cassiopeiathefirst:

I’ve been thinking about it lately and I’m so obsessed with the sheer level of ‘i’m minding my own business’ that the lyctors have going on. cytherea ignoring that corona was a fraud necromancer, mercymorn seeing gid trapped inside harrows head and just leaving, the way HARROW CALLED G1DEON THE WRONG NAME FOR MONTHS AND NOBODY ONCE SAID ANYTHING….. I guess after 10000 years you learn that it’s sometimes better not to know huh

steepedfoxglovetea:

steepedfoxglovetea:

Little over 100 pages into GtN, and I have to say, I really love Dulcinea!! She might be my favorite character besides Gideon, she’s just so interesting.

Why does this have over 200 notes?

steepedfoxglovetea:

steepedfoxglovetea:

Little over 100 pages into GtN, and I have to say, I really love Dulcinea!! She might be my favorite character besides Gideon, she’s just so interesting.

So…I finished GtN

g1deonthefirst:

a while back in the discord server we were talking about the possibility of wake returning in atn and @katakaluptastrophy pointed out that we learn in HTN that revenants can attach to murder weapons and we get a very specific description of pyrrha pressing the gun against cytherea’s skull when she shoots the body to kill wake’s revenant — possibly creating an avenue for wake’s revenant to jump into the gun.

then @eskildit pointed out that we get a clear chain of custody for the gun in NTN, so i wanted to highlight some of the passages where the narrative really seems to focus on pyrrha’s gun. i thought it was particularly interesting that pyrrha’s first priority is retrieving her gun even after camilla’s just been stabbed, when nona describes everyone else as rushing toward camilla. admittedly this might just be because it has a herald bullet in it (which she later uses to shoot ianthe), but i thought pyrrha’s fixation on the gun being because of wake’s revenant was a cool possibility nonetheless.

[cred to @dve for the screenshots since i don’t have the ebook tysm <3]

gentlemean:

Something I need to get off my chest before Alecto comes out bc it’s something that seemed clear to me reading the books, but I haven’t seen many people say this:

I don’t think John can currently resurrect people.

We don’t know how exactly the resurrection happened, we don’t know how he did it back then, I don’t think it’s something he can currently do. I don’t know whether he needs a huge amount of suddenly unleashed thanergy, I don’t know whether he needs to chomp down on a fresh planet soul, I don’t know whether he needs Alecto to do it for or with him. I don’t even know whether it’s possible to resurrect house people (people adapted to live on thanergetic planets).

I just don’t think he can do it right now, which is why he’s avoiding it. Motherfucker would abuse that power if he had it. No talk about godly restraint or some shit like that is going to convince me that he wouldn’t just resurrect half the cohort every second Tuesday to conquer planets more efficiently.

To me, John was always a con artist caught in his own con. He’s jumping from lie to lie because he has to go deeper in instead of giving up. Of course, him not fully resurrecting Kiriona because it’s easier to control her this way is a compelling and well fitting explanation, but until proven otherwise I will maintain that he simply can’t do it.

lastflowerofyourhouse:

lastflowerofyourhouse:

oh oh hey wait!!

so obviously our hint that something is Up with gideon’s physical resilience after the avulsion trial is the revelation that palamedes calculated that it would cause permanent brain damage to the cavalier and gideon is. um. very much not permanently brain damaged.

but it just occurred to me. this post. this post right here.

cytherea didn’t accurately convey to them how dangerous the field was. which means she probably didn’t mean for harrow to succeed.

and. um.

“Sextus has seen this?”

“I asked him first,” said Dulcinea, “And when i told him the method, he said he’d never do it. I thought that was fascinating. I’d love to get to know him better.”

…

“So technically,” said Harrow, acid as a battery, “We’re your third choice.”

“Well, Abigail Pent was a very talented spirit magician,” said Dulcinea, and relented when she saw Harrow’s expression. “I’m sorry! I’m teasing. No, I don’t think I would’ve asked the Eighth House, Reverend Daughter…They could have done this with ease…Maybe that’s why.”

the sixth, voted most likely to figure out what she’s doing, after abigail pent, already deceased. and the ninth, who have nothing whatsoever to do with spirit magic, but who have been establishing themselves as strong competitors and fraternizing with the sixth.

but not the eighth, the ones most likely to successfully complete the trial. because they’re the most likely to successfully complete the trial.

yeah, cytherea fully intended to kill them both here, i think. she wanted them to die. come to think of it, that’s the only real reason for her to be participating in the labs in the first place considering she’s. ya know. already a lyctor.

and.

“Good girl,” the voice was saying. “Oh, good girl. She’s got it, Gideon! And I’ve got you…Gideon of the golden eyes. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault… I’m so sorry. Stay with me,” the voice said, more urgently. “Stay with me.”

that’s remorse, i think. that’s a genuine moment of humanity peaking through. that’s oh god, what have i done.

Gideon was suddenly aware that she was very cold. Something changed. It was getting harder to suck in each breath…Now Gideon was scared. Her body had the soft, drunken feeling you got just before fainting away, and it was very hard to stay conscious. Three seconds before you die, Palamedes had calculated…It felt like all the pressure in her ears was popping loose…When her eyes opened Gideon was distantly worried to discover that she was blind…The air stopped coming. It would have been peaceful, only it sucked…“Ha-ha,” said Gideon. “First time you didn’t call me Griddle,” and died.

no, yeah, i think she did, actually. I am 99% sure that gideon capital-D Died here.

i wonder what cytherea made of her immediately opening her eyes again.

tags via @yourownbluff

this is actually super interesting, and pretty close to my working theory, which goes basically like:

1. gideon impales herself on a fence and, like with the avulsion trial, blacks out for a while

2. harrow swoops in and starts the process of lyctorhood. as one would expect with a near-death experience, gideon’s soul is outside her body when this happens. harrow speaks to it as it’s being absorbed.

