December 2022

ghostsandyoumightdie:

I think it’s interesting that Harrow’s rib corset is actually described by name only twice – once as a corset, once as a corselet.

Ianthe calls it a corset. Ianthe, who heralds from the fashion capitol of Dominicus, refers to it as an accessory.

Gideon calls it a corselet. Gideon, who’s fought Harrow a thousand times, who knows how deadly even an inch of bone can be if within theorum distance of the Reverend Daughter, who’s spent her entire life learning the blade, refers to it as armor.

theriverbeyond:

uglygirlstatus:

best thing about Ianthe is that the bone arm is so fucking stupid. it doesn’t make any sense. it sounds cool in theory but in reality having her entire right arm reduced to only skinny little bones probably just make her look off-balance and weird. the joint that connects to the shoulder is either surrounded by open exposed meat or has had skin manually grown over it so that her upper arm looks like a corn dog. I assume lyctorhood + bone magic means that her body can do whatever it wants but also how is an arm without muscle going to have any strength behind it. she’s one unlucky landing away from snapping clean through the gold plating and exploding her rapier arm into a dozen useless shards. Yes she can just regenerate it but why go through the effort. Why is she only making herself a Fat Glove on an as-needed basis she is a flesh magician just put the meat back on it. except she never will because it’s her daily reminder of the closest she ever got to having sex with harrow

#it’s her consolation prize #i also think there’s something here about. like she experienced a traumatic event and then decided to display it proudly forever #it’s like her battle scar #you can’t really see the lengths she went to in order to become a lyctor unless you knew what her eyes looked like before #and lyctorhood is this state that sort of. erases all harm done to the necromancer’s body like it never happened #so then it’s this whole deal where you can go through immense physical pain and just get fixed over and over #but ianthe wants to finally be acknowledged. she wants her villain speech she wants posters of her face #she wants people to know who she is and what she’s capable of #the arm is a lasting symbol of that imo #ianthe doesn’t actually want to be this anonymous physically perfect gesture of the emperor forever#she wants notoriety

(via @gideonisms)

A little more Griddlehark college AU!! ft. messy, messy house party

cass-a-rollie:

some tlt doodles

dream-to-be-frog:

i wonder how long harrow screamed. i wonder how long it took for her to process what had happened—for her brain to catch up to her eyes, to register what gideon did. “you can stop screaming any minute now, just an fyi.” she was screaming as she got up. did she scream while she ate her and rebuilt her? how many times do you think harrow screamed her name? how much do you think was wordless agony? do you think her mouth got used to screaming her name? used to it enough that that was the last thing she said? do you think this was the practice?

carys-the-ninth:

ALT

ALT

I was thinking about the interview in which Muir said the original name for Gideon the Ninth was “The Battery of the Heart” and how “it was the wrong title, too literary. Sounds like post-war sexuality in Vienna.” Obviously I had to make some covers for that book.

Art: Egon Schiele, left, Kansuke Yamamoto, right. Images have alt text.

pygmypouter:

this place was beautiful once upon a time

locked-tomb-shenanigans:

Listen I’m sure someone has already talked about this scene, and way better than I ever could, but it makes me so feral and I need to talk about it too

This is hands down the most depressing scene in the entirety of NtN in my opinion.

Surface level it’s Gideon yelling at Crux, but the significance here comes from the exact word choice. “You could have lived for her. But you didn’t know how.”

She uses past tense.

It’s not about Crux (who arguably did live for Harrow, considering his purpose was raising and protecting her, and could by all means still do this if he changed his mind about dying for Harrow.) It’s not about the congregation who worshipped her.

It’s about Gideon, who can’t live for Harrow anymore, because she’s dead. It’s about the promise she broke at the end of the first book. She’s talking about herself.

Harrow made her promise that when it comes down to it, Gideon needs to save herself. If only one of them can survive, it has to be Gideon.

At the end of the first book, Harrow is actively planning to sacrifice herself so Gideon can live, bringing up the promise and then diving into what this is actually about. Namely, how she owes Gideon her life back.

