask.

“Your sister is so gifted,” they say.

God summons you to be his hand. You are patient. You are diligent. You are so fucking talented. You are the first to find the way.

“Eat me”, your sister begs.

“But I love you!” you refuse.

“You don’t love me,” she cries.

There’s another girl. Quiet. Avoidant. As talented as you. She learns from your example. She finds the way.

“Eat me,” her cavalier demands.

“But I love you,” she refuses.

“Love me,” you whisper.

She tells you to shatter her mind.

You are with God. You passed His tests. You claimed His power. You did it all by yourself. “Love me,” you demand.

“Would you like some tea, Harrowhark?” he says.

She’s still with you. Her mind is broken. Her talent is spent. Her power is failing. She has destroyed herself for her love. Love me, you think.

The end approaches. Her doom is nigh. You can survive. You can save her. “Love me,” you beg.

“I could never love you,” she spits.

The end comes, and then goes. God lives by your intervention alone. His other hands are dead. He is broken. All his power is yours. The entire universe spreads out before you, ripe for the taking.

“Love me!” you scream.

“Love me,” you sob.

Love me.

Your name is Ianthe. And you are alone.

katakaluptastrophy:

Masterpost of TLT metas

This is mostly for my own reference, as tagging doesn’t seem to guarantee something being findable on Tumblr…but if you like wildly overthinking lesbian necromancers in space, enjoy!

Overthinking the Fifth House:

• What is a “Speaker to the Dead”?
• Actually, Magnus Quinn isn’t terrible at sword fighting
• Imperial complicity: Abigail the First
• Pyschopomp: Abigail Pent and Hecate
• Did Teacher conspire with Cytherea to kill the Fifth?
• What does the Fifth House actually do?
• The Fourth and the Fifth can never just be family
• Cytherea’s political observations at the anniversary dinner
• Abigail Pent’s affect: ghosts and autism
• Were the Fourth wards of the Fifth?
• Abigail probably knew most of the scions as children
• Magnus Quinn’s very understandable anger
• Fifth House necromancy is not neat and tidy
• Are Abigail and Magnus an exception to the exploitative nature of cavaliership?
• “Abigail Pent literally brought her husband and look where that got her” (the Fifth in TUG)
• The Fifth’s relationship dynamic
• The Fifth’s relationship is unconventional in a number of ways
• The queer-coding of Abigail and Magnus’ relationship
• Abigail and Palamedes, and knowing in the River
• Was Isaac the ward of the Fifth?
• Did Magnus manage to draw his sword before Cytherea killed him? (and why he probably had to watch his wife die)
• How did Abigail know she was murdered by a Lyctor?
• Fifth House necromancy is straight out of the Odyssey

Overthinking John Gaius:

• The one time John was happy was playing Jesus
• Is Alecto’s body made from John’s?
• Are there atheists in the Nine Houses?
• Why isn’t John’s daughter a necromancer?
• The horrors of love go both ways: why John could have asked Alecto ‘what have you done to me?’
• Why M- may have really hoped John was on drugs
• What is it with guys called Jo(h)n and getting disintegrated? (John and Dr Manhattan)
• John’s conference call with his CIA handlers
• Watching your friend turn into an eldritch horror
• Why does G1deon look so weird? (Jod regrew him from an arm)
• When is a friendship bracelet not a friendship bracelet?
• Why did John have G1deon hunt Harrow? (with bonus update)
• The 'indelible’ sin of Lyctorhood and John’s shoddy plagiarism of Catholicism
• Are John Gaius and Abigail Pent so different?
• What was Jod’s plan at Canaan House?
• John and Ianthe tread the Eightfold path
• The Mithraeum is more than a joke about cows
• When was John Gaius born? (And another)
• John Gaius and the tragic Orestes

Overthinking the Nine Houses:

• 'No retainers, no attendants, no domestics’
• Funerary customs and the violence of John’s silence
• Juno Zeta and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time
• The horror of the River bubble
• Every instance of 'is this how it happens’ in HTN
• Feudalism is still shitty even if you make it queer and sex positive
• How do stele work?
• Thought crime in the Nine Houses
• The Houses have a population the size of Canada
• What must it be like to fight the Houses?
• You know what can’t have been fun? Merv wing’s megatruck on Varun day…
• Augustine’s very Catholic hobby (decorating skeletons)
• Necromancers are not thin in a conventionally attractive way
• Matching the Houses with the planets of the solar system
• Why don’t the Nine Houses have (consistent) vaccination or varifocals?
• How would the Houses react to the deaths at Canaan House?
• How does Wake understand her own name (languages over 10,000 years)
• What pre-resurrection texts are known in the Houses?
• Camilla and Palamedes very Platonic relationship

Overthinking House religion:

• What do the Houses believe about death?
• Was M’s nun a Franciscan?
• Cavaliership and arbitrary socio-religious structures
• Ritual scarification
• Sacraments and sacramentals
• What did Silas think god wanted at Canaan House?
• In defense of Silas
• There’s no such thing as a 'good’ necro/cav relationship
• Veiling and shaving in Ninth House cult practice
• Tongue-in-cheek thoughts on Eighth and Sixth religion
• A very long deep-dive on House belief and practice

Overthinking Harrowhark Nonagesimus:

• 'The meat of your meat…belonged to god’ and 'that is how meat loves meat’
• The horror of parental touch: Harrow, John Gaius, and Abigail Pent
• Why is Harrow so obsessed with Abigail’s hands?
• Frontline Titties of the Fifth and transgressive necro/cav relationships
• Harrow, Wake, and permeability of the soul in HTN

Bible studies for weird queer necromancers:

• Epiphany: revealing god’s child to the wider world
• The Holy Innocents and the creche massacre
• The Virgin Mary and Commander Wake
• John Gaius and John the Baptist
• What’s the significance of Paul?
• St Paul’s theology of gender and sexuality and the House theology of cavaliership

eunoiay:

I don’t think there’s any textual support for it (and indeed there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary), but I think it would be so hilarious if Canaan House turned out to just be, like, some office building.

pied-piper-pluto:

was trying to explain the reading experience i had with harrow the ninth and ended up making this

theriverbeyond:

tchaikovsgay:

tchaikovsgay:

had a locked tomb nightmare the other night that atn was dropped and it ended up being the entirety of gtn from babs perspective and i still havent recovered

the worst part is that the narration sounded exactly like my immortal

Hi my name Naberius Tern and I have short hair done up in pompadour and I’m from the Third House (that’s how I got my name). I have blue and brown eyes like river stones and I’m the cavalier primary to two necromancers, Coronabeth and Ianthe Tridentarius (AN: if u don’t know who they are get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Mattias Nonius but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a cavalier (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly purple. I love Abercrombie and Finch and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a purple dueling jacket with matching knickers and also had my rapier and offhand, a trident knife dagger. I had just arrived at Canaan House. A lot of dykes stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.