(gideon tells her, during this scene, that she’s basically a hallucination. later, gideon implies that she remembers what was said. it wasn’t a hallucination.)

3. harrow absorbs gideon’s soul. at no point during this process is gideon Gone, because all of the pieces of her are still trying to be functional.

4. harrow lobotomizes herself to try to stop the soul from being absorbed. by all accounts this should not have worked. and yet, it does.

5. gideon remains conscious and aware in harrow’s head.

6. the body refuses to rot.

drawerbread:

it’s in the small gestures (keeping her things like a lover)

lizarddealer:

The parallels when gideon realizes she has to die in Gideon the Ninth, and when Harrow realizes she has to live in Harrow the Ninth

lesbiancientforesttroll:

Harrow actually just being a scared teenager who lost her only friend…

When you start HtN, Harrow’s mysterious plan seems so intricate and elaborate - 22 letters, and all those guidelines and rules -the favor of the chain, the sewn tongue.

But then when you get to the end, the whole thing boils down to just…

Step 1. Hit Pause on the Absorption Process

Steps 2a-2v Hide the Remote and kill anyone who approaches the hiding spot so no one can ever accidentally hit play.

And that’s fucking it.

There’s no Step 3 where she works out a way to remove Gideon and see/free her. And I mean, there’s not even an instruction to come up with some kind of step 3 eventually. She knows her life will be myriads, but can’t even imagine anything beyond “don’t absorb her” should even exist.

Abigail & Magnus are spot on when they say she made herself a Mausoleum.

Because in spite of her aptitude and scholarship and obsessive paranoia, she’s actually just a traumatized, grief-stricken teenager. Her plan was impulsive and emotional. She saw the looming threat of Griddle’s soul being destroyed, and the pain that would crush her when the shock wore off, so she slammed the brakes and ran off.

andry-di:

ALT

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I like to be consistent when I can so imagine what I felt when, after drawing 4 pages, I re-read the chapher after this scene and I found out Mercy was wearing the white robe.

liesmyth:

direquail:

I think what bothers me most about how John is talked about in the fandom is the implication that a different (implied: better) person would’ve done things differently and somehow more right than he did.

When the text goes to lengths to explore how suddenly coming into an incredible amount of power in a fatally constrained situation cannot lead to a good outcome.

If you’re putting John in dialogue with the concept of the “magical girl”, which Muir has said he is (a little tongue in cheek, but)–these are young, often profoundly unready people, who often get taken advantage of by the people who give them their powers. And like, yes, John is not a teenager, but I think that’s part of the point, is that at no point is a person really prepared to become as powerful as he did–even before he merged with Alecto. Even when he was fully in control of his powers, even when they were given with honest intent and trust, even when he used them with the best of intentions and tried to do the right thing, there was no way for him to be prepared, especially given the situation he was in.

And it’s funny to talk about how bad John must be in bed, but also, this isn’t a scenario where John is some self-deluding Elon Musk-like villain or loser. He is genuinely trying to do the right thing, in terms of rescuing the Earth’s population, rescuing the Earth Herself, and doing it ethically (see: M–’s insistence that they perfect the cryo containers until they could transport pregnant women).

I really do think this is something people are blocking out, because it is one of the uncomfortable parts of Muir’s message with the series. But ESPECIALLY because the people “critiquing” him as an embodiment of patriarchy and empire are failing to see that part of Muir’s critique is of human vulnerability to power: That is, that power corrupts.

And this even has echoes with Gideon & Harrow’s story! Harrow begins the series in a deeply unequal dynamic with Gideon! And she does horrible things, not just because she is traumatized, but because she is traumatized and has the power to act her desires out on Gideon. She might have the motive (trauma), but that’s not enough without the means (power).

And, yeah, I do have a semi-salty angle on this because people are frequently loath to think critically not just about axes of oppression but individual relationships of power when it applies to them and to people they like. ESPECIALLY when there is a very vocal segment of the fandom that is enthusiastically pro-harassment. It’s very convenient to villainize John and actively dis-identify with him, because otherwise, you’d have to face the question of whether you’d do any better in his place. But the thing is, the mission of revenge he embarks on is a lot closer to many peoples’ hearts than they’d like to consider.

That’s the whole point.

#the point wasn’t just ‘incredible power’ it was also 'fatally constrained situation’ #the point is 'if there was a guy who could just sparklezap the earth better with magic capitalism wouldn’t let him’ #capitalism looooves suppressing climate activists bc they challenge capitalist systems too much #yeah we could save the earth but it would make the money sad :( what about line go up :( #john’s backstory isn’t just ABOUT 'watch some guy be shitty’ it’s a treatise on how capitalism is a death cult @weepylucifer

yuriclown:

even the iron still fears the rot🗡️💀⛓️

endymion-in-stasis:

THE ONLY THING OUR CIVILISATION CAN EVER LEARN FROM YOURS IS THAT WHEN OUR BACKS ARE TO THE WALL AND OUR TOWERS ARE FALLING ALL AROUND US AND WE ARE WATCHING OURSELVES BURN WE RARELY BECOME HEROES.