And Gideon breaks that promise, instead deciding to sacrifice herself for Harrow.

“I can’t keep my promise because the entire point of me is you. There is no me without you.”

Gideon doesn’t know how to live for Harrow, how to exist without her, even though it’s the most important thing Harrow ever asked of her—and so she dies for her instead.

“You could have lived for her. But you didn’t know how.”

And the sacrifice ended up being rejected by Harrow, because it’s not what Harrow wanted. It never was. So Gideon ended up feeling rejected and like her life and giving it up wasn’t worth anything. And she still immediately offers herself up again without hesitation. She’s ready to die for Harrow all over again, even now that she’s already dead.

“Die. Die for her. It’s the only goddamn good you’ll ever do her.”

Gideon is fucking furious—so much that Nona can’t even place her voice anymore—but not at any of the people who would rightfully deserve her fury. Not at Crux. She’s furious at herself. This whole scene is so damn heartbreaking to me.

And out of all the cruel things Crux has done to Gideon throughout her life, this might be the worst one: telling the girl who died for the Reverend Daughter once and was ready to die for her a second time that she couldn’t even get that right. That she managed to screw up the one purpose she was actually supposed to serve, the only good she’s ever done for Harrow.

Gideon is dead. She can’t do what Harrow asked and live for her anymore. What the hell is she supposed to do if she can’t die for her, either?

inkdippedsleeves:

lady-harrowhark:

inkdippedsleeves:

who do you think is gonna get the “I love you” declaration first? It could go either way honestly. Kinda hoping it’s Harrow though? I think it would be fitting thematically

I’ve been thinking for a while that Gideon knew she loved Harrow first, but Harrow’s gonna say it first.

With what we know about how Gideon thinks Harrow erased her because she didn’t care about her, multiplied by Kiriona’s overt anger (and covert sadness), I can imagine that she wouldn’t admit that she loves Harrow in so many words. Sure, she’ll go on about devotion, and she’ll throw herself on a spike for her. But she’s not gonna say it. And yet, as Palamedes told her: evidence outweighs testimony.

…Whereas Harrow was casually tossing out “first flower of my house” in GtN and sobbing into the mattress while “consumed” by “the arson taking place in her heart” as soon as she remembers Gideon in HtN’s Canaan House 2.0. Now that she knows, I don’t think she’s gonna be able to keep it in for too long. If she came back to Gideon just as she was at the end of GtN, I’d be counting down the seconds before she makes some baroque declaration. But she’s not gonna get that. She’s coming back to Kiriona.

In my most self-indulgent fantasies, this ideally happens in a fit of pique after they’ve been reunited and simmering in prickly tension for some time. They’re on their way back from just barely having escaped from some horrible encounter: the adrenaline is flowing, Harrow’s heart is beating fast. Gideon’s would be too, if she had one. Harrow rounds on Gideon to yell at her for doing something impulsive and reckless and putting her life in danger. Gideon lobs it right back at her: why does she care, isn’t that what she wanted? Gideon out of her life forever? And she has no room to talk, she sliced her brain open and risked death just for the chance to be rid of her!

And Harrow just explodes. If there was arson in her heart before, it’s a wildfire now. Gideon’s never seen her like this, her voice already raw and jagged from screaming. She did this all for you! She couldn’t let go! How could you expect her to live knowing she’d destroyed the one thing she loved the most? She had so little time with you and then you went and died and came back wrong, she should have died instead! (There’s probably also some residual plot relevant secrets from their childhood that come to light here.)

And they just duke it out, right there. Gideon can barely process but hey, she didn’t come back wrong, just so you know, but if that’s the price, so be it! And eventually they can stop yelling, but they’re standing so close to each other and their breath is still heaving so loudly in the quiet. The only other sound is the soft lapping of the water, because did I mention? This is all happening while they’re crossing through a body of saltwater for some unspecified reason. And they stay looking at each other in the silence for a long, long moment, until Gideon’s mind catches up with their mouths:

Did you say you love me?

If we don’t get the lesbians in the pool again I’m gonna riot

cannedsoupcat:

That is how meat loves meat